Saturday May 01, 1999

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Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic on Saturday saw a delegation of religious leaders from the US headed by distinguished political and religious leader Reverend Jesse Jackson.

The guests expressed their commitment to peace and the well-being of people, understanding, tolerance and equality. It was said that

wars should be committed to the past and that the present time and future lay in relations between states and nations. President Milosevic underlined that Nato was waging a war against the entire Yugoslav nation, regardless of national or religious affiliation. This is the war no nation in the world approves of. The aggression against Yugoslavia is taking place parallel to the media war against this country, whose first victim is the truth. For this reason, it is the moral obligation of everybody in favour of the truth, justice and the development of humane relations among people, to oppose the bombing of our nation and raise their voice against falsehoods whereby the Yugoslav nation is persistently being vilified. As a state of equal citizens in which 26 different nationalities live, our country is an example of freedom, understanding, tolerance and respect for all the people regardless of their affiliation or beliefs, President Milosevic said. The religious leaders committed to the well-being of all people should exert joint moral pressure aimed at replacing the rule of force with the rule of law in the world. The talks were also attended by Yugoslav Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic.

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Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic reached a decision on the release of three captured American servicemen.

The soldiers will be handed over to religious leader Reverend Jesse Jackson heading a group of religious leaders who has come to this country to oppose the bombing and express his solidarity with the victims of this war. The President reached this decision in support of Jesse Jackson's commitment for peace and understanding among people and nations. The Supreme Commander's order on the release of the prisoners of war said the following: "We do not regard them as enemies but as victims of war and militarism".

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The Russian President's special envoy on Yugoslavia, Viktor Chenomyrdin, has briefed President Boris Yeltsin on the results of his two-day trip to Bonn, Rome and Belgrade.

Chernomyrdin acquainted the head of state with all the aspects of his consultations on a political settlement of the Kosmet crisis. President Yeltsin approved of the results of these talks, a statement said. On return from Belgrade late last night, Chernomyrdin told a large number of reporters that the talks were hard, laborious and complex. There is a great wish for ending war operations and there is a realistic possibility of reaching a political decision. It is necessary to work further and Russia will do so, said the Russian head of state's special envoy. He said his talks were constructive and added Belgrade was demonstrating concrete and constructive intentions which might become a basis for further progress. In this context, he recalled that a peaceful outcome depended on both sides to the conflict and reiterated that a halt to the bombardment was one of the main preconditions for politically settling the crisis. Now we are very close to a solution to the Kosmet problem, Chernomyrdin said and announced he would talk by phone with US Vice-President Al Gore and is due in Paris and London next week. The Russian President's special envoy repeated Russia's stand towards the ban on oil shipments. The EU's and Nato's oil embargo against FR Yugoslavia can in no way refer to Russia. We are not their assistants in these foul dealings. Russia has inter-state relations with FR Yugoslavia and we will respect them, Viktor Chernomyrdin said.

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On Friday around 1 p.m., planes of the criminal NATO alliance bombed the bridge in the town of Luzani, 20 kilometers north of Pristina, on the Pristina-Podujevo road, killing at least 40 passengers on a Nis-Ekspres bus, which was on the bridge at the moment, Tanjug has learned.

Bus number 446 driving on the Nis-Pristina line, was directly hit by a missile, cutting it into two parts. So far, according to eyewitnesses, 23 carbonated and massacred casualties have been counted. At 1:53 NATO villains fired another missile at the bridge hitting the ambulance that was on its way to provide assistance. One doctor was injured in the head.

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Enemy Nato warplanes destroyed a bridge on the Prijepolje-Priboj road in the village of Donja Bistrica at midday on Saturday.

The Bistrica Hydroelectric power plant was massively damaged anew as it is situated only some 50 meters from the destroyed bridge. According to eywitnesses accounts, Nato aircraft also targeted facilities on the Prijepolje-Priboj-Nova Varos cross-roads.

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Nato enemy aircraft struck anew with two missiles an old bridge in Trstenik on Saturday.

