Thursday April 1, 1999

The president of Yugoslavia and supreme commander of the armed forces, Slobodan Milosevic, on Thursday issued a Decree on the appointment of Generals to new posts.

Lieutenant Colonel General Blagoje Kovacevic was appointed chief of the Sector for operative and staff jobs of the Yugoslav Army General Staff.

Lieutenant Colonel General Milorad Obradovic was appointed Commander of the Second Army.

Lieutenant Colonel General Miodrag Simic was appointed chief of the Yugoslav Army General Staff's Sector for land army.

Major General Jagos Stevanovic was appointed Second Army chief-of-staff.

Major General Spasoje Djurovic was appointed administration chief of the Yugoslav Army General Staff infantry.

Lieutenant Colonel General Ratomir Ristic was appointed deputy federal minister for civil defence.

Major General Dr. Jugoslav Kodzopeljic was appointed chief of the sector for military economic activities with the federal defence ministry.

Lieutenant Colonel General Radosav Martinovic was appointed advisor with the federal defence ministry, stated the Supreme Commander's Military Cabinet.

***

Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has received Dr.Ibrahim Rugova in Belgrade.

In the talks which focused on the problems in Kosovo-Metohija, full concord was reached over the fact that the two sides were jointly oriented in favor of a political process, agreeing that the problems could be successfully and permanently resolved only by political means.

***

Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic on Thursday received the Vatican's secretary for relations with other states, archbishop Jean Louis Tauran, who arrived in Belgrade.

Archbishop Tauran handed President Milosevic the personal message of Pope John Paul II. Expressing the Holy See's objection to the aggression, he set out the Vatican's advocacy of ending the armed attack against Yugoslavia and in favor of turning to a peaceful resolution of the problems. The Holy See, as a moral authority, archbishop Tauran said, has called on the authorities of the NATO member countries to cease all military activities in view of upcoming Easter. President Milosevic said he strongly appreciated the efforts by the Holy See and Pope John Paul II to stop NATO's criminal aggression against our country and expressed the belief that the forces fighting for peace, the truth and justice would win over the forces resorting to criminal aggressions against other countries and nations, their freedom and national dignity. Yugoslavia is waging a just struggle, it is defending all its citizens, regardless of their national and religious affiliation, from criminal attacks and it will not renounce its country and freedom. The talks were attended by Yugoslav Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic and the apostolic nuncio to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Santos Abril y Castelo.

***

Serbian President Milan Milutinovic on Thursday received the Vatican's foreign minister, Jean Louis Tauran, who has arrived in Belgrade in his capacity as the special envoy of Pope John Paul II.

The Vatican's high representative said that the Holy See and Pope John Paul II were personally investing efforts for an urgent cessation of NATO's aggression against Serbia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, concerned over the bombardment, destruction and suffering of civilians. President Milutinovic pointed out that our country was peace-loving, that it had attacked no one, that we were defending our country, all our citizens, their freedom and peace from the insane aggression by NATO member countries.

President Milutinovic warned that the aggression by the United States and NATO, apart from undermining the foundations of international law, also represented the most serious blow to the highest principles of the Christian religion. The Holy See, therefore, feels invited clearly to condemn this aggression and to call it by its real name, to raise its voice against madness and to use its moral authority to request the immediate cessation of this crime against humanity.

***

Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic on Thursday saw a delegation of the Greek Orthodox Church including metropolitan Mitilinski Jakov, Veriyski Panteleimon and Ksantski Panteleimon along with their hosts - the bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church of Backa, Vranje and Branicevo: Irinej, Pahomije and Ignjatije.

In a friendly conversation, the guests conveyed to President Milosevic best regards and expressions of strong support and solidarity from the friendly Greek nation to the Yugoslav nation faced with the criminal Nato armed aggression. The Greek nation and church are outraged with the criminal US-led Nato aggression against FR Yugoslavia. They are confident the fight for liberty, the truth, justice and national dignity will win. As an expression of this joint feeling of the Greek nation and church, services will regularly be held in all Greek churches till Easter for the sake of Yugoslavia's victory over the Nato aggressor's crime. On behalf of our nation, President Milosevic thanked the fraternal Greek nation and church for their support which is a great encouragement for our just fight. The nation fighting for its liberty can never be conquered, President Milosevic said and added this generation of Yugoslavs will preserve its fatherland just as previous generations did in the past. The talks were also attended by Yugoslav Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic.

