TARGET YUGOSLAVIA: NATO's WAR OF AGGRESSION / Thursday, 3 June 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 Thursday, 3 June 1999 Radio Havana Cuba presents its coverage of the ongoing U.S.- led NATO aggression against Yugoslavia. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- YUGOSLAV PRESIDENT ACCEPTS PEACE ACCORD... WHILE NATO AIR STRIKES CONTINUE Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has accepted a peace plan negotiated with special Russian envoy Victor Chernomyrdin and the President of Finland, Martti Ahtisarri, representing the European Union -- although the NATO bombardments continue. The military alliance stated that the air strikes will not stop until Belgrade withdraws all its troops from Kosovo. The accord alludes to the participation of the United Nations in a peace-keeping force in Kosovo and in decisions concerning this Yugoslav province's political future. NATO, however, will also participate, though the accord avoids explicitly stating that the military alliance will have command and control of the future peace-keeping force. The agreement also respects the inviolability of Yugoslavia's borders in Kosovo. Many Russian legislators are accusing Chernomyrdin of betraying Yugoslavia's interests, while there are also reports indicating that the Russian military believes that Chernomyrdin -- a close friend of Western nations -- has bowed to NATO demands. Meanwhile, as the peace accord was being hammered out, the first UN humanitarian mission to visit Yugoslavia reported back to the Security Council on Wednesday, describing the vast destruction and so-called `collateral damage' inflicted by NATO bombs and missiles. At a closed-door session, Sergio Vieira de Mello -- UN Under Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs -- said that his mission was able to witness first-hand the extremely large number of civilian victims, the massive unemployment and the damage to infrastructure that provides basic services like health, drinking water, education, transportation and telecommunications. The UN official expressed his mission's concerns over the impact on health and the environment in Yugoslavia resulting from the destruction of chemical plants and other factories that produce dangerous substances. Vieira de Mello said the country's agricultural production has been severely damaged, particularly with the destruction of Yugoslavia's largest fertilizer factory. The 15-member UN mission began its inspection inside Yugoslavia last May 15th. ------------------------------------------------------------- RADIO HAVANA CUBA'S VIEWPOINT / 3 June 1999 And so another international body falls prey and capitulates to the United States. After emasculating the United Nations by completely bypassing the Security Council and manipulating NATO into becoming its attack machine, Washington has now effectively rendered impotent the World Court. On Wednesday, the World Court ruled that the US and NATO were not guilty of war crimes in their brutal bombing of the Yugoslav Federation a few days after having declared that its president, Slobodan Milosovic, and four of his cohorts were indeed guilty of such crimes. Thus it appears that the killing of civilians for so-called "humanitarian purposes" is acceptable, whereas the killing of civilians in an internal war against terrorism is not. The double standard has angered many people across the globe. Killing civilians under any circumstances should be condemned. And if the world's own court has lost the courage it once demonstrated in its ruling against the US for mining Nicaraguan ports -- a ruling, it should be noted, that was studiously ignored by Washington -- what hope do the dispossessed and marginalized of the globe have in obtaining true justice against the excesses of the powerful? Since the end of the Second World War, the United States has bombed China, Korea, Indonesia, Cuba, the Congo, Peru, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Guatemala, Grenada, Libya, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Iraq, the Sudan, Afghanistan and now Yugoslavia. There are not many of the planet's under- developed nations left to bomb. A statement issued by the Cuban government on Wednesday calls on the international community to charge NATO Secretary General Javier Solana with war crimes -- as the representative of the US-influenced body that has wrought such destruction on the Serbian people. The fact that the Serbian parliament and Milosovic accepted the Russian peace plan Thursday should not change the fact that Solana should be put on trial for the deaths of over 2000 citizens and the wounding of many more. NATO and the US have chosen to continue the bombing nevertheless. There will be no show of goodwill on their part -- its up to Yugoslavia to withdraw from Kosovo first while its civilians continue to be killed. The destruction of Yugoslavia's infrastructure has been so complete that it will take decades for the nation to recover. How can the World Court ignore this human disaster, this clear attack against a helpless civilian population by 19 of the most powerful nations on earth? This will surely go down as one of the most ignominious and hypocritical decisions of our time. -30- [c] 1999, Radio Habana Cuba All rights reserved Articles cannot be reproduced, reprinted or published in any system without the consent of RHC. 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