Article by the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, in the Sunday Mirror newspaper. 9 May 1999

By Tony Blair

Last week I visited Stenkovec refugee camp in Macedonia and the Blace border post where thousands upon thousands were flooding in from Kosovo. No matter how many times you see these scenes on TV, nothing prepares you for the stench, the all-pervading air of fear or the awful stories that pour out.

They come from women who have been raped. From old men who have seen their daughters violated. From children who have seen their fathers dragged away and shot. From sisters who've lost brothers, and brothers who have lost sisters.

Everyone of them had a hideous story to tell and everyone of them that spoke to me saw NATO as their only hope of getting back to their homes and living the normal life they led before Milosevic embarked on his evil policy of ethnic cleansing.

It is worth remembering these people when you hear stories about incidents like the mistaken attack on the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. Mistakes WILL happen from time to time. Just as the Kosovar Albanians are real human beings, so those killed and injured as an unintended consequence of NATO action are human beings, too. And no one regrets them more than NATO and the leaders of the NATO countries.

Yet as a result of the attack on the Chinese Embassy some commentators are suggesting that now is the time for a bombing pause. They could not be more wrong. It would send exactly the wrong signal to Milosevic. It would allow him to get fresh supplies to his troops just as we are cutting off those supplies.

This is a man who has broken every deal he has ever made, who has started five wars and lost them all - and yet to this day denies the atrocities that he and his henchmen have committed.

It is true that it is in his hands when the air campaign stops. But it is NATO that will decide when he has met our demands. And those demands are not excessive. Just think of it. All we are asking him to do is to stop killing people, stop driving them out of their homes and start getting them back under the safe protection of an international military force.

NATO will prevail. The Butchers of Belgrade will be defeated. And though we regret mistakes, when they are made they will not deter us from the path we are set on, the strategy that is working.

But let's be clear that our approach is in stark contrast to that of Milosevic and his military and para-military thugs. They have displaced 1.5 million Kosovar Albanians deliberately, as an act of policy, without a hint of regret and without even admitting it.

They have damaged or destroyed more than 500 villages and towns as an act of policy. They have taken 100,000 Kosovo Albanian men aged 15 to 55. And God alone knows how many they have killed. Already we have reports that 4,600 people have been executed. But I have no doubt that when we get into Kosovo, unimaginable horrors will confront us.

So that is the background. It is in the aid of these innocent victims of Milosevic, that NATO is engaged in this campaign to get his troops out and the refugees back home in safety.

And the campaign is working. He has suffered huge damage to his air defences. His command and control systems - which direct the ethnic cleansing on the ground - have been pounded. We are inflicting ever more damage on his forces in Kosovo.

Meanwhile, we keep working on the diplomatic track for a solution that meets our basic, minimum demands. We do so because it is right. We do so because Milosevic cannot be allowed to destabilise an entire region on the doorstep of Europe on the eve of the 21st century.

And we do so because we owe it to the hundreds of thousands of refugees living the grimmest of existences and who look to us as their only hope. We must not and will not let them down.