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Eighth Anniversary of NATO’s Aggression against Yugoslavia
1) Report from the House of Commons Meeting – London 27 March 2007
2) 8e anniversaire des bombardements de l'OTAN : Serbes et Kosovars albanais célèbrent à leur manière (AP)
3) From Yugoslavia to Iraq to Sudan (Workers World)
=== 1 ===
Report from the House of Commons Meeting –
27 March 2007
Eighth Anniversary of NATO’s Aggression against Yugoslavia
“The tearing up of the UN Charter,” “an aggressive war in which NATO violated its own charter”, “the crossing of the Rubicon” and “events which were momentous for the people of the world”. These were some of the assessments of NATO’s attack on Yugoslavia presented to a well attended public meeting at the House of Commons held to commemorate the eighth anniversary of the NATO countries’ bombing of Serbia and Yugoslavia that began on 24th March 1999.
Some seventy people who filled Committee Room 15 heard speeches from Tony Benn (former Cabinet Minister), Bob Wareing, MP, Alice Mahon, former Labour MP, Mark Littman, QC, and Neil Clark, journalist and writer. The meeting was chaired by Misha Gavrilovic of the Nedaist Initiative - “Aggressors shall not write our history”.
Mr Gavrilovic opened the meeting explaining that it was now the 8th time in 8 years that “the first inter-continental war of aggression against a sovereign state in Europe” was being commemorated in the House Commons. This had been made possible by a number of courageous British MPs who had stood by their principles and had spoken out against the illegal war. A minute’s silence was held to commemorate those killed during the bombing and those whose lives were ended prematurely due to massive damage to the health system and cancer resulting from Nato's use of depleted uranium (DU) bombs.
Tony Benn, the first speaker, addressed the meeting by stating that the aggression was in breach of the UN Charter. It was “a very significant move, a tearing up of the Charter by the Clinton-Blair alliance. They are war criminals.” The use of DU was a war crime.
He described the US as a "declining Empire" and said its strategy was to break up and destroy states that challenged its policies. He referred to the cynicism and hypocrisy of the Empire that had first described the KLA as “terrorists” and then supported them. But “a declining Empire is a wounded tiger – a very, very dangerous animal”.
Mr Benn reminded the meeting that in 1941 Germany invaded Serbia before it attacked Russia. People in Belgrade had said “No” to Hitler. “The Serbs were our only allies then”.
Mr Bob Wareing, who first visited Yugoslavia in 1964 and made some 40 visits since then, spoke of “how very close to his heart” the country had been to him and his wife. In 1991 he visited Yugoslavia as part of a Labour Party parliamentary delegation when he met presidents Milosevic and Tudjman at separate meetings. “Mr Milosevic listened to us, but I found Mr Tudjman forbidding - he wouldn’t listen.”
In 1993 he was together with MP John Reid at Bosanski Brod in Bosnia where they spoke to Bosnian Serb deputies about the proposed Vance-Owen peace plan. He had dreadful memories of that visit. Radovan Karadzic asked him whether he had seen a mass grave with murdered Serbs. He and John Reid then went and saw the mass grave with some 36 bodies killed by Croat forces. The stench of death was everywhere. The memory haunts him. To this day he still sees in his mind the woman in a blue and white spotted skirt whose head fell off as she was pulled from the grave
John Reid tried subsequently to get out the news about the killed Serbs in Bosnia and contacted several newspapers in Scotland. The editors’ position was that such a story would only "confuse people"! The story would not fit the ongoing anti-Serb propaganda and hysteria. Serbs were cast as “baddies” and could not be presented as victims.
Speaking about Kosovo, Mr Wareing reminded the meeting that Kosovo was 15% of the landmass of Serbia. The UN had not carried out the terms of UN Resolution 1244. There have been no returns by Serbian refugees, but some 250,000 Albanians had come over from Albania to Kosovo, often to settle in refugee homes.
“Serbs are outlawed in their own country”. One hundred and fifty Orthodox churches have been demolished and 253 mosques built with money from Saudi Arabia. NATO forces have done very little to protect the Serbian population in Kosovo.”
Mr Aahtisari had reached an impasse over the future of Kosovo; he said “We have to be resolute in defending Serbia’s right as the sovereign power over Kosovo. The UK shouldn’t be in the business of encouraging the division of countries.
“I object to a British Prime Minister playing a Mussolini to Bush as Hitler in the plan for global domination. We should be opposing George Bush's policies. There should be proper negotiations between Serbia and the UN,” he stated.
It was pointed out that on the day of the anniversary meeting (27th March) precisely 66 years ago a popular putsch in Belgrade had unseated a regime that had signed a Pact with Hitler's Germany. In the very same building in which the anniversary meeting was now taking place Prime Minister Winston Churchill had said that “Yugoslavia had found its soul”
Mark Littman, QC, who had produced a report eight years ago deeming the NATO attack to be illegal, said at the meeting that the events of 1999 were both calamitous for the people of Yugoslavia and momentous for the people of the world. It was not a war of self-defence, nor was there a resolution of the Security Council to support it. The whole purpose of the UN Charter was to ensure perpetual peace.
