"Insomnia"
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad

Remember that hot day two years ago when we met in Belgrade? First we had coffee, then chardonnay, then lunch, and babbled till midnight. That was the time when I needed one hour and twenty minutes bus ride to reach Belgrade, and busses from Novi Sad ran every twenty minutes. That was the time restaurants worked round the clock. That was the time you could buy cigarettes just around the corner ( you are such a chain smoker - the only smoker I know who always carries three packs of cigarettes with him!). That was the time all window panes in Bbelgrade were whole and most of them clean. That was the time I had a bad internet connection, so some of your emails traveled four days or did not reach me at all. That was the time power and water were not off. That was the time B92 was on the air and opposition press on the street newsstands. That was the time I could buy batteries for my walkman in any shop.

TODAY - exactly two years later - I'd need half a day to reach Belgrade (first cross the Danube in a boat, then wait endlessly for the rare, if not only, bus which may be cancelled the last minute because of no fuel), and who knows how much time to get back: going to Belgrade and coming back to Novi Sad in the very same day is almost a mission impossible, although they are only 80 kilometers away. Today, we can still have lunch in a restaurant (with many ifs: if we can afford it; if they have power to cook meat and coffee; if they serve food during the all-alert), but not dinner - restaurants close at 7 pm, same as discotheques and night clubs. Today you have to queue for hours to buy two packs of low quality and high tar cigarettes. Today not only window panes are broken but buildings of strategic, infrastructural and historical interest are turned to mere rubbles which become graves of Yugoslav kids and Chinese journalists. Now I have better Internet connection, but it is either threatened to be cut off, or it offers to my masochistic self the frightening news of ground troops, death tolls, renewed air attacks; today, I receive all your taut and condensed messages in time, but all they say is 'take care', 'stay safe', 'this will be over soon' - they express fear and concern, not tenderness. Today, we live intermittently, from one blast to another, between two graphic webs, in air raid sirens interludes; power is on and off, same as water, and your phone went dead for several weeks. the B92 is shut down, most opposition press off the streets. And batteries for walkmans are low quality if there are any to be bought.

And if this enormous change came in the course of two years, it would be easier to understand, almost logical and, in any case, we would more easily adapt to it. But the change happened in month and a half. A Yugoslav economist wrote in German magazine 'Stern' that Yugoslavia will need ten years to reach the standard of living it had on March 24th 1999 before 8 pm. On that day my monthly paycheck was less than $200 and three months late. Will I need ten years to reach that dismal cipher again? Will we need ten years to meet casually in Belgrade, have our chardonnay, coffee and lunch, and babble until the midnight bus starts for Novi Sad? Life in Yugoslavia was not all violets before the war - nineties have been an awful slope of standard leading downward - but now it is all weeds. Parched weeds.

We agreed, you and I, to use telepathy when all connections are cut off. No nato can take it away from us, can it? It would have to kill us first.

Love always,
"Insomnia"
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad

PS sleep tight and dream of me!

In an even more cynical way, the humiliations against the Kosovar Albanians are attributed the NATO aggression, and not to the genocidal bellifercious aims of the Serbian State. This flagrant change of the subject is tied to the demand that the bombing stop and political negotiations leads to a dangerous situation.

It is forgotten that the bombing begun because the Serbian State was not in favor of serious negotiations and a political solution, but was planning a war of annihilation of every single Albanian in Kosova. It is forgotten that the Albanian delegation to the peace conference in France signed an accord for a political compromise solution and the Serbian side used to make obstructions without offering any serious alternative for solution. It is also forgotten that before the start of NATO bombardments the Serbian military forces have realized a 'scorched earth' policy including the systematic destruction of towns,plundering, expulsion of hundred thousands of Albanians. Also forgotten are the killings, pogroms, massacres, wrappings, masse deportations, destruction of documents and all signs of cultural and religious identity of Albanians.

We, the deported Albanian intellectuals would , once again, want to protest against these propagandistic manipulations, which in essence provide an alibi to Serbia,s genocidal policies. We want to tell world democratic opinion that we are without any doubt in favor of punishing Serbia. The Serbian military machine, which has caused all the wars in former Yugoslavia, should be broken and annihilated by all means . We hope that the imminent defeat of the Serbian military forces will make possible the return of the deported people to Kosova, the normalization of the life, and the creation of a milieu for development of a democratic system.

Academician Rexhep Ismajli, linguist
Academician Ali Podrimja, writer
Academician Ali Aliu, writer
Academician Hivzi Islami, demographer
Ramiz Kelmendi, writer
Shkλlzen Maliqi, publicist
Astrit Salihu, philosopher
Kim Mehmeti, writer
Mufail Limani, publicist

Shkup [Skopje] / Tetova/ Gostivar, Macedonia

I already told you that most of the Albanians have been forced to leave their homes. Those were the lucky ones, though. There are still a great number of Albanians left in Kosova. Not because they want to remain, or because they have not been not touched by the Serbian forces--on the contrary: That was the plan! You see, the Serbian forces are using those same Albanians as 'live targets'!!! .... These were not Albanians who were trying to escape the NATO attacks! That is a LIE!!! The worst lie I have ever heard. (I don't know, how can Milosevic live with all his deeds?! Can that man really be called a human being?! ...).

The Serbian forces take the Albanians out of their homes; they take them under the bridges and use them as a shield to protect the bridges; they put them in buses and send them to those places where the Serbian forces and their munitions are hidden. They use them as a 'human shields' to protect their armed forces... So, when the NATO planes attack the army targets (which Serbian forces have previously 'protected' with Albanians), the Serbian TV and radio suddenly become so sympathetic with those dead Albanians that it makes me sick! We know what is going on...we know who has killed those Albanians...and NO ALBANIAN, no matter where s/he is right now, BLAMES NATO for those deaths!!!

The truth is that in NATO we see our 'life'--it's a shame that the only hope lies in 'airplanes' and 'bombs'; but, that's the truth. That's the only thing that might force Milosevic stop his 'actions'.

This is the fate of my people; and, this fate hurts - it hurts like hell...

"Artemis"
Montenegro

How cool. How humane. That is why this war is called humanitarian. The more NATO feeds on its victim, the more its appetite increases. The victim is never finished, the appetite never lost.

The new cool thing, the Serbia Wide Web (SWW), will surely become a substitute for the Internet when it's gone. My web page in the postNATO retrograde unplugged era of Yugoslav history will probably be called something like sww.poweroff.com/waterlack/insomnia.htm. Cool. But I cannot tell how it is going to be downloaded by you poor power consumers.

'New York is out of power, and the milk is turning sour' - that was the song Phoebe sings in the episode of 'Friends' when power is off. Like all of her songs, it is cute and crazy. The least trouble with the lack of power is sour milk, but it is one of the zillion powerlack troubles. This morning I went down town on foot. Due to the lack of gas, busses can be seen on the streets only very early in the morning and in the afternoon, at times of the once rush-hours.

Cigarette lines grow longer, and birds are rarer - pidgins can be spotted, but no swallows at all.

I wanted to pay some bills, but the post office was crowded as if it sold cigarettes, so I gave up. I hate waiting, bills can be paid anytime and I do not smoke. I won't queue for water either, I have some reserves at home.

It was a hot summerlike day, and no water to shower yourself after an exhausting walk, despite the reserves.

I walked the streets with new 'Vreme' in my hands, reading a witty and penetrating article on Serbian reactions to Harold Pinter's protest against bombing as I walked. Our media managed to turn him into some kind of Serbian saviour because of his just protest against NATO bombing. The writers union of Serbia wants to give him a honorary membership and present it as an act of gratitude of all Serbs to Harold Pinter, to which the author of the text strongly opposed.

I really loath such kind of nationalistic kitsch. Serbian friends and serbian enemies my foot! Writers are judged by their talent, not by their opinion. I am not sure if Serbian culture sees the talent of Harold Pinter as it should. S few years ago, an actress asked me to translate Pinter's play 'lover', a wonderful theatre piece about sexual fantasies of a married couple, perfectly stageable and very provoking. I enjoyed fighting with Pinter's terse and taut idiom, and was quite proud of the result. However, the actress had enormous problems to put the play on stage. When the production, done in extremely low budget, finally reached the audience, it reaped a huge success with young people. Still, its run was short - the theatre manager decided to take it off the repertoire without an explanation. I tried very hard to publish the translation, but nobody seemed interested. Not commercial enough for a literary zine, too short for a book, find a sponsor and we will publish that Pinter piece... these were the answers. But now, when Harold Pinter is promoted into a serbian friend, he will fit onto every stage and into every magazine. Oh, I bet that thousands of stupid and greedy Yugoslav publishers (and being a publisher in Yugoslavia mostly equals being a petty thief, believe me, I had my books and translations published and regretted the experience) will go after Pinter. I will spit into their faces. Harold pinter is a major world writer, not a Serbian nationalist. You need him, but he does not need you.

So I walked reading. Read walking. What would a psychoanalyst say? The girl walks with her Walkman and sunglasses on, she reads papers as she walks and muses on Harold Pinter. She never stumbles, never falls, but she takes no notice of things around her, neither sees nor hears, she passes by all the queues, as if queuing is none of her business. She is not quite herself, really. She should queue and watch her step instead of thinking of Harold Pinter. She behaves like her country does: she is absorbed in herself, not looking around, sees only what she will and if something happens to her, if a car or an angry kid hits her, she will just wonder at what happened. Isolation is not always splendid.

"Insomnia"
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad

"This decision is a result of Executive Order signed by president Bill Clinton, which forbids providing of services to Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro)"

IMO, I think that they are referring to section 2, paragraph (c) of EO 13121, signed on 5th of May 1999, which follows:

"(c) any transaction or dealing by a United States person, wherever located, in goods, software, technology (including technical data), OR SERVICES, regardless of country of origin, for exportation, reexportation, sale, or supply to, or exportation from or by, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) or the Government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), the Government of the Republic of Serbia, or the Government of the Republic of Montenegro. This prohibition includes, without limitation, purchase, sale, transport, swap, or brokerage transactions in such items, and approving, financing, insuring, facilitating, or guaranteeing any such transactions."

The information about closing the Internet satellite feed to Yugoslavia is confirmed also by the official representative of Loral Orion company in Yugoslavia.

At the moment of writing (19:45 CET, 13th of May 1999) it seems that all satellite links are still working, but I think it's only a matter of hour or minute when a break will occur.

I would like to stress that Loral Orion's links are not the only connections for Yugoslav ISP's, but some of them (like infosky.net and bits.net in Serbia and cg.yu in Montenegro) are totally dependant from Loral Orion's satellite feed.

This is also not the first threat to Yugoslav Internet links and Internet community. I will shortly summarise what happened in the past two months since this war started:

- Together with Radio B-92, their Internet division (opennet.org) also went down. All of Opennet's classrooms and New Media Labs (like cybeRex) are closed. All of their Internet projects (aimed to education about Internet issues and development of Yugoslav cyberspace) are put on hold or completely cancelled. - When NATO destroyed the second bridge in Novi Sad one fiber-optic cable carrying Internet traffic was broken. - When NATO hit one building in Belgrade downtown a great deal of computer equipment, belonging to BITS ISP, was totally destroyed. - NATO is targeting Post offices in many large cities. Three days ago more than 18.000 people lost their phone connections in city of Uzice (similar thing happened in city of Pristina). - NATO is using graphite bombs to COMPLETELY disable major Serbian power plants. During five days, more than half of population in Serbia (approx. 5 million of people) did not have electric power.

This attempt of shutting down Internet satellite feeds to Yugoslavia is a good reminder that Cyberspace is not situated in some kind of a vacuum and that our REAL governments CAN and WILL do anything that suits their interests. Just like corporate invertebrates, they will do all of that regardless of our communication customs and ethics we developed over years on the Net.

I'm calling all the people who still believe in freedom of expression on the Net, to rise their voice against the policy of hate, policy of isolation and policy of intolerance.

All the best from Belgrade,

Slobodan Markovic | http://solair.eunet.yu/~twiddle Internodium Project | http://www.internodium.org.yu

Although in shock and very scared, people giggled. Even the kids were not grouchy as they usually are when taken down into the shelter in the middle of their tightest sleep. Two three year old girls sat in their chairs, eating peanuts. 'This is like in a cinema', one of them said. We all laughed. They were so Tarantino-cool.

And cinema it was, Tarantinian for sure. What NATO hit with six missiles, as it turned out later, was the already damaged and luckily vacated Novi Sad television building, and the refinery, which is now hit almost by default. What happened to the hosts of small family houses in the vicinity of the television building nobody dared think. Sky turned blazing yellow, as opposed to the darkened tv screen. so NATO attempted at putting out our tv screens again. The worst is that we have already gone numb at demolishing bridges, factories, transmitters and schoolbuildings - we only pray for human losses to be minimal, and only hope to survive. Let the life go on, barefooted, without bridges, without electricity and running water, without news and media. Just let it go on. Let us live.

After coming back from the shelter - It was half past five - I opened my mailbox, and found an alarming message on how the US Government ordered Loral Orion company to shut down its satellite feeds for Internet customers in Yugoslavia. There we are. The overall putting out. First NATO wanted to block the flow of state-run news, and thus force Yugoslavs to fall for the alliance. Now, NATO wants to erase 11 million of us from the public mind. It wants to take our faces and voices from us, it wants to stop us from telling the story of the ultimate tragedy. Maybe NATO does this in order to suppress its guilt of bombing innocent people? The easiest way to forget is to turn victims into figures. The victims become figures when they are denied their identity. The identity is denied when you are deprived of your voice, of telling your story, of possessing your own experience. Is yugoslavia going to become a country without its narrative - without the narrative equalling its very existence?

"Insomnia"
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad

What is the Americans' actual long-term goal? Is it democratic, liberal, open society in Serbia? Is it protecting and preserving Albanian minority in Serbia (by the way – in our language, "Kosovar" is every inhabitant of Kosovo, not only an ethnic Albanian!)? Borders are sacrosanct? Is the goal encompassing all of the above?

If so, let us review it: Before the bombing, according to UN HCR tere were 45.000 of Albanian refugees. Now there are, according to the same source, 650.000. Serbia has never, never been further from the kind of society depicted above. We have this "rallying around the flag" syndrome full-blown. There is no public opposition, opposition parties are either hibernating or their activities are not reported. And even people like me, who were never "organised" (that is how the communists used to differentiate: "Are you organised, comrade?") in a party, but have always spoken their mind, are quiet: just rumoring or not speaking at all or even fleeing the country. One, obvious reason is: there has already been one murder of a very, VERY prominent public personality a news editor whom we believed to be protected by the very notoriety (he even testified before US Congress (Senat?) Commission in regard to the infamous new Serbian Law on Information. There were many beatings up and disappearances (I keep remembering my brief stay in Argentina, and the anguish of those left behind) and quite a few arrests. None of the above except the assassination was reported in the media. It is just mouth to mouth, hearsay info, but often very reliable. So, obviously, there is fear, but not all of it is for fear. Often, as in my case writing to you, it is this huge dilemma – what is the purpose, what are the goals and how far can we go being Machiavellian – permitting all means to achieve the righteous purpose?

Lots of those leading the NGO community are "somewhere" in Europe. It is a tricky business heading an NGO now. But, most of us have stayed. Why? Because we believe in what we are doing, although we no longer believe in the outside help. Social Democrats did not have to explain over and over again that "collateral damage" was just that – collateral! It is so demeaning – ending your life as "collateral".

Lots of indiscriminate damage was suffered by people who had nothing to do with present regime. On the contrary. Cities and towns hit most hard are those that opposed M most steadfastly. They do not understand. And I don't understand. Only 1/10 of the money allocated to the war was quite sufficient to support YU Premier Mr. Ante Markovic (a Croat, by the way) in 1990, a reformist who might have saved Yugoslavia. No help came. Then there was the second chance (not often given): Premier Milan Panic, an ardent anticommunist who was born in the Socialist YU, but fled away and made his fortune in California, USA. Again, lots of words, no actual help. He composed an expert Government and tried lots of good things. But to finish what he was doing, he needed money. It did not come.

In '96-'97 there were rallies that held whole world captive, and with ex-Premier Gonsales, we have won. The Coalition "Zajedno" was a trumpet, a winning card. Why not help it? Why? It is not that US are cheap. They do not mind billions of $ for a war effort, so why was it so stingy at the time? It is just the question of when and how the money is spent. Is it well spent now?

Let us turn to the very impersonal question of "whose victims" we are. Impersonal, and for us, for the large part - irrelevant.... If the point is in choosing the lesser evil or the minor harm, there is no question. All deaths are equally distressing and equal trauma.

If you go on to say that we are victims of our government, but bombed by some other and that is going to deliver us from evil, I can not see how and I don't see the difference. I knew and I lectured about shortcomings of my government, but I used to glorify yours. If it is all the same, if there is no real difference, if we are equally expendable to both – what the hell! I won't teach any more. I will speak, but my heart won't be in it.

[It is] said that "some" of civilian targets are legitimate. Which ones? What is the line demarcating YES and NO? Everything can become "legitimate" i.e. military target, come to look at it. Tobacco factory – "Yes" they said, soldiers smoke, and if there is no tobacco, it will demoralize them. How far can it go? Mr. Draskovic took it to the extreme: why not poison the water – soldiers drink it too. A few days later, NATO brought it to extreme: they cut off power in 75% of Serbia. Including hospitals. Military needs power! I don't know how far it can go and how far your public can go on without protesting. How far can YOU go?

Furthermore, please, let me remind you that basically, we do not have professional Army. It does not consist of professionals trained, favored and well paid and dedicated. It consists of people under call up, people like you and me, often those faces you could see during The Protest. They do not have a choice. It was you who made a musical (???) "The Hair". Your people should remember.

And in the end. I can not say "no matter", about the plight of Albanians. It is tragic and I, as a Serb (this is the first time I declared myself as such: I was born and bread as Yugoslav), am deeply disturbed by the knowledge that some of my compatriots did it. It is not different from what I used to say about Moslems, Croats AND Serbs living in Bosnia and Croatia. On the other hand, I can not oversee what the other side did. You can try and legitimize many atrocities if you just follow your heart and support the "underdog". Even I used to do it in regard to Albanians (as I would for any other minority fighting for their rights). But I DO NOT condone terrorist attacks and the fraction of Albanians that took to terrorism lost all my understanding, let alone my support. This is not to say that Albanian people do not have my sympathies, I grieve no less for them than I do for any other people or my people, for the matter. They indeed are my people, we are citizens of the same state (not to go to homilies like – one planet) and victims of the same authoritarian regime. I do not have any "preferential treatment" concerning ethnicity or religion or whatever, and I am comfortable in knowing that I have spoken on behalf of non-Serbs when it was least acceptable here....

I can not, although I wish to, make amends to terrorized and terribly unhappy Albanian refugees. Not now and not while bombs keep falling. I wish I could, but I can not. And no one can. How much money was spent to alleviate their horrid circumstances? The cost of one or two "sorties" by NATO (out of 20.000 by now)? The problem as you can see it is not (and let us not deceive ourselves) the problem of their returning home, but the problem of their independence. It is not going to be easy; it is (probably) not going to be solved by whatever bombs NATO sends. There is too much sentiment and too much emotion (reversible, I believe, under some conditions) that prevent Kosovo to just "go away". And by the way, about every second friend of mine in Belgrade is "displaced". My students showed to me yesterday a flyer received by NATO promising inhabitants of my neighborhood a 5 tons bomb and asking them to "take precautions". What precautions? That bomb is just a step away from A bomb.

I am too tired now. I wish to continue our conversation some time soon. By the way the siren is on in Bgd. I need to go to my bed that does not protect me, but I feel better in it.

Slobodanka Nedovic
Professor
Faculty of Law
University of Belgrade

After high school, the college years came. I went to Kosova. Completed four years of studies there. The situation was almost the same ... Again, I used to see uniformed men. The only difference there was that I used to see two kinds of uniforms 'taking care of our safety': police uniforms and army uniforms... My best memory from that time is not my graduation day (the day most of the people remember all their lives); my 'best memory' is the day when a soldier stopped me in the street and started touching my body with his machine gun in the middle of the day, in the center of Pristina! Someone might say that a little touch didn't kill me. Well, that someone may be right. I wasn't killed; I was only given a 'present': a nice memory from my college years!

Soon after graduating I got married and moved to Montenegro. Similar stories--different actors. You were still being treated as a 'scum' because of the fact that you were Albanian. You were still very careful when you spoke to a Serbian or a Montenegrin, because one wrong word and the whole family would have been questioned by the SUP (the former Ministry of Internal Affairs), and some family members ended up in prison (these were the days when the so-called democratic Serbian way started). Beautiful youth! A youth filled with some 'beautiful' memories...

Why did I bother you with my memories? Well, not because I was trying to advertise my memoirs; I wrote these things down because I wonder where were all these people, who write to you every single day, during those years?! Why didn't these 'worried' humans show any humanity when my people were being tortured & humiliated? Where were their legal 'norms' and 'acts' back then? Gathering dust?

"Artemis"
Montenegro

I have often dreamed of cats this year. Either they lie on my blanket why I sleep, or walk around my flat and I talk to them in spanish. All kinds of cat situations happen in my dreams. But this little dark gray kitten was just underneath my computer, calm and unassuming, very peaceful and demanding nothing. It was so silent and weak that I somehow felt obliged to take care of it.

I got up, contemplated my first morning coffee - I take my coffee looooong, you know - and went to my faculty on foot. I passed by a few cigarette queues, a few somber faces and several gay doggies. The wind was blowing, it was one of those cool spring days which smell of rain. I met a friend who complained about his computer, a brand new Pentium which crashed because of the unstable voltage. 'Everybody tells me I would be better off with an oldie of a computer', he complained. 'they endure this power situation much better.' I chuckled and told him he was absolutely right - my PC bought in 1994 and not updated since then is perfectly obedient. It just resets from time to time out of the blue, but I hope the two of us will weather this all.

Then I came to my faculty, and the written exam in American literature started. Some fifteen students came, and I friendly urged them to write their essays in the shortest time possible. Better to finish earlier than to be interrupted by sirens. Two of them were an hour late because the busses were late. Every student has his own adventurous story - they travel for hours because trains get stuck on the railroad or busses run short of gas; many of them have to travel the longer way because roads are damaged and bridges destroyed. One of them who lives in Novi Sad told me how a bomb fell very near her building: the building broke in two, walls cracked and the water from her aquarium spilt! Imagine that.

While they were writing their essays, I was reading a Nietzsche I grabbed this morning in passing - his booklet on presocratic philosophers. You would not believe how absorbed I was. Now a pile of essays on lost generation and Emily Dickinson wait to be graded. That is how the seventh week of war will be ended. Supposedly.

"Insomnia"
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad

The office in Montenegro, in Ulcinj, is the third office of the Humanitarian Law Center. The office in Pristina does not exist any more. Last time I was there on 3 April, was my second visit to Pristina since 24 March. Through the open door, I saw books and paper scattered all over the place, desks with no computers, and the usual mess after a police search. Mentor Nimani, one of my lawyers, lived in the neighborhood. I will never forget 29 March in Pristina, and Mentor on the staircase of his block, at his wit's end from terror and ready to flee Kosovo. We had been in contact on daily basis in the previous days, so I had known he lived in fear that someone might come, knock on his door and kill him, but the terror I saw in his eyes made up my mind then and there to depart immediately. I had already found my other staff, so we were ready to go. Vjollca stayed in Pristina. Her father was adamant that she stayed with her family and that they were not to loose contact. She phoned me from Albania several days later. All families from her part of town had been expelled, transported by train to Blace, a village close to Macedonian border. She spent a few days there, out in the open together with a group of 20,000 people. They were put on buses and taken to the Albanian border by night.

On that 29 March, we started from Pristina towards the Macedonian border, Ariana, Nora, Kushtrim and some friends whose names I cannot disclose for their personal security. Several hundred cars followed us. We returned after we had received information that the border had been closed, and when we saw policemen wearing masks on their faces. We returned to Pristina, dropped Ariana off, as she decided to stay until my next visit, and turned Belgrade bound. I do not know how we managed to leave Kosovo, there must be God somewhere. A car with three Albanians and two Serbs. We cleared all check points, each in fear that they will discover who we were, arrest and separate us. Mentor's fear did not disappear in Belgrade. It was easier for him, but that was no freedom either. Several days later, we went to Montenegro, Mentor then went to Albania and subsequently to the US. Nora stayed in Montenegro working with refugees for a while. She left for Budapest on 4 May. She, too, is US bound. Ariana was waiting for my arrival in Pristina. She was looking after our Jeep. She left for Macedonia on 5 May. She is currently visiting camps and interviewing refugees. She plans to return to Kosovo as soon as it is safe to do so.

Whenever I show up in Pristina, people can hardly believe it possible. It amazes me that I manage to do it. The first time I went back, on 27 March, I took a taxi to the bus station in an attempt to find a bus for Kosovo. Some ten meters away from the bus station, it occurred to me to ask the driver if he would take me to Bujanovac, a small place 100 kilometers from Pristina, thinking that I would be able to catch a lift to Kosovo from there. He agreed to my proposal, and when we were near Bujanovac, he accepted, for a generous fee, to take me all the way to Pristina. If it had not been for him, I could not have taken three Albanians out of Kosovo. He had a way of chatting with policemen, an air of nonchalance when clearing check points, asking about fuel and cigarettes, that left an impression he was one of their own kind. I went with him two more times. He would always ask, "who are we getting out this time" before each trip.

When I travel to Kosovo, on roads with no traffic, with police and military check points, I never think about the possibility of something bad happening to me. Riding through Serbia, my primary concern is fuel. I keep bothering the driver about how much fuel we have already spent. When I see the road sign for Kosovska Mitrovica, I start to look round. The villages were intact until 5 May. They were obviously empty, but there was no arson. I took a note that on 23 April, I met a large group of people on the same road, who were walking towards Vucitrn. These people were returning to their homes having spent two weeks in woods hiding, and were anxious whether the police would allow them to go back and whether their houses were still standing. They were looking at me in utter disbelief when I told them they should return home, that people were going back to Pristina from the border. Unfortunately, these same people as well as others from Vucitrn, have been expelled from their homes. On 5 May, I saw that the town was empty, and many houses were on fire. The same day, I passed through Mitrovica. There were neither police nor military in the town center. There wasn't a soul to be seen. Large sections of town had been destroyed. One could see that houses had been plundered first, and then set on fire. There were some people in the suburbs. Serb parts of town were intact. Afterwards, when I talked to Albanians from Mitrovica who came to Montenegro, I found out that approximately 30,000 Albanians were expelled from Mitrovica on 15 April, and that they had been ordered to leave for Montenegro. They traveled on foot, it took them three days to reach Dubovo, a village 80 kilometers away from Mitrovica, where the Yugoslav Army stopped them. The army kept them there for three days, when three officers announced there had been an "order for refugees to return home". They were put on buses and shipped back to burnt down Mitrovica. Hunger and fear made many of them leave Mitrovica again and go to Montenegro.

