Monday April 12, 1999

The Yugoslav Assembly on Monday reached a decision on FR Yugoslavia's joining the Alliance of Russia and Belarus. With this decision, Yugoslavia accepted the goals and principles of the Alliance of Russia and Belarus and assumed all obligations stemming from the agreement and the Statute of the Alliance of Russia and Belarus. Yugoslav Prime Minister Momir Bulatovic delivered an introductory expose on behalf of the propounder.

This session of both chambers of the Yugoslav Assembly is being held at a time when our country is facing the 20th day of war, Prime Minister Momir Bulatovic said in his introductory address. He recalled that in line with its constitutional authority and conclusions of the Yugoslav Assembly of October 5, 1998, pronounced a state of emergency on March 23. Following NATO's aggression against FR Yugoslavia, a sovereign and independent country, one of the founders of the UN, the Non-aligned Movement, a member country of the OSCE and other international organizations, the Yugoslav government declared a state of war on March 24, 1999. In this unprecedented war, the Serbian and Montenegrin nations are moral winners because they are defending their own state, freedom, honour, dignity, the spirit of their ancestors and the future of their descendants. Yugoslavia today is defending international law and order, said the Prime Minister. The aggression against Yugoslavia aims, among other things, to place Nato above the Security Council, the UN and to place the US above everybody and everything. This is detrimental both to the world and the US. FR Yugoslavia is defending itself; it is neither endangering nor attacking anybody, Prime Minister Bulatovic said. FR Yugoslavia's joining the Alliance of Russia and Belarus is of historic importance, he underlined. In their long and rich history, the Slavic nations have fought for just goals of peace, independence, equality and equal conditions for the development of all nations and states in Europe and the world. They fought against obscurantism and all sorts of aggressors. This Alliance secures conditions for the nations of Russia, Belarus and Yugoslavia to join forces and at this new civilizational turning-point, to protect their vital state and national interests and once again to make their irreplaceable contribution to just objectives - peace and co-operation in Europe and the world, Prime Minister Bulatovic said. Yugoslavia's joining the Alliance of Russia and Belarus will provide for a speedier economic, cultural and general development of our nations and states. This Alliance will be of special importance for the struggle for peace and security in Europe. Bearing in mind global world and European trends as well as the need fully to protect the individual interests of every member-country and joint interests of the Union these days and in the future, the Yugoslav government is forwarding a proposal to the Yugoslav Assembly to vote in favour of FR Yugoslavia's joining the Alliance of Russia and Belarus and pave the way for a stable and dynamic development of our countries and nations with a full protection of joint interests, Yugoslav Prime Minister Momir Bulatovic concluded in his expose. During a debate that ensued, representatives of all political parties supported FR Yugoslavia's joining the Alliance of Russia and Belarus and said that at this moment, the defence of the fatherland was a paramount task and that all party dissensions were pushed to the background.

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Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic saw on Monday Yugoslav Prime Minister Momir Bulatovic and the Chairmen of the Yugoslav Assembly Chamber of Citizens and Chamber of Republics, Milomir Minic and Srdja Bozovic.

They informed President Milosevic that all leading political parties to the Federal Assembly unanimously supported the draft and that the decision had been reached unanimously. President Milosevic concluded this united stand best mirrored the expectations and interest of the citizens of Yugoslavia, their support and importance they attached to this major historical move on the road to integration of countries and the strengthening of stability, security and peace in the region on the threshold of the new century. At the same time, the assembly decision paved the way for speedy economic, scientific, technological and cultural development, the Yugoslav President said at the meeting with the Yugoslav Prime Minister and the chairmen of the two chambers of the Yugoslav Assembly.

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Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has addressed a personal message to Russia's President Boris Yeltsin.

