19 Years since the Start of the NATO Military Aggression on Serbia (FRY)
Once again this March, the Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals, the Club of Generals and Admirals of Serbia and other independent non-party associations in Serbia pay tribute to the victims of NATO’s 1999 aggression on Serbia (FRY) [...]
Adolf Heusinger was far from being the only Nazi war criminal who would later serve at a top position in NATO
Once again this March, the Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals, the Club of Generals and Admirals of Serbia and other independent non-party associations in Serbia pay tribute to the victims of NATO’s 1999 aggression on Serbia (FRY).
This aggression took lives of more than thousand defenders, military and the police and their officers, and also of thousands of civilians, including 87 children.
Regrettably, the final list of the civilian casualties has not been determined as yet, although the number is estimated to stand at over 3,000. About 10.000 people were wounded. However, the number of those who lost their lives after the end of the aggression due to sustained heavy injuries, or from unexploded cluster bombs, chemical poisoning that resulted from the destruction of refineries, transformer stations, chemical factories and, in particular, due to the delayed effects of the use of missiles with depleted uranium, most likely, will never be precisely determined. There is a certainty, though, of a large scale of victims of the cancerous diseases never heard of before the aggression, with no end of the suffering of the people at sight. The direct damage from the devastation of the industry, infrastructure, residential buildings and facilities of public importance, was estimated to exceed $ 100 billion.
This year, March 21st the Central Military Club of Serbia in Belgrade served as the venue for the Conference titled “NATO Aggression 19 Years On – Aggression Continues”. Among the guests were General Aleksandar Živković, State Secretary in the Ministry of Defense, Colonel Iriškić, of the General Staff of the Serbian Army, Ambassadors of Belarus Valery Brilov and of Palestine Muhammad Nabhan, representative of the Embassy of the Russian Federation Colonel Koronyenko, as well as representatives of other embassies of friendly countries, and colleagues from Montenegro, the Republic of Srpska, Germany, Macedonia, and others.
The Conference speakers included Prof. Dr. Momir Bulatović, former President of the Federal Government of the FR of Yugoslavia, Mr. Nikola Šainović, former President of the Government of Serbia and Deputy-President of the Federal Government of the FRY, General Milomir Miladinović, retired, President of the Club of Generals and Admirals of Serbia, Živadin Jovanović, President of the Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals, General Slobodan Petković, retired, Prof. Dr. Milovan Milutinović, President of the Organization of Senior Officers of the Army of Republic of Srpska, Simo Spasić, President of the Association of Families of the Abducted, Missing and Killed Persons in Kosovo and Metohija, and others.
Conference speakers: Nikola Sainovic, Momir Bulatovic, Zivadin Jovanovic, Milomir Miladinovic
The Conference was also attended by about 150 members and friends of the Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals and of the Club of Generals and Admirals of Serbia, including three former Chiefs of Staff of the Army General Branko Krga, General Dragoljub Ojdanić and General Miloje Miletić.
Tribute to the victims – stop military exercises with NATO in 2019
The participants of the Conference unanimously endorsed two appeals. The first addressed to the state authorities to declare moratorium on all military exercises of Serbia and NATO in 2019, as the year marks the 20th anniversary of the aggression, and thus pay tribute to the fallen defenders of the motherland and the civilian victims of this NATO aggression. The second is to invite all peace-dedicated organizations, movements and individuals to engage with a view to halting further rise of tensions and the deepening of mistrust in global relations, to stop the arms race and expansion of foreign military bases, to promote dialogue, partnership and equality as the only basis of normal relations between the countries, stability and development in the world, so to eliminate causes of the growing danger of a global conflict.
“Political processes preceding the 1999 NATO aggression has not been finished as yet” – said the first speaker Momir Bulatovic, the war Prime minister. He said:
“In order to justify criminal act of aggression and preserve Alliance’s credibility they invented our apparent crimes. They created exodus of Albanians falsifying justification for the bombardment. For those who are open to see the truth this has been proved even in Hague tribunal”- said Bulatovic.
The professional presentation of General Slobodan Petković on the catastrophic consequences of the use of missiles filled with depleted uranium on human health and the environment has attracted great attention. He revealed that a massive use of the missiles with depleted uranium began in the final days of the aggression when it became clear that the agreement on termination of the aggression was impending. Hence, it may be inferred that the leading countries of NATO were in a hurry to get rid of such missiles containing nuclear waste, before the opportunity would disappear.
