 |  |  |
| Return to: Left History: a digital archive | Return to: Say no to imperialist wars! | Return to: NATO-Yugoslav War Internet Resources |
| | |
| Return to: Left History: a digital archive | Return to: Say no to imperialist wars! | Return to: NATO-Yugoslav War Internet Resources |
MARJANOVIC - SUCCESSFUL DEFENSE AND NATIONAL RENEWAL
Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Marjanovic said in Novi Pazar on Wednesday that Serbia this year won two battles - the country was defended and it is being successfully renewed.
The country was defended with heroic resistance, and it is now successfully renewing the traffic infrastructure and destroyed houses. Success came from unity, Marjanovic said in talks with businessmen in this south-western Serbian town. He underscored unity was necessary in order to maintain economic stability.
"We will also stabilize the rate of exchange of the dinar and prices," Marjanovic said and underscored that inflation would be prevented.
YUGOSLAVIA BEST CHOICE FOR SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO - SPS OFFICIAL
The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is in the interest of the Serb and Montenegrin people and all national communities and citizens living in it, the general secretary of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), Gorica Gajevic, said on Tuesday.
Gajevic set out that a joint state absolutely secures the equality of all and the equality of Serbia and Montenegro.
Speaking to the press following talks with a delegation of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) of Montenegro, Gajevic said that discussed were all major issues linked to the function of the FR of Yugoslavia and fundamental issues and differences.
The FR of Yugoslavia is the best formula for the realization of all interests of the Yugoslav people and this is why it was attacked by enemies who wanted to destroy and subjugate it, Gajevic stated. She said that Yugoslavia had resisted previous pressures, and would continue to do so.
During the talks we agreed that our joint goal is the promotion of a joint state - the FR of Yugoslavia, and that all changes should be carried out legally and through the institutions of the system, Gajevic set out adding that agreed was that the talks should be continued in the parliament.
YUGOSLAV LEFT SATISFIED WITH TALKS WITH MONTENEGRO'S DPS
The Yugoslav Left (JUL) is satisfied with the constructive and frank talks held Tuesday in Belgrade with representatives of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) of Montenegro, the JUL Directorate information committee secretary Ivan Markovic said.
Agreement was reached that both parties must act in the interest of the people of Yugoslavia and that all activities and changes must be carried out in line with the Constitution and the law, Markovic said.
Agreement was also reached on future inter-party cooperation, including follow-up talks, exchange of visits and participation in talks shows on Serbian and Montenegrin TVs, Markovic said.
JUL Directorate member Goran Matic said that agreement was also reached with DPS that talks on Yugoslavia's development and prosperity should be pursued not only by JUL and DPS, but also by all other parties playing a prominent role in national political life.
Views were exchanged on some past controversial political activities and on the means for overcoming the current political situation in the country, Matic said.
JUL has presented to DPS its ideas on moral and spiritual recovery of the Yugoslav society and on reforms, Matic said and added that Montenegrin representatives promised to examine some of the proposals.
The talks focused not only on the central theme of functioning of the Yugoslav federation, but also on the issues of equality, moral, spiritual and material recovery, reforms, social changes and redefining Yugoslavia's political and state structure, Matic said.
DPS and JUL concluded that priority must be given to the interests of Serbian and Montenegrin peoples and that Yugoslavia must have precedence over party interests.
OPEN AND USEFUL TALKS - MONTENEGRIN OFFICIAL
Montenegrin parliament Speaker Svetozar Marovic said on Tuesday, following talks with a delegation of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) in Belgrade, that the talks had been "open, useful and completely well-intentioned."
Marovic set out that the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) of Montenegro had come to the talks "bearing a proposal for a more open and more democratic union with better prospects, rather than a proposal for divisions."
Underscoring that the talks focused on the Montenegrin government's proposal on the functioning of the Yugoslav federation, Marovic said that "this document is not ideal and final" and that it would be discussed by the representatives of the two governments, party clubs, businessmen and public figures, rather than just by political parties.
Marovic said that a joint state of the two republics is "a rational interest" and "primarily a utilitarian reason for Montenegro." He added that Montenegro "believes that this country has a chance in the joint state of Serbia and Montenegro."
According to him, this is contained in the document which "is not a plan for breaking up the country," but a proposal stating "the reasons, principles and arguments for such a state."
"We want to really agree as brothers within this joint country, and not accuse each other," Marovic said announcing a continuation of the talks.
SERBIAN RADICALS, MONTENEGRIN SERB PARTY HOLD TALKS
The Serbian Radical Party (SRS) and Montenegro's Serb National Party (SNS) agreed on Tuesday that the preservation of the common Yugoslav state is in the best interests of the Serbs in Serbia and Montenegro (which together make up Yugoslavia) and of all people living in these lands.
