Živadin Jovanović,                                    
President of the Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals


NATO AGGRESSION – TEN YEARS ON[1]

WAR OF GLOBAL GOALS                        


On behalf of the Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals, I wish to greet and express my great pleasure for seeing you, friends from abroad, and also to greet all participants and guests of this International Conference, convened to mark the 10th anniversary of the launching of NATO aggression against Serbia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. I wish to specially address all family members of military and civilian victims of NATO aggression and express our deepest sympathy for the irreplaceable loss of their family members. I wish to welcome high-ranking state officials, representatives of the Serbian Orthodox Church, representatives of war veterans and war invalids, representatives of the Serbian Diaspora, representatives of youth and students’ organizations, representatives of the World Peace Council, and representatives of peer organizations from Europe, North and South Americas, Asia and Africa.

This International Conference is the single largest gathering in Belgrade of the last two decades. As such, we dedicate it to the memory of more than 3,500 killed and more than 10,000 injured during NATO aggression, and to thousands of abducted, killed and missing persons who fell victims to terrorist attacks and pogroms of the terrorist KLA after the aggression ended. Further, it evokes anguish and despair of millions of Serbian citizens; finally, it is dedicated to recall huge material devastation and incalculable damage inflicted on the environment by means of using the banned weapons. This is why this International Conference and the related activities is held under the joint slogan: NEVER FORGET. Also, never and nowhere repeat.

Esteemed Friends,

NATO aggression against Serbia (the FRY) of 1999 is a crime against peace and humanity. It was conducted in breach of the United Nations Charter, the OSCE Final Act and numerous other international conventions, and without consent of the Security Council. This aggression is unique by many of its features. This was the first war on the European soil after World War II, a war where Europe was weakened by Europe, a war where NATO allied with a terrorist organization, namely, the KLA.

Aggression was committed by violation of the Alliance’s Founding Act of 1949, and in violation of constitutions of its member states, including breaching the Constitutions of the USA, Germany, France, and Italy. The ruling administration in Germany led by Gerhard Schreoder and Joschka Fischer managed, in contravention with the Constitution, to push through the Bundestag the first war engagement of German troops since the collapse of the Hitler’s Nazi regime in 1945. Irrespective of all other aspects, Germany’s participation in the aggression is a precedent in itself that invokes vivid memories to the gravest consequences of Germany’s wars in the Balkans in 20th Century.

The immediate objectives of NATO aggression were deposing of the legitimate government in Serbia (the FRY), most notably of President Slobodan Milošević, and taking away Kosovo and Metohija.

This war waged by the biggest military machine in the world has been fought in a small geographical area but its goals were global. In my opinion, these are as follows:


-  Establishment of American military presence in the Balkans as a part of the overall strategic military expansion to the East,

-  Transformation of NATO from a defensive into an offensive, from a  regional into a global alliance,

-  Creating a precedent for use of military force without consent of the United Nations Security Council,

-  Imposition of NATO authority above the authorities of the UN and the OSCE, and the revision of the international legal system that has been introduced after WWII,

-  Preservation of the American dominance in Europe, and military encirclement of Russia,

-  Legalization of imposition (export) of a single model of internal social structure, needless to say, the US model.


Ten years after, the armed aggression continues by other means. The entire civil and military state leadership of Serbia and Yugoslavia was taken to the Hague Tribunal, charged, inter alia, for the policy of creating a “Greater Serbia”. By a concerted policy of the USA, NATO and EU, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia as the victim of the aggression was erased from the political map of the Balkans, by means of Montenegro’s secession in 2006. In February 2008, the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija unilaterally and forcibly seceded from Serbia without consent of the UN Security Council, the same way that the armed aggression of 1999 was committed without permission of that entity. The state institutions such as the Army, security services, the financial and banking systems have been ‘reformed’ according to the aggressor’s wishes; the national economy has been devastated by ransacking privatization to the benefit of corporations registered in the aggressors’ countries. Whatever little proceeds there were from the sale of this careless disposal of the state-owned and socially-owned property, thereafter has been spent through the budget; the distraught and looted country was subjected to imposition of a raging neo-liberal capitalism, the type of which does not exist and has never existed in any country where the capitalism had emerged. The interests and the priorities of the USA and the West in general in Serbia and in the region were proclaimed as the priorities of Serbia, too.

