Thursday April 22, 1999

Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic received Russian President Boris Yeltsin's special envoy on the Yugoslav crisis, Viktor Chernomyrdin.

On arrival in Belgrade, Chernomyrdin said at Belgrade airport he had come "with special proposals for curbing the tragedy in Yugoslavia". Chernomyrdin emphasized that the Russian initiative was backed by the leaders of other members Commonwealth of Independent Countries, which he visited prior to his arrival in FR of Yugoslavia.

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Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic gave an interview to a US TV station from the Texas city of Houston. In the hour-long interview, President Milosevic emphasized he was optimistic in seeking a peaceful solution, but that NATO should first halt the aggression. "I believe that, when the bombing and aggression stop, it will be very easy to continue the political process", stressed, among other things, President Slobodan Milosevic.

In the interview to the American TV station, the president of FR of Yugoslavia accused NATO of causing the flood of refugees. "Until March 24, when the bombing started, we did not have refugees. Since then, there are many of them, as a consequence of this filthy NATO action", emphasized President Milosevic.

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In the course of the night, the NATO criminal aviation pounded Belgrade and, on Thursday morning around 4 o'clock, its missiles hit the residency of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in Uzicka street no.15, located in a residential quarter and surrounded by other family houses. At the time of the attack, the president of the republic and his family were not in the house which was razed to the ground.

A series of strong explosions also shook Batajnica on Thursday morning, and the aggressor's targets included the local airport, Tanjug reports. On Thursday afternoon in the region of Pristina, NATO planes stroke at civilian facilities in the Sofalija and Goles districts, the Grmija excursion place and Slatina airport. Over 30 missiles were launched. Since Thursday morning, NATO planes have incessantly been overflying the Kosovo-Metohija capital and its environs.

Tanjug reports that identified so far have been five persons killed in Wednesday's bombing of a refugee camp in the vicinity of Djakovica, which injured 20 residents of the camp where 200 Serb refugees from Croatia had resided.

On Thursday, NATO planes once again bombed the Zezelj bridge across the Danube near Novi Sad at the time when workers were trying to repair the previously inflicted damage, as well as the vicinity of Kraljevo and the village of Merdare near Kursumlija where there are no military facilities.

In the course of the night, for the third successive time, NATO bombed Valjevo and its biggest company KRUSIK which was hit by 12 highly destructive bombs. The material damage is great, and the settlements around the factory were damaged from the strong detonations. Anti-aircraft defenses also acted and downed one missile.

In the region of the Bay of Kotor, a strong detonation was heard on Thursday, after which air raid alert was sounded in Montenegro, Tanjug reports. The detonation was especially loudly heard in Tivat, Kotor, Herceg-Novi, Podgorica and a number of other places in Montenegro. According to unofficial information, it is believed that a sonic boom from NATO aircraft was in question.

According to the Surveillance and Information Service in Aleksinac, an enemy projectile was downed at 6 p.m. on Thursday in the vicinity of the village of Suric on the slopes of Mt Jastrebac. Fortunately, no casualties or material damage have been reported.

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Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister Vuk Draskovic said in an interview with BBC that Nato should put a halt to the bombing immediately.

Draskovic said at issue was a collective crime and that damage caused by the month-old bombing in Yugoslavia amounted to more than 30 billion dollars. Even if the aggression stopped immediately, the reconstruction would take more than five years since more than 400 thousand people lost their jobs as Nato bombs destroyed their factories, Draskovic said.

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Nato wishes to take over the role of the UN Security Council and to control Europe and the world market, Yugoslav Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic said in an interview with the Greek Ta Nea newspaper.

He said that all leaders and citizens of Yugoslavia were united in the defence of the country and that he was deeply convinced general human values were being defended as well. It is with media manipulations that the West wishes to justify the aggression against a sovereign country. The Kosmet crisis can be settled exclusively by political means which was confirmed by President Milosevic and other Yugoslav politicians having launched dialogue with Kosmet Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova in April, Zivadin Jovanovic told Ta Nea.

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Yugoslavia has only one possibility - to defend itself, Yugoslav Information Minister Milan Komnenic told tens of foreign and domestic reporters.