Every time I enter Pristina, I feel relieved. I say to myself, "It's still standing". Bajram Kelmendi is gone. He was murdered on the first night of NATO bombardment. He was taken from home with his sons that first night. Fehmi Agani is gone, too. I never managed to meet him in Pristina. He was last seen at Bajram Kelmendi's funeral on 27 March. People were saying he was in Pristina in hiding, changing houses, and that it was good he was not going out. I tried to find him, but no one knew where he was. Now I wonder if it was possible that he was still free at the time, and if it was his decision not to communicate with anybody. I shall not have peace until I find out how he was murdered and what was happening with him after Kelmendi's funeral. He was an old friend. I can still hear his words: "How is it going Natasa, are you less busy, how is your health, your family?"; and in the same breath: "There is hope, we must believe that things will get better". A long time ago, in 1994, we both attended the Conference on the Hague Tribunal in Bern. I remember those days for two reasons. Although there were only a few participants from Serbia, he spoke Serbian in front of a huge audience, the majority of them Albanians. He said he was doing that because of his Serb friends, out of respect for their work. One day during the Conference, he invited me to meet some of his former students who had arrived from Germany and Switzerland to attend the part of the Conference concerning Kosovo. When he introduced me, I realized that he had not told them he had invited a Serb woman. At that time, there were few occasions for Serb and Albanian intellectuals to sit together and talk. I could see that his students were stunned, but soon they welcomed me and apologized for the fact they did not speak very good Serbian.

The news about Agani's death has reached me in Montenegro. At the hotel reception desk, I have been told that a cousin of Agani's called from Pristina and said he had been arrested. The next day, the news said his body had been found near Lipljan.

Natasa Kandic
Executive Director
Humanitarian Law Center
Belgrade

I hope that the ICJ will not be prejudiced against the plaintiff and will carefully scrutinize the action. It is greatly important for the system of International law, if it is to exist, that the law is upheld no matter who is requesting it. Perhaps it is the most important that the law be upheld precisely in the case like this, when the defendants are the most powerful and the richest countries of the world. An analogy can be drawn to the situation when a powerful politician or a very rich man in town (who may be even a close friend with the judge) is brought to court by the poorest or the least popular of its inhabitants on an accusation of breaking the law. If the judge fails to uphold the law out of fear, or out of wish to avoid inconveniencing the powerful friend, then he is doing a very bad favor to the citizens of his town.

The law in this case is that only the UN Security Council can decide on the use of force against a sovereign country (except in the case of self-defense). Even if a country is accused of violating human rights (i.e. the case of humanitarian intervention, that the NATO claims to be engaged in in this conflict) it is still solely for the Security Council to pass the decision on the use of force against that country.

Professor Maja Stanivukovic
Faculty of Law
University of Novi Sad

There is just one question that we should and must ask ourselves: Is the life of one person (man, woman, child) more valuable than the life of another? I am not talking here about armed people or politicians, I'm talking about civilians, ordinary people trying to survive their ordinary lives, people who will never be asked to make any important decisions, people who are not in the position to decide about anybody else's life, not even their own.

If one thinks that the moral obligation is to bomb Serbian civilians for the benefit of the ethnic Albanian civilians, what makes him different from a Kosovo Serb who is supporting the ethnic cleansing for his own benefit?

That person must be aware that this manner of thinking puts him in the same category as those people who support the killing of innocent men, women and children and therefore he can stop considering himself to be a responsible and humane member of the world society. I don't deny his right to think whatever he wants, but at least, he has to accept that he has justified the deaths of innocent people.

Making choices in a war like this is the duty of every thinking human being. And, believe me, it is much harder to make those choices when you are in a constant fear for your life (i.e. for the Serbian and Albanian people) than when you are sitting far away from bombs or any kind of atrocities.

I'm trying hard to escape that awful circle of hatred despite the fact that my country is ruined and will remain that way for many years, despite the fact that people (very much like myself and my 17 month old baby) have been killed on their way to the marketplace in the middle of the day, despite the fact that kids have been killed in the so-called shelters or in their own homes (like the three year old girl from Belgrade whose picture I will never forget), despite the fact that people who are living on life support machines and babies in incubators were cut of from electricity, despite the fact that a 30 year old woman living on the 15th floor in my neighborhood died of a heart attack two nights ago, leaving a 5 months old baby. We can only hope that we will survive the bombs, but there's almost nothing else to hope for in this now destroyed country. Despite all that, I still resist those revengeful and furious feelings that I might have for the Albanians, Americans, the British or any other people.

Although I am furious at the governments which are responsible for what is going on (mine included), I made a choice not to support violence for any reason--no matter what risks this may involve. And still, I would never consider myself a person with the proper morality and the right to judge whether someone else should live or die.

So, please, before rushing to the conclusion that the Serbs deserve what they are getting, ask yourself who are those people you are condemning to possible death, and certainly a life of hardship. What is the difference between NATO killing civilians in Nis, Belgrade, Aleksinac, Surdulica... and Serbs forces killing Albanians? If you still think that the killing of some civilians is just and noble be aware that that puts you in the same gang with those (Serb paramilitary, KLA, Talebans, IRA...) who also claim to have noble and just goals. I belong to the opposite side.

[name withheld]
lawyer
Belgrade

You know, those are the tactics the military police have been using lately. They go to peoples' homes and force the men to join the army (and that's what makes them leave...). They are just trying to scare people and to create panic in Montenegro as well. The military jails are filled with men who refused to answer the army's order to join the Yugoslavia army forces.

Milosevic can't 'survive' without war. He is trying to get Montenegro involved in his mess. The government of Montenegro is not able to do anything (even the vice-president, Dr. Novak Kilibarda is being prosecuted by the military court!). The politicians, especially the president of Montenegro (Milo Djukanovic), are trying very hard to make an agreement with the army and keep Montenegro out of this 'war', but it's not working... Milosevic has changed all the army personnel who don't follow his orders. I just hope that the people of Montenegro will be smart enough not to take part in Milosevic's dirty games (I think the West should do everything to give all the support to Djukanovic, who is really doing a marvelous job right now -- he really needs it. It is not easy to keep Montenegro out of this conflict. There are very close family ties between Serbia and Montenegro. A very close history as well...)

"Artemis"
Montenegro

Up till yesterday night, it hasn`t been hit at all, except at the bridge of Beska nothern of Belgrade, but we have been told from NATO officials that bridges are to be destroyed anyway.

Yesterday, Supreme Command of Yugoslav Army ordered beginning a withdrawal of army and police from Kosovo, with a prospect of bringing down the presence of security forces to the status in the peace-time.

I do not intend to go futher into reasons why this hasn`t been enough, but I would only like to point to JURIST readers the fact that the very same one and only high-way has been cut as a communication line yesterday night, in the first night that succeded the beginning of army withdrawal. This was done by destroying a junktion near the town of Velika Plana, one hundred kilometers south of Belgrade.

Is it possible to conclude that withdrawal from Kosovo is not what NATO officials want at all? I mean, if they do not recognize the present announcement of withdrawal as satisfactory, that is one thing, but cutting the highway communication (the junktion of course can be repaired, and army units could go a long way around, but nevertheless the trafic on that spot is severely jammed) that is used for any withdrawing is completely another thing.

Dusan Rakitic Srbic
Student
Belgrade Law Faculty

Milica Camilovic
Belgrade

The only change (apart from destroyed infrastructure, the emptying stores and diminishing fuel) can be seen in the shelter, which is visited more and more involuntarily. I said 'visiting' - for us all, descending into the shelter becomes a ritual negligently performed. We come down, and soon we come back. People prefer standing at the front door of their buildings, sharing news, comments and rumours. Night or day alerts, it is the same. Only when planes and explosions are heard and felt, people rush into the building; otherwise, they just exchange facts and lies with their eyes nailed to the sky.

The worst local philosophers and military quasiexperts are found among retired people, a very peculiar social group in my country: their pensions are really awfully low, insufficient for anything except bread and milk, but they have turned their underdog status into the utmost benefit: figuratively speaking, they insist in being first served even when they are last to come. They swarm in all the peace- and wartime lines (either for bread or cigarettes, at the doctor's or in the post office, it does not matter, the important is to while the time away in queuing) and molest other people with endless foreboding comments. If the refinery is bombed, they are the first to breathe the poisonous smell; when the all-alert siren is heard, they are the first to stand and deliver the list of targets. One retired woman heard in the cigarette-line that the post office building will be bombed, and she raised alarm in the police station; another reported that all university campuses will be bombed at noon; I personally know an old lady who went from door to door to warn her neighbourhood to take the mirrors off the wall, for they might fall and crack because the series of detonations will happen "tonight at two o'clock sharp"; in my shelter, there is an old eccentric who chases people out of the shelter every time when the rain is falling, because 'nato planes cannot fly in the rain, since pilots get wet'. Having such people in the headquarters, NATO would win the war in an instant: either the whole Yugoslavia would be shocked to death by a single dark premonition, or it would die laughing to this wise guys comments. Rhetoric wins.

"Insomnia"
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad

You asked me about the G8 plan. Personally I find that any peace-plan is better than war. Although it seems very "flexible", in order to leave enough space for different ex post interpretations, I find it a solid basis to start negotiations about the peace. The real problem with it is that there is no mention when one can expect the end of bombing. But, we all know that one thing is what is written in papers and another what diplomats decide through secret diplomatic channels. Therefore, I have a poor feeling that we lawyers have to stand by and watch the game. This conflict shows clearly that legality and other fundamental principles of our science are not so important for politicians, as they can twist them all with more or less good excuse.

Dr. Sima Avramovic
School of Law
University of Belgrade

My mother woke up every hour to ask about the sirens. I was also a doubting Thomas: I got up at seven this morning only because I was anxious to check the web site inet.co.yu to see what had been hit last night. What I read was hard to believe: the airport near Nish was hit by, I think, two missiles, and NATO called it a day. Its planes lingered all along the borders of Yugoslavia, but did not cross them, hampered either by bad weather (which, to be honest, was not THAT bad) or by fear that unexpected embassies may suddenly pop up at the places where intended targets should be.

I also found out that his CNN-ness Ted Turner warns about the possible nuclear war of Russia and China against US. I bet he himself will either make it or fake it, wage it or stage it. The idea of Christian Amanpour reporting from a god-knows-where with a nuclear mushroom behind her is worth considering. Or dear Ms. Rubin could launch a nuke on Beijing herself in front of the cameras, live! The nuclear war offers endless possibilities, but I hope Mr Turner will finally decide to fake it in a hollywood studio - it is cheaper and more effective that way.

If anything, this war has made me such a skeptic, not only because of CNN's staging manufacture. This war was caused by lies, half-truths, manipulation, 'faulty intelligence' of all kinds, personal fantasies and sick obsessions - now it is dipped in them. So I doubt everything I see and hear on tv: all the rubbles look the same (oklahoma equals chinese embassy in belgrade); all Kosovo refugees are dressed alike and driven in identical tractors, and although they are reported to flow in constantly, the total number of them in the refugee camps yesterday stayed the same as four weeks ago - some seven hundred thousand; all the NATO's satellite shots of the targets are identical blurs and smears; the refugees, spokespersons and politicians babble the very same stories mechanically on and on, like puppets; it is very strange how the Chinese anti-nato demonstrations can appear quite peaceful on Serbian tv, whereas ferocious and riotous on the BBC World and CNN. Everything about this war seems to be staged and acted, at least diminished or exaggerated, and actually deliberately pictured from an angle which is determined in advance.

Every TV channel carefully nourishes lacunae, every channel is silent about something. Every TV channel finds its own tip of the war iceberg to focus on, neglecting the mammoth part which is hidden under the water. Serbian tv is silent about refugees from Kosovo, CNN and BBC neglect and diminish the debris and suffering caused by NATO attacks, whereas the only small piece of news about fights between Yugoslav army and the terrorist organization misnamed Kosovo Liberation Army I got from Bosnian TV channel! So it seems I will have to spend my life in front of the TV screen, digging for the pieces of the truth which is never to be reconstructed...

But I know one thing to be real - and that is my own experience of this war. The butterflies in my stomach when the sirens are heard, the thunder of my heartbeats at every detonation, the sight of destroyed Novi Sad bridges, the shattered window panes of my Faculty. This morning when I was entering the building, a huge piece of glass fell right in front of me. I instinctively stepped away and then looked up: pigeons were walking on the window sill, and one of them pushed a piece of glass broken in a recent explosion. That shattered piece of glass may have hurt somebody, , not seriously as a piece of cluster bomb, but still enough. Whatever we may know, or want to know about this war, its immense so called "collateral damage" done to people and buildings will be too true to be good.

"Insomnia"
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad

My dreams have become nightmares: all the people I have ever felt to have had hurt, wronged or alike, come visiting. And it is all so aggravated. I remember a hiker in the bus (I think he was Australian) some five years ago asking direction to Hostel Mladost. I gave him a direction (unintentionally, of course) and it made him walk 500 meters longer than necessary. I felt very bad about it, and now, even he visited my dreams leading me into some foreign and deserted frightening place. Not to mention other wrongs I have accumulated in years. They are all haunting me now. Does anyone have (Freud?) an explanation?

I keep my classes going although sometimes my job feels like "bodily defending bridges". I have 12-20 students out of 25 hundred and I feel lost in the great hall usually seating hundreds.

I try to keep track with what your (US,UK) officials are saying. It seems to me that Clinton is ready to make some "patchwork" deal with Milosevic, once again recognizing him as the only relevant power in FRY. The end as I see it will be: Albanians out of Kosovo (what percentage of Muslims, Serbs and Croats returned to their land in Bosnia?), some kind of impotent "international forces" deployed, Milosevic strengthened in his seat: proclaimed a "national hero" and a president for life. The opposition (democratic) in Serbia crushed, no one to oppose Milosevic. Being in opposition now means (?) death sentence "by the people" and not courts (as JUL put it).. And then you are met in a street, in front of your building, somewhere …

If the West' best is: you will have Milosevic, all the devastation, and Albanian refugees, and we will have Victory! - think twice about it. Was that the war goal?

Slobanka Nedovic
Professor
Faculty of Law
University of Belgrade

Very often these days, we hear the NATO officials and spokesmen, addmitting to have made a mistake, and expressing their regret to the victims of their negligence. In the legal system on which I was brought up, the addmittance of a wrongful act and remorse cannot free the perpetrator from responsibility - it can only lead to a lower punishment if considered as sincere and coupled with other exonerating circumstances.

It will be interesting to see how will national and international courts respond to possible claims for damages arising out of this conflict and to criminal indictments against the responsible officials. Will they accept jurisdiction? Will they uphold the case of the victims or, more likely, lean in favor of their governments, in case of national courts, or in favor of more powerful nations, in case of international courts?

Another issue that needs further review is whether someone should be held responsible for violation of human rights of citizens of Yugoslavia. For example, the right to sleep quietly, the right of children and young people to go to school, the right of people to work, to breathe clean air, to freely move from one place to another, to obtain medicine, to remain free from threaths to life and limb, or the right of a person to bury his dead peacefully (without the sound of the air raid alarm) have been constantly violated. When NATO struck the electric power plants in Serbia last week, according to its own sources, it deprived 70% of the country of electricity (the "human" side of this was that it was only temporary). All citizens of Yugoslavia living here, whether Serbian, Hungarian or Muslim, whether voting for Milosevic or against, rich or poor, minor or come of age, equally sufferred from this disruption. One might say that this is war, but it has not been officially declared, and even if it has, some basic human rights of the civilian population should be respected. Otherwise, the idea that a total war against a nation is permissible will be endorsed.

Professor Maja Stanivukovic
Faculty of Law
University of Novi Sad

My right to do my job, to practise law, is jeopardized, my life with my family is jeopardized, just as all my belifs and a right to have my own opinion - I believe that NATO agression has placed us in a gheto, ostracized us and locked us up in some sort of contrentracion camp.

To some people in the West this is not a war, because it is a simulated war, but to me this war is real. It is true that this is an aerial war with new technology, but that tehnology allows the basic evil in humans to make that war more efficient, to increase the number of casualities; and altough NATO presents this war as a sort of moral intervention, mor explosives than in entire World War II have beeen spent. It is more tecnologically advanced than Vietnam - but it is it's next phase.

The grounds for this intervention aren't important any more, even to it's creators. In my last address I've mentioned that this is a Macchiavellian thesis, the cause justifies the means, but in this case the cause justifies the cause. Primary reasons are turned into the by-product of the consequence, so that the only important is the result. One of the main particles of law is "causa". Every legal aspect is determined by cause, and in this case it does not exist.

European and the world intelligence is fast asleep and lethargic in it's own satisfaction. Morally invisible, it sleeps and dreams it's selfrighteous and larpurlartistic dreams on sofas of modern rulers of the world that enters it's third millenium - allowing, like an ostrich with his head stuck in the sand, contemporary violence which does not have it's interests in law or humanity, but in apsolute power to opress anyone who is against Orwell's "Big Brother". In this new "law" everything is concentrated in one entity- NATO PACT is the maker of the law, the judge and the executioner.

All the forces of the opposition in Serbia have been destroyed with first bombs, and democracy in Serbia today is a story for little children. Those are the legal concequences of NATO agression.

Dr Zoran Ristic
Lawyer
Novi Sad

"Insomnia"
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad

And now back to personal problems. I was without power for ten hours now. Jamie [Shea] was right: THEY can switch us off whenever they "need to or want to". So, I was "off" for 12 hours (not that they needed to, they just wanted to), and now my server is off, so this letter will reach you – I don't know when. While I was writing, I got off again. So, I will have to wait until we are all "all clear" and connected.

Slobodanka Nedovic
Professor
Faculty of Law
University of Belgrade

We are not paid or hired for doing this. At least, I am not. I am paying for my electricity, phone and Internet time myself. I am stealing from my lifetime (which is maybe running out), maybe for selfish reasons. Maybe because I want to press the chip of collective memory, humanity and compassion in the big planetary computer.

So please, dear friends who share our daily pains and hopes, respect the time we are dedicating to you as to a beloved audience. Please do not expect us to write lengthy letters, endless masochistic reflections or news bulletins. If you are reading our diaries just to feed on the spectacle of human suffering, stop reading them. If you expect us to be your private reporter, forget about us. We are not journalists, we are desperate survivalists who try to pluck our own lust for life out of this misery. And we are here for YOU - not to compensate for the missing spectacle, inspiration and excitement, but to be your friends. To give and take, not to demand, impose, pester...just to give and take love and understanding.

"Insomnia"
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad

One day they are saying peace is close, but another day saying we are re still long way from peace. People are dieing, children are not going to school. WE have lost to much, dont make us lose more. These money that America have spend in bombing Yugoslavia why didn't they give all that money to the people that are truing to faind cure for aids? Why didn't they triad to protect osone? They didn't do that. All that they are doing now is that they are destroying our planet, they are killing us all.

I am to small to do anything, but you in America can stop bombing here, try to stop bombs here because we will have much bigger problem in future we will lose plant Earth! Do you understand me? Than it will not be important if you are black of white because we will all be dead.

Yesterday in the bus I have heard to man talking. They were talking about cigarettes, and how it is heard to find some these day here. As you know if you do not smoke you are going to live longer, but how can [say] now to any smoker here in Yugoslavia that he will live longer when the bombs are falling on his head.

I really dont know what to say anymore, except WAKE UP AMERICA!

[name withheld]
law student
Belgrade

Dr. Sima Avramovic
School of Law
University of Belgrade

1. Milosevic will stay in power, that could lead us to some kind of a "witch hunt" of all his opponents, and will certainly result in some new conflicts, poverty and disasters. Then, eventually, some new elections will come, under the UN (or other foreign) control, and he won't be able to fake them, so he won't be elected again.

2. Somehow he'll be gone soon (scary thing is that it doesn't have to be a freewill resignation, or a peaceful change), and we will have to face the ruined country and desperate state of everything and everybody. In any case this country will need people educated for dealing, especially in the legal area, with the new system of values and state organization..., with the real separation of the legal and executive power, with all the revenge feelings and all kind of aggressive feelings that unfortunately exist in our nation, as the consequence of all these years.

That's why I think that any form of possibilities for education on how to act in peace (!!?), will be more than welcomed for all younger lawyers who would like to come back to serve. We all grew in a diffrent system and I'm not sure that we are fully prepared for democratic changes, many of my colleagues still thinks that the only purpose of the law is to back up the Government. So, the education is my suggestion.

[name withheld]
Lawyer,
Belgrade

The most frequent explanation is that they were told that everybody who leaves the building during "work obligations in the state of war " would be court martialed and tried. Some others are that they were told they will loose their jobs, or that they will be informed in time to leave the building, (this promise might have been trusted since the media staff working at the Usce business center were not in the building at the time of the attack.) There are also rumors that that night, and on a few previous nights, the night shift was reserved for young people and that none of the "important people" stayed in the building after the night alarms or, even worse, that a few of them left the building 10 minutes before the attack.

The fact is that the people who died, or were wounded were young and were not the "decision makers. " The fact is that the whole town knew that the RTS building was going to be bombed. The fact is that all the foreign journalists received orders not to go to the TV station after the night alarm and that they relayed that message to RTS. The fact is that in all the foreign media, NATO spokesmen announced their intention to bomb RTS, and proclaimed RTS as a "legitimate target." The fact is that none of the "important people" were at RTS at the moment of the attack. The fact is that NATO did what it said it would do despite all those people they certainly were aware of, and therefore they intentionally killed civilians working at that moment. But the missing clue is why those people were not moved to another studio, why were they in that building, waiting for missiles that Western democracy had devoted to them "in good faith" (J.Shea)?!

I strongly hope that people who ordered that useless and cruel bombing will be taken to court one day in the future. And I hope the same thing for everybody who was, in any way, responsible for the fact that those people were in that building on the night of the attack. On different levels they share the guilt for the deaths of innocent people.

And this is the main question that I have for the world legal community: Will all the crimes be treated like crimes? Will the criminals and the killers be called the criminals and the killers, no matter which side they belong to? And will the victims be called the victims, no matter which nation they belong to? Or will this wicked game be continued - victims on one side, collateral damage on the other; 45 ethic Albanians killed in Racak is a massacre, but 75 of them killed in a refugee convoy is a mistake? The Serbian people called barbarians and killers and the Serbian country destroyed, while the Serbian authorities, who were supported till yesterday, and for whom these attacks are still providing the powerful weapon for doing whatever they want, go unpunished. Violation of Albanian civilians is a crime and a humanitarian catastrophe, but the violation of Serbian civilians is their deserved destiny? Will the legal community allow some powers to arrogate God's attributes, and stay untouchable for human laws? Or is there any chance that crimes will be judged upon the evidence and punishments will go to those who committed them?

[name withheld]
Lawyer
Belgrade

I woke up at four thirty (at home and WITHOUT my gym shoes on, which signals that even I can show symptoms of bravery at times :)) and heard strange noises. A series of flashes coloured the sky yellow. I blinked and blinked, but no blast resounded. Faraway brawling could be heard. NATO planes? Most likely. So I decided to go to the shelter. At the entrance of the building, there was a family from the neighbourhood, a couple with two sons, all pricking up their ears. 'Kids heard planes and urged us to descend' the wife said. I peeked outside and felt the rain pouring down. The air smelled fresh. Oh, how fresh! It felt as if somebody scented the atmosphere. Pilots sprinkling their aftershave? Not likely.

And the mystery was solved, the fear dispelled - these were not planes, just ordinary thunder. And no blasts, just ordinary lightnings. I panicked without reason. but to tell the truth, thunder was perfect in impersonating planes....

"Insomnia"
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad

And, after all those "errors" (is it possible to make mistakes almost every day now) comes our common problem of electrical power. Usual comment here was that NATO used technology of 21st century to drive us back to the 18th. It was quite unpleasant night, as in lots of part of the town the water was also missing. So, you can imagine life without water and electricity. But, the morning reaction of some friends of mine was incredible - a few of them remembered the New York electricity power collapse some years ago and comment that in nine months we could expect a higher birth rate in Serbia: another proof that Mrs. Albright really loves Serbs, as she stresses so often.

Of course, an explanation that the use of the new weapon was directed against military equipement primaraly and not against civilians is so ridiculous and hypocritical. But, we are almost used to hear explanations of that kind by J. Shea - only the question remains can an ordinary man at the West swallow those stupidities?

Dr. Sima Avramovic
School of Law
University of Belgrade

The first blast found me at home. I saw the bright yellow light instantly spread over the sky and instinctively squinted. Some ten seconds later, the walls shook violently. I ran down to the shelter, digging my pockets in search of my small lamp, and the second blast found me there. The walls shook and doors squeaked.

When I came back to the flat, reluctanly, I could not fight sleep. So I fell asleep on the mattress, with my gym shoes on and with the lamp in my hand. The ray of light at hand - just in case.

"Insomnia"
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad

And here it is - the world unplugged. Last night around ten Serbia fell into pitch-darkness. Feeling our way through the shelter, we remained in the dark about the cause of the power breakdown for hours. All radio stations went off the air at once.

The morning light revealed endless bread-lines, silent sirens, the thick black smoke coming from the refinery (bombed for the 11th time last night). Air smelled of gasoline. People walked dizzily, unsure on their feet. In spite of all, we were having a sunny and clear sunny day, with temp rising up to 26 degree celsius. Life goes on, with candles and matches in our pockets, an unplugged life.

* * *

To say that power comes back intermittently is an almost NATOesque euphemism. Since last night we were 'plugged in' for an hour or two in the early morning and forty minute in the afternoon. I had enough time to check my mail, but not enough to send few hasty responds. Messages coming from my unplugged Belgrade friends are amazingly normal. They tell of broken phone-lines and water-pipes in such a matter-of-factly manner.

* * *

I am having my coffee black and cold.
I am rediscovering my typewriter.

