PRESS CONFERENCE BY FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA

Press Briefing

PRESS CONFERENCE BY FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA

Diplomatic efforts were in the shadow of intensified bombing and reinforced determination of the leading North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries to continue to the very end, until they reduced Yugoslavia to rubble and provoked the surrender of the population and the acceptance of the five-point NATO ultimatum, Vladislav Jovanovic, Chargé d'affaires of the Permanent Mission of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to the United Nations, told correspondents at a Headquarters press conference this morning.

The NATO actions were in violation of all relevant international conventions and the rules of war, he said. The bombing was a genocidal attempt to deprive the whole population of its elementary existential needs. Today, Belgrade and many leading cities were without electricity and water, which meant that babies in incubators and persons depending on electricity were left at the mercy of the situation.

It was two months since the beginning of the NATO aggression, which was illegal and in violation of the United Nations Charter, he said. The aggression was criminal in character and genocidal in its proportions and the choice of targets. As a result of two months of deliberate killings and destruction, the picture of devastation throughout Yugoslavia and Kosovo and Metohija was appalling. Over 10,000 sorties had been flown over the territory of the whole Yugoslavia; over 1,300 civilians had been killed; and more than 6,000 civilians had been wounded.

He went on to say that over 1.5 million students were denied the right to education, as 300 primary and secondary schools had been destroyed or heavily damaged, and nearly 30 departments in various university cities had been hit and destroyed. Eighty refugee camps harbouring Serbian refugees from Bosnia and Croatia had been hit and, as a result, over 100 civilians, mostly women and children, had been killed and many people wounded. The Albanian refugees who were on their way back from neighbouring countries had been hit on several occasions.

The NATO used weapons banned by international conventions, including cluster bombs, depleted uranium ammunition and graphite bombs, he continued. The first two, in particular, were to be condemned, because they were highly inhumane means of attacking the enemy and causing as many casualties as possible. Cluster bombs and depleted uranium ammunition had also been used on civilian targets. Between 25 March and 15 May, over 60 containers, each containing 240 cluster bombs, had been dropped over Yugoslavia, and over 40 containers and over 250 cluster bombs -- over Kosovo and Metohija. Material damage caused by the bombing campaign was enormous: entire housing blocks had been destroyed in many cities; hospitals, factories and communications had been reduced to rubble or heavily damaged. The infrastructure of the country was

either totally destroyed or rendered unusable in practical terms. The water supply system, heating plants, power grid, telecommunications, railway stations, roads, bridges, food factories -- practically anything visible from the sky was a potential target.

New casualties and destruction were to be expected from the unexploded bombs, and future generations were to pay a heavy toll for the use of radioactive ammunition, he said. More than 20 hospitals and medical centres had been destroyed or heavily damaged. Only a couple of days before, the largest medical centre in Belgrade had been targeted, and some of its main parts had been totally destroyed, including its surgical and maternity wards. Four people had been killed, and a dozen wounded, among them 11 children and two newborn babies. Cultural and historical monuments, museums and archives had not been spared, either. Over 20 churches and monasteries had been damaged.

Agriculture was also targeted, and a large number of agricultural complexes had been destroyed, he continued. Much fertile land had been polluted. Actually, the environment was affected not only in Yugoslavia, but in the whole Balkans area. There was heavy damage to the ozone layer. Destruction of oil refineries and chemical plants had polluted land, air and water. The continuation of the bombing could have unforeseeable consequences for the environment.

Foreign diplomatic missions had also been targeted. The Chinese Embassy had been entirely destroyed, and missions of Sweden, Spain, Libya, Iran, Norway, Italy, Switzerland and India had been damaged, as had the Greek Consulate in Nis. The objective of such deliberate destruction of the whole country, and even the premises of foreign missions, was to terrorize the population, force it to accept surrender and turn against its own elected Government. The aim of targeting the foreign missions was to encourage foreign diplomats to leave Yugoslavia in order to achieve "the favourite goal of some policy-makers in NATO countries to see Yugoslavia totally isolated".

Who was responsible for the dead? he asked. The answer to that question was easy to find. Yugoslavia was a victim of the aggression. It did not want the war, which was imposed on the country. It had no choice, but to defend itself, even if that defence did not have any chance to end in victory. Peace and political settlement had been, and continued to be, the country's only orientation. On many occasions, Yugoslavia had demonstrated good will and sent signals that it was ready to talk seriously about a political settlement, but all those attempts had been snubbed or totally ignored by the leading members of NATO, who still insisted on the impossible conditions of the surrender of Yugoslavia and its occupation by foreign troops.

