YUGOSLAVIA: SERBIANS PREPARE TO MARK SECOND ANNIVERSARY OF NATO'S BOMBING CAMPAIGN ON THEIR COUNTRY
Record ID:
648495
YUGOSLAVIA: SERBIANS PREPARE TO MARK SECOND ANNIVERSARY OF NATO'S BOMBING CAMPAIGN ON THEIR COUNTRY
- Title: YUGOSLAVIA: SERBIANS PREPARE TO MARK SECOND ANNIVERSARY OF NATO'S BOMBING CAMPAIGN ON THEIR COUNTRY
- Date: 23rd March 2001
- Summary: BELGRADE, YUGOSLAVIA (MARCH 23, 2001) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. SV: BANNER WITH PHOTOGRAPHS SHOWING NATO BOMBING OF YUGOSLAVIA EXPOSED IN THE SOCIALIST PARTY HEADQUARTERS, AS PART OF THE CONFERENCE ORGANIZED TO MARK THE SECOND ANNIVERSARY OF NATO BOMBING OF YUGOSLAVIA 0.05 2. CU: PHOTOGRAPH SHOWING ONE OF THE BRIDGES DESTROYED DURING NATO AIR STRIKES 0.10 3. WIDE OF CONFERENCE/ CU: BANNER READING IN ENGLISH: "TWO YEARS AFTER -THE TRUTH ABOUT NATO AGGRESSION" (2 SHOTS) 0.21 4. SCU: SOUNDBITE (Serbian) ZIVADIN JOVANOVIC, SPS HIGH OFFICIAL AND FORMER FOREIGN MINISTER, ADDRESSING THE CONFERENCE, SPEAKING SAYING: "Europe is on its feet, because it realized that it has been deceived. The conclusions about the true nature of the NATO aggression on Yugoslavia are based on this very obvious fact." 0.45 5. SV: DIPLOMATS DURING THE CONFERENCE 0.51 6. CU: TOP SPS OFFICIALS DURING THE CONFERENCE 0.55 7. PAN SHOT OF THE CONFERENCE 1.01 BELGRADE, YUGOSLAVIA (FILE APRIL 1999) (REUTERS ACCESS ALL) 8. GV: NIGHSHOT - LARGE EXPLOSION AT SOCIALIST PARTY HEADQUARTERS (2 SHOTS) 1.11 BELGRADE, YUGOSLAVIA (MARCH 23, 2001) (REUTERS ACCESS ALL) 9. PAN DOWN SHOT OF THE FORMER SPS HEADQUARTERS, HIT DURING THE NATO AIR STRIKES ON YUGOSLAVIA / A MAN LOOKING AT THE RUINED BUILDING (FORMER SPS HEADQUARTERS) 1.19 10. CLOSE UP VIEW OF THE MAN IN NEAR BUILDING 1.22 11. TILT UP: DAMAGED BUILDING 1.28 (U5) BELGRADE, YUGOSLAVIA (FILE APRIL 1999) (REUTERS ACCESS ALL) (NIGHTSHOTS) 12. VARIOUS OF THE AFTERMATH OF THE BOMBING OF THE SERBIAN TELEVISION BUILDING (2 SHOTS) 1.38 13. MV: RESCUE TEAMS TRYING TO PULL PEOPLE OUT OF THE BOMBED TELEVISION BUILDING 1.46 BELGRADE, YUGOSLAVIA (MARCH 23, 2001) (REUTERS ACCESS ALL) 14. PAN SHOT OF THE SERBIAN TELEVISION BUILDING, BOMBED DURING NATO AIR STRIKES ON YUGOSLAVIA 1.55 15. CLOSE UP OF RUINED WALL 2.01 16. SCU: SOUNDBITE (Serbian) VOX POPS, A MAN SPEAKING SAYING: "I thing the same I thought before. Once aggressor, always aggressor." 2.10 17. SCU: SOUNDBITE (Serbian) VOX POPS, A MAN SPEAKING SAYING: "The impression is terrible. Everywhere you can see the remains of bombing and human suffering." 2.18 18. SCU: SOUNDBITE (Serbian) VOX POPS, A WOMAN SPEAKING SAYING: "To remember and forgive. I don't know if to forgive. That is very hard to do." /WOMAN LEAVING 2.34 19. WIDE SHOT OF RUINED TELEVISION BUILDING 2.38 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 7th April 2001 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: BELGRADE, YUGOSLAVIA
- City:
- Country: Yugoslavia
- Reuters ID: LVAQPY8F7S88JKC66YYGK1VEX5P
- Story Text: The second anniversary of the start of NATO's bombing
campaign against Yugoslavia is expected to be marked on
Saturday (March 24) with a series of rallies in Belgrade.
NATO waged the air war against Yugoslavia from March
24 to June 12, 1999, to halt the repression of ethnic
Albanians in southerly Kosovo province by the security forces
of then President Slobodan Milosevic.
Two years later, NATO officials can take comfort from a
belief in many quarters that the air war at least indirectly
helped topple Slobodan Milosevic, the Serb leader blamed for
so much of the past decade's Balkan bloodshed and ousted in a
mass uprising last October.
But there is also a growing feeling that the bombing set
the stage for the ethnic Albanian insurgencies now seen in
Western eyes as the biggest threat to stability in the region.
Many Western officials argue Milosevic's repression of the
ethnic Albanian majority in Kosovo left them no choice but to
unleash the bombing, and the results should be blamed on him.
But the bombing rewarded an ethnic Albanian guerrilla
force, the Kosovo Liberation Army, making it hardly surprising
that similar movements should emerge in Serbia's Presevo
Valley and more recently in Macedonia.
As former Yugoslav Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovich
said, Europe had been deceived. "The conclusions about the
true nature of the NATO aggression on Yugoslavia are based on
this very obvious fact", he said.
Serbs are still bitter about the bombing campaign. One
man said of NATO: "Once aggressor, always aggressor." Another
lamented the human suffering that the bombing had incurred,
saying: "The impression is terrible. Everywhere you can see
the remains of bombing and human suffering." And a woman said
she found it hard to forgive NATo countries for the bombing
campaign. "To remember and forgive. I don't know if to
forgive. That is very hard to do", she said.
Criticism would be easy for the alliance to dismiss if it
were confined to Milosevic's own Socialists, who plan a rally
in Belgrade on Saturday to mark the anniversary.
But questions about the precedent set by the bombing and
the way Kosovo has been run by NATO and the U.N. since the end
of the air war in June 1999 are increasingly common in the
West.
Around 180,000 Serbs left Kosovo in the months after it
came under international control. Few have come back.
Russia, which fiercely opposed the bombing campaign, has
launched a new attack on the air war and the West's policies
in the Balkans.
Commentators and analysts say NATO should now be trying to
arrest the violence by cracking down harder politically and
militarily on ethnic Albanian hardliners in Kosovo.
But many also believe NATO, particularly with a new U.S.
administration unhappy about long-term military commitment to
the Balkans, lacks the stomach for a fight which could be much
messier than the relative safety of the bombing campaign.
(cr)
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