Blow to the European security system
President of the Belgrade Forum, Živadin Jovanović, said that to talk about NATO aggression today means to talk about gross violation of the international laws, the UN Charter, the Final Act from Helsinki, and the Paris Charter. By circumventing the UN Security Council, NATO has created a precedent using it later on for a chain of other aggressions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Mali and other countries. Such a practice has led to the globalization of interventionism and destabilization of the entire planet. This was not the most severe blow to the European and the global security system, from which neither Europe nor the world managed to recover to this day.
Speaking about this aggression inevitably reminds us on the alliance between NATO and the terrorist KLA which led to the ethnic cleansing of over 250.000 Serbs from the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija who still are waiting to return freely and safely to their homes and fields. Over 150 Serbian churches and medieval monasteries a number of which belong to the world heritage under UNESCO custody had been destroyed during and in the aftermath of the aggression. The Aggression continues in so far occupied and stolen Kosovo and Metohija has proclaimed unilateral secessions in 2008 in spite of being under UN mandate, solely by support and recognition of that illegal act by the governments of the most of NATO and EU member countries. This is also precedent which has been invoked in a number of other cases and will be invoked even more frequently in the future.
At the April 1999 Washington Summit marking 50th anniversary of its foundation NATO leaders abandoned the defensive and adopted offensive strategy of expansion to the East, in fact, to the Russian western borders. To date, NATO pursues the same strategy even if in a quite different global distribution of might. Presently, the root causes of the danger for peace are to be found in the denial of a new balance of power that is indicative of multi-polarity, and in the delusions that the privileges of the leading NATO members acquired over the past decades may be defended by military force, that is, by nuclear weapons – contends Jovanović. He went on to say the West is having great difficulties in adapting to the new realities of a multi-polar world. The only way to bring the world back to stability, peace and development is to abide with the principles of equality, partnership and mutual respect.
Kosovo – Sudetenland
He added that, 19 years since the aggression, the leading members of NATO seek to vindicate this crime against the peace and humanity. To that end, they are attempting to coerce Serbia to participate in drawing of the new international borders in the part of Europe, in creation of another puppet criminalized state stealing the part of the Serbia’s state territory. The imposed timetable and solution fitting someone else’s geopolitical goals, in the opinion of Jovanović, cannot result in a peaceful and sustainable solution, but will rather lead to further build-up of conflict potential in the Balkans. The position taken by Europe, most notably by Germany and the United Kingdom, as well as the USA, on how to resolve the matter of status of the Serbia’s Province of Kosovo and Metohija, will reveal whether Europe is on the course of stabilization and development, or is hopelessly stuck on the path to further deepening of instability, weakening of identity and missing development opportunity. This is reminiscent of the situation in 1938, when some European leaders met in Munich naively believing that sacrificing the Czechoslovakian Sudetes would bring peace and stability. In fact, they become entangled in war – warned Jovanović. He emphasized that only a balanced compromise based on the UN SC Resolution 1244, coupled while observance of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Serbia, is capable of guaranteeing the sustainability of peace and the stability in the Balkans and in Europe.
Belgrade Forum and Generals Club Conference on CONTINUING AGGRESSION, March 21st, 2018
Jovanović pointed out that, in the meantime, the NATO aggression has evolved from its military format into other forms, all having the same goals: stealing Kosovo and Metohija from Serbia, drawing new international borders, creating a new Albanian state on a part of the state territory of Serbia, and dividing the Serbian people to those south of this presumed new border making them to be yet another national minority, and to those north of the border remaining in the central Serbia. Attempts are underway to coerce Serbia, with pressures and threats, into collaboration in this geopolitical project by having her refrain to oppose the admission of this illegal construct in the membership of the United Nations. The form is – signing a “comprehensive legally binding document” particularly advocated by Germany. The aggression continues also by telling Belgrade that “none has the right to veto the creation of the armed forces of Kosovo”, regardless of the territory of the Province of Kosovo and Metohija still being under the UN mandate. The two-year timeline for the ‘delivery’ recently set for Serbia by the EU European Commission, the USA has subsequently reduced to a year, thus demonstrating its dissatisfaction not only with the pace of ‘delivery’ but also with the inefficiency of the European Union.
