BELGRADE, 8 June 2000 C O N T E N T S : FROM THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA -YUGOSLAV PRESIDENT SENDS FELICITATIONS TO NAVY ON ITS DAY -YUGOSLAV PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC RECEIVES SERBIAN PTT DELEGATION -YUGOSLAV DEFENCE MINISTER OJDANIC GIVES INTERVIEW TO TANJUG -VUJOVIC BLASTS U.N. MISSIONS FOR DISASTROUS PERFORMANCE YUGOSLAVIA - RUSSIA -YUGOSLAVIA'S MINIC MEETS WITH RUSSIA'S IVANOV -YUGOSLAVIA'S IVAN MARKOVIC RECEIVES RUSSIA'S DEPUTY MINISTER YUGOSLAVIA - VIETNAM -YUGOSLAV MINISTER TOURS VIETNAM'S QUANG NINH PROVINCE YUGOSLAVIA - IRAN -YUGOSLAVIA AND IRAN SIGN ACCORD TO PROMOTE ECONOMIC COOPERATION FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S MEMORANDUM - DIPLOMATIC ACTIVITIES -MURDERS IN KOSOVO-METOHIJA SOAR HUNDRED-FOLD SINCE KFOR CAME -BRANKO BRANKOVIC: MILITARY, POLITICAL AND MORAL DEFEAT OF NATO SERBIAN PROVINCE OF KOSOVO AND METOHIJA -DETAINED SERBS START NEW HUNGER STRIKE -UNMIK POLICE STORMS KOSOVO-METOHIJA HOSPITAL, ARRESTS SERB KOSOVO AND METOHIJA - INTERNATIONAL REACTIONS -UNMIK AND KFOR FAILED IN KOSOVO-METOHIJA - CZECH SENATOR NATO AGGRESSION - INTERNATIONAL REACTIONS -AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL ACCUSES NATO OF WAR CRIMES -BRITISH DEPUTIES CHARGE NATO'S AGGRESSION WAS ILLEGAL -EXHIBITION OF PHOTOS OF ANTI-YUGOSLAV NATO CRIMES OPENS IN VIENNA YUGOSLAVIA - SANCTIONS -PETITION DELIVERED FOR LIFTING SANCTIONS AGAINST YUGOSLAVIA * * * FROM THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA YUGOSLAV PRESIDENT SENDS FELICITATIONS TO NAVY ON ITS DAY BELGRADE, June 8 (Tanjug) - Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who is also the supreme commander of the Yugoslav Armed Forces, on Thursday sent a message of felicitations to the Navy on its day, June 9. The message said: "On the occasion of June 9, Navy Day, I wish the members of this service a happy holiday and continued success in the professional discharge of their duties in the training and capacitation of the commands, units and institutions. "In the long tradition and rich experience of the national navy, as part of the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, you greatly contributed to the defence of the freedom, sovereignty and territory of our homeland from aggression to which we were exposed last year. "With their brave conduct during the war, members of the Navy, together with the other services of the Army of Yugoslavia, have shown that our country has a morally strong and respectable armed force. "Wishing you a happy holiday, I rest assured that you shall in the future continue to help strengthen the overall defence capability of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia". YUGOSLAV PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC RECEIVES SERBIAN PTT DELEGATION BELGRADE, June 8 (Tanjug) - Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic received on Thursday a delegation of the Serbian Postal, Telegraph and Telephone PTT Company on the occasion of the 160th anniversary of the postal service in Serbia. The meeting was attended by Milan Milutinovic, president of the Yugoslav republic of Serbia, who chairs the anniversary celebrations preparatory committee. The delegation briefed Milosevic on the performance of this big company which is a modern and technologically powerful system comprising 1,610 post offices, more than 2.5 million telephone connections and 250,000 mobile phone lines. Wishing the PTT and Telecom Serbia a happy anniversary, Milosevic said their long history was the best testimonial to the long and successful development of this public service in Serbia and an impressive development of the nation. Serbia, one of 22 original founders of the World Postal Union in the last century has, despite difficulties encountered over the past 160 years, constantly kept lines open to the rest of the world, greatly contributing to global postal traffic. YUGOSLAV DEFENCE MINISTER OJDANIC GIVES INTERVIEW TO TANJUG BELGRADE, June 7 (Tanjug) - Yugoslav Defence Minister Dragoljub Ojdanic on Wednesday visited the national news agency TANJUG and gave an interview to Director and Editor-in-Chief Dusan Djurdjevic. General Ojdanic stressed that timely and true information was more powerful than any weapon, because media war was no less important than armed conflict. "During last year's NATO aggression on Yugoslavia, TANJUG played a very important part in disseminating the truth and combatting the lies that the