"The SRS and the SNS (which is represented in the Yugoslav Parliament's Chamber of Citizens - lower house), differences in their programmes notwithstanding, share the position that everything can be discussed with everybody, except dissolution of the common state," said a statement released after the two parties' officials met in Montenegro's city of Podgorica.
The SRS delegation comprised Tomislav Nikolic, Dragan Todorovic and Dusko Sekulic, and the SNS, Ranko Kadic, Andrija Mandic and Novak Radulovic.
The SNS takes the view that the current crisis in relations inside the federation can be surmounted in democratic and fair elections at all levels.
"An illegitimate and anti-Constitutional secession of Montenegro (from Yugoslavia) will cause incalculable and tragic consequences for all people of Montenegro," the SNS said in its statement.
SERBIA DOES NOT NEED MENTORS
Serbian Minister for Human Rights and the Rights of National Minorities Ivan Sedlak, in a statement for Novi Sad daily Magyar Szo, said that in Serbia national equality has always been one of the foundation stones of the society, the provincial information secretariat said.
The constitutional system is designed in such a way that Serbia and Yugoslavia are the states of all citizens living in them, Sedlak said.
Pointing out that citizens are not differentiated according to ethnicity or confession, Sedlak assessed that in Vojvodina particularly were respected all the characteristics of Hungarians, Slovaks, Ruthanians, Romanians and members of other nations.
He said that "all aspirations to different autonomies can be very dangerous, because, sooner or later, that could upset life together."
"Autonomy means thinking within national frameworks and encloses us inside those frameworks, which, we believe, is detrimental for all and also gives rise to fear of our friends, neighbours, of those with whom we live together," Sedlak added.
He pointed out that "we (Serbia, Yugoslavia) do not need mentors, expert advisers to tell us how to live together."
Referring to the growing interest shown by Budapest for Hungarians in Vojvodina, the Serbian minister for human rights and the rights of national minorities assessed that their position in Vojvodina and Serbia was favourable.
"Moreover, their position cannot even compare with the position of Hungarians living in other states," Sedlak said, critically pointing out that the Hungarian government is pressuring Vojvoduna and Serbia to settle the issue of Hungarians, while such actions are not taken towards Romania, Ukraine and Slovakia where a much larger number of Hungarians are living.
Sedlak said that it was clear that the moves, aimed at destabilizing Vojvodina, Serbia and Yugoslavia, have not been made towards states whose policy suits the West and NATO member countries.
YUGOSLAVIA IS PROVIDING FOR NEARLY ONE MILLION REFUGEES
The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is currently providing for close to one million people who were forced to abandon their homes, primarily refugees from the former Yugoslav republics, but also the internally displaced persons who left Kosovo and Metohija after the arrival of KFOR, deputy Federal Minister for Refugees, Displaced Persons and Humanitarian Aid, Aleksandar Rastovic, has said in an interview to the Venezuelan television Globo Vision station and the daily El Nacional.
Speaking to editors Jose Rafael Revenga, Armando Sanoya and Paloma Gomez Borero, Rastovic set out that the violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1244 by the UN peacekeeping force and civilian mission, has resulted in mass violence throughout Kosovo and Metohija, and the ethnic cleansing and exodus of nearly 250,000 Serbs, Montenegrins, Romanies and other non-Albanians, the statement said.
Rastovic stated that the ethnic Albanian terrorists have also targeted those ethnic Albanians who see Serbia as their mother country.
The years-long sanctions and the bombing of the economic facilities during the NATO aggression have significantly deteriorated the humanitarian situation in Yugoslavia, but this will not affect the care for those in the greatest need, Rastovic said.
E.U. HUMANITARIAN BUREAU PROMISES AID TO YUGOSLAVIA
Assistant Yugoslav Minister for Labour, Health and Social Policy Maksim Korac has received the chief of the Belgrade office of the European Union's Humanitarian Bureau, David Lithgoe, and the Belgrade head of this organization's social program, Robert Camulle, the Federal Information Secretariat said on Tuesday.
Korac, Lithgoe and Camulle discussed possibilities for Humanitarian Bureau activities to include the entire Yugoslavia and secure equal and efficient relief aid to all in need.
The Bureau will try, within its competencies, to secure humanitarian aid in food and goods not included in the World Food Program and to provide heating fuel, the statement said.