Serbia has chosen – neutrality
The public position of senior NATO echelons is that none is forcing Serbia to accept membership, that Serbia alone is entitled to assess her priorities and interests, though NATO remains open. At lower levels and through the so-called non-governmental sector financed by the funds originating from the member states, however, the points made are that joining NATO is but a natural result of the Serbia’s European (EU) option, that Serbia is encircled by NATO members, that membership bestows huge advantages but does not imply participation in all NATO interventions since this is the matter of own discretion of each member, and so on. It is becoming ever more apparent that NATO is disturbed by anti-NATO public opinion in Serbia whose some 85% of the total population are against membership. This worrying reality prompts NATO to invest great efforts and huge financial resources into portraying NATO as promising, democratic, peace building alliance. Relying on the IPAP (Individual Partnership Action Plan), NATO expects that Serbian official and unofficial structures do contribute to a positive, friendly image of NATO in the public of Serbia.
Jovanović recalled that there are other neutral countries in Europe which are surrounded by NATO and yet do not feel threatened nor forced to consider formal accession to it. He cited examples of Austria, Switzerland, and Sweden. Where a country borders with several member states of NATO, this should not imply that, by virtue, NATO poses a threat to the same – said Jovanović. The countries which joined NATO in the period following 1999 aggression on Serbia (FRY) at a short notice, have different historic experiences, they were no strangers to affiliation in military treaties, have not been neutral or non-aligned and, none of them has genuinely experienced the true meaning of the offensive character and strategy of NATO endorsed at the 1999 Summit in Washington. After all, pointed Jovanović, each country is entitled to own free choice. Serbia’s choice is military neutrality and let it stay so.. She should nurture this neutrality, affirm and strengthen it, by acknowledging the past experiences, tested alliances, and friendships. Serbia is an open, peaceful country and does not fit in a military alliance of an offensive character – concluded Jovanović.
Originally published on 2018-03-22
About the author: Živadin Jovanović is the President of the Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals.
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.
Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!
Donate to Support Us
We would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics, and international relations.
Middle Eastern Studies are a multicomplex research discipline devoted to as better as knowledge and understanding of different cultures, nationalities, and complexities of the world’s region conventionally known as the Middle East but in its narrow meaning concerning space: from Egypt to Iran and from Syria to Yemen. In principle, the crucial mark of the region is the predominant Arab culture with some contrasts in the cultural habits between, for instance, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Besides, the cultural features of several other ethnic and confessional groups of the Middle East give a more comprehensive picture of the region’s peoples and ...
If you want to understand what the “special relationship” between Israel and the United States really means consider the fact that Israeli Army snipers shot dead seventeen unarmed and largely peaceful Gazan demonstrators on Good Friday without a squeak coming out of the White House or State Department. Some of the protesters were shot in the back while running away, while another 1,000 Palestinians were wounded, an estimated 750 by gunfire, the remainder injured by rubber bullets and tear gas.The offense committed by the Gazan protesters that has earned them a death sentence was coming too close to the Israeli containment fence ...
Ukraine is a virtual US colony – the way it’s been since the Obama regime’s February 2014 coup, replacing democratic governance with fascist tyranny in Europe’s heartland.Ukraine shares a near-1,500 mile land and sea border with the Russian Federation, the longest Western frontier with the country.The regime running things is a hotbed of militarized extremism, waging war on its own people, committing appalling human rights abuses – with full support and encouragement from Washington and key NATO countries.Stop NATO’s Rick Rozoff earlier explained that Ukraine is “the decisive linchpin in plans by the US and its NATO allies to effect ...
Destroyed Serbian Orthodox church in Kosovo by local Muslim Albanians after 1999In 2000, when George W. Bush was elected president in a controversial and hotly disputed election, all the experts and pundits predicted that there would be a philosophical sea change in US foreign policy in the Balkans, and in Kosovo in particular. In my 2000 analysis of the election of Bush and US foreign policy in Kosovo, however, I concluded that the George W. Bush Administration represented the same old same old and business as usual. In my viewpoint, absolutely nothing would change in the US foreign policy stance ...
