Informazione
HAPPY BOMBING TO YOU…
La portavoce NATO Oana Lungescu usa lo slogan "NATO AIR - JUST DO IT", in risposta al tweet celebrativo, da parte di una ministra kosovara, dei "bombardamenti umanitari" della NATO:
https://twitter.com/vloracitaku/status/447821122600714240/photo/1
La risposta del ministro serbo Vulin è: "Ci fate schifo!":
Ministar Vulin - Gadite nam se Oana Lungesku
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBSJcQ8mRik
https://twitter.com/vloracitaku/status/447821122600714240/photo/1
La risposta del ministro serbo Vulin è: "Ci fate schifo!":
Ministar Vulin - Gadite nam se Oana Lungesku
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBSJcQ8mRik
[ Šta danas tvituje portparolka NATO?
Brisel -- Portparolka NATO Oana Lungesku retvitovala je slogan "Nato džast du it" koji je postavila kosovska ministarka za evropske integracije Vljora Čitaku.(segnalato da AD, che ringraziamo)
E' disponibile online il documentario di Russia Today dedicato alla aggressione della NATO contro la RF di Jugoslavia (1999):
ЗАШТО? WHY? Stories of bombed Yugoslavia
March 24, 2014 09:30
Fifteen years after NATO’s 78-day bombardment of Yugoslavia, memories of the bombing still haunt present-day Serbia. NATO killed over 2,000 people, hundreds were civilians, 88 were children. Serbs ask ‘why?’ above all. Why did NATO smash their cities, kill their children, bomb hospitals and schools?
When the NATO bomb campaign began (on March 24th 1999) Jelena Milincic was a student at the University of Belgrade, and just 18 years old.
When the first bombs shook Belgrade she cowered under a table with her mother, sister, and best friend. Remembering this 15 years later, they laugh nervously.
Jelena takes Anissa Naouai on a road trip, to remember the victims, and hear the survivors of NATO’s strike terror.
RT presents 'Zashto?' (Why?) on the trauma of terror in Serbia.
Download video (361.41 MB): http://img.rt.com/files/episode/24/14/10/00/1449771_doc2403_480p.mp4?event=download
===
http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_03_24/Yugoslavia-bombings-15-years-later-US-NATO-aggression-in-Europe-6963/
Voice of Russia - March 24, 2014
Yugoslavia bombings 15 years later: US, NATO aggression in Europe
Fifteen years ago a hot spot appeared on the map of Europe – on March 24, 1999 the air forces of the United States and NATO started bombing Yugoslavia, which lasted for over two months. The aggression of the West took the lives of two thousand peaceful civilians.
The North Atlantic Treaty's aggression against Yugoslavia at the end of the 20th century was one of the final acts of the long-term campaign of the West against that powerful Balkan state. The bombs and missiles that fell from the night sky on Belgrade, Pristina and other Serbian cities completed the formation of the new map of East Europe, said Alexander Bovdunov, an expert at the Center for Conservative Studies of the Sociology Department of the Moscow State University, in his interview to the Voice of Russia:
“A seat of tension was created in Europe, which prevented it from standing up as an independent geopolitical center. And secondly, the forces that could have become an ally of the Russian world were suppressed and destroyed. Primarily, it concerned Serbia and the Serbs. It was no accident that in that conflict the US and Europe it controlled first supported the Croatians, and then made a decision to destroy the Serbian state, to reduce its influence in the Balkans by unleashing the conflict around Kosovo.”
One of the main goals of the United States back then was to demonstrate to the world that it was capable of imposing its will and had the right to use the territory in any place in Europe. Thus, with Washington's efforts a quasi-state appeared called the Republic of Kosovo, the role of which was reduced to one thing – to become yet another military base of the US, thinks Vasily Kashirin, a senior researcher at the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies:
“It is a dependable and loyal satellite of the West. The largest military base on the entire European continent is located there. The Americans built a real military fortress there. They came there to stay for decades and have no plans of leaving. From the point of view of the triumph of the rough American military power, of the American imperialism it is a true success.”
After splitting the Yugoslavian state into several small republics and enclaves the West did not stop at that. By its “ballistic democracy” it created devastation in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. It was about to get rid of the unruly Syria, when the mechanism of unipolar influence failed – Russia stood up in the way of the Euro Atlantic policy, says Vasily Kashirin:
“The global distribution of power in the world has changed. Russia is no longer as weak as in 1999. And Russia clearly showed that last year in the course of the Syrian crisis, when Moscow with its rational diplomacy and position of principles prevented the West from starting military aggression against Syria.”
Crimea became the next failure of the Euro Atlantic strategy. The Western community portrays Moscow's desire to protect the Russian-speaking population of the peninsula from ultranationalists as a military aggression against Ukraine. Europe considers the results of the expression of the free will of Crimea’s residents regarding joining Russia to be violation of the territorial integrity of the Ukrainian state. According to Vasily Kashirin, such a reaction coming from Western Europe and the US is a reflex continuation of their policy of double standards. But times have changed and that policy will never be as effective as it was in the past. It has become too obvious for the entire world.
Grigory Milenin
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
15-year anniversary of NATO aggression on Yugoslavia
In March 1999, at the direction of the United States of America, NATO engaged in its first act of illegal aggressive war, beginning what can only be called the “dark age of intervention” in which we are living today. The fact that NATO was allowed to get away with the aggression on Serbia and Montenegro emboldened US/NATO and the US military industrial intelligence banking complex and since that day, under a doctrine of Responsibility to Protect, Humanitarian Interventionism, Preventive War and then the all encompassing “War on Terror”, US/NATO have proceeded to destroy country after country and do away with leaders that they have not found to be submissive enough to their will.
The events of 9-11-2001 were a watershed moment for the geopolitical architects and served as a catalyst to allow them to expand their military machine to every corner of the world and invade countries at will and conduct operations with complete disregard for international law and accepted international norms.
In light of the 15th Anniversary of the NATO aggression the Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals and other independent Civic associations in Serbia will hold an international conference from the 21st to the 24th of March 2014. The conference will gather 100 prominent intellectuals from all over the world, in addition to those from Serbia, Montenegro, the Republica Srpska and 10 to 15 guests from Russia, including Academician and retired Russian Army General Leonid Ivashov. The conference will also include the participation of the Veterans Alliance of Serbia and the Club of Generals and Admirals of Serbia.
The President of the Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals and the last Foreign Minister of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Zivadin Jovanovic wrote the following summary of the events in light of the 15 year anniversary of the NATO aggression against Yugoslavia. (John Robles)
Do Not Forget, by Zivadin Jovanovic
Fifteen years have passed since the beginning of NATO aggression against Serbia and Montenegro (24 March 1999). This aggression resulted in the loss of 4,000 human lives, including 88 children, and 10,000 people were severely wounded. Over two third of these victims were civilians. How many human lives have been lost in the meantime due to the consequences of weapons with depleted uranium, as well as of remaining cluster bombs, will hardly ever be established.
Breaching the basic norms of international law, its own founding act as well as constitutions of member countries, NATO was bombing Serbia and Montenegro during 78 days continuously destroying the economy, infrastructure, public services, radio and TV centers and transmitters, cultural and historical monuments. NATO bears responsibility for polluting the environment and endangering the health of present and future generations. Economic damage caused by the aggression is estimated at over USD 120 billion. War damage compensation has not yet been claimed, and judgments ruled by our court, by which the leaders of aggressor countries were convicted for the crimes against peace and humanity, were annulled after the coup d’état in 2000.
Governments of aggressor countries seized and occupied the Province of Kosovo and Metohija, and then formally delivered it to former terrorists, separatists and international organized crime bosses. An American military base was established in the Province – “Bondstill”, one of the largest beyond the U.S. territory.
After the aggression, over 250,000 Serbs and other non-Albanians have been forced out the Province of Kosovo and Metohija; even today, 15 years later they are not allowed to return freely and safely to their homes. Ethnic cleansing and even drastic change of ethnic population structure are tolerated by so called international community if only to the detriment of Serbs. The remaining Serbian population in the Province of about 120.000 continues to live in fear and uncertainty. Attacks upon Serbs, detentions and killings, including liquidations of their political leaders, have been continuing up to these days, and nobody is held responsible.
NATO aggression against Serbia and Montenegro (FRY) in 1999 is a crime against peace and humanity. It is a precedent and a turning point towards global interventionism, arbitrary violation of the international legal order and the negation of the role of the UN. The “Bondstill” military base is the first and crucial ring in the chain of new American military bases reflecting strategy of expansion towards East, Caspian Basin, Middle East, towards Russia and its Siberia natural resources. Europe has thus got overall militarization and the new edition of the strategy “Drang nach Osten” (“Thrust to the East”). Destabilization and the tragic developments in Ukraine are just the most recent consequence of that strategy.
15 years after objectives of US/NATO military aggression continue to be pursued by other means. Serbia has been blackmailed to de facto recognize illegal secession of its Province of Kosovo and Metohija through so called Brussels negotiations. The most of the puppet states of the former Yugoslavia are much dependant on and indebted to the leading NATO/EU countries, their financial institutions and corporations so that they could hardly be considered independent states but rather neo-colonies. There is no stability in the Balkans, redrawing of borders has not ended, overall situation is dominated by devastated economy, unemployment, social tensions and misery. Europe, particularly its south-east regions, are experiencing profound economic, social and moral crisis.