Yugoslav ambassador to Moscow Borislav Milosevic handed the letter to the Russian first deputy foreign minister, Alexandar Avdeyev, on Monday. At a press conference on Monday, he confirmed the letter dealt with the issue of Yugoslavia's possible joining the Alliance of Russia and Belarus. The Press Service of the Lower House of the Russian Parliament had previously informed the public about the letter and Lower House Speaker Genady Seleznyov also met the Yugoslav ambassador on Monday. Following his visit to Belgrade last Friday, Seleznyov conveyed the Yugoslav President's oral message to President Yeltsin and said the Russian president welcomed the idea of Yugoslavia's inclusion. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov on Monday said the Foreign Ministry had already received orders to study the possibility of Yugoslavia's joining the Alliance of Russia and Belarus and that now the issue was being closely scrutinized.

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Yugoslav Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic has assessed that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's inclusion into the Alliance of Russia and Belarus will fulfill the expectations of the three countries' nations.

After the federal assembly session, at which the decision on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's inclusion into the Alliance was adopted, Jovanovic told the press that he expected positive reactions from all those who meant Europe and the world well. Those who do not like this decision, have goals that are in collision with the interests of Europe, as the joint home of all equal nations and countries, Jovanovic stressed. He pointed out that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia would continue, through dialogue, to work on a political settlement for Kosovo-Metohija, on the principle of the equality of all national communities living in the southern Serbian province.

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Around noon on Monday, Nato warplanes struck at an international passenger train operating along the Belgrade-Thessaloniki line on the Bistrica bridge in the Grdelicka gorge. One missile completely destroyed the second carriage while the remaining three either burnt down or were derailed. The first ten injured passengers have been transferred to Leskovac hospital but this number is not final. By 5 p.m., seven bodies were taken out, six of which were carbonated, Tanjug reports. Sixteen injured passengers are being treated at Leskovac hospital, and a number of injured is presumed to have been transferred to Vranje hospital. There were foreign passengers in the train as well, the director general of the Yugoslav Railways, Svetolik Kostadinovic announced. According to him, this is a barbarian act unrecorded in the latest European history of which the international railway union, headquarted in Paris, has also been notified.

In the third attack against Pristina on Monday, two civilians were killed and one missile that hit a passenger vehicle on the Pristina-Kosovo Polje road heavily wounded one person. One missile landed on the Pristina-Pec road but major tragedy was avoided since traffic was stopped following the first blast. According to the Information Center, the aggressor struck at the cotton-processing factory and a city electric station which disrupted Pristina's electric power supplies. On Monday morning, shelled was the Slatina airfield and other locations southeast of the city to which massive damage was caused. In the region of Lipljani, cluster bombs, banned by all international conventions, were used. Warplanes keep flying over Pristina and its vicinity, Tanjug reports.

On two occasions in the course of Sunday night, criminal NATO bombers again shelled with 15 missiles of great destructive power the Zastava car factory in Kragujevac. Thirty-six workers have been injured.

Shelled were plants which were also bombed on April 9, when over 120 workers were injured and vast material damage was inflicted. The tool shop and computer centre were completely destroyed in Sunday night's shelling. According to the chairman of the Zastava management board, Milan Beko, material damage is estimated at over one billion dollars.

In a brutal strike on Krusevac, the criminal NATO aviation severely damaged the October 14 machine and components factory and the town's thermo-power station near the city centre. According to the first information, there are no dead but there are injured. The fire in the two destroyed facilities was extinguished, and material damage is huge. The October 14 factory employed over 6,000 workers and is ranked among the largest manufacturers of building machines in the Balkans.

Early on Monday morning, a number of detonations was heard in the region of Batajnica.

Shelled anew was the Pancevo oil refinery and its storage, and the fire squads invested efforts in extinguishing the fire.

NATO bombers operated in the densely populated part of Novi Sad, a few kilometres from the city centre.

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The Information Service of the Yugoslav Navy has announced that the response of conscripts is increasingly high, thus strengthening the combat power of Yugoslav Army units.

