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Vecernje Novosti - September 8, 2008
NATO bombs still scattered in Serbia
BELGRADE - Nine years after NATO attacks on Serbia,
many bombs have not been cleaned up, Vecernje Novosti
writes.
The Belgrade daily specifies today that some 2,300
hectares are still suspected of being contaminated
with cluster bombs, while mine fields stretch on 150
hectares.
In addition, 60 aircraft bombs dropped by NATO planes
have not been defused and "could go off at any
moment".
Serbia needs to spend some USD 35mn to clean the
countryside of unexploded ordnance, and should
donations – which make the job possible – arrive at
the current pace, the operations will not be finished
in the next ten years.
Currently, Russian experts are working to demine the
Niš airport.
Director of the Mine Action Center Petar Mihajlovic
told the newspaper he plans to travel to Moscow and
propose to the Russian authorities to undertake the
bomb clearance operation in all of Nis, and Sjenica in
western Serbia, where estimates say NATO dropped bombs
on some four million square meters of space.
Experts believe that unexploded aircraft bombs are
still in 43 locations in the country, some of them
weighing as much as 930 kilograms, capable of
burrowing their way 20 meters into the ground.
Beta News Agency - September 15, 2008
Konuzin, Dacic visit Russian deminers
NIS - Russian experts are working on mine clearance in
Nis, where 13 cluster bombs and five air bombs have
been found so far.
Today, Interior Minister Ivica Dacic and Russia's
Ambassador to Serbian Aleksandr Konuzin visited the
EMERKOM team, where leader Andrei Vinohodov told them
that a number of other explosives were also discovered
at the location.
The Russian specialists have since July manually
searched 123,000 square meters of the Nis airport
grounds.
A mechanical device designed to search for bombs has
combed 263,000 square meters of the civilian part of
the airport.
Vinohodov said that some 30 Russian specialists from
EMERKOM, the Russian state agency, have found eight
cluster and air bombs, three grenades, 20
anti-aircraft 20 millimeter caliber bullets and one
detonator.
Dacic said that the Serbian people value Russia’s help
highly, which is seen not only in this instance, but
in Moscow's principled stance regarding Kosovo and the
Serbian position in international relations.
He explained that many of the bombs found were dropped
by NATO airplanes during the attack on Serbia in 1999,
including cluster bombs, which have been outlawed.
Dacic also addressed the issue of the strategic
Russo-Serbian energy agreement: “We hope that after
the ratification, we will accelerate the signing of
all the acts that stem from the agreement.”
Konuzin said that the Russian experts engaged in the
mine clearing operation in Serbia's south are "very
positively influenced by the ratification of the
energy agreement between Serbia and Russia".
The ambassador added that he hopes that the Russian
Emergency Situations Ministry will successfully
cooperate with a similar service which Serbia has in
the pipeline.
Tanjug News Agency - April 3, 2009
Russia’s Shoigu visiting Belgrade
BELGRADE - Russian Emergency Situations and Civil Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has begun his visit to Serbia by meeting with Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic.
During his visit to Belgrade, Shoigu will also be meeting with President Boris Tadic, Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic and Interior Minister Ivica Dacic, who, along with the Russian minister, is chairing the Inter-Governmental Mixed Commission.
Shoigu is also expected to meet with senior officials from the Serbian Oil Industry (NIS).
According to a statement from the Russian ministry, Shoigu will also focus on the work of the expert Russian de-mining team in the region of Paracin, through which the South Stream gas pipeline is due to pass.
The removal of unexploded ordnance left over from the 1999 NATO bombing is set to begin in this region on April 6, before the team moves on to Niš in mid-April.
Shoigu and Dacic will sign a protocol on exceptions to the free trade agreement between the two countries.
....
Strategic Culture Foundation - March 25, 2009
A Decade Since the Air Strikes, 5 years Since the Anti-Serb Riots
For Serbs, the March of 2009 is marked by two gloomy anniversaries – a decade since the NATO aggression against Yugoslavia and 5 years since the anti-Serb riots in the province of Kosovo and Metohija.