Preparations for NATO military aggression against Serbia and Montenegro (FRY) and 1999 aggression itself have been used in the meantime as a blueprint for many other NATO aggressions and occupations - Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Mali and so on. Wherever NATO undertook “humanitarian intervention”, like in former Yugoslavia, it left thousands of dead and mutilated, millions of refugees and displaced persons, ethnic and religious divisions, terrorism and separatism, economic disaster and social misery. NATO expansionist strategy made Europe militarized. There are more US/NATO military bases in Europe today than at the peak of the Cold War era. What for? NATO imperial expansionist strategy has provoked new arms race with unforeseen consequences. Who really needs an organization threatening global peace and stability?
During and after the aggression, 150 Serb monasteries and churches built in the Middle Ages were destroyed. Killed or abducted were some 3,500 Serbs and other non-Albanians, and fates of many of them have not been established until today. Not even one of the thousands of crimes against Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija got a court clarification. Even such terrorist crimes as was blowing up the “Nis-express” bus on 16 February 2001, when 12 people were killed and 43 wounded, neither the murder of 14 Serb farmers reaping in the field in Staro Gracko, on 23 July 2009 remained without thorough investigation, be it by UNMIK, be it by EULEX, or by any other of so many structures of the so called international community.
The Swiss senator, Dick Marty, revealed documented report on trafficking in human organs of Serbs abducted in Kosovo and Metohija. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the oldest European democratic institution, adopted his Report as the official CE document. Although all factors stand verbally for an efficient investigation and bringing the perpetrators to justice, for many years now there have been no results whatsoever. The documentation on human organ trafficking submitted to The Hague Tribunal had been – destroyed!
The Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals, with support of other non-partisan and independent associations from Serbia, from the region and from the Serb Diaspora throughout the world, are organizing a number of activities under the common title “NOT TO FORGET”, with the aim to remind domestic and international public of human loss, destructions and other consequences of NATO aggression.
On Friday, 21 March 2014 at 6 p.m., in Sava Conference Centre, Belgrade (Milentija Popovica No. 1) an opening ceremony will launch a photographic exhibition presenting consequences of NATO aggression.
On Saturday, March 22 and on Sunday, March 23rd, 2014, International conference “Global Peace vs. Global Interventionism and Imperialism” will be held (Sava Conference Centre. Conference starts at 10 a.m. Some 100 prominent personalities from all over the world have confirmed their participation.
On Monday, March 24th, 2014, at 09.30 a.m., the International Memorial Marathon Belgrade-Hilandar will start in front of Saint Sava Church.
The same day, at 11 am, civic associations, representatives of Serb Diaspora, guests from abroad and individuals will lay flowers at the monument to children - victims of the aggression, in the Tašmajdan park, and the same day at 12 a.m. flowers will be laid at the Monument to all victims of the aggression, Friendship park, Ušće, New Belgrade.
John Robles
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sad Anniversary: 15 years since NATO began bombing Yugoslavia
On March 24, Serbia and Montenegro are observing the sad anniversary of NATO air strikes against former Yugoslavia. On that day 15 years ago, NATO launched a US-led massive bombing campaign in an operation codenamed Allied Force, which lasted 78 days.
The collapse of the Rambouillet talks on Kosovo and Serbia’s rejection of an external peacekeeping force as it actually meant foreign invasion served as the formal pretext for the bombings. For over two months, NATO aircraft and warships were pouring tons of air bombs and cruise missiles almost daily on industrial, infrastructure and other facilities throughout Serbia and Montenegro.
Nineteen NATO member states took part in the operation which went ahead without the approval of the UN Security Council after a mass grave was found in the village of Racak in Kosovo, where the bodies of dozens of Albanian civilians allegedly killed by Serbian troops were said to have been dumped. Later it turned out that it was a “hoax” cooked up by Western secret services. Most of the bodies in the Racak grave were militants of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army, who had died in clashes with Yugoslav police in various parts of Kosovo.
NATO delivered a total of 2,300 air strikes on 995 targets during its 11-week bombing campaign, according to Serbian sources. Some 1,150 NATO warplanes were involved in the operation. More than 420,000 shells weighing a total of 22,000 tones hit former Yugoslavia, including 20,000 heavy aviation bombs, 1,300 cruise missiles and 37,000 pellet bombs, most of them stuffed with depleted uranium.
More than 2,000 civilians and 1,000 servicemen were killed in the bombings and over 5,000 others were wounded. Serbia’s defense industry was completely destroyed along with 1,500 villages, 60 bridges, one-third of schools and about 100 historical and cultural monuments.
Serbian experts estimated the damage from NATO’s Allie Force operation at between $60 billion and $100 billion.
The use of depleted uranium shells pushed radiation levels in southern Serbia, especially in Kosovo and Metohija, above the permissible norm and drove cancer rates up.
Voice of Russia
Grigory Milenin
Voice of Russia - March 24, 2014
Yugoslavia bombings 15 years later: US, NATO aggression in Europe
Fifteen years ago a hot spot appeared on the map of Europe – on March 24, 1999 the air forces of the United States and NATO started bombing Yugoslavia, which lasted for over two months. The aggression of the West took the lives of two thousand peaceful civilians.
The North Atlantic Treaty's aggression against Yugoslavia at the end of the 20th century was one of the final acts of the long-term campaign of the West against that powerful Balkan state. The bombs and missiles that fell from the night sky on Belgrade, Pristina and other Serbian cities completed the formation of the new map of East Europe, said Alexander Bovdunov, an expert at the Center for Conservative Studies of the Sociology Department of the Moscow State University, in his interview to the Voice of Russia:
“A seat of tension was created in Europe, which prevented it from standing up as an independent geopolitical center. And secondly, the forces that could have become an ally of the Russian world were suppressed and destroyed. Primarily, it concerned Serbia and the Serbs. It was no accident that in that conflict the US and Europe it controlled first supported the Croatians, and then made a decision to destroy the Serbian state, to reduce its influence in the Balkans by unleashing the conflict around Kosovo.”
One of the main goals of the United States back then was to demonstrate to the world that it was capable of imposing its will and had the right to use the territory in any place in Europe. Thus, with Washington's efforts a quasi-state appeared called the Republic of Kosovo, the role of which was reduced to one thing – to become yet another military base of the US, thinks Vasily Kashirin, a senior researcher at the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies:
“It is a dependable and loyal satellite of the West. The largest military base on the entire European continent is located there. The Americans built a real military fortress there. They came there to stay for decades and have no plans of leaving. From the point of view of the triumph of the rough American military power, of the American imperialism it is a true success.”
After splitting the Yugoslavian state into several small republics and enclaves the West did not stop at that. By its “ballistic democracy” it created devastation in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. It was about to get rid of the unruly Syria, when the mechanism of unipolar influence failed – Russia stood up in the way of the Euro Atlantic policy, says Vasily Kashirin:
“The global distribution of power in the world has changed. Russia is no longer as weak as in 1999. And Russia clearly showed that last year in the course of the Syrian crisis, when Moscow with its rational diplomacy and position of principles prevented the West from starting military aggression against Syria.”
Crimea became the next failure of the Euro Atlantic strategy. The Western community portrays Moscow's desire to protect the Russian-speaking population of the peninsula from ultranationalists as a military aggression against Ukraine. Europe considers the results of the expression of the free will of Crimea’s residents regarding joining Russia to be violation of the territorial integrity of the Ukrainian state. According to Vasily Kashirin, such a reaction coming from Western Europe and the US is a reflex continuation of their policy of double standards. But times have changed and that policy will never be as effective as it was in the past. It has become too obvious for the entire world.
Grigory Milenin
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
15-year anniversary of NATO aggression on Yugoslavia
In March 1999, at the direction of the United States of America, NATO engaged in its first act of illegal aggressive war, beginning what can only be called the “dark age of intervention” in which we are living today. The fact that NATO was allowed to get away with the aggression on Serbia and Montenegro emboldened US/NATO and the US military industrial intelligence banking complex and since that day, under a doctrine of Responsibility to Protect, Humanitarian Interventionism, Preventive War and then the all encompassing “War on Terror”, US/NATO have proceeded to destroy country after country and do away with leaders that they have not found to be submissive enough to their will.
The events of 9-11-2001 were a watershed moment for the geopolitical architects and served as a catalyst to allow them to expand their military machine to every corner of the world and invade countries at will and conduct operations with complete disregard for international law and accepted international norms.
In light of the 15th Anniversary of the NATO aggression the Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals and other independent Civic associations in Serbia will hold an international conference from the 21st to the 24th of March 2014. The conference will gather 100 prominent intellectuals from all over the world, in addition to those from Serbia, Montenegro, the Republica Srpska and 10 to 15 guests from Russia, including Academician and retired Russian Army General Leonid Ivashov. The conference will also include the participation of the Veterans Alliance of Serbia and the Club of Generals and Admirals of Serbia.