Minister Komnenic said that the aggressor mainly targeted civilian facilities and added that in more than 7,200 air-strikes, hundreds of civilian facilities, having nothing to do with the Yugoslav Army, had been destroyed. Since the beginning of the aggression, huge strings of refugees have been formed, hundreds of people remained without water supplies, 500,000 workers were left jobless meaning that two million citizens remained without the basic means for life, Komnenic said. An advisor to minister Predrag Simic said that over the past month, Novi Sad - the capital of the multi-national, multi-cultural and multi-religious Vojvodina, where 26 national groups are living in harmony and peace, had been the target of Nato's most brutal attacks.

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Nato's criminal strike at Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's residence on Thursday morning is an attempt on the life of the head of a sovereign state and a designed terrorist act, Yugoslav minister Goran Matic said.

He told a press conference for domestic and foreign reporters at the Yugoslav Army's Press Center that three laser guided bombs had been fired at the residence. Matic branded as highly cynical Nato officials' statements that last night's strike was an attack exclusively on the building rather than on the president himself. He concluded that the attack was a continuation of the campaign of hitting civilian targets in this country. Yugoslav Assistant Foreign Minister Nebojsa Vujovic told the same news conference that the attack on the president's residence was at the same time an attack on millions of citizens of this country and a continuation of the intimidation campaign. He recalled that the first victim of Nato's strikes was the UN Charter and added that all countries of the aggressor alliance had breached their own highest legal acts clearly defining the protection of the personality and property of heads of state.

***

Deputy Speaker of the Serbian Assembly, professor Vladimir Stambuk, who is also the secretary for international co-operation of the Yugoslav Left, saw a delegation of the Communist Party of Greece headed by honorary president Harilaos Florakis, the committee for international co-operation announced.

Florakis said members and followers of the Communist Party of Greece were outraged with Nato's criminal bombing campaign against FR Yugoslavia and said he profoundly respected the achieved level of cohesion between the nation and leadership of Yugoslavia and Serbia in the defence of Kosovo-Metohija. At the talks, it was mutually pointed to the need for co-operation between progressive political parties and movements in the Balkans, which can be a basis for the togetherness of the Balkan states and nations and a lasting and stable peace in the region, a statement said.

***

Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister Danilo Vuksanovic on Thursday received a delegation of the Greek trade union, headed by the secretary of the Greek General Labor Confederation, Giorgos Orfanos.

It was jointly assessed that NATO's criminal attacks, which are not grounded in either legal or moral principles, represented a defeat of the entire justice and freedom loving world. The Greek trade unionists stressed that the entire Greek nation and workers expressed solidarity with the just struggle of the people of Yugoslavia, that they were organizing protests throughout Greece in support of this struggle and that this would continue. The guests from Greece also had separate talks in Belgrade with representatives of Yugoslav trade union, whereby they conveyed the stand of the Greek General Labor Conference that the bombing must cease in order for dialogue to be launched and for conditions to be created for a peaceful and political resolution of the crisis.

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The statement by NATO spokesman Jamie Shea that the Serbs are using Albanian children as blood banks shows that NATO is not just a monstrous machinery for killing, but for lying as well, Tanjug was told on Thursday by the Serbian health minister, Dr.Leposava Milicevic.

Last year, Dr.Milicevic recalled, not even terrorist activities by the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army prevented the Serbian health service from offering medical assistance to Albanian children, including two rounds of polio vaccination. According to her, the health service is organized according to regulations precisely set in the event of war and that it is functioning very efficiently. Ensured has been a sufficient amount of medicines, sanitary material and other necessities for regular work and for treating those injured in the bombardment.

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Russia would have to state at this moment already how and in what form it can give serious military and technical assistance to Yugoslavia, in case NATO carries out a ground invasion on its territory, Russian State Duma speaker Gennady Seleznov said on Thursday.

All indications point towards NATO preparing such an operation and all grounds exist for saying that NATO is now realizing its plan for Yugoslavia, aimed at dividing the country into two parts, the speaker of the Russian Parliament Lower House told the press. They are no longer talking about ethnic Albanians, but intend to view Kosovo in the future as some independent state, Seleznov said. NATO special services, according to Seleznov, are now actively working in Montenegro, inciting some kind of Montenegrin separatism, because the Americans want to take advantage of this war to secede Montenegro from the territory of Yugoslavia.

