The Belgrade Forum welcomes initiative of the Head office of the  World Peace Council (WPC), in Athens and the Portuguese Council for Peace and Cooperation to hold this meeting, which we consider very important. The dramatic events in several countries over the recent years, planned and implemented by direct involvement of the USA, NATO and the EU, also threatening to propagate to some other countries, are a huge threat to peace and security, especially in the region of the Mediterranean, Asia Minor and Middle East. We are faced with new and dangerous challenges, with new threats and with the introducing of new unrests and turmoil in various parts of the world, targeted by conquering and domination intent of the masterminds of the new world order. The leading Western countries with imperialist ambitions, primarily the USA, are increasingly assuming the right to decide on who can and who cannot lead any given country in the world.  The new arms race imposed by the USA, NATO and the EU, establishment of new military bases and new zones of influence, ever more frequent use of force and blatant violation of the fundamental principles of the international law are the ultimate threat to peace, stability and security.

After the failure of bipolar world from the early 1990s, the world revealed true colors of NATO and true intentions of its masters, first of all, the USA. Ever since, the USA and its Western allies, with the use of their NATO arm, have been trying to introduce new rules of international conduct, such as concepts of “humanitarian intervention”, “human rights above sovereignty”, “exceptionalism” and “responsibility to protect” in a bid to secure the excuse for the use of force to instigate civil wars, change of regimes, dissolution of sovereign states.

The first victim of this new USA/NATO doctrine was former Yugoslavia, or Serbia, exactly 13 years ago. Under the pretext of “humanitarian intervention”, led by the USA and without any UN Security Council mandate, NATO committed aggression against Serbia (Yugoslavia) on 24 March 1999 and went on with it for 78 days and nights. For the first time since its establishment, the USA-led NATO applied deadly force against a sovereign country, thus grossly breaching not only its Founding Act but also the UN Charter and the fundamental principles of the international law. In the build-up for this aggression, the USA was strongly supported by its Western allies, primarily by Germany, France and the UK. That-time President Clinton, Prime Minister Tony Blair and NATO leadership told their citizens that bombing of Serbia was a “humanitarian intervention”, cynically named “Merciful Angel”, aiming at preventing the alleged genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Albanian minority in Kosovo. These manufactured lies were all too ready accepted by the so-called free western media in supporting and justifying the aggression. This was the twilight of the Western ethics, twilight of media freedoms.

The focus of such policy was neither democracy nor human rights, but solely the U.S. interests; they employed NATO to harness the entire Balkans under its control, with a view further its imperialist goals in the Asia Minor and the Middle East, the Caspian basin and, ultimately, Russia. Pursuing their hegemonic goals, they embarked on dismembering the territory of Serbia and forcible separating of Kosovo in spite of this Province being a part of Serbia and the cradle of Serbian statehood. The aggressors turned it into a NATO-made pseudo-state called Kosovo, and erected one of the largest American military bases, the Bondsteel Camp, which facilitates control of all strategic routes between Europe and the Middle East.  This project was accompanied with systematic destruction of the national, cultural and spiritual heritage of Serbian nation in this part of Serbia.

13 years since NATO aggression, the Balkans remains unstable. Under the UN and EU mandates, Kosovo turned into a training ground for terrorists, a transit base for heroin and human trafficking, and a precedent for dismantling free sovereign states. Albanian separatism is rising once again in the South of the Central Serbia, and Tirana hosts conferences dedicated to creation of Greater Albania. These are the results of spreading “democracy” by Tomahawk/Patriot missiles, unmanned aircrafts, depleted uranium, cluster bombs and graphite bombs.

The USA/NATO aggression against Serbia (Yugoslavia) was a historic turning point and a fatal step leading into destruction of the previously valid limits and rules governing international peace and security introduced since WWII. This illegal act set a dangerous precedent that NATO and the USA keep applying in other parts of the world ever since, threatening the entire structure of international relations, peace and stability. This is how creators of the new world order willfully and by argument of weapons imposed a new reality on the ashes of the international legitimacy, in the form of a parallel “international law”, authored and implemented by the USA through NATO as its implementing tool.  This process, unfortunately for us, was followed with marginalization of roles of the United Nations and its Security Council, as the ultimate global body for preserving the peace and stability in the world.  

 Pursuing its imperial arrogance and misusing the tragic and heinous terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, and backed by its most loyal NATO allies, the USA continued with aggression in Afghanistan in 2001, and then in Iraq in 2003, blatantly violating the international law. They forcibly changed the regimes in both countries. The continued decade-long use of brute force and most advanced weaponry against the peoples in these states caused vast human casualties, tremendous anguish of people and huge material destructions. Just like the aggression against Serbia was based on lies, the aggression against Iraq was also based on defrauding national and global public with lies of alleged production of weapons of mass destruction in that country, which was never found.

