APPENDIX 38
Memorandum submitted by the Serbian Unity
Congress
1. The main reason for the continuing crisis
in the former Yugoslavia is because a great number of the leaders
and decision makers in the West, including the media, were ill
informed and generally ignorant of historical or geopolitical
facts of the Balkans. This has been proved time and again, both
in direct and indirect contact with this organisation. These very
leaders and decision makers are now entrusted in finding a solution
to the problems in the Serbian Province of Kosovo.
2. It is not only the ethnic Albanians who
suffered in the recent civil war in Kosovo. The Serbs and Montenegrins
have been ethnically cleansed from Kosovo throughout the century.
At the beginning of the 1900's the demographical ratio in Kosovo
was three to one in favour of the Serbs. Between 1880 until 1905
the Austrian-Hungarian Empire encouraged the Albanians to uproot
the Serbs and an estimated 150,000 Serbs and Montenegrins were
expelled from the region of Kosovo. A census in 1921 revealed
that the number of Albanians and Serbs were nearly equal, in fact
in favour of the Serbs 52 per cent—48 per cent. The demographical
ratio first became unbalanced during the Second World War when
under Italian occupation around 10,000 Serbs and Montenegrins
were murdered by Albanian fascists and a further 17,000 were expelled.
Secondly in 1945-46 when Tito's Communist Government opened the
border between Kosovo and Albania and an estimated 320,000 Albanians
came from Albania and settled in Kosovo.
3. Albanian extremists had separatists aims
well before 1989, when the autonomous status was taken from Kosovo.
The ethnic Albanians refused to take part in a census since 1971,
as they want the world to think that there are more of them in
Kosovo than there actually are. In demonstrations in Pristina
between 1972-74 Kosovo separatists asked for a "Kosovo Republic",
which great hostility and in a provocative manner declaring that
they would take Kosovo from Serbia by any means possible, including
overwhelming the Serbs by their birth rate. In the 1970's the
Albanian birth rate in Kosovo was much higher than anywhere else
in the former Yugoslavia, and indeed the highest in Europe.
4. Tito's communist Government made a number
of unjust decisions against the Serbs in favour of the Schiptars.
One of these was that Serbs who had been expelled from Kosovo
by Albanian extremists during the Second World War were not allowed
to go back to their homes. Since the 1960's the ethnic Albanians
in Kosovo had their own schools, universities, publishing houses,
their own radio and television station which broadcast in the
Albanian language, a Society of Albanian authors, they even had
their own Academy of Art and Science. Despite all this they wanted
their own republic, their own state. Notwithstanding the above,
from the very beginning of the tension in Kosovo the American
and present British Government unreservedly took the side of the
Albanians.
5. Before the civil war in the former Yugoslavia
started in 1991, 24 different nationalities lived in Yugoslavia.
That situation remains today. While NATO bombs were falling on
Serbia not less than 56,000 Albanians were living amicably alongside
the Serbs in Belgrade. For this reason it is an absurd to maintain
that the Serbian Government and Serbs as a nation planned and
executed "ethnic cleansing" on a grand scale in Kosovo
or anywhere else. It was a civil war, and as in any war, sadly,
one extreme brings another.
6. The international community failed to
detect the ethnic nationalism and aims of the Kosovo separatists.
Their strategy was to provoke the Serbian Security forces to such
an extent that they had to retaliate, which meant that a humanitarian
crisis ensued, and NATO intervention became called for. Albania
has been politically unstable since 1995, the northern part bordering
with Kosovo was out of control of the Government of Tirana. An
extensive and continuous flow of arms, ammunition, and terrorists
went from Albania into Yugoslavia. Nationalistic tension and separatist
aspirations in Kosovo were fuelled by this.
7. UN Security Council Resolution 1160 sanctioned
the supply of weapons to all sides in this conflict. The embargo
was not applied to Albania. Albanian's diaspora were sending arms
and substantial funds to the terrorists in Kosovo, some being
proceeds of drug trafficking, with the full knowledge of the American
Government. Mr Carl Bildt, the former peace mediator in Bosnia
Hercegovina, in January 1999, said: "One of the main preconditions
to stabilise the situation in Kosovo is to establish complete
control of the Yugoslav-Albanian border and northern Albania where
the bases of Albanian separatists arè.