The President of the Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals and the last Foreign Minister of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Zivadin Jovanovic wrote the following summary of the events in light of the 15 year anniversary of the NATO aggression against Yugoslavia. (John Robles)
Do Not Forget, by Zivadin Jovanovic
Fifteen years have passed since the beginning of NATO aggression against Serbia and Montenegro (24 March 1999). This aggression resulted in the loss of 4,000 human lives, including 88 children, and 10,000 people were severely wounded. Over two third of these victims were civilians. How many human lives have been lost in the meantime due to the consequences of weapons with depleted uranium, as well as of remaining cluster bombs, will hardly ever be established.
Breaching the basic norms of international law, its own founding act as well as constitutions of member countries, NATO was bombing Serbia and Montenegro during 78 days continuously destroying the economy, infrastructure, public services, radio and TV centers and transmitters, cultural and historical monuments. NATO bears responsibility for polluting the environment and endangering the health of present and future generations. Economic damage caused by the aggression is estimated at over USD 120 billion. War damage compensation has not yet been claimed, and judgments ruled by our court, by which the leaders of aggressor countries were convicted for the crimes against peace and humanity, were annulled after the coup d’état in 2000.
Governments of aggressor countries seized and occupied the Province of Kosovo and Metohija, and then formally delivered it to former terrorists, separatists and international organized crime bosses. An American military base was established in the Province – “Bondstill”, one of the largest beyond the U.S. territory.
After the aggression, over 250,000 Serbs and other non-Albanians have been forced out the Province of Kosovo and Metohija; even today, 15 years later they are not allowed to return freely and safely to their homes. Ethnic cleansing and even drastic change of ethnic population structure are tolerated by so called international community if only to the detriment of Serbs. The remaining Serbian population in the Province of about 120.000 continues to live in fear and uncertainty. Attacks upon Serbs, detentions and killings, including liquidations of their political leaders, have been continuing up to these days, and nobody is held responsible.
NATO aggression against Serbia and Montenegro (FRY) in 1999 is a crime against peace and humanity. It is a precedent and a turning point towards global interventionism, arbitrary violation of the international legal order and the negation of the role of the UN. The “Bondstill” military base is the first and crucial ring in the chain of new American military bases reflecting strategy of expansion towards East, Caspian Basin, Middle East, towards Russia and its Siberia natural resources. Europe has thus got overall militarization and the new edition of the strategy “Drang nach Osten” (“Thrust to the East”). Destabilization and the tragic developments in Ukraine are just the most recent consequence of that strategy.
15 years after objectives of US/NATO military aggression continue to be pursued by other means. Serbia has been blackmailed to de facto recognize illegal secession of its Province of Kosovo and Metohija through so called Brussels negotiations. The most of the puppet states of the former Yugoslavia are much dependant on and indebted to the leading NATO/EU countries, their financial institutions and corporations so that they could hardly be considered independent states but rather neo-colonies. There is no stability in the Balkans, redrawing of borders has not ended, overall situation is dominated by devastated economy, unemployment, social tensions and misery. Europe, particularly its south-east regions, are experiencing profound economic, social and moral crisis.
Preparations for NATO military aggression against Serbia and Montenegro (FRY) and 1999 aggression itself have been used in the meantime as a blueprint for many other NATO aggressions and occupations - Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Mali and so on. Wherever NATO undertook “humanitarian intervention”, like in former Yugoslavia, it left thousands of dead and mutilated, millions of refugees and displaced persons, ethnic and religious divisions, terrorism and separatism, economic disaster and social misery. NATO expansionist strategy made Europe militarized. There are more US/NATO military bases in Europe today than at the peak of the Cold War era. What for? NATO imperial expansionist strategy has provoked new arms race with unforeseen consequences. Who really needs an organization threatening global peace and stability?
During and after the aggression, 150 Serb monasteries and churches built in the Middle Ages were destroyed. Killed or abducted were some 3,500 Serbs and other non-Albanians, and fates of many of them have not been established until today. Not even one of the thousands of crimes against Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija got a court clarification. Even such terrorist crimes as was blowing up the “Nis-express” bus on 16 February 2001, when 12 people were killed and 43 wounded, neither the murder of 14 Serb farmers reaping in the field in Staro Gracko, on 23 July 2009 remained without thorough investigation, be it by UNMIK, be it by EULEX, or by any other of so many structures of the so called international community.
The Swiss senator, Dick Marty, revealed documented report on trafficking in human organs of Serbs abducted in Kosovo and Metohija. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the oldest European democratic institution, adopted his Report as the official CE document. Although all factors stand verbally for an efficient investigation and bringing the perpetrators to justice, for many years now there have been no results whatsoever. The documentation on human organ trafficking submitted to The Hague Tribunal had been – destroyed!
The Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals, with support of other non-partisan and independent associations from Serbia, from the region and from the Serb Diaspora throughout the world, are organizing a number of activities under the common title “NOT TO FORGET”, with the aim to remind domestic and international public of human loss, destructions and other consequences of NATO aggression.
On Friday, 21 March 2014 at 6 p.m., in Sava Conference Centre, Belgrade (Milentija Popovica No. 1) an opening ceremony will launch a photographic exhibition presenting consequences of NATO aggression.
On Saturday, March 22 and on Sunday, March 23rd, 2014, International conference “Global Peace vs. Global Interventionism and Imperialism” will be held (Sava Conference Centre. Conference starts at 10 a.m. Some 100 prominent personalities from all over the world have confirmed their participation.
On Monday, March 24th, 2014, at 09.30 a.m., the International Memorial Marathon Belgrade-Hilandar will start in front of Saint Sava Church.
The same day, at 11 am, civic associations, representatives of Serb Diaspora, guests from abroad and individuals will lay flowers at the monument to children - victims of the aggression, in the Tašmajdan park, and the same day at 12 a.m. flowers will be laid at the Monument to all victims of the aggression, Friendship park, Ušće, New Belgrade.
John Robles
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sad Anniversary: 15 years since NATO began bombing Yugoslavia
On March 24, Serbia and Montenegro are observing the sad anniversary of NATO air strikes against former Yugoslavia. On that day 15 years ago, NATO launched a US-led massive bombing campaign in an operation codenamed Allied Force, which lasted 78 days.
The collapse of the Rambouillet talks on Kosovo and Serbia’s rejection of an external peacekeeping force as it actually meant foreign invasion served as the formal pretext for the bombings. For over two months, NATO aircraft and warships were pouring tons of air bombs and cruise missiles almost daily on industrial, infrastructure and other facilities throughout Serbia and Montenegro.
Nineteen NATO member states took part in the operation which went ahead without the approval of the UN Security Council after a mass grave was found in the village of Racak in Kosovo, where the bodies of dozens of Albanian civilians allegedly killed by Serbian troops were said to have been dumped. Later it turned out that it was a “hoax” cooked up by Western secret services. Most of the bodies in the Racak grave were militants of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army, who had died in clashes with Yugoslav police in various parts of Kosovo.
NATO delivered a total of 2,300 air strikes on 995 targets during its 11-week bombing campaign, according to Serbian sources. Some 1,150 NATO warplanes were involved in the operation. More than 420,000 shells weighing a total of 22,000 tones hit former Yugoslavia, including 20,000 heavy aviation bombs, 1,300 cruise missiles and 37,000 pellet bombs, most of them stuffed with depleted uranium.
More than 2,000 civilians and 1,000 servicemen were killed in the bombings and over 5,000 others were wounded. Serbia’s defense industry was completely destroyed along with 1,500 villages, 60 bridges, one-third of schools and about 100 historical and cultural monuments.
Serbian experts estimated the damage from NATO’s Allie Force operation at between $60 billion and $100 billion.
The use of depleted uranium shells pushed radiation levels in southern Serbia, especially in Kosovo and Metohija, above the permissible norm and drove cancer rates up.
Voice of Russia
Grigory Milenin
===
15 years on: Looking back at NATO's ‘humanitarian’ bombing of Yugoslavia
Published time: March 24, 2014
Exactly 15 years ago, on March 24, NATO began its 78-day bombing of Yugoslavia. The alliance bypassed the UN under a “humanitarian” pretext, launching aggression that claimed hundreds of civilian lives and caused a much larger catastrophe than it averted.
Years on, Serbia still bears deep scars of the NATO bombings which, as the alliance put it, were aimed at “preventing instability spreading” in Kosovo. Questions remain on the very legality of the offense, which caused casualties and mass destruction in the Balkan republic.
Codenamed 'Operation Allied Force,' it was the largest attack ever undertaken by the alliance. It was also the first time that NATO used military force without the approval of the UN Security Council and against a sovereign nation that did not pose a real threat to any member of the alliance.
NATO demonstrated in 1999 that it can do whatever it wants under the guise of “humanitarian intervention,” “war on terror,” or “preventive war” – something that everyone has witnessed in subsequent years in different parts of the globe.
Nineteen NATO member states participated to some degree in the military campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), which lasted for 11 weeks until June 10, 1999.
More rubble, less trouble
In the course of the campaign, NATO launched 2,300 missiles at 990 targets and dropped 14,000 bombs, including depleted uranium bombs and cluster munitions (unexploded cluster bombs continued to pose a threat to people long after the campaign was over.) Over 2,000 civilians were killed, including 88 children, and thousands more were injured. Over 200,000 ethnic Serbs were forced to leave their homeland in Kosovo.
In what the alliance described as “collateral damage,” its airstrikes destroyed more than 300 schools, libraries, and over 20 hospitals. At least 40,000 homes were either completely eliminated or damaged and about 90 historic and architectural monuments were ruined. That is not to mention the long-term harm caused to the region’s ecology and, therefore, people’s health. Economic damage is estimated at over US$120 billion, according to Serbian media.
News correspondents Anissa Naouai and Jelena Milincic, the authors of RT's documentary 'Zashto?' – which means “Why?” in English –traveled through former Yugoslavia to Belgrade, Kosovo, and Montenegro and spoke to people who endured the atrocities and horrors of the war and lost their friends and relatives.
“There is a bridge near the city of Nis, which was bombed at the time when a passenger train was passing through it,” Milincic recalls.The tragedy on April 12, 1999 killed 15 people and wounded 44 others, while many passengers were never accounted for.
“We felt the blast and saw flames under the locomotive. The train was blown so powerfully, half a meter from the ground. I don’t know how we stayed on the rails,” recalled witness Boban Kostic.
“Our colleague got off the train when I did,” he said. “He was really scared. But another rocket hit and blew him to pieces,” added another witness, Goran Mikic.
“Why? Why civilians? Why a train?” said Dragan Ciric. “It still torments me, if the first rocket was a mistake, what were the next three for?” he told RT.
The Chinese embassy in the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade was also hit and set on fire by NATO airstrikes on May 7, 1999. Three citizens of the country were killed. The alliance called the attack “a mistake.” China is a permanent member of the UN Security Council and, along with Russia, did not support a military solution for the Kosovo crisis.
Prior to the military assault, the Milosevic regime was accused of “excessive and disproportionate use of force in Kosovo.” But was the force that NATO used when bombing the sovereign state’s territory proportionate and restrained? Rights organization Amnesty International accused the allied forces of committing war crimes.
“Indications are that NATO did not always meet its legal obligations in selecting targets and in choosing means and methods of attack, On the basis of available evidence, including NATO's own statements and accounts of specific incidents, Amnesty International believes that - whatever their intentions - NATO forces did commit serious violations of the laws of war leading in a number of cases to the unlawful killings of civilians,” the rights watchdog said in a report published in June 2000.
The alliance dismissed the accusations, saying that cases involving civilian deaths were due to technological failure or were simply “accidents of conflict.” NATO failed to say that they were due to the alliance's own failure to take all necessary precautions.
“We never said we would avoid casualties. It would be foolhardy to say that, as no military operation in history has been perfect,” said Jamie Shea, NATO’s chief spokesman, the Guardian reported at the time.
Bombing background
Former NATO Secretary General Javier Solana ordered military action against Yugoslavia following a failure in negotiations on the Kosovo crisis in France’s Rambouillet and Paris in February and March 1999.
NATO's decision was officially announced after talks between international mediators – known as the Contact Group – the Yugoslav government, and the delegation of Kosovo Albanians ended in a deadlock. Belgrade refused to allow foreign military presence on its territory while Albanians accepted the proposal.
Back then, Slobodan Milosevic's forces were engaged in armed conflict with an Albanian rebel group, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which sought the province’s separation from Yugoslavia. Former US President Bill Clinton's special envoy to the Balkans, Robert Gelbard, had earlier described the KLA as “without any questions, a terrorist group.” (The KLA was later repeatedly accused of being involved in the organ trafficking of Serbs in the late 1990s.)
However, despite not announcing the link officially, NATO entered the conflict on the side of the KLA, accusing Serbian security forces of atrocities and “ethnic cleansing” against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. The main objective of the campaign was to make Milosevic's forces pull out of the province. The fact that there was violence on both sides of the confrontation was ignored both by allied governments and Western media – which stirred up public anger by focusing only on Serbs’ atrocities and being far less vocal regarding abuses by Albanians.
“All efforts to achieve a negotiated political solution to the Kosovo crisis having failed, no alternative is open but to take military action,” Solana said on March 23, 1999. “We must halt the violence and bring an end to the humanitarian catastrophe now unfolding in Kosovo.”
Racak massacre controversy
An incident involving the “mass killing” of Albanians in central Kosovo’s village of Racak – a KLA stronghold – became a major excuse and justification for NATO’s decision to start its operation. Serbs were blamed for the deaths of dozens of Albanian “civilians” on January 15, 1999. However, it was alleged that the accusations could have been false and the bodies actually belonged to KLA insurgents whose clothes had been changed.
A central role in labeling the events in Racak “a massacre” belonged to William Walker, who headed the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission. He visited the site shortly after the incident and made his judgment.
“[Walker] arrived there having no powers to make conclusions regarding what had happened,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazenta paper in November last year.
Yugoslav authorities accused Walker of going beyond his mission and proclaimed him persona non grata, while Western leaders were infuriated over the Racak incident.
“And some time later the bombing started,” Lavrov recalled, adding that the situation in Racak became the “trigger point.” Moscow insisted that an investigation should be carried out. The EU commissioned a group of Finnish forensic experts to prepare a report on the incident. Later, the European Union handed it over to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Lavrov said. The full version of the document has never been made public, said the minister, who was Moscow’s permanent representative to the UN between 1994 and 2004.
“But parts of the report leaked and were quoted in the media saying that [the victims] were not civilians and that all the bodies found in Racak were in disguise and that bullet holes on clothes and bodies did not match. There was also no one who was killed at short range,” Lavrov said. “Even though I’ve repeatedly raised this issue, the report itself still has not been shown.”
NATO halted its air campaign with the signing of the Military Technical Agreement in Kumanovo on June 9, 1999, with the Yugoslav government agreeing to withdraw its forces from Kosovo. On June 10, 1999, the UN Security Council adopted resolution 1244 to establish the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).
In August 2013, Amnesty International accused the UNMIK of failing to properly investigate the abductions and murders of Kosovo Serbs in the aftermath of the 1998-1999 war.
“Years have passed and the fate of the majority of the missing on both sides of the conflict is still unresolved, with their families still waiting for justice,” the organization said.
Moscow’s former envoy to NATO (1997-2002), Viktor Zavarzin, believes the military alliance’s aggression was “a crime against humanity” and a “violation of international laws and norms.” The event that unfolded 15 years ago laid ground to a new era of the development of international relations – the era of “chaosization of international law and its arbitrary manipulation,” Zavarzin, an MP for the United Russia party said at the State Duma plenary session on Friday.
===
http://en.itar-tass.com/world/725130
Itar-Tass - March 24, 2014
Serbia remembers victims of the 1999 NATO bombardments
BELGRADE: Serbia commemorated one of the most tragic dates in its history on Monday - the beginning of NATO bombardments of the former Yugoslavia on March 24, 1999. Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic laid a wreath to the memorial of the victims of a NATO missile strike in Varvarin.
“Until now, we have not received any genuine condolences for that senseless missile strike at a bridge during a religious holiday,” the Serbian head of state said.
“I will never forget what happened during the (NATO) aggression against Serbia - in those 78 days and nights from March 24 to June 9, 1999.
Nikolic said it was impossible to forget a NATO air strike at a bridge over Morava River on St. Trinity Day on May 30, 1999 that killed 10 people and wounded 17.
“All these days we have kept remembering the victims of tyrants’ political goals. Alongside the names of the dead, we would like to know the name of at least one person who was punished for the aforesaid crimes,” the Serbian president went on to say.
Those monstrous acts were committed as part of the Merciful Angel operation while the NATO propaganda machine called the suffering and death of innocent civilians as collateral damage. “Our task is never to forget this injustice which led to the death of innocent civilians in Serbia,” Nikolic said.
Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic laid a wreath to the Glasnik monument on top of Strazevica Hill in the town of Rakovica.
“A nation that forgets its victims and history is doomed to live through similar hardships again. It is our duty to remember those who defended our homeland,” Dacic said, noting that today Serbia was pursuing a policy of peaceful solution to problems which it had faced then.
“I hope that such tragedies will never recur,” the Serbian prime minister emphasized.
Representatives of Serb local self-government in Kosovska Mitrovica and Zvecan, northern Kosovo, and the Society of Serbian-Russian Friendship laid wreaths to the Monument of Truth near the main bridge over the Ibar River and on the Brother Milic Square in the centre of Kosovska Mitrovica.
According to Serbian sources, more than 1,100 NATO planes delivered a total of 2,300 air strikes at 995 military facilities over the 11- week bombing campaign. About 420,000 bombs with a total weight of 22,000 tonnes, including 20,000 heavy aviation bombs, 1,300 cruise missiles and 37,000 cluster bombs, were dropped on Serbia and exploded on the ground.