Yugoslav Army regulars and reservists are performing their combat tasks with high morale being strengthened by the courageous resistance of Yugoslav Army units, victories in combat, enemy losses and the awareness that the nation is united and that there are few of those who compromised themselves for their personal benefit, a statement from the Yugoslav Navy said. We must join hands in defending our homes, assisting our brothers attacked in their own flats, houses, schools, hospitals and military positions, the Yugoslav Navy said and added now was the time to be more united than ever. The Yugoslav Navy said that besides the use of the most advanced technology and weapons intended for destruction, the US and its allies were using all instruments of the media war endeavouring to separate the Montenegrin nation from the Serbian and by pacifying it to isolate it from its fraternal nation which is bleeding and defending every inch of its soil. Fortunately, only a small number of the citizens of the glorious Montenegro has succumbed to this influence, the statement from the Information Service of the Yugoslav Navy said.

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The NATO aggressors' foreign ministers adopted, on Monday at an extraordinary meeting in Brussels, a "Joint Statement", finally containing, among other things, the realization that it is necessary to start, as soon as possible, work on establishing the political frameworks for a peaceful resolution of the issue of Kosmet, the basis of which is to be the Rambouillet agreement, international laws and the UN Charter.

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, who, at the meeting, set out Bonn's initiative for a political resolution of the crisis and for the cessation of NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia, assessed that this week could be crucial for political initiatives, on which it depends whether arms will fall silent. Brussels diplomatic circles already admit that, since the beginning of the crisis, Yugoslavia, without any dictates, has been making moves directed towards a political resolution of all the open questions in Kosmet. This primarily refers to the decision of the federal and Serbian governments to halt all anti-terrorist activities in Kosovo-Metohija, as well as its insistence on direct dialogue with Kosmet Albanian representative Ibrahim Rugova, who has so far been treated in the West as the only legitimate representative.

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Russian President Boris Yeltsin on Monday confirmed to French President Jacques Chirac Moscow's principled stand on the necessity of putting an immediate halt on the bombing of FR of Yugoslavia.

The statement from the Russian head-of-state's office stresses that the talks, whose main topic was the situation in Kosovo-Metohija, were held at the initiative of the French side and that the two presidents spoke about the place and role of the UN in resolving the Kosmet problem.

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The head of the Yugoslav mission with the United Nations, Ambassador Vladislav Jovanovic, said on Sunday evening to the CNN, that a peace process was taking place in Yugoslavia, with the aim of finding a peaceful solution for the crisis in Kosovo-Metohija, and that the third round of talks between Yugoslav officials and Dr.Ibrahim Rugova was under way.

Rugova has realized that "he has been used and abused by American and other strategists, whose only goal was to destabilize Yugoslavia, and not to protect the interests of the Kosmet Albanians", said Jovanovic. He most sharply rejected the accusations against the Yugoslav Army concerning alleged crimes against the Albanians in Kosovo-Metohija, stressing that this is part of the campaign being conducted by the NATO aggressor, who is trying to hide his crimes before the Serbian people. When the problem of the aggression and bombardment is eliminated, all the other issues, which are the result of the NATO aggression will be able to be resolved, Jovanovic said when asked about the capture of three US servicemen. The aggression should stop, the bombing should cease, a peace process should be launched and the situation normalized, and that is what the international community's priority task should be, said the Yugoslav ambassador.

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Yugoslav Information Minister Milan Komnenic received a group of Italian journalists, correspondents of reputed Italian papers Giornale, Stampa and Matino.

Yugoslavia is prepared to support every honourable peace initiative, emphasized Komnenic in talks with Italian journalists. At the same time, he assessed Kofi Annan's offer as an attempt at salvaging his own political face, and not as a concrete step towards negotiations. Komnenic pointed out that Yugoslavia was following closely the Italian efforts to make a basis for a draft peace agreement, in agreement with the Group G-8, which would be used in political negotiations on Kosmet. Minister Komnenic also pointed to the warnings of some experts that NATO bombs used in strikes against sovereign Yugoslavia contained dangerous chemical elements, as well as to the frightening information that the number of miscarriages had increased six times since the beginning of NATO's aggression. He also indignantly denied speculations about the alleged mass graves in Kosmet.