8. American Intelligence agents have now
admitted as was recently publicised in the media, that they helped
to train the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) before NATO bombed Yugoslavia.
Mr William Walker, previously the American Ambassador in El Salvador,
who once organised shipment of arms to Nicaraguan Contras under
cover of humanitarian aid and was implicated in connection with
Oliver North, on 24 February 1999 wrote a letter to our Organisation
as the chief of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo: "...I do have
great respect for the men and women who serve in the United States
Intelligence Community. It, like other governments' intelligence
services has a role in development of a government's foreign policy."
Events prior to the bombing of Yugoslavia in particular the alleged
"massacrè in Racak, and other under cover activities
of the said Mr William Walker in Kosovo, have shown that the American
Government from the beginning of the civil war in Yugoslavia had
its own agenda to de-stabilise Yugoslavia and get a foothold into
the Balkans. The United States now have in Kosovo one of their
biggest military bases in Europe. They are currently training
former KLA activists at Bondsteel, near Urosevac. Now only a fraction
of the news of what is really going on in Kosovo reached the public.
9. The Yugoslav Government has tried over
a period of time to find a peaceful and long-lasting solution
for Kosovo. Indeed months before negotiations in Rambouillet the
Yugoslav Government sent delegations to Pristina 56 times to start
meaningful negotiations with the ethnic Albanians. This was ignored
by the Albanian separatists as they were by then already receiving
moral and substantial financial support from their diaspora in
Germany, Switzerland and the United States.
10. The proposals in Rambouillet were presented
to the Yugoslav delegation as a "take it or leave it"
package, with most parts being non-negotiable. The former Secretary
of State Dr Henry Kissinger said: "The terms negotiated in
Rambouillet guaranteed huge bloodshed even before it started.
These demands could not have been met even by a more reasonable
Serbian regimè. Had the proposal been accepted it would
have taken away the sovereignty from Yugoslavia. That is why the
Government of Yugoslavia could not accept it, which had broad
support of Serbs in the country and diaspora. The degree of autonomy
proposed in Rambouillet by the West, would have meant that Kosovo
after three years and a referendum would become a separate state.
11. Since NATO entered Kosovo on the 12
June 1999, the border between Albania and Kosovo has not been
properly guarded and in some places is completely open. We have
information that a great number of Albanians, as many as 70,000
from Albania proper have infiltrated into Kosovo, and now live
there. It is some of these who are involved in the criminal activities
and drug trafficking in Kosovo.
12. Intervention in Yugoslavia by the British
and NATO Governments was illegal. The United Nations Charter,
Clause 2, makes it clear that if there is a threat to peace, the
Security Council is the only body who can authorise the taking
of military action. Bombing commenced, and only then was the matter
brought to the Security Council for full consideration. The North
Atlantic Treaty in its constitution pledges to uphold the United
Nations Charter. In addition to breaking the United Nations Charter,
the British Government and the countries of NATO are in violation
of the 1980 Vienna Convention of the Law of the Treaties, which
forbids coercion and force to compel any state to sign a Treaty
or Agreement. Also NATO was in violation of the Helsinki Accords
Final Act of 1975 which guarantees that territorial borders of
the states of Europe. The Security Council Resolution 1160 sanctioned
the shipment of arms and ammunition into Kosovo. Enforcement of
that Accord would have been the stabilising factor on the border
with Yugoslavia which the British Government did nothing to enforce.
Most people in Yugoslavia of whatever political persuasion regard
the intervention of NATO and the bombing of Yugoslavia as an act
of aggression and criminality.
13. The Sanctions imposed on Serbia and
Montenegro for the last seven years have exhausted the economy
of Yugoslavia. NATO bombing all but devastated it. Basic commodities
are in short supply. Raw materials cannot be imported. The manufacturing
industry is crippled. Due to the shortage of fuel most institutions
including hospitals, schools, sanatoriums and old peoples homes
are constantly without adequate sources of power and heating.
Operations and basic laboratory analyses cannot be carried out.