The secession of Kosovo and Metohija has been long prepared. Following the breaking apart of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, the logic of strategists of the unipolar world order, that is embodied in the NATO expansion eastwards and suppression of growing discontent of the Islamic states with the U.S. politics in the Middle East, pointed to a pre-planned weakening and breakup of Serbia.

During the 1995 Dayton negotiations on termination of civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the American representatives had also tried to open the ‘negotiations’ on Kosovo and Metohija. The Yugoslav-Serbian delegation refused it, holding that the issue had been an internal one and, as such, beyond any previously agreed format of the Dayton negotiations. However, America persisted in its pressure to internationalize the issue of Kosovo and Metohija and to launch negotiations, in particular in the meetings of the Council for Peace Implementation in Bosnia and Herzegovina in Berlin and Madrid.

After that, the West facilitated the funding, armament, and training of the terrorist KLA. Thanks to that, the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army expanded and intensified its terrorist actions, targeting civilians and the members of law enforcement, public services and institutions, and Albanians loyal to the state. In June 1998, the U.S. administration endorsed the freshly armed and reinforced terrorist KLA as its partner, treating it as a liberation force. The USA had been openly protecting the terrorist KLA and at the same time exerting a constant pressure against the leadership of Serbia to refrain from taking legitimate measures of protection and from addressing the terrorism. More or less, the U.S. representatives used to evaluate all that the state employed in combat against the terrorist KLA as “use of excessive force”. The Milošević – Holbrooke Agreement of October 1998 was the culmination of the political pressure against the state leadership of Serbia and the FRY, combined with the support to the terrorist KLA.

There was no justification whatsoever for NATO aggression against Yugoslavia (Serbia) of 1999. Even the-then official representatives of the so-called international community (EU) are nowadays admitting this. NATO and the USA invested a lot of efforts and funds into propaganda, in order to present their public with the image of the alleged responsibility of the leaderships of Serbia and the FRY for ‘violations of human rights of the ethnic Albanians of mass proportions’. They also aimed at securing public support for the military attack, or in other words, for the aggression. This is best illustrated by the role assigned to the former U.S. ambassador William Walker in staging a ‘mass liquidation of civilians’ in Račak, the role of the German Minister of Defense Volker Rühe in launching accusations of the alleged ‘Horseshoe Plan’, and a series of the so-called Rambouillet negotiations that, directed by American sponsors, have actually never been held.




Wimmer: NATO agression was a pretext to introduce
U.S. military camps in the Balkans

The contents of the so-called Rambouillet Accord support the claim that taking Kosovo and Metohija away from Serbia was an objective of NATO aggression. The wording of this document, drafted by the Americans, was an attempt to establish this Province as a state, completely separated from Serbia. What the Serbian/Yugoslav delegation did not and could not accept in Rambouillet, eight years on resurfaced in a superficially amended and much the same version of an imposed constitutional act in the form of the so-called Ahtisaari Plan in the Vienna negotiations. This rearranged package, this time offered to a new state leadership of Serbia was not, nor could have been, accepted by the Serbian side.

A memo of German politician Willy Wimmer of 2 May 2000, addressed to Chancellor Schroeder and concerning the U.S. policy presented by the American high officials at the Allies’ Conference in Bratislava in late April 2000, begins with information that the Americans “requested from the allies to effect international recognition of independent state of Kosovo as soon as possible.”[2]

In the same document, Wimmer informs how the U.S. representatives explained the reason for aggression against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Less than a year since the aggression, the U.S. officials revealed, “the war against Yugoslavia was fought to rectify an incorrect decision of General Eisenhower during World War II. In this manner, because of the strategic reasons it was necessary to position in this region (in the Balkans, added by author) U.S. soldiers.” Therefore, it was about the deployment of U.S. forces in the Balkans, where NATO aggression only served as a front. There was not a single syllable of a mission to “prevent humanitarian disaster” or to “protect human rights” of ethnic Albanians. Americans in Bratislava divulged the very same what the Yugoslav side had already stated as the aggression had been unfolding: “Clearly, this is a precedent for anyone to call on, anytime and, eventually someone will invoke it.” Having said that, they must be credited for having scruples towards current and future allies. Namely, they stated that, by a clearly stated position on precedent, the USA does not wish to lessen the importance of “legalistic interpretation of Europeans that, in expanding NATO mandate beyond the limits of the stipulated area in the war against Yugoslavia, it was an exception to the rule.” In other words, Europeans have a right to different opinion but, irrespective of their opinion, NATO aggression against Yugoslavia will be used as a precedent.

