Dear friends,
 
This is the first time that I am not addressing you just as a member of INES,
but also as an anti-nuclear movements activist and a signatory of all the
significant appeals of these movements, as a co-establisher of the Greens
branch in Nurnberg, as a president of the Committee of NZS in Belgrade and the
honorary president of the Ecological Party in Tirana, as a member of The
Movement for Peace of the Muslims and Serbs, the participant of the "German-
Serbian-Muslim-Croat Dialogue in Munich", the co-organizer of the first Caravan
of Peace of the Greens in Kosovo and in the end, as a mother of a child born in
a mixed marriage. I am doing this only because I want to point out the depth of
my wish and need for co-operation, agreement among peoples of different nations
and faiths and the mutual planning of their future.
 
There is no time to begin this appeal with a discussion on the causes and
mechanisms of the outbreak of this crisis, about the unknowing diplomatic
interventions, about the lack of will for peace both in my country and your
countries, which brought about the destruction of a significant multi-ethnic
country in Europe, the former Yugoslavia. I will only shortly note that the
clash in Kosovo and Metohija is just a phase of this dishonouring work, in
which no one wishes to begin responsible talks; only that would show
transparency in the mechanism of the clashes aggravation and make the
conditions for its de-aggravation and responsible dialogue.
 
I directly urge you to do everything to stop the NATO intervention against the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, because it will not bring peace and because now
it has already brought about the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo – not only aimed at
Albanians, but at Serbs as well. At the end of all aggressions, there is peace.
I am afraid that NATO diplomacy is making prerequisite for long-lasting hatred
and lack of confidence which will disable all future discussion between the
Serbs, Albanians and other national communities about the political solutions
in the limits of existing European documents.
 
I wish to point out a special side-effect of the bombing of which little has
been said: the actions of NATO Pact are so wide, that in the first phase they
can already be characterised as absolute war which means the destruction
preconceptions – cultural, spiritual and natural lives of millions of people of
all nations in our country.
 
The toxic nature of the 19 200 tons of explosives (equal to the amount used in
the Nagasaki bombing) used is well known to you – we warn you that Serbia is
one of the greatest sources of underground waters in Europe and that the
contamination will be felt in the whole surrounding area all the way to the
Black Sea. NATO Pact is bombing factories, the workers in the greater part of
our great industrial complexes have decided to make a "living wall" around
their working places, they are not doing this because they are only defending
their country, but also because they have become so impoverished by the years
of sanctions, that the destruction of factories would mean the condemnation to
the unequalled poverty equal to execution. Such poverty will soon cause the
long lasting crisis in this area, and will become the center of potential
terrorism.
 
NATO chooses the targets in the vicinity of the extremely dangerous
machineries. On the very first day, the municipality of Grocka has been hit -
on the territory of which the nuclear reactor Vinca is situated, containing a
great storage of nuclear waste; the municipality of Pancevo has been hit, on
which the petrol-chemical factory and the factory for the artificial
fertilizers are situated; the municipality of Baric has also been hit with the
great complex for the production of chloride, which is using Bopal technology.
It is not necessary for me to explain what the blowing up of one of such
factories would represent. Not only Belgrade which is situated at a 10 km
distance, would be endangered, but the rest of Europe too. On the second day,
in the Belgrade suburb of Sremcica a factory for the chemical production and a
rocket fuel storage was hit causing a milder intoxication of the surrounding
area.
 
I am pointing out that four national parks were hit – all members of the
International association of the national reservations – you have to realise
that FR Yugoslavia is among 13 of the world’s richest bio-diversity countries.
On the third day, the Avala area was aimed at, where the psychiatric division
of the neuro-psychiatric clinic of Belgrade is situated. The Yugoslav
Cinematheque was also put in danger - one of the richest film archives in the
world, listed among the world cultural heritage . The village of Gracanica was
also shelled: there is situated one of the most important monasteries of the
medieval orthodox culture and the candidate for the UNESCO heritage list.
Numerous civil targets in other cities were hit – schools, hospitals, the
sites considered as the cultural monuments…
 
Especially worrying are the latest news saying that, in the next phases of
their bombing, NATO will use the airplanes B1 and A10 which are carrying
missiles with depleted uranium previously used in Iraq and Bosnia Herzegovina.
The use of these will bring about the vast dangerous consequences to the health
not only of the soldiers, but also of the whole population, and you know that
the toxins and the radioactivity know no nationality or borders.
 
Of course it is not necessary for me to point out the shocks that children and
old people unable to hide in shelters are experiencing, the worsening of the
situation in the hospitals… If the aim of this intervention was the prevention
of the humanitarian catastrophe, its result will be a far greater humanitarian
catastrophe with far more severe consequences to the generations of people
living in this country.
 
I am deeply convinced that I am speaking in the name of all the citizens of
Yugoslavia when I say that we have the capabilities and the political will to
find a solution for the Kosovo and Metohija problem, if we are allowed to seek
this solution together with the Albanians, and if we take into consideration
the fact that all of us have the right to participate in this solution. All one-
sidedness and media manipulation are a part of the mechanism bringing
suffering, destruction and death.
 
Branka Jovanovic

Alles zum Krieg in Jugoslawien

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