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The presidents of Russia and Belarus, Boris Yeltsin and Alexander Lukashenko, will meet in Moscow on April 28 to discuss the situation in the Balkans and Yugoslavia's inclusion in the Russia-Belarus union, it was announced in Minsk on Thursday.

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Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov has said that Moscow, in cooperation with the member countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, has drawn up a new peace plan for resolving the Kosmet crisis.

In a statement to the Spanish media, Ivanov said that Victor Chernomyrdin would inform Yugoslav officials about this during his visit to Belgrade. Ivanov called on his counterparts in Great Britain, Spain, Italy and the Vatican to have NATO cease its bombardment of Yugoslavia for a certain period so that, as he said, it would be possible to discuss peace without bombs.

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Russian Patriarch Alexiy II has had talks in Moscow with the Russian president's representative Victor Chernomyrdin, Prime Minister Yevgeni Primakov and Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov.

No details from the talks have been disclosed, but it is learned from statements by participants in the meeting that the greatest attention was devoted to a search for ways to halt the bombing of Yugoslavia and to drawing up a concept for a peaceful settlement of the crisis, with Russia's direct participation in the negotiating process.

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On the basis of his talks with his opposite numbers of Germany, France and Great Britain, Italian Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini claims that sending in ground troops to Yugoslavia is ruled out, the Stampa newspaper said on Thursday.

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At the moment, the most important thing is for Nato to end its military action against Yugoslavia in order to return the problems in Kosmet to the path of political settlement, it was officially reiterated in Beijing on Thursday.

Spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry Sun Yussi said China sought Nato immediately to put an end to the war campaign and that the Kosovo issue could be solved exclusively if Yugoslavia's sovereignty and territorial integrity was respected. China believes the legitimate rights of all national communities in Kosmet should be preserved, Sun Yussi said.

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At a summit in Washington, the Norwegian government will call for a halt to the bombing of civilian targets in Yugoslavia, the secretary of state in the Prime Minister's cabinet Aslaug Haga said in Oslo on Thursday.

Norway has not authorized Nato to bomb civilian targets. The strike at the Socialist Part of Serbia headquarters can by no means be justified by military reasons, said Secretary of State Haga.

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One of the organizers of the of the German peace convoy for Belgrade. Lottar Heupel of Dresden, told Tanjug in Bonn on Thursday that the planned trip to Belgrade, which the convoy was to set off on Thursday evening, had been ut off due to NATO's reluctance to guarantee safety to the participants.

We would not like to experience the same as those Albanian civilians in Kosovo, so the convoy will depart instead of for Belgrade, for Milan and Vicenza, where we will rally, together with our Italian friends, against NATO's aggression on sovereign Yugoslavia. At the same time, Heupel called on the humanitarian organizations from Belgrade to contact him so as to collect humanitarian relief for the Serb population, which has lost roofs over their heads and sustenance due to the criminal bombardment of civilian targets. Mr Lottar Heupel's Dresden telephone number is: 331 6322.

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In the edition of the BETA Scientific literature, the Italian editions of Professor Mira Markovic's books NIGHT AND DAY and REPLY were promoted in Rome on Wednesday evening.

In the presence of numerous journalists and public figures, politicologist Lucio Caracciolo spoke about the book, stressing that historical reality had confirmed many political anticipations of professor Mira Markovic. The book translator, Dragan Mraovic, stressed that professor Markovic combined politics, ethics and poetry in a profoundly humane manner, with faith in a better world.

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During his meeting in Rome on Thursday with participants in the world summit, recipients of the Nobel peace prize, Pope John Paul II addressed an appeal for the cessation of the bombardment and a return to dialogue, with respect for all human rights, Tanjug reports.

30^TH DAY OF THE AGGRESSION ON YUGOSLAVIA

This Thursday marks the 30th day since the beginning of the US-led Nato aggression on sovereign Yugoslavia.