"Insomnia"
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad

[name withheld]
law student
Belgrade Law Faculty

I heard this news for the first time on the BBC World. They played the shot of the burnt remnants for several minutes, and I wondered: just how disastrous this attack really was, if the BBC dedicated to it a considerable portion of time which is otherwise generously donated to the daily routine of Kosovo refugees?

The night before last, when SKY reported the nail bombing of the 'Admiral Duncan' pub in Soho, my heart sank. I sent an email to my London friend whose husband works in Soho. Thanks God, both of them were OK. Still, I felt bad for all those dead and injured people in the packed pub. not only because I know very well now what it is like to be bombed out of the blue, but also because I strongly disapprove of homophobia and all monstrous practices stemming out of it. All that big talk of human rights everywhere, and suddenly you die because some guys hate gays' guts. For one thing, I, a heterosexual woman, could have been having my pint of beer in that pub - I like going to gay pubs. I could've, if I were in London. But i'm not, I'm denied it by the EC. Never mind, better times will come.

But I just want to put one question: does the world really care about human rights? About the right to be a homosexual, a heterosexual, an afroamerican, a woman? A serb?

Let's leave Serbs aside for a bit. What about Albanians? And what about their women? Where were all those people who are shedding crocodile tears over poor Albanian refugees all these years to see how Albanian women are treated? Where was the world all those decades in which Albanian women were forbidden (as they are still) to go to school, to witness them locked in their homes behind walls 5 feet high, married early and ordered to give birth to one child per year? Talibans in afganistan have similar ways of treating their women, but they are still in power and nobody strikes them out of the blue. So, what about the civil and human rights of Kosovo Albanian women? Do not think Serb authorities denied education and contraception to them. Their husbands, fathers and brothers did it, an oppressive heritage did it. These women, denied profession and contraception, live in dark ages, in the world of a primitive culture which still feeds on the blood feud tradition.

So, if anybody really wanted to help Kosovo Albanians, the help should have started with these small essentials such as primers & condoms, not with offering a territory.

* * *

Yeah, and I forgot another essential human right - the right to breathe. The last night's jubilee, the tenth bombing of Novi Sad refinery, resulted in the thickest clouds ever. My windows are shut, and the day promises to offer a temperature of 30 C and no wind, so the environmental situation goes worse. I think this was hardest attack on Novi Sad ever. At least shaking of the walls said so.

* * *

US servicemen released. Will Yugoslavia be released?

"Insomnia"
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad

Your president declared yesterday that so far the bombardment was hampered by bad weather. But in May, the weather is much better than in April, and in June it is better than in May, and in July even better, and so on, until we are all sent to heaven. I begin to understand why this aggression is called the Merciful angel - probably the aim is that we all become angels. There are many that already arrived there in the shortest possible way - these are the children. According to my knowledge of the Christian science, the children, being beautiful and innocent, become angels easily and swiftly. Can you imagine the sight of that three-year-old girl that flew to heavens sitting on her potty to join the angels. For me, this is too hard even to imagine.

In my opinion, it is high time that the lawyers of the countries that are killing a people occupy themselves with the legal basis of this war in their own countries, within then own legal systems (it should have been done from the very beginning). They should ask themselves what legal, human or divine norms is this action based on. The voice of the people who could give their professional and human opinion on this issue should be heard.

Professor Ljubomirka Krkljus, Ph.D.
Dean
University of Novi Sad School of Law

Slobodanka Nedovic
Professor
Faculty of Law
University of Belgrade

"Insomnia"
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad

Another terrible event is bombing of small town of Surdulica, where they found in houses up to this morning 16 killed people, 12 of them children (5-12 years old). A genius named J.Shea (we call him here J. Shame or J. She) said that it was again a mistake! This morning when I left my flat a terrible smell of oil was all around the area, as they hit refinery in Pancevo again (on the other side of Danube) and there were almost no wind today to help moving the smoke cloud. The only encouraging thing are some signs that maybe political solution could be achieved (although Mr. Draskovic was removed yesterday- all this adventure is not very clear to me).

Dr. Sima Avramovic
School of Law
University of Belgrade

Another thing is: it is so annoying to see how the poor victims are treated. I have grown tired of euphemisms designed to hide the truth, designed to justify the crime. An error made by a bomb-supplied pilot cannot be said to be unintended. We never intend to be wrong, but we tend to be more or less fatally careless. A bomb cannot just go astray, since it does not 'go' at all. It is not a cat, is it? It is a killing device (another clumsy definition) thrown by a human hand and don't we know all about grave errors made by the so called human factor... The same goes for conflict. I cannot call this apocalypse I'm in a conflict. I almost feel offended at calling this war thing 'a conflict'.

Today, I had to get up early to go to my classes (first after 'the conflict' began). I took a cab, since busses go about one per hour, and I could not afford being late (even 'the conflict' does not change my unbelievable capacity to doze and muse over the first morning coffee interminably). and I chatted with the cab driver, as I always do - yes, we chatted about 'the conflict', what else? But our chat stopped as we approached the faculty. We could see the grayish Danube, the clear blue sky and an huge dark cloud. It was spreading fast. I almost choked when I asked him if it came from the refinery. 'Yes', the cab-driver said. 'The flame has not been extinguished yet'.

And I glanced at my watch. It was nine o'clock. The refinery was bombed at half past one last night, and the smoke is still spreading... I inhaled deeply. I said I enjoyed the ride - another euphemism. 'Enjoy yourself for the next three or four days', the driver said. 'My mates are running out of fuel. In a few days there will not be a single taxi in the street.'

Again, I inhaled deeply, although I should not inhale that smoke too deep. I entered the faculty. Eighteen students came to my lecture - eighteen out of ninety. The next two hours we spent discussing the post-Shakespearean tragedy, which was written in the pre-conflict, pre-euphemistic world.

"Insomnia"
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad

Why was it necessary to bomb a TV station, to bomb any TV station, no matter of its views or its propaganda? What does it really means? That NATO is now allowed to bomb any TV that they dislike? If so, there are so many possible targets around the world! There is no such TV station that is speaking only the truth. What about stories of murdered Albanian intellectuals, for example (which turned out to be false)? Or with the "strong evidences" that Serbs hit the refugee convoy? And many other examples of telling unbiased things (not only about Yugoslavia, but in general) that lately appear as untrue. Should those TV stations be bombed or banned and who will take the responsibility for their propaganda? NATO is doing at least one completely similar thing to what RTS is doing - naming all Serbian people Milosevic, deleting their real faces and names and believes and pains and making this country and its citizens kind of his property, as if we are a flock of sheep on his private farm. So nobody will feel too sorry for some bad guy's sheep and home.

Speaking of Milosevic, what kind of example does it make for him? He is already banning the independent media, should he start to bomb them? If NATO can do it and have a support, than why not?

The worst consequences of this attack are, however, those people who died or are wounded. Those were mostly young technicians, who were simply working there, not the part of any propaganda machinery, and not the people who are creating news in RTS. The girl, 26 years old, who was doing the make-up, the guy 30 years old, sound technician, those guys who worked as a security for the building...they died, their families are destroyed. I'm still looking the same TV program, and when I take my baby to the Tashmajdan park I'm passing by those horrible ruins, with more people under it, wondering is there any possibility that they are still alive.

One of my close friends, who made me company in those Protest's days said that "eggs and rotten tomatoes should be the worst things thrown to a TV station". I wish that everybody in the world think twice about it.

[name withheld]
Lawyer
Belgrade

Be it true or not, you should have seen me today. Me and my long ago diminished hope. I contemplated the news with a silly smile on my face while trying to wash the dishes in half a littre of warmed water (have you ever tried to wash greasy plates WITHOUT running or hot water? don't, the depression may overcome you...). I remember how somebody whom I was supposed to meet in Belgrade on the very first day of aggression, on wednesday, March 24th, told me: 'If flights by foreign air companies are cancelled, stay where you are...for that means the air strike is on its way.' I remember how a chill overcame me when on Monday I read the information on cancelled flights on B92 (whose news mailing list I have been missing terribly in the last four weeks - that was the only media I know of capable to balance conflicting information sources; I hate they're off the air). And really, air strike on Yugoslavia started in two days....

That is why I am so trigger happy - because I find that rumour another ray of hope. Chi vivra, vedra, as Italians say. So let's live and see.

"Insomnia"
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad

One threat is coming from Yugoslav government agencies and the controlled domestic INTERNET providers. For them it is important to shut up all independent voices for which reason they banned the radio B92 and put under control other independent media.

For NATO it appears important to cut off all dissenting people and groups from Yugoslavia in order to maintain the image of Yugoslav society as if it is totally controlled by Milosevic regime and made only of extreme nationalists who deserve punishment by bombs.

For us who are long time activists of human rights, minority rights, union rights, free press rights, women rights, peace and democracy activists, it is vital to maintain Internet connection to the world in order to get information and communicate with people about our situation.

We are using INTERNET with respect to the netiquette and urge all Yugoslav users to avoid hostile and insulting vocabulary. We also pledge to all our international contact people to exercise their influence on INTERNET public opinion to avoid aggressive language and hatespeech in correspondences to people in Yugoslavia.

PLEASE HELP US TO STAY IN TOUCH WITH THE WORLD!

Yugoslav NGOs:

- Association of Citizens for Democracy, Social Justice and Support for Trade Unions
- Belgrade Circle
- Center for Democracy and Free Elections
- Center for Transition to Democracy
- Civic Initiatives
- EKO Center
- Belgrade Women Studies Center
- European Movement in Serbia
- Forum for Ethnic Relations and Foundation for Peace and Crisis Management
- Group 484
- Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia
- The Student Union of Yugoslavia
- Union for Truth About Anti-Fascist Resistance
- VIN Weekly Video News
- Women in Black
- YU Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights
- District 0230 Kikinda
- Urban in Novi Pazar
- Center for Policy Studies
- NEZAVISNOST Trade Union Confederation

Belgrade
26 April

My first war-lecturing seemed almost like in peace time [Editors' Note: classes at the University of Belgrade Law Faculty resumed last week]. Probably those colleagues who were among the first who did it were questioned more about the current events.

[The] interview by Mr. Draskovic was...accepted here with a lot of enthusiasm, but there are only guessing what stand in behind. My impression is that it could either lead to a quicker solution and end of the war or to a deeper internal crisis. Most of us are praying that the first option is on table.

Dr. Sima Avramovic
School of Law
University of Belgrade

Apart from the water-deprivation, I am also on an informational fast. I decided to stay away from telly & radio for at least 24 hours, just to see what it is like to live in an ivory tower world, without the death show and reports on refugees, without warmongers and peacemakers, without Yugo protest marches and NATO briefings. And it already (after some 17 hours of fasting) looks like the state of a comfortable oblivion, it looks as if you unhook your phone and fall in a deep undisturbed sleep.

Fasting thus (or dozing thus), I suddenly remembered...not the briar rose, but the latest book by Douglas Coupland, 'The Girlfriend in a Coma'. I read it last June, while in London, and reviewed it for a Yugoslav independent magazine 'Vreme' after coming back to the then sanctionland, present bombland. The girlfriend from the title spent some 18 years in coma - then she awoke and her boyfriend had to tell her about the things that happened in the meantime. You can imagine how many things you can miss in 18 years time. I remember the two of them - Coupland's heroine missed the fall down of the Berlin Wall and the whole story of Lady Di's marriage, divorce and tragic death. The world has changed so much, even in the places which do not definitely suffer from the 'history overdose'. Even a fifteen day coma in Yugoslavia would mean a total epistemological shock: had you fallen asleep in mid- March and waken up at the beginning of April, you would have found yourself in a different place - not in Yugoslavia but in bombland - on a different planet. On a planet without water and without bridges, without petrol and oil refineries, but packed with deplete uranium, and cluster bombs; on a planet quite devastated and demolished; you would hear a completely different language, unknown words like 'locator', 'detonation', 'collateral damage', 'harrier'...

I think I wanted to see if you can forget about war if you cut yourself off from the world. Won't do. War is a real thing, happening in spite of your not willing to perceive it. But even in a self-imposed oblivion, I could not help remembering Lady Di, who did well in the campaign against land mines. What would she say if she saw the cluster bombs, which are, as somebody wrote in an email, land mines dropped from the sky, of which one was enough to kill five Kosovo Albanian kids? Would she wish that the Berlin Wall had never fallen down? Would anyone? Or would it just be a self-deceiving escapism into the world before the coma?

"Insomnia"
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad

You know what hurts the most...that all the people were YOUNG and they had future, and someone just came and took that from them. What is next? How many people should die more so that this bombing could stop? Today I was so angry at the world, the world that is doing this to me and my country....Now only thing that I know is that world has gone crazy. That is not good, this must be stopped.

[name withheld]
Law student
Belgrade

The worst is [that] two persons that I knew personally and was quite close with are not found yet under the ruins. The first one is 25 years old girl (my first cousin was her best-man a year ago): she is (was) the only child in her family. That night she was at work in montage - picture editing department. She is not found up to now. Her parents are night and day around the building, but it is still impossible to approach the down level where probably most of missing persons are (about 20 of them).

The second missing person I know personaly is our 29 years old neighbor, who just got a daughter a year ago. He was working in the TV sound department. No news of them both is evident sign that they are not alive anymore, although their families still cherish a vast hopes.

Bombing of the RTS is a new catastrophically wrong NATO decision. They did not hit the Director of TV or any responsible person, but tens of young innocent technicians and some journalists, doing their job during the night. Estimation is that more than 30 of them are killed. Bombing did not prevent further broadcasting, as after 6 hours the RTS continued to broadcast from a different location. On Sunday (yesterday) they hit the main TV transmitter at the small Mt. Avala near Belgrade with no casualties and with better effects - interruption of broadcasting is longer than when they hit the RTS in the very center of the town causing so many deaths. Why they did not hit the transmitter first?

So, what is the effect? RTS became a hero victim, all the people here are aware that this time nobody can say it was a mistake (as in cases of bombing the passenger's train or Albanian refugees). This time the act was evidently done with the highest degree of MENS REA - intention and premeditation: NATO planers knew well that a lot of people are at work broadcasting 24 hours live programe in the building.

I am desperate as I see so many erroneus actions of NATO, leading to contrary effects. The influence of the RTS was not so immense as someone in the US may think - people are very critical here towards its information and do not believe all they say for years. There are so many jokes here about the RTS reliability - contrary to the most of Americans who believe that CNN speaks "truth, only truth and nothing but the truth". There are so many satelite antennas all over (Prof. Sally Humphrey from the University of Michigan was a guest of the School of Law in Belgrade two years ago and was so surprised when she saw in the smallest villages of Serbia satellite antenas at private houses), people are listening to radio broadcasting of VOA, Free Europe and other stations, young generation is widely using Internet - so that critical opinion towards information is here very developed and, however strange it may sound, a lot of people here have very versatile insight in events.

What I am afraid of is that a new phase of (unproclaimed) war is again based on new, generally wrong decision: to make the life of ordinary people even more heavy, frightning and problematic, proclaiming non-military targets as legitimate goals.

I suppose that you have heard during the last week about various air-attacks targeting non-military objects and a lot of civilian victims in Serbia. In the same time sufferings of Albanians are prolonged (although some of stories which were launched during the last week are too similar to those that we have already heard in Bosnia: concentration campuses, using the blood of young Albanians, mass graves, mass rapes – most of them are not confirmed by the Hague Tribunal up to now, while a lot of those CNN accusations were denied later...).

On Wednesday NATO bombed in Djakovica the refugee camp of Serbs who flee from Croatia in 1995 and killed more than ten persons (including two children), while tens of them are wounded; on Thursday the building in New Belgrade was destroyed (along with the seat of Milosevic Socialist Party, there were a lot of private offices, as well as a few popular TV channels studios – those who broadcast 24 hours mostly American movies, and can not be considered as political channels), the last bridge in Novi Sad – so that the free flow of people is impossible; Friday - the RTS and some electricity power stations in Belgrade; Saturday - five Albanian kids (age 8 to 15) were killed and a few wounded by unexploded cluster bomb in a village near Urosevac, and another Serbian refugee center in Gucevo near Loznica was hit with several casualties. There were so many attacks of civilian targets and victims during last days that one can not even list them all.

No need to tell you what kind of reactions I [hear]... I just wonder whether those ordinary people will ever understand that it was all done for their sake, as Mrs. Albright states. Personaly I could understand that sometimes force has to be used (of course, if authorized in a legal way), but I still do not see a clear aim in this case: if it was really to prevent sufferings of Albanians, this goal is definitely missed. If it is something else, what I can also understand and support, it seems that by causing all those civilian victims (one can hardly call them "collateral" anymore), it will lead to dead-end-street and provoke opposite effects among population, even those who have a strong democtaric feeling. Or I am just a shortsighted legal historian, who does not understand politics and its prospects.

Dr. Sima Avramovic
School of Law
University of Belgrade

So, his NATOness takes the water away - electricity still holds on until further notice. Maybe it'll go off tonight. Anything can be expected from vandals, as you all well know.

Maybe the ethnical cleansing stops the very moment you cut off water? Could be. Lets make all ethnic groups dirty, that's politically correct. Equal mud and disease for all - a new NATO slogan.

Becoming quite sick of english speaking tv channels, I turned on the Italian RAI last night, and watched their 'Telegiornale'. The same sickening chant of false humanism there as well. Italian psychologists from Cremona are doing therapy with little Albanian refugees, making them draw what they've seen and experienced. The drawings all show small people and huge planes and helicopters, and that is taken to be the proof of Serbian atrocities.

Quite by chance, I turned the telly on this morning and found myself in the middle of a Serbian tv report on kids from Belgrade, and their drawings. Guess what? Planes on all of them!

So, the vision of today's world is same with Albanian and Serbian kids. Planes. And we all damn well know who is flying planes in this war. Jamie shea tried to convince us that albanian kids see NATO planes as salvation , telling that one Albanian kid compared the sound of planes to the 'voice of the angels'. If Mr Jammed Sheep saw the drawings by Albanian and Serbian kids, he would see in them horrible, murky steel birds of prey dropping bombs. Definitely not angels.

Or maybe angels have changed???

"Insomnia"
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad

I, Insomnia, I am serb. Do you see me as an ethnical cleanseress? Do you picture me taking my first morning coffee with albanian blood instead of cream and sugar? ... OK, OK, I've gone overboard. but tell me - how do you picture me really? A friend from Belgrade called today to ask what I was doing. I told him I was preparing lecture notes on post-Shakespearean tragedy. Next week, the universities are starting with lectures and exams which were disrupted a month ago, and I myself have the obligation to neglect this bloody war for a few hours and plunge back into the curricula. So I told I worked on post-Shakespearean tragedy, and he laught his head off. That was not a healthy laugh, more sort of bitter chuckle. Then it dawned on me: this is a post-Shakespearean tragedy, all of this. Because this what we live in is tragedy of blood and injustice. In Shakespeare's dramas, the world falls out of joint, but is always set up straight again. In tragedies after Shakespeare injustice is invincible, it rules unpunished, just like in today's world, the world after Shakespeare.

Enough lamenting, a little update: in spite of last night's renewed massacre of tv transmitters, Serbian TV is on the air again. In the greater part of the country, today were two daytime all-alert sirens, one at 3 pm (NATO planes served as a dessert after Sunday lunch), the other right now, as I'm writing this (6 pm my time). See you in the all clear interval!

"Insomnia"
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad, Yugoslavia

There is one thing that has not been changed - civilian targets are still attacked as before, only with the increasing ferocity. From vacuum cleaners and tobacco factories NATO has passed to bombing trains and civilian convoys. And, yes, there is another change: seeing how absurd it is to label TV transmitters, kindergartens and monasteries all alike - as 'military targets' - NATO has started calling them 'strategic targets' instead. That one was wise, I admit.

I see I'm turning cynical, and I don't like it. I do not like this change in my mood and opinion. A month ago, I was shocked and frightened; now I'm angry and embittered. But something has not changed: I still have water, electricity, Internet connection and a night-time shelter (which has been used also in the daytime a few times during this week, but it is not worth mentioning). Yesterday's alarm was luckily false - our Post Office building was not destroyed. Novi Sad sneaked thru last night with 'only eight' missiles fallen on its petrol refinery. A good night score. Though the night tonight may be more interesting if the old hag vandalliance decides to mark the jubilee by painting the town red.

But, hey, let me not be unfair: never have I made more email friends in a month's time than in this month of war. Never have I received so many words of love, support and consolation in my entire life. Never have I been in thoughts of so many people. And never have I believed in the inherent goodness of the human nature this much. Evil words of some western media and monstrous actions of NATO are just few poisonous drops in the vast ocean of human goodness which will be washed away, finally. Isn't it nice to think so?

"Insomnia"
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad, Yugoslavia

In the western media that I follow, the only personal (and very much so) stories come from the refugee camps. My heart goes to those poor men, women and children, stuck in the mud of FRY-Macedonian frontier. I keep remembering our daily "candle protests" against the war in Bosnia and I remember how futile it seemed, how frustrated we were at the time. But we kept together, we were firm in our opposition to the Regime, to Milosevic's war policy. And in time, we were growing in numbers, we were gaining the stamina to hold on, we were … But what is the use in remembering? There is nothing of the sort now. We are alone, we are frustrated, we have been betrayed. None of us here believed in the power of Western weapons, but we all firmly believed in the Western world-view, in values of open, free, democratic society, with human rights inviolable and freedom of expression sacrosanct. Now, I am afraid, there is nothing left to believe in, at least no one to believe in. I still stand firm in my beliefs, but now I know that there is no help from your side of the Planet. ...

You must have been horrified when confronted with indiscriminate violence at the school in Colorado. Let me tell you that we were also, but what the Alliance is doing to my people is no different. Violence. Indiscriminate. Three year old girl was killed in the bathroom of her home in Belgrade. We do not know exact figures, but at least 1.500 civilians were killed so far. Another thing. Some of you probably know that we do not have a professional Army. "Legitimate targets" consist of my students, my friends, my colleagues… ALL of them participated in Anti-Milosevic Rallies! And what about Novi Sad? Bombed constantly, incessantly, all the bridges destroyed? Why? An old town with a very mixed population – 26 nations living together and never voting for Milosevic's Socialists?

I fear for my country, I dread the consequences taking us back to the authoritarian past. I also fear for my friends and colleagues, and why not? I fear for my own well being. My answering machine still contains an answer in English. Two days ago I found a message: "Do you still receive msgs. from THOSE FASCISTS?"

Yes, I still receive msgs. from my FRIENDS. And I still believe that nothing good comes of the equasion "people=government".

Love to you all and PEACE to the Earth (this must sound totally, utterly outdated, so how about "Peace to Yugoslavia"?).

Slobodanka Nedovic
Professor
Faculty of Law
University of Belgrade

Do not ask me what I think of Yugoslav media. Do not ask me NOW. The state run media are always instrumentalized, manipulated and subservient (not to say brown-nosing) to the government. In USA and Western Europe they are. In my country not anymore.

My town, Novi Sad, is under great pressure today. Additional security measures are taken since it is suspected that NATO ***** wants to **** ** our post office building and cut off phones, and we've seen that all kinds of evil things can be expected from her. So, if this is the last message to come from me, stay safe, take care and mind you:

- those people to whom I've sent Novi Sad postcards may never get them; if you... do not get the postcard signed with 'insomnia' in three weeks' time, please sue your government. Why? Because there are reasons to suspect that post clerks are instructed to destroy all mail coming from Yugoslavia. And you all know that one of your constitutional rights says that no ***** can **** with your personal mail!

"Insomnia"
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad, Yugoslavia

[If I could talk to a U.S. Congressman] I'd tell him/her that this aliance war against a small underdeveloped country is a huge crime and injustice. How come? My country is no military power at all - it should be borne in mind that Yugoslavia has been under heavy sanctions for seven years, not allowed to export and import any goods except medicine and food. What my country does, is only fighting against group of terrorists who harrass and kill people of their own ethnic group who do not want to take arms against Yugo army. These terrorist also use Kosovo Albanian people as human shields in order to attack Yugo army, and they are financed by narco mafia. If there were ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia, then all its 26 ethnic groups would be cleansed, not only one! Ethnic cleansing is nothing but a carefully orchestrated propaganda to vindicate the warmongering. Ethnic cleansing is an excuse for alliance to endanger lives of 11 million Yugoslavs of 26 ethnic groups by constant bombing which mostly ruins civilian infostructure, it is an excuse to commit a huge war crime of turning a sovereign country into a waste land. Yugoslavia does what Great Britain does in Ireland - it fights against terrorism and it is its only 'sin', the only excuse to be submitted to air raids.

"Insomnia"
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad, Yugoslavia

However, nothing is calm and no dreams are sweet - four detonations at the lunch time severely damaged (damaged beyond repair, as I've heard) the last remaining bridge of novi sad, at the time when many people (workers repairing water and gas pipes, among them) were on and around it. The gang rape of Serbia continues after early this morning Milosevic's residence was burnt to ashes by four missiles. so the alliance goes on with vandalism - that is, VANDALLIANCE continues with splashing blood and gore on the Kosovo soap opera, while putting petrol embargo on Yugoslavia. Insomnia says good-bye to public transport, central heating, maybe even to bread and milk - for how they are to be distributed if there's no petrol? Good-bye cars, hello carts. His NATOness takes the surviving populace of my country back to the Middle Ages.

"Insomnia"
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad, Yugoslavia

We have all envisioned our country as free, open, democratic society and we had hoped that the West might help. I am very sorry to say that not only your part of the world withheld the help needed at the time, but it also helped the regime when the help was obviously needed. I am also sorry to say that I leaped out of my bed this morning, cheering RTS's capability to return into the air only hours after I have seen mutilated bodies shown on "Politika TV" and "Studio B", hanging from destroyed RTS building.

I have just learned that one of the Council members of CESID, a judge, was horribly beaten up (in hospital now) by a gang of masked people – in his own house hall.

Can you imagine the level of schizophrenia ?

It is frightfully dangerous and health damaging to try to be "the opposition" in Belgrade now. Who do you oppose? Priority 1 is to oppose those who are taking lives, livelihood of thousands of my compatriots and making us all victims of collective punishment. I, for one, was sure that even the notion was outdated and that the New World Order understood the difference. Not so any more. Pls. explain the difference!

You MUST remember the Protest three to four months long in Belgrade. You MUST remember faces, people who captivated western press. We have not changed and neither have thousands of Serbian citizens who joined us. Hundreds of thousands of your probable collateral damage never voted for Milosevic, and never would, until now. You gave him Serbia on the platter, and good appetite!

