BELGRADE, 28 June 2000 FROM THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA MINISTER MORINA RECEIVED UNHCR'S HEINONEN YUGOSLAV ARMY PUBLISHES BOOK OF CHIEF OF STAFF'S INTERVIEWS F.R. YUGOSLAVIA - BILATERAL AND MULTILATERAL RELATIONS YUGOSLAVIA WELCOMED COLLOCUTOR AND PARTNER F.R. YUGOSLAVIA - BULGARIA F.R. YUGOSLAVIA - AUSTRIA F.R. YUGOSLAVIA - EU SERBIAN PROVINCE OF KOSOVO AND METOHIJA UNHCR FREEZES HUMANITARIAN WORK IN SERB PART OF KOSOVSKA MITROVICA SERBS IN STRPCE LOSING PATIENCE OVER CONTINUED VIOLENCE KOSOVO AND METOHIJA - TERRORISM ABDUCTED SERB'S MUTILATED BODY TURNS UP * * * FROM THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA MINISTER MORINA RECEIVED UNHCR'S HEINONEN BELGRADE, June 28 (Tanjug) - Yugoslavia's minister for refugee and humanitarian affairs Bratislava Morina received on Wednesday Erkki Heinonen, who heads the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Belgrade office. They reviewed the current political situation in the Yugoslav republic of Serbia's U.N.-administered Kosovo and Metohija province and repatriation of internally displaced people, a government statement said. Morina said the UNHCR's unjustified decision suspending humanitarian work in the north, Serb part of the divided city of Kosovska Mitrovica was detrimental to the Serbs and not conducive to calming the situation in this city and other areas in the province. Developments in Kosovo and Metohija are the disastrous result of ignoring Yugoslavia's sovereignty, which is guaranteed under the U.N. Security Council's Resolution 1244 on Kosovo and Metohija, she stressed. She added that all minorities in Kosovo and Metohija are threatened and stressed that international relief agencies, in cooperation with Yugoslav state bodies, should provide aid without discrimination. This, she explained, would create conditions for a safe and organised return of displaced Serbs and other non-Albanians to their homes. She appealed for calming the situation in Kosovska Mitrovica and for the relief agencies raising their voice against murders and abductions of Serbs and continuing to implement their programmes, but not to the detriment of the Serbs, the statement said. YUGOSLAV ARMY PUBLISHES BOOK OF CHIEF OF STAFF'S INTERVIEWS BELGRADE, June 28 (Tanjug) - A book of interviews given by the Yugoslav army's chief of staff, General Nebojsa Pavkovic, was launched in Belgrade on Wednesday. The book is entitled "Na medijskom frontu" (On the Media Front) and subtitled "In the name of the truth and the future, to the comrades-in-arms in defending the homeland". It contains press interviews carried by practically all domestic newspapers, radio and television stations and some foreign media in the period running up to, during and since NATO's March 24 to June 10, 1999 aggression on Yugoslavia. Failure of the media propaganda at the outset of the former Yugoslavia's disintegration in the early 1990's prompted senior army officers to engage battle on the media front and explain to the public the true aims of the NATO aggression and what is behind certain political and military moves of the enemy, Pavkovic said. "The book is a symbol of freedom and defiance, and this is its chief merit", according to Yugoslav Vice Premier Nikola Sainovic at the ceremony. F.R. YUGOSLAVIA - BILATERAL AND MULTILATERAL RELATIONS YUGOSLAVIA WELCOMED COLLOCUTOR AND PARTNER BELGRADE, June 28 (Tanjug) - Yugoslavia's international position is strengthening daily, contrary to the wishes of U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright which were very clearly demonstrated at the latest Security Council session. This is confirmed by intensive and offensive activities by the Yugoslav diplomatic service, which would not have been possible if Yugoslavs were not welcome as collocutors and partners in countries the world over. In a very brief time span, six months, the Yugoslav foreign minister visited almost all continents, starting from Latin America, an area traditionally considered by the United States as its own preserve. In Buenos Aires, Minister Jovanovic attended the inauguration of the Argentinean president and on that occasion conferred with foreign ministers and delegations of several countries of that region. The minister then visited Asia, where he paid official visits to Korea, Burma, Vietnam, Laos, and working visits to Indonesia and China. Minister Jovanovic also paid an official visit to the Russian federation. A Yugoslav delegation, including businessmen, in Africa visited Guinea, Ghana, Mali, South Africa, and Namibia. In Maghreb Tunisia, and in the Near and Middle East Jovanovic conferred with counterparts in Cairo and Amman, and paid a three-day official visit to Qatar. Parliamentary cooperation also testifies to the affirmation of Yugoslavia's position and renown in the world - delegations of the federal parliament went on an official visit to Russia and took part in sessions of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in France and Jordan. An important event within these activities was the recent official visit of Pan-Chinese National Congress President Li Peng, who chose Yugoslavia as the first leg of his European tour and the only country where he addressed parliament. Yugoslavia was the victim of a ruthless aggression which it bravely resisted. The world accepts this, and that is why it looks on Yugoslavia as a symbol of resistance and unyielding to dictate and hegemony. The defense of Yugoslavia is no longer the issue, but awareness that the aggression violated valid principles in international relations to that extent that the whole world has been jeopardized. No-one likes democracy which is delivered in missiles, or their use for seizing the riches of others, retailoring internationally recognized borders and creating miniature and vassal states. F.R. YUGOSLAVIA - BULGARIA HASKOVO, June 28 (Tanjug) - A Balkan association for cooperation between Bulgarian and Yugoslav towns held its founding assembly in the Bulgarian regional center of Haskovo, near the Turkish border, late on Tuesday. The objective of the association is the expansion of economic, cultural and all