The already pulled down bridge was hit at 13.40 hours. Fortunately, there were no casualties.

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The Nato aggressors launched an aerial assault on Beopetrol's fuel dump in Bogutovac at 1 p.m. on Saturday.

Thick pall of smoke can be seen billowing over Bogutovac situated some 20 kilometers from Kraljevo. There are unofficial reports of injuries.

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Nato aggressor warplanes launched an attack on the broader Novi Pazar region shortly before 1 p.m on Saturday.

According to the Municipal Red Cross, air raid alert was sounded at 12.45 when the first blast was heard. Fifteen minutes later, yet another detonation was heard followed by a heavy attack on the broader Novi Pazar region, particularly Novi Pazar Spa.

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Two strong detonations rocked the vicinity of Bajina Basta at midday and 12.30. p.m on Saturday.

The unofficial reports say the missiles most probably hit the nearby hill in the municipality of Skelani on the left bank of the Drina river in Republika Srpska.

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A Nato enemy projectile landed and expoloded in front of a hospital in Pancevo overnight endangering the lives of 300 patients and the medical staff in the Medical Center's wards.

The projectile hit the hospital yard and caused damaged to all buildings in the hospital circle. Damage was inflicted upon the surgical, pulmonary and children's ward, a health care center with a pharmacy and the administration building. Also damaged was the materinity ward housing 18 newborns, said the director of the Pancevo health care center dr Svetozar Gavrilovic. At the moment of the attack Ana Stojiljkovski was in labour. She was delivered of twins, a boy and a girl. The director of the center said that the medical staff would continue normally to tend to the patients.

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Shortly before midnight, the Nato aggressors pounded for a seventh time an airfield near Sombor.

The Nato aggressors fired eight projectiles, one of which was downed by the Yugoslav Army's air defences and another one landed in a field. The schrapnels hit the broader city region causing minor damage to tens of houses. With the overnight attack included, Nato fired more than 100 missiles at the Sombor region since the beginning of the aggression.

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During Friday afternoon, the town of Murina near Berane in Montenegro, an important cross-roads towards Pec, Plav and Andrijevica, was struck twice. The attacks killed four and injured eight civilians including two children. The town was almost completely flattened and a local bridge over the Lim river is unusable for traffic. Enemy warplanes attacked overnight the village of Ladjevci and Vitanovac near Kraljevo. The missiles caused only material damage and disrupted electric power supplies. As a transmission line carrying electricity to the transmitter was cut, the citizens of this region cannot receive Kraljevo TV's signal. At 2.10., Nato warplanes struck at the TV transmitter on Crveno Selo on the outskirts of Subotica. One aggressor missile hit the Lipovacka forest south of Belgrade overnight. No casualties have been reported. Criminal Nato warplanes targeted with three projectiles the Slatina civilian airport in the municipality of Lipljan to the southwest of Pristina shortly after nine o'clock.

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Citing news agency reports, the electronic media in Brussels on Saturday said that the NATO aggressor had carried out yet another criminal attack on a bus on a bridge in Luzani near Pristina, in which there were over 40 casualties.

The reports stress that western journalists, among whom was AFP's correspondent, were on the spot and saw the mutilated bodies of the victims of NATO warplanes, bombed on Saturday afternoon. At the NATO aggressor's headquarters, official spokesmen, as they have so far, rejected at the very beginning any responsibility for the latest tragedy. They said ~there was no proof~ of the brutal action. NATO's spokesman admitted, however, that ~a large number of bridges~ was hit on Saturday.

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The European Union decision to ban oil deliveries to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia represents a flagrant violation of the UN Charter's basic principles, especially the principles of the equality of states, as well as the principle of work in the UN Security Council, says the letter of Yugoslav Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic to UN Security Council chairman Alain Dejamais.

