Wednesday, June 23, 1999
Voinovich wants more Serbia aid
BY PAUL BARTON
Enquirer Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — For Sen. George Voinovich, the agony of America's war with Yugoslavia will not go away. Nor will his questioning of U.S. policy.
The only senator of Serbian descent, Mr. Voinovich thought it was foolish to start the war, called for a halt to the bombing while it was going on, and now is haunted by the conviction that the death and destruction could have been avoided.
“This is painful to me,” said Mr. Voinovich, R-Ohio, Tuesday, reflecting on the conflict in his Senate office. “Had our policies been different, we might have avoided so much of what happened in Kosovo and so much of what happened in Serbia.”
The challenge now? “We have to make something good out of an ill wind,” he said.
Mr. Voinovich's differences with the Clinton administration remain even after the war, as the senator has called for a much more expansive definition of “humanitarian” aid than the president has been willing to stipulate.
The senator said such assistance should emphasize repairing infrastructure such as bridges needed for bringing Serbia's economy back to life. The administration has talked only in terms of food and medicine and restoring electric power.
He wants the United States to take seriously the rebuilding needed after the bombing, beginning with cleaning up the
Danube River.
He outlined his concerns in a major speech on the subject Monday in the Senate.
“By our bombing, we have put a tourniquet on the economic lifeblood of many nations in the region,” he said.
In addition to helping with the rebuilding, the West should make it clear to the Serbs that they will be welcomed into the community of nations for trade and economic benefits — if they rid themselves of President Slobodan Milosevic.
“The people (in Serbia) will absolutely respond to that,” he said.
Mr. Voinovich comes at the conflict from an unusual perspective.
His paternal grandfather was a Serb from Croatia. His mother's family came from Slovenia. And his Croatian uncle and his family were removed from their homes in 1995 as part of an ethnic cleansing.
He researched the extent of his family roots when he visited Yugoslavia twice during the Cold War — in 1981 and 1985.
But his interest goes back even further.
As a 9-year-old at the end of World War II, Mr. Voinovich remembers discussing the then-developing civil war in Yugoslavia between Communist and non-Communist forces of Draza Mihailovic.
He always thought the West should have done more to help the non-Communists. As an underclassman at Ohio University in the 1950s, he wrote a paper titled “How the United States sold out Yugoslavia at Yalta,” a reference to the Big Powers conference in 1945 that played a major role in shaping post-war Europe.
And Mr. Voinovich repeatedly pointed out before and during the war, Kosovo is to the Serbs as Jerusalem is to Jews and Arabs, a holy place worth fighting for.
During the 21/2-month-long bombing campaign, Mr. Voinovich, 62, became one of Congress' most high-profile voices of opposition to the air war.
To this day, he contends diplomacy could have gotten the West what it wanted if it had not been so heavy-handed with its military threats.
When he made his way to the Balkans in May as part of a congressional delegation, Mr. Voinovich was shocked by what the war had wrought.
“The pain and suffering ... the woman (refugee) who came up to me wailing and crying. She wanted to go back home,” he said. “You can't really appreciate it until you see it.”
Despite the withdrawal of Serbian forces from Kosovo, Mr. Voinovich said he cannot evaluate the war in positive terms. “It was a nightmare,” he said.
Not only has it brought economic stagnation to the Balkans with winter approaching, he said, but it has hurt relations with the Russians and Chinese.
The common man and woman on the street in Europe are also angry with Americans. Their attitude, he said, is “that this was like a video game for the Americans.”
Despite his criticism of the war and the complaints from some Ohioans that he was too sympathetic to the Serbians, Mr. Voinovich said no one can dispute his patriotism.
“I did rally round the flag,” he said of his support and praise for the American service personnel who carried out the bombing he disagreed with.
Mr. Voinovich also denied that his Serb ancestry motivated his outspokenness.
“I think I would have felt just as bad if it had happened in Greece or Czechoslovakia or Lithuania,” he said.
Maternity costs, care vary widely
UC students feel pinch as tuition rises 5%
Lie lands wrong sister in hot water
Voinovich wants more Serbia aid
City considering Web site to show off neighborhoods
Donations, notoriety grow after robbery of 9-year-old
Bishop joins drive against casinos
Patton touts higher tax and casinos
Roof fund may be used for fountain restoration
Sculpture leaving Sixth and Vine
Seniors win city leaders' visit to housing
Wastewater site raises stink
GET TO IT
Help for a calm delivery
Study shows positive impact
Smog can induce asthma problems
'Titanic' will launch trendy Broadway Series
Gilligan talks to Descartes, and it's all in the name of art
Allen House to be senior center
Anderson issues cleanup order
Boone Co. passes budget $10 million higher than this year
Church roof caves; nobody injured
Clermont welfare plan a model
Coke contract to bring annual $400,000 to Ross Local Schools yearly
Convict can't be reindicted after assault victim dies
Despite drought, farmers aren't panicking just yet
Drugs can intensify effects of too much sun
Glen Rogers convicted in Calif. killing
Jacor target of sexual harassment lawsuit
Kenton to seek delay in car tests
Kids can get taste of gardening
Lebanon aims to reel in 180 more jobs
Lebanon hosts tour of gardens
Mason high school called a priority
N. College Hill seeks game plan for progress
Neighbors leery of pit-to-park plan
Report dims chance of remodeled jail
Restoration nears for Emery Theatre
Suicide in vehicle 2nd in Butler this month
Teen indicted in rape attempt, 50¢ robbery
TRISTATE DIGEST
Warren Co. tax enough to pay cash for new building