other forms of cooperation. The founding assembly was attended by Yugoslav Charge d'Affaires in Sofia Danko Prokic, who backed the idea on the founding of this association and thanked citizens of Haskovo for their support to the Yugoslav peoples during the NATO aggression, organizing a protest rally, and sending humanitarian aid to neighbouring Serbia. Bulgarian army Gen. Stoian Andreyev, the honorary president of the association, said one of the ways to overcome further divisions in the Balkans and the cutting off of natural pathways of cooperation under pressure of foreign mentors, was to found such associations which will stoke direct economic and other cooperation, in spite of the lack of foresight by certain Balkan governments which are in vain awaiting a reward for their servility. F.R. YUGOSLAVIA - AUSTRIA BELGRADE, June 28 (Tanjug) - Yugoslav Chamber of Commerce President Mihailo Milojevic received trade counsellor of the Austrian Embassy to Yugoslavia Franz Erhart in a farewell visit and his successor Herbert Preclik here on Wednesday. The good cooperation between representatives of the Yugoslav commercial association and the trade department of the Austrian Embassy was underscored during the cordial talks. F.R. YUGOSLAVIA - EU BRUSSELS, June 28 (Tanjug) - The European Commission approved 61 million euros for aid to refugees and displaced persons in Yugoslavia at a session in Brussels on Tuesday. The aid will be sent through the European Union humanitarian organization ECHO and the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The funds will back projects on food supply, procurement of medicines, improving accommodation, and providing medical services to refugees and displaced persons, a commission statement said. According to criteria of the European Commission, which did not mention the consequences of the NATO aggression on Yugoslavia, the objective of the latest decision is to meet the most immediate needs in Yugoslavia, including Kosovo and Metohija. Under the E.C. decision, Serbia will receive 31.9 million euros, 18.1 million euros' worth of humanitarian aid will go to Kosovo and Metohija, and 5.3 million euros will go to Montenegro. The statement said 5.7 million euros would be set in a reserve fund. The statement did not say when the approved financial aid would be sent or for which period it is intended. SERBIAN PROVINCE OF KOSOVO AND METOHIJA UNHCR FREEZES HUMANITARIAN WORK IN SERB PART OF KOSOVSKA MITROVICA KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, June 27 (Tanjug) - The decision of U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Kosovo and Metohija office chief Dennis McNamara suspending humanitarian work in the Serb part of divided Kosovska Mitrovica is politically motivated, according to a local hospital official on Tuesday. "At today's meeting, attended by representatives of some thirty international relief agencies operating in the Kosovska Mitrovica area, we said that McNamara's decision is political in nature", Deputy Hospital Director Milan Ivanovic told TANJUG. The decision to suspend humanitarian work was prompted by the torching of a UNHCR vehicle in the north, Serb part of the divided city last Thursday, in an incident in which an American U.N. policeman shot and wounded two Serbs. "We pointed out that the incident was created by an American, so it is unfair to suspend humanitarian deliveries to the Serbs, the more so as the UNHCR did not take a similar course in February, when ethnic Albanian terrorists shelled a UNHCR bus carrying Serbs," Ivanovic said. TANJUG learns that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has not followed UNHCR's suit to suspend humanitarian work in this area of the Yugoslav republic of Serbia's U.N.-administered province of Kosovo and Metohija. SERBS IN STRPCE LOSING PATIENCE OVER CONTINUED VIOLENCE STRPCE, June 28 (Tanjug) - Serbs in the Strpce enclave in the Serbian U.N.-administered Kosovo and Metohija province held a peaceful protest outside the office of local U.N. administrator Georges Foyer late on Tuesday. Thousands of Serbs assembled to protest against the murder of a Serb, Bozidar Markocevic, whose body was found earlier on Tuesday on the slopes of a mountain overlooking Strpce. They expressed dissatisfaction with the numerous acts of omission and passivity of the international force KFor and abuse of office by Administrator Foyer. According to Serb sources in Kosovo and Metohija's southern Strpce enclave, which comprises 12 villages with an 11,000-strong Serb community, Markocevic was murdered five days ago with a blow to the head with an axe or a similar instrument. KOSOVO AND METOHIJA - TERRORISM ABDUCTED SERB'S MUTILATED BODY TURNS UP STRPCE, June 27 (Tanjug) - The mutilated body of a local Serb abducted by ethnic Albanian extremists on June 23 was found in the south of the Yugoslav republic of Serbia's U.N.-administered province of Kosovo and Metohija on Tuesday. The Serb, one Bozidar Markocevic, abducted from a meadow while tending his livestock, was found in Mt Susicka Planina overlooking the township of Strpce. The international force (KFor) and the U.N. civilian mission (UNMIK) had originally claimed that Markocevic was found alive. Another Serb, Jovica Milic, aged 17, was abducted at the same time, but has meanwhile managed to escape. Since this was the 12th case of abduction from the Serb enclave of the Sirinicka Zupa district, which comprises 12 villages, it triggered incidents and a spontaneous protest rally by the local residents on June 23. Dissatisfied with the position adopted by local U.N. civilian administrator Georges Foyer, some of the protesters smashed windows on the town hall and damaged some of the equipment in the offices used by KFor and UNMIK. On Monday, Foyer stopped Serb employees getting into the town hall, demanding that they sign a declaration agreeing to work under UNMIK supervision, which they refused. The Serb municipal workers have organised work in another building and severed all contact with UNMIK. __________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. 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