In the conference attended heads of states and/or governments, ministers of foreign affairs and ministers of interior of the NATO candidate states: Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. U.S. officials informed the participants that the American strategic goal was to expand NATO to the east, and “establish such spatial situation from the Baltic to Anatolia (in Turkey), as it used to be at the peak of might of the Roman Empire.” American officials detailed the roles foreseen by that plan for Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey. Talking about Serbia, the U.S. officials revealed that: “Serbia is to be permanently kept outside European development.” Now, a question to be asked, in light of this American position, is how one should interpret the conditioning policy that EU implements vis-à-vis Serbia; to rephrase it, to which extent is the EU’s policy towards Serbia a pro-European one? Yet again, if Europe continues in pursuing U.S. policy and U.S. interests with regards to Serbia, ten years after the aggression it also took part in under the overall U.S. direction, where are the limits, if any, of this incessant conditioning?

All the above elaborated, together with a series of other objectives within the American strategy in the Balkans and Europe, is contained in a memo of a prominent German politician Willy Wimmer[3] addressed to Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of 2 May 2000.[4]

A Europe of More Military Camps than During the Cold War

Military camp “Bondsteel” in the vicinity of Uroševac, the biggest U.S. military base outside the USA, is indicative of the way in which the USA rectifies General Eisenhower’s ‘mistake’ of six and a half decades ago. Just as NATO aggression of 1999 was a step towards deployment of U.S. soldiers in Kosovo and Metohija, so is Camp “Bondsteel” step one towards expansion of the U.S. military camps network eastwards. During 2007 were completed separate agreements with Romania and Bulgaria on establishing four U.S. military bases in each. In the immediate vicinity of Burgas, a popular Bulgarian port and resort and very soon a hub for two intersecting European natural gas pipelines, the USA will maintain two military bases of its own. Negotiations that the USA had with Poland and the Czech Republic on establishing anti-missile bases, efforts to admit Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, together with other related activities of the USA and the Alliance, lead to finalizing the plan on ‘spatial situation’ from the times of the Roman Empire. The real questions are what the ultimate goal is, and where the limits of the U.S. and NATO’s military expansion are. How does one explain that in Europe of today there are more American military bases than at the heights of the Cold War? Since the abolishment of the Warsaw pact, there is no global adversary of either U.S. or NATO in Europe. Instead of two conflicting ideologies, at present there is only one prevailing ideology, capitalistic one, and only one prevailing system – of a parliamentary democracy. So, who is threatening capitalism and democracy, and against whom is Europe defending itself by means of militarization? Any answer pointing out to terrorism or ‘the defeated forces’ are flimsy and hardly acceptable.

Crossland: “KLA, Tool for Regime Change in Serbia”

In his affidavit submitted to the Hague Tribunal of June 2006, British Colonel John Crossland, a military attaché in the British Embassy in Belgrade from 1996 through 1999, asserts among other things the following:

“The international community supported the KLA, and they were aware of it. Bill Clinton, Richard Holbrooke, and Madeleine Albright decided to change the regime in Serbia and that the KLA should be a tool in achieving this objective. Having that in mind, all the reservations I or anyone else have had against the KLA were rendered meaningless. The position of the international community in Rambouillet in 1999 was harmonized with this policy.”

Testimony of John Crossland has great significance and deserves a special attention. Colonel Crossland was well informed and privy to the issues of which he testified. At critical times, at the outset of the aggression, he held top military-diplomatic position, representing a very influential NATO member state, which is also one of five permanent members of the UN Security Council. Crossland has in particular been dealing with the issue of Kosovo and Metohija and has frequently been visiting the Province. In addition, one should be mindful of the United Kingdom’s long tradition of military, diplomatic and intelligence presence in Serbia and in the Balkans, on the one hand, and their intrinsic links with the U.S. peer structures, on the other, which without any doubt must be weighed when assessing value of the cited testimony.

The above citation, together with some other sources, offer reliable argument for the following evaluations and conclusions:

1.   An objective of the U.S. policy following the Dayton Accord was “regime change in Serbia”, meaning toppling of President Slobodan Milošević, as accentuated in American statements and actions in 1998 and 1999;

2.   The USA, the UK, Germany and some other Western countries have been supporting and assisting the terrorist KLA as a tool to remove from power the legitimate administration in Serbia, while concealing this agenda from the UN Security Council, the OSCE Council, and the public;

3.   Top leadership of the terrorist KLA was aware of its role in the U.S. plans and dutifully obliged, in the run-up to, and during NATO aggression;

4.   The Rambouillet Negotiations were organized to the same end: to ‘change the regime’, rather than to identify a compromise political solution for the status of Kosovo and Metohija in line with the publicly pronounced purpose; and

5.   The USA and other influential Western countries have circuitously also involved the United Nations, the OSCE (through its Kosovo Verification Mission, the KVM) and the European Union into their plan to topple the Serbian government, thus ruining their respective prestige, influence and role.