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An attempt by an armed group of Albanian terrorists to enter FR of Yugoslavia in the region of Kosare and Morina lookout posts, west of Djakovica, from the territory of Albania on Monday was repelled. At least 150 gang members were liquidated on the occasion, tanjug reports.

The Yugoslav Army border units repelled the attack and several hundred members of the scattered terrorist gang were forced to flee in a panic to Albania. In the region of the Morina lookout post in the course of the day, several NATO aggressor planes gave support from the air to the terrorists with a several-hour bombardment. All the attempts at breaking through the border security line were curbed, and there were no wounded among the Yugoslav Army members, Tanjug reports.

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After a two-day delay at the Ukrainian-Hungarian border, the humanitarian relief convoy from Russia continued it travel across the territory of Hungary towards Yugoslavia, the Itar-TASS news agency reports.

The Hungarian authorities allowed the column's passage only after Russian Minister in charge of extraordinary situations Sergei Shoigu arrived in Budapest. Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban told MPs prior to a regular Parliament session that the evolved problems had been resolved and that the 66 trucks, including four out of a total of 8 fuel tanks could go towards their destination.

PROTESTS IN THE COUNTRY

Continuing throughout Yugoslavia are concerts and rallies at which citizens are expressing their bitterness over NATO's brutal aggression against our country, the desire to resolve the problems by peaceful means, but also the firm resolve to defend their fatherland.

For the 16th time, Belgraders rallied at noon in Republic Square at a concert for peace, of protest and defiance, in order to express their protest against NATO's bombardment of our country and all its citizens. United under Serbian and Yugoslav flags, those present, wearing the sign of a target on their chests, together with a number of domestic and five guest pop-rock groups from Republika Srpska, defended their freedom and dignity with songs.

Thousands of citizens of Novi Sad rallied in Liberty Square at a concert entitled NATO IS KILLING EUROPE, organized by the Patriotic Front of Novi Sad. With their songs and words, the participants confirmed their resolve to defend their fatherland, and announced for Monday evening is a new rally on the Railway bridge which the citizens of Novi Sad are defending with their lives.

In the western Serbian spa of Banja Koviljaca, continuing are patriotic events in which the citizens of Jadar express their pride, defiance and resolve to defend their fatherland from NATO criminals.

At Liberty Square in Babusnica, south-eastern Serbia, despite the air raid alert, held has been a rally entitled WITH SONGS AGAINST THE WAR, from which messages were addressed to the aggressors that it is high time the destruction of our lives and assets ceased. Those present were also addressed by member of the Yugoslav Left's Directorate and coordinator for the Pirot district, Buba Morina, who said: "We will not give, not only Kosovo, but a single inch of our country".

A protest rally has also been held in the Vojvodina town of Stara Pazova at which tribute was paid and unreserved support was offered to the state leadership, headed by Slobodan Milosevic, in its defense of the country.

PROTESTS AROUND THE WORLD

Protests against NATO's aggression on sovereign Yugoslavia are held throughout the world on a daily basis.

Several thousand Spaniards rallied on Sunday evening in Seville to condemn the criminal action by NATO and its secretary general, Javier Solana. The rally of support to the citizens of Yugoslavia, entitled "For human rights for all, let us stop the war", was organized by the Spanish United Left. Several thousand Serbs rallied on Easter in Vienna's central square, Stephansplatz, where, holding candles and icons in their hands, they protested against NATO's aggression on Yugoslavia. Protests of Serbs living in Vienna and their Austrian friends will continue to be held at 8 P.M. on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays at Albertinaplatz, until NATO's brutal aggression against Yugoslavia ceases. Protests will be held at Stephansplatz every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. Peaceful protests are being held in Moscow on a daily basis. A protest was held on Monday in front of the French embassy in Moscow, and others will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday in front of the diplomatic missions of Great Britain and Germany. Scheduled for Thursday is a big rally in Twersky Square in the center of the city. Bulgarian organizations - the Alliance of Young Socialists, the Ekoglasnost Youth Alliance, the Bulgarian Students' Alliance, have launched an initiative for holding an event entitled "Peace in the Balkans" in Sofia from April 17 to 24. Taking part in the event will be music bands, youth theater ensembles and individuals from Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Russia and Yugoslavia.