The Kosovo crisis during which local conflicts in the post-Yugoslavian space culminated in the NATO attack against the sovereign Yugoslavia left the world facing a new reality, with the system of international relations established by the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences defunct, Europe geopolitically subdued by the US, and the US entrenched in the Balkans.
Albanian criminal clans increasingly strengthened their positions in Kosovo ever since, and even the terrorist Kosovo Liberation Army staged a comeback under the guise of the new Kosovo security forces.
Currently Albanians in Kosovo are striving to gain control over the Serb enclaves in the northern part of the province and making serious efforts to broaden Albanian extremist movements in the southern regions of Serbia (Presevo, Bujanovac, Medveda).
During her recent meeting with the Pristina leadership, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton confirmed the continuity of Washington's Balkan politics, especially that with respect to Kosovo.
She gave her Albanian partners a clear indication that the US would not leave the Balkan job unfinished. Thus encouraged by the US, Kosovo “Prime Minister” Hashim Thaci declared the regulations set by the UN Mission in Kosovo as well as UN Security Council Resolution 1244 overruled and the entire bulk of their documents - inapplicable in Kosovo.
At the same time, one gets an impression that the European Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) coexists with the Kosovo Albanians in perfect harmony as Thaci says his administration will in every possible way support EULEX activity across the province and in its northern - Serb-populated - part in particular. In other words, the UN administration is being sidelined by simply discarding the UN Mission in Kosovo and arbitrarily transferring its functions to EULEX. The personnel of the UN Mission will be reduced to purely symbolic numbers. Great Britain says it plans to withdraw 167 military servicemen from Kosovo. The Spanish contingent in the UN Mission (620 servicemen) is also packing its bags.
In strange concert with Thaci, Serbian President Bris Tadic has lightheartedly recognized EULEX. The latter and the government of Serbia reached an agreement that EULEX laws should be enforced in the northern part of Kosovo.
As a result, ELEX can assume responsibility for law and order, of course interpreting them as it sees fit. President V. Kostunica charged EULEX with releasing Albanians whose guilt for crimes against Serbs had been proven in court and said the policy amounts to complicity in the carefully planned expulsion of Serbs from Kosovo.
The commemoration of the victims of the anti-Serb riots which took place in Kosovo and Metohija 5 years ago highlighted the total helplessness of the current Serbian administration.
The death toll during the March 17-18, 2004 riots reached 19, with 954 people wounded. Serbs were ethnically-cleansed from 6 cities and 9 villages, and 935 residences and 35 churches and monasteries were destroyed during the tragic events.
The commemorations were led by the Serbian Orthodox Church. Memorial services were held in all churches and monasteries of Kosovo and Metohija and in the Belgrade cathedral. Amfilohije, the Metropolitan of Montenegro and the Littoral, said that the impunity of those who committed the crimes breeds new waves of lawlessness.
On the eve of the 10th anniversary of NATO bomb strikes on Yugoslavia the position of “the international community” on the Serbian issue was expressed clearly by NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer who said that the intervention had been necessary.
No doubt, the West needed the intervention. J. Norris, an aide to Strobe Talbott, who held the position of Madeleine Albright’s deputy during the crisis, published memoirs where he explained that Milosevic was the only figure capable of opposing the transformation of Central and East Europe.
According to Norris, Milosevic's stubbornness made the point of NATO's further existence questionable and this fact rather than the “plight” of Albanians in Kosovo was the actual reason behind the intervention. The resistance from the Serbian leader had to be broken at any cost.
Albanians and the US had common interests in Kosovo. The former sought independence for the province and the latter wanted to deploy NATO forces in it. The unyielding Milosevic was portrayed as the “ultimate evil” by the global media. When Yugoslavia rejected the Rambouillet ultimatum, NATO resorted to force. By doing so, as Norris cynically remarks, it also undermined the authority of the UN which was the last trump card at Russia's disposal. The Racak incident – a provocation presented as an act of genocide against Albanians – was invoked as the pretext for the aggression.
Russia's indecisiveness in 1999 equally hurt the interests of Serbs and those of its own people. In essence, Russia allowed to be set a precedent for a military intervention against a sovereign country, though – Norris shows his full awareness of the fact – few in Russia believed that so intense an intervention launched by NATO in a relatively insignificant place like Kosovo was not a part of a much broader, global plan.