The people of Yugoslavia to whom these 30 days of brutal air-strikes have brought tragic sights of civilian victims, razed homes, bridges, hospitals and schools, found themselves appalled today when the aggressor's planes at about 4 o'clock a.m. local time, levelled the residence of the Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic in Uzicka Street. The house was situated in a densely populated residential district of Dedinje. An attempt at assassinating the president of a sovereign country which resolutely defends its freedom finally unmasked the face of the aggressor. We are shocked and appalled at the monstrosity of the bestial attackers, who talk of higher causes, while killing people in their homes, sending bombs on journalists in their offices, razing bridges, schools, hospitals. 'We will destroy everything. All they will be left with is their squares, so they can gather and sing there', said Madeleine Albright, as quoted by the CNN. The aggressor is obviously infuriated by the fact that people of Yugoslavia are determined to defend themselves in all possible ways, which includes using their spiritual energy and sending peace messages from concerts held throughout the country, as well as guarding their bridges with their own bodies as live shields every night.

For many people throughout the world the Yugoslavs are an example of perseverance and dignity. Messages of support are pouring in, even from the countries taking part in the aggression. Also, appeals calling for the cessation of the killings and destruction of a proud, sovereign country are louder by the day just like the voices condemning the aggression which represents a crime against humanity and the greatest humanitarian catastrophe of modern civilization. Also getting stronger is the public's awareness of the fact that this hegemonistic aggres-sion which violated the whole international legal order is a threat against the secu-rity of the entire world. Yugoslavia which does not accept domination of one power over the entire continent, is still ready, despite the aggressor's senseless attacks, to seek a political solution for Kosmet, as well as to resolutely defend itself.

WORLD DAY OF PLANET EARTH

World Day of the planet Earth, April 22nd, is being marked in Yugoslavia this year in very hard conditions, since for a whole month FR Yugoslavia has been subjected to relentless Nato air-strikes. The shameful Nato aggression against Yugoslavia in an undoubted genocidal nature is turning into an eco-cide, through which the western countries have trampled upon their own orientation towards preserving the human environment on our planet', said Federal Environment Minister, Jagos Zelenovic.

Air-strikes against the chemical industry and power production throughout the country have caused severe technological, chemical, and industrial accidents, with elements of ecological catastrophe of international proportions. Those dangerous ecological and noxious substances have endangered numerous fragile and rare natural habitats, inland waterways, and underground water. Air pollution has spread over vast regions which could cause long-lasting land pollution and endanger agricultural and forested areas, Minister Zelenovic said.

The Nato air-strikes have caused great oil spills into the river Danube, and have thus destroyed much of the flora and fauna of the most important European river and endangered water-supply in many countries, Zelenovic said. There are extremely hazardous chemical substances released by the bombs and missiles that have exploded during the aggression, and also numerous fires have started during the razing of building complexes and also caught surrounding woods. Taking into consideration that the aggressor is using forbidden cluster bombs, the endangered areas cover very large regions, Zelenkovic stressed.

Considering the fact that we are faced with an ecological catastrophe, whereas respecting the principled peace-oriented policy exercised by FR Yugoslavia, it is essential that the military actions be halted and peace talks started immediately, especially since the talks between the Yugoslav authorities and the representatives of the Albanian national minority have already started, Minister Zelenovic said.

Calling on the world public to help stop the brutal aggression, genocide and ecocide against Yugoslavia, Zelenovic expressed hope that the hardships the people in this country have been exposed to in the last few weeks, will never happen again in any part of the world.

POLITICAL PARTIES REACTIONS

Political parties in Serbia in their reactions still condemn the insane bombardment of civilian facilities by the NATO criminals.

The targets of the aggressor's attacks on Yugoslavia are not military and police facilities, but the entire nation, said the Socialist Party of Serbia's spokesman Ivica Dacic. This is shown by the suffering of innocent civilians, refugees from the territory of former Yugoslavia, Albanian refugees from Kosovo-Metohija who have fled from NATO bombs, destruction of the economy, communication lines, passenger trains, medias, and finally the residence of the Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, Dacic said. He added that the Socialist Party of Serbia's and president Milosevic's policy did not live in buildings but in the whole Yugoslav nation. Today, the people, its leadership and security forces are united in the country's defense and are a symbol of fighting for freedom. We have not capitulated and allowed to be occupied and that is why we can now say that we are the winners in this imposed, unequal and unjust war, Dacic stressed. Despite the evils brought upon us, and our firm resolution to defend the sovereignty of our country, we still believe that the only solution which can bring a lasting peace in the Balkans is a political settlement of the problems in Kosovo-Metohija, Dacic said.

