20 years ago today, NATO began bombing a European country - 'This is why we will never join NATO,' says Serbian Defense Minister

RT
Sun, 24 Mar 2019 15:01 UTC

© AFP / ALEXA STANKOVIC

Serbia will never be part of NATO, even if it is the only non-member European country, the country's defense minister, Aleksandar Vulin, said during anniversary events of the 1999 NATO bombing of former Yugoslavia.

Vulin said on Saturday that Belgrade has chosen to be militarily neutral at all times.

"We made this choice because we were bombed, but first of all because we will never do to other nations what they have done to us."

On March 24, Serbia marks 20 years since the 1999 NATO bombing that saw hundreds of civilians killed and many more injured. Countless civilian structures across the country were left in ruins after the airstrikes.

"We won't be in NATO, I made it clear speaking to [Secretary General Jens] Stoltenberg," Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said in a sit-down interview with Russia's Channel 1 on March 22. Serbia, which was the heartland of former Yugoslavia, "isn't something that you can break down or destroy," he said.

"Yes, we are ready to forgive but we will never forget."

The NATO bombing also polluted the land with depleted uranium. The toxic substance used for armor-piercing munitions is believed to be the cause of the spike in cancer cases today.

Serbian children below the age of 15 are diagnosed with cancer almost thrice as much as somewhere in Europe, Danica Grujicic, head of neuro-oncology at Serbia's Clinical Center, told RIA Novosti. "I started asking myself if we are doing something wrong," she said, "they have surgery as ever before, they get radiotherapy and die one year after."

"We can't rely on being reimbursed for our losses, nor can we expect a punishment of those who took part in this horrid crime," Vucic stated. "But the most important thing now is [to ensure] that this will not happen to us again."

Comment: Exactly. That's what tyrants are for; to teach us how to protect ourselves against them. See North Korea's nuclear weapons program, for example.

The bombings started following the incident in central Kosovo's village of Racak, an Albanian militants' stronghold. Serbs were blamed for slaughtering dozens of Albanian civilians on January 15, 1999. However, there were some doubts about the authenticity of the claims.

"This was a pure provocation to start the bombings," alleged Vladimir Chizhov, Russia's envoy in the EU. He suggested that the accusations could have been false and the bodies actually belonged to Albanian insurgents.

Comment: The 78-day illegal bombing campaign against Yugoslavia had no UN support. 15 tons of depleted uranium was used. The psychos called it Operation Noble Anvil, killed over 2,500 civilians, and devastated the country's highly developed civilian infrastructure.

The event is, arguably, what shocked Russia out of its slumber regarding Western intentions. By the end of the year, Putin was in power.

Watch the RT documentary 'Hellbent: 78 Days of Bombing Yugoslavia' to learn more.

Edit March 2024, the above video is no longer available in all countries. An article on RT that introduced the video has:
23 Mar, 2019 17:24 Hellbent: 78 Days of Bombing Yugoslavia

This RT America special presentation commemorates the 20th anniversary of NATO's 78 day bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. It examines the lead up to the operation, the nearly 3 months of relentless attacks by NATO and the aftermath 20 years down the road. The special also explores the idea that the NATO alliance had planned the bombing campaign long before any accusations of wrongdoing against Yugoslavia. RT America's Alex Mihailovich was there when the bombing began. He revisits Serbia now to see how the scars of war still haunt this part of the world.

Another article:
23 Mar, 2019 13:42 How NATO bombed Serbs into submission and left toxic legacy behind (DOCUMENTARY)

Two decades ago, NATO started its 78-day bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. RT America's Alex Mihailovich revisits the Balkans to recall how the intervention happened and see the harm the people in the Balkans still suffer from.

The 1999 NATO operation was the culmination of Yugoslavia's decade of bloody dissolution, which split the entire region along ethnic and religious lines. Mihailovich was there when the cruise missiles started hitting Novi Sad and other major cities. Touted as a surgical humanitarian intervention to stop the violence in Kosovo, in reality, Operation Allied Force killed more civilians than troops and devastated civilian infrastructure of the nation.

It had plenty of unintended consequences too, from hitting a civilian train, a marketplace and the Chinese Embassy, to polluting the land with depleted uranium. The toxic substance is used for armor-piercing munitions and is believed to be the cause of a spike of cancer cases today.

The political legacy is arguably as toxic as the medical. Kosovo, the area split with the help of NATO battering, remains unrecognized by plenty of nations and turned out to be a bountiful recruiting ground for jihadist groups like Islamic State. And ethnic divisions in the Balkans don't seem any less severe.