Sunday with Adam Boulton

28 March 1999

Adam Boulton: Hello as NATO continues its attacks on Yugoslavia and the Serbs continue their campaign against the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. The man who would be King of Yugoslavia can only sit in London and watch. Crown prince Alexander joins me now. Thank you for being with us. I get the impression that you think we really have only got ourselves to blame for this situation by ourselves and the west the NATO members.

HRH: It is a mess. I am against the bombing because it hurts innocent people. I am concerned about the people, but one must realise that it consolidates Milosevic. He controls everything, he has infiltrated all institutions, he controls the media and that is very important to communicate with the people. He has the Ministry of the Interior, which operates and fronts – is the one really responsible for horrors and operating militias and so one. And the west has provided him with a lot of mileage by the visits that have taken place. Every Foreign Minister, every Secretary of State has gone to see him and his has portrayed himself as an emperor. Extremely dangerous, I am deeply concerned about the people. I am against all these horrible things such as ethnic cleansing, but now what do we do and what is the future?

Adam Boulton: All right, but let me ask you if you don’t bomb if you don’t consider military action to stop what you describe as these horrible things, what do you?

HRH: Well I think sanctions have hurt the people dramatically in the country and in fact have also consolidated him. And at every excuse he uses and closes down the independent media or gets rid of politicians. He has even created opposition politicians too. I think one of the answers would have been personalised sanctions against his own personal wealth. He is a mafia within a mafia if you think about it within his government. He has created a personal fortune abroad offshore. He has some properties in Greece, substantial properties in Greece. He has a yacht in Greece, now this is supposed to be the communist, the former communist not a sort of capitalist. I think one should go after his personal fortune. They sold Serbia Telecom 49% of it. The money did not go into the infrastructure, it went mostly into his pocket, I don’t think that’s right. I think he should be uncovered as the monstrous modern dictator in Europe, who has worked very much against his own people.

Adam Boulton: Well you made it clear you are against the bombing. What is your view on Kosovo. Would given that it is part of your theoretical kingdom if you like would you be prepared to give it up to independence?

HRH: Well the tragedy is that after the collapse of the Soviet Empire. We could have had a new era of democracy in the former Yugoslavia. I don’t think there have been any democratic elections (in Serbia) because the media has been controlled, politicians have been created. So everybody is in the dark. The people do not really know the arguments. I think that everybody has the right of self-determination also they have the right to speak their own language.

Adam Boulton: Within that province of course.

HRH:  Within that province. Absolutely I think it is very important. I mean that if we had white supremacy in London I think London would be empty. And I don’t think that this is the future of Europe. The future of Europe is that we must respect everyone and therefore the government in Belgrade must be changed sooner than later and then let the people decide once they know the arguments. At the moment there is terrorism by the state and there is the KLA terrorist operating. The net result is a lot of pain and death.

Adam Boulton: But you said we could have had peace and stability in Yugoslavia and obviously we haven’t got that. We have by and large got statellets becoming independent or fighting for independence. There is no way of reversing that is there? 

HRH: Well it is very difficult. I think the west has got themselves in a corner. They are sort of operating a sort of Nintendo push button war and this is extremely dangerous. I think the only way forward is to go after these awful leaders, but you see it is not only Milosevic. There are others in the former Yugoslavia who were members of the League of Communists before, and I think one must go after the whole lot and a new era will begin.

Adam Boulton: But if you follow through the logic we have been discussing this morning and it means ground troops have to go in, would you support that?

HRH: I would support anything for peace, but I would be very cautious about ground troops at this moment.

Adam Boulton: Crown Prince thank you very much indeed for joining us.