Careful scrutiny of Crossland’s testimony leads to conclusion that the independent status of Kosovo and Metohija, set in the so-called Ahtisaari Plan and implemented by unilateral declaration of independence of February 2008, is both reward for the terrorist KLA leadership for their role in implementing the decision to overthrow the regime in Serbia, and a result of this change.  This phase of the U.S. policy later on continued through a new phase, comprising the introducing of permanent U.S. presence in Kosmet (Camp Bondsteel) and a rapid expansion of military bases eastwards, nearing Russia, Caspian region, the Middle East and the Central Asia.

USA: Serbia Permanently Excluded from European Development

When talking about the change of “Slobodan Milošević’ regime”, one must know it was not the ultimate goal, but rather a precondition for introducing a full control of the USA over the territory of Serbia and Montenegro. This also corroborates the above-cited memo of Willy Wimmer about war against Yugoslavia as a front for rectifying General Eisenhower’s mistake by means of deployment of U.S. troops in Kosmet and the Balkans, for ‘strategic reasons’. “Serbia should be permanently left out of European development” – is a unanimous position of the American strategists, communicated to the allies in April 2000 in Bratislava, reported in writing by Willy Wimmer to his Chancellor Schroeder.

The conclusion that the American goal was to secure full control over the territory of Serbia is clearly supported by ultimatum contained in the provisions of the so-called Rambouillet Negotiations. These provisions requested granting NATO, read: the U.S. troops, the right to move, erect bases, conduct maneuvers and perform other related activities, and the right to use the entire infrastructure within the whole territory of Serbia (the FRY), applicable without any limitations in time or otherwise, or compensation. This goal remains unchanged to date, as evidenced by the contents of the Agreement on Transit of NATO troops, signed in 2005 by Vuk Drašković, the-then Minister of Foreign Affairs in the FRY, and Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, NATO Secretary General. It is even more evident in the SOFA Agreement[5] signed in September 2006 by Boris Tadić, President of Serbia, with the-then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in Washington. 

The continuity of the U.S. Rambouillet policy is manifest, as is manifest this policy has been implemented over a longer period of time, meaning both prior to and after Rambouillet, and prior to and after the ‘democratic changes’, to the detriment of the Serbian vital national and state interests. Almost everything that the USA and NATO could not get either by pressures in Rambouillet or by armed aggression of 1999, they have been achieving since 2000 incrementally, step-by-step, by means of ‘cooperation’ with the ‘democratic government’. Concerning the American position on excluding Serbia from European development, and although it was revealed with a six-year delay[6], it sheds new light on the policy of the EU’s endless conditioning Serbia for the sake of integration, and on the technology of operation of the U.S.-Hague Tribunal-EU nexus.

John Crossland’s evidence clarifies who and why, in 1998 and 1999, sabotaged the implementation of explicit requests of the UN Security Council to stop the armament, training and funding of the Albanian terrorists, namely, the terrorist KLA. It further sheds light on roles of the OSCE’s Kosovo Verification Mission (the KVM) and William Walker, whose primary task was to secure conditions for reviving, organizing and supplying the terrorist KLA, previously crushed by the anti-terrorist action of the law enforcement in summer 1998. “The international community supported the KLA, and they were aware of it” – wrote in his affidavit Colonel Crossland. It is easy to comprehend what actually meant a ‘support of the international community’, or how it was given, considering the role of international stakeholders in Kosovo and Metohija (the KVM et al.), and the group of countries Colonel Crossland refers to when naming the ‘international community’. Last but not the least: if the U.S. goal was to ‘change power in Serbia’, and if there is consensus that the U.S. sought change because the-then sitting administration refused to accept independence of Kosovo and Metohija, there is no dilemma what kind of a new regime the USA wanted to see, and managed to get, in the ‘democratic changes’ of 2000.