***

At around 5 a.m. on Thursday, April 1, the NATO criminal aviation tore down the bridge across the Danube river, located some 500 metres from the centre of Novi Sad, which connects the capital of the northern Serbian province with the ancient town of Petrovaradin and its fortress. The bridge, which served exclusively for public transport, was razed by NATO aggressors with two missiles, at the time when the citizens were on their way to work. The sight is horrible: the iron bridge construction, simply torn from the two supporting buttresses, collapsed into the river leaving only its top protruding from the water. Before the NATO villains fired the destructive missiles on the bridge on the Novi Sad-Belgrade road built in 1928, several civilian vehicles and public transport buses were heading towards it. During its demolition, destroyed was the water pipeline supplying the settlements on the right bank of the Danube - Petrovaradin, Sremski Karlovci, Sremska Kamenica and other settlements with several tens of thousands of inhabitants. Strong detonations damaged the buildings on the Novi Sad Raid Victims Quay. The quay is also the site of the monument to the victims of the notorious Novi Sad raid, in which the Hungarian fascists killed and disposed of the bodies of over 4,000 Serbs and Jews, by throwing them into the ice-covered Danube. The bridge which has been razed by the fascists of the new world order is hardly 100 metres away from this monument. Also damaged were the buildings of the faculty of Philosophy, the nearby elementary school, the central library and the Vojvodina Museum.

The bridge was also torn down by Hitler's fascist army in 1944. With the bombing of this bridge, the NATO aggressor has once again confirmed his fascist strategy based on the destruction of civilian facilities and relevant infrastructure links, whereas presenting its public with a false picture of destroying only military facilities.

***

The Command of the Yugoslav Army Pristina Corps addressed a proclamation to the citizens of Kosovo-Metohija, in which it said that, in its barbarian attacks, NATO does not choose the goals, bombing even holy places, monasteries and mosques. It does not

care about people or nations, but only about the areas and territories which they want to take by force, it is said in the Proclamation carried by the Yugoslav Army press service.

Addressing the Kosmet Albanians in particular, the command of the Pristina Corps stresses that the aggressor policy of the world power-wielders does not bring anything good to any nation, therefore not to the Albanians either. They only support the terrorist gangs as well as the so-called KLA, and only as long as they need them. They are sacrificing you for their own interests and goals, which can never be accomplished in these regions, says the Proclamation. The Albanians are called on not to follow the insane and dark ideas of several mercenaries and not to agree to attacks on the Army, police, their neighbours and fellow citizens. The Command of the Pristina Corps emphasizes that only joint life, without hatred and contempt leads to peace and calls on the Albanians to return to their homes and do everything in order for peace to prevail in the territory of Kosovo-Metohija.

***

There are no more Albanian terrorists in Dragobilje, Ovcarevo, Obrinje, Prekaze, Lapasnica, Paragusa, Malisevo and on Mount Cicavica, once the strongest terrorist strongholds, reported Radio and Television of Serbia on Thursday evening.

Facts clearly show that the terrorist so-called Kosovo Liberation Army has fallen apart and that the remaining terrorist gangs, which have committed unheard-of crimes, have been destroyed, RTS reported, stressing that Albanian terrorist gangs in Kosmet are throwing away their arms and uniforms, and abandoning their bases.

***

One of the Nato aggressor's planes and two helicopters with around 50 members of special units for rescuing downed pilots, fell on Thursday in the vicinity of Mt.Tara, some 200 kms south-west of Belgrade, Tanjug reports.

The Yugoslav anti-aircraft defence downed the plane just after midnight, and shortly afterwards, two enemy helicopters, which took off from a base in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in search for the previously downed pilots, were hit.

***

A heavily damaged F - 117 plane of the enemy Nato aggressor, hit in the air space of the FR Yugoslavia, preformed an emergency-landing at Pleso airport near Zagreb on Thursday morning.

According to Radio 101 of Zagreb, damage caused by anti-aircraft weaponry was found on the plane.

***

Two US non-commissioned officers - James Stone and Andrew Ramires and soldier Steven Gonzales were captured in FR Yugoslavia on March 31, the information service of the Yugoslav Army Pristina Corps announced.

The men in question served with the reconnaissance unit of a US division headquartered in Germany. The US soldiers resisted the capture, a statement said.

***

The three US soldiers were captured deep into Yugoslavia's territory and they are being treated in line with all international prisoner- of-war conventions, Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister Vuk Draskovic said.

In an interview to Canadian television, Yugoslav Information Minister Milan Komnenic said columns of refugees were moving towards central and northern Serbia in the face of Nato bombs, which testified to the fact that their lives were endangered in Kosovo-Metohija. Komnenic said some 300 refugees, including 200 children from Kosovo-Metohija, had arrived in Belgrade.