20^th DAY OF THE AGGRESSION

This Monday marks the 20th day since the beginning of the barbaric US-led Nato aggression against sovereign Yugoslavia.

This tragedy taking place in the heart of Europe, with the approval and participation of many European countries, members of Nato, has cast a long shadow over the joyful holiday of Christ's resurrection. Even during these festive days civilians are being killed, residential districts razed, bridges and the country's infrastructure destroyed. Nato forces last night again killed people and demolished facilities throughout Yugoslavia. One more time its bombing target was the Zastava Car Factory in Kragujevac, even though workers had formed a live shield to defended it with their own bodies.

Yugoslavs are faced with those who wield world power but also with the fact that world public opinion knows little of the magnitude of their sufferings and the will to protect their bridges throughout Yugoslavia with their bodies in an attempt to save them from the enemy's invisible air-force. They also gather at city squares and from these meetings send into the world peace messages and assurance that when it comes to defening one's country and dignity no price is too high.

'The enemy has no business to be here, we have attacked no one, we are merely defending our own country' - this the essence of all messages including the one packed symbolically into a bottle on Sunday and dropped from the Branko bridge down into the river Sava to reach the world. The message among other things says: 'We, the citizens of Yugoslavia, have always been the people of good will, solidarity and desired only to live in peace and cooperation with the entire world. Our still unborn children as well as those present here will be proud of our keeping watch nightly on Serbian bridges under the sky that pours bombs down on us, whereas generations of Americans will feel shame when they remember your acts of inhumanity and destruction'- warn patriots from the Yugoslav bridges.

Messages of support that the Yugoslavs, totally united and unanimous, receive from people of all walks of life from all over the world are getting ever louder: workers, commentators, politicians, statesmen, artists, writers are appalled at the scope of the Nato aggression. Many of them point to the Serbian nation's history of freedom-fighting and recall the fact that this April Nato have been bombing Belgrade just as the Nazis did in 1941, and the Allies in 1944. Nato's aggression has finally unmasked the face of western democracy and the intention to break up FR Yugoslavia according to the well tried scenarios used against the former Soviet Union and the former Yugoslavia - said the deputz speaker of the Council of Europe's parliamentary assembly, academician Boris Olejnik. He added: 'Your courageous nation has already, on the third day of aggression, shown that it is the moral winner. However, moral victory doest not count for much when there are people getting killed daily, and representatives of foreign countries are passive on-lookers, unaware that they, themselves, will be a target of the Nato aggressor'.

Hope is found in the voices of reason which are getting stronger in many countries. The London Observer writes that the terrorists of the so-called KLA are Nato's main ally in the aggression on Yugoslavia. Two former Portuguese presidents, Mario Soares and Ramalyo Yanes have sharply condemned Nato's aggression and called it self-will and an unlawful and flagrant violation of international law.

'This war and the tragedy that befell the people of Yugoslavia, has engineered exclusively in order to serve the interests of Clinton, Albright, Blair and the rest of world power brokers, while Europe is dead silent - said the Speaker of the Greek Parliament Appostolos Kaklamanis in his Easter address to the Greek nation. He reiterated once again: 'I feel ashamed today of being a European citizen'.

While the aggressors continue their air-strikes against Yugoslavia, European cities shudder at the thought of Russian missiles and the possible Yugoslav joining the Russian-Belorussian Union, whereas the White House is worried about both Moscow and the cracks within the western Alliance.

Copyright (C.) Radio Jugoslavija