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PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC - RECONSTRUCTION PROCEEDS ACCORDING TO PLAN
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic met Tuesday in Pancevo, after reopening the reconstructed refinery, the executives of the Serbian oil industry NIS and of the refinery and local businessmen.
"It is obvious, as concerns Vojvodina, that our entire reconstruction program is being realised very efficiently and on time", Milosevic said during the meeting.
The recovery of vital economic sectors which were given priority, the energy and traffic infrastructure, is laying the conditions for accelerating economic growth, which would have no real foundations without that infrastructure, Milosevic said.
"I would like to add that special attention should be given to improving the position of agriculture. The government has been working on this very persistently. I think that agriculture should be given equal standing with other economic activities, not only because the entire country owes to agriculture the stability which it has maintained throughout the 7 years of pressures and sanctions, but also for purely economic reasons and thanks to potentials that agriculture offers as one of the great resources this country has", Milosevic said.
"In all these 7 years of sanctions and even during the brutal bombardment, we have maintained a constant progress and it is essential for us to use development based on self-reliance increasingly wisely and better", Milosevic said.
Referring to the statement made by the Pancevo refinery manager who said that homogenisation of the society was preserved, Milosevic said "This is an achievement, the consolidation of unity and the understanding of the need for stronger ties, which should be maintained throughout the reconstruction period and the period of implementing the reforms that the government has planned".
"I believe this will be so. And I believe that we shall be able to talk in much better circumstances, above all as regards the widening of our ties and our activities in relation to the outside world", Milosevic said.
"In this regard, I wish to be precise - several countries that bombed us have taken for themselves the right to be called the international community. They are not the international community. We, too, are the international community and the numerous countries that support us are also the international community", Milosevic said.
"Today we can establish, and we have had many offers to that effect and many visitors, countless ties with many free countries that wish cooperation on the basis of equality. Cooperation is only possible on that basis", Milosevic said.
"We are also committed to market economy", Milosevic said.
President Milosevic advocated an intensification of integration processes in the oil sector, adding that Yugoslavia's economy "can become a more stable and better partner for many countries that wish to cooperate with us on the basis of equality and in the interest of development of our and their economies".
"I am saying this with a view to a good choice of a strategic partner.... This geographic position, this oil refining capacity and especially the professional know-how which is a great wealth and a great resource for such a large system as the Serbian oil industry NIS, is a powerful basis for selecting and creating new and strong ties with a future strategic partner", Milosevic said.
"In that regard, I am sure that NIS can play an extremely important role for the entire economy of our country", Milosevic said.
"In that sense, I suggest that you accelerate the endeavours for reorganising NIS... I am sure that this would produce great results, help NIS accelerate its own development, which would in turn help accelerate the development of the entire country", Milosevic said.
PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC MEETS OFFICIALS, OIL INDUSTRY REPRESENTATIVES
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and state officials met Tuesday in Pancevo representatives of the National Recovery Directorate and businessmen, after the ceremony of reopening the reconstructed Pancevo oil refinery.
Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Marjanovic said during the meeting that funds had been provided for completing the reconstruction of civilian infrastructure and housing according to set deadlines.
Underlining that results of reconstruction endeavours so far were satisfactory, Marjanovic said such endeavours should be intensified.
National Recovery Directorate head Milutin Mrkonjic said that reconstruction works were underway at 102 sites, of which 80 were facilities such as heating and power plants, and 22 bridges.
Mrkonjic noted that reconstruction of 18 road and 4 railway bridges was underway and that the Belgrade - Leskovac highway should be opened for traffic on October 11.
To that end, reconstruction of five bridges on the Belgrade - Nis highway should be completed first, and the railway bridge across the Lim river at Donja Bistrica should be opened for traffic on October 15, reopening the route towards Montenegro, Mrkonjic said.