Personally, I have taught students of The Law School in Belgrade of democracy – liberal and representative. I have written a book on Welfare State. I am left with no words. I don't teach anymore. I only speak. Try to understand, what can I tell them about human rights as a pillar of modern democracy? Their basic right to life is endangered, and I have no way of helping them. They don't want to listen about "democracy" and I don't want to talk about it.

Slobodanka Nedovic
Professor
Faculty of Law
University of Belgrade

I don't have to mention which Conventions.

[name withheld]
Law student
Belgrade

The seat of ruling political parties is also there, but is it enough for making this building a valid target?

This attack may not contribute to the 'sightseeing destruction tour' phase of air strikes, which NATO launched a few days ago when bombing the Novi Sad municipal council building, but rather to the 'deMALLition' phase - that is, demolition of shopping malls and the like. The building destroyed in Belgrade mostly resembled to the London's central point (which is said to be ugly and dysfunctional, but nobody has set it on fire yet). So imagine bombing the central point or Empire State building, and you will see how absurd this NATO campaign is... this war led by NATO turns into drunken vandalism.

The last bridge of Novi Sad was severely damaged last night, and turned dysfunctional. Novi Sad's already severely reduced public transport has petrol for the next seven days only. NATO vandals still on their rage mission. Mission which will be accomplished when my country is demolished.

"Insomnia"
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad, Yugoslavia

Enough irony. This is DEADly serious.

Last night was the night of death and destruction, again. Innumerable factories and communications in Nis, Kursumlija, Ivanjica, Bujanovci bombed, new lives lost. Today, Blair triumphantly announced that 25% of Serbian petrol storage is destroyed. He forgets that most of this petrol would have been used by civilians (tanks and planes DO NOT use petrol!!!). He forgets that he fights fire with fire - in order to protect ethnic albanians, he destroys lives and prospects of other 25 ethnic groups living in yugoslavia. In order to protect a group of terrorists who do not even have a common goal of their fight he destroys the military forces of a sovereign country. Not he himself, of course, but his compliance with Alliance.

Small rooms, small minds, hope diminishing.

"Insomnia"
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad, Yugoslavia

1. We strongly condemn the NATO bombings which have hugely exacerbated violence in Kosovo and have caused the displacement of people outside and throughout Yugoslavia. We strongly condemn the ethnic cleansing of the Albanian population perpetrated by any Yugoslav forces. We strongly condemn the Kosovo Liberation Army's (KLA) violence targeted against the Serbs, moderate Albanians and other ethnic communities in Kosovo. The humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo - death, grief and.extreme suffering for hundreds of thousands of Albanians, Serbs and.members of other ethnic communities - has to be ended now. All refugees from Yugoslavia must immediately and unconditionally be allowed to return to their homes, their security and human rights guaranteed, and aid for reconstruction provided. Perpetrators of crimes against humanity whoever they are must be brought to justice.

2. The fighting between Serbian forces and KLA has to be stopped immediately in order to start a new round of negotiations. All sides must put aside their maximalist demands. There are (as in other numerous similar conflicts such as Northern Ireland) no quick and easy solutions. We all must be prepared for a long and painstaking process of negotiation and normalization.

3. The bombing of Yugoslavia by NATO causes destruction and growing numbers of civilian victims (at least several hundred, maybe a thousand, by now). The final outcome will be the destruction of the economic and cultural foundations of Yugoslav society. It must be stopped immediately.

4. The UN Charter, the Helsinki Final Act, the founding document of NATO, as well as the constitutions of countries such as Germany, Italy, Portugal, have been violated by this aggression. As individuals who have devoted their lives to the defense of basic democratic values, who believe in universal legal norms we are deeply concerned.that NATO's violation of these norms will incapacitate all those struggling for the rule of law and human rights in this country and elsewhere in the world.

5. NATO's bombings have further destabilized the southern Balkans. If continued this conflict can escalate beyond Balkan borders and, if turned into land military operations, thousands of NATO and Yugoslav soldiers, as well as Albanian and Serbian civilians, will die in a futile war as in Vietnam. Political negotiations toward a peaceful settlement should be reopened immediately.

6. The existing regime has only been reinforced by NATO's attacks in Yugoslavia by way of the natural reaction of people to rally around the flag in times of foreign aggression. We continue our opposition to the present anti-democratic and authoritarian regime, but we also emphatically oppose NATO's aggression. The democratic forces in Serbia have been weakened and the democratic reformist Government of Montenegro threatened by NATO's attacks and by the regime's subsequent.proclamation of the state of war and now find themselves between NATO's hammer and regime's anvil.

7. In dealing with the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia the leaders of the world community have in the past made numerous fatal errors. New errors are leading to an aggravation of the conflict and are.removing us from the search for peaceful solutions.

We appeal to all: President Milosevic, the representatives of the Kosovo Albanians, NATO, EU and US leaders to stop all violence and.military activities immediately and engage in the search for a political solution.

Belgrade, April 16, 1999

1. Stojan Cerovic, "Vreme" columnist and journalist.
2. Jovan Cirilov, Belgrade International Theater Festival (BITEF) selector and former director of the Yugoslav Drama Theater; Theater History Center Director.
3. Sima Cirkovic, Member Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Professor, Belgrade University, Dept. of History.
4. Mijat Damnjanovic, Former Professor, Belgrade University, Faculty of Political Sciences, Center for Public Administration and Local Government (PALGO) Director.
5. Vojin Dimitrijevic, Former head of the Department of International Law, Belgrade Law School; The Belgrade Center for Human Rights Director; UN Human Rights Committee former Vice Chairman
6. Dasa Duhacek, Director Women Studies Center, Board Member of Alternative Academic Educational Network (AAEN)
7. Milutin Garasanin, Member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts; Vice President of The Association for Research of South-Eastern Europe (UNESCO).
8. Zagorka Golubovic, Professor, Belgrade University, Department of Sociology; Chair Social Sciences Department of AAEN.
9. Dejan Janca, Professor, Novi Sad University, Law School.
10. Ivan Jankovic, Belgrade lawyer, human rights activist, Board.President of Center for Anti-War Action.
11. Predrag Koraksic, Belgrade caricaturist.
12. Mladen Lazic, Professor, Belgrade University, Department of Sociology, AAEN Board member.
13. Sonja Licht, President, Fund for an Open Society Executive Board.
14. Ljubomir Madzar, Professor Belgrade University, Faculty of Economy, Member Group-17.
15. Veran Matic, Editor in Chief, Belgrade Radio B92, President Alternative Network of Electronic Media (ANEM).
16. Jelica Minic, Secretary General, European Movement in Serbia.
17. Andrej Mitrovic, Professor, Belgrade University, Department of History.
18. Radmila Nakarada, Senior Reserach Fellow, Belgrade Institute for European Studies.
19. Milan Nikolic, Director, Center for Policy Studies.
20. Vida Ognjenovic, Theater director, playwrite.
21. Borka Pavicevic, Director, Center for Cultural Decontamination.
22. Jelena Santic, Anti-war 487 group, human rights activist.
23. Nikola Tasic, Associate member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Member European Academy.
24. Ljubinka Trgovcevic, Senior Research Fellow, Belgrade University, Department of History.
25. Srbijanka Turajlic, Professor, Belgrade University, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Board President AAEN.
26. Ivan Vejvoda, Fund for an Open Society Executive Director.
27. Branko Vucicevic, translator.

"Insomnia"
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad, Yugoslavia

Also some news. Last night we did not have bombing of Beograd (because of weather?), but the night before it was terrible. NATO aircrafts bombed Pancevo: refinery (for the fourth time), petrochemical plant, a factory producing fertilizers for agriculture...The whole that area was in flame and under the enormous very dangerous poison cloud. Fortunately for us in Beograd the wind was blowing up to the north, so we did not have serious problems. The cloud went north-east probably to Romania or Hungary. I hope that the wind decreased the level of danger. SO, THAT AMERICAN AND NATO AGGRESSORS STARTED BIO-CHEMICAL WAR NOT ONLY AGAINST US BUT AGAINST ALL OUR NEIGHBOURS. Are they human beings? What is the aim of this terrible aggression? They have been destroying almost all of our vital industrial centres. They are poisoning us. There are thousand and thousand civilians killed, Serbs, Albanians, Gypsies... That night a part of a bomb killed a three year old girl in Batajnica while she was in a bathroom! The other day NATO aircrafs killed more than 70 Albanians. IS IT THE STRATEGY OF THOSE WARRIORS TO DESTROY THE WHOLE YUGOSLAVIA?!!! If some of us survive what will be our future? They are destroying everything. Factories, hospitals, private flats, and now they are poisoning people and land. It is for sure that it will have terrible consequences on our agriculture. Is it our future - starvation?! Is it better to survive this tragedy or...? THIS IS MY APPEAL TO ALL MY FRIENDS AND TO ALL PEOPLE OF GOOD WILL: DO SOMETHING TO PREVENT THE TRAGEDY NOT ONLY TO MY COUNTRY, BUT TO ALL OF US ON THIS CONTINENT. TRY WHAT EVER YOU THING SUITABLE - PROTEST, WRITE LETTERS, TALK TO RESPONSIBLE PEOPLE...STOP THE BOMBS! STOP THE AGGRESSION! PREVENT ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE! PREVENT THE GLOBAL WAR! DO NOT WAIT! TOMORROW COULD BE LATE.

Professor Brana Markovic
Faculty of Political Science
University of Belgrade

While this issue of the "International Problems" was being prepared for printing, NATO forces launched attacks against our country on March 24, 1999. The research staff of the Institute of International Politics and Economics issued the following Statement and Appeal.

STATEMENT AND APPEAL FOR PEACE

The NATO armed attack against Yugoslavia is a serious violation of a number of provisions of international law. First of all it is a violation of the imperative rules of international law as written down in Article 2, paragraph 4 of the UN Charter, by which not only the use, but even the threat of use of armed force by States is absolutely prohibited. Armed force may be used only in accordance with the relevant resolution adopted by the UN Security Council with the aim of keeping the international peace and security and exceptionally in compliance with the resolution "United for Peace". States may individually resort to the use of armed force only in accordance with their right to self-defence that is affirmed by the Article 51 of the Charter. They may do it only to repulse the attack that has already started against them.

Therefore the armed action of the NATO member States against Yugoslavia is an act of aggression as given in the definition of aggression, which was unanimously adopted by the UN in 1974 (GAUN, Res. No. 3314). Contemporary international law had gradually begun to build at the First Peace Conference in The Hague (1899) and was conceptualised in the UN Charter in 1945. It is a reflection of the legal consciousness of mankind, of a conviction that in an organised democratic community problems must not be resolved by uncontrolled use of force. Therefore, the armed aggression against FR Yugoslavia is at the same time an attack against the very foundations of the international community. It is also an attempt to revert to the times when the undisguised force was above the rule of law.

The armed aggression committed by the nineteen NATO members States is an international wrongful act that implies international responsibility. The International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg trial established that the aggression or the crime against peace is an international crime that involves individual criminal responsibility. In accordance with the Article 6, paragraph 2 (b and c) and the Article 8 of the Statute of the Court members of the NATO armed forces are responsible for the war crimes. There are two kinds of responsibilities - the responsibility of individual states and responsibility of individuals who have participated in the aggression directly or as order givers. In accordance with international law, each individual who made the decision to commit aggression against Yugoslavia, including even the heads of the States and NATO officials, should be held responsible. In the spirit of the rule of law the responsibility should be established in impartial court proceedings.

There are strong indications that during its campaign against FRY the NATO forces have also committed serious violations of the rules of international humanitarian law of armed conflicts (The Geneva and Hague Conventions, etc.). All parties involved in the armed conflict caused by the intervention of the NATO against FRY are obliged to respect those rules. Civilian property is destroyed and damaged including the infrastructure essential for the life of civilians (bridges, railways, etc.), civilians are killed and their lives are endangered, the economy of FRY is being destroyed, the economic, environmental and other interests of the neighbouring countries are jeopardised, the environment is heavily degraded, etc. Civilians, primarily children, pregnant women, old and sick people suffer not only physically, but also because of psychological trauma. Each violation that is defined as a "grave breach" of the above mentioned law is an international crime, too. The basic rule of that law is that the parties in conflict are absolutely obliged to distinguish civilians and civilian property from combatants and military property; the former ones enjoy absolute protection. Therefore, if in carrying out the hostilities the NATO air force did not take measures of precaution, thus causing death of civilians and destruction of civilian property, NATO is responsible for its consequences. The responsibility for such actions follows the line of the so-called command responsibility that includes the highest rank officers who have commanded the operation as well as those who have directly performed the tasks in the field.

By attacking FR Yugoslavia the NATO has also violated its own Statute, particularly provisions under which NATO would act only if one of its member States were attacked (the NATO Treaty adopted in 1949, Articles No. 1, 2, 5 and 6). Apart from this, some NATO member States have violated their own Constitutions as well. This especially applies to Germany, which by participating in the aggression against FR Yugoslavia has violated both its own Constitution and the 1990 Unification Agreement, which provides for the new unified state never to take part in armed campaigns that are contrary to the provisions of its Constitution and the UN Charter. The Government of the USA has also violated its Constitution since, among other things, it lays down (Article No. VI) that the international treaties concluded by the USA are the supreme laws of this country that judges in all federal states should respect. The above mentioned treaties include the UN Charter as well as many other ones that have been violated by the committed aggression.

We appeal to the whole world public, and particularly to universities, research institutions and all people of goodwill, to condemn the NATO military action, to demand its cessation and to press for immediate political negotiations in order to avoid new victims, destruction of economic facilities, cultural property, places of warship of all religions, infrastructure, heavy degradation of the environment and all other damage, as well as to prevent further flagrant violation of contemporary international law.

Institute of International Politics and Economics, Belgrade

It was a wise decision - on Saturday night NATO repeated the attack and hit the factory! My neighbors told me that they saw at the other side of the river a huge, high cloud formed. Although fortunately quite a strong wind was blowing, all the day long cloud of ammonium, chlorine, etc. was spreading all over the city of Pancevo, changing direction from time to time to Belgrade. Yesterday evening I listened to the VOA (Voice of America) and I heard an interview with the Director General of that factory Mr. Miralem Dzindo (Muslim, according to his name) who said that percentage of poison gases was 10.000 (?!) higher than normal so that the south part of Pancevo is evacuated. An extra problem is that this year the country will remain without its own mineral fertilazers, there will be no money to buy them abroad, so that probably the country can expect very poor crop. That's how the weekend looked like in Belgrade area.

The morning news was terrible. This night NATO started to bomb the chemical factory in Umka, about 20 km west of Belgrade. The worst outcome is that it is located very near to the river Sava, where the most of Belgrade drinking water comes from. I checked CNN, NY Times & Wash.Post news, but they did not report about it up to now. If the information given by our media is true, that means that a new phase of war started – combination of genocide (performed successfully by both sides) and ECOCIDE.

...About the "emergency laws"...my personal opinion is that some elements of them are too tough and hard, what is not surprising having in mind some regulations on different topics enacted before the war (such as the new Law about the University, which provoked our strong negative reaction in public). On the other hand, being a martial law, some parts of those provisions seem to me quite necessary, as it is a war-time, so that some rights and freedoms could be suspended, likewise in the Habeas Corpus. The real problem will appear if an abuse of limited rights and freedom take place. As the situation is developing, it would not be impossible at all. It is but a good extra proof that bombing will devastate position of those who fight for more democracy in Serbia.

Dr. Sima Avramovic
School of Law, University of Belgrade

The second question is why did the Albanians leave Kosovo? I think that that question is very complex and that the answer lies in all fields...

But, maybe overloaded by the position of this states' citizens I underline that my exclusive opinion of the cause of their exodus is the consequence of NATO attacks. Let's go from the last years' riots. It is a fact that the pressure on Kosovo has been taking place for a longer period. I will explain later my opinion about that pressure. The whole last year was led by negotiations and in quiet war between the security forces of this state and the paramilitary ethnic army, the so-called KLA. There were murders, there was maltreatment, but THERE WAS NO EXODUS. The immigration was slow.

The one thing interesting about this is the total disorder of ethic population structure. Since the time of Tito's death, until today, all this period of time, which is something under 20 years, elapsed in quiet but continuous, and permanent immigration of Serbs. On the other hand, the national increase of Albanians is six times bigger than in France for instance. The special problem, which has been happening for the last 20 years is that the census of Kosovo population couldn't be organized. The Albanians, as an ethnic community, which were legally called the ethnic minority didn't want to be censused. They avoided the realization of every citizen rights and obligations. They don't think of this country as their own country. For that time they have been leaving the segments of participation in organization of the government citizen rights and obligations. For example:

• they have made parallel primary school, high school and faculty institutions, they didn't want to go by the education program of this state, but they have made one of their own education programs, they've established their own schools, faculties without the permission of the state's organs and realized that education program in private houses.

• the most of them have left their state services and made a parallel economy system, and they have paid taxes in their own parabudget, established just for themselves. While they didn't pay the legal taxes for this state. Beside the taxes in the field of public income there were funds for health and pension-disabled insurance which the Albanians didn't pay money into, too. But they have used the services of medicine institutions, electric power and free living in state's flats and houses. For example, about 50% of the vehicles on the roads of Kosovo didn't have insurance , didn't have the registration which is extended every year.

• even a government was formed in exile, so a paragovernement and a paraparliament which financed itself by this way, and some other very strange ways.

By this what I said, I just want to make a picture that the Albanians, in fact, didn't want to be citizens and their exclusive and only goal was a making of their ethnically pure state.

This is very interesting from both aspects. By my personal, subjective opinion the opposition in Yugoslavia is the strongest than in any other state of the former SFRY [Socialist Federated Republic of Yugoslavia], and instead of the Albanians voting in the elections and helping that opposition to brake down one regime they didn't come out on the elections. Thanks to that fact and starting from the percent number of votes from the total number of voters because over 1/4 of the members of parliament in the parliament of Kosovo, those parliament spots were taken by the representatives of Milosevic's party thanks to the votes of the Serb voters. I think that that was the only reason why Milosevic stayed on power, and I claim that if the Albanians came out on the elections, the situation would be much different. If they participated in that authority, if they wanted to feel it like their own state authority, to take place in it, to be citizens they would be totally same as everyone else, they would have the same rights, and the same obligations, too. Like playing taxes, going to school, have their own media, the point is their only goal was the separation , territory and ethnic separation and later connecting to Albania, taking parts of Montenegro and FYR of Macedonia.

The exodus which happened by my exclusive opinion was made on that way that the whole Albanian people were taken same as the so called KLA. They thought of it as their own army, they financed it, the helped it and volunteered for it, because they thought and were seen that they do not want nothing else but the independence of Kosovo. That was the goal which wanted all their politic leaders: Azem Vlasi, Buyar Bukoshi, Dr Ibrahim Rugova and others. The only difference is in that some wanted that goal to come true by the long-period method type of Mahmati Gandhi and the others on the way that is happening now, or has happened, by war.

Simply that peaceful process got to boring to them, the process of disintegration like a too slow one. And then they wished that goal should be realized by war, by arming and creating of paramilitary army, terrorism, killing, planting bombs, which normally taken the authority organs to send specialist and military units for preventing of that military movement.

What actually happened by starting of bombing?

We should not lose from our sight the so called "accord" from Rambouillet. That accord, which the Serbian government did not want to sign contained a recently revealed military top secret. By that accord , the Serbian government was supposed to accept installing of NATO forces as a control of that accord, no only on Kosovo, but on the territory of the whole Yugoslavia, their free moving without any territorial or time limits, and three years after that agreement the referendum was to be organized which would lead to revealing the legal status of Kosovo. And what was to be expected, to Serbian government sign this accord? It was to by the majorization of Albanian votes after three years automatically accept separation of it's part of territory, because the referendum should take place only on the territory of Kosovo, not the whole Yugoslavia. That was everything the Albanians wished for.

I remind that after 50 years of WWII large number of people took refuge from Albania on the territory of Yugoslavia, mostly on Kosovo, so today, we are dealing with information of at least 300 000 inhabitants from Albania, with having in mind that Yugoslavia was and still is much more economically developed than Albania. I also remind that all those Albanians probably married and not having the status of Yugoslavian citizens, they have made families, they have children, they have grandchildren and etc. An enormous large number of citizens didn't want to take personal documents, they don't even have the most basic documents like birth certificates. They live in the so called family co-operation communities in houses that have big walls, mostly 5-4 families under one roof. They are very closed , they use the custom rights and laws and sheriatic law. The Albanians are mostly Ilirians, but by time, they took Christianity: the Catholic, the Greek-Catholic, or the Orthodox religion. But, with the invasion of the Ottoman empire they took the Islamic too. That number was evenly matched some time ago, but today over 93% of Albanians are Islamic religion.

From the moment of starting of NATO bombings, a large number of Albanians [became refugees]. My personal opinion is that they [became refugees] because of three reasons:

1. I remind you that they are the people who are taken the same as the paramilitary army of the so called KLA. Because of fear of revenge, they have started leaving their homes. That is the syndrome which is known from the action of ethnic cleansing of the state of Croatia in the operation called "Storm" in the Croatian province of Krajina in 1995, which was inhabited with Serbs about 80%. In that action over 280 000 Serbs were expelled from Croatia. By seeing that do not have a large insurance in the so-called KLA, a large number of Albanians started leaving their homes.

2. The second reason is the fear of bombing and killing in those bombings. Large number of them thought the bombing is going to be just on Kosovo, and started leaving their homes. We should not forget, that by these assumptions in this moment on the territory of Kosovo there wasn't 60% of the population before bombing, but there are no Serbs, no Highlanders, all they have escaped. A large number of Albanians have took refuge to inner Serbia, where there are about 40 000 Albanian refugees. So, on the territory of the FR Yugoslavia currently there is 700 000 refugees from all parts of former SFR Yugoslavia. Even the writer of these lines is a refugee from Bosnia with a wife and three kids. I think that because of NATO bombings in Serbia just itself there are people who ran away to other towns that were not and are not going to be bombed and to other countries and total of 300 000 of them. The writer of these lines moved two of his small children to Bosnia, which is not going to be bombed by NATO bombs.

3. The third reason is expelling by Serbian police forces which is inhuman and can't be justified by anything. I define it as a revenge of all this what has happened, but I am disgusted by this and I can't justify it.

There, there are the reasons and causes of these bloody happenings on the Balkans in these days of March and April.

The world is shocked, and it stick its head in the sand like an ostrich. It lets the mediocrity to do what they want under the excuse of defending the elementary human rights. All the economic and human goods of one country are attacked without any wish to find a political solution under the shield of fight for democracy, killing of refugee convoys are made, blowing up bridges and hospitals and everything is hiding itself under the excuse that it is a war and war lets the possibility of civilian loses....

Where are the people with minds? The solution is known by everyone. The defense of a man is done by negotiating, by giving a hand, by giving all rights to the Albanians, but not by weapons, separatism and an ethnically pure state. Oh, you clever western organized world, come into the third millenium with a white dove in one hand and with an olive branch in the other, invest in the dust and ashes of the Balkans, make peace between countries in war, not by bombs, but with dollars and democratic process. Only by that we will believe you that you want the world to be better.

Dr Zoran Ristic
Lawyer
Novi Sad

This story may be an answer to the FAQ from my friends, Serbian and foreign, living abroad: Do you see those Albanian refugees pictures, or do you hear anything about them? The media in Serbia has been very restrictive since a state of war has been proclaimed. The exclusive right to report about the strikes, its consequences and its nature belongs to RTS (Serbian official Television). They also have the exclusive right to comment on it. There is a small difference in the tonality and vocabulary of RTS and some more or less "independent" media that is still surviving. One can sense, almost physically, the self-censorship of the authors, their deliberation over every word, their concern and , finally their fear.

What my friends also don't understand is what it means to be in war. For Americans, this is a total abstraction - something a lot more similar to video games than to real life. It's been a long time since they had to fight or to fear for their homes and their children. For Europeans it is somewhat closer but still not close enough. Understandable, it was miles away even from me, and I could see it coming. I just wouldn't believe it.

Among all the other things a state of war means that "it's not time to be a media hero", as an "independent" journalist put it a few days ago. It's not time for any heroism except the military kind and , unfortunately, the militant one. It's time for a single opinion and a single color. It's time for just one flag and the best you can do is not to stand too close under it. There is not much space left for questions and doubts. It's a time of fear. And fear takes people back to the animalistic level of thinking and acting.

New law acts have been introduced in Serbia, with harsh punishments for any kind of economic speculations and eventual "black market" transactions. Those acts also allow detention up to 60 days, if there is any suspicion of crimes like possession of ammunition, possession of goods that fall under the war regime (like food) or possession of propaganda materials with enemy content. Under this same suspicion, the police can, without a warrant, search all the personal belongings, car or apartment of the suspect. Large facilities for opening letters and packages have also been introduced. Everybody has to report a change of address in 24 hours, or be sentenced to 30 days in jail. Everyone over 14 has to have an ID card.

For the first time in the last 20 days I heard somebody criticizing that atmosphere which has created even more fear, than we have already had. Vuk Draskovic, the member of the federal government, and one of the opposition leaders in Serbia, spoke about the murder of the journalist Slavko Curuvija, and said that Serbia΄s goal is to defend itself and not to fight against the whole world.

So the answer is no, people here can't see much of the Albanian refugees, just as my friends abroad can't really see the one-year-old child Bojana, killed in the Podujevo strikes. What was her crime? Or all those people in the train. Or ethnic Albanians in the refugees convoy? They were termed as "minimum collateral damage" by Mr. Solana. They are not even considered people , or men, women and children with names and lives. Just "damage"!

There is no war in all those countries where my friends lives. Just manipulation. Without any intention to defend any crime that Serbian policy has or is provoking, I definitely don't understand one simple thing: How is it that nobody asks where the refugees were on March 15th, or 20th, or even 24th when the strike began? How can so many people just accept the story that everything started because of the refugees, without noticing that the refugees appeared only after the beginning of the strikes? Before that there was a ethnical rights problem, and a territorial military-guerilla conflict, but all those people who are on the borders now, waiting for bread were in their houses.