A growing problem was the cooperation between NATO and the terrorist Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), both in Albania and in Kosovo and Metohija, he continued. The NATO had already engaged in some terrorist activities in Yugoslavia. For example, residences of the democratically elected President

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of the country had been targeted three times. Those had been open attempts to assassinate the President of a sovereign country. Attacking hospitals and refugee centres was nothing more than deliberate terrorist attacks. Now, NATO was recruiting and training Albanian refugees and preparing them for infiltration of the border and staging attacks against the army and the people in Kosovo-Metohija.

He said that on 17 May there had been two attempts to cross the border by a huge armed group of KLA people, assisted by the tanks of the army of the Republic of Albania and NATO aviation. Their aim had been to set up new strongholds in the region. Both times, there had been clashes with the Yugoslav army, and the participation of NATO and Albania had been more than evident. That was not new, because there had been other attempts of the KLA to cross the border with the assistance of NATO helicopters and Albanian planes.

His country had invited all people living in Kosovo-Metohija, particularly the Albanians, not to leave the region. If they left, they were invited to return safely. Some of them had decided to return, but had paid with their lives for that decision. They had died not from the hands of the authorities of the country, but from NATO bombs. His country had proposed a political settlement, meaning, substantial autonomy and democratic self- governance, and it was still sticking to it. Yugoslavia was open to cooperation with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the United Nations, including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). This was the beginning of the revival of cooperation with United Nations in the humanitarian field.

On 9 May, Yugoslavia had also declared the start of withdrawal of part of its military and police units from Kosovo, and that withdrawal was still going on, but it was seriously hindered by increased KLA infiltration from neighbouring Albania and increased NATO bombings. Those were the only activities which disturbed the peace and caused instability in Yugoslavia. There were no other military activities in Yugoslavia for the time being. His country had also expressed its readiness to admit a United Nations mission, once a political agreement had been reached and the bombing had stopped.

That was overshadowed by NATO's preference for the war option, the increased talk about ground-troop operation, and the use of other forms of intimidation of the Yugoslav population. The people of Yugoslavia were determined to defend their country by all means and to the very end, as they had done throughout history. All those who toyed with the idea that they could turn the population against the Government or force the Government to make concessions which the people were not ready to accept were wasting their time.

"We are not the country perpetrating the atrocities which are being attributed to us. All this is the integral part of the aggression and its

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propaganda needs. We are not against our Albanian citizens. We want them to come back, we need them, not only as taxpayers, but also as the good citizens they have been before the Albanian extremist separatists and terrorists imposed themselves on that part of our population", he said.

A correspondent said that there had been speculation that the Yugoslav army might move against the government in Montenegro, and that there had been reports of sealing the border with Croatia. Could Mr. Jovanovic give some sense about the intentions of the army? he asked.

Mr. Jovanovic replied that the task of the army was to defend the whole country against foreign aggressors. The Republic of Montenegro was an integral part of Yugoslavia, like Serbia. Those republics enjoyed an equal status within the Federation. The circulation of speculations was a part of the war propaganda intended to create an impression that Yugoslavia was full of internal contradictions and problems, and that it was close to collapse. The border crossing between Montenegro, Yugoslavia and Croatia was perfectly in line with the declared state of war. After the aggression started, in accordance with the Constitution of the country, the international borders of Yugoslavia were protected by the army, while the public order and peace were entrusted to the police. Control of the borders was particularly important in times of war.

The fact was that there was more and more awareness in the world that NATO constituted a global threat to peace and stability not only in the region, but also in the whole world, he continued. A strong reaction by the Russian Federation, China, India and a number of African and Latin American countries was the best evidence that a large part of the international community disapproved of NATO's actions and was afraid of the future. If NATO countries decided to act on their own, disregarding the United Nations or international law, as they had done in the case of Yugoslavia, nothing could prevent the offensive military alliance from repeating the same exploit against any other country. Even within NATO, there was more resistance to the adventurous policy against Yugoslavia.

To a question about future negotiations, Mr. Jovanovic replied that the General Assembly document was the result of the consensus of eight leading industrial countries, which were committed to respect it. Although his country had some reservations, it was interested in a peaceful resolution. It had accepted the General Assembly formula as the basis for further dialogue and discussion. It expected the future resolutions of the Security Council to be different from the documents of NATO, and that they would not be presented in the form of an ultimatum. They should be the result of direct negotiations between the Yugoslav Government and the United Nations. Only on such a basis could a resolution have a chance to be implemented. Of course, the bombing campaign should stop. It was a natural and logical precondition for peace efforts and any peaceful political settlement.

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Asked about the movement on the issue of an international security presence in Kosovo, Mr. Jovanovic said that the details on the mandate, size and composition of the future United Nations missions were to be resolved through negotiations between his Government and the United Nations. It was futile to speculate in advance about the concrete shape of any of those details. What mattered most to his country was that any future agreement with the United Nations should respect its State and national interests and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of both Serbia and Yugoslavia. It was up to the negotiators to find the right measure, which would correspond to those objectives.