Serbian parliament Speaker and General Director of the Serbian oil industry NIS-Jugopetrol Dragan Tomic said that reorganising of public companies, including the oil sector, was being realised even under sanctions imposed by a part of the international community and during last spring's NATO aggression on Yugoslavia.
Yugoslav Minister of Agriculture Nedeljko Sipovac said that according to preliminary estimates, food security would be ensured, the market would be well supplied with sugar and cooking oil and the corn harvest would exceed domestic needs by nearly one million tons.
President Milosevic pointed to the need for consolidating the balance of payments as regards employment, profits and in-depth quality monitoring of the entire economy.
Milosevic advocated the resumption of production at the Azotara fertiliser plant in Pancevo as soon as possible in order to reduce dependence on imported fertilisers.
MILOSEVIC - HEROIC, VICTORIOUS RECONSTRUCTION
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic put into operation the Pancevo refinery Tuesday whose production was interrupted by NATO's bombing.
President Milosevic said to several hundred workers:
"Refinery workers, workers of the Serbian Oil Industry, participants and construction workers in the rebuilding of the country, allow me to first of all to greet you cordially. Today is a big day not only for the refinery, but also for the entire country.
This refinery was bombed seven times. Those who bombed it seven times will hardly believe that it is working and that today will start the production of the first hundreds and thousands of tons of oil for harvesting fields of sunflower and sugar beet, for cars, for the industry and that this refinery will continue production in the same way as in any other modern country and in any modern enterprise of that kind.
For that I wish to congratulate first of all the construction workers, the enterprises that took part in it and at the same time to emphasise that our reconstruction is characterised by very short and difficult deadlines, but that almost each one is realised ahead of schedule. Some fewer and some more days, but mostly ahead of schedule.
That testifies not only to the great creative capabilities of our construction workers, but also to the great unity of our country and our people that is expressed in reconstruction as a way of defence of our country from continued the pressures to which it is exposed.
The reconstruction of our country is victorious, as victorious as is the heroic defence of our country.
With this pace of reconstruction, about which our public is informed every day by the media about every bridge that is built, about every completed building, about every project that is started, we will prove in what measure and how we can and how fast we can recover all the vital functions which they wanted to take away and make it impossible for us to continue our development and to live as a modern, contemporary society.
All those who took part in it deserve the highest credit and I congratulate them from my heart. I wish them new successes confident that our program of reconstruction will be completed successfully.
We are aware that there are many more difficulties, of the hardships of a large number of citizens. We have defined our priorities and we first have to resolve the issue of vital power, road and other infrastructure. We must have by winter conditions that are the same as in previous winters, despite the war, and also at the same time resolve problems of increasing industrial production which since May to this month has risen as much as 50 percent.
I am confident that on all those fronts on which battles are fought for the reconstruction of our country we will pass the test successfully in the interest of our people, in the interest of all the citizens living in our country.
In that name I salute you all and wish you much success in your work," President Milosevic said.
President Milosevic then, by turning on compressors, put into operation the refinery, following the completion of the first phase of its reconstruction and building.
Present at the ceremony in the Pancevo Refinery were Serbian President Milan Milutinovic, Yugoslav parliament lower house president Milomir Minic, Serbian parliament president Dragan Tomic, Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Marjanovic, Socialist Party of Serbia secretary general Gorica Gajevic, Yugoslav National Bank governor Dusan Vlatkovic, Serbian and Yugoslav officials and representatives of the Interior Ministry and Yugoslav Army.
YUGOSLAV FOREIGN MINISTER HOLDS NEWS CONFERENCE AT UN HEADQUARTERS
Yugoslav Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic told a news conference at the UN headquarters in New York that this year's session of the UN General Assembly was being held in dramatic times that began on March 24 when NATO launched its brutal aggression on Yugoslavia.
Jovanovic said that the brutal use of force, practised by NATO, was a gross violation of the UN Charter and basic principles of international law that had set a dangerous precedent.
The move has not only harmed Yugoslavia, a sovereign member of the international community, but it has also dealt a severe blow to the UN position and international law, he said.
