USA: CLINTON'S REACTION TO BOMBING OF CHINESE EMBASSY скачать в хорошем качестве

USA: CLINTON'S REACTION TO BOMBING OF CHINESE EMBASSY

(8 May 1999) English/Nat U-S President Bill Clinton has commented on the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, calling the incident 'tragic' and said he expressed his utmost condolences to the Chinese government. The president was speaking on Saturday at Tinker Air Force base in Oklahoma, where he toured the scenes of devastation left by killer tornadoes which levelled cities there last week. Clinton bristled at reporter's questions saying some countries were calling the act 'barbaric,' - a term Clinton said only applied to the atrocities Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has carried out against the Kosovar Albanians. In response to a day full of protests in China over the bombing, Clinton said people had a right to be angry and that he too was upset over the attack. But he said reaction to the accident must be put in the context of the overall mission of NATO's campaign: to end the ethnic cleansing going on in Kosovo and to end the oppression and terrorisation of the ethnic Albanians at the hands of the Serbs. SOUNDBITE: (English) reporter: Russia called it 'barbaric,' could this derail diplomatic efforts? "Well, it wasn't barbaric. What is barbaric is what Mr. Milosevic has done. It's tragic, it's awful, but it's a tragedy and it was an accident. What is barbaric is the intentional ethnic cleansing that he has provoked for a decade now - first in Bosnia, where a quarter of a million people lost their lives and two and a half million people were made refugees, and now here. That is what is barbaric. And I believe Russia recognises that, which is why they've shown so much leadership on the diplomatic front and I would encourage them to stay on that course. If they want the bombing to end, then the Kosovars need to come home. We need to reverse the ethnic cleansing. We need to know they'll be secure, and that's what I would urge everyone to think about here. You know, I'd like to see a few more demonstrations against the helpless, the treatment against the helpless Kosovars. I don't blame people for being upset about it - I'm upset about it. But it is clearly, if you remember that over 10-thousand sorties have been flown here, it is obvious that the NATO generals and pilots have worked very hard to avoid this. I know when I was in Germany, I talked to pilots that had literally risked their own lives to avoid innocent civilian casualties when weapons being fired against them were being fired from heavily populated, civilian areas on roofs and things like that and they didn't fire back. They risked their own lives to avoid this sort of thing. So this will happen if you drop this much ordinance over this period of time. I think the campaign is necessary and what we need to do to end it is to meet the conditions necessary for the Kosovars to go home with safety and autonomy." reporter: Is this a setback for peace? SUPER CAPTION: Bill Clinton, U-S President Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...