From a geopolitical perspective, the war on Yugoslavia in the 1990s was about restructuring Southeast Europe after the end of the Cold War. To this end, the US even deployed the combatants with which it had previously fought the USSR in Afghanistan and which it would later call „Al Qaeda“.The political and media propaganda regarding the war on Yugoslavia has been well researched by now. Interestingly, however, many media outlets and commentators are still trying to uphold the official narrative of the time, in contrast to the later war in Iraq, for example.There may be various reasons for this. On ...
Make 4 July Independence from America Day (2014).Originally published in 2014Author: Dr. Gideon PolyaOrigins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics, and international relations.[wpedon id="4696" align="left"]
1. Kosovo is not ancient Albanian landIts very name comes from the Serbian word “kos,” meaning blackbird. Its Albanian name, “Kosova,” means nothing whatsoever.Kosovo was the heartland of medieval Serbian state and the site of the 1389 battle in which both the Serbian prince and the Ottoman sultan died, checking the Turkish expansion into the Balkans for almost 70 years. Ethnic Albanians were settled there by the Ottomans over the intervening centuries, and became a majority due to pogroms and persecution of Serbs – which began under Ottoman rule but continued under Austro-Hungarian occupation in WWI and German/Italian occupation in ...
In the early morning hours of April 1-2 Azerbaijan launched a major military offensive into the disputed region Nagorno-Karabakh (NK) that’s been controlled and defended by NK Armenian forces since the Russian brokered truce ended a bloody three year war in 1994. While Azeri President Ilham Aliyev was flying back to Baku after meeting 24 hours earlier with John Kerry in Washington who claimed “an ultimate resolution” had been reached, Azerbaijan was already once again at war with the NK Armenians.The surprise element combined with the full scale major military operation spearheading a three pronged attack on Nagorno-Karabakh contact line from the southern, ...
October 20th, 2017, marks the sixth anniversary of the martyrdom of Muammar Qaddafi, revolutionary Pan-Africanist and champion of the Global South. This day also marks the sixth anniversary of the historic battle of Sirte, where Qaddafi, along with an heroic army, including his son Mutassim Billal Qaddafi, and veteran freedom fighter, Abu-Bakr Yunis Jabr, fought until their convoy was bombed by French fighter planes. Wounded and demobilized, they were captured by Qatari scavengers and executed by Al-Qaeda operativesThecourageous men of the original Free Officers’ Union, who were guides and leaders of the then 42 year-old Al-Fatah Revolution, demonstrated extraordinary revolutionary ...
On the 70th anniversary of Tokyo’s fire bombing, relatives are asking for a real tribute to its victims.It was just after midnight when the rumble of B-29 bombers was heard, jolting Tokyo awake. The incendiaries that fell from their bellies, full of jelly petroleum, were like nothing anyone had ever seen.They turned canals and rivers into flame and if the jelly stuck to you, it kept burning till flesh turned to bone. “The planes filled the sky like dragonflies,” recalls Michiko Kiyoka. “Everywhere you looked there were charred bodies.”Today, Ms Kiyoka, now 91, will join a small group of elderly ...
The NATO military alliance is a world encompassing threat. It is now conducting various forms of hybrid warfare against Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and most of Africa. They have destroyed directly or are largely responsible for the destruction of the socialist nations of the USSR, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and too many to name in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Destruction is the fate that each nation on earth can expect unless it pays homage and obeisance to these neo-feudal overlords who promise protection in return for national servitude, in return for the complete ...
The topic to be addressed in this text is the basic misconception on the question of the Balkan Albanian ethnogenesis and national identity that was framed by extremely geo-politically coloured the German-based “Illyrian” theory of the Albanian ethnic and cultural origin. This (quasi)theory, unfortunately, has very deep and negative regional political-security consequences during the last century.The implementation of the “Illyrian” (quasi)theory of the Albanian ethnogenesis was accepted firstly by the Rilindja, (the renaissance) – the Albanian nationalistic and chauvinistic political movement in 1878–1913 for the sake to create the ethnically pure Greater Albania as a national state of all Balkan ...