He said that his talks with numerous foreign and top UN officials at the UN headquarters had focused on bilateral relations, humanitarian assistance to Yugoslavia following NATO's aggression as well as the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1244.
He said that all officials he had met with had stressed the need for the full and consistent implementation of the Security Council document and their full support for Yugoslavia's sovereignty and territorial integrity as well as the importance of political dialogue in solving issues concerning Kosovo and Metohija and its autonomy within Yugoslavia.
Commenting on the implementation of the resolution to date, Jovanovic said that ethnic cleansing of Serbs and non-Albanians and terrorism in Kosovo and Metohija had gained in intensity since the deployment of the UN peacekeeping mission to the Yugoslav republic of Serbia's southern province three months ago.
He said that it was impermissible that international officials tolerate the behaviour of the ethnic Albanian terrorist organisation calling itself Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). He said that there was an impression that someone backed on behalf of the United Nations KLA that openly urged separatism, which he said was contrary to international principles on the respect of state borders.
Jovanovic criticised the activity by the UN civilian mission to Kosovo and Metohija (UNMIK) and in particular its chief Bernard Kouchner and his attempts to impose decisions that run counter to the Security Council resolution.
Referring to the issue of denying Yugoslav reporters U.S. visas because of which they were unable to report from the General Assembly session, Jovanovic said that the Yugoslav public had every right to be fully informed about the UN debate, specifically about all that concerning Kosovo and Metohija.
Stressing that the Security Council resolution and decisions are final and inalterable, Jovanovic said that Belgrade would never accept any violation of the resolution.
He said that, having failed to achieve its goal of occupying Yugoslavia, the NATO aggressors were continuing their aggression on the country through different means including economic blockade, media blockade and the financing of opposition parties.
He said that the NATO aggressors would never succeed in their efforts because the Yugoslav people backed peace, stability, cooperation and their country's reconstruction.
YUGOSLAV MINISTER: VIOLATION OF UN RESOLUTION IN TELECOMMUNICATIONS SPHERE
Federal Telecommunications Minister Ivan Markovic has demanded from the head of the UN Civilian Mission in Kosovo and Metohija (UNMIK) Bernard Kouchner and KFOR Commander General Michael Jackson the unconditional and immediate halting of all activities in Serbia's southern province in the sphere of telecommunications, which is contrary to UN Security Council Resolution 1244 and the top legal documents of the International Union for Telecommunications.
The Federal Telecommunications Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday that in view of the illegitimate actions of the UNMIK chief, the Yugoslav government would never accept these activities.
The corresponding Yugoslav organs refuse to allow changes in the ownership status of the telecommunication capacities of the united telecommunications system of Yugoslavia.
Since these telecommunication capacities are owned by the Telecom Serbia company, all attempts to threaten state and private property, and the property of the domestic and foreign shareholders of this company, represent a gross attack on the law and are an uncivilised act in international business cooperation.
ETHNIC ALBANIAN TERRORIST ATTACK KILLS TWO SERBS, WOUNDS 36
Ethnic Albanian terrorists carried out a bombing attack at 10 a.m. on the local market in Kosovo Polje killing two and wounding 36 Serbs.
Eleven persons were seriously wounded and are in critical condition.
The blast killed Zivojin Trajkovic and Zivorad Stepic, both from Kosovo Polje.
Eyewitnesses claim that the ethnic Albanian terrorists threw two powerful explosive devices at the crowded market of Kosovo Polje.
The Centre for Peace and Tolerance in Kosovo Polje had received an anonymous call that the ethnic Albanian terrorists would carry out a bombing attack on the market. Although KFOR and the UN police were informed, they failed to do anything to prevent the attack.