SERBIAN FARMERS PUT UP ROAD BLOCKADE DUE TO FREQUENT ABDUCTIONS
Serbian inhabitants of the Dren village, north of the town of Kosovska Mitrovica in the Kosovo and Metohija municipality Leposavic, at around 5.30 a.m. Wednesday set up a blockade on the Kosovska Mitrovica-Raska road, due to the abduction of a Serbian Dren villager last week.
Villager Rados Virijevic, 25, was abducted on Oct. 23 before the very eyes of KFOR members in the southern, ethnic-Albanian part of Kosovo Mitrovica. Virijevic was on his way to work.
When the KFOR arrived, the Kosovska Mitrovica population spontaneously divided the town into the Serbian and ethnic- Albanian parts.
Kosovska Mitrovica ethnic Albanians have many times tried to force their way across the bridge on the Ibar and into the Serbian section of the town.
On Oct. 21, Serb Mirko Dancetovic of Lesposavic was also abducted in the southern section of Kosovska Mitrovica.
No statement has been released by the KFOR or UNMIK about the abductions of the two Serbs in the Leposavic municipality.
SHOOTING RESOUNDS IN PRISTINA OVERNIGHT
Shooting was heard in the streets of the Kosovo and Metohija capital of Pristina on the night of Oct. 26-27, but no information is available about what it was all about.
The KFOR and UNMIK have made no statements.
Bursts of fire were heard in the southern section of the city and the entry into it from the direction of Skopje. Sporadic shooting was heard also in the very centre and near the Grand Hotel.
At nightfall Tuesday, there were unusually few people in the Pristina streets and there was none of the usual busy traffic.
MUSLIMS TRY TO ASSIMILATE GORANCI
The national community of the autochthonous Goranci, who are mostly concentrated in the southern part of Kosovo and Metohija, around the town of Prizren, Wednesday released a statement sharply protesting against the attempts at a forcible assimilation of the Goranci by Muslim extremists.
The Muslim Democratic Action Party, in cooperation with ethnic Albanians, is imposing on the Goranci children in schools some kind of a Bosniac language, the statement of the Goranci Council said.
The Goranci demand that a compromise solution be found for all ethnic communities in Kosovo and Metohija and urge a multiethnic life in the province.
The Goranci are of Muslim confession, speak Serbian and have different roots from both Serbs and ethnic Albanians.
The Democratic Action Party rallies Muslims in the area of the town of Raska in the Sandzak region in Serbia, Northwest of Kosovo and Metohija and towards the border with Bosnia-Herzegovina. The party, which carries the same name as the strongest Muslim party in Bosnia-Herzegovina, has set the creation of a Bosniac nation as one of its programmatic goals.
RUSSIA, ITALY IN AGREEMENT OVER KOSOVO-METOHIJA
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said Tuesday at the end of his official visit to Italy that Moscow and Rome had practically identical views as regards Balkan developments.
Russia and Italy share concern over the developments in Serbia's Kosovo-Metohija province and the conviction that the relevant UN Security Council Resolution 1244 must be strictly respected, Ivanov said.
This view is shared also by all Italian political forces, Ivanov said after meeting the presidents of both houses of the Italian parliament.
He expressed hope that nothing would change in this regard after elections in Russia next December and in Italy next June.
Ivanov left for Paris Tuesday evening for an official visit to France.
GREEKS WILL DEMONSTRATE AGAINST VISIT OF "MURDERER OF THE BALKANS"
The Greek Commission for International Relaxation and Peace, in cooperation with the Greek Jurists for Peace movement, has scheduled demonstrations against the Balkan U.S. policy to be held the central Athens square Sintagma on Nov. 13, the Greek daily Eleftherotypia said Tuesday.
The demonstrations are being organized in connection with U.S. President Bill Clinton's visit to Greece Nov. 12-14.
Under the headline "Demonstration Against and Popular Tribunal for the Murderers of the Balkans," the daily published the organizers' appeal to Greeks once again to demonstrate their revolt and disapproval of the U.S. and European policy in the region, a policy which they said was devastating for all Balkan peoples.
Eleftherotypia said that the text of the indictment the Jurists for Peace would raise against the "murders of the Balkans and
Bill Clinton" would be published on Nov. 8.
NATO VIOLATES 100 INTERNATIONAL LAW PROVISIONS WITH AGGRESSION ON YUGOSLAVIA
The NATO attack on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was totally illegal from the aspect of international law and constituted the violation of over 100 international law provisions, the most important of which was the principle of the sovereignty of states, on which the international law order is founded, distinguished Greek jurist Panayotis Charitos has stated.