“The failure to honour the Charter has been fatal to that second attempt after World War II to secure peace in the world, and for myself I see nothing ahead except disaster,” he said.
Alice Mahon, the first woman from a Western European parliament to visit Yugoslavia during the bombing, told the meeting that war crimes were committed when NATO bombed a sovereign country that had committed no aggression. The KLA insurgency was a deliberate provocation.
She said 80% of the NATO targets were civilian.
“I stood on the last bridge in Novi Sad before it was destroyed. That was a civilian target. I saw from the hotel window the bombing of the oil refinery at Pancevo and the resulting contamination. That was a civilian target. There was no concern from the propagandists about the air that people there were breathing.”
She spoke of the destruction of the car factory in Kragujevac by 21 cruise missiles in spite of the fact that the workers and trade unionists had sent the coordinates to the White House begging them to spare the factory – another civilian target.
“I think people should still be accountable for these crimes,” she said.
She spoke of ethnic cleansing by Albanians of Serbs and the attempt to wipe out their culture. “It will go down in history as deeply shameful”.
Mrs Mahon was the last witness at the trial of President Milosevic on 1st March 2006. She had two meetings with him. “He conducted himself with great dignity. They had no evidence to substantiate charges against him and as head of state he was entitled to put down an uprising in his country”. "What if there were armed gangs roaming in Yorkshire? I am sure Tony Blair would send in the Army and Police to sort them out”
Mr Milosevic told her that he was a ‘political prisoner’ and that he didn’t think he would get out The Hague alive. “How prophetic”, she said, “a week after I gave evidence, he was dead.” “It was a victors’ court and an absolute disgrace.”
“I am not sure the fight is over. If you give away a bit of a sovereign country who is going to be next? We have to try and counter the propaganda; we must not give up hope and we must carry on fighting.”
Neil Clark said that what happened on 24 March 1999 cannot be underestimated in the history of the twentieth century. It was a crossing of the Rubicon. It was an aggressive war in which NATO violated its own Charter.
“The attack on Yugoslavia did not take place in a vacuum. It had been going on for some time as part of the plan for global domination. Two years later came the attack on Afghanistan, then Iraq. It is all part of a continuum. We have to understand why Yugoslavia was attacked. The idea was to demonstrate that there is no place in the world for a state that resists a market economy. It is a case of divide and conquer – a classical strategy since Roman times. It is a long term project and the Americans lit the fuse in Bosnia.”
“Milosevic was demonised so much precisely because he wanted to keep Federal Yugoslavia together and to keep some sort of social ownership. The New World order won’t allow that. We are being forced to give in to pressures to open our countries to market forces.”
Has Kosovo been a success? The Americans now have their Camp Bondsteel military base and most of the province's assets have been privatised. But for ordinary people in the region it has been a disaster. How can this be called a success?
He said that the propaganda war directed against the Serbs in the media had been ongoing for over 10 years. “A large section of the West's public were brainwashed into believing the case for a humanitarian crusade. It was very clever how the New World Order has got the people on the Left to accept or support the war”.
“Even Hitler didn’t bomb the BBC. We must try to link up the war against Yugoslavia with the Afghan and Iraq wars to see the global strategy. Who is going to be next? We have to say NO to try to stop this juggernaut."
“Yugoslavia refused to pay Danegeld to the Empire and they were bombed. We should want to live in a world that respects international law and where sovereign countries are free to conduct their own affairs.”
Misha Gavrilovic,spoke of the continuing need to decipher the language of 'Natospeak' linked to war propaganda. He referenced an interview given during the bombing by Mr Milosevic to a US station. There were two ongoing wars he had then stated. The physical one carried out with Nato bombs and the media war of lies and disinformation that had started years earlier in order to justify the aggression.
According to Mr Gavrilovic there is little that can be done by most ordinary citizens against Nato bombs - on the other hand everyone should learn to defend against 'Natospeak'. A good example of this begins with the deliberate naming of NATO first war as the "Kosovo War". Thereby an "intercontinental war of aggression led by a non-European power” is being presented as a local and regional conflict between Serbs and Albanians with the purpose of camouflaging the role of international aggressors.
He also referred to the judgement made recently at the International Court of Justice in The Hague where Serbia was cleared of the genocide charge. "It is not pleasant to be associated for over 12 years with a country that has thus been libelled and internationally demonised - especially so in NATO countries." Now that the judgement has been made Serbia should refuse to even discuss any further charges before Western governments and their corporate media mouthpieces make a public apology. “The Government of Serbia should have charged the NATO countries with a blood libel case”.
Concerning the much-advertised "independence" for Kosovo he pointed out that the region, now almost 8 years under Nato occupation, has certainly been independent of Belgrade. The real issue is who is going to control the resources and property in the Serbian province. Belgrade has no control but it holds the property deeds. Does anyone really believe that if these are transferred to Pristina that the interventionists will not take their cut in the process? The valuable Trepca mine is presently being exploited by and for the benefit of Western corporations without either Belgrade or Pristina having been consulted or asked for permission to do so.
The meeting ended with several contributions from the floor.
=== 2 ===
8e anniversaire des bombardements de l'OTAN : Serbes et Kosovars albanais célèbrent à leur manière
Associated Press (AP)
24/03/2007 15h48
Dans l'attente d'une décision du Conseil de sécurité des Nations unies sur l'avenir du Kosovo, Serbes et Kosovars albanophones ont marqué samedi d'une manière fort différente le huitième anniversaire des premiers bombardements de l'OTAN sur la province aujourd'hui sous administration de l'ONU.
À Belgrade, le Premier ministre Vojislav Kostunica et d'autres hauts responsables serbes ont assisté à un office religieux en l'église Saint-Marc à la mémoire des centaines de Serbes morts au cours des frappes aériennes de l'Alliance atlantique.
Au même moment, le président indépendantiste du Kosovo, Fatmir Sejdiu, estimait à Pristina que l'intervention de l'OTAN avait «annoncé l'aube de la liberté pour le peuple du Kosovo qui traversait l'une de ses pires tragédies».
«La plus grande alliance militaire au monde était confrontée au Mal de (Slobodan) Milosevic et de ses nombreux partisans en Serbie», a rappelé M. Sejdiu dans son allocution d'anniversaire, ajoutant qu'«après presque huit années de liberté, le Kosovo est près d'exaucer son voeu d'indépendance et de souveraineté.»
En Serbie, le Parti radical serbe, formation ultranationaliste qui gouvernait avec Milosevic dans les années 90, a pour sa part observé dans un communiqué que l'OTAN et ses pays membres «poursuivent leur agression en tentant de retirer» le Kosovo à la Serbie. En hommage aux «milliers de victimes innocentes, la Serbie ne devra jamais oublier» «l'agression» du 24 mars 1999, a-t-il ajouté.
Ce jour-là, l'Alliance atlantique avait entamé une campagne de frappes aériennes sur des objectifs serbes pour faire cesser la répression militaire exercée par le régime de Belgrade contre les séparatistes albanophones du Kosovo. Après 78 jours de bombardements, Milosevic avait retiré ses troupes de la province et autorisé l'OTAN et une mission des Nations unies à en prendre le contrôle.
Au terme d'une médiation d'une année entre les deux communautés du Kosovo, l'émissaire spécial de l'ONU Martti Ahtisaari a récemment recommandé une indépendance sous supervision internationale pour la province à majorité albanophone.
Reste que les autorités serbes, appuyées par leur allié russe, s'opposent à ce plan onusien et préconisent une large autonomie pour la province, ce qui pourrait donner lieu à un bras de fer avec les autres membres permanents du Conseil de sécurité de l'ONU lorsque le rapport Ahtisaari y sera débattu.
=== 3 ===
EDITORIAL
From Yugoslavia to Iraq to Sudan
Published Mar 29, 2007 8:15 PM
Eight years ago on March 24, 1999, the U.S. began bombing the city of Pristina in Kosovo, the opening of the 79-day war on Yugoslavia.
The brutality of the U.S. bombers is intentionally forgotten by the big U.S. media. U.S. bombs and rockets targeted civilians, hitting passenger trains, destroying the chemical industry, and poisoning the Danube River. Schools were bombed as were hospitals as well as television broadcast centers during live newscasts. As has been documented since that time, U.S. generals told the Yugoslav leaders that unless they surrendered, the capital city of Belgrade would be carpet-bombed so heavily that nothing would be left standing.
Now, eight years later, this war is not being described as the crime it was.
Like the U.S. war on Iraq, the war on Yugoslavia was based on lies. The lies were told by President Bill Clinton, his cabinet members and his generals.
The big lie was that the war was necessary to “stop genocide,” even though there was no genocide to stop.
Genocide has a legal definition under international law, and the U.S. imperialists claimed that gave them legal justification for their war on Yugoslavia. Genocide in that case means the massive, systematic killing of an “ethnic, racial or religious group” by a state power.
The U.S. sanctions on Iraq before the war that killed more than a million Iraqis probably qualifies under this definition as genocide. The U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq has involved the massive killing of Iraqis.
But in a ruling that also comes eight years after the war, the International Court of Justice—though packed with U.S.-friendly judges—could find no basis for charging the Yugoslav government or the Serbian government with genocide. The headlines, put into the back pages of the newspapers and mostly ignored on the TV news, said: “Serbia not guilty of genocide.”
The ruling did not say there were no deaths, that there was no brutality. It says that there was no genocide being carried out by the Yugoslav government, which was the basis that Clinton and the Pentagon launched the 1999 war.
The significance of this should not be lost. Just as there were no “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq, there was no genocide in Yugoslavia. But the Clinton administration was threatening war unless Yugoslavia surrendered to a U.S. takeover. The reports of genocide were intentionally whipped up in order to create a justification for the war. This is the same formula the Bush administration used for its war on Iraq.
Similar formulas have been used to justify other imperialist wars. And will be used again in the future unless the imperialists are stopped.
Already claims of “genocide” in Darfur are being used to whip up calls for imperialist military intervention in Sudan. The well-financed “Save Darfur Coalit
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