NATO CRIMES IN FR YUGOSLAVIA

* Documents and witness accounts -*

The second volume of the White Book concerning the crimes committed by NATO in Yugoslavia from 24 March to 10 June 1999 was recently presented to the Yugoslav and world public. It was said at the presentation of this book that on about 550 pages of the second volume and more than 400 pages of the first one, the reader of the White Book can get to know the horrible, brutal consequences of the NATO aggression, the largest scale premeditated crime ever committed in the world in the second half of the present century.

The White Book is a striking, cautioning and documented account of the atrocities committed by NATO against civilian population of the FR of Yugoslavia. The book includes so much irrefutable evidence of the crimes committed against innocent civilians, that any unbiased court of law in the world would have to accept the indictment against the direct perpetrators and their "shadow" directors from the top leadership of the Western Alliance.

With the force of their influence, all of them are trying to remove all traces of crime and lessen or shift onto others a part of their own guilt for the grave crimes committed against civilians, whom they had declared as legitimate military targets. Some of these directors are now hypocritically telling us that at the very last moment, they actually prevented others from destroying this or that bridge, factory or installation and that they had named and published the targets in advance. All that is just a fig leaf intended to cover up the inexorable truth and turn attention away from the crimes they had committed.

Although international political requirements have still not been met for the perpetrators to be brought to the dock and justice, there is still the other court, the court of public, and the indictment for the moral aspect of the crimes committed, which cannot and will never bypass them.

At one time, when the conflict in Kosovo was on the upward swing and chaos was being stirred up and dictated from the outside in order to fabricate the "humanitarian reasons" for a military intervention, copies of a book about the sacred buildings in Kosovo were sent to some members of the Alliance leadership. Without discriminating anybody, that book knowledgeably and impartially deals with religious and cultural symbols, not only of the Serbs, but also of the other inhabitants of the multiethnic Kosovo. That message, which also makes it known that the multiethnic Kosovo is the Serbian homeland and the source of Serbian statehood and culture and that the Serbs have the historical right to live there where their ancestors had lived - a right that cannot be annulled with the means of Albanian terrorism and ethnic cleansing - was not understood at all by the Alliance leadership. What makes their liability and guilt even greater is the fact that they not only permitted, but also ordered the killing of an entire nation, not only in Kosovo, but also in Serbia as a whole and elsewhere in Yugoslavia. All that for the sake of extremely dubious and wrong political objectives. This is also clearly substantiated by the latest killing of the Serbs in Kosovo.

The recent presentation of the White Book entitled NATO Crimes in Yugoslavia was also attended by the diplomatic representatives in Belgrade of the countries which have condemned the NATO military aggression or have not concurred with it. The representatives of NATO countries were absent. The latter is quite understandable, since the White Book is the heaviest indictment that can possibly be presented against both their leadership and all those who concurred with the NATO aggression or took an indifferent attitude to it.

The photographs and other documents about the horrible acts so cold-bloodedly committed from a long distance against innocent civilians, which were cynically excused in the inhuman interpretations as "collateral damage" or "incidental error", will leave an indelible impression on all people who have not yet lost the sense of humanity and justice. It is as if the glitter in the eyes of a potential mathematical genius, the 16-year old Sanja Milenkovic, and the sad and amazed look on the face of Danijel Ivi?, whose both legs were severed by a cluster bomb, are asking: Why? The immobile body of Jagoda Mladenovic in a well-cultivated vegetable garden, the carbonised remains of Albanian children, women and old people and other horrible pictures included in the White Book, will also be a permanent nightmare for the direct perpetrators and those who had ordered the crimes to be done.

That is precisely why the White Book about the NATO crimes in Yugoslavia is "not only a special kind of indictment", but it is also there to serve as a warning that nothing of the kind should ever happen again, to anybody and anywhere.

* The both volumes of the White Book about the NATO crimes in Yugoslavia are presented on the site of the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Dragan Colovic

Yugoslav Ministry for Development, Science and Environment finds
THE DANUBE, THE LAKE OF SKADAR AND THE ADRIATIC POLLUTED AND THE OZONE LAYER DAMAGED

The Yugoslav Ministry for Development, Science and Environment established that almost 11-week war operations in the FR of Yugoslavia had substantially damaged the ozone layer of the Earth, impaired as it was. This will result in a long-term change in the climate at the local and regional and probably also global level, says the Ministry's release.

The Ministry also notes that the destruction and the endangering of a series of civilian industrial facilities, chemical, petrochemical and oil plants represented a specific form of a NATO chemical warfare pursued against the population of Yugoslavia.

The list of such facilities includes over 80 industrial plants the destruction of which has adversely affected the local and in many cases even the regional environment.

The consequences of NATO attacks are the most conspicuous in Pancevo: the nitrogen plant, the refinery and the petrochemical industry. Poisonous chemicals and compounds were released into the atmosphere, the waters and the soil and now pose a great threat to human health and the ecological systems in a wider area of the Balkans and Europe.

The damage to the environment is reportedly "enormous". This statement may be substantiated by the fact that the storage tanks of the petrochemical industrial complex at the time of the bombing held substantial quantities of vinyl-chloride monomer, chlorine, ethylene dichloride, 40 per cent sodium hydroxide and 33 per cent hydrochloric acid.

NATO operations polluted the Danube and other rivers, as well as the Lake of Skadar and other lakes and the Adriatic Sea.

The information of the Ministry points to the pressing problem of pollution of the higher strata of the atmosphere which may spread further depending on the meteorological conditions.

"The rabid destruction of the FRY is in violation of all international principles of environmental protections, as stipulated in numerous international documents," points the Federal Ministry for Development, Science and Environment. The bombing of chemical facilities is unprecedented in history. All aggressors avoided these targets because their destruction, in addition to a toll in human lives, also inflicts irreparable damage on the soil, air and water, which are considered common goods, emphasised Dr Milicevic. These acts, in her view, reveal the need to add new meanings to the word genocide.

The targets of NATO attacks also include national parks and the protected vegetable and animal species. Damage was done to mountains Kopaonik, Tara, Fruska Gora, Sara and the Lake of Skadar, as well as Mt. Durmitor and Mt. Lovcen and other sites, states the information emphasising that hundreds of hectares under forests were burnt and that numerous eco-systems were destroyed.

Statement by the Republic Minister of Culture Zeljko Simic
OVER 365 CULTURAL FACILITIES DAMAGED IN AGGRESSION

NATO attacks on the FRY endangered goods of exceptional cultural importance which had even been placed under the auspices or protection of the highest world and European institutions, noted Zeljko Simic.

During NATO attacks on the FRY over 365 facilities of exceptional cultural value have been endangered, damaged or destroyed, which points to the conclusion that this brutal aggression, marked by a large number of civilian victims, jeopardised the cultural heritage under the patronage or protection of the highest world and European institutions, noted the republic minister for Culture Zeljko Simic appearing on a programme called "Tanjug Reports".

In its attack, the aggressor paid no heed to the elementary norms of the civilised communication and "there is no doubt that the Kosovo wounds now hurt more than they did before this war, because a flagrant attack was made on our collective memory, the tradition which I - and I believe most intellectuals - understand as preserving the lasting rather than past values, built into the very foundations of the European and the world civilisation."

(Tanjug)