aggressors were spreading about our people and state. "TANJUG has shown the international public the true causes and effects of developments in connection with (the Yugoslav republic of Serbia's province of) Kosovo-Metohija", Ojdanic said. "The military-political situation in the region has drastically deteriorated since NATO's armed aggression on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999. "The aggression is not stopping, but is continuing by other methods and weapons, with a view to attaining the interests of the United States both in the Balkans and wider in the world. "Most states see a way out as lying in creating a multipolar world, with all its weaknesses, to replace the unipolar one," Ojdanic said, adding however that "nearly all Balkan countries have embraced the concept and strategy of the so-called new world order." Stressing that Yugoslavia's security is still in great jeopardy, he noted that NATO is waging three parallel wars on Yugoslavia: one, trying to detach Kosovo-Metohija from Serbia and to create a Greater Albania; next, trying to fragment the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, whose organisation and size are an obstacle in the way of implementing a plan for a total subjugation of the Balkans and getting closer to the East; and, third, waging war on "recalcitrant" Serbia which resists globalism and global U.S. domination. He went on to speak about the non-implementation of U.N. Resolution 1244 on Kosovo-Metohija and the Kumanovo Military-Technical accord. He said the international force (KFor) and the U.N. civilian mission (UNMIK) in Kosovo-Metohija had neither disarmed the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) nor protected the local Serbian and other non-Albanian populations. "As I see it, a way out of the crisis lies in the West reviving cooperation with Yugoslavia, in an appropriate number of Yugoslav armed and security force troops returning to Kosovo-Metohija, which necessitates a new accord that would deviate somewhat from the Kumanovo Military-Technical accord", Ojdanic said. Speaking about Yugoslavia's military-political experience gleaned during the NATO aggression, he said that "we already know in a great measure how we shall defend ourselves in the future. "We shall formulate final answers and solutions as we define a new defence doctrine and work out a civil defence doctrine", he said. He added that the conceptual phase of the army's reorganisation had been completed and now a schedule was to be worked out and the programme implemented. "A new civil defence doctrine will specifically define the place, role and job of each defence factor. Such a consistent defence system will open scope for reducing the size of the army", he explained. He went on to say that more than 215 civil defence centres had operated during the 11-week NATO aggression, and about 32,000 civil defence activists in Serbia alone, whose efforts saved 702 lives and who were instrumental in getting 408 people to hospital. The civil defence service carried out 626 interventions of clearing away debris and 539 fire-fighting operations, dislocated 1,713 tonnes of dangerous materials and 56,768 tonnes of oil derivatives. In cooperation with the Yugoslav army, the civil defence service organised 16 river ferries and transported 2,145,000 people, and prepared and organised 1,171 bomb shelters for more than 200,000 people. Asked about the phenomenon of global terrorism, Ojdanic said that the greatest terrorist activity was in Europe, 90 percent of which had lately been in Yugoslavia. "America is spared terrorist activity and has had no more than a dozen terrorist outrages since 1991, while Europe has had thousands", Ojdanic said, noting that terrorism had been imported into Yugoslavia. "The ethnic Albanian terrorist organisation had been active before, but never as active as in 1998 and 1999, or today, when in plain view of KFor, ethnic Albanian terrorists carry out terrorist operations against non-Albanians and often even against other ethnic Albanians who hold different political opinions." He noted that murders and assassinations perpetrated over the past months throughout Yugoslavia were text-book terrorist acts instigated and organised by the U.S. intelligence service. "We shall have trouble eradicating terrorism, because its roots are in other countries. But just as any other state, we also shall combat terrorism with all weapons at our disposal, on which a special law will be passed", he stressed. He went on to speak about the sub-regional arms control treaty signed at Florence, Italy, by Yugoslavia, Croatia, (Bosnian Serb) Republika Srpska and the Bosnian Muslim-Croat Federation. He said Yugoslavia had honoured the treaty and had submitted its arms for inspection and destroyed what it had been instructed to destroy. "Regrettably, inspection teams that visited our country were collecting data about military and other targets to be used in NATO's aggression", he said. He added that Yugoslavia had responded to its suspension from various international activities by freezing all activities in arms control. "When they recognise our state and army the way accords explicitly define them, then only shall we unfreeze our activities", he said. Commenting on the attention excited at the Hague-based war crimes tribunal for former Yugoslavia by his recent visit to Russia, the defence minister said it was a crime not to defend one's nation, not the other way around. "As a soldier, I am bound by all conventions stemming from international humanitarian and war laws. During the aggression, as chief of staff, I fought that these conventions be consistently implemented and honoured at all levels of command", he said. He noted that the Yugoslav army command and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had some months before the aggression organised a seminar in this field at all levels of command. At the outbreak of the NATO aggression, all army units had received manuals with excerpts from the regulations, he explained. "In light of this, I fear no charges and shall go freely wherever I am invited", Ojdanic stressed, adding that he had already received invitations from other friendly countries. VUJOVIC BLASTS U.N. MISSIONS FOR DISASTROUS PERFORMANCE BELGRADE, June 7 (Tanjug) - Yugoslavia's assistant foreign minister on Wednesday urged all competent world bodies directly or indirectly involved in the Kosovo-Metohija crisis to take an unbiased and realistic look at the effects of NATO's aggression on Yugoslavia and U.N. missions' disastrous results in Kosovo-Metohija. Speaking to domestic and foreign reporters at the end of the first year since NATO's aggression on Yugoslavia, Nebojsa Vujovic stressed Yugoslavia had done nothing to provoke such a crime against itself. Vujovic said that NATO's military intervention was one of the worst crimes against humanity in history, which deeply compromised the fundamental norms of international law and human civilisation at the end of the 20th century. He said the performance of the international force (KFor) and the U.N. civilian mission (UNMIK) has been disastrous and they have over the past year since their deployment systematically violated their mandate under U.N. Resolution 1244 and blocked its implementation. They are obviously both incapable and unwilling to establish law and order and provide full safety of person and property for all in Kosovo-Metohija, he stressed. He went on to quote that, since the missions' deployment last June, there have been 5,000 terrorist attacks in which more than 1,000 people have been murdered and 940 others abducted. Also, he added, the province has been "ethnically cleansed" of 360,000 of its Serbs, Muslims, Romanies, ethnic Turks, Goranies, ethnic Egyptians and other non-Albanians. Meanwhile, more than 250,000 illegal aliens have crossed into Kosovo-Metohija from neighbouring Albania and Macedonia, while in Pristina, which until last June 10 had a 44,000-strong Serb community, there are now barely 270 Serbs. Since the deployment of KFor and UNMIK, that southern Serbian (Yugoslav) province has been turned into a regional terrorist recruitment centre, a base for international organised crime, drugs and arms smuggling, white slavery and money laundering. Murders, abductions and robberies are daily occurrences, and entire factories are even dismantled and carried off to Albania, Vujovic said. UNMIK chief Bernard Kouchner, as a sponsor of notorious ethnic Albanian criminals Thaqi and Cheku, has passed a number of illegitimate regulations that undermine Yugoslavia's territorial integrity and sovereignty and encourage separatists, Vujovic said. Systematic violations of U.N. Resolution 1244 hamper a political settlement of the province's status within Serbia and Yugoslavia, he added. Yugoslavia demands that the European Union and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) immediately and unconditionally lift all anti-Yugoslav sanctions, barriers, threats, pressure and isolation as being discriminatory, anti-civilisational, undemocratic in character and as ghettoising a sovereign state and nation, he said. YUGOSLAVIA - RUSSIA YUGOSLAVIA'S MINIC MEETS WITH RUSSIA'S IVANOV MOSCOW, June 7 (Tanjug) - Russia develops relations with Yugoslavia starting from the position that Yugoslavia is its most important partner in the Balkans, according to Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov meeting with a Yugoslav delegation in Moscow on Wednesday. The delegation of the Yugoslav Parliament's Chamber of Citizens (lower house) is headed by Chamber Speaker Milomir Minic. Ivanov said Russia develops relations with Yugoslavia on a stable and lasting basis, as a foundation on which to build bilateral cooperation in all fields. Minic, in turn, said Russia is Yugoslavia's strategic partner, and expressed confidence that bilateral relations will continue to develop and expand in the political, economic and parliamentary fields. YUGOSLAVIA'S IVAN MARKOVIC RECEIVES RUSSIA'S DEPUTY MINISTER BELGRADE, June 8 (Tanjug) - Yugoslav Minister of Telecommunications Ivan Markovic received on Thursday Russia's Deputy Minister of Communications and Information Vyacheslav Polyakov. The meeting was attended by top executives of the Serbian Postal, Telegraph and Telephone Company PTT and of Telecom Serbia, a government statement said. The parties agreed that cooperation in telecommunications between Russia and Yugoslavia should be part of overall good bilateral cooperation, based in their traditional friendship and their shared interest in faster development. YUGOSLAVIA - VIETNAM YUGOSLAV MINISTER TOURS VIETNAM'S QUANG NINH PROVINCE HANOI, June 7 (Tanjug) - Yugoslav Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic, on a visit to Vietnam, toured the northern Quang Ninh province on Wednesday. During his meeting with Nguyen Van Mien, deputy governor of the province which is recording dynamic economic development, it was noted that the two countries maintain traditional friendship and wish to promote all forms of cooperation. The visit to this part of Vietnam followed the pattern of the contacts and talks held earlier in Hanoi in a highly cordial, warm and friendly climate. YUGOSLAVIA - IRAN YUGOSLAVIA AND IRAN SIGN ACCORD TO PROMOTE ECONOMIC COOPERATION BELGRADE, June 8 (Tanjug) - The Chambers of Commerce of Yugoslavia and Iran signed an accord in Belgrade on Thursday on promoting bilateral economic cooperation. For Yugoslavia, the accord was signed by Chamber President Mihailo Milojevic, and for Iran, by the Chamber's Deputy President in charge of international affairs Fereydon Entezari, who is heading a delegation on a three-day visit. The two sides expressed a wish to expand cooperation in various fields. FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S MEMORANDUM - DIPLOMATIC ACTIVITIES MURDERS IN KOSOVO-METOHIJA SOAR HUNDRED-FOLD SINCE KFOR CAME BELGRADE, June 7 (Tanjug) - NATO attained none of the targets of last year's aggression on Yugoslavia and absolutely failed to legalise its new strategy in international relations based on the might-is-right principle, a Yugoslav official said on Wednesday. Assistant Foreign Minister Miroslav Milosevic was briefing some 40 ambassadors and chiefs of diplomatic mission accredited to Yugoslavia on the government's demands made to the U.N. Security Council. Milosevic also quoted facts and figures about the worst crimes committed in the Serbian (Yugoslav) Kosovo-Metohija province since the deployment there of the international force (KFor) and the U.N. civilian mission (UNMIK) on June 10, 1999. He stressed that, since the deployment of KFor and UNMIK, an "ethnic cleansing" campaign against local non-Albanians has resulted in more than 360,000 people being displaced from the province, or more than two-thirds of the non-Albanian community. Also, he added, in the past year ending June 4, there were 1,027 murders and 945 abductions, as against 10 murders and no abductions in, say, 1996. BRANKO BRANKOVIC: MILITARY, POLITICAL AND MORAL DEFEAT OF NATO GENEVA, June 8 (Tanjug) - The people of Yugoslavia defended their country a year ago both militarily and politically, and achieved a moral victory over NATO, said on Thursday at a press conference in the Geneva-based United Nations, the Yugoslav mission head to the U.N. Office in Geneva, Ambassador Branko Brankovic. Following is the statement made by Ambassador Branko Brankovic: "It is unfortunate that at the beginning of the 21st century, instead of peace and prosperity, we witness conflicts, violence, poverty, terrorism, regional wars and instability. The main characteristics of the globalization, imposed by the United States and some European countries, is the ruling of the world by creation of uncertainty, instability, fear, violence and conflicts in accordance with interests of a small number of militarily and economically world power wielders. The main goal of the new world order proclaimed by the United Nations and some European countries is to partition sovereign states, destroy economies of some countries and transform them into obedient subjects of the power wielders by introducing chaos. Contemporary terrorism is the instrument to the realization of such strategy, and its goal is to create crises in countries the United States and a number of European countries wish to subjugate to their interests. The lack of efficiency of the West in general to fight terrorism is an outcome of the fact that the West is foremost profit-oriented and that human lives are second-rated. It is thus no wonder that American officials continue to keep contacts with Albanian drug and prostitution bosses. The United States were against the adoption of the Statute of the International Criminal Court. The International Criminal Court was conceived as an institution that would continuously impartially judge terrorism. The refusal of the United States to accept the statute of the International Criminal Court indicates that the United States, in view of their activities on world stage, is in constant fear of justice. At the same time, the United States did not mind to launch and by various pressures create the so-called Hague Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, as an institution that would serve globalization. This Tribunal, apart from being a disgrace for the United Nations and international law in general, is aimed at concealing obvious violence giving it thus legitimacy. Such behaviour of global proportions demonstrated by the United States in particular and some European countries as well, resulted in the criminal, armed aggression carried out by the United States against the FR of Yugoslavia. The aggression lasted for 78 consecutive days and brought about numerous human casualties and enormous material damage. What the United States and other NATO Member States did certainly not envisage was the resistance of Yugoslavia demonstrated towards such an aggression. In view of that, this aggression ended unsuccessfully. The peoples of the FR of Yugoslavia have defended their country, defeating the NATO aggressor, militarily, politically and morally. The attempt of the NATO aggressor to occupy by sham the entire territory of the FR of Yugoslavia through the so-called Rambouillet Agreement was rejected with the adoption of the Ahtisaari-Chernomyrdin Document and the UN SC resolution 1244 (1999). The adoption of the said documents was realised with the approval of the FR of Yugoslavia, whereby the FR of Yugoslavia showed not only flexibility but also its confidence in the United Nations. "Today, one year after, it is obvious that KFOR and UNMIK have violated their mandate entrusted in the resolution 1244 (1999) and the given confidence. KFOR, UNMIK and B. Kouchner bear sole responsibility for the prevailing chaos, for the murders, kidnappings of over 2000 Serbs and other non-Albanians, for the ethnic cleansing and transformation of Kosovo and Metohija into a centre of terrorism and organized international crime. The culmination of hypocrisy of NATO leaders, today, one year after the end of the aggression, is that they are decorating one another for crimes they committed in the aggression against the FR of Yugoslavia. I expect that Mrs. Carla del Ponte, Chief Prosecutor of the shameful Tribunal for former Yugoslavia in The Hague, will soon be decorated. Ever since they came to Kosovo and Metohija, KFOR and UNMIK have systematically supported separatists and terrorists, destabilizing the situation in the entire region. It brought about a humanitarian catastrophe, ethnic cleansing, apartheid and genocide against Serbian and other non-Albanian population. Since the deployment of KFOR and UNMIK, more than 350,000 Serbs and non-Albanians have been expelled, over 5,000 terrorists acts committed, 1000 persons killed, almost 1,000 kidnapped and more than 86 Serbian churches and 50,000 houses destroyed. KFOR has not stopped there. It started to shoot innocent civilians, as it was the case on June 6 this year when KFOR indiscriminately opened fire at innocent civilians, wounding 3 persons. In view of all this, the Federal Government demands that the Security Council of the United Nations: -declare null and void all acts and decisions taken by the Head of UNMIK Bernard Kouchner, contrary to Security Council resolution 1244 (1999); -condemn in the strongest terms, put an end to the activity of Head of UNMIK Bernard Kouchner and withdraw from Kosovo and Metohija the forces of UNMIK and KFOR, who are directly responsible for the systematic violation of Security Council resolution 1244 (1999) and for countless loss of life, untold suffering of the Serbian and other non-Albanian population and for the damage inflicted by Kosovo Albanian terrorists in the presence of tens of thousands of KFOR and UNMIK members; -urgently take all necessary measures to ensure full and consistent implementation of its resolution 1244 (1999); -most strongly condemn continued NATO aggression against the FR of Yugoslavia through the maintenance of the illegal system of sanctions and embargoes imposed by NATO Member States, through constant attempts of undermining the FR of Yugoslavia and through material, political and media support for the Albanian separatists and terrorists in Kosovo and Metohija, whose activities, in conjunction with the obstruction of UNMIK and KFOR in the implementation of resolution 1244 (1999), are aimed at the destabilization and breaking up of the territorial integrity of the FR of Yugoslavia, at reshaping internationally recognized borders and, therefore, at causing widespread instability and conflict in the region, with far-reaching negative implications for peace and security in the Balkan region; - take all necessary measures to compensate for the damage and other losses inflicted on the population, economy and cultural heritage of Kosovo and Metohija by UNMIK and KFOR and by terrorist and criminal gangs they are supporting." SERBIAN PROVINCE OF KOSOVO AND METOHIJA DETAINED SERBS START NEW HUNGER STRIKE KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, June 8 (Tanjug) - Serbs and Roma detained in the district prison in Kosovska Mitrovica started a new hunger strike Wednesday evening because of unfulfilled promises made by Bernard Kouchner on May 21 when they interrupted their 41-day hunger strike. Ten Serbs and three Roma demand, as Kouchner promised, a revision of their cases, that detained Serbs and other non-Albanians detained in prisons at U.S. base Bondsteel in Urosevac, in prisons in Pristina and in Gnjilane be transferred to the district prison in Kosovska Mitrovica, and that dates be fixed for trials which would be fair and just. The other detained, 26 Serbs and two Roma, due to exhaustion from the previous hunger strike and to disease are not taking part in the new protest. UNMIK POLICE STORMS KOSOVO-METOHIJA HOSPITAL, ARRESTS SERB PRISTINA, Serbia, June 8 (Tanjug) - U.N. civilian mission (UNMIK) police in the Serbian (Yugoslav) Kosovo-Metohija province stormed a hospital in the town of Gracanica before dawn on Thursday and took away a Serb hospitalised with serious wounds. The international security force broke down the hospital door, forced the medical staff to lie face down on the floor and then tore intravenous drip tubes out of Nebojsa Stojanovic's arms and took him away in an unknown direction. Serbs in Gracanica had prevented UNMIK police and the international force KFor from arresting Stojanovic on Wednesday. Stojanovic was shot through the shoulder by an armed escort of British General Richard Shirreff two days ago, who allegedly thought he was about to shoot the general. The Serbs present on the scene at the time insist that Stojanovic was unarmed. KOSOVO AND METOHIJA - INTERNATIONAL REACTIONS UNMIK AND KFOR FAILED IN KOSOVO-METOHIJA - CZECH SENATOR PRAGUE, June 8 (Tanjug) - The U.N. civilian mission (UNMIK) and the international force (KFor) have absolutely fallen down on their ostensible job in the Serbian (Yugoslav) Kosovo-Metohija province, according to a Czech senator on Thursday. Jaroslav Doubrava was speaking for TANJUG on the occasion of the first anniversary of the adoption by the U.N. Security Council of Resolution 1244 on Kosovo-Metohija, which put an end to NATO's armed aggression on Yugoslavia. These missions have, however, accomplished their true job, which was apparently to drive the rest of the Serbs out of the province, said Doubrava, member of the Czech Parliament's Senate (upper house). He stressed that a genocide of the Serbian population of Kosovo- Metohija is being perpetrated at this time, before the eyes of the world, in full view of UNMIK and KFor. NATO AGGRESSION - INTERNATIONAL REACTIONS AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL ACCUSES NATO OF WAR CRIMES NEW YORK, June 8 (Tanjug) - Amnesty International has accused NATO of "illegal killing of civilians" during the bombing of Yugoslavia. The bombing of the Radio Television Serbia building, Amnesty International said, is a "war crime." The 60-page report made public Tuesday evening, and which was prepared by the U.S. branch of Amnesty International, made the strongest accusations so far by a Western human rights organization against NATO and its bombing of FR Yugoslavia. The bombing of the headquarters of Radio-Television Serbia, in which 16 civilians were killed, appears to be a deliberate attack against a civilian target, and as such represents a war crime, said Amnesty International U.S. branch executive director William Schultz. The Amnesty International report was made public only a few days after a statement made by The Hague tribunal chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte that there is no evidence, or reason, for launching an investigation into crimes committed by NATO against Yugoslavia. BRITISH DEPUTIES CHARGE NATO'S AGGRESSION WAS ILLEGAL LONDON, June 8 (Tanjug) - British parliament foreign policy committee, after several months of investigation, assessed on Wednesday that NATO's aggression last year (March-June) on Yugoslavia had violated norms of international law and that the aggression was illegal. Foreign Office political director, Emir Joans-Parry, although he defended government policy, assessed in his testimony before the committee that the aggression was illegal. That is the first admission by a senior official of the British government, which was among the forerunners of the aggression, that NATO had not observed international laws. The committee revealed that British public prosecutor John Morris raised last year the issue of legality of the aggression, but politicians had ignored his demand. EXHIBITION OF PHOTOS OF ANTI-YUGOSLAV NATO CRIMES OPENS IN VIENNA VIENNA, June 8 (Tanjug) - An exhibition of photographs of crimes committed by NATO during its aggression on Yugoslavia last year opened in Vienna late on Wednesday. Opening the exhibition of 150 photographs entitled "A year later - keeping the NATO aggression from oblivion", Yugoslav Ambassador Rados Smiljkovic said the pictures should be a reminder of "a period in the nation's history that was tragic as it was honourable". Alfred Gerstl, M.P., former speaker of the Austrian Parliament's upper house, as well as Wolfgang Rohrbach, vice president of the Austria Nostra Society, spoke on the anniversary of the NATO aggression. YUGOSLAVIA - SANCTIONS PETITION DELIVERED FOR LIFTING SANCTIONS AGAINST YUGOSLAVIA LONDON, June 8 (Tanjug) - A petition signed by 10,000 British citizens was delivered to the cabinet of British Prime Minister Tony Blair for the immediate lifting of sanctions against Yugoslavia. The petition was delivered by the delegation of the parliamentary committee for peace in the Balkans, headed by committee chairman, Labour party deputy, Alice Mann. At the time of the delivering of the petition, gathered outside the government headquarters were several hundred people who with their presence offered support to the petition and its demands. Along with the petition was delivered a letter to the prime minister which said that the 10,000 signatories of the petition are unified in their demand that all sanctions be lifted against Yugoslavia and financial support lent to it for the rebuilding of economic and civilian infrastructure destroyed in NATO's aggression last year (March-June). Also required is direct British humanitarian support, and the prime minister was told it was "shameful" that Britain is taking part in sanctions against Yugoslavia. __________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki - Finland +358-40-7177941, fax +358-9-7591081 e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kominf.pp.fi ___________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe/unsubscribe messages mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ___________________________________
