Seventeen years ago, on March 24, 1999, without any permission of the UN Security Council NATO troops have started a bombardment of a sovereign Yugoslavia over the matter of its aspiration to keep inviolability of territory. Making airstrikes of the cities and killing civilians, NATO had celebrated its 50th anniversary.
Why without any sanctions? According to the representative of the American Bar Association at the European UN headquarters in Geneva Alejandro Teitelboim – ‘Carla del Ponte has actually admitted that it is very difficult to take steps that run counter to the interests of the Alliance’. And Yeltsin’s Russia was not the country which was able to intervene on behalf of the brothers and eternal allies.
Based on information of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia’s authorities from March 24, to June 10, 1999 the total number of civilian deaths amounted to over 1 700 people, including almost 400 children, and about 10 thousand of seriously injured. At this rate, during NATO’s war against Serbia, on April 12, 1999, in the bombardment of the railway bridge (Grdelica area), NATO forces aircraft F-15E has destroyed Serbian passenger train Belgrade – Skopje.
Over half a million people were left homeless. The mortality rate due to a sharp deterioration of living conditions cannot be assessed.
82 bridges, 422 buildings of educational facilities, 48 health facilities, the most important life-support facilities and infrastructures were destroyed and damaged, more than 750 thousand inhabitants of Yugoslavia became refugees, 2.5 million people were left without the necessary living conditions. The total material damage caused by the NATO aggression is estimated to more than 100 billion dollars.
Those are eloquent numbers, though, of course, nothing beats the human horror, when families lose their young children, when a woman carries a child under her heart for eight months tragically dying and will never become a mother. Swarm of people took to the bridges, which are planned to be bombed, and defending hometowns with their bodies. Painted targets with the caption “I am a Serb, kill me” were widely spread and people were hanging them on clothes. Three-year-old Milica, killed on April 17, had become the symbol of sorrow.
When the TV center was in fire and 17 journalist died the world leaders didn’t take to the streets of Paris with “Je suis Belgrade” posters. In the heart of the Serbian capital still stands ruined General Staff – a tourist attraction and a reminder for the locals how looks the integration to the Western world.
For what Yugoslavia was under bombardments? Nobody heard that the Serbs staged attacks in Paris or Brussels. They were tried to be blamed in the genocide of the Bosnians or the Albanians – but it was clearly unsubstantiated, given that some litigations last until now in Hague. And bombs were dropped 17 years ago already.
The cause of the aggression on a sovereign country was its desire to keep inviolability of its southern region – Kosovo and Metohija. The historical homeland of the Serbs abundantly blood-soaked with the Slavic blood, glorified in an old literature, strewn with Orthodox churches and monasteries built in centuries which even don’t mention in the history of states which were bombing Serbia. Kosovo is the heart of Serbia, they say in the Balkans. The loss of Kosovo is seen by the Serbs the same as we would have perceived the dominance of an unfriendly wild barbarians from the Golden Ring cities.
Isn’t it because the Serbs are so acutely aware of our pain for the Kiev Lavolta of the Caves and for the captured by the Ukrainian rebel schismatics churches of the Moscow Patriarchate…
But it turned out that to fight against the radicals for own country is a crime.
Later was everything: recognition of Kosovo “independence” despite the prescribed in the UN resolution No. 1244 the territorial integrity of Serbia, riots in the Serbian churches, desecration of shrines, crackdown and murder of the Serbs in front of the “peacekeeping” contingent of NATO and EULEX. Kosovo had become the center of drug and slave trade, the illegal sale of human organs, ISIS terrorists training camps. According to the Constitution of Serbia, Kosovo is an autonomous province, but de facto Belgrade’s power is minimal here. Serbs are living mainly in the north, and densely gathered in enclaves around churches in other parts – it is simply dangerous to get out from there.
As to Kosovar bandits, the Western powers support and strongly promote them to the international organizations. In particular, last November lobbies of Russia and China have saved from the membership of “Kosovo” in UNESCO: protection of ancient Orthodox shrines wanted to be entrusted with the criminals who destroyed the churches. Now is solving the issue of the membership of the defunct Republic in UEFA and FIFA to force Russia to accept the participation of the “national team of Kosovo” in the World Cup in 2018.
Execution of Yugoslavia was the first bell, or no – the loud peal of Kosovo churches signaling about the arrival of the aggressive policy of the Western world. After the bombing of Belgrade was accomplished the first in Europe “soft revolution” – the president Slobodan Milošević died in The Hague prison. Then Montenegro has “softly” separated. Then was the constellation of orange revolutions in other countries already on the thumb scheme, the bombing of Iraq and Libya.
However, in a series of complex political events, burning Belgrade is the true face of Western “democracy” and “humanism”.
Today, in the cities of Serbia and Montenegro will be hold Memorial Events which received a special urgency this year. All of them will take place in the context of the broader anti-NATO campaign. People will take to the streets to remind their authorities what actually causes “integration” into the Western world, and that pro-Western governments establish friendly contact with the executioners.