More than 2,000 civilians (predominantly in the territory of Kosovo and Metohija) and over a 1,000 servicemen died in the bombardments. More than 5,000 people were wounded. More than a thousand people went missing. Serbia’s military-industrial infrastructure was totally destroyed. More than 1,500 populated localities, 60 bridges, one third of schools and about a hundred monuments were ruined. Serbian experts put the material damage from bombardments at 100 billion dollars.
Itar-Tass - March 24, 2014
Serbia remembers victims of the 1999 NATO bombardments
BELGRADE: Serbia commemorated one of the most tragic dates in its history on Monday - the beginning of NATO bombardments of the former Yugoslavia on March 24, 1999. Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic laid a wreath to the memorial of the victims of a NATO missile strike in Varvarin.
“Until now, we have not received any genuine condolences for that senseless missile strike at a bridge during a religious holiday,” the Serbian head of state said.
“I will never forget what happened during the (NATO) aggression against Serbia - in those 78 days and nights from March 24 to June 9, 1999.
Nikolic said it was impossible to forget a NATO air strike at a bridge over Morava River on St. Trinity Day on May 30, 1999 that killed 10 people and wounded 17.
“All these days we have kept remembering the victims of tyrants’ political goals. Alongside the names of the dead, we would like to know the name of at least one person who was punished for the aforesaid crimes,” the Serbian president went on to say.
Those monstrous acts were committed as part of the Merciful Angel operation while the NATO propaganda machine called the suffering and death of innocent civilians as collateral damage. “Our task is never to forget this injustice which led to the death of innocent civilians in Serbia,” Nikolic said.
Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic laid a wreath to the Glasnik monument on top of Strazevica Hill in the town of Rakovica.
“A nation that forgets its victims and history is doomed to live through similar hardships again. It is our duty to remember those who defended our homeland,” Dacic said, noting that today Serbia was pursuing a policy of peaceful solution to problems which it had faced then.
“I hope that such tragedies will never recur,” the Serbian prime minister emphasized.
Representatives of Serb local self-government in Kosovska Mitrovica and Zvecan, northern Kosovo, and the Society of Serbian-Russian Friendship laid wreaths to the Monument of Truth near the main bridge over the Ibar River and on the Brother Milic Square in the centre of Kosovska Mitrovica.
According to Serbian sources, more than 1,100 NATO planes delivered a total of 2,300 air strikes at 995 military facilities over the 11- week bombing campaign. About 420,000 bombs with a total weight of 22,000 tonnes, including 20,000 heavy aviation bombs, 1,300 cruise missiles and 37,000 cluster bombs, were dropped on Serbia and exploded on the ground.
More than 2,000 civilians (predominantly in the territory of Kosovo and Metohija) and over a 1,000 servicemen died in the bombardments. More than 5,000 people were wounded. More than a thousand people went missing. Serbia’s military-industrial infrastructure was totally destroyed. More than 1,500 populated localities, 60 bridges, one third of schools and about a hundred monuments were ruined. Serbian experts put the material damage from bombardments at 100 billion dollars.
When Will Americans Come to Their Senses?
Ukraine and Yugoslavia
by DIANA JOHNSTONE
“I sometimes get the feeling that somewhere across that huge puddle, in America, people sit in a lab and conduct experiments, as if with rats, without actually understanding the consequences of what they are doing.”
– Vladimir Putin, 4 March 2014
Paris.
Five years ago, I wrote a paper for a Belgrade conference commemorating the tenth anniversary of the start of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. In that paper I stressed that the disintegration of Yugoslavia had been used as an experimental laboratory to perfect various techniques that would subsequently be used in so-called “color revolutions” or other “regime change” operations directed against leaders considered undesirable by the United States government.
At that time, I specifically pointed to the similarities between the Krajina region of former Yugoslavia and Ukraine. Here is what I wrote at the time:
Where did the wars of Yugoslav disintegration break out most violently? In a region called the Krajina. Krajina means borderland. So does Ukraine – it is a variant of the same Slavic root. Both Krajina and Ukraine are borderlands between Catholic Christians in the West and Orthodox Christians in the East. The population is divided between those in the East who want to remain tied to Russia, and those in the West who are drawn toward Catholic lands. But in Ukraine as a whole, polls show that some seventy percent of the population is against joining NATO. Yet the US and its satellites keep speaking of Ukraine’s “right” to join NATO. Nobody’s right not to join NATO is ever mentioned.
The condition for Ukraine to join NATO would be the expulsion of foreign military bases from Ukrainian territory. That would mean expelling Russia from its historic naval base at Sebastopol, essential for Russia’s Black Sea fleet. Sebastopol is on the Crimean peninsula, inhabited by patriotic Russians, which was only made an administrative part of Ukraine in 1954 by Nikita Khrushchev, a Ukrainian.
Rather the way Tito, a Croat, gave almost the whole Adriatic coastline of Yugoslavia to Croatia, and generally enforced administrative borders detrimental to the Serbs.
As the same causes may have the same effects, US insistence on “liberating” Ukraine from Russian influence may have the same effect as the West’s insistence on “liberating” the Catholic Croats from the Orthodox Serbs. That effect is war. But instead of a small war, against the Serbs, who had neither the means nor even the will to fight the West (since they largely thought they were part of it), a war in Ukraine would mean a war with Russia. A nuclear superpower. And one that will not stand idly by while the United States continues to move its fleet and its air bases to the edges of Russian territory, both in the Black Sea and in the Baltic, on land, sea and air.
Every day, the United States is busy expanding NATO, training forces, building bases, making deals. This goes on constantly but is scarcely reported by the media. The citizens of NATO countries have no idea what they are being led into. (…)
War was easy when it meant the destruction of a helpless and harmless Serbia, with no casualties among the NATO aggressors. But war with Russia – a fierce superpower with a nuclear arsenal – would not be so much fun.
So, now here we are five years later, and I am about to attend another commemoration in Belgrade, this time of the fifteenth anniversary of the start of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. And this time, I really have nothing to say. I have already said it, over and over. Others are saying similar things, with more authority, from Professor Stephen Cohen to Paul Craig Roberts. Many of us have warned against the dangerous folly of seeking endlessly to provoke Russia by enlisting her neighbors in a military alliance whose enemy could only be… Russia. Of all Russia’s neighbors, none is more organically linked to Russia by language, history, geopolitical reality, religion and powerful emotions. The U.S. Undersecretary of State for Europe and Eurasia, Victoria Nuland, has openly boasted that the United States has spent five billion dollars to gain influence in Ukraine – in reality, in order to draw Ukraine away from Russia and into the U.S. military alliance. It is now no secret that Ms Nuland intrigued even against America’s European allies – who had a less brutal compromise in mind – in order to replace the elected President with the American protégé she calls “Yats”, who indeed was soon installed in a far right government resulting from violent actions by one of the very few violent fascist movements still surviving in Europe.
True, Western media do not report all the facts at their disposal. But the internet is there, and the facts are on the internet. And despite all this, European governments do not protest, there are no demonstrations in the streets, much of public opinion seems to accept the notion that the villain of this story is the Russian president, who is accused of engaging in unprovoked aggression against Crimea – even though he was responding to one of the most blatant provocations in history.
The facts are there. The facts are eloquent. What can I say that are not said by the facts?
So up to now, I have remained speechless in the face of what appears to me to be utter madness. However, on the eve of my trip to Belgrade, I agreed to answer questions from journalist Dragan Vukotic for the Serbian daily newspaper Politika. Here is that interview.
Q. In your book Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO, and Western Delusions, you have brought a different stance about NATO bombing of Yugoslavia than many of your intellectual colleagues in the West. What prompted you to make such an unpopular conclusion?
A. Long ago, as a student of Russia area studies, I spent several months in Yugoslavia living in a student dormitory in Belgrade and made friends there. I turned to such old friends for viewpoints rather than to the sources consulted by Western reporters. And I have a lifelong interest in US foreign policy. I began my inquiry into Yugoslav conflicts by reading key documents, such as speeches of Milosevic, the Serbian Academy memorandum and works by Alija Izetbegovic, noting the inaccuracy of the way they were represented in Western media. I was never under instructions from editors, and indeed my editors soon refused to publish my articles. I was not the only experienced observer to be excluded from Western media coverage.
Q. Although subsequent events have confirmed that the operation of illegal bombing of one country without permission of the Security Council was completely wrong, the mainstream western media and politicians still refer to successful „Kosovo model“. Can you please comment on this matter?
A. For them, it was a success, since it set a precedent for NATO intervention. They will never admit that they were mistaken.
Q. When it came to the preparation of the “humanitarian intervention” against Syria, Obama administration reported they were studying “the NATO air war in Kosovo as a possible blueprint for acting without a mandate from the United Nations”. (Please comment on this)
A. This is not surprising, since setting such a precedent was one of the motives for that air war.
Q. In one of your articles you asked the question about what the ICC stood for in the case of Libya. You recalled the “familiar pattern” with the case of ICTY and Yugoslavia. What do you really think of those instruments of international justice and their role in international relations?