YUGOSLAV OFFICIAL PROTESTS TO KFOR, UNMIK AGAINST KOSOVO POLJE MASSACRE
President of the Yugoslav government committee for cooperation with the UN civilian mission in Kosovo-Metohija (UNMIK) Stanimir Vukicevic has addressed to UNMIK and international KFOR peacekeepers a strong protest over the bomb attack Tuesday at the market place in Kosovo Polje, in which two Serbs were killed and 36 were wounded, 11 of them seriously.
This senseless and extremely inhuman act is a consequence of KFOR's and UNMIK's tolerant and benevolent attitude towards the terrorist self-styled KLA, which, after changing its name and other cosmetic adjustments, continues spreading terror throughout Serbia's southern province, Vukicevic said.
It also constitutes a clear proof that the KLA has not been demilitarised and that the agreement that was signed is in fact a political document aimed at concealing the fact that KFOR and the police are incapable of completing the process of disarming ethnic Albanian terrorists, Vukicevic said.
The committee for cooperation with UNMIK demands that KFOR and UNMIK undertake radical and professional actions to prevent other acts of terrorism by the self-styled KLA and to protect innocent civilian population, Vukicevic said and added that the committee expects KFOR and UNMIK to make public the results of their investigation on the Kosovo Polje massacre.
The committee is aware that terrorists want to ethnically cleanse Kosovo-Metohija and shares the concerns of Serbs over terrorist acts. It also reminds KFOR and UNMIK that they have the duty in line with the Security Council Resolution 1244 to ensure full safety, peace and normal living conditions for all in the province, regardless of ethnicity, and demands that they fully honour their commitments, Vukicevic said in his letter.
Witnesses said that ethnic Albanian terrorists had thrown two powerful bombs at a crowd at the Kosovo Polje market place Tuesday about 10 a.m.
After the attack, Serbs gathered in protest in front of the town's medical center, but KFOR troops and UN police officers used force against them and injured five people.
ETHNIC ALBANIANS' DEMOCRATIC REFORMIST PARTY - KFOR MUST PROTECT ALL
The ethnic Albanians' Democratic Reformist Party said Tuesday after a massacre of Serbs in Kosovo Polje that had occurred earlier in the day that the crime had been committed before the very eyes of the UN peacekeeping force KFOR whose duty was to protect all living in Kosovo and Metohija.
A statement issued by the party said that, "That what we have for days been warning against has happened. Claims by all those familiar with the policy of the (ethnic Albanian) terrorist organisation KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) have proved to be true - that it has neither been disarmed nor demilitarised and that weapons used to kill all those who urge co-existence in Kosovo and Metohija and its multiethnic character has remained in the hands of (ethnic Albanian) extremists and separatists."
The party condemned in the strongest terms possible the crime against Serbs warning that all those who did not back KLA separatist and terrorist leaders would be next victims.
FRANCE CONDEMNS MASSACRE OF SERBS IN KOSOVO POLJE
France has condemned a terrorist bombing attack that occurred at a market in Kosovo Polje, Serbia's Kosovo and Metohija province, on Tuesday when two Serbs were killed and 36 seriously wounded, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
The UN peacekeeping force KFOR must more than ever give priority to ensuring peace and security to all ethic communities living in the province, said a statement issued by a French foreign ministry spokesman.
The statement said that KFOR must take all necessary steps to find perpetrators of the crime who must be brought to justice for what they had done.
THREE UNMIK WORKERS DISAPPEAR
Three employees of the UN Civilian Mission in Kosovo and Metohija (UNMIK) in Kosovska Mitrovica disappeared at 1. p.m. on Monday on the road near the ethnic Albanian village of Kosutovo and on the Kosovska Mitrovica - Zubin Potok road, UNMIK said on Tuesday in Kosovska Mitrovica.
UNMIK said that so far is only known that two of them are Gordon Cimilarich from Australia and Dejan Antic from Kosovska Mitrovica, while the third is from Portugal and his forename is Andrei.
