>===========================
>The Committee for National Solidarity
>Tolstojeva 34, 11000 Belgrade, YU
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: john_peter maher <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Date: Sunday, June 18, 2000 6:01 PM
>Subject: [Fwd: Lift the sanctions and rebuild Yugoslavia]
>
>Lift the sanctions and rebuild Yugoslavia
>
>by Renee Sams
>
>MORE and more people are becoming alarmed about what is happening in
>Kosovo and Serbia. The "peacekeeping" Kfor forces, far from helping are
>only exacerbating the situation and sanctions against Yugoslavia are
>causing a humanitarian disaster.
>
>On Wednesday 7 June, Alice Mahon, MP chair of the Committee for Peace
>in the Balkans, and representatives from local campaign groups around
>the country, together with Anglo-Yugoslav Medical Aid, delivered a
>10,000-signature petition to the Prime Minister.
>
>The petition called upon the government to lift the economic sanctions
>and provide financial assistance to 'fund the reconstruction of the
>civilian infrascructure of the whole of Yugoslavia.' It also wants
>'urgent humanitarian assistance on a non-discriminatory basis co the
>whole of Yugoslavia and to all refugees.
>
>Speakers from China, France, Germany, Greece, and Sweden, attending
>last Saturday's international conference in London's Conway Hall
>organised by the Committee for Peace in the Balkans, testified to the
>growing concern of ordinary people about the situation in the Balkans.
>
>Greetings to the conference were received from the International Action
>Centre in New York expressing their support and noting that on the same
>day che Independent Tribunal on US/Nato War Crimes Against Yugoslavia,
>called by Ramsey Clark, former Attorney General of the United States,
>will be meeting in New York City.
>
>Their message said they expected the final meeting of the Tribunal to
>show chat "US political and military leaders, and their co-conspirators
>in the Nato countries, are guilty of crimes against peace, against
>humanity, and war crimes".
>
>Tony Benn MP, who has supported the Committee for Peace in the Balkans
>from its beginning, said chat despite the growth of the campaign, which
>has packed halls at every meeting," it has been completely ignored by
>the British media".
>
>He felt this was because what the Committee for Peace in the Balkans
>had said right at the start had all unfortunately come true. "This was
>not humanitarian in planning or in execution", he said, and "it was
>aimed to make Nato the dominant force in the Balkans with a view to
>extending that worldwide".
>
>Playwright Harold Pinter also had no hesitation in condemning Nato for
>"its policy to terrotise the civilian population". And he said, "it must
>be recognised or what it is -- a brutal malignant military machine".
>
>Karin Wegestal, on behalf of the Swedish Committee for Solidarity with
>the Yugoslav People, spoke of the plight of Yugoslavia, a country of
>about 1O million inhabitants, which "during the last decade has
>received more than 500,000 refugees from Croatia and Bosnia" -- a
>burden made heavier by an "influx of 300,000 displaced persons from
>Kosovo".
>
>"In addition", she said, "Yugoslavia has been the subject of sanctions
>from the western powers for close to ten years and its infrastructure
>was badly hurt through Nato's 78-day intense bombardment in 1999. The
>result is that today Yugoslavia is the poorest country in Europe".
>
>She told the conference that an appeal against sanctions published in
>Sweden was signed by representatives of various political parties,
>former government members, bishops, priests, scholars and writers,
>athletes, and many other people representing broad political and social
>opinion, and showed the bredth of support against Nato actions.
>
>>From Greece, Yannis Dragassakis of SYNAPISMOS (Coalition of the Left
>and Progress), former tnember of the Greek Parliament, called the
>bombing of Yugoslavia "illegal and inhuman" and had also "proved to be
>a failure militarily as well as politically".
>
>His party also held the view chat the Nato bombing was "a violation of
>international law . . . being done without a decision by the United
>Nations Security Council and in violation of the basic principles of
>its Charter".