A. In the context of the present world relationship of forces, the ICC like the ad hoc tribunals can only serve as instruments of United States hegemony. Those criminal tribunals are used only to stigmatize adversaries of the United States, while the main role of the ICC so far is to justify the ideological assumption that there exists an unbiased “international justice” that ignores national boundaries and serves to enforce human rights. As John Laughland has pointed out, a proper court must be the expression of a particular community that agrees to judge its own members. Moreover, these courts have no police of their own but must rely on the armed force of the United States, NATO and their client states, who as a result are automatically exempt from prosecution by these supposedly “international” courts.
Q. What is, in your opinion, the main purpose of declaring the so-called humanitarian intervention? Does it have more to do with the domestic public opinion or with the international partners?
A. The ideology of Human Rights (a dubious concept, incidentally, since “rights” should be grounded in concrete political arrangements, not on abstract concepts alone) serves both domestic and global purposes. For the European Union, it suggests a “soft” European nationalism based on social virtue. The United States, which is more forthright than today’s Europe in proclaiming its national interest, the ideology of Human Rights serves to endow foreign interventions with a crusading purpose that can appeal to European allies and above all to their domestic opinion, as well as to the English-speaking world in general (Canada and Australia in particular). It is the tribute vice pays to virtue, to echo LaRochefoucauld.
Q. You often use the term “US and its European satellites“. Please explain.
A. “Satellites” was the term used for members of the Warsaw Pact, and today the governments of the NATO member states follow Washington as obediently as the former followed Moscow, even when, as in the case of Ukraine, the United States goes against European interests.
Q. How do you see current goings on in Ukraine and Crimea, especially in terms of US-Russia relations?
A. US-Russian relations are determined primarily by an ongoing U.S. geostrategic hostility to Russia which is partly a matter of habit or inertia, partly a realization of the Brzezinski strategy of dividing Eurasia in order to maintain US world hegemony, and partly a reflection of Israeli-dominated Middle East policy toward Syria and Iran. Between the two major nuclear powers, there is clearly an aggressor and an aggressed. It is up to the aggressor to change course if relations are to be normal.
Simply compare. Is Russia urging Quebec to secede from Canada so that the province can join a military alliance led by Moscow? Evidently not. That would be comparable, and yet mild compared to the recent U.S. gambit led by Victoria Nuland aimed at bringing Ukraine, including the main Russian naval base at Sebastopol, into the Western orbit. The material reality of this political orbit is NATO, which since the end of the Soviet Union has systematically expanded toward Russia, which stations missiles whose only strategic function would be to provide the United States with a hypothetical nuclear first strike capacity against Russia, and which regularly holds military manoeuvers along Russian borders. Russia has done nothing against the United States, and recently provided President Obama with a face-saving way to avoid being voted down in Congress in regard to military action against Syria – action which was not desired by the Pentagon but only by the fraction of Israeli-oriented policy makers called “neocons”. Russia professes no hostile ideology, and only seeks normal relations with the West. What more can it do? It is up to Americans to come to their senses.
Diana Johnstone is the author of Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO, and Western Delusions. She can be reached at diana.johnstone@...
– Vladimir Putin, 4 March 2014
Paris.
Five years ago, I wrote a paper for a Belgrade conference commemorating the tenth anniversary of the start of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. In that paper I stressed that the disintegration of Yugoslavia had been used as an experimental laboratory to perfect various techniques that would subsequently be used in so-called “color revolutions” or other “regime change” operations directed against leaders considered undesirable by the United States government.
At that time, I specifically pointed to the similarities between the Krajina region of former Yugoslavia and Ukraine. Here is what I wrote at the time:
Where did the wars of Yugoslav disintegration break out most violently? In a region called the Krajina. Krajina means borderland. So does Ukraine – it is a variant of the same Slavic root. Both Krajina and Ukraine are borderlands between Catholic Christians in the West and Orthodox Christians in the East. The population is divided between those in the East who want to remain tied to Russia, and those in the West who are drawn toward Catholic lands. But in Ukraine as a whole, polls show that some seventy percent of the population is against joining NATO. Yet the US and its satellites keep speaking of Ukraine’s “right” to join NATO. Nobody’s right not to join NATO is ever mentioned.
The condition for Ukraine to join NATO would be the expulsion of foreign military bases from Ukrainian territory. That would mean expelling Russia from its historic naval base at Sebastopol, essential for Russia’s Black Sea fleet. Sebastopol is on the Crimean peninsula, inhabited by patriotic Russians, which was only made an administrative part of Ukraine in 1954 by Nikita Khrushchev, a Ukrainian.
Rather the way Tito, a Croat, gave almost the whole Adriatic coastline of Yugoslavia to Croatia, and generally enforced administrative borders detrimental to the Serbs.
As the same causes may have the same effects, US insistence on “liberating” Ukraine from Russian influence may have the same effect as the West’s insistence on “liberating” the Catholic Croats from the Orthodox Serbs. That effect is war. But instead of a small war, against the Serbs, who had neither the means nor even the will to fight the West (since they largely thought they were part of it), a war in Ukraine would mean a war with Russia. A nuclear superpower. And one that will not stand idly by while the United States continues to move its fleet and its air bases to the edges of Russian territory, both in the Black Sea and in the Baltic, on land, sea and air.
Every day, the United States is busy expanding NATO, training forces, building bases, making deals. This goes on constantly but is scarcely reported by the media. The citizens of NATO countries have no idea what they are being led into. (…)
War was easy when it meant the destruction of a helpless and harmless Serbia, with no casualties among the NATO aggressors. But war with Russia – a fierce superpower with a nuclear arsenal – would not be so much fun.
So, now here we are five years later, and I am about to attend another commemoration in Belgrade, this time of the fifteenth anniversary of the start of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. And this time, I really have nothing to say. I have already said it, over and over. Others are saying similar things, with more authority, from Professor Stephen Cohen to Paul Craig Roberts. Many of us have warned against the dangerous folly of seeking endlessly to provoke Russia by enlisting her neighbors in a military alliance whose enemy could only be… Russia. Of all Russia’s neighbors, none is more organically linked to Russia by language, history, geopolitical reality, religion and powerful emotions. The U.S. Undersecretary of State for Europe and Eurasia, Victoria Nuland, has openly boasted that the United States has spent five billion dollars to gain influence in Ukraine – in reality, in order to draw Ukraine away from Russia and into the U.S. military alliance. It is now no secret that Ms Nuland intrigued even against America’s European allies – who had a less brutal compromise in mind – in order to replace the elected President with the American protégé she calls “Yats”, who indeed was soon installed in a far right government resulting from violent actions by one of the very few violent fascist movements still surviving in Europe.
True, Western media do not report all the facts at their disposal. But the internet is there, and the facts are on the internet. And despite all this, European governments do not protest, there are no demonstrations in the streets, much of public opinion seems to accept the notion that the villain of this story is the Russian president, who is accused of engaging in unprovoked aggression against Crimea – even though he was responding to one of the most blatant provocations in history.
The facts are there. The facts are eloquent. What can I say that are not said by the facts?
So up to now, I have remained speechless in the face of what appears to me to be utter madness. However, on the eve of my trip to Belgrade, I agreed to answer questions from journalist Dragan Vukotic for the Serbian daily newspaper Politika. Here is that interview.
Q. In your book Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO, and Western Delusions, you have brought a different stance about NATO bombing of Yugoslavia than many of your intellectual colleagues in the West. What prompted you to make such an unpopular conclusion?
A. Long ago, as a student of Russia area studies, I spent several months in Yugoslavia living in a student dormitory in Belgrade and made friends there. I turned to such old friends for viewpoints rather than to the sources consulted by Western reporters. And I have a lifelong interest in US foreign policy. I began my inquiry into Yugoslav conflicts by reading key documents, such as speeches of Milosevic, the Serbian Academy memorandum and works by Alija Izetbegovic, noting the inaccuracy of the way they were represented in Western media. I was never under instructions from editors, and indeed my editors soon refused to publish my articles. I was not the only experienced observer to be excluded from Western media coverage.
Q. Although subsequent events have confirmed that the operation of illegal bombing of one country without permission of the Security Council was completely wrong, the mainstream western media and politicians still refer to successful „Kosovo model“. Can you please comment on this matter?
A. For them, it was a success, since it set a precedent for NATO intervention. They will never admit that they were mistaken.
Q. When it came to the preparation of the “humanitarian intervention” against Syria, Obama administration reported they were studying “the NATO air war in Kosovo as a possible blueprint for acting without a mandate from the United Nations”. (Please comment on this)
A. This is not surprising, since setting such a precedent was one of the motives for that air war.
Q. In one of your articles you asked the question about what the ICC stood for in the case of Libya. You recalled the “familiar pattern” with the case of ICTY and Yugoslavia. What do you really think of those instruments of international justice and their role in international relations?
A. In the context of the present world relationship of forces, the ICC like the ad hoc tribunals can only serve as instruments of United States hegemony. Those criminal tribunals are used only to stigmatize adversaries of the United States, while the main role of the ICC so far is to justify the ideological assumption that there exists an unbiased “international justice” that ignores national boundaries and serves to enforce human rights. As John Laughland has pointed out, a proper court must be the expression of a particular community that agrees to judge its own members. Moreover, these courts have no police of their own but must rely on the armed force of the United States, NATO and their client states, who as a result are automatically exempt from prosecution by these supposedly “international” courts.
