Unsurprisingly, it’s Kosovo where Madeleine Albright, former US Secretary of State, is remembered with particular gratitude: today there’s an official day of mourning for her there. Why? Because without Albright, there might well not be an independent Kosovo. It was she who unequivocally backed the bombing of Serbia that brought an end to the Serbian ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and ultimately led to Kosovo breaking away from what was left of Yugoslavia. Left to himself, Bill Clinton wouldn’t have done it. Albright had both a knowledge of the region – she spoke perfect Serbian, a product of her time in Belgrade as a child – and a visceral antipathy to Slobodan Milosevic. And she had no fear.
But having acknowledged her courage in addressing the last, formidable element of the breakup of Yugoslavia in Kosovo – showing far greater moral clarity than her predecessors did in Bosnia – it must also be acknowledged that she got one thing wrong.
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