Ten years ago, U.S. wanted not only to break Serbia as an obstacle to its military expansion eastwards, but also to have such a regime in Serbia that will endorse this goal as its own, and contribute to the realization thereof. In other words, they sought such regime that would be willing to involve into implementing the imperialist policy of the USA and NATO in general, including implementing a major segment thereof aimed against the interests of Russia. This U.S. strategy remains in force to date, ten years after the aggression and 9 years after the so-called democratic changes in Serbia. The obvious question for the current political and state leadership is: can Serbia be a part of such policy, especially having in mind their unambiguous active role in dismembering the state territory of Serbia by taking Kosmet away. One should also have in mind the USA and NATO policy in the civil wars in Croatia (logistical and other support to Tuđman’s forces) and in Bosnia and Herzegovina (encouraging arrival of mujahedeen, arming Alija Izetbegović, undermining the Cutilier’s plan).

Hartwig: How the War Was Prepared

To understand the Western politics towards Serbia, including role of the European Union, we should refer to another, more recently written document that, just like Willy Wimmer’s memo, failed to provoke due attention.

It is the letter of Dietmar Hartwig, a high-ranking German diplomat, addressed to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, of 26 October 2007[7]. As stated in the letter, Hartwig spent several years in various missions in the Balkans, also in 1998 and 1999 up to the beginning of NATO aggression, when he was Head of the European Community Monitoring Mission in Kosmet, the ECMM. The Mission led by Hartwig had teams in Priština, Kosovska Mitrovica, Prizren, Orahovac and Peć. Since the inception of the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission in October 1998 up to the beginning of NATO aggression, the EU Mission (ECMM) and the OSCE Mission (KVM) have been working in parallel. The ECMM was sending its reports to the EU Headquarters, and to governments of the EU Member States via Belgrade embassies. In his letter to Chancellor Merkel, Hartwig among other issues asserts the following:

“Not a single report submitted in the period from late November 1998 up to the evacuation on the eve of the war mentioned that Serbs had committed any major or systematic crimes against Albanians, nor there was a single case referring to genocide or genocide-like incidents or crimes. Quite the opposite, reports repeatedly informed that, considering the increasingly more frequent KLA attacks against the Serbian executive, their law enforcement demonstrated remarkable restraint and discipline. Clear and often reiterated goal of the Serbian administration was to observe the Milošević-Holbrooke Agreement to the letter so not to provide any excuse to the international community to intervene.” Hartwig also writes:

“There were huge ‘discrepancies in perception’ between what the diplomatic missions have been reporting to their respective governments and capitals and what the latter thereafter released to the media and the public. This discrepancy can only be understood as an input to general preparations for war against Yugoslavia. Because there has never happened what have been relentlessly claimed by them [governments] and especially the media and, with no less intensity, the politics, too. Accordingly, until 20 March 1999 there was no reason for military intervention, which renders illegitimate any measures undertaken there by the international community. The collective behavior of the EU Member States prior to, and after the war broke out (i.e., NATO aggression, author’s remark) certainly gives rise to a serious concern, because the truth was lacking, and the reliability of the international community was damaged.”

“Compensation to Muslim World” at the Expense of Serbs

“Americans designed troubles in the Balkans in order to deter Europeans from any idea about NATO being no more necessary” – said Willy WImmer back in 2001 in his interview to German media. He holds that, by means of its policies in the Balkans, most notably by its support to Muslims in Bosnia and thereafter to Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija, the USA sought to appease the Muslim world, and to offer them a sort of compensation for the American pro-Israeli policy in the Middle East. “They utilize the Balkans to make up for the failures in the Arab-Israeli conflict” – says Wimmer.

The USA implements the policy of activating and globalizing NATO, and mercilessly enforces it on its European allies, notwithstanding the fact that its principal adversary and threat, the Warsaw Pact, was abolished – or maybe just because of it. The USA uses the fight against international terrorism, especially in the aftermath of 9/11, as an argument justifying NATO’s expansion, propagation of military bases, and overall militarization of Europe.

This new orientation and globalization of NATO means benefits for the financial sector and the military industry complex. Military reasons permeate the essence of the political decision-making, entailing consequences affecting the system of parliamentary democracy, the economy and the social relations.

American confession that the attack against Yugoslavia is precedent to be utilized “whenever needed” furnishes further support of the evaluation that the aggression of 1999, without consent of the UN Security Council, and committed in violation of the fundamental principles of the international law, was a precursor to global interventionism. It was the crucial step in transforming NATO into a force beyond any law, one entitled to act without consent and even contrary to the principles of the United Nations. NATO aggression of 1999 and its Washington Summit in April of the same year marked the ultimate peak of the unipolar world strategists. Since then, it became increasingly more difficult in international relations to advocate the unipolar world concept as superior to any other model in history. The reasons have nothing to do with any changes in U.S. and NATO strategy, or with hypocrisy, double standards and amorality of their policy towards Serbia, but rather with accelerated changes in global relations, that have been occurring in years following the aggression.