Did you know that Hamas, the Islamist terrorist organization whose militant wing has rained rockets on Israel, has the Jewish state of Israel to thank for its existence? Israel first encountered Islamists that would later form Hamas in Gaza in the 1970s. Back then they seemed focused on studying the Quran, not on confrontation with Israel. Israel realized that it could use the organisation to help splinter Palestinian society in the Gaza strip and hurt the Palestinian Liberation front which dominated Palestinian politics. So Israel helped and even gave funds to Hamas in the 1980s so it could establish itself ...
The US has always been a warfare state. However, the character of US imperialist warfare has changed dramatically. For over two centuries, the US regime’s purpose for war, whether on indigenous peoples, Black people, or nations all over the world, was to expand the productive forces of capitalist exploitation. War preceded the vast profits accumulated from chattel slavery, land grab, and resource extraction in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The foundation of white supremacy and capitalism allowed the US regime to consolidate its expansion despite episodes of periodic crisis. Recent events, alongside a steady fall in the rate of capitalist profit, indicate ...
Thursday marked the 150th anniversary of the founding of America’s deadliest terrorist organization: the Klu Klux Klan.Since September 11, extremists associated with various far-right wing ideologies, including the KKK and Jewish extremists, have killed far more people in the United States than extremists motivated by radical Islam.One centuries’ old example of US government double standards when it comes to terrorism, is the infamous Klu Klux Klan. The Klan has terrorized and killed far more Americans than Islamic terrorists ever have; and despite being America’s oldest terrorist organization, the US government does not officially consider the KKK a terrorist organization, classifying ...
Due to the international media’s continued claims about the «annexation of Crimea», it’s been difficult for the citizens of the US and Europe to make sense of the details of the peninsula’s recent history. Exactly three years ago, on March 16, 2014, the Crimeans were offered a choice: to rejoin Russia or to return to the constitution of 1992 that proclaimed Crimea a legal, democratic, secular state whose relationship with Ukraine was based on bilateral agreements. That constitution was unilaterally abolished by Kiev on March 17, 1995, and here’s what’s surprising: no one at that time in the West demanded that the Ukrainian ...
North from Nazareth’s city limits, a mile or so as the crow flies, is an agricultural community by the name of Tzipori – Hebrew for “bird.” It is a place I visit regularly, often alongside groups of activists wanting to learn more about the political situation of the Palestinian minority living in Israel.Tzipori helps to shed light on the core historic, legal and administrative principles underpinning a Jewish state, ones that reveal it to be firmly in a tradition of non-democratic political systems that can best be described as apartheid in nature.More than a decade ago, former U.S. president Jimmy ...
A Reuters news report under the names of presstitutes Robin Emmott and Sabine Siebold shows how devoid the West is of honest, intelligent and responsible journalists and government officials. http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-nato-summit-idUKKCN0ZN2NN First we will examine the dishonesty or incompetence of the reporters and then that of Western government officials.Emmott and Siebold describe NATO as a “Western defense alliance.” Since the Clinton regime NATO has been an alliance for waging offensive war, a war crime under the Nuremberg rules established by the United States. Under the NATO banner a number of countries have been bombed, invaded, and had their governments overthrown by ...
The Israeli historian Benny Morris has been very vocal of late in denying that Palestine was ethnically cleansed of Arabs in order for the “Jewish state” of Israel to be established. In a series of articles in the Israeli daily Haaretz, Morris has debated the question with several of his critics who contend that ethnic cleansing is precisely what occurred. Not so, argues Morris. So who’s right?It’s worth noting at the outset that, while such a debate exists in the Israeli media, the US media remains, as ever, absolutely silent on the matter. Americans who get their information about the ...
After the catastrophic attacks of September 11 2001 monumental sorrow and a feeling of desperate and understandable anger began to permeate the American psyche. A few people at that time attempted to promote a balanced perspective by pointing out that the United States had also been responsible for causing those same feelings in people in other nations, but they produced hardly a ripple. Although Americans understand in the abstract the wisdom of people around the world empathizing with the suffering of one another, such a reminder of wrongs committed by our nation got little hearing and was soon overshadowed by ...
This aggression took lives of more than thousand defenders, military and the police and their officers, and also of thousands of civilians, including 87 children.
Conference speakers: Nikola Sainovic, Momir Bulatovic, Zivadin Jovanovic, Milomir Miladinovic
Belgrade Forum and Generals Club Conference on CONTINUING AGGRESSION, March 21st, 2018