***

The capturing of American soldiers by the Yugoslav Army, is viewed in America as dangerous for the morale of US soldiers, especially of the pilots dropping tons of bombs on Yugoslavia, Tanjug reports.

At a press conference in Brussels, broadcast live by the American CNN, the commander-in-chief of the criminal NATO armada, Wesley Clark, avoided giving a more specific answer as to what the American soldiers were doing on Yugoslav territory being bombed by NATO. Representative of the US forces in Germany John Clearwater admitted in Bonn that the Yugoslav Army had captured three American soldiers from the first American infantry division.

***

The president of the Democratic League of Kosovo, Ibrahim Rugova, has said that NATO's bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia must be stopped.

Speaking to foreign reporters in his house in Pristina, Rugova said that untrue were the allegations that he was wounded and that his house had been destroyed. I wish to say that I am well and that I am under the protection of the Serbian police, he said. Asked by reporters whether NATO should cease its bombardment of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Rugova said that everything should stop. He called on NATO leaders to have understanding for all the sides in this situation and that NATO should not kill people, but rather help find a political solution.

***

Russian President Boris Yeltsin has said that the continuation of NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia must not be allowed and that the Kosmet problem must be resolved at the negotiating table. Despite Russia's most resolute efforts, NATO's armed action against Yugoslavia is, unfortunately, spreading.

Such an escalation is threatening to grow into a great disaster, not only for European countries. We must not allow this, Yeltsin said. According to him, the Kosmet problem can and must be resolved at the negotiating table. Prime Minister Primakov also saw this for himself during his talks with President Milosevic, Yeltsin emphasized.

***

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov has said that Russia will soon launch new initiatives for settling the Yugoslav crisis.

He underlined it was necessary to replace the logic of war with the logic of a political resolution of the problem and that the so-called Yugoslav crisis was spilling over from Yugoslavia. They are dragging other countries in the war, missiles are hitting Bulgaria, Albania and Macedonia are facing the problem of refugees, B-H is involved as well and the Dayton agreement is endangered, the Russian minister said. Ivanov announced that US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright talked to him over the phone on Wednesday evening about the movements of the Russian navy and that he told her the Black Sea fleet was to set out for the Mediterranean on Friday to protect the security of Russia since the clash had escalated. The most important thing is to establish peace in the region, Ivanov said and added the recent peace mission of the Russian delegation in Belgrade and Bonn had led to Nato's taking firmer stand although certain countries called on Russia to invest additional efforts in regulating the clash. Now it is not clear what they want, Ivanov said and added the Russian embassy personnel would not leave FR Yugoslavia.

***

China has resolutely called on Nato immediately to cease its aggression against FR Yugoslavia since the bombing claimed a huge number of civilian lives and caused fresh floods of refugees. It also believes that the Kosmet issue must be returned to the road of political settlement.

The spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry Sun Yusi said China appreciated Russia's efforts invested in a peaceful solution to the crisis in Yugoslavia and added China had taken and was taking diplomatic activities to this end. He recalled Chinese President Jian Zemin's having addressed a message to Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic regarding the Nato aggression emphasizing China's support for Yugoslavia's just fight for the defence of independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity.

***

NATO applauds Russian President Boris Yeltsin's initiative for convening a meeting of the G8 countries' foreign ministers and fully supports all the diplomatic efforts for resolving the conflict in Kosovo-Metohija, said the secretary general of the aggressor military alliance, Javier Solana.

He highly assessed Russian Prime Minister Yevgeni Primakov's efforts during the mediating visit of the Russian state delegation to Belgrade, at the same time stressing that Moscow could play a very important role in the easing of tensions in the region. Stressing that NATO wants Russia to take part in the final resolution of the problems in Kosovo-Metohija, Solana said the western military alliance shared a common stragetic goal with Moscow - the establishment of peace and the guaranteeing of autonomy for Kosovo-Metohija as part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

***

Belarus has suspended contacts with Nato due to its air-strikes against FR Yugoslavia, DPA reports.

Minsk also recalled the members of its permanent mission from Nato headquarters in Brussels and suspended contacts within the Partnership for Peace programme, the Byelorussian Foreign Ministry announced.

At the same time, Belarus suspended bilateral military talks with the US and other Nato member countries

***

The newly-appointed chair of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, has called for the EU's greater engagement in the settlement of the Kosmet crisis and the stabilization of the entire region.

