Posted on 03/23/2008 11:55:40 PM PDT by King Lazar
Serbia is commemorating today nine years since the beginning of NATO air strikes on then Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
The strikes lasted 11 weeks and according to different sources between 1,200 and 2,500 people were killed. Serbia PM Vojislav Kostunica shall attend today the commemoration service dedicated to the victims of NATO aggression on FRY in 1999, while the Defense Minister Dragan Sutanovic shall meet with the pilots that took part in combat actions and members of the families of the pilots that lost their lives in those actions. Minister Sutanovac shall also lay the wreaths on the monument dedicated to the members of our Air Forces. The government of the FRY proclaimed March 24 as the Day of Remembrance of those who lost their lives during NATO air strikes in 1999
If elected President will Mrs. Clinton get us out of her husband’s war?
March 24th, 1999... another date that should live in infamy!
What a tragedy that the USA would take part in the bombing of a Christian ally to further the goals of Muslim Caliphate....lies and liars!
“The bombing campaign, officially against then Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SRJ), was conducted by 19 armies of the Alliance’s member states.
The sustained attacks lasted for 11 weeks, or 78 days, killing between 1,200 and 2,500 people, according to different estimates.
Official data shows that 1,002 members of then Yugoslav Army and Serbian MUP were killed, along with around 2,500 civilians, including 89 children. 10,000 people were wounded.
Serbia’s infrastructure, commercial buildings, schools, healthcare institutions, media outlets and monuments of culture sustained heavy damage during the war.
The targets included the state television, RTS, when on April 23, 1999, 16 employees were killed in an airstrike.
The attacks began on March 24, 1999, a little after 20:00 CET, after then NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana gave the order to start the bombing.
The government in Belgrade declared the state of war the same night.
The bombing campaign, that the SRJ authorities but also numerous legal experts said was aggression on a sovereign country, started after failed talks in Paris between ethnic Kosovo Albanians and Belgrade authorities.
Estimates differ as to the material damage done to Serbia. The government of that time asked for compensation of damages that it said ran into about USD 100bn. But G17 Plus economists believe the number is at USD 30bn.
NATO’s war against Serbia ended on June 10, when the United Nations adopted the still valid Resolution 1244.
NATO used aircraft carriers, four air force bases in Italy, and also bases in Western Europe and the United States to carry out the attacks.
Germany, France, the U.S. and Italy participated with most soldiers.
UNHCR data shows that after the arrival of the NATO ground forces in the province, some 230,000 Serbs and Romas fled to central Serbia, escaping ethnic violence against them perpetrated by Kosovo’s Albanians.
Another wave of violence and ethnic cleansing took place on March 17-19, 2004, when 4,000 Serbs were also exiled from their homes.
...”
b92.net
“The pilot attacked what he believed to be military vehicles,” said Mr Shea (spokesman for NATO, as reported on 1999-04-15 by the BBC). “He dropped his bomb in good faith, as you would expect of a trained pilot from a democratic country. ... The bomb destroyed the lead vehicle, which we now believe to have been a civilian vehicle.”
“NATO deeply regrets” the death of five people when missiles fell 600m short of their target and hit residences in the mining town of Aleksinac on April 5.
“NATO deeply regrets” the death of at least ten people when NATO jets hit a Yugoslav passenger train travelling from Belgrade to Salonika on a bridge near Leskovac on April 12.
“NATO deeply regrets” the deaths of 80 people which occurred when NATO attacked two refugee columns in Western Kosovo on April 14.
“NATO deeply regrets” the deaths of at least ten people killed in the bombing of a Serbian television station in Belgrade on April 23.
“NATO deeply regrets” the deaths of twenty civilians which occurred when a laser-guided bomb lost its target lock over Surdulica on April 27.
“NATO deeply regrets” the deaths of thirty nine civilians killed when a NATO missile hit a bus crossing a bridge at Luzane on May 1.
“NATO deeply regrets” killing at least seventeen people when a NATO bomb hit a bus packed with women and children near Pec on May 3.
“NATO deeply regrets” killing fifteen people when a cluster bomb exploded over a market and a hospital in Nis on May 6.
“NATO deeply regrets” killing three Chinese diplomats when NATO bombers hit the Chinese embassy in Belgrade on May 7.
The arsenals of democracy are deep. We are not anywhere near running out. We can fight this for months and months, if not years.
- Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Harry Shelton
Historically, the weather is better in May than in April, better in June than in May, better in July than in June.
- U.S. President Bill Clinton on Thursday signaled that the airstrikes on Yugoslavia could extend well into the summer
NATO had destroyed the last remaining bridge over the Danube in the city of Novi Sad (more than 500km/300miles from Kosovo): Kosovo is becoming even more isolated from Serbia.
- Jamie Shea, NATO spokesman
Yesterday NATO bombed the bridges in Novi Sad, the second bigest town in Kosovo.
- News on CNN
Bombardment of Yugoslavia is an attempt to defend moral values 21st century Europe would cherish.
- Xavier Solana
We do know that we must do more to reach out to our children and teach them to express their anger and to resolve their conflicts with words, not weapons.
- Bill Clinton, after 20 days of bombing.
The train was on or near the bridge, but it was not the target!
- NATO officials, explaining bombing of a passanger train.
He dropped his bomb in good faith, as you would expect a well trained pilot from a democratic country to do.
- Jamie Shea, after the bombing of a refugee convoy when 72 people were killed.
We do know that we must do more to reach out to our children and teach them to express their anger and to resolve their conflicts with words, not weapons.
- Bill CLinton
“I don’t see this as a long-term operation. I think that this is achievable within a relatively short period of time”.
- U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on March 24th, 1999.
“We never expected this to be over quickly”.
- U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on April 19th, 1999.
Appendix B: Civilian Victims of NATO Bombing During Operation Allied Force
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/nato/Natbm200-03.htm
Victims of NATO’s war
Who is responsible for the deaths of Milena Malobabic and Sanja Milenkovic?
By David Walsh
2 June 1999
http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/jun1999/bomb-j02.shtml
CounterPunch
edited by alexander cockburn and jeffrey st. clair
Who NATO Killed
http://www.counterpunch.org/dead.html
STRIKE on Yugoslavia
Kosovo crisis
http://www.yurope.com/kosovo/
War: 78 Days of Western Infamy
Drop Clinton, Not Bombs!
http://www.truthinmedia.org/truthinmedia/Kosovo/tim-war.html
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