The period of preparations and execution of armed aggression against Serbia (the FRY) and immediately thereupon, at a wider European and the global levels, was marked by disorientation and inability of a Boris Yeltsin’s Russia, and by preoccupation of China, India and other influential ‘third world countries’ with their own development plans or specific national and state priorities. Since, the past decade saw substantial changes. Although NATO carried on with its eastward expansion, it is nonetheless facing serious problems in particular in Iraq and Afghanistan; there are silent internal and external resistances to the concept of NATO as a global gendarme. Some NATO Member States see its policy of aggressive expansion to east as a source of instability and lack of trust in relations with Russia. German and French opposition to admitting Ukraine and Georgia into NATO membership, and their disproving the timing of the military maneuvers held in Georgia, confirm the above assessment.

Globally, influence and role of Russia increased; the Shanghai Cooperation Organization was created; the Commonwealth of Independent States was strengthened; there emerged new economic and political groups such as the RIK (Russia, India, China), BRIK (Brazil, Russia, India, China), and ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas). They all share common interests in establishing multi-polar relations, strengthening the role of the United Nations and the principles of the international legal order based upon the United Nations Charter, and standing up to the policy of might, hegemony and imperialism. In addition, it seems that the global crisis has affected the USA and the West harsher than other big countries such as Russia, India and China. All the above indicates there have occurred substantial shifts in balances of political, economic and the military forces, which has considerably constrained the dominance and unilaterism of the USA. All analyses point out to the unstoppable continuation of the multi-polarism trend.

This is why the U.S. and NATO strategists of today contemplate whether the concept of expanding and transforming NATO into a global gendarme, foreseen almost two decades ago, is still rational, namely, whether it is a proper response to the trend of multi-polarization process in global relations. For Serbia and the Balkans, it is of special importance to learn the answer to question in which way Washington and Brussels intend to complete ‘the unfinished business in the Balkans’, commenced two decades ago: will it be the methods of the old, or of a new arsenal? This primarily refers to the situations in B&H and Kosovo and Metohija. In both cases, the solutions were imposed on the Serbian nation by use of force and blackmails. The proponents of that approach are aware that their policy is in contravention with the fundamental principles of the international affairs, and that such approach cannot result it valid, legitimate, and durable solutions. It is especially so at present, within the changed international relations. For any solution for B&H, and in particular for Kosmet, Serbia’s consent is indispensable and invaluable, and the condition for legitimacy. This makes it certain that the Serbian leadership will be subjected to renewed pressures and blackmailing, offers and compliments, just about anything that will make them accept the essence of forcible solutions. In the course of that process, the foreign factor will bountifully use dire economic and social situations in Serbia in order to make its leadership bend to a deal, such as ‘territories for development’ or ‘cooperativeness for a better life’. In order to avert the social unrest, the leadership will ask for new, ‘bargain’ loans. The USA will in turn ask for concessions concerning Kosmet (for starters, reintegration of the North of the Province), for exerting pressure on Republika Srpska to endorse further unitarization of B&H - and thus the essential revision of the Dayton Accord - and for its accelerated joining in NATO. We hold these will be the key reasons of the U.S. Vice-President Biden’s visit.

Time will show whether NATO for the past ten years shifted into top gear, or maybe overheated in the process. Nevertheless, interventionism that started in 1999 by aggression against Yugoslavia has long since been having hard times – in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Middle East, and other places, as well.


Henry Kissinger: Rambouillet, Just an Excuse for Bombing

The so-called Rambouillet Negotiations were organized with a view to depict Serbia and its leadership to the Western public as a stakeholder impossible to come to any agreement with, leaving inevitable the use of armed force, and Albanians as victims of a ‘state-applied terror’, deserving any support and assistance. Hence, there were no negotiations. Even the U.S. officials admitted that it had been staged to prepare the public for military aggression, when stating that Washington in Rambouillet had intentionally set the bar too high so that Milošević could not jump over.

This is how former U.S. State Secretary Henry Kissinger made a comment on Rambouillet negotiations:

“The wording offered in Rambouillet rewuiring the stationing of NATO troops within the entire Yugoslav territory was a provocation. It was but an excuse to start bombing. The Rambouillet Document was such that no Serb ever would endorse. This horrible document should have never been presented at all.”

