justiceyugoslavia.org

JUSTICE YUGOSLAVIA

MANIFESTO JUSTICE YUGOSLAVIA

Fundamental Beliefs

The basis of our campaign is the fundamental belief that civilised life and the security
of the world depend, in part, on respect for human beings, respect for human life, honesty
in government and respect for international law, conventions, and treaties, and the United Nations.

Politicians Acted Above the Law in Planning a War Against Yugoslavia

Those responsible for the conduct at Rambouillet of phoney negotiations (which developed into
an ultimatum) in February 1999 and those who instigated the attack by thirteen NATO nations on
Yugoslavia from March to June 1999 blatantly cast aside the NATO Treaty, the United Nations,
and the Geneva and Vienna Conventions and international laws patiently achieved over the previous
half century. They also deliberately misrepresented the purpose, nature, and outcome of the war.

Some important aspects and problems caused
by the war against Yugoslavia

In March 1999, the member states of the NATO alliance launched a 78-day bombing campaign against
Yugoslavia. Most of the bombs and missiles were aimed at undefended civilian targets. More than
20,000 tons of explosive (including cluster bombs and 10 tons of radio-active depleted uranium) were
dropped on 200 towns and cities, killing over a thousand civilians, causing long term environmental damage
and an estimated 250 billion dollars of damage to the country’s civilian infrastructure. NATO claimed its
motives were humanitarian: to pressurise Mr Milosevic to sign a "peace settlement," and "halt a humanitarian
catastrophe". Since the war ended, information has emerged which casts NATO’s motives in an entirely
different light.

Not a response to a humanitarian problem Far from being a humanitarian response to unacceptable
oppression of the Albanian majority in Kosovo, it is now known that the NATO bombing was the
culmination of illegal intervention by NATO member states dating back to at least the mid-1990s (when
Germany and the United States began to arm and train the KLA). There was a cynical deliberate
escalation of the inter-ethnic conflict to create an apparent need for outside intervention. The purpose
of this intervention, from the outset, was political and economic.

The situation in Kosovo in the months before March 1999 was that there was insurgency instigated by
the KLA which escalated in 1998 and led to numerous deaths on both sides. It was not, as suggested
by western leaders, that Serbs were carrying out a vicious and unprovoked programme of violence
against unarmed civilians.

When NATO nations announced its intention to bomb Yugoslavia Serbs interpreted this as support for
the KLA insurgents and feared for the safety of the 250,000 Serbs native to their Kosovo province.
They retaliated by attempting to wipe out the KLA . Thus the threat and action of bombing intensified the
conflict and provoked the humanitarian catastrophe it was claimed it would prevent.

What has happened to the indigenous Serbian population in Kosovo since the arrival of NATO
ground forces proves that Serb fears were totally justified.

UK MPs admit illegality of the war In June 2000 an all-party Select Committee of the House of
Commons acknowledged that there was no legal basis for the NATO bombing. By definition, this
means that the bombing constituted illegal aggression against a sovereign state. Every bomb
dropped was a war crime.

Social, Cultural, Political, Environmental and Moral Disaster NATO’s claim to have embarked
on a morally justifiable war and to have achieved a successful outcome has proved to be spurious.
The effect of outside intervention was to escalate inter-ethnic hatred and hand control of Kosovo to
NATO powers and, in part, to violent and criminal elements in Kosovo Albanian society.

In spite of NATO’s presence, in the twelve months after it entered the province there were over a
thousand murders and the ethnic cleansing of 220,000 of Kosovo’s Serb population (*) and other
indigenous peoples, along with the destruction of numerous places of worship of immense religious,
historic and cultural significance.

The terms of the settlement that ended the war have not been honoured in full on the NATO side.

The enormous harm done by NATO’s bombing of Serbia (including its Kosovo province), and events
in Kosovo since the war vitiate NATO’s claim to have taken morally justifiable action.