The most recent example of illegal and violent behavior of the USA and NATO is aggression against Libya in 2011. The Western leaders praised this NATO campaign as the first example of “responsibility to protect”. In fact, NATO action in Libya is the latest example of USA/NATO violent practice and brute misuse of UN Security Council resolution adopted at the beginning of the conflict in Libya in early 2011. This seven-month long NATO-allies aggression was concluded with forcible change of regime in that country and apprehension, torture and execution of years-long Head of State, President Qaddafi, supported by direct involvement of NATO special forces. The key roles there were played by France, the UK and the U.S., whereas some Arab countries, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, provided ample financial support, especially to those media which supported the aggression and campaigned in demonizing of President Qaddafi and his regime, for the sake of justifying the aggression.

What can be said about the result of such US/NATO “humanitarian interventions”? A full analysis would take too much time, but we could recall its basics:

-    During aggression against Serbia (Yugoslavia) was killed more than 3,500 persons out of whom two-thirds were civilians including 79 children under the age of ten; more than 10,000 people were heavily wounded and suffered lasting effects; during and after the aggression, the policy of terror and pre-planned ethnic cleansing resulted in expulsion of more than 230,000 Serbs and non-Albanian people, with only few thousand of them managing to return to their homes in all these years; Serbs who remained in Kosovo have no freedom of movement, have to live in closed enclaves sometimes surrounded by barbed wire, and under constant exposure to harassment and arbitrariness of local Albanian authorities; the whole country suffered material damage of the order of 100 billion dollar; the effects of mass-scale use of weapons with depleted uranium and consequential radiation have lasting adverse consequences on health of the current and the future generations;  

-    During the years of aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq, hundreds of thousand of civilians were killed, hundreds of thousands of homes were destroyed, and heavy material devastation inflicted, resulting in poverty, chaos and instability; both countries became breeding grounds for conflicts and terrorist groups with tragic outcome for the inhabitants, because the hand-picked governments do not enjoy trust of people; the world will remember brutal and ruthless behavior of the aggressor against local people such as tragic exercise of humiliating prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, or incessant night killings of civilians in Afghanistan by the so-called  guided missiles, or recent killing of 17 members of several Afghan families including 9 children in a rampage of a US soldier; in its arrogance, the aggressor put tag value on these lives with as little as 50,000 dollars, in damages to families; 11-year long American war and its atrocities strengthened the resolute and the will of the Afghan people to fight for their country and expel foreign arrogant and inhuman enemy;

 -   No less tragic is the outcome of seven-month aggression against Libya - thousands of killed civilians, destroyed cities and infrastructure, tens of thousands of jailed proponents of former regime under grave humiliation and torture; the report of UN Human Rights Council and recent reports of some other humanitarian organizations claim that in Libya, including the period of NATO aggression, were committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. Some of these reports include conclusive proof of involvement of NATO forces in crimes committed in Libya;  once decades-long stable and prosperous country, Libya of today is devastated and facing conflicts along the regional and tribal lines, under a realistic threat of disintegration that will inflict far-reaching consequences not only for Libya but also for the entire region; Libyan oil reserves, Africa’s richest, were taken over mainly by the Western companies, and Libya was finally integrated in NATO’s so-called Mediterranean Dialogue, a military partnership with NATO, which was the very goal of the aggression.   

Recently, the world’s attention has been focused on events in Syria and increasingly direct threats against Iran vocalized by Israel and the USA. Concerning conflict in Syria, one can notice a great similarity with pre-NATO Libya’s developments. Both were caused by direct involvement of foreign factor. As previously in Libya, the dominant roles in Syria belong to foreign mercenaries and paramilitary forces close to radical Islamic groups, which are directly supported by NATO and certain countries from the region. As in Libya, the financial support to insurgents comes from Saudi Arabia and some other countries from the region. The West/NATO repeat in Syria the same method as used in Libya: support to terrorist actions, infiltration of mercenaries to execute military actions, and instigation of conflicts against the regime, smuggling arms to insurgents, training insurgents in training compounds located in some adjacent countries, especially in Turkey; as in Libya, the basic USA/NATO goal is creating instability and chaos, instigating and inciting armed conflict with maximum civilian deaths, as precursor for foreign intervention and overthrowing the regime in Syria.

I wish to use this opportunity and express, on behalf of the Belgrade Forum, our sincere solidarity with nations of Syria and Iran who are exposed to dangerous activities in destabilizing and threatening their respective sovereignty, peace and freedom. I also offer full support to the fight of people of Palestine for freedom and creation of independent state of Palestine within its historic borders from 1967, and Jerusalem as its capital.

 We wish to believe that countries and forces defending the peace, sovereignty and observance of the UN Charter and fundamental principles of the international law, combined and in joint exercise, will muster strength to prevent new aggressive “humanitarian interventions” by the USA and NATO. There lies the importance of this meeting, its conclusions and messages, and our joint future activities. The Belgrade Forum gives its full support to the World Peace Council in its tireless efforts to mobilize broadest peace-loving forces in fight against imperialism and in defense of peace, freedom and democracy. The basis for international relations should be the international law with the overarching role of the United Nations in resolving international problems and safeguarding the peace, rather than desires of mighty ones to forcibly change borders and regimes in any country.  
Thank you very much for your attention.                                                    

Dragomir Vučićević,
Member of the Steering Board of the
Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals