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From: "michael a. lebowitz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: one to read and circulate:STATEMENT FROM CUBAN GOVT --ENGLISH
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>Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 09:21:36 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Jill Hamberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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>Subject: STATEMENT FROM CUBAN GOVT --ENGLISH
>
>/* Written 6:23 PM Jun 2, 1999 by [EMAIL PROTECTED] in igc:reg.cuba */
>/* ---------- "STATEMENT FROM CUBAN GOVT --ENGLISH" ---------- */
>DECLARATION BY THE GOVERNMENT OF CUBA
>
>
>On March 5, NATO Secretary General Javier Solana said that the presence of
>Allied troops in Kosovo was necessary so that the political agreement on
>that Yugoslav province "does not become a dead letter".
>
>On March 14, he said that the resumption of peace talks in Paris on Kosovo
>were "the last opportunity" for the Serbs if they wanted to avoid the NATO
>air strikes.
>
>On March 16, he stated that "we are at a very critical moment" and that
>negotiations were progressing "with great difficulty". He warned that "NATO
>will do whatever it needs to in case this situation evolves in the wrong
>direction" and added that "the [Paris] talks are not going to last forever".
>
>On March 18, the U.S. Defense Department stated that the NATO aircraft and
>the warships equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles were "in place and
>ready" to attack Serb positions were such a decision taken.
>
>Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said that "those troops are in place and
>ready" to go into action. He added that "this is a significant force and,
>if they receive the order to take action from the NATO Secretary General
>[Javier Solana], they could do so very quickly."
>
>On March 22, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said, on the
>situation in Kosovo: "It is never too late to settle disputes or conflicts
>through diplomatic channels."
>
>After so many and such overwhelming and undiplomatic ultimatums, the NATO
>Secretary General stated on March 23: "The last diplomatic effort has
>failed." He further added: "There is no other alternative but military
>action."
>
>On that same day, he announced very clearly and in an unusually belligerent
>tone for a European former Minister of Culture, his only experience as an
>expert in matters of war: "I have just given the order to the Supreme
>Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe, United States General Wesley
>Clark, to begin air operations against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia."
>
>Since the Secretary General issued that order, NATO attacks have not
>stopped, not even for a single day. On that first night, 371 planes took
>part in the assaults, taking off from ground bases. Warships in the
>Adriatic launched cruise missiles. Significant and painful events
>immediately followed throughout 70 days until today.
>
>We shall limit ourselves to pointing out those incidents that are essential
>to show how, and against whom, this war is being waged and the perils that
>it could entail.
>
>March 25
>Russian President Boris Yeltsin called the military action an open
>aggression and recalled his military envoy in NATO. Russia suspended its
>co-operation with NATO.
>
>Solana stated: "The operation will last for several more days."
>
>March 26
>Six warships and 400 planes launched missiles and bombs on Yugoslavia.
>
>March 29
>Five days after the bombing began, 15,000 Albanian Kosovars had crossed the
>border. A mass exodus had begun.
>
>April 2
>NATO planes destroyed a bridge over the Danube in Novi Sad, blocking the
>main freight route to the Black Sea.
>
>April 7
>The Yugoslav capital, Belgrade, was attacked for the first time. The
>Interior Ministries of Serbia and Yugoslavia were destroyed, and houses and
>all their surroundings severely damaged. The emergency ward of a
>mother-and-child hospital, where 74 children had been born that day,
>suffered the consequences of a direct impact and was put out of service.
>
>The United Nations estimated that 310,885 refugees and displaced persons had
>entered Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia and Turkey. The
>mass exodus was already full steam ahead.
>
>Fuel stores, highways and bridges were attacked throughout Yugoslavia. A
>missile made a direct impact on the town of Aleksinac, causing dozens of
>civilian deaths and injuries.
>
>By that date, 190 buildings devoted to education had been destroyed. The
>majority of these were primary and secondary schools but they also included
>universities and student residences. The natural parks of Fruska Gora,
>Kopaonik and Tara were also destroyed.
>
>April 10
>The United Nations reported that over 600,000 people had abandoned Kosovo
>since the beginning of the NATO attacks.
>
>April 11
>The United States sent 82 warplanes to Europe, thereby raising to almost 500
>the number of its combat aircraft, to guarantee increased attacks.
>
>April 12
>A civilian passenger train crossing a bridge south of Belgrade was hit by
>two missiles which caused 55 dead and dozens of wounded.
>
>Solana reiterated that NATO is the organization that should lead the
>international military presence in Kosovo, when the situation so allows. He
>said that "NATO military actions" against Serb targets "will continue until
>Milosevic agrees to the demands of the international community."
>
>It is clear that, for Solana, the international community and NATO are the
>same thing.
>
>April 13
>NATO ordered the beginning of the second phase. The bombings were
>intensified and the number and type of targets to be destroyed increased.
>
>April 14
>A convoy of Albanian refugees in Kosovo was the target of an air strike.
>Eighty-five refugees were killed, not to mention the wounded. Two
>refineries and a residential suburb in Belgrade were destroyed in Serbia.
>An extra 300 planes were added to NATO forces.
>
>Solana claimed that "NATO is ready for a long war."
>
>April 15
>A dozen television transmitters had been destroyed by this date.
>
>April 16
>The bombing of bridges and television transmitters was increased. NATO
>acknowledged having bombed a civilian vehicle in southern Kosovo 48 hours
>before. The strongest general attack in two weeks took place.
>
>April 17
>The Yugoslav authorities reported that 500 civilians had already died and
>4,000 had been wounded.
>
>The United Nations estimated that the exodus of Albanian Kosovars had
>already reached the figure of 671,000.
>
>Between the afternoon of Saturday, April 17 and the morning of Sunday, April
>18, NATO warplanes carried out 500 air strikes. They bombed oil refineries,
>bridges, factories and dozens of civilian targets in what NATO itself
>described as the most active 24 hours of the war.
>
>April 18
>Oil refineries and chemical plants were attacked and destroyed in Belgrade
>and Novi Sad. The road linking Belgrade to Podgorica, the capital of
>Montenegro, was rendered useless.
>
>It is known that two days before, the attackers had started using GBU-27
>bombs, known as "seismic bombs", which break into reinforced concrete
>causing a strong trembling that makes the hit building collapse and damages
>many others in the surroundings.
>
>April 19
>Civilian buildings in Belgrade and Novi Sad and the towns of Paracin,
>Kraligevo and Sremska Mitrovica were attacked. NATO admitted that this may
>have been due to mistakes on its part.
>
>April 21
>NATO attacked the private home of the president of Yugoslavia, the
>headquarters of the Socialist Party, three television stations and 20 firms
>in the Usche shopping mall.
>
>April 22
>Two NATO missiles destroyed the last bridge over the Danube in Novi Sad,
>cutting road and train traffic. Eight television stations were also
>destroyed.
>
>It is known that, at that moment, the hospitals were only treating emergency
>cases and dozens of children and youngsters between two and 19 years old in
>Belgrade were on the point of dying due to the lack of resources for
>dialysis treatment.
>
>Solana said that he had authorized the military to review their plans to
>include a possible intervention with ground troops.
>
>April 23
>The Serbian television station in central Belgrade was completely destroyed.
>In the attack, 16 people were killed and another 19 wounded, including many
>journalists. A further 20 people were trapped in the rubble.
>
>NATO announced that it was focusing its attacks on communications, radio and
>television.
>
>On April 23 and 24, in this sinister fashion and with ostentatious luxury
>and a festive spirit, NATO celebrated in Washington the 50th anniversary of
>its inception and, in a new strategic concept, it euphorically proclaimed
>its intention to intervene anywhere in the world that it deemed fit, of its
>own accord and regardless of the United Nations and international law.
>
>On April 23, the "illustrious" NATO Secretary General, Javier Solana, said
>that the document was a "chart that will help us sail through the challenges
>awaiting us in the next century."
>
>"It also marks the transition from an Alliance mainly concerned over
>collective defense to one that will guarantee European security and defend
>the democratic values, both within and without our borders."
>
>In defense of these "democratic values", between April 24 and 30, NATO
>continued to intensify its attacks on civilian facilities. Air sorties
>increased by the day, reaching a total of 600 on April 30.
>
>Previously, on April 26, 27, 28 and 29, the Serbian central television
>station was assaulted for the second time and also a factory in Lucani;
>another television transmitter was destroyed in the Yugoslav capital;
>sixteen people died in a peasant village in southern Serbia and no fewer
>than 20 people lost their lives in a residential area of Surdulica. This is
>to mention just a few cases that were absolutely unrelated to military
>targets.
>
>The Danube's waters are already contaminated with an oil spill 15 kilometers
>long, while acid rain has started falling on the Balkans.
>
>May 1st
>Forty-seven civilians died north of Pristina when two missiles hit the bus
>where they traveled. An AFP correspondent who visited the town after the
>attack said that he had seen the torn bodies of men, women and children,
>burnt and maimed by the impact. Another one of those constantly repeated
>"mistakes" admitted by NATO, which also announced attacks of record
>intensity since the bombings began.
>
>May 2
>The attackers started using new graphite bombs short-circuiting Yugoslavia's
>power lines which were thus rendered useless.
>
>May 3
>NATO aircraft reached the accumulated figure of 14,000 air sorties,
>including reconnaissance flights and other missions in support of the air
>strikes. The main hydroelectric plant was attacked, leaving Belgrade and
>other parts of Serbia without electric power. Another bus in Montenegro was
>bombed, killing 17 people and wounding 40.
>
>A hospital in the residential area of the city of Baljevo was hit by four
>rockets which caused serious damage in three operating rooms and in the rest
>of the building.
>
>May 4
>The news agency EFE reported from Novi Sad that the town's 400,000 were
>surviving without bridges, with an almost complete absence of electricity,
>water and even bread. On the same day, between Pristina and Vlac, a Greek
>convoy of the organization Doctors of the World was hit by a rocket while it
>was carrying aid for displaced Kosovars. The neurosurgeon in charge of the
>convoy said on Greek television: "The Allied planes attacked us
>deliberately. They knew where we were and they bombed us. There was nobody
>else around. We were their target." The Greek army headquarters stated
>that NATO had been informed of the convoy.
>
>May 6
>With obsessive stubbornness, Solana insisted on the need for a military
>force and for NATO to be "at its core."
>
>May 7
>The Chinese embassy, situated in a residential area Belgrade, was bombed by
>NATO planes. Three journalists died and at least 20 people were wounded.
>This serious incident lacking a credible explanation served to worsen the
>crisis. The following days, eighteen diplomatic missions were also damaged
>by NATO smart bombs.
>
>May 8
>Cluster bombs hit a hospital complex and the main market in Nis, the third
>most populated city in Yugoslavia, killing 15 people and wounding 70. A
>deadly variety of internationally banned bomb with particularly cruel
>effects had thus began to be used.
>
>May 13
>NATO bombs killed 87 Albanian Kosovar civilians in the town of Korisa, while
>Solana maintained that the Kosovo crisis was "coming to an end", although
>"we will have to remain as tenacious as possible."
>
>A Reuter's news agency reporter who went there described the torn bodies
>scattered on the ground, many of them burnt and still smoldering. The EFE
>news agency correspondent reported that almost all of the wounded had been
>diagnosed as having Blast Syndrome (severe burns and broken bones or spine).
>
>May 14
>A new NATO record: 679 combat missions were reported. Graphite bombs
>launched on Serbia's power lines left Belgrade, Nis and Novi Sad without
>electrical power. On the same day, it was reported that civilian losses had
>risen to 1,200 dead and more than 5,000 wounded.
>
>The United Nations estimated the number of refugees since the start of the
>bombings in 781,000 people.
>
>May 16
>Solana declared that the NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia would
>continue until the objectives had been achieved.
>
>Solana justified the NATO actions as "a moral campaign".
>
>May 18
>The Yugoslav authorities accused NATO of using not only cluster bombs but
>also missiles containing non-enriched uranium, equally banned
>internationally for their radioactive effects.
>
>In addition to the high number of civilian casualties, the economic losses
>rose to more than 100 billion dollars.
>
>May 19
>Acid rain reached Romania.
>
>May 20
>Another hospital was severely damaged during the heaviest NATO assault on
>the Belgrade area in two weeks. Three neurology patients died and several
>pregnant women in the mother-and-child ward were wounded.
>
>The diplomatic missions of Sweden, Spain, Switzerland, Angola, Peru and Cuba
>were hit.
>
>May 21
>Istok prison in Kosovo was bombed. Eighty-four inmates died.
>
>May 23
>The number of bombs used came to 14,000, ten thousand of them smart bombs
>and missiles. Twenty-five thousand air sorties had hit over two thousand
>targets, including hundreds of the main civilian targets making up the basic
>structure of the economy and the life of the Yugoslav people.
>
>May 24
>Air strikes left 70 per cent of Serbia without electricity. The water
>reserve dropped to just 8 per cent, leaving 30 per cent of the people in
>Belgrade without any supplies.
>
>NATO declared that it had destroyed most of the main highways in Kosovo and
>the main railways over the Danube.
>
>May 25
>Solana claimed that the attacks by Allied aircraft against Serb power
>stations were due to the stations' "crystal-clear military nature".
>
>May 26
>It is reported from Yugoslavia that the mortality rate among premature
>babies had increased by 8 per cent. Also, that due to the lack of electric
>power 100 cancer patients were waiting for emergency surgery, 200 patients
>for magnetic resonance, 500 for CAT-scans, 600 for radiotherapy, 12,000 for
>X-rays and 30,000 for laboratory tests.
>
>Furthermore, the Serbian Health minister reported that, if the power failure
>and lack of water supply continued in the country, the lives of 9,500 people
>being treated in the intensive-care units would be in imminent danger.
>
>Seven hundred and eighty-three U.S. warplanes and 281 from other NATO member
>countries were already taking part in the attacks. Up until this date,
>27,110 air sorties had been flown.
>
>May 27
>A new record is broken: 792 combat missions in a single day.
>
>May 30
>NATO warplanes destroyed the Varvari bridge, 150 km south of Belgrade:
>eleven civilians died and over 10 were wounded. A large number of civilians
>were on the bridge at the time of the attack.
>
>On the same day, a sanatorium, an elders' home and a refugee shelter were
>attacked in Serdulica: twenty deaths had already been reported and the
>search still continued for more victims under the debris.
>
>By then, the number of combat missions since the operations began on March
>24, amounted to 29,979.
>
>Thousands of innocent people had been killed or wounded. Millions of people
>were now living without electricity, communications or water. Medicines and
>food were scarce. Hospitals could neither guarantee treatment nor the very
>lives of tens of thousands of human beings because their systems and
>equipment are no longer operational. Bridges, houses, churches and
>diplomatic missions had been destroyed or damaged.
>
>An entire people, including the elderly, pregnant women and children, are
>living terrorized by the bombs, waiting every minute for the sound of the
>sirens to run to the shelters with a baby in their arms or helping a
>disabled person.
>
>Millions of children will never be able to erase from their memories the
>hell of these 70 days of war. They will be traumatized for life.
>
>The victims are people of different nationalities and religious beliefs.
>
>The drama of the Kosovo people has been endlessly multiplied by the effects
>of that irresponsible, unilateral and adventurous war. More than 90 per
>cent of the Kosovar refugees, forced to leave their country, have done so
>after March 24. When they can return to their homeland, they will find
>their houses and properties destroyed, ruin and desolation everywhere.
>
>The destruction of oil refineries and chemical plants as well as the
>non-enriched uranium contained in many of the missiles used by the attackers
>have already caused ecological damage of incalculable proportions.
>
>The air in the Balkans is poisoned with sulfur dioxide and ammonia. The
>soil is saturated with the progressive death of animals, plants and human
>beings. The Danube, other rivers and the sea are full of toxic products.
>
>This war has been characterized by a wasteful display of technology.
>
>Yugoslavia has become a military testing ground. Planes taking off from the
>United States drop their deadly load on the Serb people, refuel in midair
>and return to their bases non-stop. Missiles are air-launched at a distance
>off the range of anti-aircraft. Unmanned aircraft are bombing hospitals
>with patients inside, houses with people inside, bridges full of pedestrians
>and buses with passengers.