The so-called Rambouillet Agreement has been often talked about, with different views offered, and yet the public is not sufficiently familiar with its contents. It is not so just by a chance, because this not only protects image of the authors and the ultimatum nature of this “horrible document” but also leaves room for all kinds of comments without prompting commentators to support their assertions with specific citations. The only complete and reasoned analysis so far is a work of Professor Ratko Marković.[8]

Out of multitude of provisions contained in the Rambouillet Document that illustrate its nature of ultimatum and its concept of capitulation and occupation, here are quoted only two. Item 21 of Annex B thereto among other things set forth:

“In exercising its power pursuant to this Chapter, NATO shall be authorized to detain individuals and to hand them over to relevant officials, as soon as possible”[9].

This is evidence that the Rambouillet negotiations were staged to extract signature of state leadership on a document granting the right to NATO soldiers within the territory of Serbia (the FRY) to detain any citizen of Serbia anytime, anywhere, arbitrarily, without any reasoning or procedure, and to keep them detained without time limits. The assumed ‘obligation’ to ‘surrender’ these detained individuals to ‘relevant officials’ as soon as possible is a poor consolation, especially in light of the NATO soldiers in Serbia enjoying diplomatic immunity and ex-territoriality, making them accountable to no authority, either in criminal, or administrative, or civil proceedings.

The second provision demonstrating the nature and the logic of the occupational feature of this Rambouillet Document is Item 15 of the same Annex B, and reads as follows:

“Pursuant to a simple request, the Parties shall render available all the telecommunication services, including the broadcasting ones, necessary for operations designated by NATO. These include the right to utilize facilities and services as needed for securing the communications, including the right to use the entire electro-magnetic spectrum, free of charge.”

This particular provision could be especially interesting for the media professionals including journalists, and for the non-governmental sector dealing predominantly with the media-related freedoms. Namely, the underlying idea of American authors of this wording was insistence that Serbia accepts NATO’s right to engage and use, at any time, all wavelengths of all radio and TV stations, from those used by the national army, police, health and weather forecasting services, to those used by public and private broadcasters. The electro-magnetic spectrum is considered, in eavery given country, to be a first-rate national resource. Words “a simple request” make it unclear to which authority should request be filed, or whether it should be written or oral. It may be interpreted that any patrol comprising NATO troops had the right to simply walk in a TV studio of the National Broadcaster, suspend the ongoing program, and start broadcasting its pre-taped or live programs, without any notice, limitations in time, or compensation.

These are only two out of hundreds of provisions in the wording of the so-called Rambouillet Document, illustrating obvious, but at times disputed assessment, that the real request in Rambouillet was asking Serbia (the FRY) to sign capitulation and submit to military occupation of the entire territory, not only of Kosmet. In addition, numerous well-reputed foreigners evaluated the character of the Rambouillet Document in much the same way. It comes to that the USA in Rambouillet did not really want the concluding of any agreement and, instead, they saw it solely as a reason for, and justification of, the coming aggression of global objectives. The USA was looking for ‘excuse to bomb’ – as assessed by Kissinger.

As explained, Serbia was the first victim of the NATO’s policy of eastward expansion and of transforming NATO into instrument of U.S. global dominance.

Having in mind all the above-said, and relying more than ever before on universal principles of the international relations, it is crucial that Serbia insists on the following:

a) observance and full application of the endorsed international documents, most notably the Dayton Accord and the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244;

b) refrain from any recognition, explicitly or tacitly, of any forcible, illegal solutions;

c)  refusal of any offer to trade in the most precious state and national interests;

d) insistence on the approach that any open issues is resolved by dialogue, pursuant to valid instruments and under the UN mandate;

e) concerning NATO, to remain at the level of Partnership for Peace.

“It looks like the Americans are aware and ready, in global context, to undermine the whole international legal order established as a result of WWII for the sake of attaining own goals. The force should prevail the law. Wherever the international law happens to be an obstacle, it should be removed.”

This is how Willy Wimmer, in his letter of 2 May 2000 addressed to Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, evaluated the concept presented by the American officials to their allies in the conference held in Bratislava in April 2000.

“The way of thinking that absolutely takes into consideration own interests only, may be named totalitarian” – concludes Wimmer.


