YUGOSLAVIA: RICHARD HOLBROOKE, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS, ARRIVES IN KOSOVO AND VISITS MASS GRAVES

Record ID: 336917

  • Title: YUGOSLAVIA: RICHARD HOLBROOKE, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS, ARRIVES IN KOSOVO AND VISITS MASS GRAVES
  • Date: 29th August 1999
  • Summary: GLOGOVAC, KOSOVO, YUGOSLAVIA (AUGUST 28, 1999) (REUTERS ACCESS ALL) 1. LV/SV AMBASSADOR RICHARD HOLBROOKE AND GROUP VISIT MASS GRAVE (4 SHOTS) 0.18 2. SV/CU GRAVE SITE (2 SHOTS) 0.24 3. SV HOLBROOKE AND PARTY LOOKING 0.29 4. SV HOLBROOKE MOVES AWAY (2 SHOTS) 0.42 5. MCU (English) HOLBROOKE SAYING: "This is a powerful reminder...
  • Embargoed: 13th September 1999 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: GLOGOVAC, KOSOVO, YUGOSLAVIA
  • City:
  • Country: Yugoslavia
  • Reuters ID: LVA582Q2S1OKNYLCO80Y3R27XJTK
  • Story Text: Richard Holbrooke, U.S.Ambassador to the United
    Nations and a diplomat intimately involved in the tumultuous
    events of the Balkans this decade, has arrived in Kosovo and
    visited a mass grave.

    The veteran U.S.trouble-shooter's helicopter touched
    down at the headquarters of KFOR, the NATO-led peacekeeping
    force, on the outskirts of the capital Pristina on Saturday
    (August 28).

    Holbrooke then visited the mass grave a Glogovac and
    appeared moved by the experience.

    Holbrooke told Reuters that Kosovo was the place which
    would determine the future of the United Nations."Secretary
    Albright and I thought the appropriate way to begin my new job
    as ambassador to the UN was because here the UN has been given
    an assignment without precedent in its history.And it's being
    tested here in a way it's never been tested before.And how it
    does here will have a great deal to do with determining its
    future."
    Afterwards, he was due to head back to Pristina, where he
    was scheduled to spend three nights as part of a wider tour
    expected to include stops in Skopje, Tirana and Sarajevo.

    Only sworn in to his U.N.post on Wednesday, Holbrooke's
    decision to pay an immediate visit to the Balkans is no
    surprise given his long-standing interest in -- and
    Washington's commitment of troops and assistance to -- the
    area.

    Holbrooke was expected to dine on Saturday evening with
    Bernard Kouchner, head of the U.N.Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK)
    which currently rules this southern Serbian province under a
    Security Council mandate.

    Two days of travels and meetings in Kosovo are intended to
    provide Holbrooke with a detailed overview of the situation
    following a year of guerrilla warfare, three months of NATO
    air strikes, and U.N.administration since June.

    Holbrooke, operating as a U.S.special envoy, brokered the
    Dayton peace accords that brought Bosnia's brutal 43-month war
    to a close.

    Active in Kosovo in 1998, he tried to fashion a compromise
    between this province's 90 percent ethnic Albanian majority
    and its Serb overseers, who ruled on orders from Belgrade.

    It was Holbrooke who negotiated a last-minute deal with
    Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic last October that
    narrowly averted NATO air strikes in exchange for the
    withdrawal of most Serb security forces from the province.

    But the Serbs began violating the agreement almost
    immediately, citing provocations by the ethnic Albanian Kosovo
    Liberation Army (KLA).

    The United States and its European allies sought to avoid
    all-out war in Kosovo by bringing the ethnic Albanian and Serb
    sides together at Rambouillet in France last February.

    Holbrooke did not attend those peace talks.

    Rambouillet's failure made war inevitable in Kosovo and
    NATO launched air strikes against Yugoslav targets on March
    24th.


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