UNMIK JUDICIARY BODIES IN KOSOVO-METOHIJA - A SHAM
The organisation of judiciary bodies in Kosovo and Metohija conducted by the UN mission for Kosovo and Metohija (UNMIK) is contrary to UN Resolution 1244 and the constitutions and laws of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Serbia, and the criminal proceedings against Serbs and Montenegrins have no legal basis, said Jovica Jovanovic, member of the provisional executive council for Kosovo and Metohija.
The number of judges and prosecutors who are Serbs and Montenegrins is negligible compared to the number of Albanians and does not reflect the real structure of the population in the province. The judicial bodies, with the blessing of UNMIK, started applying recently the penal code of Kosovo, which has been non-existent in the Yugoslav legislation for a long time.
RUSSIA, CHINA URGE CONSISTENT IMPLMENTATION OF KOSOVO AND METOHIJA RESOLUTION
Russia's and China's UN officials insisted in Security Council consultations on Secretary-General Kofi Annan's latest report on the UN mission to Kosovo and Metohija that Security Council Resolution 1244 be consistently implemented.
Ambassadors Sergei Lavrov and Shen Guafang pointed to deviations in the implementation to date of the document, stressing that a decision on the disbanding of the ethnic Albanian terrorist organisation calling itself Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) must be fully implemented.
Lavrov criticised the 'transformation' of KLA, which is the term used in referring to the forming of the so-called 'Kosovo protection corps,' saying that this was a big mistake because KLA must be disbanded and fully disarmed, as provided for by the resolution.
He blasted also other unacceptable moves by the UN civilian mission to the Yugoslav republic of Serbia's Kosovo and Metohija province (UNMIK), specifically putting a foreign currency into circulation, attempts to privatise Yugoslavia's state and public property and plans on issuing illegal identification papers.
He said that such moves were impermissible, underlining repeatedly that UNMIK can take no measures contrary to or violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Yugoslavia and that Kosovo and Metohija is an integral part of Yugoslavia.
Lavrov voiced concern about Yugoslavia's Kosovo and Metohija border being unprotected, saying that there were quite a number of indications that KLA had not been fully disarmed.
Shen, whose criticism was much in the same vein, reiterated that the principle of Yugoslavia's sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected.
Hedi Anabi, Annan's assistant, tried to respond to objections by Russia and China, both permanent Security Council members, as well as by a number of other Security Council members.
He tried to persuade them that the so-called 'Kosovo protection corps' was an exclusively civilian structure that constituted no basis for an army of ethnic Albanian extremists and separatists.
Backing Anabi's stand, the United States' UN ambassador Richard Holbrooke said that the 'corps' was the most acceptable way of including the ethnic Albanian extremists in Kosovo and Metohija's political life. He said that the United States did not want KLA to be transformed into an army.
RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY CONDEMNS THAQI STATEMENTS
The Russian foreign ministry on Tuesday strongly condemned the latest statements by KLA leader Hashim Thaqi saying that they would not contribute to the resolution of the problem of Kosovo and Metohija.
"Moscow continues to believe that it is necessary to fully implement UN Security Council Resolution 1244 which clearly calls for the complete disarming of the KLA," a senior ministry official told the RIA Novosti agency.
Recalling that Thaqi had told the Pristina Albanian-language paper Koha Ditore that the so-called Kosovo Protection Corps would "in the future become an army," the Russian diplomat said that "the process of disarming KLA should be gradual and final."
According to the Russian foreign ministry, it is necessary to take every step to include the former KLA into a peaceful life.
If this does not happen, "Russia, as an active participant of the process for the resolution of the situation in Kosovo and Metohija, would be unable to take responsibility for the possible negative effects of such developments."
PLANS FOR CLEARING DANUBE WATERWAY IN YUGOSLAVIA
The Danube Commission will do all it can for clearing the Danube for navigation as soon as possible, head of the Yugoslav delegation to a Commission meeting in Budapest Balsa Spadijer told Tanjug Tueasday.
The Yugoslav delegation reiterated that clearing the river of the ruins of bridges bombed by NATO last spring and construction of new bridges were inter-dependent, and the Commission accepted this view.
