On 24th March 2003, a commemorative meeting has been held in Belgrade.
The meeting was addressed by Professor Ilija Vukovic, president of the Patriotic Alliance of Yugoslavia and long-term president of the Alliance of Antifascist Veterans of Yugoslavia, Mr. Dragutin Minja Milovanovic, one of the leaders of Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija and Mr. Vladimir Krsljanin, assistant of President Milosevic.
Despite the attempts of the regime to prevent marking the anniversary by the repressive measures of the illegal “State of Emergency”, directed also to prevent anti-war and social protests, around 200 consequent socialists and other patriots have expressed their strong determination to continue defense of the freedom and national dignity.
The meeting has been attended by Professor Oskar Kovac, Dr Zoran Bingulac, Cedomir Zdrnja and other important socialist leaders, antifascists and patriots, as well as war veterans.
The meeting has sent to President Slobodan Milosevic and the public at home and abroad, the MESSAGE OF PEACE AND FREEDOM. Text of the message, together with the concluding speech of Mr. Vladimir Krsljanin, you can read bellow.
Address of Vladimir Krsljanin, Assistant to President Milosevic,
at the Meeting to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the aggression,
in Belgrade, March 24, 2003
Respectful friends,
A War has been declared to the Mankind.
While another proud nation is looking into eyes of the US aggression, victims of previous aggression still suffer. While some nations are being bombed, other nations are being enslaved.
The armed part of another World conflict started as some times before, in the Balkans. Four years ago something that many of us for decades considered impossible took – war on European soil. Yugoslavia, a sovereign country, an example of tolerance and brotherhood and of social welfare, has been tiered apart, raped, brutally bombed and finally occupied. Warmongers and criminals responsible for that are not punished. As a wounded beast they continue the war against humanity.
In February 2000, leader of our people, President Slobodan Milosevic stated:
“Today, it is Serbia. Than the Middle and Far
East. And the entire world at last. The only obstacle that can stand in the way
of this crusade can be reason. The reason of the mankind, because this time
mankind is the ultimate goal. Today, when danger of global violence is certain,
what we need is an organized resistance to violence on a global scale.”
In September 2002, as Dimitrov facing Nazis, President Milosevic faced NATO as prisoner who, advocating sovereignty and dignity of all peoples, turns into a prosecutor:
“There were no “wars” in this territory, only a war, against Yugoslavia. This war has been incited and directed by the greatest powers of the modern world, relying on internal allies and nationalist-separatist cadre dominated by the forces defeated in World War Two. This war was waged by all means: media, political, economic, and military. First it was waged through a decade-long media campaign which abused the monopoly over global information exchanges, then through a diplomatic intervention aimed at creating independent states from Yugoslav republics, then through the many years of cruel economic blockade and sanctions against the FR Yugoslavia – which can only be qualified as genocidal – and finally, through an open military aggression. First in 1995, against the Republic of Srpska and in the operation “Storm”, with NATO forces participating in the largest ethnic cleansing ever recorded, and in 1999, against the FR Yugoslavia.”
In one of his first appearances before the court of the aggressors, President Milosevic pointed:
“I am proud that I commanded the armed forces of Yugoslavia that have stopped NATO, since this has shown that a country, even a small one, having a strong will to defend its freedom and defend the idea of freedom and equality of nations and peoples, can succeed. I am here as a punishment for our standing up against the danger of the biggest tyranny that has threatened mankind.”
Black clouds of deadly planes and missiles covered skies over Belgrade on March 24, 1999. Exactly four years later, they are darkening the skies over Baghdad.
They ended XX century with the attempt to kill one nation. They begin XXI century with the attempt to kill another.
Their MAGNUM CRIMEN must be stopped. As we were once united to stop and defeat fascism, the mankind must unite to prevent today’s threat which is even bigger. The aggressive force has weapons capable to destroy the whole life on our planet.
We must unite around the protection of peace which is the universal value and everyone’s right and around the protection of the sovereignty of every people which is the most powerful tool against the new colonialism.
The lives of the heroes and of the helpless civilians laid on the altar of the Fatherland in the Spring of 1999 were not useless. Nor is the monument built for them by Slobodan Milosevic at The Hague. The resistance of the united people is not forgotten. That resistance inspires today millions of fighters for peace all over the World, it inspires Iraqi and all other peoples threatened by the same evil. NATO disappeared as a threat. It survives its last days as a mechanism of keeping the deprived Central and Eastern Europe in obedience, but even that will not last long. And the grotesque American-British hi-tech machinery of death is being drawn in the Afghanistan gorges and in the Iraqi sands. To the extent that the voices of resistance in the highs of the European and American politics nobody even tries to silence.
Until now, every anniversary of March aggression has been commemorated in Belgrade by an international conference and by a people’s rally.
This year, the conference is forbidden, as well as all demonstrations.
These days in Belgrade, only NATO and its servants can speak publicly.
We thought that the peak of cynicism must be the moment when Javier Solana determined the framework for future servant life to the peoples of Yugoslavia.
But, as unbelievable outrage and disgrace, on March 20-22, in the building of the Federal Parliament in Belgrade, NATO Parliamentary Assembly will hold its seminar. The special guest star will be devil’s advocate in person, Carla del Ponte.
It is an unbearable humiliation.
But it is only a peak of an iceberg.
After the period of Djinjdjic’s dictatorial rule in which the constitutional, legal and moral norms have been blatantly violated in the interest of Western capital, an attempt has been made to formally impose a system of dictatorship in Serbia.
