NATO aggression – 17 years on

Panel dedicated to the memory of the victims

by the Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals

On 23 March 2016, Belgrade was hosting the panel dedicated to the memory of the victims of NATO aggression against Serbia (resp. the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia), launched on that day 17 years ago. The panel was organised by the Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals, the Serbian Generals and Admirals Club, SUBNOR of Serbia (War Veterans Association), and the Association of Serbian Hosts. The panel was attended by representatives of students, of the Serbian diaspora, H.E. Vladimir Chushev, Ambassador of Belarus, and also by diplomats from the embassies of the Russian Federation, the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of Angola, Switzerland, and other friendly countries.
At the beginning, the participants paid tribute to 1,008 casualties among the defenders – soldiers and policemen, and to some 2,500 killed civilians including 80 children, at the age of only a few months to adolescence.
The participants were greeted by special guests, Mr Maksim Misko, President of the Peace Fund of Belarus, and Prof Dr Zahari Zahariev, President of the Foundation “Slavyani” of Bulgaria.
Under the slogan “Never to Forget”, presentations on the consequences of NATO aggression and the globalization of interventionism were given by Mr Živadin Jovanovic, President of the Belgrade Forum, General Dr Radovan Radinovic, retired, Dr Stanislav Stojanovic, diplomat, General Dr Luka Kastratoviç, retired, and Prof Dr Aleksandar Rastovic, historian.

A turning point in the international relations

The key points made by the speakers underlined that the NATO aggression 17 years ago was the turning point in the international relations as the shift towards an unrestricted military interventionism by the USA and NATO, a decisive step in the implementation of NATO’s strategy of spreading eastward towards the borders of Russia. This also included the militarization of both Europe and the international affairs in general, the undermining of the United Nations system and the legal order established on the grounds of the outcome of WWII. Its purpose was to create a chaos for the sake of facilitating the self-serving economic and geopolitical interests. It was concluded that the period of domination of a unipolar world order was over, that the international relations have entered a period of tectonic changes, and that a great conflict could only be avoided by recognising Russia and China as partners on an equal footing, and also as inevitable factors in resolving any serious international problems.
It was noted that the international terrorism has been rapidly surging from the Middle East, Central Asia and Northern Africa to flood the European soil and that, in all likelihood, this trend was going to spread on to other countries and continents. The halting of this trend requires the West and, notably, the USA, to forego their policy of double-standards and their ranking of terrorist organisations as “freedom-fighting” vs. “terrorist”, or as “moderate” vs. “extremist”ones.
If the 1990s were marked by the lack of political will to uphold the Security Council’s decisions on discontinuing further funding, training, and arming of terrorist KLA in Kosovo and Metohija, and if nobody cared to understand that the West (NATO) support to secessionism of a part of Serbia’s state territory would amount to a foothold for the upsurge of terrorism and organized crime targeting Central and Western Europe, now it is high time that the West understand it was deluded by the egotist interests, unrealistic geopolitical goals, Russophobia and Serbophobia.
A warning was voiced that the spillover of terrorism onto the West would be gaining pace unless the channels of funding, training and arming the ISIS forces are severed, promptly, although this depends primarily on the political agenda of the mightiest Western power.

Call for UN world conference on terrorism

A proposal was made to call for an urgent convening of a world conference on terrorism under the auspices of the United Nations, which would give the green light for the drafting of an international convention on combating terrorism.
The participants of the panel have unanimously condemned in strongest terms the terrorist attacks in Belgium and the preceding ones in France, expressing condolences to the families of the innocent victims of these attacks.
At the end, about 200 participating representatives of independent, non-partisan associations endorsed the initiative to submit a motion to the Government of the Republic of Serbia to mark every future 24 March by lowering the national flags on all official institutions at half-mast, in a gesture of remembrance and tribute to the victims of the NATO aggression.    •