Here is the latest from Matic's B92 bunch
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B92 Open Yugoslavia, Belgrade Daily News Service
Open Yugoslavia, News by 22.00 CET, March 30, 1999
Issue ID: 0330995e.asc
5 E-mail:
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10 All texts are Copyright 1999 Radio B92. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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C O N T E N T S
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DAILY NEWS
15 Little joy from Primakov mission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Milosevic statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
NATO considers third phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Courts martial established . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
All clear in Belgrade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
20 Italian protest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Appeal from mayor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
A word of caution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
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DAILY NEWS
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LITTLE JOY FROM PRIMAKOV MISSION
BONN, Tuesday -- German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder tonight
dismissed proposals from Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic
delivered by Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov this evening.
30 Primakov met Schroeder in Bonn after a six hours of talks with
Milosevic in Belgrade today.
The Russian prime minister told media on his arrival in Bonn that
Milosevic was ready for constructive negotiations. He said that
the Yugoslav president was prepared to reduce his military
35 presence in Kosovo and find a political solution to all problems
if NATO bombing stopped.
Schroeder told media after the meeting with Primakov that the
proposals conveyed by the Russian delegation did not constitute a
basis for a political solution. However, he added, he would pass
40 them to the western allies. The German chancellor added that
Milosevic had to prove he was prepared to talk by reducing
military and paramilitary troops in Kosovo.
Other western powers remained sceptical about Milosevic's offer to
Primakov. A spokesman for British Prime Minister Tony Blair said
45 this evening that only action counted, not words. Milosevic knew
what he had to do to stop the bombing, added the spokesman. Blair
had earlier today called for bombing of Yugoslavia to be stepped
up.
British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, appearing at a press
50 conference with a top official of the Kosovo Liberation Army,
today accused Milosevic of genocide.
Russian media tonight reported that Primakov would return to
Moscow tomorrow without visiting Brussels or Washington.
MILOSEVIC STATEMENT
55 BELGRADE, Tuesday -- A statement from the office of the Yugoslav
President today said that Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov
and his delegation had expressed strong support for the Yugoslav
people in their defence against foreign aggression. The statement,
issued after the Primakov-Milosevic meeting reiterated that
60 Yugoslavia remained strongly determined to find a political
solution through negotiations. However, said Milosevic, those
negotiations could not proceed until NATO's aggression against
Yugoslavia came to a halt.
NATO CONSIDERS THIRD PHASE
65 BRUSSELS, Tuesday -- The ambassadors of NATO countries, meeting in
Brussels today, could decide as early as tonight to proceed to the
third phase of the attack on Yugoslavia, according to a senior
NATO diplomat quoted by Reuters today. The diplomat admitted that
NATO had had little impact on Belgrade's agenda in Kosovo, adding
70 that poor weather and the political need to avoid civilian
casualties had hampered operations over the past few days.
The second phase of NATO's attack has been restricted to attacks
on Yugoslav ground forces south of the 44th parallel, about a
hundred kilometres south of Belgrade. In the third phase, the
75 diplomat quoted by Reuters said, NATO would go after the
leadership structure of the army and police, attacking special
police and military headquarters and communications centres
throughout Yugoslavia.
COURTS MARTIAL ESTABLISHED
80 BELGRADE, Tuesday -- Military courts and war prosecution offices
have been established in Yugoslavia following the declaration of a
state of war, Yugoslav Army General Headquarters announced today.
According to the army announcement the military courts conduct
proceedings related to criminal acts such as the refusal of orders
85 and failing to respond to official summonses to army service.
ALL CLEAR IN BELGRADE
BELGRADE, Tuesday -- The last state of alert in Belgrade lasted
from 5.45 to 9.20 p.m. So far Radio B92 has received no
information about strikes in the Belgrade area.
90 ITALIAN PROTEST
MILAN, Tuesday -- Italian radio station Radio Popolare has called
on all radio stations in Italy to broadcast the sound of
Belgrade's air raid sirens tomorrow evening at 7.20 pm. The Milan
radio has asked listeners throughout the country to turn their
95 radios up as loudly as possible so that the sirens can be heard
throughout Italy as an act of solidarity with Yugoslavs for whom
the sound has become an everyday reality.
APPEAL FROM MAYOR
BELGRADE, The mayor of Belgrade, Vojislav Mihajlovic, today
100 publicly appealed to the mayors of all European capitals to use
their influence to stop the bombing of Yugoslavia. Mihajlovic
emphasised that Belgrade was the only European capital to have
been bombed since the end of World War II.
A WORD OF CAUTION
105 Radio B92 advises readers that in these difficult circumstances
our correspondents are unable to report directly from Kosovo. This
should be borne in mind when reading any information -- including
ours -- about the current situation in the province.
Translated by: Steve Agnew
110 Edited by: Steve Agnew
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B92 Open Yugoslavia, Belgrade Daily News Service
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On Wed, 31 Mar 1999 13:16:09 +0800 Malcolm Riddoch
<riddoch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Since we're on this world historical topic maybe the list would like to
> hear the point of view from an actual protagonist. Veran Matic is the
> editor of radio b92, one of the leading independent and anti-milosevic
> pro-democracy voices in serbia, silenced when nato started bombing but now
> broadcasting via the web at
http://www.b92.net
>
> I'm personally not sure what can be made of this in a Heideggerean
> philosophical context though, without reducing everything to an abstract
> realm far removed from what is actually happening at the moment.
>
> > Bombing the Baby with the Bathwater
>
> > by Veran Matic
>
> > Belgrade, March 30, 1999
>
> > The air strikes against Yugoslavia were supposed to stop the Milosevic war
> > machine. The ultimate goal is ostensibly to support the people of Kosovo,
> > as well as those of Serbia, who are equally victims of the Milosevic
> > regime.
