The United States is appalled and outraged by the massacre at Racak, and by the FRY authorities’ scandalous attempt to present the cold-blooded slaughter and mutilation of civilians as a military operation against terrorists.

Our sense of outrage and shock engendered by the massacre itself is compounded by Serbian President Milutinovic’s January 17 statement that the OSCE Kosovo Mission—one which we strongly support—impeded investigation of this crime, falsified evidence, and displayed partiality toward the KLA.

These groundless accusations are especially despicable coming only one week after OSCE verifiers risked their lives to secure the liberation of eight Serbian soldiers.

In the absolute brazenness of this fabrication, Milosevic aspires to take his place beside this century’s chief perpetrator of The Big Lie, and Milutinovic yields no ground to Goebbels as The Big Lie’s propagandist.

If Belgrade hopes to salvage even a shred of credibility with the international community after its horrific actions of the past few days, at a minimum it must do three things.

First, Belgrade must publicly and unequivocally accept the jurisdiction of the Hague Tribunal for all of Kosovo. It must grant Chief Prosecutor Arbour and ICTY team immediate, unrestricted access to investigate this and other incidents. And Belgrade must cooperate fully with the ICTU team.

FRY authorities must help identify those responsible for the Racak massacre and hand over any and all suspects to the ICTY for prosecution, if the ICTY requests.

Second, Belgrade should cease immediately its dissemination of deliberate misinformation about the OSCE Mission’s activities. This misinformation constitutes a hostile act against the OSCE and the international community as a whole.

Moreover, President Milutinovic must retract the baseless charges he has already made against the Mission and personally against Mission Director Walker.

Third, Belgrade must cooperate fully with the OSCE Kosovo Mission in a whole host of areas where cooperation has been theretofore lacking.

The FRY authorities must provide accurate and complete information with regard to the deployment of FRY and MUP units in the region as well as prior notification of significant movements.

Belgrade must return military and police units to garrisons in accordance with its commitments in order to stabilize the current tense situation and ensure the safety of both the local population and international personnel, including OSCE verifiers.

The FRY authorities must take immediate action to bring VJ and MUP deployments and force levels into compliance with the commitment Milosevic has already made.

Belgrade must also allow OSCE verifiers full and unimpeded access to all areas, and access to prisoners, when requested in a timely fashion.

The United States expects Belgrade to facilitate all of the OSCE Missions’ support requests, including access for the OSCE’s medevac helicopter, and full provision of a range of key security-related requests.

We call on President Milutinovic to fulfill the commitments made in his 11-point unilateral statement, including amnesty for Kosovar Albanian prisoners.

Mr. Chairman, Americans today celebrate the birthday of our nation’s greatest proponent of non-violent resistance to oppression, the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King.

Doctor King dedicated his life to proving the truth of the proposition that people of different races and ethnicities can live together in harmony—that individuals would be judged by the content of their character and not murdered for their racial or ethnic heritage. This was his Dream.

In Kosovo today, we are seeing not that Dream, but The Big Lie.

If we here in this Council leave The Lie unchallenged, the Dream will never be realized.

Me must join together today in exposing The Lie.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.