And how comes that the reports are mostly based on a one-sided source. What does a "confidential Albanian source" mean or what credibility does Hashim Tachi as a source have. He's directly involved in the conflict so how could he be trusted to provide unbiased information on the conduct of the Serbs in Kosovo!? At least the legal community should know that. Western media is using terms such as "somewhat similar to a mass grave", but what everybody hears is mass graves, here they come these evil Serbs, again. That is pure manipulation, only slightly more sophisticated than Serbian propaganda. As for comparing and likening the Bosnian war to this Serbian - Albanian conflict is proof of a complete misunderstanding of facts, history, nations and motives. But that's another story.

I hope that people around the world, who are still capable of thinking instead of blindly believing in television, will also be capable of stopping the violence. You don't need to be very smart to understand that the only result of violence is more of it.

And maybe the law makers around the world will find some way to change this new way of starting a war and then justifying it retroactively, with tremendous media and especially TV support. As well as to create an international criminal court capable to judge any crime of humanity, and any kind of mass manipulation which, as I see it, is one of the greatest dangers for the future world. Everything, micro or macro, becomes so much like Orwell that we should ask ourselves what kind of world our kids will live in. It is so easy to create an enemy, people in former Yugoslavia learnt that lesson only too well. Maybe it`s time to try a harder way - to use our intelligence to reinvent some ethical principals instead of simply accepting what the media is serving on their controlled and bloodhungry menus.

[name withheld]
lawyer
Belgrade

Really, when is the night sky over Yugoslavia going to be dark blue again? When are things going to be 'by default' again? The Novi Sad petrol refinery was shot by four missiles. The heavy, suffocating smell of gas and petrol spread fast, and lingered over city for hours and hours.

Heraclitus said that if the world turned into smells, our nostrils would recognize it. Last night and today, we believe more to our nostrils than our eyes.

"Insomnia"
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad, Yugoslavia

[name withheld]

THE DECREE ON THE INTERNAL AFFAIRS DURING THE STATE OF WAR

I. THE BASIC PROVISION

Article 1

The Internal Affairs Act and other rules in the field of internal affairs shall be applied during the state of war unless it is otherwise determined by this Decree.

II. THE PREROGATIVES OF THE MINISTRY OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS

Article 2

The Ministry can restrict the movements (in the further text: detain) any person who disturbs public ordre and peace, speculates on the market under the conditions of the state of war, withdraws merchandise from circulation, creates stocks through the purchase of a large quantities of merchandise with the intention of contraband, raises prices without permission, conditions the purchase of staple food by purchase of other merchandise or by payment in foreign currency, or in any other way disturbs the prescribed currents of the provision of citizens with basic food or merchandise under special regime, as well as in other cases of endangering the security of citizens and the defence and security of the Republic, if it is necessary for the establishment of public order and peace or prevention of danger to defence and security.

Detention of persons may exceed 24 hours if due to insurmountable obstacles there is no possibility to initiate proceedings for misdemeanour of criminal offence.

The decisions on detention of persons according to para 1 of this article shall be enforced by institutions for the enforcement of institutional sanctions.

Article 3

When required by the reasons of the defence of the Republic the Minister may impose the protective measure of compulsory residence on a person representing a danger for the security of the Republic.

The measure from para 1 of this article will remain in force as long as the reasons for it exist, but not longer than 60 days. After this period the person shall be handed over to the organs of the judiciary.

The Ministry shall secure the conditions for the enforcement of the measure referred to in para. 1 of this article.

Article 4

For reasons of security competent officials of the Ministry may at the time of arrest, detention or deprivation of liberty search persons without a search warrant.

Competent officials may, without a search warrant, search persons and their belongings, vehicles and premises in order to determine whether such persons posses without permission arms, ammunition, explosives and other material that can be used for attacks or diversions, merchandise which is under special regime during the state of war, as well as propaganda material with hostile content.

Article 5

When so necessitated by the interests of security and defence of the country competent officials may, on the basis of the decision of their immediate superior, open letters and other postal articles, if there is a well founded reason to believe that they are related to a criminal offence.

Article 6

The competent officials of the Ministry can use firearms if they cannot otherwise prevent the escape of a person found committing a criminal offence which is prosecuted ex officio.

III LABOR RELATIONS AND DISCIPLINARY RESPONSIBILITY

Article 7

The status of a competent official shall be possessed by all workers in the Ministry of Internal Affairs (in the further text: the Ministry) designated as such by the Minister of Internal Affairs (in the further text: the Minister) or a person empowered by the Minister to do so.

Competent officials shall be bound to obey all orders of their superiors issued with the purpose of performing their work, except orders instructing them to commit acts which represent criminal offences.

Article 8

When so demanded by the interest of service the Minister or a person empowered by him/her may transfer a worker of the Ministry or temporarily assign him/her to work in another organisation or unit of the Ministry as long as this is demanded by the interests of the service.

The worker who is transferred or temporarily assigned to another organisation or a unit is bound to report to work immediately.

Article 9

In addition to grave offences provided for in the Act on Civil Servants in the Organs of the State and in the Internal Affairs Act, the following shall also be considered grave violations of working obligations and duties:

1. unwarranted absence or arbitrary departure from a war unit or institution;
2. violation of military secrets, recklessness and insufficient vigilance in the protection of documents or data;
3. failure to submit, or submission of incorrect reports or information, forging of official documents or information and use of forged documents;
4. manifestation of national, racial and religious intolerance and opposition to military, political and economic measures of the organs of the state, which can be conducive to the weakening of the unity in the defence of the country;
5. any other action or omission representing a grave violation of rules and orders or serious neglect and obstruction of the correct and smooth functioning of the service.

In addition to the measures and penalties provided for by the Internal Affairs Act grave violations of the working obligations and duties may be punished by the following:

1. restriction of movement of up to 60 days;
2. degradation to a lower degree or rank for the duration of 1 to 2 years.

The measures and penalties for grave violations of working obligations and duties shall be imposed by the head of the department of the Ministry or a person empowered by him/her, upon the proposal of the immediate superior.

Article 10

Offences against the working obligations which have failed to cause, or could not cause, damaging consequences and which by their nature, conditions under which they have been committed and other circumstances do not represent a grave offence against the rules of service or do not gravely endanger the interest and reputation of the service shall be considered light offences against the working duties.

In addition to the penalties provided for by the Internal Affairs Act the following penalties may be imposed:

1. prohibition to leave the barracks for up to 4 days;
2. restriction of movement for up to 30 days.

The penalties for the light offences against the working duties shall be imposed by the immediate superior in the police war unit.

Article 11

The penalty of restriction of movement in articles 9 and 10 in this Decree will be enforced in the premises of the Ministry.

Article 12

The worker against whom a measure or punishment for the violation of working obligations and duties has been pronounced may submit an appeal according to law. The appeal does not delay the enforcement.

Article 13

Students of the School of Internal Affairs above the age of 16 may be recruited to police units.

IV FINAL PROVISION

Article 14

This Decree shall enter into force on the day following its publication in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia.

Belgrade, 31 March 1999

President of the Republic
Signed: Milan Milutinovic

The Official Gazette of The Republic of Serbia, No. 17, 7 April 1999

******************

THE DECREE ON THE ASSEMBLIES OF CITIZENS DURING THE STATE OF WAR

Article 1

The Assembly of Citizens Act shall be applied during the state of war unless it is otherwise provided by this Act (sic!).

Article 2

A public gathering can be convened and held, and persons can appear at the gathering, only with prior permission of the competent organ, irrespective of whether the gathering is held in closed premises or in open air and irrespective of its nature.

The provisions of para 1 of this article are not applied when the public gathering is convened by an organ of the state.

Article 3

A legal person convening or holding a public gathering or appearing at it without a prior permission of a competent organ shall be fined with up to 200 000 new dinars.

For the misdemeanour in para 1 of this article the responsible person of the legal person shall be fined with up to 10 000 new dinars or imprisoned for up to 60 days.

A physical person will be punished for the misdemeanour in para 1 of this article by a fine of up to 10 000 new dinars or by imprisonment of up to 60 days.

Article 4

This Decree shall enter into force on the day of its publication in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia.

Belgrade, 1 April 1999

President of the Republic
Signed: Milan Milutinovic

For my nights are still spent in shelter, that goes without saying.

When speaking of mercy, I always remember Shakespeare's 'The Merchant of Venice', where Portia, who is impersonating a judge, says that 'the quality of mercy is never strained', since mercy is a gentle rain dropping from the sky, blessing both those who give and receive it... she also says that mercy, 'an attribute to god', seasons justice. The very next moment, she forgets about mercy and ruthlessly ruins a man who may have been stupid, blundered and short sighted, but who only wanted his justice unseasoned. She excels in humiliating a Jew named shylock, and calls it mercy. She strips him off of his property and civil rights and calls it justice. Rhetoric wins in all times, obviously. Today, as well: for instance, terrorists are called 'liberation army', and thus their atrocities are turned into martyrdom. Still, in Shakespeare's time nobody was fooled to think that a war can be humanitarian. Are people getting stupid today, or just a bit more brain-washed? Maybe it is me who is stupid - I should understand that this war led by NATO is humanitarian because I am still allowed to have water, electricity and Internet. On the other hand, I am denied petrol and central heating, but you cannot have it all, not even in a humanitarian war, can you?

"Insomnia"
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad, Yugoslavia

The NATO forces have launched an aggression against my country - the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

An independent and sovereign country, a member of the United Nations which was never an aggressor in its history nor endangered others, was attacked without any provocation. The UN Charter and all norms of international law have been thus grossly violated. The world peace has been endangered.

The NATO alliance led by the USA has launched criminal operations of bombing the FRY territory destroying its economic facilities, telecommunication systems and traffic routes of strategic importance. By their barbaric attacks and destruction of hospitals, schools and kindergartens, as well as cultural institutions, churches, monasteries and other shrines of the Serbian nation, they have heralded the age which will see the end of civilisation.

Every day we witness the killing of civilians, including an increasing number of children and the infirm.

The NATO aggression has caused a humanitarian disaster of unprecedented proportions and its victims are citizens of all nationalities, religions and political opinions.

Before the eyes of the entire world, on the threshold of the 21st century a process is unfolding of the total destruction of an independent and sovereign country, of its economic and other potentials and a total annihilation of a whole nation whose only sin is that it loves Yugoslavia, refuses to accept occupation and to cede part of its territory. Namely, the world is witnessing the ordeals of the people that throughout its glorious history has rendered a major contribution to the development of the European civilisation, but also made huge sacrifices in the defence of independence, freedom and democracy. That is why we are duty bound by our profession to state that aggressors against FRY and its people have committed the gravest crimes against humanity and international law.

The unity and determination of my people to defend its country, its freedom and independence are immeasurable and surpass the might and the power of the aggressor as confirmed in an inequitable and heroic combat that has amazed the whole world. We shall defend ourselves with all available means and at any cost to the last man. Both justice and law are on our side. The whole freedom-loving world is on our side including citizens in the NATO members state.

Honourable colleagues, Irrespective of our different political and other opinions, regional and global interests I invite you to, guided by your professionalism and ethics, raise your voice against the violation of the UN Charter and the international legal order in general. If you decide to protect these universal values of contemporary world, as a member of your government you can significantly contribute to the stopping of this criminal NATO aggression against my country and of the suffering of an innocent nation. In this manner you will contribute to the protection of peace, freedom and democracy and thus secure a place of dignity in the hearts of Yugoslavs.

Let the law and justice for which as professionals and men of ethics we should strive, determine your attitude to this appeal. Respectfully yours

Zoran Knezevic
FEDERAL MINISTER OF JUSTICE OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA

When this senseless and insane aggression on Yugoslavia that violates and destroys the lives of all nationalities, stops, there will certainly be national and legal guarantees that will support the return of the inhabitants who have left Kosovo and Metohia under NATO air raids. The people that return to their homes, the members of all ethnic groups in Kosovo, don't have the refugee status according to the 1951 Geneva International Convention on the refugee status, and also the existing national regulations brought according to the Convention. Therefore, as the Yugoslav citizens they enjoy all the rights other citizens of Yugoslavia have. However, apart from this legal status, it is essential that The High UN Refugee Commissariat working with The Republic Refugee Commissariat give the crucial contribution for solving this problem. Furthermore, the negotiations of our government with the representatives of the Albanian ethnic minority about the creation of the mutual program for the return of the refugees and the displaced people is taking place.

We remind you that the exodus of the refugees caused by the war, on the territories of The Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia, mostly affected Serbs. However, The International Community didn't explain that as "a humanitarian catastrophe" as it does now, eventhough under the strikes of NATO aviation far less people left their homes. The federal Republic of Yugoslavia already faced the problem of the legal regulation of the refugee status a few years ago. The High UN Commissariat and The Republic Commissariat of Serbia and Montenegro were working together on the census of refugees in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from April 14, to May 30, 1996. The census of the people endangered by war covered 617.700 subjects, 537.973 of which according to The International Law and The refugee Law regulations have the status of refugees or persecuted people. Out of 537.973 refugees on the territory of The Republic of Serbia 232.944 came from Bosnia and Herzegovina, 47.909 out of which came from The Republic of Srpska. From The Republic of Croatia 290.667 people came. 189.000 people that came from this territory after August 5, 1995 have the status of the persecuted people. Most refugees and persecuted people remained in Vojvodina, 229.811 or 42.7%, in Belgrade 140.662 or 26.1%, in Serbia without Belgrade 148.367 or 27.6% and on Kosovo and Metohia 19.097 or 3.6% of the total of refugees and persecuted people. The International Community didn't react to the great exodus of Serbs from Krajina in August 1995. After the Croation military action called "The Storm" (Oluja), in a few days 250.000 Serbs came from Dalmatia, Lika, Kordun and Banija. The lust influx of refugees differed from the previous ones not only for the great number of people who suddenly left their homes but also for their complete impoverishing. Escaping from the dangers of war, Serbs from Krajina took only the necessary things, their travel to Serbia was full of traumas. On their way, the caravans of people were bombarded, their survival was highly uncertain. This, also, hasn't been explained as a humanitarian catastrophe eventhough the majority of these refugees still live on the territory of Yugoslavia and experience the horrors of war once again. In order to inform you, we want to stress that the legal position of the refugees is regulated in April 1992 by The Law on refugees of The republic of Serbia and The Regulation on the care for refugees, where all the rights of the refugees according to the international documents are guaranteed.

Prof. Dr. Slobodanka Konstantinovic Vilic, LL.D.
Full professor at the Faculty of Law, Nis

I'm not the only person who feels this way. Through the night, you can hear choir of voices shouting in support of Yugoslav air defense. Many people swarm in front of their buildings so that they could view air maneuevres in the dark and support defenders. War is a spectacle, even when your life is at stake.

In spite of ardent defenders, Novi Sad petrol refinery was bombed for the umpteenth time last night. Serbs us right? No, just leaves innocent and impoverished people without city traffic and central heating.

new targets emerge - even more risky and more dangerous ones. One of these new targets is Subotica, a town on the very border between Yugoslavia and Hungary, situated in the area inhabited mostly by Hungarian populace. Is NATO trying the Kosovo Albanian scenario on Hungarians? Is it trying to banish them out of their homes, same as it did with Kosovo Albanians? I hope my prophetic soul is wrong this time.

"Insomnia"
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad, Yugoslavia

Dr. Sima Avramovic
School of Law, University of Belgrade

Even though the picture of the body shield of the factory workers was going araound the world, because they were protecting their daily bread, this really civil factory is completely destroyed. And, of course, 126 injured; the number of killed is not anounced jet because of well-knoun reasons. Then again, on the 12th of April, at night, on Christian Orthodox Easter Sunday, 6 missiles at first, and ten minutes later 9 missiles hit the factory. Unofficial data, 36 people were injured. Factory is irreparably destroyed, 40.000 workers in the city of Kragujevac and 30.000 workers in dislocated factories with members of their families make the figure of at least 200.000 people. What else can I say. They are acusing the factory for making parts for fighting planes. What a great lie! The factoy is civil, exclusively civil. In the attack of the factory, three elementary schools were destroyed.

That is a shame because Kragujevac throughout the history gave great sacrifes, especially during the Second World War when thousands of civilians were brutaly killed. And now again, city of Joy and industry, open-hearted people, science, becomes dead city, city of Darkness.

My only daughter is turning 12 today. She cannot celebrate her birthday. She cannot have normal life, safe dream. She jumps, waks and talks in her sleep because she is frightened. How many children will be mentally healthy after this permanettly present fear?

Prof. dr Emilija Karajovic
Faculty of Law
University of Kragujevac

Having the opportunity to see some of the foreign TV programmes (RAI, Sky, CNN, BBC...), reading some foreign newspapers through Internet, and getting more and more letters from my friends from various countries, I could conclude that foreign war propaganda was extremely one-sided, too. In the last few days it is a bit more objective, for they, probably, cannot avoid some obvious facts and some terrible pictures that all people can see due to Internet and some more objective TV. (My brother can watch 60 TV programmes from all over the world). Now you can see some of the terrible things - Aleksinac (15 killed), Zlatibor, rackets on the international train Beograd - Solun (last figures - 12 killed). But that is only a small part of what we have been seeing every night directly or on TV. It is nightmare. The night before last we watched air battle over our head for about 20 minutes...

You probably cannot understand us being frightened and calm almost at the same time. You can't probably understand that people are at the noon concert singing, in the afternoon in theatres (no more evening performances for NATO could do something bad), and during the night waiting for bloody bombs. It is really strange even for me. Then - one day is horrified (Aleksinac, train disaster); the other day is a bit better, some lights. For instance today is a mixture of terrible news and some, if I may say, good one about the possibilities for something (I still don't know what) after all these contacts in the last two days. The first priority is the bombs to stop and refugees to come back home (Albanians, Serbs and all the rest). But...you can imagine that after the war it would be very difficult to live in this country. We do not have any other (reserved) country, fortunately or unfortunately, I am not quite sure now.

I don't want to write any more about Clinton, Blair and..., or some other persons involved in this tragedy. We shall all know the real truth very soon. Who is responsible for what.

I am really sorry to tell you but number of casualties on NATO side is, unfortunately, higher than figures I quoted in one of my letters. You will probably read this in your newspapers in a few days.

...I HOPE that tomorrow will be another day. I HOPE we can say: all this bloody war is over; no more sirens, no more bombs, no more refugees. We are all normal again. If so you will get "something completely different" letter.

Professor Brana Markovic
Faculty of Political Science
University of Belgrade

PS. Just this moment it was announced that NATO aircrafts bombed and killed more than 60 Albanians on their return to home in Kosovo!!! The journalists will have the opportunity to see that.

Dr. Sima Avramovic
School of Law, University of Belgrade

Yesterday they also hit an empty ex-military object (for which every bird in Belgrade knows that is evacuated), so close to two hospitals in Belgrade: the first is one of the best equipped hospital in Belgrade, sc. the Military Medical Academy (which always hosts at least a half of civilian patients, retired military officers and their families, as well as wounded or ill active soldiers and officers), while the second is the Orthopedist-Surgery Clinic. Most windows are broken, parts of walls and ceilings felt on people - some patients are wounded, others evacuated from damaged areas (as buildings are huge), three of them got an immediate hearth infarct, a lot of expensive medical equipment is damaged.

People here do not believe anymore in explanations that we hear from NATO officials that all those are just "a fatal errors" and inevitable collateral damage. There are so many civilian casualties last days, that it seems that a phase of psychological war against civilians has just started. Some of our colleagues claim that there are elements for a legal responsibility, particularly of the pilot, who targeted the civil train and who had an electronic control of the bomb way up to the very end of the shot, particularly as it all happened in clear daily conditions.

Considering Albanian refugees it seems that the flow almost stopped, but immediately the new dramatic story was created - Serbian forces entered Albanian territory! Of course, our officials denied it. But, even if it happened temporarily in the course of the military action (in what I believe), it is curious that there were absolutely no comments during last months when almost every day big groups of soldiers (trained in campuses in Albania) were dropping into territory of FRY (including native Kosovars, Albanian soldiers, mujahedins from other Muslim countries, etc.). It seems that the story about refugees became too exploited for CNN public, so that something new has to be offered to keep the tension and excuse the continuation of the air attacks (with 300 airplanes more!).

I have to stop at that point, as I became biased.

Dr. Sima Avramovic
School of Law, University of Belgrade

Before all, I stress that Serbia, a small country, took part in both World Wars on allies' side and contributed a great deal to the destruction of fascism.

How did this war start ? How is it that Yugoslavia, a European country, is bombed at the edge of new millennium ?

Yugoslavia is sovereign country, one of the founding members of the UN, and NATO forces bomb it.

NATO does not have a mandate from Security Council of UN to conduct this Bombing. That is why I think that this represents interference in the internal problems of a sovereign country.

This NATO adventure can badly influence world's development at the edge of new era.

Who is responsible for this bad situation of international affairs ?

Is my country responsible because it is defending its integrity and territory ?

At the France peace talks, my country offered to Kosovo Albanians the strongest autonomy and that offer were rejected very briefly.

The document, which was signed only by Albanians, was not the subject of negotiations, and it was made by the American administration.

The American People do not know that this document denies Serbs and serbian laws on Kosovo, that there are no serbian political institutions, that the terrorist KLA will become the Kosovo army and that Albanians will be permitted to vote in 3 years for independence from Serbia.

The leader of the Kosovo Albanian negotiating team in France Hassim Taci is a notorious terrorist and assassin, the one who killed 7 serbian police officers in Kosovo during the past few years !

The judgements of the American Administration are wrong. The main problem is not the president of our country, Slobodan Milosevic, who does not want to sign the ugly peace document. No Serb should be allowed to sign such peace deal, because it would be equal to surrender and losing territory. I would not sign it either, although I am different political orientation from my president.

My legal opinion is the following:

1. The attack of the NATO military forces on Yugoslavia that was initiated by air strikes on March 24, 1999 and that still continues, is made in direct contravention of the UN Charter articles 1 and 2, 39 and 42, because it was undertaken without a proper prior decision of the UN Security Council and because it was not undertaken for the purpose of maintaining or establishing international peace and security.

2. The attack of NATO on our country has all features of aggression as defined by the Resolution of the UN General Assembly number 3314-XXXIX dated December 14, 1974, because it was not based on the UN Charter, because it was directed against sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and because it comprises bombardment, decisions of certain countries to allow the acts of aggression to be launched from their territory and the use of banned explosive devices.

NATO action is an act of aggression according to the definition of aggression, adopted by the United Nations with the concurrence of all states now using force against FRY. Unfortunately, 19 members of NATO and of the United Nations have participated in this illegal action; among them three permanent members of the Security Council, who bear special responsibility for the protection of international peace and security.

Since the pronouncement of the Nuremberg judgement in 1946 aggression has been considered an international crime entailing criminal responsibility for its perpetrators.

3. "Humanitarian intervention" cannot justify an act of aggression; neither can the circumstances in Yugoslavia, including the situation in Kosovo now of the beginning of the hostilities, deprive the perpetrated deed of its illegality.

NATO charges that Albanian refugees and so-called ethnic cleansing are caused by Serbs, not NATO bombarding, insult human intelligence.

4. The bombardment violates the 1922 Hague Rules on aerial war, in particular article 24, because it is not directed exclusively against military facilities, and it also violates the provisions of the 1949 Geneva Convention providing for the existence of protected zones for wounded, ill, elderly and children.

5. The bombardment violates the provisions of the 1949 Geneva convention on the protection of civilians in the times of war, because the attacks are ruthlessly destroying and/or threatening human lives and civilian property.

6. The bombardment violates the Convention on the protection of cultural Monuments in cases of armed conflict of May 14, 1944, including the special Rules on the implementation of the Convention, because cultural monuments have not been spared from the bombardment

7. The statements of certain statement from the member states of THE NATO and the statements of the NATO officials to the effect that the attacks will be intensified and will continue until the total destruction, contain all elements of genocide, as defined by the 1948 Convention on prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide.

8. The conditions have been met for initiating proceedings for ascertaining Criminal liability of those who have inspired, ordered and executed this aggression for the international crimes of aggression, war crimes, genocide, Crimes against humanity and international law, immoderate inflicting of Human suffering and damage to property.

9. Pursuant to the 1949 Geneva Convention it is necessary to raise the issue of individual criminal liability within the member states, and the same issue may be raised before the Hague Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia or another proper ad hoc international courts.

10. It is necessary to request from the UN to establish a special investigating commission which will investigate serious violations of the UN Charter, of the Geneva Conventions and of other violations of international humanitarian law, committed in the aggression against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

11. There is a joint and several civil liabilities of all member states who directly or indirectly participated in the act of aggression against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to compensate the resulting damages.

12. The very foundations of the international order, which has been maintained in the last 50 years in spite of many challenges, are now shaken. If any Country, especially a large and powerful one, can take justice in its own hands, the future of the world becomes uncertain and wrought with danger.

No political problem can be solved by the use of force. Force does not resolve any question, least of all prevent humanitarian disaster. The political isolation of the FRY cannot be a justification of the violation of international law: Yugoslavia and its citizens cannot therefore be placed outside the law.

13. I think that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia must be request war reparations and possible responsibility for the ones who started the NATO aggression.

I would like to say to you too that I have too many cases of citizens, who want to sue NATO because of their destroyed property. I also have too many calls from my colleagues from the entire world, which want to help my clients in this. I received over 40 calls from US colleagues asking to represent my clients in international courts. The calls within Europe were mostly from Belgium, France and Great Britain. I suppose you know the "Lawyers Psychology", their need for publicity and big cases. The lawyers are the same, everywhere you go, so their "Psychology" is the same in all the countries of the world.

... Please say hello to the American people.

Zoran M. Naumovic
Members of the Bar Association of FR of Yugoslavia
Members of the Association of Patent Attorneys of FR of Yugoslavia
Belgrade, Yugoslavia

I [believe] the Rambouillet process has collapsed and consider that reasons of its failure should be looked after in the weaknesses of the process itself, as well as in the defects of the peace agreement. On one hand, instead of fundamental preparations for these meetings, the Contact group has defined very short terms for the beginning and for the ending of this meetings, expecting that Kosovo crises could be solved in a few weeks time. Perhaps, such a hurry of the organizers should be attributed to their insufficient knowledge of all aspects of the Kosovo crises, but it is more likely to believe that a failure was expected in the preliminary phase, thus the terms defined for the meeting duration were intentionally limited in order to get a diplomatic alibi for air strikes on Yugoslavia.

On the other hand, if you observe the very technique of the negotiations in Rambouillet, in Paris, it is completely clear that these were not the diplomatic negotiations in terms of the International law. There are at least two reasons: first, the essential characteristic of the negotiations is the direct dialogue of the parts in conflict, whereas in France, there were not any contacts between the Kosovo Albanians and the Yugoslav delegations (not taking into consideration their presence at the opening ceremony). Second, the participants were expected to accept the text of the agreement prepared in advance, which is in opposition to the very nature of negotiation. The acceptance of this kind of peaceful dispute settlement (according to the 1931 case of railway traffic between Poland and Lithuania where Permanent Court of International Justice explained that it could only mean pactum de contrachendo) i.e. obligation for the negotiations to begin. Therefore, I consider the Rambouillet process from the point of view of the international law, rather as a kind of mediation of the Contact group members. However, these countries intervention (especially USA and EU mediators) outgrew the usual limitations of the mediation defined by the article 4, 1907 the Hague Convention on peaceful dispute settlement. Instead of advice, creative suggestions, good offices, it kept the ground of hard blackmails, pressures and air raid threats on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

The other two reasons for the failure of the Rambouillet process have to do with the very text of the peace agreement. First of all, not only is the very document the result of the negotiations (which, as I have already mentioned before, did not take place at all in France), but it also does not represent an international treaty to the 1969 Vienna Convention. The offered text signed by the so-called representatives of one separatist and terrorist organization having no legitimacy on the international level, nor being entitled to sign a international agreements. Conversely, the representatives of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which, as a sovereign state, is a legitimate subject of the international law, were compelled to accept the text unilaterally prepared and announced in advance as their international obligation. Otherwise, they would face the armed attack. The act of Imposing the solutions prepared in advance and unwillingness to accept any amendments suggested by the Yugoslav part - have brutally violated the very spirit and nature of the international treaty process based on the principles of equality of the participants and their free will to define the object of the treaty. Therefore, in my opinion, the rejection of the Yugoslav delegation to sign a so-called "peace agreement" is the legitimate act from the point of view of the International Law, especially defined by the article 52 of the Vienna Convention that forbids signing the agreements under threat of force.

Additionally, the peace agreement is not a plan for the Albanian autonomy within Serbia and Yugoslavia as announced publicly, but for a two-phase separation of Kosovo from Serbia and Yugoslavia. Kosovo would be a state within a state, with all the prerogatives of an independent country. Both the Federal and Serbian governments would not have no authority there. Three years later, its final status will be decided by the international community based on a referendum among the people of Kosovo, 90 per cent of whom are Albanian. Such autonomy has not been known in constitutional and international law. Because of that is seems that autonomy of Kosovo was not on the real agenda of Ramboullet process. Finally, the implementation problem of the peace agreement, the USA and some other western countries especially insisted on, mostly resulted in the military and police dimension that should be entitled to NATO allies. The legal aspect of the implementation of this agreement i.e. the way of its incorporation into internal legal system of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Serbia was completely neglected in rush to bring NATO ground troops to the territory of Kosovo. Since the offered text is not the international agreement in terms of the Vienna Convention, its signing by the so-called Kosovo delegation, in the presence of American and European mediators, has no legal effect. On the other hand, even if the Yugoslav delegation had signed the agreement, the act of the signing would have not led to the automatic implementation of the agreement in the domestic legal system. Nevertheless, to come into effect it would be necessary for the Yugoslav and Serbian parliaments to bring special regulations on the autonomous status of Kosovo with the incorporated internationally accepted solutions. Only after coming into effect of these regulations, could we start practical agreement realization, whereas the decision whether to entitle that to international (The UN, OSCE, NATO) or Yugoslav bodies is the matter of sovereign will of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Bearing in mind all these weaknesses, it is hard to see what a perspective the Rambouillet peace process revives. The process has been practically buried by those who declared to be most in favor of its success: the NATO alliance members with their decision to start the air raids only few days after the break of the Paris meeting and the representatives of KLA with their further terrorist acts under the protective umbrella of the NATO aviation. It is hard to expect the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to accept the Rambouillet agreement after three weeks of the everyday severe bombing, which caused large material atrocities, great human victims and hard psychological traumas of the whole population and it would be a legal absurd and moral hypocrisy. Historically viewed, it would be the same if we asked the Chezcks and the Slovaks to enliven the 1939 treaty on Hitler`s protectorate on Bohemia and Moravia. Therefore, the Rambouillet process is considered to be a classical example of an abuse of law of the institution of diplomatic negotiations and mediations for justifying an armed aggression against a sovereign and independent country in the history of the International Law....

Prof. Dr. Zoran Radivojevic, LL.D.
International Public Law
The University of Nis, Faculty of Law

Many people from my building are underground there is not enough place for everyone, so I am at home waiting for the bombs. Who knows maybe some bomb will come to my room just to ask me how am I, and than maby it will stay on early breakfast just to see my cooking :)).

Last night when we went to bad my sister was sleeping whit me, you see these days we are sleeping dressed. She tolled me not to say after few years that she was scared because that is not true, she is only sleeping dressed because mother tolled her so. From this you can see how are children handling all of this.

Well I hope for better future soon as possible.

[name withheld]
Law student
Belgrade

I am at the law university, and this is my first year. I had many dreams about what would I do...... But now everything seems like end. Look at me I am not worrying about school, close, food anymore all I am warring about are bombs. Is it fer? I have asked myself many times but I have no answer, maybe people in high places will have the answer to this question. Many people have been killed, many city destroyed, many bridges destroyed, and all for nothing.

[name withheld]
Law student
Belgrade

What did happen?

1.NATO begun with air strikes.
2.Mr. Milosevic did not sign a peace agreement.
3.There are a lot of civilian casualties.
4.There are a lot of refugees.
5.Many infrastructure objects are destroyed.
6.In Yugoslavia is declared a state of war, so, no democracy is possible now.

Allow me to doubt in real NATO plans considering Kosovo. I shell give you some examples:

Cuba. US make the sanctions against Cuba in order to bring democracy to Cuba and to put Mr. Castro down from the power. Castro is still No.1 in Cuba and he is going to be No.1 till the end of his life.

Iraq. There was a war in Iraq in order to take Iraq out of Kuwait and later on to save the Kurds. Kurds are still suffering under the Sadam army. Sadam is No.1 and no sign of democracy in Iraq.

I do not think the people they are thinking for NATO does not know this. So, this is not the way to change a regime or to help ethnic Albanians.

Mr. Milosevic did not sign a peace agreement in Ramboulie. Peace agreement? Was he already in war? Against whom? In Kosovo lives, about 70% of Albanians and the rest of 30% are different nationality, Serbs, Turks, etc. Between Kosovo Albanians is one group, which took arms and started to fight against Serbian police, against Serbs living in Kosovo and against moderate Albanians. They were fighting for power. Their goal was independent Kosovo. In all countries of the world they will be consider as a terrorist. Albania supported them as well by NATO and US in arms and intelligence and also, on which I will come later, by supporting them in media. On German TV ARD, several nights ago, in a talk show with Sabine Christiansen, ex NATO general have told: "We should do the same what we have done in Croatia, to train and to arm Kosovo Albanians so they could fight".

For a long time, since KLA is fighting, it has NATO weapon. Source: Stratfor.com, Austin, TX 78701

0137 GMT, 990411 - Belgrade and Washington are not alone in threatening a negotiated settlement in Kosovo. Albanian Prime Minister Pandeli Majkos' assertion that "No one should fear the creation of a Greater Albania or independent Kosovo," and his admission that Albania has supported the KLA all along, represents another stumbling block to peace in Kosovo. The KLA saw NATO's military involvement in Kosovo as finally offering the hope of secession from Kosovo. When Washington began publicly dealing with KLA political leader Hashim Thaci, since moderate Kosovar Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova remained in Kosovo, the KLA received another boost. A negotiated settlement that retains the existing borders of Yugoslavia represents a loss for the KLA and their Albanian sponsors, more than for anyone else. They can be expected to obstruct it by all available means, politically and militarily.

Serbs have a lot of reason not to trust NATO and they are:

Supporting Croatia in arms and logistically in the last civil war. Supporting KLA, a terrorist organization. Involving UN, but US origin, observers in Bosnia and in Iraq in spy's actions. And after all, being suspicious about real reason for involving NATO in all of this.

Last year I got a position at the Faculty of Law in Belgrade, but I kept in touch with all my collegues and friends in Prishtina, both Serbs and Albanians. Unfortunately, after the NATO-strikes, Prishtina became a city of ghosts and those dear people became homeless and refugees - so fate brought us together in this way as well.

Should it have happened this way? Why did cruelty and extremism of the KLA get priority over reasonable people? Why do we not give support to deacent people like those gathered around dr Ibrahim Rugova, who represent, without doubt, the majority of the Albanian population in our country? Why do American government and media minimize direct contacts among Serbian representatives and Rugova and possibilities to find a peaceful solution in this way? Every effort to reach the peace is worth to be encouraged, not neglected.

Now that my life in Belgrade is endangered again, I wonder, will I ever find a peacefull home for myself?

Assistant Lecturer Zoran Mirkovich, M. A.
Faculty of Law, University of Belgrade

NATO war in Yugoslavia is illegal:

1. UN has not been asked and has not given its approval for NATO military action, indeed that action is an infringement of the Vienna Convention (Art. 52) which states “ A treaty, the signature to which has been obtained trough the threat of force... is illegal and void...”.

2. NATO military action is outside of NATO’s mandate. NATO was supposedly designed as a defensive alliance to repel a military attack on its member states. In Kosovo it has radically extends its writ by intervening in a state unconnected to it.

3. NATO is not breaking only international, but internal law, too. No Declaration of War by US Congress has authorized US military operations in Yugoslavia, as US Constitution requires. NATO’s charter expressly defines it as a defensive force only. Who is NATO defensing from?

US-led NATO is taking military action against a sovereign state in Europe that poses no treat to America’s security or its interests. US now reserves the right to use military force to alter another state’s internal political arrangements when Washington finds that these offend its ever-shifting political sensibilities, and NATO is transforming itself into imperialism’s global police force.

Therefore, returning to negotiations and peace is not only needed to enable people in the Balkans to determine their future, it is needed so all other people in the world are free to determine their future as well.

Petar Pavlovic
Student of the Faculty of Law
University of Belgrade

Our joy of seeing each other was destroyed when we have heard that on the Easter morning a civilian objects were bombed in the city of Kursumlija (a "collateral damage" again?!) and that among others whole family was killed: pregnant woman, her husband and eleven-months old baby. We almost became used to hear about constant destruction of civilian infrastructure, but it became bitter to listen every day about "collaterals", as on Good Friday...when the car-factory in Kragujevac was completely destroyed, alltogether with a lot of workers in it. Our officials report about 120 wounded, but they did not tell us how many people died. This town lived mostly of that factory, so that tens thousands of people will have no income anymore. The heating-system for the whole town of Kragujevac is also destroyed (as well as it was done with New Belgrade, with few hundreds thousands of inhabitants, almost a week ago now). Kragujevac also has a School of Law...

We hope that some political iniciatives could give results in order to stop tragedy both of Albanians and Serbs. It is curious we are facing with intensified meetings among Rugova and Serbian officials, but as far as I can see at the sattelite, American media pay absolutely no attention to it or minimize it completely. It seems to me that any possibility of negotiation is better than continuation of the war. In the same I have impression that American administration persist in ultimative "take it or leave it" approach - although we can hear serious doubts from politicians in different parts of the world and western newspapers that the plan is not maybe so perfect and it should not be handled like a Bible.

Dr. Sima Avramovic
School of Law, University of Belgrade

I'm sorry for that people in Kosovo, for their suffering and pain. But, I'm also sorry for those new born babes and their mothers being in shelter 'cause bomb hit building just 30m from the hospital. I'm sorry for 1000's of workers that lost their jobs, for towns that lost their beautiful bridges, for people that lost their homes and love ones here and in Kosovo. I'm sorry for all people that suffer.

I know this might sound like klishe, but I really don't hate Albanians or Americans or any other nation. I hate and I 'm angry with those people from "up stares" 'cause they are suppose to take care of this, our only, world and as song say:"Something is wrong with the world today I don't know what it is.... we're living on the edge!!".

I would now say that the killings must stop, the bombs must stop, the suffer must stop.Yet, I know that anything I say or do, or any other ordinary man says or does can't make difference. It's in human nature to do such awful things. Human are not perfect. This could be the beginning of the end, the beginning of WW3. Still, I hope there are smart people left who could and will stop this madness.

Ana Stanojevic
Law student
Belgrade University

We have had attacks every night. Our part of Belgrade has not been bombed (yet?). Just at this moment we have sirens, which mean that the bombing will be day and night. We don't want to go to the shelters. We are waiting bombs in our flats, or on the bridges, or protest meetings, in hospital and Institute. As you probably know car factory in Kragujevac was bombed. Workers have been there day and night. City centre of Aleksinac (my grandfather was born in A.) was destroyed three days ago. Many people was killed. According to unofficial sources there have been more then 1.000 people killed by bombing. You can imagine our situation by these few facts.

I don't know if you have any information from your media about NATO losses. Unfortunately(?) there are lots of casualties on NATO side. According to Russian TASS agency (9 April) NATO lost at least 50 soldiers. According to Greek sources ("Atinaika" newspaper) there are 88 soldiers, mostly pilots killed (or lost) in this aggression against our country. Half of them are Americans, 11 Germans, 8 French, 7 English and 18 from other countries. Up to 8 of April NATO lost 32 aircrafts, and many more rackets.

It was reported yesterday (Macedonian sources) that more than 1.500 German soldiers deserted to Bulgaria and Greece. Swedish unofficial sources reported that a group of Norwegian pilots refused to participate anymore in strikes against Yugoslavia. Thanks to Tim Marshall from the SKY, who was in Kosovo during the bombing of Pristina, the NATO lie that our forces destroyed the city centre of Pristina, was disproved instantly. They wanted to destroy our TV centres and buildings!!! Etc., etc.

Fortunately, it seems to me that some western media have started to inform much more objectively (or fewer lies) - SKY, BBC, RAI, Washington Post, Financial Times, Independent. Of course, there are some others - Greek, Italian, even German, etc. Some of those journalists who are reporting from here are telling the truth.

Tomorrow is our Easter. It would not be the first time to have bombs on that day. (I was under the ruins in May 1944 during the bombing of Belgrade by Anglo-American "allies"). It could be the same thing tomorrow?

We hope that news will be better soon. There are some initiatives. Tomorrow will be another meeting of Group 8. I really hope that today's president Jelcin serious warning to NATO will be considered with due attention. Nobody wishes new Great War.

Professor Brana Markovic
Faculty of Political Science
University of Belgrade

As I did not go to the office today, I had a time to notice that my daughter started to shake her legs without control while she is sitting and watching TV (by the way, there are still a lot of American movies, one channel started to broadcast mainly the best, old Walt Disney’s and other cartoons, but the central TV is mainly giving the news). I understood that she did not move out of the house and neighboring area for two weeks now, and I decided to take her to the center of the town in order to have some change, when the alarm stopped. It was unbelievable - we just had time to visit one of Belgrade theaters (but the performances start now at 3 PM). They are still working, selling tickets for a symbolic price, dedicating all the income for the Red Cross. The remake of the movie "Cabaret" was on in a form of a musical play and it was one of the most incredible feelings I ever had. Actors were so enthusiastic, "even the orchestra is beautiful" - if you remember the words from the movie (but this time, it was really true), all the performance was done in the best way. Of course, the main story about the birth of the Nazi movement provoked so many controversial associations in my mind. When it all ended, my daughter was delighted having a new experience, while I do not know if I felt better before or after it.

Dr. Sima Avramovic
Professor of Legal History
School of Law, Belgrade

On Monday, March 29, State Department spokesman James Rubin said that there are indications of genocide in Kosovo and gave credence to a report that 20,000 ethnic Albanians are being held at Pristina city stadium by the Serbs, as “concentration camp” to be used as human shields against NATO airstrikes. James Rubin made the comments after Secretary of state Madeleine Albright was briefed on events in Kosovo in a telephone call with ethnic Albanian leader, Hashim Thaqi.

Two days later, France Press reporters, as well as reporters from other European media, visited mentioned stadium and verified that it is empty, without any trace that anybody has been held there.

This report by James Rubin was followed by another of similar reliability, made by NATO Air Commander David Wilby at their headquarters on March 29, in Brussels.

According to Wilby “ Reliable sources report that ... Fehmi Agani, a member of the Kosovo Albanian delegation along with four other prominent ethnic Albanians were executed on Sunday, March 28”. Speculations have been made that one of them was Ibrahim Rugova, leader of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

On Wednesday, March 31, US diplomatic sources told CNN that Fehmi Agani, may be alive. At the same day Ibrahim Rugova was visited at his home in Pristina by several foreign journalists, who proved his well-being and that his house has not been damaged. Even more, on April 1, he met President Milosevich in Belgrade, which was breaking news of the day.

These inaccurate information put James Rubin in unpleasant position at the next press conference since he had to give answers to lot of inconvenient questions related to above mentioned cases. His defense was that they only quoted Hashim Thaqi as their “reliable source”. Question is how many “reliable sources” as Hashim Thaqi have NATO, Pentagon and US Administration, and how much is it going to cost Serbian people.

Mentioned cases are, unfortunately, just some examples which I picked up out of many that happen too often, almost every day - the latest is bargaining about the number of tragic Albanian refugees. Even if NATO, Pentagon or US Administration receive so serious and alarming information like those, they are obliged to assure themselves first, being so powerful and influential institutions, before they push it in public as a news or assumptions. Lawyers and journalists know well that the first information always rests in mind of people, while the denial reaches and affects just a small percentage of those who received the initial, untrue news. I do not want to believe that somebody is doing something like this with ulterior motives.

Apart from evident immorality of such irresponsible continued behavior, my question for American lawyers is: what kind of legal means one can use in the USA to prevent dangerous misinformation of the people in the country and all around the world? Does the later denial excuses any responsibility of individuals or institutions for dissemination of lies, according to American law, or the responsability rests on the “unreliable” source only?

Apart of the moral and legal point of view, mentioned examples gives us right to claim that sources of the most important American decision-making institutions are often one-sided and that speculations seems often to be ground for their decisions. It is of major importance when you understand that NATO is powerful military organization whose actions are causing serious consequences in Europe today.

Think about that, while we are suffering consequences.

It turned out that the whole world is more similar to present Serbia than I ever thought would be possible. International law was, in a minute, transformed to a pointless bunch of empty phrases and the world's most powerful country has not any better idea than throwing bombs to the cities ( on the other side, this is a reason for requesting the crime trial for Radovan Karadzic while steeling his methods of convincing "the enemy"). To my deepest regret, the Western world has finally legalized "the right of the stronger", which again, is alike the Balkan way of thinking and acting during the last years and wars. In the same time, it allows current politicians to make and brake any law they want to, and to do it legally, since now they had a good reason to proclaim the "state of war". And during that state the Federal Government is in charge for passing all law acts because there are no conditions for the parliament sessions. The Court Martial is created too, with the rigorous punishments for any "crime against the Military forces", including ignoring the mobilization call, hiding from the military obligation, calling others to ignore mobilization, preparing for escaping from the country etc. The borders are closed for men and nobody pays the attention to numerous Serbian women and children that are leaving the country in panic. Nobody asks where are the men, like they do in case of the ethnic Albanians, and we are the citizens of the same country, I guess. So far, only an initiative was made by the Minister of justice to the Federal Government, suggesting that facilities for detain conditions (keeping, duration etc.) and for breaking the privacy of the apartments and letters should be legally allowed. Part of this initiative was also the suggestion of bringing back the death penalty for the crimes prescribed by The Federal Criminal Law, which includes crimes against the State and Safety . Hopefully, that won't be sustained.

But, what already happened is that all democratic forces are deleted, marginalized and deadly wounded. There is no space left for their fight, while everyone is fighting just for a simple survival. The fact that we have to protect ourselves from the countries with the biggest democracy tradition doesn't help at all. Closing the Radio B92 and the ANEM network closed the last possibility to hear anything different than official speeches and the official truth. It also means the end of the only really urban, modern electronic media in present Serbia. It's all black and white now and I'm afraid it will stay so for a long, long time. A few newspapers that still can be called "independent" will be selfclosed, because of lack of any source of financial aid. Speaking of media I was, once again, forced to wake up and face the reality. And reality is that Western media behaved like the RTS's (Official Serbian Television) mirror. White and black and the sounds of frenetically marches. They rarely remembered that violence is a sign of disability and incompetence, not the wisdom and humanity.

The epilogue is that NATO strikes promoted the cruel and senseless language of force like the only language left for the world. This narcissistic and thoughtless power exhibition brought only more pain and misery to all citizens in my country. We are, again, counting the death bodies. Democracy in Serbia is less possible than two weeks ago, and probably than ever. Life is more bitter and insecure for all the civilians, the Albanians included.

And I'm writing this letter under the alarm, with my windows open, not because of the beautiful weather that became my enemy, but because of the prevention and protection of breaking glass that can hurt my family. East, or West, there's nothing new to hear or to hope.

[name withheld]
lawyer
Belgrade

We are attending a spectacular law occasion....According to the definition of aggression that the UN adopted in 1974 in the resolution number 3314...all elements of aggression on Yugoslavia are present. The attack on a territory, sovereignty and integrity of a sovereign country is present (in absolute inproportion with the attacked goods). The use of territories of other countries for attacking is also present, bombing of civil and military targets, as well as civil communication services, and, at the end, there are civilian casualties and large, indescribable psychical suffering.

Premise #1: could you attack a sovereign country, without war declaration, on a sudden, surprising way, totally in accordance with the definition of aggression, a sovereign country because of protecting universal freedoms, personal rights, ethnos rights, collectivity rights and a national minority by another country?...

This statement is wrong. First of all, I think that this kind of protection of attacked goods must be normatively regulated. I am a jurist positivist, normativist, and in this case pure voluntaristic comprehension of law is the question. If you [adopt this presmise] then, in every part of this planet, you can voluntaristicly take out a conclusion that there is an attacked good in some banana-state which someone has to protect and the universal human values.

That would take to large legal disagreements, to the total destroying of the international law system and to an order which is in fact destroyed by this action. So, I think that you need to arrange this question normatively in the first place and after that put sanctions. This way, voluntarism will never end, and sanctions are regulated daily, on the spot, without limits and with possibility of same further violations that you can not tell where the limits of emergency and needed defense..... [Here] the goods of all Yugoslavian citizens have been attacked. Lives, bodies, material, psychic and other values. Be careful, the war isn't limited on the territory of Kosovo. I'm 500 km away from Kosovo and tonight they blew up the second refinery in this province which costs about $1 billion. Where are the limits of emergency?...

Premise #2: could that attack be taken by a military alliance - the defense alliance, NATO, without any decisions of the UN?....

Who can tell if the UN Charter values, the universal rights values have been attacked, who is giving his judgement, and at last, who decides to... attack? It is totally clear that in this case because of the way that the UN operate - decision was made, probably by the team of presidents of NATO states....Therefore, I will take out a second conclusion and that is that without any universal state association, no matter how slow... it would be and no matter how heavy institution it presents, a state cannot attack another state on its hand because of violation of wide human rights on the territory of that other state.

Americans deal with the problem of nation in different ways: you watch it from the principles of ethnos - ethnic origin. In your "Melting pot" everyone becomes an American and the origin is watched by tradition and customs. In Europe it is different. Most of the countries are very national: Germany, France, Russia, Turkey. In the region where I live, Vojvodina, there are 26 nations. Most of Serbs, but there are Hungarians, Slovakians, Germans, etc. The relationships are normatively well done, but these kinds of things that are done at the moment can disoreder those relationships.

I'm waiting for the good Samaritians, the servicers and protectors of human rights to throw us some cluster bomb.

Dr. Zoran Ristic
lawyer
Novi Sad

Vladislava Gordic
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad

Dr. Sima Avramovic
Professor of Legal History
School of Law, University of Belgrade

... The young people and all the citizens of Yugoslavia are deprived of the most elementary human and civil rights and, above all, the right to life and survival. The aggression is being justified by the humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo. There are streams of refugees--it is understandable that the population is fleeing from a region which is constantly being bombed. The humanitarian catastrophe, however, is engulfing the entire country and its whole population. Civilian targets are being hit and with every passing day there are more and more casualties. Of its three bridges, the city of Novi Sad has lost two. One of these bridges linked the city with the Cardiovascular Clinical Center. The Old Fortress, a cultural and historical monument from the 17th century has been damaged, along with museums, university colleges and schools. The second bridge in Novi Sad was hit in the early evening hours when there were people and traffic on it.

Yugoslavia was also the victim of aggression without a declaration of war and at the same time of the year, on the eve of the Christian holiday of Easter in 1941, but the aggressor then was Nazi Germany. Is it possible that we are now undergoing the same from a country which wants to represent itself as the most democratic in the world? ...

Yugoslavia has a legal and legitimate right to fight against terrorism on its territory. For decades there has been a systematic persecution of the Serbian population on Kosovo by the most brutal terrorist methods and all of this changed the ethnic composition of that region. It is nonsense to claim that Serbia is carrying out an aggression on Kosovo. Kosovo is part of the state territory of Serbia and Yugoslavia and the army and police are fighting there against terrorism just as other states in the world would do, including the USA. Let me remind you of a recent case when one or two Texans wanted to be separated from the United States and they were sentenced to several decades in prison. In many European countries separatism and terrorism are phenomena against which these countries fight. Why should this right, the right to preserve its independence and territorial entity, be taken away only from Yugoslavia?

The aggression of NATO and the government of the USA is a negation of law and the reverting to the most elementary natural state--might is right. A state in which democracy and human and civil rights have such a long tradition should not allow itself to be the one who is negating the values on which it is founded and in such a merciless and brutal manner. Yugoslavia is confronting aggression today by a power that is stronger than the might of its aggressors, by the power of its spirit and moral fortitude, pride and dignity, love of liberty. I will quote only two slogans which young people are displaying in the squares of Serbian cities "I am ten years old, I want to live!" and "I want to go to school, not into a shelter". Children, young people and citizens are wearing badges with the sign and the word TARGET. How does the government of the USA explain to its people that it has chosen as the target of its missiles and bombs an entire nation?

In regard to the legal aspect of all of this, does anything need to be said? A country is under attack without the consent of the United Nations Security Council. In this war, weapons forbidden by international law--cluster bombs--are being used. Civilian targets are being attacked. The right of a nation to defend its country and to order its life is being negated....

Professor Ljubomirka Krkljus
Dean
Faculty of Law
University of Novi Sad

Firstly, I cannot understand why NATO air - strikes are presently purpously aimed at targets located in city centres?

There are basically two explanations that we hear from NATO and US officials about nature of these targets: the first saying that in these buldings military actions against civilians in Kosovo had been planned, and the second, more abstract, that NATO aims at buildings which represent sovereignity of the state of Serbia.

Does NATO want to punish the buildings alone? I am asking this because there can be absolutely no harm to the state itself if beatiful but evacuated buildings, built in the beginning of the century, are destroyed.

The second reason seems also not to be worth the price of civilian lives jeopardised by throwing missiles and bombs at over-inhabited old city centres. Everybody knows that by this intervention NATO allegedly put human rights above sovereignity, but does NATO in Yugoslavia intervene against sovereignity itself, if it wants to destroy symbols of sovereignity at such a high price?

I live in the very centre of Belgrade, and in the proximity of my appartment there are half a dozen possible targets according to the above mentioned explanations. So here I am facing a paradox that, although it is the Alliance of the most civilized nations my country is in war with, I would be safer in country than in the capital down-town.

The second thing I would like to share my opinion about is the Yugoslav Constitution of 1974. It seems to me that the most important legal matter in this crisis, which represents the essence of it, is the question of this Constitution and autonomy it established for two provinces of Socialist Republic of Serbia, Vojvodina and Kosovo and Metohija.

For a number of years US Government officials, concluding with the newest statements of President Clinton just few days ago, insist that the same autonomy has to be restituted.

I would appreciate someone to correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that essence of referred constitutional provisions of 1974 consists of a right given to two autonomous provinces, Kosovo and Metohija, although having their own legislative, executive and judicial instances, to take part both in executive and legislative authorities of SR of Serbia, including a right to block any decision of these authorities.

In 1989, the Constitution was ammended in a way that only these excessive rights had been annuled, but nothing else changed in the status of autonomous provinces.

The Constitution of 1974 represented a legal construction perfectly suitable for purposes of communism, which was based not only on direct repression, but also on producing confrontations on national basis.

Thus, President Clinton now declares himself for carriing out a communist Constitution of 74.

Republics of former Yugoslavia, Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia and BiH, who all have succedded in gaining independence and soveregnity according to the provisions of the same Constitution of 1974, in 1989 gave their accordance to ammendments made to the Constitution, which enabled Serbia to make decisions for its whole territory.

Why USA and NATO are now carriing out a communist act from the past?

Dusan Rakitic Srbic
Law Student
Faculty of Law, University of Belgrade

The situation here is unchanged. Air attacks mainly take place during the night, so that we are sleepy all the day long - basements and shelters are not places where you can rest. They say that they mainly hit military targets - but who knows now what the military target is, how far from our house it may be. Collateral damages are not so small as the CNN asserts (BBC is a bit more objective). In any case, we almost adapted our lives to new circumstances. Fortunately, the phone lines are still working, so the most important thing is to be in touch with the children when the alarm starts and stops. They do not go to school and spend their time at home.

Dr. Sima Avramovic
Professor of Legal History
School of Law, University of Belgrade

Under Yugoslav laws, the B92 company is the founder of Radio B92 as a public media, than of Opennet, Internet Service Provider, as well as some other departments conducting various activities of Radio B92. Therefore, usurping B92 company means taking over not only the Radio, but also Opennet and other entities working under B92 company. However, it is not a legal ground for seizing the premises and equipment of the Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM), but nevertheless the courts executioner ordered seizing of ANEM premises too.

At this point B92 former director Sasa Mirkovic does not know the basis upon which a decision on removing him from his position was made by the Commercial Court. The fact that Mrs. Milena Arezina, President of the Commercial Court in Belgrade, is handling the case herself, proves that attacking B92 was a political decision more than a legal one. Under Yugoslav Companies Act of 1996, the decision on removing or appointing director of the socially owned company (and B92 is such a company) lies in the competence of the Assembly of the company, and the Assembly is consisted of all employees of B92 (Art. 396 para. 2 Federal Companies Act). Radio B92 company's Statute, adhering to the Law, foreseen in its Art. 23 that the employees, gathered in the company's Assembly, have the exclusive right to appoint and remove the Director. This Statute has been duly registered with the Commercial Court in Belgrade just three months ago, in the process of redifining B92 company in order to meet the requirements of 1996 Companies Act referring to socialy owned companies. Since on Monday, April 5th 1999 the B92 folder was still with judge Arezina, Mr. Mirkovic legal representatives could not yet established on which document the change of Director is grounded. The only fact known is that B92 Assembly never made any decision regarding B92 Director, so whatever the document on which the change of Director was based is, it is not suitable for changing the Director, for it was made by an incompetent person.

As for seizing ANEM premises (situated in the same building as premises of B92, but on higher floors), it is a completely illegal act, for even if decision on changing B92 director would be legal it would not impower new B92 management to do anything regarding ANEM premises etc. ANEM is a Bussines Association founded under Yugoslav Law, which has its own management, members, Board etc.

Since the removal of Mr. Mirkovic is obviously illegal, his legal representatives have submitted a lawsuit requesting immediate restitution and annulation of the recorded change in the Registry of the Commercial Court. Also, under Yugoslav Laws Mr. Mirkovic must had been notified and acquainted with the document on which he was removed, which was not the case - therefore it is an another ground for annuling the Commercial Court decision. Once Mr. Mirkovic establishes what that document is, a lawsuit shall be filed against it with the Municipal Court in Belgrade. Apart from that, an Objection has been filed regarding the illegal eviction and seizure of ANEM premises in proceedings for "bringing B92 new Director into duty", for the Commercial Court executioner obviously acted beyond his authority in executing that decision - the decision on changing B92 director was by no means ground for acting against ANEM, which is in this case a third party. ANEM has also filed a lawsuit in order to regain possesion of its premises (actio retinendae possesionis, actio recuperande possesionis) since its employees had been forcefully evicted without any formal legal grounds. Private company shall file a lawsuit requesting its official seal, taken by new B92 Director without any legal grounds, back into its own possesion. It is also considering requesting some of its equipment, previously given to B92 for free use, back.

As conclusion, one may say that Radio B92 was taken over on grounds of Company law. The legal framework by which it was done is clearly a breach of B92 rights, an act of violence which is not even remotely based on law, even though an obviously illegal decision was passed by the Commercial Court in order to "cover" the action. Radio B92 was established and performed its activities in full respect of the laws in Yugoslavia. It shall, even in these hard moments, fight the anarchy by all legal remedies foreseen in Yugoslav laws. Unfortunately, breach of International Law performed by NATO (use of force without a UN Security Council Decision) resulted in same behavior of Yugoslav authorities towards B92. B92 has, since October 1998, when the bombing threats were serious for the first time, called upon peaceful resolution of the crisis and lobbied against the bombs, whose victims, as was said then, will most certainly be all seeds of the civil society in Yugoslavia. Unfortunately, it was decided that bombs should be thrown on Yugoslavia, with an explanation that it will somehow help somebody. For now it is obvious that it didn't help no one, because it couldn't. Violence brings violence, and only if that tragic spiral of violence is broken all may return to negotiations and Law as means for regulation of conflicts. People from B92 hopes it will happen soon.

[name withheld]

[When I'm in the shelter I] TRY to read, which means that I basically do not grasp the meaning of my reading matter. I cannot focus. For a few times I took Heraclitus with me to the shelter, also Gilles Deleuze (his books on Kafka and Proust), and Shakespeare. I listen to music more often, because it soothes me, and it can make me sleep sometimes. I mostly listen to 'Madredeus', a famous Portuguese band, sometimes to Sheryl Crow. That is it, basically. Most of these are, unfortunately, of no avail.

Vladislava Gordic
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad

[Dr. Sima Avramovic
Professor of Legal History
School of Law, University of Belgrade]

Dr. Sima Avramovic
Professor of Legal History
School of Law, University of Belgrade

1. destroying the United Nations organisation, flagrantly violating the Charter of the United Nations, as well as other norms of international law which represent the civilisation heritage of mankind, thereby destroying the only real guarantee of peace in the world;

2.attacking a sovereign member and founding country of the United Nations, and with this precedent allowing every country which is not satisfied with it's borders to do the same, without the obligation to respect the globally established international law system;

3.disturbing and breaking strategic and years of painstaking developed relations with Russia and other countries of CIS, and in revoking all acts signed with those countries, especially on the collaboration within the "Partnership for Peace" as well as acts regarding the reduction of nuclear armament;

4.starting, in these countries, a strong anti-American disposition, influencing the increase of army combat readiness in these countries and activating the commencement of their military forces in the center of the conflict, which threatens a global confrontation (third world war) (woken up the Russian bear);

5.compromising NATO pact as an established defence union and turning it into an agressor force, which, for the first time since the II World War, attacks a sovereign country;

6.creating a division in NATO which will, as an organisation, start to collapse;

7.creating a strong anti-American disposition throughout the world, which will lead the governers of the countries participating in the agression, to re-examine it's politics and membership in NATO;

8.start a war in the heart of Europe, which will expand outside the borders of Yugoslavia, threatening to spread to bordering countries, especially Macedonia, Bosnia, Albania and later Turkey and Greece, whose mutual antagonistic relations represent a true "bomb" within the NATO pact;

9.creating an unseen humanitarian catastrophy, forcing hundreds of thousands of people into refuge and shelters from air attacks, with a justification that the bombs will "prevent" a human catastrophy;

10.jeopardising the Dayton Agreement;

11.exposing NATO soldiers to mortal danger during the agression on Yugoslavia, as well as SFOR soldiers in Bosnia, but also forces in Macedonia in case of radicalisation of combat;

12.activating a permanent flame in the Balkans, i.e. in Europe, for the purpose of creating conditions for NATO forces to permanently keep a lookout, and thereby jeopardising the stability and safety of the European continent;

13.diminishing the American military potential, firing onto Yugoslavia over 500 cruise misiles with suspicious and medialy forced results for local use and NATO member countries.

And that is not all....

He is now preparing to send land troups to Yugoslavia. Over 150,000 soldiers. It looks like he has decided on the tactics for solving large problems - by creating larger ones. Until it goes. But it won't for long. We hope.

Bibic Predrag, Attorney at Law
Bibic Law Office, Belgrade

Vladislava Gordic
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad

But we have a lot of satellite antennas all over, so that most of people in Belgrade are quite well informed about the tragedy that is going on at Kossovo. The problem is that those are mainly intelectuals and those who understand English - but it is still not a small number of people, particularly young ones. They all speak English, at least in cities.

Nevertheless, even intellectuals are unanimous that such a volume of tragedy would never occur without bombing. There is no doubt that bombing provoked retaliation, fear among all those who live at Kosovo (there are also thousands of Serbian refugees, so that Kosovo becomes now an empty area - probably it is a preparation for a military ground action of NATO).

It all seems to me like a well prepared movie - only we ("colateral damage subjects") do not know the end. As always, this is a dirty game of politicians of all sides.

Dr. Sima Avramovic
Professor of Legal History
School of Law, University of Belgrade

Belgrade people were standing on the bridge over the River Sava this night, protecting it as human shields. What else is to be done? This is the aggression by the outer force, this is not a civil war in which people take sides. This is the unique case of remote killing. Bear this in mind.

If Happy Easter means rejoicing over destruction and killing, let it be happy for all those who agreed with this monstrous NATO operation.

Vladislava Gordic
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad

Dr. Sima Avramovic
Professor of Legal History
School of Law, University of Belgrade

Another thing is that statistics affirms that in ten days of NATO aggression half a killogram of explosive per person has been thrown upon Yugoslavia. If I tell you that Yugoslavia has 11 million inhabitants, you will see how 'generously' the NATO weapons have been used.

I find this aggression completely unjustified, because it seems to be focused upon civilian targets in whole Yugoslavia, upon destroying economic potential and cultural heritage of my country. Besides, it dislodges Albanian people in Kosovo from their homes mostly by destroying the civilian infrastructure in Kosovo.

Vladislava Gordic
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad, Yugoslavia

NATO air strickes on the territory of FR Yugoslavia are a brutal act of aggression on sovereign and independent country that has never endangered international peace and security, nor has ever used force against territorial integrity of any country. NATO allies in this act of aggression violated Article 2, Section 4 UN Charter to abstain from threats and use of force against territory integrity of some country. There is no doubt that the allies ignored UN Security Council, the only authorized body, according to the Chapter VII UN Charter which can decide upon the use of military force for maintenance of peace. Ignoring this authorized body and without its decision and approval, undertaking war operations on the territory of the independent country, NATO allies violated Section VIII UN Charter and unjustifiably usurped a right to decide arbitrarily and willfully about use of military forces. It is sad to see the three permanent members of UN Security Council among the aggressors, who according to UN Charter have a special responsibility for maintenance of world peace. Therefore, military aggression on Yugoslavia is a flagrant violation of international law and has destroyed the basic principles of UN which was founded 50 years ago with one main intention - to control the use of force and save future generations from the horrors of war. We are afraid that the destiny of UN is the same with the destiny of League of Nations before World War II, and that this precedent may cause a new world war with unpredictable consequences for the whole mankind.

Air strikes on Yugoslavia are an obvious example of aggression according to the General Assembly Resolution No. 3314/XXIX December, 14, 1974. We believe that, knowing international law you are aware of the fact that NATO allies made a classic example of aggression on Yugoslavia, taking into consideration not only its definition - Article 1 - but some special definitions in annexes b), d), e), and g), Article 3 of this Resolution.

We are reminding you that Yugoslavia's refusal of Rambouillet agreement, which the NATO allies used as a formal reason to attack Yugoslavia is, from international law standpoint, a legitimate act of a sovereign country, having in mind that negotiations were taking place in the atmosphere of pressure and threats of bombing as a sanction against not signing the in advance prepared text of the agreement. You are certainly aware of the fact that such an agreement would have been invalid and void according to Article 51 and 52 of 1969. Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties which sanctions coercion and compulsion on a country and its representatives in the procedure of making an agreement carried out contrary to UN Charter.

Consequences of NATO air raids for several days clearly show that its members do not respect elemental rules of international law of war and humanitarian law. Unselective air raids on defenseless cities and villages destroyed many civil objects, hospitals and medical institutions, faculties, kindergartens, refugee camps, cultural institutions, historical monuments, bridges and monasteries, and in this way NATO aggressors violated 1907 Hague Regulations and 1949 Geneva Conventions, as well as 1954 Hague Convention. Cassette bombs and other explosive devices are killing and injuring many civilians which cannot be justified by any military aims.

Invented humanitarian catastrophe on Kosovo that is an excuse for the aggression became our reality only after NATO aggression on Yugoslavia. Now we are witnessing a real humanitarian catastrophe on the whole territory of Yugoslavia. NATO bombs are killing people of all nations and religions in Yugoslavia. Albanians, Serbs and other national and ethnical minorities, including Serb refugees from Bosnia and Croatia, who are experiencing war horrors for the second time in a few years, are leaving their destroyed homes and refugee camps.

Taking the "law" in their hands, NATO allies violated the basic rules of their own Organization and its constitutional treaty esspecially articles 4, 5 and 6. which define the Organization as a defense allies organization, whose range of operation is restricted to the country territories of the members of this Organization and only in case of military aggression on any of these countries. Since Yugoslavia has not, in any way, imperil any of these countries, NATO attack on Yugoslavia has no legal justification.

Despite the brutal violation of international law FR Yugoslavia has always shown its loyalty to the system of UN, addressing Security Council and asking for an urgent meeting before the aggression on Yugoslavia. Following its legal right of self-defense from Article 51 UN Charter, Yugoslavia asked for another meeting of Security Council; thus, it followed the procedure defined by Chapter VII of the Charter. However, Security Council, motivated exclusively by the political needs and wishes of the permanent members of this body which are the members of NATO allies, did not "move a finger" to prevent the aggression. In the conditions of total suspension and paralysis of Security Council decisions and work, Yugoslavia has a right to address the UN General Assembly according to the Resolution 377 "United for Peace" and to ask for collective support from other UN members in order to protect its sovereignty and territory integrity.

Convinced that there is still a chance to bring impartial and just peace to this long-suffering region, having trust in democratic and academic public community which, as we hope, is not ready to justify cruel political interests of "the mighty and powerful" once again we appeal that you should invest all your human and juridical dignity for the defense of peace, principles of law, legal proceedings and justice on which international order should rest. The defenders of legitimate rights of our country are the defenders of the foundations basic principles of system of UN - the system which is still, despite many temptations in the second half of this century, the one guarantee of maintance of world peace.

Hoping that the third millenium will open a new page in the history of international relations and will mark the beginning of real equality, toleration and respect for the basic principles of international law order, human rights and independence among all nations and countries, in spite of their size or power, we appeal to your conscience; we ask you to stop the aggression on Yugoslavia, one of the member - founders of UN, actively taking part in the mission of peace and humanity.

Proffessors and Assisstants
Faculty of Law, Nis

At around 2:15 AM, 15 policemen entered the B92 premises, accompanying two Federal Inspectors for Radio Communications, and gave the order to anyone present to cease all activities, not answer the phones and break all existing connections. Milivoje Calija, the Production Director of B92, was the highest ranking employee of B92 present at the moment, so the inspectors explained to him that they have passed an Order for immediate seizure of broadcasting of B92 program through B92 recently installed transmitter, at 92,50 MHz FM frequency. The explanation given in a written order was that it was established that Radio B92's transmitter was working at "power much bigger than the allowed 300 Watts" and that it should be therefore immediately eliminated. Inspectors also passed a decision on seizing the exciter (temporary seizure), a vital part of the transmitter, to ensure that B92 would not violate the ban. It shall be noted that the decision was prepared in advance, and that the inspectors came only to execute it. Fact is B92 was not transmitting at power exceeding 190 Watts out of 300 Watts allowed, so the technical explanation was given only in order to cover the real reason for B92's closing, and that is its news B92 broadcasted, which always remained uncensored. Radio B92 is now broadcasting via satellite and via Internet, for those two means of broadcasting are not forbidden by the inspectors.

An appeal against the formal Decision through which B92 was banned has been submitted to the Federal Ministry of Telecommunications early on March 24th, several hours after the decision was passed. No decision has yet been made regarding the appeal. Considering the present situation, one may presume that the status of B92 shall be definitely decided upon not before the State of War is over. Being B92 legal counselor, I fear that the decision on B92 shall be more of a political one, rather than legal. In case B92 appeal is refused, the next legal step to be undertaken is filing a lawsuit at the Federal Court in order to initiate a so-called "administrative lawsuit". Namely, Yugoslavia adopted the originally German system of juridical control over administration, so the Federal Court may decide upon an administrative matter, in this case a decision by which B92 was banned, in the special "administrative lawsuit" proceedings.

As for the position of other broadcasters which are still operating, they are obliged to honor guidelines issued by the Ministry of Information when the State of Immediate Danger of War was proclaimed (since late March 24th, a State of War has been proclaimed). Those guidelines are consisted of several general orders, some of which referring to maintaining contacts between the state and the media, others referring to terms which shall be used, and remaining referring to the compulsory explanation of the conflict (stressing the fact that NATO is acting without an appropriate UN Resolution, stressing that not all the nations of the world are supporting what NATO is doing etc). Naturally, reports on damages, targets and eventual casualties are censored, and they may not be broadcasted without prior approval given by the state. Information which could cause panic and disorder are strictly forbidden. These general guidelines are specified at date-to-date briefings held at the Ministry of Information. It should be stressed at this point that both Yugoslav Federal Constitution and the UN ICCPR allows derogation of freedom of speech during the state of war, so that these actions by the state are in full accordance with the law.

Milos Zivkovic
[Legal Counsel, Radio B92]
April 1st, 1999
9th day of NATO bombing of Belgrade

NATO attacks have no doubt caused the greatest crisis in the Balkans in this century. Then the famous CNN confusion of thesis, when intervention is justified by it's consequences, the humanitarian catastrophy. It is logical that the population has moved from the war zone area. Both Serbs and Albanians, and others as well. Bombs do not ask who belongs to which religion, nor can it be expected that people sit quietly under the NATO bombs and rockets.

This war is becoming more it's own purpose. This is now becoming a war between the Serbs and NATO. The initial reasons are slowly being forgotten. But, these have always been two opposing sides. Even in negotiations, the Albanians, i.e. the Liberation Army of Kosovo, which have been devised by the USA, have organised and trained only the means. The main purpose was not to protect the minority in Kosovo, but to station NATO troups in Yugoslavia. When Milosevic refused the NATO troups on his territory, he did not fulfill expectations of the main negotiators: The United States of America. Now, fully uncovered "alliance" between USA and it's allies and LAK, shows that this is a great direction in Holywood style. Only that this is not Hollywood but the Balkans. Also, LAK cannot be a partner with USA. They are only tools, a pure means for creating and managing the crisis in Kosovo, where after this, a need for the world policeman in the form of NATO, would be proclaimed, which does not protected anybody's rights, but literally OCCUPIES.

The question is, are things getting out of control after the unsuccessfull visit of Primakov, or are the conflicting parties looking for the best way in which to get out of this hell with the least negative consequences? It looks like - both.

The first one to withdraw it's forces has capitulated. And no one wants that. Especially not the Serbs. It seems a magic formula must be found where everyone will win, or at least have a fiction of that.

Bibic Predrag, Attorney-at-Law
Bibic Law Office, Belgrade

Sima Avramovic,
Professor of Legal History
Faculty of Law, Univ. of Belgrade

This is the seventh day of NATO aggression against my country. Every day we have the bombarding and racketing all over Yugoslavia. It is terribly difficult to think rationally after days and nights we spent watching directly and on TV the bombarding of our country and our town by the American, British, French, German...air forces. You certainly know some details, but you cannot imagine all the horror of such act of aggression. We saw rackets flying over our heads. A lot of bombs and rackets fell in the suburban areas of Beograd, and some just two or three kilometers from our flat. The first wave of bombarding started on 24 March at 8 p.m. on Pri{tina, Beograd, Pancevo, Podgorica, Novi Sad, Kragujevac, Sombor...The sirens started again at midnight and rackets and bombs fell again very close to our house.

The situation has been the same almost every day. Every three or four hours we have sirens and then rackets and bombs. This is the seventh night without a proper sleeping. The Friday night (26-27 March) was the worst. They started bombarding at 2 a.m. This time not only military targets. Bombs and racket fell on Surcin (closed to Belgrade civilian airport), Batajnica (military airport), suburban parts of Belgrade: Rakovica, Resnik, Zarkovo, Sremcica, Mali Mokri Lug (a village 2 km from our house), there was a fire in Lipovicka Wood (close to Beograd)... Three schools in Rakovica and Resnik are damaged, a hospital in Nis, also, Ravanica monastery, too. It is not propaganda. Most of these things we have seen from our balcony, and others from the TV. That night we could see and hear the sound of aircrafts over our heads going towards Avala: the target was TV antenna, but the bombs fell on nearby village. I don't know what you can see on your TV, but this the truth.

Many of our neighbours go to the shelters (day and night). We stay at home, for we think that it would be terrible to be all that time with frightened people. My wife goes every day to work in a Psychiatric hospital (she is psychologist). Schools and faculties are closed. My daughter is student of psychology and she has two exams at the end of April, but you can imagine that it is very hard for her to work. It is not important now, of course. She is mostly at home talking by the phone with friends; yesterday she was at the protest concert in a city centre. I am mostly at home finishing some research and preparing our journal "International Problems" for publishing. My Faculty of Political Sciences (I am professor there) is closed; there are no lectures or exams, of course.

Unfortunately the situation today (31 March) is the same as it was yesterday, or day before... Bombs and rackets are still around us. Belgrade civilian airport in Surcin is damaged. Military airport in Batajnica was bombed for the seventh time (a friend of mine from the Institute lives in a house that is only two kilometers from that airport; all the windows are broken). City centre of Pristina is blazing. There are a lot of civilian casualties - Serbs and Albanians. According to some (Russian) information there are about 1.000 civilians killed. We can see on TV a lot of houses destroyed in suburban parts of Beograd, in Novi Sad, Nis... Some factories (not military) are destroyed or severely damaged - in Pancevo, Rakovica, Nis, Leskovac. About 100 of schools are also damaged - five in Belgrade...

I am glad to say that the spirit of people is high. There is no panic. People try to work and to behave normally. Every day from noon up to 3 p.m., we have protest concerts of some of our best rock or folk groups and singers at the Square of Freedom (that is in front of National Theatre). About 50.000 of mostly young people go there to sing and protest. On the transparent you could see some interesting messages: "We are not afraid", "Sorry we're singing", "Sorry, we didn't know, it was invisible" (F-117), "Bombs for the better tomorrow", "Adolph Clinton". This kind of protest will be everyday practice. In Kragujevac workers in "Zastava" car factory decided to stay day and night as "live wall" in order to prevent bombing of their only source of existence. As you probably know, most of our athletes abroad decided to refuse to play, or wear something black on their shirts. I am sorry to say (for the victims are young pilots) but people are glad to see American and German aircrafts have been hit, particularly that "invisible" F-117.

My daughter decided to go to the protest concerts. We are afraid of that for we don't know what could happen. Enemy aircrafts are almost all the time over us. But everybody wants to do something and contribute to the end of this aggression. It is quite interesting that we have not notice not a single picture of our president or any such kind of support. Young people are just protesting against the aggression, bombing, NATO, Clinton, Blair and rest of the them. Some of the protesters do not only sing: the windows of American, British, German and French cultural centres or libraries are broken, unfortunately.

You probably know that Primakov, Ivanov and Sergeev were yesterday in Beograd to meet Milosevic. They were not here to express their formal support to Yugoslavia only, I hope. We still don't know exactly the results of Primakov visit to Bonn. It could be the turning point, the beginning of somewhat rational attempt to stop this war, and to prevent the spreading the war to other regions of Europe. There are some other initiatives - Greek, Italian and French. Urgent need is to stop the bombing and aggression against us. But this is only a part of much bigger problems.

You could notice that I used several times the term "aggression". According to international law (if this exists anymore) the act of NATO (read American) forces is by definition aggression against a sovereign state. Even more. Military attack against Yugoslavia is severe violation of generally accepted rule of contemporary international law as defined in Article 2, paragraph 4 of the UN Charter, which forbid not only use, but even treat of force in international relations. In Nuremberg in 1945 it was accepted that aggression of that kind is international crime, and that those who resort to force face the criminal responsibility. I know that in this situation there is no chance for those who are responsible for this aggression to be tried. I know that there is no chance for Clinton, Blair, Cook and the rest to be tried for war crimes. The history will prove that.