Those who dare to turn Mesopotamia, the cradle of the World civilization and the Balkans, the cradle of European civilization into graveyards and ruins, have been ashamed of the perpetrators of their 5th October orgy. The Serbian state has to become a tool for an inter-mafia skirmish, in which, according to their plans, victims should be the people, its democracy and freedom. So that in the last round of the race the colonial masters would be the nice Kostunica and nice Labus. Of course that no one reasonable can have illusions that the March 2003 is being conducted either by Legija, Siptar and Kum, or by Zivkovic, Batic and Covic. All this people is being maltreated with is conducted by an American bureaucrat, a puppet-master with the experience from Bulgaria, Croatia and Yugoslavia, decorated with the medals of Prince Trpimir and of The Old Mountain and with numerous American awards for setting up democracy in the Central and Eastern Europe, Vietnam war veteran William Montgomery.
No people deserve to be under the unlimited rule of criminals.
I don’t recommend them to try to press Serbian people nor to further violate its freedom and democracy.
They must go.
In one of the earlier conferences commemorating the anniversary of the aggression, it has been stated:
“The Empire has no friends or allies, only the future victims.”
This people comprehends that. And these days even those seduced will understand that we have a problem not because the famous Western “cruise-missile” democracy has not been yet developed, but just because it operates here with the full strength since 5th October 2000.
During only a week of the illegal “State of Emergency”, around 1000 people have been arrested and detained without right for a defense counsel. There is a total censorship of all media. Those media that were only open to opposition views are banned. There are no more TV transmissions from the Parliament. Leaders of ruling coalition call to ban the patriotic opposition parties. Trade union activities and the right of strike have been abolished.
All that on the eve of a hot political spring with a wave of workers’ protests already announced. And with the Movement of People’s Unity almost emerged.
No foreign force should try to back illegitimate Serbian rulers. Every occupation of Serbia can be only temporary. It is high time to end the puppet show in our country. No one is authorized to impose nor to kill puppet rulers here. The attempt that those who are most responsible for the misery and disaster of this country rule as dictators shall not be fulfilled.
At The Hague, there is a seventh break in the process due to a new deterioration of the President Milosevic’s health. The NATO Inquisition remains deaf to appeals from all over the world, including from Russian Duma and dismissed Yugoslav Federal Parliament that the President’s life has to be saved by a period of recovery in freedom.
All this is a proof that the monstrous threat to the mankind does not have only a face of military aggression but has also all other oppressive dimensions we all remember from 60 years ago.
This is a warning and an alarm from Belgrade on 24th March 2003.
Therefore, I suggest that this meeting addresses to the President Milosevic, to the public at home and abroad, the following words:
The consequent socialists and patriots, gathered in Belgrade on 24th March 2003, despite the attempts to silence free word by the spreading of fear, send to the President Slobodan Milosevic, to the domestic and international public the following:
MESSAGE OF PEACE AND FREEDOM
1. We will always spread the glory of the heroes of defense and of the victims of aggression.
2. The aggression against our and other peoples must stop immediately.
3. President Slobodan Milosevic, who inspires and leads the freedom fighters in our country and worldwide, must be immediately released from aggressors’ imprisonment, where his life is deliberately imperilled.
4. The State of Emergency in Serbia must be abolished immediately.
5. The Government of the Republic of Serbia must immediately resign since it has no confidence of the people due to its responsibility for abolishing the people’s sovereignty, disastrous situation in the social, economic and security fields, for severe breaches of the Constitution, Law and human rights and for general criminalization of the society.
6. All democratic and patriotic forces are obliged, lead by the standpoints of President Milosevic, to reach the effective cooperation within the Movement of People’s Unity, because only that would guarantee that the will and the interests of the people will be respected after the early elections. The biggest obligation in that sense has the Socialist Party of Serbia.
7. Serbia and Yugoslavia shall be again respected and equal members of the European and World community of nations.
8. We most strongly condemn the Anglo-American aggression against the friendly Iraq, we express the full support to the Iraqi people and leadership in the defense of freedom and national sovereignty and we call upon all free nations to present their effective assistance.
9. We are disgusted by the decision of the Quisling regime in Belgrade to expel two Iraqi diplomats. We demand the decision to be recalled and an apology to be sent to the Government of Iraq.
10. We are solidaire with the mass expressions of the will of peoples all around the World, who demand peace, abolition of the international dictatorship of the financial and military centers of power and democratization of the international relations.
11. We demand that General Assembly of the United Nations, under slogan “United for Peace” condemns all aggressive wars waged by USA and NATO without the UN mandate and obliges the International Court of Justice to decide about that in urgent procedure, including about the demands for war reparations, liberation of all occupied territories in the Balkans and in other parts of the World and abolition of the ad hoc tribunals which became tools of aggression. If this can not be accomplished we call upon all free nations to create a new World organization.
12. Determined to contribute to the accomplishment of these goals by our most intense activity, we call upon all citizens to participate in this struggle, since each day without freedom multiplies the victims and sufferings.
People – united, can never be defeated!
The undefeated spirit of freedom of this people can never be extinguished!
All conscious fighters for peace and freedom should count on that.
We can not betray our martyrs and our history.
The people of Serbia is more than mature and able to determine its future peacefully.
No one can be above the will of the people.
Long live President Slobodan Milosevic!
Long live free Serbia and Yugoslavia!
The only way to the future we have is that united we continue the struggle for freedom.
Until victory!