The letter, presented to the Security Council chairman on Friday evening, by the head of the Yugoslav mission with the United Nations, Ambassador Vladislav Jovanovic, on behalf of the Yugoslav foreign minister, says, among other things, the following: Under article 53 of the UN Charter, no regional organization can apply, without the Security Council's approval, coercive measures against a sovereign state. Also, Minister Zivadin Jovanovic stresses, the Declaration on principles of international law, pertaining to friendly relations and cooperation among states in accordance with the UN Charter, stipulates that, no state can use or encourage the use of unilateral economic, political or other measures to exert pressure on another state. The European Union's measures, Jovanovic recalls, are contrary to both the Helsinki document and the OSCE Paris Charter. The mentioned European Union decision will have multifold and unforeseeable effects, for Yugoslavia and its citizens, but for the countries in the region as well. They will primarily affect the citizens of Yugoslavia, their human rights, as well as the social and other conditions of life for the population that is already suffering enormous consequences due

to NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia. The Federal Republic of

Yugoslavia, as a UN member country, calls on the Security Council to condemn the European Union's illegitimate decisions and proclaim them invalid, says the letter of Yugoslav Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic to UN Security Council chairman, Alain Dejamais.

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In yet another attempt at a demonstration of force and the policy of punishing countries and nations, the Washington coterie, which is at the helm of NATO's aggression on Yugoslavia, on Saturday imposed a trade embargo against Serbia. Clinton, who is in this way demonstrating apparent mindlessness, but also helplessness to resolve problems and crises by political and democratic means, without the use of force or punishment, on Saturday signed the so-called effective order.

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The Kosmet problem cannot be resolved by bombing, but only in a peaceful manner - this is the basic conclusion reached by Russian State Duma representatives and members of the US Congress at the meeting held in Vienna on Saturday.

The two countries' parliamentarians coordinated the text of a joint report, whose contents will be presented to Russian and US Parliament members soon. The report says, among other things, that the expression ~ethnic cleansing~ can be used only if implemented for the entire Balkans, with the additional term ~terrorism~, which pertains to the so-called KLA.

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In numerous European cities, Labor Day celebrations have turned into protests against the NATO aggression on Yugoslavia.

Over 15 thousand citizens of Sofia turned the annual May 1st celebration into an anti-war rally, calling for the urgent cessation of the US and NATO aggression against neighboring sovereign Yugoslavia and for the government not to allow NATO the use of Bulgarian corridors for military operations against Yugoslavia.

The Serbs and their Austrian friends on Saturday marked May 1st in downtown Vienna with a protest against NATO's brutal aggression on Yugoslavia. Eight hundred black balloons were released in front of the parliament building in protest against the criminal bombardment of Yugoslavia.

In some sixty towns throughout Spain, tens of thousands of people protested against NATO's bombardment and expressed their solidarity with workers and citizens of Yugoslavia. Former Spanish foreign minister Fernando Moran, who took part in the protests, spoke in favor of a new world order that will not be determined by one super power.

In Paris and numerous other cities throughout France, May 1st was marked with events organized by trade unions and political organizations, at which the participants sharply criticized Euro-federalism and American hegemony, and most sharply condemned NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia.

Throughout Germany, Italy and Belgium May 1st rallies were, without exception, marked by protests against NATO's aggression on Yugoslavia. Requested at them was the urgent cessation of the criminal bombardment of Yugoslav towns.

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International Labour Day is being marked throughout Yugoslavia despite war-time conditions caused by NATO's aggression.

We will never forgive anyone the cries of our children, the victims of the bombardment, the wounded and the empty factories and schools, our levelled bridges, destroyed roads and plantations, our spiritual and Orthodox Christian sanctities, say a message from numerous rallies of workers and citizens Yugoslavia-wide. An appeal has been sent from Bor, Kraljevo, Arandjelovac, Krusevac, Podgorica and many other towns in Yugoslavia to the workers of the world to raise their voice against the fierce bombing of Yugoslavia, to express solidarity with the just struggle of the Serbian nation against the aggressor who is ruthlessly sowing death and demolishing civilian and economic facilities.

Copyright (C.) Radio Yugoslavia