The Commission will set up a special working group to plan the works, which should start as soon as possible, since the bombed-out bridges in the river could block ice floes in the winter and cause heavy floods in Serbia's northern province of Vojvodina, the Slavonija and Baranja regions and in southern Hungary.
Funding of the project was also discussed, as the removal of ruined bridges alone would cost at least 15 million euros (15.75 million dollars).
As the Danube Commission does not have its own funds, it has written for aid to the European Union, the World Bank and other international institutions, Spadijer said.
FROM WEEK TO WEEK
Laugh, If You Can
Aleksandar Djaja
On one of the photographs that agencies published after the signing of the Agreement on the transformation of the so-called KLA into so-called Kosovo Protection Forces, there are smiling faces of the following (unfortunately not so-called) horror-characters of the Kosmet tragedy: Hashim Taqi (the face from a wanted poster!) , Bernard Kouchner (the person who acts presence of UN in Kosmet, Michael Jackson (commander of NATO under the pseudonym KFOR), Agim Qeku (commander of "?!") and Wesley Clarke (that in the next five hundred years need not be specially introduced to the Serbs!)
If we neglect some "peripheral objections" related to this "historic act" like: that there is a drastic violation of Security Council Resolution 1244 and sovereignty of FR Yugoslavia; that a terrorist organization, that was so far financed by the mafia funds is now placed in the UN budget; that this farce of signing (that even in Moscow came to a rather anemic reaction) will finally disqualify the credibility of the world diplomacy and become a cause of long instability in the Balkans, with a tendency of spreading to Russia, and finally that both Taqi and Qeku are only characters for one time usage - I cannot but ask the remaining of the "triumvirate" from the photograph: "What, on earth, are you laughing about?!…
Are you laughing to the devastated Serbia, torn down houses, factories, bridges, schools, hospitals… to the thousands of killed innocent people, whose only "guilt" was that they did not have so powerful technology to defend themselves from the Barbaric attack of your "sophisticated" killing systems? Just because you could buy the UN, the Security Council, the "important people on important posts"?
Maybe it funny for you (if it is, please say so, so we can laugh together) that you turned your beardless boys in the aircraft into killer pilots? Did you tell them during the aggression that those squares on the monitors of their war machines were, in fact, just ordinary houses in which sleeping were people, women, children - targets! That those were the bridges that cars, carts, bicycles, pupils, clerks and teenagers in love were crossing? Did they know that the factories they leveled to the ground were built for decades and fed hundreds of thousands of people?… Did anyone told your pilots that what they were doing in the sky over Serbia were no video games but brutal murders of civilians and destruction of economy of a pleasant and poor country?…
Is it funny you gentlemen Kouchner, Jackson and Clark that in this war for the first time one modern European country, founder of UN and winner over fascism, together with all its citizens became an enormous laboratory "in vivo" for testing of new weapons, all kinds of psychological terror, experimental proving ground for applying of the "Orwellian" future.
Or is it funny that for the first time in this century, population of a country was divided into legitimate military targets and "collateral damage"?
And that "damage" were: women, children, farmers in the fields, workers in the factories, journalists, passengers in trains and buses, refugees on tractors, diplomats in foreign embassies, people on the streets, on market places, asleep… "Collateral damage" became even a small child in Batajnica, killed on its chamber pot…!
Are you laughing to the bombs that for the first time in history of electronic media were thrown on a television - when the TV signal and the lives in 1 Aberdareva street went into fade out - at the same time?
And maybe it the funniest to you gentlemen from the "democratic" world that today, at the end of the second millenium of Christian civilization, half-wild terrorist from the ranks of your stepchildren, the so-called KLA, excuse me, the so-called Kosovo Protection Forces, take a six-months old baby from the hands of a mother, Serbian and Christian, in the presence of your soldiers that should protect them, and then - burn it alive!!!
If you are able, continue laughing…