............................... Mehdi Hasan: Welcome back to Head to Head on Al Jazeera. We're talking about humanitarian intervention, the right to intervene, the right to protect, with one of the architects of the doctrine, the former Foreign Minister of France, Bernard Kouchner, who joins us here in the Oxford Union. Bernard, why do you think it is that the intervention in Kosovo in 1999 is considered to have worked, have been a success in a way that Iraq isn't, Afghanistan isn't, even Libya isn't. It's seen as the…the…the benchmark, the role model for interventions. Why is that?Bernard Kouchner:Because I was in charge. [LAUGHTER]Mehdi Hasan:You were…you were, you did run Kosovo for two years, the UN administration after…um…Bernard Kouchner:Yes. Yes. A-and we considered the people as equal, and we tried to convince them that the UN system, because I was in charge in the name of the UN system, was not, er, taking side. We were just stopping the massacres and offering to the people, the Kosovars, because they were the majority, large majority, to run their own affairs. So we did. And at…at the end, now, and thanks to them, and congratulation to the Serbian government, and the Kosovar government, they are talking to each other. And not only are they talking to each other, but this is, I think, one of the, let's say, UN success.Mehdi Hasan:There were a lot of problems associated with crime and criminal networks in Kosovo. In fact…Bernard Kouchner:[INTERRUPTING] Like in all the Balkans, like in all the Balkans.Mehdi Hasan:Indeed, and some would argue it got worse after the war. But listen to what Amnesty International said about the UN administration mission in Kosovo, which you were in charge of between '99 and 2001. They said that your administration, quote, "singularly failed to investigate the abduction and murders of Kosovo Serbs in the aftermath of the conflict."Bernard Kouchner:That's why we offer vote to the Kosovar and the Serbian and they did it, yes, yes. Mehdi Hasan: [INTERRUPTING] They did what?Bernard Kouchner:A…a war is cruel, you know. Assassination in the war, it is the way, not to win, but to prove...Mehdi Hasan:[INTERRUPTING] Hold on, how does that work? War is cruel…war is cruel…?Bernard Kouchner:No, no, no, like exactly…like exactly it exists in all the war, and we were very, let's say, devoted to all the enquirement. One murder, we rushed to the place, we sent the poli... et cetera, et cetera.Mehdi Hasan: Amnesty doesn't agree with you, they're wrong in this? -Bernard Kouchner:No, ok, but they were seated on their arse and we were in charge. So that's a very different and this is not a perfect...it was not…Mehdi Hasan:With respect, as someone who claims to be a champion of human rights, I'm sure every authoritarian government in the world might say, "Amnesty's sitting on its arse and we're in charge." That's not really an excuse, is it?Bernard Kouchner: I do repeat, the people who said so, they have never been there. Because we did our best...Mehdi Hasan:[INTERRUPTING] Amnesty have never been to Kosovo?Bernard Kouchner: They...yes, yes, yes…Mehdi Hasan: [INTERRUPTING] That’s an interesting statement.Bernard Kouchner: …I say so because I was in charge…Mehdi Hasan: [INTERRUPTING] Ok.Bernard Kouchner: …with my people from the UN. A thousand of people.Mehdi Hasan: [INTERRUPTING] So, there wasn’t…so…so Serbs weren't driven out of Kosovo, Roma people weren't driven out of Kosovo in the wake of the war?Bernard Kouchner: No, but this is not only in Kosovo. Of course they are killing each other, unfortunately, and we…not only we protest....Mehdi Hasan: [INTERRUPTING] But I thought you went in to stop the killing.Bernard Kouchner: ...but they are no longer killing each other, but talking to each other. So this is a good result. When I came in, during months, every night, every day, assassination. I don't say that we stopped all killings overnight, no, but it was not the same scale at all, huh? One million people were displaced in Montenegro, in Albania, et cetera. So in two months we allow them to come back and to rebuild the houses. But don't critic everything. Tell me, what we were supposed to do? I need that side. [LAUGHS] I mean, we did our best and we refuse the clash in between the two communities. The Albanian, the Muslim Albanian Kosovars, and the Serbian.Mehdi Hasan: [INTERRUPTING] No-one is…no one is criticising everything that was done, and people are accepting goods things on that. I'm asking you, if you go to war in the name of human rights…Bernard Kouchner: [INTERRUPTING] We did.Mehdi Hasan: …and you carry out human rights val-violations, you blow up a TV station…Bernard Kouchner: [INTERRUPTING] No, we are not carrying out…Mehdi Hasan: …you blow up a bridge...Bernard Kouchner: It was…Mehdi Hasan: That's a contradiction.Bernard Kouchner: It's not. It has been accepted by the member of NATO, all the countries of the world, but Russia, ok? And Chinese. So, it was not my duty. I-I protested every victims as my, not only my compassion, but my support, and the families. But what can I do? So was it…was it a reason, was it a good reason not to be involved in Kosovo to make peace? We did make peace........................Mehdi Hasan: Ok. Let's go to our panel who have been waiting, er, to come in. You've been hearing us talk about Kosovo and Rwanda. Lindsey German, violence happens in that part of the world. They had to stop the war. You can't be a perfectionist, killings were going on, but the killings came down in Kosovo.Lindsey German: There's a great deal of myth and, er, um, untruth told about Kosovo. It was a situation where you could've had a peace solution, except they forced a war, er, the Rambouillet Agreement, they forced a war on the Serbians. They…they gave them conditions they couldn't possibly meet. They bombed for 78 days in Serbia. They bombed Belgrade…Mehdi Hasan: [INTERRUPTING] What about all the refugees that Bernard said came home thanks to that war?Lindsey German: The refugees were people who were only refugees after the war started. So they were people who were escaping from the war. And this is such a dishonest [INTERRUPTION] way of actually…way of actually approaching the thing. And if you look at Kosovo today, I would say Kosovo has a very good case for being one of the greatest failed states, not just in Europe, but around the world. It is a centre of drug running, of, er, of gun running, of prostitution. It is not a state which anybody could be proud of. So why you can just say this is all perfectly ok and it achieves...it didn’t do anything of the…of the sort.Mehdi Hasan: [INTERRUPTING] Ok, let me…let me bring in…let me bring in Barak Seener. Is Kosovo a state anyone can be proud of?Barak Seener:If I'm responsible for my intent at the moment of decision-making, would it be moral for me to say, "Let them kill one another, [INTERRUPTION] let there be genocide that will take place, because what may happen afterwards may be worse,?"Mehdi Hasan: Let me bring in Hamza: a policy of inaction could be equally immoral. Rwanda, if Rwanda happened today, a clear-cut case of genocide. Would you support an inter-military intervention to stop that?Hamza Hamouchene: I think when a humanitarian crisis is developing, um, the outsiders have three choices: either they are to escalate the crisis, or do nothing, or mitigate, er, try to mitigate the circumstances. I think the Kosovo and the Rwandan crisis fall in category number one. Um, what happened actually in Kosovo is that the crisis escalated after the NATO bombing had started, and this is a predicted, er, consequence, er, according to the commander of the NATO forces at the time, who declared, himself, that the political leaders were not interested in ending the ethnic cleansing. But then we need to look at the bigger picture. What was happening at the same time? The same year, 1999, Turkey............................Audience participant 7:You mentioned the case of Kosovo and there is…it…my question is about what happens after intervention? When you were in charge of the UN there and all the inter-ethnic violence that happened and the way in which minorities mostly did not return to Kosovo, from your experience, what lessons can the international community learn from that case for any other post-conflict situation? Thank you.Bernard Kouchner: Do you know, what I have learned from all the cases I’ve been involved in, this is hatred, and certainly also confrontation in between religion. But it was not the case of Kosovo at all. But, well, you know, you are always surprised by the level and th-the magnitude of hatred. People killing the other. Could you imagine what was the meaning of that in Kosovo every night? It was in between Kosovar also; not only between Serbian and Kosovo, and the Kosovar. So, that’s…this is not a lesson I know about violence but, er, are we supposed to react or not? Because this is very good to have this catching match but I want to convince somebody, only one of you, better to intervene and to protect one life, or not to intervene?Mehdi Hasan: And protect lives who may be lost in that intervention.Bernard Kouchner: No, no, no, no, no............................................ To read whole transcript of Head to Head on Al Jazeera go to: http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/headtohead/2015/03/transcript-bernard-kouchner-150331163703721.html
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