KOSOVO AND YUGOSLAVIA 
NO AIR STRIKES 

London (6 October 1998). The tragedy of Kosovo is of great concern to the world. My heart goes out to all the innocent victims and refugees. The refugees need urgent humanitarian help. Both the Belgrade regime and the Albanian extremists are hindering a political solution and I strongly condemn their resort to violence. Human rights violations should be immediately investigated by independent teams and the criminals punished. 

I am strongly against air strikes. Many people in the west including governments conclude like I do that air strikes on Serbia or Montenegro will kill many innocent people and only further consolidate the Belgrade regime. The Belgrade regime fully controls the media, politics and institutions. The regime is the continuation of the communists using another image. The regime prospers on its daily orchestration of propaganda using negative patriotism, negative religion, disinformation and intimidation. 

The west believed that the ruling members of the former League of Communists were capable of real democratic reform. The west struck a deal with the regime in Belgrade and the war ended, but hope of real democratic reform was firmly put on hold since the regime received credibility and recognition from the west. Today real democratic and economic reforms are dead. All the people of Yugoslavia face a dismal political and economic future since thesame Mafia and the interconnected Mafia's, militias and fronts the regime created are homogeneous and fully in power. All the brave people working and longing for democracy have been abandoned by this western short-sighted policy.  There has been a vast "brain drain" of hundreds of thousands to the west during the last few years. Western policy of striking deals with the regime has contributed considerable pain and only supported those in power. 

I forecast that the Belgrade regime will continue to fire up in the future the many "hot spots" regardless of air strikes or threats for the sake of staying in power. The west must review its policy and come up with a workable plan in implementing real democratic reforms and human rights in Yugoslavia for future peace and stability within the region.