As for NATO, it was difficult to imagine NATO troops in Yugoslavia immediately after NATO's "bloody and criminal performance" during the war, he said. Nobody could guarantee the safety of those people because of the outrage of the population. It would be unthinkable for a sovereign country to allow its own destroyers to play the role of peacemakers or peacekeepers. A certain time should pass before NATO countries could have the necessary moral authority to recommend themselves for any peacekeeping mission anywhere in the world, for they had discredited themselves, both morally and politically, in the eyes of the international community.

To a follow-up question regarding the role of non-United Nations peacemakers, he added that he respected all peace initiatives coming from different countries. Victor Chernomyrdin had played a central role. He had participated in two constructive meetings and was expected to visit Belgrade soon. "What I am saying is that Yugoslavia is to take a direct and active part in the elaboration of the future resolution of the Security Council, and that resolution should be under Chapter VI, and not Chapter VII", of the United Nations Charter. Throughout the process of the negotiations, there would be some room for compromise.

Asked about the time frame for the Yugoslav troops withdrawal from Kosovo after the end of the bombing, Mr. Jovanovic said that his country, more than any other player, was interested in seeing the end of the whole crisis. There were no grounds for suspecting in advance that it would cheat by not implementing its own agreement with the United Nations, or others. Once the resolution was adopted, Yugoslavia would certainly proceed with the necessary withdrawal until it reached the "peace-time level". However, it was totally unrealistic to expect his country to evacuate Kosovo-Metohija, which was an integral part of the country, and to announce its abdication from the sovereignty of that territory.

To a question regarding his own situation in the United States, Mr. Jovanovic replied that he did not have any problems with the American people -- just the opposite was true. Many of them had expressed sympathy and solidarity with his country. Since the war had started, the movements of the personnel of his Mission had been limited to the 25-mile zone, which was understandable at a time of war. He hoped that it was a temporary measure,

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which would be removed after the war ended. He did not have any threats, and he did not have any reason to feel threatened.

Asked to provide statistics regarding military casualties, he said that during times of war those figures were hard to come by. However, Madeleine Albright, Secretary of State of the United States, had mentioned an arbitrary figure yesterday. According to his information -- however incomplete -- the action of NATO had been least successful in regard to the military units and equipment. That was what made NATO so nervous and enraged. For that reason, NATO had started to terrorize the population. It had failed to achieve its primary goals in regards to the army, which had been well prepared for meeting a more powerful enemy. It had dispersed, which made the task of destroying the army practically impossible. Of course, some casualties were unavoidable, but they were much smaller than the 30 per cent that Ms. Albright had claimed.

To a question regarding the fact that a United Nations assessment mission had confirmed the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, Mr. Jovanovic said that he could not say anything before he saw the report, which would be submitted upon Emergency Relief Coordinator Sergio Vieira de Mello's return. The fact was that, however painful some pictures could be, it was one thing to describe them as tragic, and another to attribute them to the policy and practice of the State. The policy and practice of his country in Kosovo did not constitute ethnic cleansing against anybody.

Unfortunately, cases of atrocities had taken place, but they had not been perpetrated by the security forces. They were committed by individuals and groups and private paramilitary forces, which had taken advantage of the fighting between the security forces and the KLA, the bombing and the panic. After all, the KLA had caused a lot of harm to Serbian and Albanian civilians. There were scores being settled. This time, the victims were Albanian, but in previous cases they had been Serbian. His country had condemned those atrocities, and 400 individuals had been arrested. Many of them had been sentenced to prison terms of five to 20 years.

Why could not his Government stop the atrocities if it was in control in Kosovo? a correspondent asked.

Mr. Jovanovic said that even before the bombings, the province of Kosovo had already been a scene of severe fighting between the security forces and the KLA, and a degree of insecurity had already existed there. At the time the aggression had begun, the situation had beeb exacerbated. The security forces had become stricter than before. They needed to "at least try to increase control of the situation". For that reason, they had increased control over the people crossing not only international borders, but also into Montenegro.

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Regarding the people arrested for the atrocities, he said that they had been sentenced by military and civilian courts and sent to various prisons. He did not know their identities.

To a question about the role of the two envoys appointed by the Secretary-General, Mr. Jovanovic said that they were in the process of determining their mandate. They were to be based in Geneva and would travel to get acquainted with the situation. The Secretary-General would like the Secretariat to be more involved in the whole process. The United Nations had been pushed aside by NATO. It remained to be seen whether the measures undertaken would prove to be sufficient. "We have many cooks, and only one meal needs to be prepared", he said. There were initiatives coming from some other countries, and maybe they would like to see their own representatives as active as others in pursuing the policy of peace. His country had not been consulted by the Secretary-General on the candidates for the nominations.

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