Q. What is, in your opinion, the main purpose of declaring the so-called humanitarian intervention? Does it have more to do with the domestic public opinion or with the international partners?
A. The ideology of Human Rights (a dubious concept, incidentally, since “rights” should be grounded in concrete political arrangements, not on abstract concepts alone) serves both domestic and global purposes. For the European Union, it suggests a “soft” European nationalism based on social virtue. The United States, which is more forthright than today’s Europe in proclaiming its national interest, the ideology of Human Rights serves to endow foreign interventions with a crusading purpose that can appeal to European allies and above all to their domestic opinion, as well as to the English-speaking world in general (Canada and Australia in particular). It is the tribute vice pays to virtue, to echo LaRochefoucauld.
Q. You often use the term “US and its European satellites“. Please explain.
A. “Satellites” was the term used for members of the Warsaw Pact, and today the governments of the NATO member states follow Washington as obediently as the former followed Moscow, even when, as in the case of Ukraine, the United States goes against European interests.
Q. How do you see current goings on in Ukraine and Crimea, especially in terms of US-Russia relations?
A. US-Russian relations are determined primarily by an ongoing U.S. geostrategic hostility to Russia which is partly a matter of habit or inertia, partly a realization of the Brzezinski strategy of dividing Eurasia in order to maintain US world hegemony, and partly a reflection of Israeli-dominated Middle East policy toward Syria and Iran. Between the two major nuclear powers, there is clearly an aggressor and an aggressed. It is up to the aggressor to change course if relations are to be normal.
Simply compare. Is Russia urging Quebec to secede from Canada so that the province can join a military alliance led by Moscow? Evidently not. That would be comparable, and yet mild compared to the recent U.S. gambit led by Victoria Nuland aimed at bringing Ukraine, including the main Russian naval base at Sebastopol, into the Western orbit. The material reality of this political orbit is NATO, which since the end of the Soviet Union has systematically expanded toward Russia, which stations missiles whose only strategic function would be to provide the United States with a hypothetical nuclear first strike capacity against Russia, and which regularly holds military manoeuvers along Russian borders. Russia has done nothing against the United States, and recently provided President Obama with a face-saving way to avoid being voted down in Congress in regard to military action against Syria – action which was not desired by the Pentagon but only by the fraction of Israeli-oriented policy makers called “neocons”. Russia professes no hostile ideology, and only seeks normal relations with the West. What more can it do? It is up to Americans to come to their senses.
Diana Johnstone is the author of Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO, and Western Delusions. She can be reached at diana.johnstone@...
Da: "Zivadin Jovanovic"Oggetto: Podrska narodu KrimaData: 24 marzo 2014 16:56:22 CET
ЗАВРШНИ ДОКУМЕНТ
Међународне Конференције
одржане у Београду 22. и 23. марта 2014. године
Београдски форум за свет равноправних, Друштво српских домаћина, Клуб генерала и адмирала Србије и СУБНОР Србије, у координацији са Светским саветом за мир, одржао је 22. и 23. марта 2014. године у Београдском Центру „Сава“ Међународну конферецнију подназивом „ГЛОБАЛНИ МИР VS. ГЛОБАЛНИ ИНТЕРВЕНЦИОНИЗАМ И ИМПЕРИЈАЛИЗАМ“. Конференција је одржана поводом 15. годишњице оружане агресијеНАТО на Србију и Црну Гору (СР Југославију). Мото Конференције је „ДА СЕ НЕ ЗАБОРАВИ“.
У раду Конференције је учествовало преко 500 научника, стручњака и јавних личности из области међународних односа и безбедности, из 50 земаља Европе и света.
Конференцији су присуствовали амбасадори и високи дипломатски представници више пријатељских земаља акредитованих у Србији.
Учесници Конференције су одали почаст људским жртвама страдалим током 78 дана бомбардовања и положили венце на споменике. Они су изразили поштовање према свим жртвама илегалне НАТО агресије против Србије и Црне Горе, према припадницима бивше југословенске армије, према Федералној влади Југославије, председнику Слободану Милошевићу и свим херојским браниоцима отаџбине. Ми се, такође, морамо сећати жртава НАТО агресије после 1999. године, настављања прогона политичких и војних лидера који су бранили отаџбину и који су послати илегалном Хашком трибуналу, укључујући председника Милошевића и друге, који је тамо умро. Сматрајући тај Трибунал илегалним, као средство НАТО пропаганде и политичке уцене, учесници Конференције захтевају његово распуштање.
Дебата је протекла у конструктивном и толерантном дијалогу о најважнијим питањима и проблемима међународног мира и безбедности. Излагања су била усмерена на то како да се, у условима све чешће примене политике силе, дестабилизације појединих земаља и изазивања криза широм света, очува светски мир и пронађу начини за сузбијање глобалног интервенционизма, који угрожава међународни правни и политички поредак и свет гура ка ивици великог ратног сукоба.
Учесници су анализирали узроке, поводе и последице агресије НАТО 1999, како заСрбију и Балкан тако и глобалне последице за мир и безбедност у Европи и у свету. У вези с тим, учесници Конференције су се сагласили у следећем:
- Агресија НАТО против Србије и Црне Горе (СР Југославије), марта 1999. године, био је рат наметнут једној независној, сувереној европској држави, грубим кршењем основних принципа међународног права, а пре свега, Повеље УН и Завршног документа из Хелсинкија. То је била агресија изведена без сагласности и супротно мандату СБ УН. Зато она представља злочин против мира и човечности, тачку преокрета ка глобалном интервенционизму, грубом кршењу међународног правног поретка и негирању улоге УН. Тиме је успостављен модел интгервенционизма који је касније коришћен у свим агресијама од Авганистана, Ирака и Либије, до Малија.
- Да би прикрили праву суштину агресије и тако пред сопственом и светском јавношћу избегли осуду и одговорност, водеће силе Запада - САД, Велика Британија, Француска, Немачка и друге чланице НАТО пакта, њих 19, смислиле су цео арсенал еуфемизама како би том злочину против мира прибавили макар какав легитимитет. У име те тзв. „хуманитарне интервенције“, НАТО пакт, на челу са САД, неселективно је убијао становништво Србије, укључујући децу,немоћне и старе особе, уништио целокупну привреду, разорио инфраструктуру, загадио скоро целу животну средину, са тешким и далекосежним последицама за здравље данашњих и будућих генерација.
- Како се ради о злочину против мира и човечности, о грубом кршењу основних норми међународног права, земље чланице НАТО носе сваку одговорност за ту агресију, укључујући и одговорност за накнаду штете, у износу од преко 100 милијарди САД долара, као и одговорност за коришћење оружја са осиромашеним уранијумом и других недозвољених средстава за масовно уништавање. У вези с тим, учесници Конференције су истакли да Србија и Црна Гора имају сва права да, пред одговарајућим међународним институцијама, покренупоступак против НАТО пакта и свих држава чланица, које су учествовале у агресији, у циљу остваривања права на надокнаду ратне штете, као и појединцима који су били жртве агресије.
- Након завршетка оружане агресије, агресија је настављена другим невојним средствима. Та продужена агресија се огледала: у насилној промени власти путем петоктобарског преврата2000. године, који је инициран, финансиран и подржан споља, у првом реду, од стране чланица НАТО пакта; у уценама, претњама и условљавањима разних врста, како би се Србија одрекла свог државног суверенитета над Косовом и Метохијом, као својим историјским и културно-цивилизацијским средиштем; у игнорисању елемената државног суверенитета Србије над Косовом и Метохијом, који је гарантован Резолуцијом 1244 СБ УН; у сталном истискивању уставно-правних функција Србије са Косова и Метохије. То је на крају резултиралопротивправним и противуставним самопроглашавањем независности Косова 2008. године, признате од стране већине НАТО земаља. САД/НАТО агресија 1999. године грубо је прекршила Повељу УН, Декларацију 1970. године о принципима међународног права, Финални акт Хелсинкија, Париску повељу за Нови свет, пет резолуција СБ УН од 1998.-2008. године, укључујући резолуције 1244 и 1785.
- Одмах по окончању агресије, на Косову и Метохији је успостављена велика америчка војна база,“Бондстил“, прва и кључна карика у ланцу инсталирања низа америчких база у Бугарској, Румунији, Пољској, Чешкој и другим земљама Источне Европе. Агресијом НАТО против Југославије убрзана је трка у наоружавању, милитаризација европског континента и спровођење САД/НАТО/ЕУ стратегије „ширења на Исток“.
- Кулминација те тзв. посредне доминације Запада према Србији, била је и крајње цинична пресуда Међународног суда правде о томе да проглашењем независности Косова и Метохије,није прекршено међународно право. Том пресудом је та највиша међународна правна институција, у ствари, легализовала једнострану сецесију, односно разбијање територијалног интегритета међународно признатих држава.