Medicines and medical equipment are desperately needed. The most
vulnerable people in society are suffering: the old, children
and the sick. The birth rate over the last few years has fallen
dramatically. One need only look at the huge increase in the mortality
figures this winter, particularly of the elderly and children,
to have a picture of what is really going on in Serbia.
14. Bombing by NATO, which started on 24
March 1999, reminded most Serbs on the 6 April 1941 when Germany
attacked Yugoslavia without declaring war, and Belgrade was bombed
and 19,627 people were killed. Between the 24 March and the 10
June 1999, NATO made 32,000 attacks on the territory of Yugoslavia.
More than 1,000 aeroplanes and 206 helicopters were used in the
air strikes. Not less than 8,000 cruise missiles were launched,
and a staggering 33,000 tons of bombs were dropped on Serbia.
Some of these bombs weighted more than two tons each and had depleted
uranium tips, which are having huge implications on the environment
and will have for many years to come.
15. As a result of the sustained and merciless
bombing of Yugoslavia 2,193 civilian people were killed. We flatly
refute the figure of 500 civilians killed by NATO recently brought
out by the Human Rights Watch, the American based organisation
which has intentionally minimised the crimes committed on the
civilian population. Out of 2,193 civilians killed, about one
third of these were children under the age of 15. One of these
was a three year old girl Milica Rakic killed on the 18 April
1999 in Batajnica in the bathroom. In these air massacres, many
thousand were injured, some very severely, and will be crippled
for the rest of their lives.
16. In the bombing carried out mainly by
the Americans and British, 27 bridges were destroyed, 16 damaged,
18 railway stations damaged and eight major roads made impassable.
The River Danube is blocked by bombed bridges debris. Seven airports
damaged and rendered unusable. Economic and civilian places of
no strategic importance whatsoever have been destroyed or partly
damaged, some of them vital for the normal running of the country,
such as a pharmaceutical factories, car manufacturers, oil refineries,
agricultural industry, television and radio stations, etc. More
than 280 schools, facilities for students, and university buildings
were damaged or destroyed. 22 hospitals and Health Care Centres
were either partially damaged or totally destroyed: the hospital
"Dragisa Misovic" in Belgrade, Hospital and Polyclinic
in Nis, The City Hospital and the Dispensary "Krusik"
in Valjevo, The Central Pharmacy in Belgrade, The General Hospital
in Djakovica, The Gerontological Centre in Leskovac. There was
a massacre caused by NATO bombs in the hospital and old people's
home in Surdulica, where 32 people were killed. These are only
a few from a very long list indeed. 11 major power stations have
been bombed, most with high explosive missiles to ensure that
these power stations, vital for the functioning of everyday life
throughout Yugoslavia would be put out of action for a long time.
Incredibly politicians in the West have distanced themselves from
all this destruction as if it was nothing to do with them even
though the consequences are massive and long-lasting.
17. Acting outside the boundaries of International
law and bombing Yugoslavia indiscriminately, the West has further
destabilised the country. On the one hand it has fuelled nationalism,
and on the other, as life for ordinary citizens has got harder,
people have become more disinterested in political changes while
they struggle for their very existence. Continuous interference
from outside, sanctions, various pressures are counter-productive.
The have done nothing to advance democracy in Yugoslavia and this
situations will remain while the pressure continues.
18. The reconstruction of the region must
take place on an even handed basis with Yugoslavia participating
fully in all the international reconstruction programmes, without
any political conditions attached. Political reforms in Serbia
must be a decision for Serbian people alone. The main provision
of the Security Council Resolution 1244 should be implemented,
which is that security for all citizens of Kosovo should be guaranteed.
The Government in Belgrade cannot be blamed for the current instability
in Kosovo, the Albanian extremists are greatly encouraged by the
continuing demonisation of the Serbs. Until this is stopped the
process and stabilisation in Kosovo will not begin. The immediate
removal of sanctions is essential as democratical changes in Yugoslavia
will come only when reasonable normality of life is resumed. Finally,
to stabilise the region a clear message should be sent to the
Albanian extremists and separatists that Kosovo remains now, and
will be forever an integral part of Serbia.
SERBIAN UNITY CONGRESS (EUROPE)
24 March 2000
|