>
>He went on to say that he did not believe the US and Nato have "the
>credentials to present themselves as the standard-bearers of peace and
>justice given their record of support to authoritarian regimes and
>their toleration of flagrant violations of human rights in many
>countries".
>
>Michael Gavrilovic, co-chair of the British-Serbian Alliance for Peace,
>noted the growing number of people who are now posing questions about
>Nato's role in the Balkans.
>
>He reminded the audience that "Yugoslavia is a small country but it
>held out against Nato bombing for 78 days and not many countries could
>hold out that long". During those days Nato new 37,000 sorties, and
>fired over 10,000 cruise missiles "in order to smash the infrastructure
>of Yugoslavia".
>
>On the platform as well, was Diana Johnstone, former European editor
>of"In These Times" magazine, and former press secretary of the Greens
>in the European Parliament. She recalled that after the First World War
>it had been said that this was "a war to end war". The Balkans, she
>said, "is a war to start a war" Now that Nato can drop bombs without
>fear of retaliation it makes war much more attractive".
>
>A peace activist from Germany, Karin Schutzpelz, Political Co-ordinator
>for the Party of Democracic Socialism group in the European Parliament,
>formerly a delegation member at the United Nations conference on
>disarmament, said that her party resisted Germany participating in
>Nato's war on Kosovo.
>
>She admitted that in Germany there was not much resistance to the war
>"it was difficult to talk about the war, although for the first time
>German troops were taking part in a Nato war, and this was a violation
>of its own constitution".
>
>Antonis Antanasiotis, Secretriat of the Greek Committee for
>International Detente and Peace (EEDYE) focused on the Stability Pact
>for South Eastern Europe adopted by "the creators and perpetrators of
>this criminal war" and was intended as "a continuation of the war
>against Yugoslavia and the Balkan peoples by other means".
>
>He also reared that it might take on a military form once again and he
>quoted President Clinton as saying at Skopje in 1999: "We can do what
>we did in Kosovo now, and we can do it again tomorrow, if necessary, in
>Africa or in Central Europe".
>
>He also warned that the West is planning to divide up Yugoslavia by
>making Kosovo independent (contrary to a UN Security Council decision)
>by detaching Montenegro and other territories belonging to the country.
>
>Their aim, he said, is to make "the Balkans a stepping stone for the
>next aggressive crusade of multinational capital against the regions of
>Caspia, the Middle East and Northern Africa, which are rich in energy
>resources".
>
>First Secretary Ruan Zongze of the Embassy of the People's Republic of
>China was in agreement with all the other speakers when he said that in
>his personal opinion, "peace in the Balkans is as far away as ever and
>that the West is more interested in the appeasement of Albanian
>extremists".
>
>There was, he said, no basis of legality for military action, that it
>had obviously violated the UN charter and chat there were lessons chat
>could be learned. He put forward some ideas for future international
>conduct.
>
>He called for mutual respect for sovereignty and integrity of the
>internal affairs of each country and they must cast away cold war
>mentality and threats. "All countries must he equal, small or large",
>he said.
>
>He stressed that "all members of the international community must have
>equal rights. World peace and stability must be respected, and they
>must seek common ground while discussing dirferences".
>
>It would he impossible to expect that all countries will have the same
>social organisation, but there could be mutually beneficial
>co-operation for mutual benefit between countries.
>
>"One year after Kosovo", he stressed, "it is time to think -- to make
>sovereignty and territorial integrity the cornerstone of international
>relations".
>
>Ending the conference, Tony Benn commented chat "we have been proved
>right in our predictions at the start of the war, and that gives us
>some authority to speak now. The enormous sums of money spent on war
>could be put to the cause of peace and justice".
>
>He had no hesitation in telling the participants of the conference that
>"we must openly and clearly condemn those who have committed war
>crimes".
>
>
>Secretary General
>Mrs. Jela Jovanovic
>Art historian
>===========================
>
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