Prodi proposed that the EU established partnership relations with all Balkan countries since it was only in this manner that one could concretely assist in and contribute to easing tension. He said his main task would be to see to it the EU be engaged in the settlement of the Kosmet crisis. Prodi cautioned Europe would have to assume responsibility and reply to the basic question as to why its Kosovo-Metohija policy had failed.

***

German Foreign Ministry is intensively working on drafting a new concept of a solution to the crisis in Kosovo-Metohija, which would make possible a ceasefire as soon as possible, the state secretary of the German Foreign Ministry, Luder Vollmer, said on Thursday in an interview to the North-German radio of Hamburg.

By "ceasefire" Vollmer implied the cessation of NATO's brutal aggression against Yugoslavia, Tanjug reports.

***

The head of the permanent mission of the FR Yugoslavia with the UN in Geneva, Ambassador Branko Brankovic, informed representatives of the non-aligned countries about the current situation in the FR Yugoslavia and called on them to raise their voice against the barbaric Nato aggression in which innocent civilians are being killed.

Ambassador Brankovic stressed that nobody could defeat a nation fighting for its territorial integrity, dignity and freedom. The heads of the non-aligned countries' missions said that the arrogant dictate of the US had to be curbed, since nobody knew who the next victim would be.

***

UN human rights rapporteur for the former Yugoslavia, Yiri Dinstbier, on Thursday in Geneva criticized Nato for its aggression against the FR Yugoslavia.

The bombardment is the latest of the series of mistakes made by the international community over the past decade, said Dinstbier, and warned that one cannot not fight for human rights by killing people. At the United Nation's Human Rights Commission's annual session in Geneva, Dinstbier added that Yugoslav schools have also been hit by Nato missiles. Dinstbier called the so-called KLA a tragedy of the Albanian nation.

***

Serbian Patriarch Pavle on Thursday thanked Pope John Paul II for his call for an end to Nato bombings during Easter holidays.

At the same time, Patriarch Pavle calls for a lasting cessation of air-strikes against FR Yugoslavia not only during Easter with the wish that reason and good will prevail among those who can decide about the continuation of hostilities against this country and that the problem be solved by peaceful means.

BRIDGES

The great Yugoslav writer and Nobel prize winner, Ivo Andric, was often inspired by bridges and their symbolism. Here is an excerpt from one of his essays, sublime and tragically topical precisely at this moment, when the criminal NATO forces tore down with missiles the decades-old civil bridge across the Danube river in Novi Sad.

"Bridges are more important than houses, more sacred than temples. Everybody's and equal for everyone, useful, always built with purpose, at a location where the largest number of human needs are intersected, more endurable than other constructions and they serve nothing which is secret or evil.

Huge stone bridges, the witnesses of long-gone epochs... steel bridges, taut like a wire from one river bank to another, trembling and echoing from every train that rushes by... Wooden bridges, whose gnawed beams titter and clank beneath the hooves of the village horses, and finally, those tiny bridges in the mountains, stretching across some hill stream... They are all essentially equally worthy of our attention, as they show the place where man has found an obstacle and did not stop before it, but surmounted it and bridged it the way he was able to.

Thus, all over the world, we come across faithful, reticent bridges, as the eternal human desire to connect, reconcile and merge, and for there not to be divisions, opposition or farewells.

Then, all of a sudden, a bridge appeared before me, divided in half, with the broken sides of the disrupted arch painfully striving towards one another, in the last effort to show the only possible line of the arch which has disappeared.

CONSEQUENCES OF NATO AGGRESSION ON THE EUROPEAN POLITICAL SCENE

While the bombs of the Nato aggressor are falling on Yugoslavia, the whoLe Europe is shaking. After a long time Russia is sending messages of warning. The European and world public are unanimously raising their voices against the American orgy of force which is threatening to cause a new world conflict. What America has been fearing for a long time is coming true: after the courageous resistance of such a small country as is the FR Yugoslavia, conditions are being created for growing resistance from the progressive powers of the world.

The most drastic changes on the European continent after the Nato aggression against the FR Yugoslavia took place in the relations between Russia and the US, which are being reduced to the level from the Cold War period. After Russia's withdrawal from the Partnership for Peace program, and the severing of all ties with the Nato alliance, there came the most serious warning since the 1960s. The passage of Russian naval forces through the Dardanelli on their way to the Mediterranean Sea bears a very clear message. The West must understand this message, just as it has to understand the turnabout in the Ukraine which, after the Nato aggression on Yugoslavia, decided to stop the process of dismantling its nuclear rocket launchers. The beastly bombing of the FR Yugoslavia has had a considerable impact on the internal consolidation of Russia, where all the national forces are uniting after a long time. Yeltsin has taken America by surprise. However, Russia's sobering up is not an isolated case in Europe. This process started spreading across the continent with relentless force; somewhere faster, in other places slower. The Italian Parliament's decision on the need of ceasing the Nato aggression is a slap in the face to the US - even more so considering the significance of this country where important Nato's naval and air forces are stationed.