Key role of British Leaders British leaders have been at the forefront of the NATO campaign, planning,
promoting, justifying it, and claiming that it has been a complete success. As a result the British
Parliament and people were misled - and continue to be misled.
*1 UNHCR figu

DEMANDS OF THE CAMPAIGN FOR JUSTICE FOR THE PEOPLES OF YUGOSLAVIA

Call for Resignations

Tony Blair, Robin Cook, and George Robertson have lied to parliament and the British people. The
Campaign for Justice for the Peoples of Yugoslavia demands that the UK ministers involved in planning
and executing the illegal and aggressive war against Yugoslavia resign their offices.

Call for Indictments

Those involved in the planning and execution of the aggression should be indicted for crimes against
peace both in the UK domestic courts and before a properly constituted independent international tribunal.

Complete Lifting of Sanctions

We welcome the beginning of the lifting of sanctions and ask the United Kingdom Government to agree with
other European states to bring to an end the sanctions which have been imposed in contravention of UN
guidelines. The lifting of sanctions should be complete, fully effective, unrestricted and unconditional. Their
use has caused immense hardship and suffering to the ordinary people of Yugoslavia. We condemn their
use as a means of political coercion and interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state.

Making of Reparations

We call on the United Kingdom Government to admit war guilt and to make reparations. Reparations should
be in the form of outright financial help and not loans with stringent and potentially crippling conditions attached.
Help should not take the form of a bribe to change economic or political systems which are matters for the
people of Yugoslavia themselves. Reparations should be made purely as a right and not as a means to
support western business interests or override local wishes and initiatives.

Non-discriminatory Humanitarian Aid

The Campaign for Justice for the Peoples of Yugoslavia calls on the United Kingdom Government to provide
humanitarian help to all refugees/displaced persons within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. We condemn
the corruption of giving humanitarian aid only to people whose political views are approved by NATO
governments. Discrimination on grounds of race or political beliefs is not acceptable.

Closing of the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia

We view the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia with grave concern. Justice has been
perverted by indicting war criminals on a clearly selective basis. We call for the court to be shut down.
All those accused of war crimes should be tried at a truly independent national court under the Geneva
Convention, or The International Criminal Court. We applaud the fact that the UK, USA, Yugoslavia and
Albania are among the 117 signatories of the ICC Rome Statute which sets out the basis for this new
permanent court . We call on all signatories to ratify the statute so that the court may be urgently established.

An End to Government Racist Propaganda

We call on the British Government to end the blatant misrepresentation and demonisation of ethnic groups
in Yugoslavia. Racism and disinformation campaigns are intrinsically unjust and dishonest, and are not
acceptable.

Fair Distribution of Aid

We deplore the fact that charitable organisations and NGOs seem to have been influenced by the stream
of anti-Serb propaganda so that hundreds of relief organisations work in Serbia’s Kosovo province whilst
only a few dozen operate in Serbia outside Kosovo. It is here that Europe’s largest refugee population
resides and NATO’s bombing wreaked its greatest havoc.

Return to Acceptance of International Law

We call on the United Kingdom Government, in view of recent breaches in its compliance with international
laws, treaties and procedures, to reaffirm its commitment to the principles and procedures of the United
Nations, the Vienna and Geneva Conventions, and to remain a member of the NATO alliance only on
condition that it returns to its basic tenet that it will act only in self-defence.

10. The Media

We congratulate the few independent voices in the British media who have sought to present the truth
about NATO’s intervention in Yugoslavia, but deplore the censorship, disinformation, bias, and propaganda
of the British media which supported NATO aggression and continues to attempt to justify its actions in the
face of all evidence of its disastrous failure. We call on the United Kingdom media to report fully the problems
caused by the bombing of Yugoslavia, the occupation of Kosovo by NATO forces, the takeover by
NATO of financial and industrial assets in Kosovo, and to increase space devoted to defence, peace initiatives,
armament and disarmament, weapons conversion, issues of human rights, international justice and related issues.

31 October 2000