The country targeted by the global plan was Russia. Not surprisingly, a team of Russian diplomats submitted a document to the US and Finnish negotiating team with a claim that NATO was attempting to eliminate Russia as a global factor. Norris is open about the matter in his book – if NATO can bomb Kosovo, the alliance is clearly ready to intervene in Russia without any UN mandate.
On the second day of the NATO campaign against Yugoslavia Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov told Madeleine Albright during a phone conversation that while Yugoslavian forces had killed 300 people in Kosovo over the past year, the death toll after just one night of NATO bomb strikes reached 50. Ivanov described the air strikes as undisguised genocide.
In a gross breach of the norms of international law, NATO forces launched over 35,000 air raids during the 78 days of the attack against Yugoslavia, hitting 995 targets.
Several thousand civilians were killed (the exact number is unknown).
Militsa Rakic, a 3-year-old girl killed by a NATO strike, is the epitome of the Serbian tragedy caused by the NATO aggression.
....
A total of 25,000 tons of explosives (79,000 tons according to other sources) were dropped on Yugoslavia.
NATO used cassette [cluster] bombs - over 2,000 of them were dropped, spreading some 300,000 small mines, 20,000-30,000 of which are estimated to remain unexploded, awaiting new victims.
The use of shells with depleted uranium during the offensive and the destruction of petrochemical industry installations caused an environmental disaster in the region.
The infrastructure of the former Yugoslavia – airports, bridges, railroads – also suffered serious damage. At least half of the country's military-industrial complex was ruined as were numerous health care and education centers, architectural landmarks, etc. The damage totaled $200 bn, and this is only a part of the list of crimes NATO committed against Serbs.
A decade after the aggression NATO continues to strengthen its positions in the Balkans while official Belgrade makes no efforts to protect the Serbian population locked in ghettos in Kosovo.
Javno.com (Croatia) November 17, 2008 DEPLETED URANIUM NATO Still Killing People in Kosovo Over the 78 days of NATO bombing, a total of 31,000 shells with depleted uranium, weapons banned by international treaties, were dropped in Kosovo. Back in 1999 NATO carried out a 78- day shelling of Serbia and Kosovo. They allegedly used depleted uranium which continues to kill people. Nine years after NATO’s bombing of Serbia, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is still taking lives in Kosovo, Serbia’s Pressonline reported. The NATO allegedly used shells with depleted uranium which are still today causing an increase in the number of cancer patients. Prior to 1999, the number of Serbs who suffered from malignant tumours was three times lesser, according to the statistics of Serb hospitals. In Kosovo’s Kosovska Mitrovica in 2005 there were 38 percent more cancer patients than in 2004. In those two years, a total of 3,500 cancer cases in Kosovo Albanians were diagnosed. Globally, six people out of a thousand suffer from malignant tumours on average. In the Kosovska Mitrovica hospital, there are 200 cancer patients to 1,000 people. NATO used weapons banned by international conventions? After 2000, groups of experts in atomic energy tested water, food, air, plants and animals to establish the damage caused by radiation from NATO shells. Beta and Gamma radiation was higher than the permissible level and radiation was discovered in the soil, water, plants and animals. After it gets into the soil, it takes some 250 years for depleted uranium to degrade. The conclusions of the studies were that the environment on 100 locations in Kosovo was not safe for animals or people, but no bans or moving of the population was carried out. European peace troops stationed in Kosovo knew there was great danger of radiation in these areas. Italian military experts concluded in 2005 that 34 soldiers had died from leukaemia and various malignant tumours. Since then 150 soldiers from Kosovo were sent home. In mid-2000 NATO published a map with 112 marked locations that had been shelled with depleted uranium. Over the 78 days of NATO bombing, a total of 31,000 shells with depleted uranium, weapons banned by international treaties, were dropped in Kosovo.Cancer: NATO´s time bomb in the Balkans
24 March, 2009, 22:23
Tuesday marks the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the
three-month NATO bombing campaign of the former
Yugoslavia - and a decade later, the wounds of the war are still
felt.