- Агресија на Србију и Црну Гору (СР Југославију), марта 1999. године инаугурисала је један од најпогубнијих принципа и метода понашања великих сила Запада, на челу са САД, а то је принцип глобалног интервенционизма. То практично значи да САД, НАТО и Запад сами себи дају право да по слободној вољи и избору, у складу са својим стратешким интересима,утврђују где су у свету угрожени њихови интереси и да могу војно, или на друге незаконитеначине интервенисати. Саставни део те стратегије је свргавање легално изабраних власти и довођење послушничких, марионетских режима којима се даје ореол „демократских“ власти.
- НАТО је увек наступао као агресивни војни савез за ширење и наметање империјалних и неоколонијалних циљева најмоћнијих земаља Запада. Целокупно доасадашње искуство показује да НАТО стратегија глобалног интервенционизма оставља за собом хаос у међународним односима, огромне људске жртве, поделе и дугорочну беду и патње у свим земљама и регионима, који су непосредне жртве такве политике. Случајеви Балкана, Афганистана, Ирака, Либије, Сирије јасно о томе сведоче. НАТО је одговоран за разарање међународног правног портека, за деградацију УН, за изазивање нове трке у наоружавању, за милитаризацију Европе, за дестабилизацију и изазивање криза у појединим земљама и регионима у свету. Отуда је НАТО стратегија супротна циљевим мира и безбедности, супротна демократским и цивилизацијским вредностима и основним људским правима. У таквој организацији нема места за мирољубиве земље, које своје интересе везују за поштовање међународног права и система УН. Зато су се учесници Конференције изјаснили за укидање НАТО-а, као реликта Хладног рата, за прекид политике слободног интервенционизма и поштовање слободе, независности и равноправности свих земаља и народа.а мирољубиве земље, које својеквполитике. Сл
- Извоз демократије и диктирање културно-цивилизацијских образаца је постао уобичајениначин понашања сила Запада, пре свих САД, у њиховој тежњи да свет уређују по сопственим мерилима и у складу са сњвојим егоистичним интересима. Наметањем политичких и културних-цивилизацијских образаца је насиље над реалношћу и оно готово увек доводи до сукоба, унутрашњих немира, до дубљих раслојавања и подела, што за дуже време нарушава мир у свету и представља покриће за трано војно мешање. По том моделу настале су тзв.„обојене револуције“ у Грузији, Венецуели и Украјини и узурпирано „Арапско пролеће“ које је разорило и за више деценија уназадило земље као што су: Либија, Египат и Сирија.
- Стратегија интервенционизма себи налази неколико мотива и циљева. То су контрола природних и развојних ресурса, прерасподела ресурса и геополитичког прекомпоновања света, против и на штету замишљеног главног геополитичког противника. На тај начин је од стране САД/НАТО/ЕУ изазвана и криза у Украјини, чији се крај још не назире. Може се рећи да је украјинска криза највећа претња миру од времена завршетка краја хладног рата. Уместо да се Украјина сагледава као најприроднија веза Русије и Европе, Запад је својим мешањем учинио да се она вештачки измести из свог природног културно-цивилизацијског и геополитичкогамбијента и да се у потпуности привуче на Запад, не водећи рачуна о томе да то може довести до унутрашњих сукоба у самој Украјини и да би тиме били угрожени витални интереси Русије.Та опасна геополитичка игра Америке, НАТО и ЕУ против Русије, која се преко леђа Украјине води под „финим“, али лажним изговором о томе да је све то за добробит Украјинаца и њихово демократско друштвено устројство, потпуно је занемарила последице такве политике на виталне интересе Украјине, њеног народа. мира и безбедностиу Европи и на глобалном плану. Учесници Конференције су се заложили за мирно политичко решење проблема у Украјини, без мешања и притисака са стране, за решење које ће гарантовати вољу њеног народа и уважавати њену улогу моста између Истока и Запада. Такво решење предпоставља одустајање од погубне стратегије ширења на Исток која је већ довела до дестабилизације у Европи. Учесници Конференције су изразили подршку народу Крима који је искористио своје право на самоопредељење и поновно уједињење са Русијом.
- Учесници Конференције су изразили подршку суверенитету и територијалном интегритету Србије, уз решавање статуса Косова и Метохије у складу са Резолуцијом СБ УН 1244. Они су подржали следеће захтеве: слободан, безбедан и достојанствен повратак 250.000 прогнаних Срба и других неалбанаца у своје домове на Косову и Метохији; реституцију узурпиране приватне, црквене, државне и друштвене имовине; реконструкцију 150 порушених цркава и манастира СПЦ, стотине порушених и преораних српских гробаља и хиљаде спаљених домова; спровођење ефикасних истрага о трговини људским органима, расветљавању судбине свих киднапованих и несталих Срба са Косова и Метохије и свим другим злочинима против српског народа, за које, до сада, нико није одговарао.
- Учесници Конференције су поздравили часну иницијативу Генералне скупштине УН, којом је 2014. година проглашена међународном годином солидарности са народом Палестине. Оцењујући да та иницијатива заслужује снажну подршку мирољубивих снага у свету, са Конференције је упућен захтев за хитно повлачење окупационих снага Израела са свих палестинских територија, успостављање независне Палестинске државе у оквиру граница из јула 1967. одине, са Источним Јерусалимом као главним градом, за право повратка палестинских избеглица, у складу са Резолуцијом УН 194, и ослобађање свих палестинских затвореника из израелских затвора. Испуњавање тих захтева је не само од животног интереса за народ Палестине, већ и за успостављање праведног и трајног мира на Блиском истоку.
- Учесници су изразили солидарност са народима Латинске Америке у њиховим напорима да сачувају слободу, независност и суверенитет од агресивне империјалне САД стратегије. Они захтевају затварање базе у Гвантанаму и укидање блокаде против Кубе, као и ослобађање пет кубанских политичких затвореника из америчких затвора.
- Одбацујући политику и поступке који угрожавају мир и безбедност, учесници Конференције су осудили планове и акције који су усмерени на дестабилизацију Боливијске републике Венецуеле. Координиране насилоне акције у Каракасу и другим деловима Венецуеле су део стратегије домаћих олигарха и спољних фактора да акцијама саботаже, насилним провокацијама и уценама, спрече функционисање легално изабране владе и наметну политичке промене по својој вољи, а против интереса народа Венецуеле. Осуђујући те појаве, учесници Конференције су изразили солидарност са народом Венецуеле и подршку његовим храбрим напорима да очува слободу, понос и суверенитет Венецуеле и да буде господар своје судбине.
- Учесници су изразили забринутост због систематски организоване ревизије историје Европе 20. века, посебно због ревизије исхода Првог и Другог светског рата. То може да користи империјалистичким циљевима за прекрајање међународних граница, што води непредвидим последицама. Они су осудили од Запада подржану рехабилитацију фашизма и покушаје да се комунизам изједначи са нацизмом.
- Учесници Конференције су посветили велику пажњу светској капиталистичкој економској кризи, која је довела до неслућеног социјалног раслојавања и осиромашења становништва наше планете, али и до наметнуте дужничке кризе у низу некада економски и цивилизацијски врло просперитетних земаља, као што су Грчка, Шпанија, Португалија, Италија и Кипар.Глобална криза настала је превасходно у земљама које су себе прогласиле центром светске цивилизиције и које су себе наметнуле као неоспорне лидере света, као најнапреднији друштвени поредак, у којем неће бити потребе за озбиљним социјалним конфликтима и сукобима. Њени главни индикатори су масовна незапосленост, посебно младих, висока задуженост држава, пад привредних активности и слично. Они су подржали спонтане народне протесте против наведеног.
- Очито је да је Европи и већини осталог света наметнут нео-либерални културно-политички и економски образац, који не функционише. У трагању за излазима из ове свеопште блокаде, најмоћније земље света настоје да период кризе превале на леђа других земаља и народа, који се фигуративно називају светском периферијом, а међусобно бију битку за светски престиж и притом руше старе цивилизације и насилно смењују владајуће режиме, који им нису по вољи. Све то међународну сцену чини конфликтном и веома подобном за избијање сваковрсних сукоба од оних унутрашњих, преко регионалних, до глобалних.
- Учесници Конференције су констатовали са забринутошћу да у Европи и даље постоји истурена америчка војна инфраструктура, као што су одбрамбени ракетни системи, техничко нуклеарно наоружање и конвенционалне снаге, што води дестабилизацији на регионалном и глобалном плану.
- Светску економску кризу не могу решити штампање трилиона долара и поправке постојећег система, већ напуштање нео-либералног концепта и изградња новог, хуманог друштва социјалне правде, равноправности и бољег живота за сваког човека и све народе на планети. У центру новог система друштвених односа мора бити човек и његове економске, социјалне, културне и хуманитарне потребе, а не профит и егоистични интереси тзв. економске и политичке елите.
- У оквиру Међународне конференције, одржан је и Форум младих, на којем је оцењено да светска криза и глобализација интервенционизма угрожавају, у првом реду, права и перспективе припадника младих генерација. У многим земљама Европе и света млади до 30 година чине око 60% укупног броја незапослених. Млади траже хитне промене у друштвеним односима, као и на међународном плану, које обезб
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