BELGRADE FORUM FOR THE WORLD OF EQUALS
Belgrade, 25.03.2004.

Press Communique

The NATO aggression against Yugoslavia in 1999 has not resolved any problems, rather the opposite. There is undiminished terrorist and separatist activity, with the final aim in the minds of the perpetrators of creating a Greater Albania on the territory of Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Greece. The Balkan region continues to be unstable, with thousands of people very recently forced from their homes, joining hundreds of thousands of refugees from civil wars since 1991. The region remains undeveloped and social tensions are rising. The terrorism in Kosovo and Metohija is linked to wider international terrorist activity, organised crime and narco-trafficking.

Five years after the bombing of Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia has ceased to exist. Fittingly, the document abolishing the over seventy years old multi-ethnic state was signed by Javier Solana, the then Secretary General of NATO who had authorised the commencement 1999 of the 1999 bombing.

The current organised violent offensive against the remaining Serbian population in Kosovo and Metohija is only one of many consequences of the NATO aggression, hand in glove with the terrorist KLA which acted as NATO death squads.

These are some of assessments of the participants of the Round Table entitled 'NATO Aggression, Five Years After' held in Belgrade on 24th March 2004 under the auspices of the Belgrade Forum for the World of Equals.

The premises of the Ethnographic Museum could hardly accommodate all of the several hundred guests who came from all over Serbia and Montenegro, as well as from various European countries, to analyse causes and consequences of the aggression, to voice condemnation of NATO aggression as a crime against peace and humanity, to pay their respects to thousands of victims and express solidarity with Serbia and Montenegro.

The speakers included, among others, military analysts and retired generals Dr Radovan Radinovic, Bosko Todirovic, Dusan Vilic and Sreten Cupic, philosopher and academician Mihajlo Markovic, Bishop Irinej Bulovic of the Serbian Orthodox Church, writers ProfessorYelena Guskova from Russia, Noah Tucker from Great Britain, Yves Bataille, Emile Vlajki and Milla Aleckovic from France, Dr Miloje Milicevic from Germany, Professor Veselin Djuretic, Prof Ivon Cukolovic, Prof Pavel Bubanja, Dr Stanislav Stojanovic, Dr Miodrag Mitic, Yugoslav former foriegn minister Zivadin Jovovic and others.

An appeal has been addressed to politicians, friends of Serbia and Montenegro in Europe and in the World, to intellectuals, the media, and to all well-wishers, to strongly condemn terrorism in Kosovo and Metohia as strongly as when it occurs elsewhwere in the world, to condemn the ethnic cleansing of Serbs and other non-Albanians, the destruction of churches and other religious monuments, and all other crimes which have been committed, and which continue in the prescence of 20, 000 troops under the auspices of the United Nations. Between three and four thousand people have been cleansed and about thirty have been killed, hundreds of homes have been burned down and thirty monasteries and churches destroyed.

All participants demanded that the personal responsibilty be taken by Mr Hari Holkeri, Special Representave of the UN Secretary General, for failing to undertake effective measures to prevent the latest appalling crimes against ethnic Serbian people in Kosovo and Metohija, and deliberately trivialising their consequences.

The authorities in Serbia and Montenegro should be making continuous diplomatic efforts to protecting Kosovo and Metohia as an unalienable part of Serbia, and supporting it by the provisions of the OECD Helsinki Final Document, UN Charter, the peace accords after the First and Second World Wars, and insisting on exact and full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1244 of 1999.

UNSC Resolution 1244 and the 1999 Agreement of Kumanovo provide for immediate deployment of certain Serbian military and police forces in Kosovo and Metohia. Five years have elapsed and this has not been implemented. Serbian Government is must undertake a diplomatic offensive to have this obligation by the so-called international community put into effect. But instead of insisting on this, Serbia's current 'democratic' prime minister has offered, as an absurd substitute, the deployment of Serbian troops in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.

The final document of the Round Table calls also for bringing to justice all those responsible for the more than 4,000 terrorist attacks against Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija which have taken place since the so-called international community took responsibility for peace, order and respect for basic human rights in Kosovo and Metohija.

Participants in this important international conference declared that they commemmorate the victims of NATO aggression against Yugoslavia in the spirit that such a crime aginst the basic principles of international order, peace and humanity should never be repeated anywhere in the world.

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