*An International Symposium had been held in Lisbon (Portugal) on 30th and 31st March 2010, titled: ‘’Against war – 60 years of struggle for peace’’, co-organised by the Portuguese Council for Peace and Cooperation (CPPC) and World Peace Council (WPC). In the name of the Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals, Mr. Dragomir Vucicevic attended the Symposium and here is his Speech:

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Dear friends and comrades,

It is my honor and my pleasure to have this opportunity to address, on behalf of the Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals, this esteemed gathering of peace loving and peace cherishing people. I wish to convey to you the most cordial greetings from the leadership of the Belgrade Forum and our full support to the initiative undertaken by the Portuguese Council for Peace and Cooperation and the World Peace Council, related with the forthcoming plans and activities of NATO. 
Our support is an expression of a genuine sentiment of not only members and friends of the Belgrade Forum but also, as is our deepest belief, of the vast majority of the Serbian nation, the one that experienced brutal aggression of NATO in 1999. The aggression was launched and executed by a military alliance that was originally established as a defensive facility, whose Founding Act of 1949 clearly stated it commitment to observance of the United Nations Charter and to peaceful resolving of any international disputes. All that was annulled by the brute force of the aggression on Serbia, namely, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and by other numerous similar activities of NATO in the past. 
Analysis of the origins and development of the crisis in the former Yugoslavia demonstrates that NATO was the driving engine of destabilization of the Balkans in the 1990s. Deliberately and purposefully, NATO instigated ethnic conflicts and rejected any peaceful solution for the issue of Kosovo and Metohija, which culminated in its open aggression on Serbia/the FR Yugoslavia. They did it at the times when, following the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the end of the Cold War in early 1990s, the world hoped that there was no more any need for the existence of NATO. In anticipation of the dissolution of the only remaining rival block, the hopes grew of an era of durable peace in the world. However, the events took the opposite course.
NATO deployment and engaging in the Balkans served as the groundbreaking point for adoption of a new, more aggressive strategy, whcih presupposes options of military interventions anywhere around the globe and for any given reason. It was formally adopted in the Summit in Washington on 23-24 April 1999. NATO’s aggression on Serbia/Yugoslavia of 1999 manifested all features of NATO’s new character and strategy. If judged according to the war theatre, it was a local war, whereas if judged according to its substance, it was a war of global goals. In practice, it was an experimental debut of the new global strategy of NATO, aiming at a substantial altering of the global relations and the world order established after the end of World War II. At the heart of this new strategy lies the might, which NATO puts above the international law, above the United Nations Charter, and above the fundamental principles of the international relations. This strategy of the USA and NATO required and prompted adjustment of the entire mass media system of communication. Now, their primary feature and task is the psychological and political reshaping of the public mind for the sake of securing support for NATO’s actions, namely, for its global dominance strategy.
NATO’s aggression on Yugoslavia of 1999 was conducted in blatant breach of the fundamental principles enshrined in the UN Charter, and undertaken without a mandate of the UN Security Council as the ultimate body in charge of peace and security in the world. Effectively, this intervention was NATO’s statement it would only observe such decisions of the Security Council where in support of its military interventions. In any other cases, NATO would act at its discretion, regardless of the relevant positions of either the UN Security Council or any other UN body.
A year after the aggression, the Americans revealed the true motives for this, in the Conference of NATO allies and future members, dedicated to the issue of the Balkans in the view of NATO enlargement, held in late April 2000 in Bratislava, in Slovakia. After the Conference, one of its participants, a renowned German politician Willy Wimmer, informed German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder about the overall strategy that the USA prepared for Europe, the Balkans, and Russia, in a letter dated 2 May 2000. For the theme of this meeting, it is important to put a particular emphasis on two points of this US strategy. The first one is that NATO aggression on Serbia/Yugoslavia was a precedent to be used in any other situation, at the US/NATO discretion; the second one is the aggression was to achieve permanent deployment of the US troops in the Balkans, thus rectifying a mistake of General Dwight Eisenhower, who failed to do so after WWII.
It has to be accentuated that NATO involvement in the Balkan crises and its consequent aggression on Serbia/Yugoslavia were the testing ground for the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and any new ones that might occur in the coming years. These wars aim at re-delineation of borders of the internationally recognized states and at triggering implosion of their national sovereignty. To this end, recent years saw an increasing and dangerous militarization of Europe and the world. For instance, after the endorsement of NATO’s new strategy in 1999, the USA, as NATO’s driving power, has more than doubled its military budget, and increased its sale of armament to a gigantic extent. At present, the USA maintains 761 military bases throughout the world, among the largest of which is Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo and Metohija, installed after forcible severing of this Province form Serbia. The USA upgrade its space–based military operations; it withdrew from the ABM Treaty of 1972, refused to ratify the Comprehensive (Nuclear) Test Ban Treaty, and declined the Land Mine Treaty and the UN Agreement to Curb International Flow of Illicit Small Arms. Supported by NATO, the USA instigated a new arms race, joined by not only the US allies and client states, but also by their rivals.
According to NATO plans, its Summit  is to be held in Lisbon by the end of the year. This Summit is expected to reinforce NATO’s warfare structure and ability to efficiently neutralize any resistance to its will and strategy. Sadly, the Portugal Summit that will, in essence, reaffirm the strategy of NATO dominance in the world, coincides with the 65th anniversary of victory over fascism, which also aimed at world dominance. NATO’s new strategy of dominance is a powerful blow to the democratic and civilization feats (acquis démocratique et civilisation) achieved after WWII, and hence a huge risk to peace and security in Europe and the world. This strategy is not, nor can it be, any contribution to fight against international terrorism, and even less so any input to, or replacement of, the collective security system in Europe.
The crises in former Yugoslavia revealed that the OSCE was an inefficient and powerless organization, incapable of providing security and observance of the principles formulated in its founding act. Europe needs such system of collective security based on the democratic principles, on equality and equal safety of that system’s each and every member. Therefore, we hold that initiative and proposal of Russian President Dimitri Medvedev on establishment of the new security system in Europe deserve our full attention. 
To achieve such security, we ought to fight for Europe and the world free of NATO. This fight should unite all anti-imperialistic and peace movements in Europe and the world. The stronger is our fight, the better are our chances to counter efficiently the politics of dominance and the peril of new war campaigns. This makes it necessary for us to organize and unite in struggle against this pestilence and the deceptions it spreads. One of such trickeries is that NATO expansion contributes to strengthening the peace, stability, and democracy. However, ask people of Serbia or Afghanistan, who have had this misfortune to experience the devastating power of NATO bombs and missiles, what they think of freedom and democracy introduced by NATO warfare machinery. They will certainly share with you that the purpose of NATO existence is neither the safeguarding of collective security – luckily, this is still the prerogative of the United Nations – nor the spreading of democracy, peace and love in the world. First and foremost, NATO is an instrument of the policy of might that serves the geo-political interests of the USA and its allies. Hence, the peoples of Europe and the world do not need NATO, but rather peace, prosperity, freedom, and safe future.


We expect this gathering to come up with specific incentives and initiatives with a view to enhancing the struggle and the overall activities of the peace movements in our fight against the threats embodied in NATO and its policy of dominance.
Thank you.
Dragomir Vučićević,
Member of the Steering Board of the
Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals,
Republic of Serbia