Throughout the areas which have been affected by NATO
bombings, hundreds of people are dying of cancer. Experts
say that this may be a result of uranium shells being used.
A little cemetery in Bratunac, Eastern Bosnia became the final
resting place for a number of cancer victims. A local resident,
who preferred to remain anonymous, gave RT the names of
some who are buried there. He says they all died of cancer.
Read more
Djoko Zelenovic, who worked in the local military repair factory,
died from the disease at the age of 65. The 35 year-old mother
of two small children also rests here.
There used to be no more than one or two funerals a year in
this small Serbian village in Eastern Bosnia. Since NATO
dropped bombs on Sarajevo in the summer of 1995, the
number has climbed to as many as one or two deaths a month.
Nikola Zelenovic´s parents are buried here. He says they were
healthy until the NATO bombings and is now spearheading an
investigation.
Nikola says that "my family lived throughout the war years in
the town of Hadjici. My father was working in one of the
factories there when NATO bombed it. His health problems
started soon afterwards. He died from lung cancer. My mother
died a year and a half after him from Leukemia. My parents
were never sick before."
Starting on March 24th, 1999, for three months NATO bombed
Serb targets in the Former Republic of Yugoslavia. Four years
earlier its forces had bombed Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Their aim was to end the fighting between Serbs and
Albanians who lived in the areas.
But they left a time bomb behind them. In the years that
followed, hundreds of people living in the areas that were hit
have died of cancer
In Kosovo, the number of cancer patients has grown three
times over the last ten years, while in Bosnia-Herzegovina,
already more than a thousand people have died from cancer.
Doctor Slavko Zdrale has treated several cancer patients over
the past years and boldly advances theories on the subject:
He told RT that "a few years ago we started noticing that there
was as many as five times the number of people dying of
different kinds of cancer as compared to the number of people
who had been sick before the war."
"We worked out that 90% of them came from areas NATO had
bombed and from areas where ammunition with uranium was
used. Nobody in the international community took much notice
until Italian soldiers who were stationed in those areas started
dying from cancer-related illnesses."
In Pale, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the war crimes court is recording
evidence of an increased number of cancer patients. The court
says that the pieces of ammunition found in the bombed areas
had a much higher level of radiation than is internationally
allowed. Investigators are convinced that this radiation is the
underlying cause of cancer.
Simo Tusevljak, the coordinator of the Research and
documentation of war crimes, stated that "we believe that this
was a deliberate attempt by NATO forces to kill as many
people as possible. It was also a chance for the West to test
new weapons." .
"But there is nothing we can do," he added. "We cannot file
any complaint against NATO because all those involved have
diplomatic immunity. A NATO soldier can kill and never be
prosecuted. But perhaps one day some senior officials from
NATO who ordered the bombings will be prosecuted. I believe
the order came from high up."
NATO hasn't commented on the claims and has dismissed
Serbian and Italian investigations.
There has been no other independent research conducted on
the subject.
The little cemetery in Bratunac is already full. But locals fear
the number of cancer victims will continue to grow for at least
the next fifty years, or for as long as it takes for the air to clean.
Ten years after the NATO bombings, the alliance still has a lot
to answer for. But no matter when those answers come (or
whether they will come at all) they will be too late for the
cancer victims.
---
Perchè un tale risarcimento non dovrebbe valere anche per la popolazione della ex Repubblica jugoslava di Bosnia - Erzegovina (la parte serba, bombardata nel 1994 e 1995), e la mini Jugoslavia (Serbia e Montenegro, bombardate nel 1999)? ... (Ivan)
URANIO IMPOVERITO: EMANATO REGOLAMENTO DI ATTUAZIONE LEGGE SUI RISARCIMENTI
mercoledì 03 giugno 2009
LA CGIL METTE A DISPOSIZIONE LE PROPRIE STRUTTURE. Roma, 3 giu - Pubblichiamo una lettera inviataci da Marcello Tocco, responsabile dell'Ufficio Sicurezza Legalità della CGIL, con la quale comunica che le strutture del sindacato sono a disposizione degli aventi diritto al risarcimento.