>
> > In fact the bombing has jeopardised the lives of 10.5 million people and
> > unleashed an attack on the fledgling forces of democracy in Kosovo and
> > Serbia. It has undermined the work of reformists in Montenegro and the
> > Serbian entity of Bosnia-Herzegovina and their efforts to promote peace.
>
> > The bombing of Yugoslavia demonstrates the political impotence of US
> > President Bill Clinton and the Western alliance in averting a human
> > catastrophe in Kosovo. The protection of a population under threat is a
> > noble duty, but it requires a clear strategy and a coherent end game. As
> > the situation unfolds on the ground and in the air day by day, it is
> > becoming more apparent that there is no such strategy. Instead, NATO is
> > fulfilling the prophecy of its own doomsaying: each missile that hits the
> > ground exacerbates the humanitarian disaster that NATO is supposed to be
> > preventing.
>
> > It's not easy to stop the war machine once its power has been unleashed.
> > But I urge the members of NATO to pause for a moment and consider the
> > consequences of what they are doing. Analysts are already asking whether
> > the air strikes are still really about saving Kosovo Albanians. Just how
> > far are NATO members prepared to go? What comes next after the "military"
> > targets? What happens if the war spreads? All of these terrifying
> > questions must be answered, although I suspect that few will want to live
> > with the historical burden of having answered them.
>
> > The same questions crowded my mind as I sat in a Belgrade prison on the
> > first day of the NATO attack on my country. Whiling away the hours in the
> > cell I shared with a murder suspect, I asked myself what the West's aim was
> > for "the morning after". The image of NATO taking its finger off the
> > trigger kept coming to mind. I've seen no indication so far that there is
> > a clear plan to follow up the Western military resolve.
>
> > My friends in the West keep asking me why there is no rebellion. Where are
> > the people who poured onto the streets every day for three months in 1996
> > to demand democracy and human rights? Zoran Zivkovic, the opposition mayor
> > of the city of Nis answered that last week: "Twenty minutes ago my city
> > was bombed. The people who live here are the same people who voted for
> > democracy in 1996, the same people who protested for a hundred days after
> > the authorities tried to deny them their victory in the elections. They
> > voted for the same democracy that exists in Europe and the US. Today my
> > city was bombed by the democratic states of the USA, Britain, France,
> > Germany and Canada! Is there any sense in this?"
>
> > Most of these people feel betrayed by the countries which were their
> > models. Only today a missile landed in the yard of our correspondent in
> > Sombor. It didn't explode, fortunately, but many others have in many other
> > people's yards. These people are now compelled to take up arms and join
> > their sons who are already serving in the army. With the bombs falling all
> > around them nobody can persuade them - though some have tried - that this
> > is only an attack on their government and not their country.
>
> > It may seem cynical that I am writing this from the security of my office
> > in Belgrade - secure, that is, compared to Pristina, Djakovica, Podujevo
> > and other places in Kosovo. But I can't help asking one question: How can
> > F16s stop people in the street killing one another? Only days before the
> > NATO aggression began, Secretary-General Solana suggested establishing a
> > "Partnership for Democracy" in Serbia and the other countries of the former
> > Yugoslavia to promote stability throughout the region. Then, in a rapid
> > U-turn, he gave the order to attack Yugoslavia.
>
> > With these attacks, it seems to me, the West has washed its hands of the
> > people, Albanians, Serbs and others, living in the region. Thus the sins
> > of the government have been visited on the people. Is this just? There are
> > many more factors in the choice of a nation's government than merely the
> > will of the voters on election day. If a stable, democratic rule is to be
> > established, and the rise of populists, demagogues and other impostors
> > avoided, the public must first of all be enlightened. In other words there
> > must be free media. NATO's bombs have blasted the germinating seeds of
> > democracy out of the soil of Kosovo, Serbia and Montenegro and ensured that
> > they will not sprout again for a very long time. The pro-democratic forces
> > in Republika Srpska, the Bosnian Serb entity, have been jeopardised and
> > with them the Dayton Peace Accords. NATO's intervention has also given the
> > green light for a local war against Montenegro's pro-democracy president,
> > Milo Djukanovic.
>
> > The free media in Serbia has for years opposed nationalism, hatred and war.
> > As a representative of those media, and as a man who has more than once
> > faced the consequences of my political beliefs, I call on President Bill
> > Clinton to put a stop to NATO's attack on my country. I call on him to
> > begin negotiations which aim at securing the right to a peaceful life and
> > democracy for all the people in Yugoslavia, regardless of their ethnic
> > background.
>
> > As a representative of the free media I know too well the need for people
> > on all sides of the conflict to have information. Those inside the country
> > need to be aware of international debate as well as what is happening
> > throughout this country. The international public needs the truth about
> > what is happening here. But in place of an unfettered flow of accurate
> > information, all of us hear only war propaganda - Western rhetoric
> > included. Of course truth is always the first casualty in wartime. Here
> > and now, journalists are also being murdered.
>
> > BOX [entrfile]
>
> > Radio B92 is continuing its work as much as the circumstances of war
> > permit. It is continuing to broadcast news on the Internet at
> >
http://www.b92.net, via satellite and through a large number of radio
> > stations around the world which continue to carry its programs out of
> > solidarity.
>
> > VERAN MATIC is editor-in-chief of Belgrade's banned Radio B92 and a leading
> > peace activist. He has won many international awards for media and
> > democracy, the latest being last year's MTV Europe "Free Your Mind" award.
> > Early this year he was named one of this year's hundred Global Leaders for
> > Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum.
>
>
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