The most shameful armed attack ever conducted in the history of warfare was made by the NATO criminals, when they hit and destroyed the residence of the Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, said the Information Secretary of the Yugoslav Left's Directorate and the party's spokesman, Ivan Markovic. After this crime, it is clear to everyone that NATO wants to kill the policy of our country's independence, detroy Yugoslavia's freedom and once and for all, replace the normal world order and fight for peace by continual wars, Markovic emphasized. There are more than 11 million Yugoslavs. If they want to destroy these values they will probably have to kill us all. If Europe and the world should allow this, then mankind does not deserve a future which would be free, and oriented towards peace and development, Markovic stressed. He said that the people was with president Milosevic, and would persevere in his determination for the problems in Kosovo-Metohija to be solved by peaceful means, and that politics and law were always superior to war and injustice.

As the criminals of the western alliance are becoming less successful on the military plane, they are getting more unscrupulous in the destruction of civilian facilities, said the Serbian Radical Party's leader Vojislav Seselj. By incessant bombardment of factories, bridges, residential areas, and, on top of everything, the Yugoslav president's residence, the aggressor was admitting its inability to beat the united Serbian people, Seselj stressed.

The razed factories and schools, destroyed bridges, bombed hospitals, targeted cultural and historical monuments, demolished residential facilities, and above all the casualties, are the only thing the NATO aggressor has achieved by starting the world's largest military machinery against Yugoslavia, says the Serbian Renewal Movement. This party stresses that the destructions did not change the firm stand of the leadership and people, that Kosovo-Metohija was an integral part of Serbia and that the problems in the southern Serbian province can be solved only by political means.

In their blindness, and since their military operations have not produced the desired results, the NATO killers do not shy away from any crime in their intention to destroy the Serbian people, the Democratic Party of Serbia states.

FOREIGNERS DEFEND BELGRADE

On the eve of the Nato aggression on Yugoslavia, the staffs of certain diplomatic and other foreign Belgrade-based missions left the Yugoslav capital. Actually, it was only the representatives of the Nato member countries except Greece, that left. All the rest have stayed and in the last 27 days of war had not only experienced fear in the face of Nato missiles, but in a certain way, defended Belgrade from the enemy. More on this from Radio Yugoslavia's Rastko Jovetic.

Many ambassadors and charge d'affaires who have remained in Belgrade, through this act expressed not only personal courage, but the disagreement of their governments with the Nato aggression on Yugoslavia. This is, no doubt, one more argument that supports the fact that the war Nato is waging against Yugoslavia, is actually a war of the unrestrained military alliance against the rest of the world.

Disagreement with violent United States policy and their allies from Nato is also expressed by the foreign political parties and humanitarian organizations' representatives who in the last 20 days have become part of Belgrade. Some of them came from the countries taking part in the aggression, some even from the US. All of them came to Belgrade because they rightly disbelieved the media campaigns in their countries that the Yugoslav Army has performed ethnic cleansing and should be punished for it.

Many of the foreign citizens who have been living in Belgrade for years, educated themselves and become experts, formed families and made friends, not only stayed in Belgrade, but in their own way, joined the drive to defend it from the aggressor. For example, Belgraders who gather in great numbers on the Branko Bridge, and with their own bodies defend the most beautiful bridge in Belgrade, were joined on Monday by a big number of Arabs. There were also around 200 protest participants from Tunisia, Algeria, Macedonia, Libya, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Iraq, and many other Arab countries. A few nights ago the defenders of the Branko Bridge were joined by a delegation of mothers from Argentina, whose sons had been killed or had disappeared during military rule in this country. Also, many foreign citizens participate in other protest gatherings in the capital. All these gatherings can be viewed as an expression of solidarity with the people of Yugoslavia, but also as a symbol of a desire of many world countries to resist external pressures and American hegemonism above all.

Copyright (C.) Radio Yugoslavia