>
>In the third month of a bloody war against the life, work and culture of an
>entire people, far from moving toward a negotiated political solution that
>would bring back stability to the Balkans, the option taken is the
>intensification of the bombings. Javier Solana, baffled by his triumphal
>predictions of attaining victory in three or four days, is even advocating
>an invasion with ground troops which would risk spreading the conflict
>beyond the present Yugoslav borders and fighting a bloody war against the
>people that resisted the attack of 40 Nazi divisions during World War II.
>
>The third phase of the air strikes program has already begun.
>
>After killing thousands of civilians, destroying a country's economic and
>social means of subsistence and polluting the environment, it is terrifying
>to think that the plan drawn up envisages even more destruction and greater
>crimes.
>
>The present and future life of the Yugoslav people will be filled with
>traumas and psychological and spiritual damage that no statistics could
>show.
>
>Europe will forever be marked by this crime against Humanity, of which it
>has been both, an accomplice and a victim.
>
>Not even Hitler's air force assaults against the villages, towns and cities
>of Poland in the first weeks of World War II were as brutal and extensive as
>those that NATO is carrying out against the present Yugoslavia. Such
>attacks will never lead to a just and lasting solution for the rights of all
>nationalities, ethnic groups, religions and cultures of what is left of the
>Yugoslavia created by Tito, one that despite ethnic, cultural and religious
>differences and centuries-old animosities was able to live in peace for over
>40 years, after the big war that concluded in Europe on May 9, 1945.
>
>The government of Cuba:
>
>Strongly condemns the monstrous crime against the Serb people, while
>supporting the right of the Albanian Kosovars to be fully guaranteed their
>national, cultural and religious identity and to enjoy the widest possible
>autonomy and even independence if, after peace is achieved through a just
>and peaceful political solution, ethnic Serb and Albanian Yugoslavs in the
>present Yugoslavia would one day come to that decision. But, such decision
>can never be imposed through a cruel and merciless war that can only
>multiply by hundreds of years the hatred unleashed.
>
>Draws attention to the very serious precedent of disregard and contempt for
>principles of international law, such as the sovereign equality and
>territorial integrity of a multinational State, which was largely
>dismantled.
>
>Observes with indignation that the United Nations is also being politically
>bombarded and the Security Council completely ignored. The most basic
>standards of civilization and coexistence have been disregarded. It is as
>if an attempt was made to impose the law of the jungle on the international
>community.
>
>Acknowledges the admirable and heroic resistance of the Serb people and
>their ability to fight in defense of their identity as a nation and their
>patriotic traditions.
>
>Confirms its readiness --as notified to the Religious Community of St.
>Egidius on April 5, just 12 days after the beginning of the air strikes and
>the mass exodus from Kosovo-- to cooperate by sending a thousand Cuban
>doctors, absolutely free of charge, to care for the hundreds of thousands of
>Kosovar refugees, both today when they are living in overcrowded make-shift
>camps and also tomorrow when they are able to return to their homeland, as
>well as to care for all ethnic Serbs and people of other nationalities
>living in Kosovo.
>
>Demands that the international community --particularly the immensely rich
>and industrialized group of NATO countries that unleashed this destructive
>war and directly participate in it-- contribute the resources that
>Yugoslavia will require for its reconstruction.
>
>Declares that the war against Yugoslavia already constitutes a true genocide
>and that, if a sense of justice is to prevail in the world, genocide must be
>accorded an exemplary punishment.
>
>Considers that Javier Solana, who as NATO Secretary General has assumed
>responsibility for ordering the NATO attack on March 24, 1999 and who for
>70 days has sustained, encouraged and justified this genocide, should be
>tried by an international court of law as a war criminal representing all of
>the guilty and urges the international community to demand such procedure.
>
>Stop the bombing! Stop the genocide! Stop the war! Find a political
>solution at all costs! Let peace prevail!
>
>
>
>
>Havana, June 1, 1999.
>
>
>
>
Michael A. Lebowitz
Economics Department
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
Office: Phone (604) 291-4669
Fax (604) 291-5944
Home: Phone (604) 872-0494
Fax (604) 872-0485
Lasqueti Island: (250) 333-8810
[PEN-L:7648] (Fwd) one to read and circulate:STATEMENT FROM CUBAN GOVT --EN
ts99u-1.cc.umanitoba.ca [130.179.154.224] Thu, 3 Jun 1999 13:43:08 -0500