At the last week symposium "NATO Aggression on the FRY" in the Yugoslav city of Novi Sad, which was attended by over a hundred Yugoslav and foreign jurists, scientists and publicists, Christos listed all the international documents which NATO had violated during the 78 days of aggression on Yugoslavia.
The Greek jurist said that NATO's use of armed force was a violation of a fundamental provision of the UN Charter, one which guarantees the sovereignty of states and bans the use of force against the territorial integrity of countries.
The military attack on Yugoslavia was also against the will of a majority of the world population, since China and Russia openly opposed it, Christos set out.
NATO violated provisions of the document of the Helsinki Conference on Security and Cooperaton in Europe of Aug. 1, 1975, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, signed in New York on Dec. 9, 1948, the London Agreement of Aug. 8, 1945, endorsed in UN Resolution 95 of Dec. 11, 1946, the UN International Covention on Civil and Political Rights of Dec. 16, 1966 and committed a series of crimes under the Statute of the International Criminal Court which is in the process of being founded.
Christos underscored that the international tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague was set up under UN Security Council Resolution 827, but that, under the UN Charter, the Security Council had no authority to set up courts of justice.
"The tribunal has no authority to try the leadership of Yugoslavia because it was illegally set up and does not therefore exist under international law. The call for the 'international trial' of a country's elected president has no precedent in the world history and sets a dangerous historical precedent in terms of future international institutions of interest to the whole of mankind," Christos said.
The eminent Greek jurist, who has instituted proceedings for the leading NATO officials to be held accountable for the crimes committed during the attack on Yugoslavia, said that "NATO's behaviour had shown disregard for international institutions and the international order," so that the question presents itself of whether the attack on Yugoslavia was only the beginning of a series of "undertakings for the imposition of a new international political reality, which would weaken and eliminate all states borders in the name of security."
Christos stressed that NATO had become a self-styled international policeman, who interfered in the internal affairs of peoples as it willed, as in the case of Yugoslavia.
The illegal and unjust attack on Yugoslavia and the bombardments of its people must not serve as an example for the intimidation of the countries that want to preserve their independence, the Greek jurist said.
"The attack on Yugoslavia must become a symbol of resistance to lawlessness. The 78 days of the bombardments of Yugoslavia should serve as a symbol of resistance in the defense of the basic principles of international law and the UN Charter," Greek jurist Christos set out at the Novi Sad symposium.
WHITE BOOK ON NATO'S AGGRESSION ON YUGOSLAVIA PRESENTED IN ITALY
In the Yugoslav embassy in Rome was opened Tuesday evening an exhibition of photographs, and presented the White Book on the 78-day aggression of NATO forces on our country.
Addressing the guests, Italian public and cultural figures and journalists, the Yugoslav charge d'affaires in Rome, Slavko Njegomir, said that the photographs and the White Book have in a way catalogued the crimes and horrors committed by NATO in Yugoslavia.
The photographs show that no humanitarian reasons, calls for human rights or democracy were behind the aggression on the freedom-loving people of Serbia. It was a mere demonstration of force of the most powerful and of the selfish material interests of their obedients, the Yugoslav diplomat said.
He assessed that the fight for their interests and for suppressing the truth was still underway. The current situation in Kosovo and Metohija has convinced even the most naive that the advocates and perpetrators of the aggression are not interested in peace or a multi-ethnic, multi-confessional and multi-cultural Kosovo and Metohija.
Speaking on behalf of the Italian public, senator, influential analyst and journalist Luchiana Kastelina said that it was their duty today to undertake everything for lifting the embargo against Yugoslavia.
Public and cultural figure, pacifist, former senator Raniero Lavale described as completely unacceptable the explanation of the international community that humanitarian reasons led to the attack on Yugoslavia.
It was a war aimed at punishing Serbia and it is continuing to this day through the embargo, he said.
US STRONGLY OPPOSES INTEGRATION OF RUSSIA, BELARUS
Any attempt to promote integration between Russia and Belarus comes up against fierce resistance, primarily on the part of the US and the West, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said Tuesday in Moscow, and added he would coordinate stances with Russian President Boris Yeltsin in this regard.
Alexander Lukashenko has arrived in Moscow for an official visit. He will attend a session of the Interstate Council of member countries of the Customs Union, which includes Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia and Tajikistan, opening in Moscow Tuesday.
Presidents Yeltsin and Lukashenko met Tuesday afternoon. Lukashenko said upon his arrival in Moscow that he and Yeltsin were going to discuss not only the treaty on the creation of the Russia-Belarus Union, but also many other problems, which should be discussed in a confidential way."
Lukashenko will address the Duma and meet its President Gennady Seleznyov on October 27.