TARGET YUGOSLAVIA-Tues, Apr 20, 1999 Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit CUBANEWS FROM RADIO HAVANA CUBA E-mail: rhc@radiohc.org http://www.radiohc.org TARGET YUGOSLAVIA: NATO's WAR OF AGGRESSION Tuesday, 20 April 1999 Radio Havana Cuba presents its coverage of the ongoing U.S.- led NATO aggression against Yugoslavia. RADIO HAVANA CUBA'S VIEWPOINT / 20 APRIL 1999 Aside from the human misery that the bombing of Yugoslavia has caused and is causing, the phenomenal cost to the United States of its criminal, imperial little adventure now amounts to $46,600 a minute. The US president, with his puerile and alarming reasoning about continuing the bombardment, has requested an additional $6 billion from Congress to further a war against a country that serves no military or economic threat to Washington, but which made the fatal error of ignoring US demands. The amount of money being spent on this war exceeds all logic. Each cruise missile costs in excess of $1 million -- which could thus have built a dozen schools instead of destroying them, hired hundreds of teachers or provided health care to a thousand people instead of killing and maiming them. As Michael Moore, the US commentator and film producer says, "These millions of dollars could have been spent saving lives and educating children. Every night, Clinton isn't just bombing Yugoslavia, he's bombing you." ----------------------------------------------- KOSOVO UPDATE / 20 APRIL 1999 Here in Havana, the day began with a smiling newscaster on the war network CNN brightly informing us that with nice, clear skies today, NATO bombed a large number of Yugoslav cities. Then we're back to pictures of Kosovar Albanian refugees. Have you noticed they're never referred to as Muslims any more? That would reduce our sympathy because we're supposed to hate Arabs as well as Serbs -- living in squalid refugee camps. Pictures designed to tear at our heart strings and reduce us to angry cries against the barbarian Serbs led by today's Saddam Hussein: Slobodan Milosovic. NATO troops are massing at the Albanian border with large numbers of tanks and support helicopters -- obviously preparing for a ground invasion. Indeed, the military mission has now overtaken the humanitarian mission -- it seems that the refugees have served their purpose. From some 60 aircraft flying in daily humanitarian aid, only two or three are now landing every day. The British Secretary of Defence, George Robertson, said on Monday that a land incursion appeared to be inevitable, confirming what most of us had known all along -- that NATO would be dragged into a full-scale war with Serbia by the United States' myopic bullying. The Russian Patriarch of the Orthodox Church, Alexi II, on a high profile visit to Belgrade, met with President Milosovic and strongly criticized the destruction he had seen -- bridges, factories, homes, electricity plants. He called on NATO to seek a peaceful solution to the conflict and said the Orthodox Church in Russia will continue sending aid and that the Serbian people were not alone. In a related 50-minute conversation with President Clinton, Russian President Boris Yeltsin once more requested the cessation of NATO bombing as a necessary precursor to negotiating a peaceful solution to the Balkan crisis. US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who was, by the way, given shelter by a Serb family when she was a refugee fleeing the Nazis in 1939, announced Tuesday that Washington was going ahead with its participation in the festivities celebrating the 50th anniversary of NATO even as it was going ahead with the dropping of bombs on Yugoslavia. She stressed that the US/NATO alliance was "rock solid" -- in spite of reports from Italy and Greece indicating that both countries have serious doubts about the continued bombing and that France was resisting US attempts to completely blockade the Yugoslav Federation. She said that the attacks would stop when Milosovich had withdrawn his troops from Kosovo, allowed refugees back into the province, permitted the deployment of an international peacekeeping force and stopped waging war on his own people. Interesting that she should call the Kosovars Milosovich's "own people" when we are told by Washington that the province should be given its independence from Serbia. Neither does her government seem to be in very good communication with British Prime Minister Tony Blair's government -- Washington's "attack dog" as US political analyst Noam Chomsky put it in a recent interview with Radio Havana. Blair announced on Tuesday that the bombing would only stop with the departure of Milosovic. Not quite what Albright was saying. Incredibly, US Defense Secretary William Cohen appeared on the podium after Albright to say quite seriously -- not a quiver of a wry smile crossing his lips -- that to commemorate NATO's 50th birthday, the US was proposing the creation of a Weapons of Mass Destruction Center from whence to monitor those countries amassing and/or using such weapons. And exactly WHO would that be? It is worth quoting in full Eduardo Galeano, the Uruguayan writer, who commented last week: The United States and its NATO allies are discharging a deluge of missiles on Yugoslavia -- or on the little that's left of what was Yugoslavia. According to the official version, the attackers are doing this because they are concerned for the rights of the Albanian people of Kosovo, the victims of the war of "ethnic cleansing" undertaken by Milosovic's Serbian government. As Clinton tells it, the Western democracies cannot stand by with folded arms in the face of this "unacceptable humanitarian catastrophe." The most ferocious "war of ethnic cleansing" and the most "unacceptable humanitarian catastrophe" in the 20th century of the Americas happened in Guatemala in the past few decades, and above all in the 1980s. Indigenous Guatemalans were the main victims of this slaughter: there were 100 times as many dead as in Kosovo and twice as many refugees. In his recent tour of Central America, President Clinton asked forgiveness for the support his country gave to the Indian-exterminating soldiers, who had been trained, armed and advised by the United States. Why doesn't Clinton demand that Milosovic apply this successful doctrine of washing one's hands of the problem? The bombing runs can be stopped in exchange for a formal promise that -- let's say in the year 2012 or 2013 -- the president of Yugoslavia will ask forgiveness from the corpses of Kosovo, and there it is... all settled... the sin expiated. And the killing can go on. -30- [c] 1999, Radio Habana Cuba All rights reserved Articles cannot be reproduced, reprinted or published in any system without the consent of RHC. This prohibition includes the distribution of this material via Usenet News, "bulletin board" services, e-mail lists, print media, radio and television. For the complete RADIO HAVANA CUBA NEWSCAST and other features, please write for our daily broadcast schedule. We welcome your comments and suggestions. For further information, contact us at: Postal Address: Radio Havana Cuba P.O.Box 6240 Havana, Cuba Telephone: (53) (7) 791053 Fax: (53) (7) 795007 E-mail: rhc@radiohc.org WWW: http://www.radiohc.org rhc-eng-27840 1999-Apr-20 20:35:18