Greece's decision not to take part on the air-strikes against the FR Yugoslavia is of many-folded significance. Even more important are the massive protest gatherings of the Greek people against the arrogant and haughty brutalities of the US and Nato leaders, which is quite certainly binding for the Greek leadership and which it has to taken into account. Also, in Germany effects of the aggression are felt the most in circles of the ruling coalition, from which various groups of the Greens and the Social-democrats are withdrawing. Opened again has been the old issue of the moral side of German participation in the Nato war operations, which is contrary to and strictly banned by the German Constitution. It is becoming clear now why the US had so strongly supported Germany's entrance into the Alliance. Freeing it of all the obligations Germany undertook by signing the Peace Agreement after the Second World War, the US obtained a strong European ally, and the government in Bonn secured a place for itself on the world scene as a military power. Let recall that Germany played a crucial role at the time when former Yugoslavia was falling apart and when Germany was unbelievably quick in recognizing the secessionist republics. Great Britain and France are also being severely criticized by their politically aware public which blames them for blind obedience and political inferiority in their relations with the US. The biggest American protegee, the British Prime Minister, Blair, abandoned, in the meantime, the most basic socialist principles and assumed a role which surpasses British national interests and pushes the country onto a track which the British do not accept. Former prominent Labour Party member, and a member of the British Parliament's Upper House, Tony Benn, warned at the very outbreak of the crisis, about the consequences of the aggression against the FR Yugoslavia, but his warnings fell on deaf ears.

French politicians and intellectuals warned as well. Not by chance did, over the past few days, leading French public figures say that Mitterand would never have done something like this, to say nothing of De Gaul. Let us just recall America's animosity towards De Gaul's vision of a free and independent Europe ruling its territory by itself. Unfortunately, Europe is today under American patronage. French ministers, however, remain silent. It is only the French communists who are loud in their resistance to American dictate.

However, the biggest surprise by far for the Americans was Macedonia, that is, the spontaneous reaction of the Macedonians who are also endangered by Albanian separatists. If there is anything that the aggression has shown so far, it is the sobering effect of the Yugoslav resistance on the awareness of all the people in Europe.

PROTESTS AROUND THE WORLD

Condemnations of NATO's aggression against the sovereign FR Yugoslavia are not abating throughout the world.

On Good Friday, April 2, pan-national protest rallies in support of Yugoslavia and against NATO's aggression will be organized in all Slovak towns. On this day, the Slovaks will light candles and pray together for all the people in Yugoslavia and for the bombardments to stop, Tanjug reports. At the same time, news agencies report that, on Wednesday, for the fifth successive day, Slovak citizens rallied in front of the American embassy in Bratislava in sign of protest against NATO's aggression on Yugoslavia.

Around one thousand people , mostly Serbs living in France and Germany, on Wednesday evening held a protest rally in Strasbour, France, expressing their support for the FR Yugoslavia and condemnation of the aggressor's attacks on our country. The protesters burned American, German and French flags, as well as the joint flag of the European Union, Reuters reports.

In the Swiss capital of Bern, a protest rally of the Serbs was organized near the American embassy, condemning the aggression against Yugoslavia, the Swiss news agency ATS reports. AFP also reports that the protesters demanded that the terror and violence over the Serbian nation cease immediately, accusing the US of being the initiator of NATO's criminal bombardment of Yugoslavia.

More than 500 members of the Serbian community in the seaport of Freement, near Perth, held a protest rally against NATO's criminal bombardment of Yugoslavia. A protest rally was also held in front of an American warship anchored in this port. In Capetown, in South Africa, the Yugoslavs living in the city held a protest rally in front of the American consulate. The protesters wore mourning bands, and the Yugoslavs were joined by people of other nationalities who condemned NATO's aggression against FR Yugoslavia.

A group of Yugoslavs living in Romania holds protest rallies in front of the US embassy every day, together with their Rumanian friends. The embassy is heavily guarded by police, news agencies report. The protesters shouted slogans: "Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia", "Kosovo is Serbia" and "Down with NATO". In the Rumanian town of Timisoara protest rallies in support of Yugoslavia and against NATO's aggression continue.

Copyright (C.) Radio Yugoslavia