Crushing Serbia Continued

During the aggression, the USA, NATO and the most influential Western countries, allied with the terrorist KLA. Today, the very same countries that allegedly combat international terrorism and organized crime worldwide, at the same time promote the notorious terrorists and criminals into their partners and leaders of an illegitimate state. The aggression executed by NATO and U.S. goes on. The crushing of Serbia is not complete yet. The new Statute of Vojvodina transforms this Province into a state within the state. The separatists in the southern Serbian municipalities and Raška temporarily keep a low profile. The feudalization of portfolios in the Government transfers to feudalization of the state territory. Serbia is on its way to end up transformed into a confederation of provinces. This toll has to be paid to the electoral deals, thanks to which there persists this U.S./NATO/EU favored government.

At present, Kosmet with its more than half a million illegal long barrels and arsenal of all kinds of weapons is the single largest storage of illegal arms and explosive ordinances in Europe, and maybe in the world. In the meantime, a considerable portion of KFOR’s modern arms and military equipment has also switched under the control of narco-bosses and terrorists. On top of all, there are new consignments of American weapons and German military equipment as donations to the false state in Priština.

Through its KFOR arm, NATO failed to prevent pogrom of Serbs carried from 7-19 March 2004; it failed to provide a secure environment and conditions for the return of some 220,000 displaced Serbs and non-Albanians; it failed to facilitate the return of a contingent of Serbian Police and Military, agreed by the Kumanovo Agreement and confirmed by UNSC resolution 1244. Obviously, neither NATO Command nor the leaderships of its member states ever had or currently have any political will to implement Resolution 1244. They havo no such political will, either, since the so-called democratic changes in Serbia of October 2000. Quite the opposite, NATO and KFOR still support the separatist and terrorist regime in Priština, rather than Serbia and the Serbian nation.

Irrespective of status of Kosovo and Metohija, Serbia has to promote the hitherto relations and cooperation with USA and NATO – reads the message of the state leadership. After his visit to Pentagon, one of military top brass said that the military cooperation between Serbia and the U.S. was continuing as usual! Another state official recently said that the U.S., as a proof of its friendship to Serbia, granted a million dollar support in military assistance! It remains unclear whether these evaluations also include the by far greater assistance for creating the army of the independent Kosovo! In its preparations for the forthcoming visit of U.S. Vice-president Biden, the Serbian state summit announces the “turning a new leaf in relations with the U.S.A”, saying we cannot be held hostages of differences in relations with the USA, such as positions on exploiting the space, on global warming, or on Kosovo and the fate of state territory of Serbia! 


Forgetful to Friends, Servile to Foes

On the other side, the Serbian elite suffer from forgetfulness of friends proven in hard times. They rather endorse and embrace those responsible for devastation of Serbia and for deaths of its citizens, than those who have been friends throughout times. As Archibald Reiss said back in 1928:

“And as you give the best of welcome to your yesterday’s executioners, you create any possible obstacles to members of friendly nations which have proven their real friendship at times of your despair. Your leaders kicked your loyal demonstrated friends from the hard times. One could almost assert that the leadership of your country hates whoever did favors to your homeland.”

The guests and participants in the International Conference at the Sava Center in Belgrade, dedicated to mark ten years of NATO aggression; in addition to the locals, ther came some 230 persons from abroad, as demonstrated friends of Serbia and Serbian nation. Just like in the worst of times back in 1998 and 1999, they again came from more than 40 countries from all the continents, to deliver expressions of solidarity with Serbia, and to recall that NATO aggression was and is crime against peace and humanity. They came to recall, not to forget and not to let it repeat ever, and to deliver the message of peace. Six months prior to the actual commencement of the Conference, the organizers addressed the Government of Serbia and presented the project of marking this sad anniversary, asking for a minimal financial support, as would any other association of citizens that sustains only upon membership fees and pro bono assistance of its members. The Government’s reply was negative! That, also, comprises a segment in relations to proven friends.

Mesmerized by “Euro-Atlantic integrations”, depicted to Serbian public as heaven on Earth, redemption from sins, and warranty of a shining future of Serbia, the Serbian political elite was only too ready to forget friends, and to endorse those responsible for crimes against the Serbian nation as saviors and the only reliable anchor. Take a look at the attitude the Serbian elite fosters towards the intellectual public giants such as Peter Handke, Mari-Pier Galois, Mikis Teodorakis, Patrik Beson, Michel Collon, Michel Chosudowski,  Franz Weber, Patrick Barrio, Eve Krepen,  and many more, who revealed NATO crimes and refuted the lies about Serbian nation by words, books and films!