The NATO forces have not any authorization by the UN Security Council or any Resolution to resort to the aggression. It is not "humanitarian intervention", as they now say. You remember how all these bombing started. It was the ultimatum of a "superpower" to Yugoslavia to accept and sign the "agreement" written by rump Contact Group (without Russia) and their Albanian allies, which was not accepted by the other (Serbian) side at the talks in Rambouillet and Paris. Agreement by definition means that sides in a dispute expressed their free will to accept the proposed solution. In this case there were not any agreement between two sides, and there were not "free will" on both sides. The Albanian side "accepted" and "signed" that "document", you know how and why. ("Famous" and "historical" Robin Cook's message to Albanians: "Please sign the agreement, otherwise we cannot bombard Serbs.")

The content of the "agreement" was not acceptable for Serbian side at least for three reasons. Firstly, there are some articles that violate not only our Constitution but internationally accepted definition of sovereignty and integrity of any state (in this case Serbia and Yugoslavia). Secondly, the "expression of will of people of Kosovo after three years" was not acceptable, for it is in contradiction with principle written in preamble of the "agreement" (frontiers of Serbia, territorial integrity, etc.). It is obvious that the majority of Albanians in Kosovo would vote for independent Kosovo, and that at the referendum in the whole Serbia we will have the opposite results. Thirdly, and now, after the intervention, the most important thing is the question of international forces in Kosovo. It is obvious now that NATO troops are not acceptable not only for our government, for all of us, but also, I think, for all the governments of the NATO member countries that have been involved in this aggression. Who will be willing to have his son or brother in this country in any kind of "peaceful" mission after all these killings? That would be the biggest problem after (and if) the two sides found any acceptable solution for the problem.

About the situation in Kosovo. I don't know for sure what is going on in Kosovo at the moment. But I know some facts. During the talks in Rambouillet and Paris only OVK (Albanians terrorists) had broken cease-fire. Just after the rejection of ultimatum Ibrahim Rugova wrote an "appeal" to Albanians to leave Kosovo for Albania and Macedonia (I read that pamphlet), in order to escape the bombarding by NATO. Most of the Albanians left Pristina. That is (perhaps) why that city has been bombarding so severely. The targets of rackets and bombs are military installations and (mostly) villages populated by Serbs. There are a lot of Albanian and Serbian people who try to run away from their homes in order to save their lives. It is also true that there are severe fighting between OVK and army and police. There are refugees on both sides. This is humanitarian catastrophe. I now believe in Tony Blair's "explanation" of the NATO action when he said: "We had to attack Yugoslavia for 'people of Kosovo' asked that". The situation in Kosovo before 25 March was not good at all. Now after the "humanitarian intervention" it is terrible. I wonder what one can do now to improve the situation there, and establish any relations among Albanians and rest of the population in Kosovo. We had some chances after Rambouillet. I am afraid that Bill Clinton and others committed the big mistake destroying those chances. It would be very, very difficult to start talks from the beginning.

Primakov, Ivanov and Sergeev visit to Beograd and their talks with Milosevic could have some positive results, I hope. We are waiting for some lights. It would be very difficult now to restore talks. But that is the only solution. Of course, the precondition is: stop the bombs and then talk.

It is obvious that the Clinton's "plan" to impose the solution by ultimatums and bombarding has failed. He probably did not expect such disaster of his Blitzkrieg. He will (perhaps) continue with bombarding for some times in order to show some "results". The results are disastrous for all. We are the main victims. It will be military, diplomatic and political disaster for US, UK, NATO. Is it the end of UN? What will be with so called international community and international law? Is it possible to prevent wider conflicts?

You cannot imagine the atmosphere in our country. It is no more so important question who will get some political points out of this tragic situation. Milosevic will strengthen his position for he has got the "support" by Clinton and Blair and their ingenious "military campaign". The majority of people are supporting all of those political forces that are for the defense of our country. The same young people (and most of us) who demonstrated in 1996 are now demonstrating not only against NATO, but against Clinton's and Blair's "western civilization". Every symbol of American way of life is burned at the stake: American flags, McDonald's and Coca Cola's culture, "no more jeans and American cigarettes". (I am still jazz fan, as you know; they can't take that away from me, I hope). I think that Antiamericanism will here to stay for a long, long time, and not only in our country. You probably remember the words I wrote in the Introduction of my book "Yugoslav Crisis and the World - Chronology of Events" (and in some articles published here) about the role of internal and foreign factors in Yugoslav crisis. I am afraid that these last events contributed a lot to the flourishing of thesis of "international plot to destroy" former SFRY and now FR Yugoslavia.

Most of European leaders of the NATO member countries are discredited in this country (the leaders, not the people, of course). I still don't know the outcome of this bloody adventure. I hope that demonstrations all over the world could help, but I am afraid that somebody must do something more drastic to change the situation for the better, but it could be just the opposite. I just don't know if the public opinion can influence such people as Clinton and Blair are. And when the bombings stop we shall be at the beginning of the process of reconciliation, for Paris "talks" and "agreement" "signed" by Albanians are dead. For Serbia and Montenegro the situation will be even worse than before the bombing not only because of terrible state of our economy.

We know that many people abroad are beginning to understand the whole situation. We read yesterday very long letter by Richard Burns, "British poet and the professor at the Cambridge University" (as "Politika" announced him). It is an excellent and objective essay on the present situation and the role of various international factors, "leaders", mass-media particularly in Britain and US. We also had the opportunity to listen on TV Ramsey Clark, former American Supreme Court Judge who was brilliant in his analysis of the role of American political and military establishment. It would be very good for the image of both US and UK, and the rest of European countries, to have more such intellectuals overhere.

That's all for the time being. I hope that the next letter will be more optimistic.

Professor Brana Markovic
Faculty of Political Science
University of Belgrade

P.S. 1 April 1999: NATO's bombs destroyed this morning the old bridge over Danube between Novi Sad and Petrovaradin.

A graffiti: To fight for peace is the same as to **** for virginity.

Njegos [the most famous Montenegrin/Serb poet]: The one whose law is in the arms, stinks on inhumanity.

A personal opinion:

- The League of Nations was better!
- Does civilization really need this?
- It seems that "might is right".

A word or two for the [Rambouillet] documents, rejection of which by our delegation in France, allegedly caused these airstrikes:

- Do the people who are in offices in NATO member-states know that for an agreement to be reached and signed, the consent of the parties is indispensable?
- Will the states who attack ours ever accept for themselves as a valid agreement, which is a result of a serious threat on the one of the parties?
- If the answers to the previous two questions are positive, I will ask you to think about these following points. Who are and what kind of people are those who have attacked my country, and by what means? What is the duty of all honest people no matter where are they from in this case?
- Would anyone who cares on honesty and pride ever put his signature on something, which is a result of pressure on him?
- Please, at least hypothetically, try to imagine what whould you have done if you had been in the position of the Yugoslavs? They only want to be able to look at their children's eyes, not as powerful and rich, but as honest people.
- If the powerful people want to eliminate the ruling regime in my country, then they are really highly incompetent for the offices they hold. Aren't they aware that under current circumstances, the regime can be only strenghtened by their actions?

I an sending this letter with hope that after reading it there will be, at least, one person more who will think deeper on these points.

I wish your countries more progress in making material goods, but I appeal to you as human beings to turn your attention to something which is not necessarily related with the technological development. There is something which is called ETHICS, and everything must be done in name of it. Law is only normative expression of ethics. At least, it should be.

Mortituri te salutant ["we who are about to die, salute you..."]

Dragan Davidovic
A lawyer and a father of two small children

P.S. I would like to stress only one more thing. Please, keep in mind that UN Security Council has not given its agreement for bombing, not even post festum

The sixth night of agression on Yugoslavia has passed. A new air raid was sirened last night at 8.48 p.m., only 9.20 minutes after the previous sirens announced the cessation of the previous air raid. The NATO forces continue to attack military, but also civilian targets, with unreduced forces, where material damage has been caused. Schools, hospitals, ambulances, factories that are not used for military purposes, are also on target, as well as chemical industries, settlements, cultural monuments. Rocket cruisers fly above the town centre, and fly towards targets in the outskirt area. In Pancevo, UTVA, the airplane factory, has been attacked again, according to Beta agency reports. RTS has announced that over 100 schools have been damaged from the beginning of the agression. The National Museum in Leskovac has been damaged, where archeological collections are endangered.

Pristina was also exposed to the most violent attacks the two nights ago. According to RTS, Kosovo was overflown by 50 plains of the NATO airfoce, 15 projectiles where fired on civilian and military targets. A dental polyclinic was hit. Also, the civilian airport in Belgrade was bombarded. Fortunately, without any casualties. The wounded have been hospitalised. Border guards of the Yugoslav Army prevented the invasion of a large group of Albanian terrorists at the border in Djakjovica. 13 were liquidated. All were in NATO uniforms with German coat-of-arms. They had the most modern American gear and arms.

Due to the continuous acts of NATIO aviation, the work of the RED CROSS of Yugoslavia and Kosovo is jeopardised. The building next to the headquarters of the Red Cross in Pristina has been hit.

The monastry Rakovica in Belgrade has also been damaged by the Tomahawk rocket, and is now under repair. The detonations threaten the foundations of many Kosovo monastries, which are mainly under the protection of UNESCO.

According to the information given by the general staff of the Yugoslav Army, the War Airforce and antiaircraft defence of the Yugoslav Army shot seven aircrafts, three helicopters, over thirtu rocket cruisers and three pilot-free aircrafts. Land forces of the antiaircraft defense also caused damages to the agressor. This information will be given at a later date. In the attacks on Yugoslavia, 430 airplanes and 400 rockets participated, according to the same source. They had 1300 combat takeoffs, 1100 tons of explosives (230 g per resident).

An appeal to UNICEF has been filed. The lives and spirits of children are endangered.

Bibic Predrag, Attorney at Law
Bibic Law Office, Belgrade

From there I went to Nora's. I had just arrived when a weeping neighbor rushed into the apartment: "They have taken our car." Three men in police uniform had come, she said, forced open the car door and drove it away. "Better the car than your son," said Nora's father. I dialed over 20 phone numbers. Most phones were not working. It was quiet until 4 a.m. Then there were explosions, followed by silence.

When day broke, I went to see some friends. The Keljmendis phone was cut off. Bajram Keljmendi's shingle was still on the door of his law office. Neighbors told me they hadn't seen his wife Nekibe since the burial of Bajram and their sons. I asked them to give her my regards. Then, together with Nora, a relation of Fehmi Agani and a driver from Belgrade, I made my way to Dragodan, Fehmi Agani's neighborhood. When we reached it, we were stopped by police. They asked to see our papers and when they saw that Nora and Arsim were Albanian, the one in charge ordered them out of the car. I got out too, saying we all worked for the same organization and were looking for a friend. The officer replied that Albanians no longer worked in Serbia and should be on their way to Macedonia. I asked since when police had the authority to fire people and he yelled at me to get back in the car and shut up. I sat on the seat, leaving the door open and my legs outside the car. He slammed the door against my legs, saying Serbia was being ruined by such Serbs. The one in charge called someone over his Motorola. This lasted about 10 minutes and then he waved us on. We made our way back to the center, hardly believing that we had got off so lightly. We drove through side streets to the Suncani Breg district. On the way, we saw wrecked and looted stores and kiosks. We found Vjollca but she was determined to stay with her family in Pristina. We were driven away by her Serb neighbor. "What kind of gathering is this? No loitering! Albanians, inside your homes!" he said.

In all-Albanian districts, we encountered groups of people discussing what to do: should they make their way to the border or stay until the police ordered them out of their homes? Some told me no more than 1,000 people were left in Pec, those who managed to get out of the column the police and military escorted to the Montenegrin border. None of them knew if it was true that Fehmi Agani had been killed, not even his relations. They had heard the report on CNN. Nor was there any reliable news of Baton Jakdziju, the editor of Koha Ditore. People kept to their homes. Only the bravest went to see relations who live near by. Only a few phones were working.

The streets of downtown Pristina were almost deserted. People were in their apartments or the stairways of their buildings. In one of these buildings, we spoke to residents and found Mentor. He was just about to leave for the border. Everyone we spoke to was in a panic. With one exception, an Albanian, who calmly repeated he would not leave his home until he was thrown out. An elderly Serb woman came in and stopped for a moment to chat with her neighbors. She too appeared to be fearless.

We started out for Macedonia, in two cars, at about noon. It's 75 kilometers to the Djeneral Jankovic crossing. Several cars coming from side streets joined us. When we were on the road to the border, there were hundreds of cars behind us. The plan was to get to the border, wait until Ariana and Mentor had crossed and then Nora and I would make for Belgrade. Three kilometers from the border, the column stopped. Rumors flew around that the border was closed, that police were taking cars, that they were separating out the men... The sight of police with masked faces in the column frightened us and we decided to return to Pristina. No one prevented us. People asked us what was going on and we tried to persuade them to go back home. But only a few cars followed us. As we drove back, we saw that there were more than 2,000 cars in the column. We also saw groups making their way on foot, all gripped by a terrible fear.

We got back to Pristina, dropped off Ariana and the others and I, Nora, her brother, and Mentor headed for Belgrade. I was afraid of what would happen at police checkpoints. The first was just outside Pristina on the road to Gnjilane. Our driver asked a policeman if the road to Gnjilane was open. "Depends on the name," was the reply. The officer checked the driver's papers and let us through. The driver's papers were examined at the other checkpoints too and we were allowed to continue. Soldiers at a military checkpoint 10 kilometers outside Pristina asked to see all our papers. There were no problems. We reached Belgrade at about 10 p.m.

Natasa Kandic
Executive Director
Humanitarian Law Center
Belgrade

We, Professors and Associates of the Faculty of Law, University of Belgrade

unanimously APPEAL to you to

1) Use your influence, professional and personal, and best endeavors for the immediate termination of the brutal NATO aggression against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia causing irreparable humanitarian disaster, and;

2) Insist on a peaceful resolution of the Kossovo and Metohia crises through immediate resumption of the negotiation process, leading to a true consensus, based on established principles and standards of law, tolerance and respect for fundamental principles of the United Nations Charter.

The brutal aggression of the NATO Alliance against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, commenced in the night of 24th of March 1999, which is causing mass murder and a large scale destruction, denies basic human rights to life and freedom.

Therefore the Faculty of Law, University of Belgrade, as the central juristic and educational institution since its establishment in 1838, its Professors and Associates, in an attempt to alarm the conscience of our learned colleagues, advocates of humanism and justice worldwide, and all thinking people and nations of this World make the above appeal.

If law in its first primal and primitive form, inspired by the instinct of vengeance ordered ? DO EVIL; if law of the following epoch guided by principles of Christian Civilisation ordered ? DO NO EVIL; then law of our time, inspired by the authority of mind and culture of reason, codified as international standards of human rights, represents the inception of the third epoch which orders ? MAKE GOOD. These principles - do evil, do no evil, make good - are three steps in the evolution of legal culture. They represent the moral tripartition of law.

The Faculty of Law, University of Belgrade, as part of the European legal civilisation, by juristic and educational opus of its professors, most of them educated in Europe, and recently in other juristic centres of the World, has built its establishment on the idea of law as a cultural phenomena in pursuit of justice, today codified in UN documents as standards of international law in fields of civic, political, economic, social and cultural laws, thereby promising a just rule of law for the third millenium.

The dawn of the new Millenium fostered our faith in the realisation of human rights, dignity of life, and equality of all, regardless of race, creed, or conviction.

Regrettably, dear Colleagues, this historic evolution of legal and philosophic principles has been crudely disrupted, hopefully not forever, by the aggression of the NATO Alliance, by its moral and legal delict, and its offence against mankind. This brutal act has degraded modern legal culture to the primitive instinctual principle ? DO EVIL.

Today the People of Yugoslavia are hit by this evil. Tomorrow, unrestricted by the United Nations and International Law, having neither moral and legal boundaries nor civilisational imperatives in its perspective, brutal force will find its new victim somewhere else, on some other unfortunate place of our planet.

Therefore, Professors and Associates of the Faculty of Law, University of Belgrade, warn the Global juristic and general public opinion, that every violence is in stark opposition to reason.

When this violence accumulates the physical might for mass destruction of human beings, human environment, its material, intellectual and cultural heritage of invaluable importance, then this is not only an individual criminal act, rather it is a cataclysm leaving behind itself devastation of foundations for life.

We are all well aware that actions with respect to threats to the peace, breaches of the peace and acts of aggression are regulated by the UN Charter, Chapter VII, wherein it is provided that it is in the exclusive competence of the Security Council to decide upon appropriate measures to be undertaken according to Article 41. and 42. of the UN Charter.

In that framework it is of essential importance to mention the provision of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter that all Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity and political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.

Faculty of Law
University of Belgrade

Father Dimso Peric
Professor of Ecclesiastical Law
Faculty of Law, University of Belgrade

Please try to raise your voice wherever you can! Bombing of Yugoslavia is not a question of Milosevic anymore - it is about lives of our children and ourselves (including those who are not very fond of him). Do not believe that military targets are the only ones - just a few hours ago Belgrade civilians are heavily affected. In four days hundreds civilians died. Is that "humanitarian catastrophe" as well? Do not forget that the war was started by Albanian separatists in order to create the Huge Albanian state (including parts of Macedonia, Greece) and that bombing proves that NATO acts like a separatist air-force.

Most of all, do not forget that NATO aggression is a question of international law, which seems that does not exist anymore. Bombing without confirmation of the UN means the end of international law and UN itself.

I hope that this e-mail will reach you in between of two attacks. Latins would say: HODIE MIHI, CRAS TIBI. Or, TUA RES AGITUR !

A potential co-latteral damage subject of NATO air-strikes,

Dr Sima Avramovic
Professor of Legal History
School of Law, University of Belgrade

Pieces of a NATO rocket were found near Tuzla, Bosnia. CNN has reported these are the pieces of Yugoslav planes, but not likely. I was abhorred when I heard how Gunther Grass supported the NATO invasion, asking for land troops to come to Kosovo. He added something like 'this cannot be compared to fascist aggression'. Well, he may be right - the strike against Yugoslavia is considerably more monstrous. Croatia asks from NATO financial compensation for its ruined summer season. They are right - I mean, these bits and pieces of bombs and missiles are sprayed and sprinkled around, you can never and nowhere be safe from them.

I went to a pharmacy shop this morning, looking for antibiotics and the like. My face is a mess, by the way - I stopped using facial wash, I can't find my lotions and creams in all these bags my mother packed in case we have to leave town and flee for the nearby villages. I met some friends, who tried to make jokes about everything. People react in such a different scale - some do not dare leave the damp shelters which mostly resemble to solitary confinement cells, and some decisively refuse to go there. Panic is worst.

My sleep's being killed. When i fall asleep for half an hour, I talk and shout in my sleep. I do not dare think how my granpa, who is 92, completely blind and not able to move out of his bed, feels like. But he's in the state of 'second childhood and mere oblivion'. Maybe that's easier. But no shoes are comfortable these days.

They are announcing serious attacks on novi sad. So, if you do not hear anything from me, do not worry, dead communication does not necessarily mean death, mine or anybody's. I'll take my walkman with me next time to the shelter, and i will listen exclusively to music from NATO countries - portuguese band 'Madredeus' and the latest Sheryl Crow. That is the only choice I can make!

Vladislava Gordic
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad

CNN reporters lament on clouds which hampered Harrier planes to be even more destructive. Shall we here, frustrated and traumatized civilians (soon to be poisoned, since they did their best to hit the chemical factories near Belgrade) confide only in bad weather to stop the NATO invasion?

I try to read, but I cannot. My father takes shelter in a book by Roald Dahl, called *Stories of the Unexpected*. The proper title, that is.

Vladislava Gordic
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad

What is to be said about the coldness of people? It is just that somebody with a big **** and a cold heart decided to become (luke)warm-hearted and prevent a humanitarian catastrophe by creating a greater one... It is just that somebody decided to turn this sanctionland in which I live into a bombland.

When they first threatened to bomb Serbia last September, people from Belgrade made a joke about how the city will become renamed -- it will be called BOMB-ay. That is precisely what happened on the night between Friday and Saturday -- Belgrade was bombed, the very heart of the city, blazing in flames, the poisonous gasses started leaking out of demolished factories on the outskirts of town.

Burn, baby, burn -- that's what probably was ringing in the ears of the aggressors. Children have been killed, Serbian medieval monasteries (which are under the protection of UNESCO) were hit yesterday, the university campus in Nish, a town in southern Serbia, has also been bombed. The bombs fell on the student dormitory; museums and schools have been shelled as well.

What a nice cluster of military targets. Burn, baby, burn.

I'll be back with you, as soon as i can. I'll try to rest for a while, to refresh myself before the next attack starts.

Vladislava Gordic
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad

Since the pronouncement of the Nuremberg judgement in 1946 aggression has been considered an international crime entailing criminal responsibility for its perpetrators. "Humanitarian intervention" cannot justify an act of aggression, neither can the circumstances in Yugoslavia, including the situation in Kosovo at the moment of the beginning of the hostilities, deprive the perpetrated deed of its illegality.

The very foundations of the international order, which has been maintained in the last 50 years in spite of many challenges, are now shaken. If any country, especially a large and powerful one, can take justice in its own hands, the future of the world becomes uncertain and wrought with danger.

The undersigned professors of international law protest against this act of aggression and appeal to the governments concerned to immediately cease their military operations. They call on all UN members to exert pressure in that direction. We hope and believe that the responsibility of all participants in this tragedy will soon be impartially determined.

No political problem can be solved by the use of force. Force does not resolve any question, least of all prevent humanitarian disaster. The political isolation of the FRY cannot be a justification of the violation of international law: Yugoslavia and its citizens cannot therefore be placed outside the law.

Ljubivoje Acimovic, former Counsel, Institute of International Politics and Economy, Belgrade.

Vojin Dimitrijevic, former Professor of International Law and International Relations, University of Belgrade Law School; Director, Belgrade Centre for Human Rights; former Vice-Chairman, UN Human Rights Committee.

Dejan Jansa, former Professor of Public International Law, University of Novi Sad Law School; former member, UN Human Rights Committee.

Konstantin Obradovic, former Professor of Public International Law, Faculty of Political Science, University of Belgrade; Member of the Institute of International Humanitarian Law, San Remo.

Obrad Rasic, former Professor of International Organisations, Faculty of Political Science, University of Belgrade.

Milan Djahovic, former Director of the Institute of International Politics and Economy, Belgrade and Professor of International Law at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Belgrade; Member of the Institut de Droit International.

The attacks were unexpected and sudden, many atomic shelters in apartment buildings and cellars in private houses were locked, damp, dilapidated and unprepared, since no one expected this to happen - logically enough, people here thought that only Kosovo will be bombed, since 'military targets' should be there, not HERE, right? But what we see and hear, the targets are also private houses (one missile fell on a house in a village Pranjani near Serbian town Cacak) and factories manufacturing food and medicine. About ten or maybe more refugees from Croatia and Bosnia were killed by bombs that fell on Kursumlija and Prokuplje just because they were accommodated in former military objects -isn't that ironic, as Alanis would sing? Actually, these 'military targets" seem to be of a very wide range - if soldiers eat chocolate, should NATO bomb all Serbian chocolate factories in order to prevent serbian soldiers from indulging in it and thus accumulating energy to 'slaughter ethnic albanians'? This is absurd enough. Another thing is - NATO prevents humanitarian catastrophe in kosovo by creating a more grave humanitarian condition in serbia and montenegro. Now it is our babies that are short of milk, now the whole population of Serbia suffers from food and petrol shortages.

This is no way to spread democracy. If it is, democracy is a virus that kills!

I am the Assistant Professor of American and English literature at the University of Novi Sad. I have visited United States and seen myself that it really is a land of opportunities. I am not one of those people who mocks american dream. Still, now that I am so tense after spending two days in a damp shelter with a swollen tooth (not being able to visit my doctor in all this mess), now that I am quite tense and near the end of my tether, I do not want to be harsh, or to use harsh words on anybody. just, please, do not turn American dreams into Yugoslav nightmare!

Vladislava Gordic
Assistant Profesor of English and American Literature
University of Novi Sad

Democratic and economic transition in Serbia is the only real cure for the Kosovo problem and hope for achieving stability in the Balkans.

Our long-standing criticism of the policies of the Serbian regime and especially its human rights record is well known. However, we regard the NATO's decision "to use violence for humanitarian reasons" as a sign of incompetence and impotence of the US and EU policies in regard to Kosovo, rather than an unavoidable move after all other efforts had failed. Air strikes signify the defeat of the international community's long-standing policy towards Serbia, which has been exclusively based on negotiating with Mr. Milosevic and pressuring him to deliver peace.

There will be no real peace and stability in the region and there will certainly be no peace in Yugoslavia unless Serbia embarks on the road to democracy and market economy. However, it appears that the international community has never seriously considered this option. There has been no real effort to promote and assist the position of those in Serbia that have been endeavoring to put their country on the road to democracy. On the contrary, economic and political isolation of FR Yugoslavia has been maintained although it has been clear that this immensely aids authoritarian and xenophobic extremists. In the atmosphere of war and national calamity these enemies of democracy will feel no inhibitions and will meet with little resistance.

Occasional maladroit attempts to "assist" democracy and human rights in Serbia by vague promises of money to individuals and groups have only exposed non-governmental organizations in Yugoslavia to accusations of cupidity and treacherous service to foreign enemies. A fresh and very unfortunate example is the introduction in the US Senate of a "Serbian Democratization Act" in the wake of the first night of bombings!

The air strikes erased in one night the results of ten years of hard work of groups of courageous people in the non-governmental organizations and in the democratic opposition, who have not tried to "topple" anyone but to develop the institutions of civil society, to promote liberal and civic values, to teach non-violent conflict resolution. The emerging democracy in Montenegro is in peril and will be hard to maintain now. The Kosovo problem will remain unsolved and the future of democracy and human rights in Serbia uncertain for many years.

However, we still hope that it is not too late for all the parties involved to come to their senses and try to resolve this situation through negotiations and without further violence.

For the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights,

Professor Vojin Dimitrijevic
Former Vice-Chairman of the UN Human Rights Committee
[Professor of International Law and International Relations, University of Belgrade]