La pubblicazione sulla G.U. del 22 aprile 2009 del DPR .37 del 3 marzo 2009 che va in vigore dal 6 maggio 2009, ha emanato il regolamento di attuazione della L. n. 244 del 24 dicembre 2007 che definisce i termini e le procedure per la presentazione delle domande e il riconoscimento del danno per esposizione ad uranio impoverito.
La legge prevede che possono godere del risarcimento militari in servizio o in pensione, che a partire dal 1 gennaio 1961, abbiano usato o custodito munizionamento con uranio impoverito, sia in zone di missione o di operazione all’estero, che in poligoni di tiro o depositi in Italia,e civili he abbiano volontariamente prestato la loro opera all’estero in zone di missione militare e cittadini italiani che siano venuti a contatto con munizionamenti o risiedono e abitano vicino a poligoni di tiro o depositi.
Naturalmente hanno diritto anche i superstiti,coniuge e figli,ma stranamente non i genitori.
La platea di aventi diritto è quindi amplissima, e la CGIL nazionale e l'’INCA nazionale (il patronato confederale di assistenza per tutte le pratiche previdenziali e delle assicurazioni obbligatorie) hanno predisposto un ampio e articolato servizio di assistenza per gli aventi diritto presso tutte le proprie strutture territoriali.
Le domande per gli eventi gia avvenuti, devono essere inoltrate entro sei mesi dalla pubblicazione del DPR 37/2009 ai sensi dell'art. 3 comma 2; ossia entro il 06.11.2009.
Per gli episodi invece verificatesi successivamente all'entrata in vigore del suddetto DPR, le domande devono essere presentate entro sei mesi dall'episodio invalidante, e comunque non oltre il 31.12.2010. (n.d.r.)
Marcello Tocco
Resp. Ufficio Sicurezza Legalità CGIL nazionale
(Fonte: http://www.grnet.it/index.php?option=com_akocomment&task=quote&id=2953&Itemid=46 )
---
OK A REGOLAMENTO PER 30 MILIONI DI RISARCIMENTI A VITTIME
GIOVEDÌ 4 GIUGNO 2009
Dopo anni di censure e silenzi è giunta l'ora della giustizia e quindi dei risarcimenti economici per i tanti militari rimasti vittime dell'esposizione all'uranio impoverito.
In Italia sono 250 i militari morti e 1991 quelli malati, secondo i dati forniti dal Goi (Gruppo Operativo Interforze della Sanità Militare).
A queste vittime saranno destinati i 30 milioni di euro stanziati in precedenza. Lo scorso 6 maggio è infatti entrato in vigore il Decreto del Presidente della Repubblica n. 37 del 3 Marzo 2009, pubblicato sulla Gazzetta Ufficiale del 22 Aprile 2009. Con questo decreto è stato emanato il regolamento di attuazione della legge numero 244 del 24 dicembre 2007 che definisce i termini e le procedure per la presentazione delle domande e il riconoscimento del danno per esposizione ad uranio impoverito.
La legge prevede che possono godere del risarcimento i militari in servizio o in pensione che, a partire dal 1 gennaio 1961, abbiano usato o custodito munizionamento con uranio impoverito, sia in zone di missione o di operazione all’estero, che in poligoni di tiro o depositi in Italia, e civili che abbiano volontariamente prestato la loro opera all’estero in zone di missione militare e cittadini italiani che siano venuti a contatto con munizionamenti o risiedono e abitano vicino a poligoni di tiro o depositi. Naturalmente hanno diritto anche i familiari di militari scomparsi, coniuge e figli, ma stranamente non i genitori.
Positivo il commento dell'avvocato Bruno Ciarmoli, del Foro di Bari, che assiste diversi familiari, secondo il quale "dopo la sentenza dello scorso dicembre che ha condannato il Ministero della Difesa al risarcimento di oltre 500mila euro nei confronti di un militare toscano, si fa un ulteriore passo avanti verso la verità e il riconoscimento di diritti sacrosanti."
ASSISTENZA LEGALE VITTIME E FAMILIARI
STUDIO LEGALE Bruno Ciarmoli
Per informazioni: 080/52.47.542
(Fonte: http://inchiestauranio.blogspot.com/2009/06/ok-regolamento-per-30-milioni-di.html )