“And when the final battle comes,
Without the light of ancient glory,
For my fatherland, I’ll give my life,
Knowing what I give and why.”
These verses by Milan Rakic open the memorial book, “Heroes of the Fatherland,” published by the Federal government, listing all the killed and missing members of the Yugoslav Army and the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs during NATO’s brutal aggression on Yugoslavia, “as a sign of deepest respect, eternal gratitude and our lasting obligation.”
They are also the best introduction for what I am about to do. I have decided, consciously and responsibly, to give up my life, having seen as to how the DOS is a puppet and criminal government, which has established a fascist dictatorship in the country, violated both the Constitution, the laws and elementary justice. Incessantly, with all means at their disposal – including murder – they persecute those with different political beliefs. The most brazen examples of their bestiality are abductions and unconstitutional deliveries of Serbian and Yugoslav citizens to the “tribunal” in The Hague, especially in the case of former Serbian and Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic. It is me, too, that they have decided to abduct, or kill.
By this act of heroism I wish to awaken the consciousness of our citizens, if that is still possible, to defend Serbia and Yugoslavia from disintegration, the Serbian people from destruction, and preserve at least some of the honor and dignity that our people’s legacy of history and civilization has earned.
For my death, I directly accuse Zoran Djindjic, Vojislav Kostunica, Dusan Mihajlovic, Vladan Batic and Miroljub Labus, who are the most responsible for the brazen violations of the Constitution and other laws; who have put the survival of the country and the Serbian people at stake; whose abuses of the media, the police and the judiciary have brought persecution and violence against citizens, ruined the economy and brought poverty and despair to millions.
With this act I wish to join the ranks of heroes, my police officers, Army troops and civilians who showed patriotism, heroism readiness and determination, and gave their lives defending the country and the people from criminal aggressors: Albanian terrorists and the nineteen countries of NATO, led by the United States.
Between January 1998 and September 2000, the terrorists and aggressors in Kosovo-Metohia have killed over 2000 Serbs and members of other ethnic groups, of which over 300 were law enforcement officers; they have wounded over 2,500 people, 900 of which were law enforcement officers; and abducted over 1,500 Serbs, some 50 of them law enforcement officers. The DOS government shows no interest in caring for these victims and their families. Meanwhile, slavishly executing the orders of their foreign masters, it has released criminals and Albanian terrorists who have been properly tried and convicted.
I give my life as a representative in the Federal Parliament, at the very steps of the Parliament building (already defiled by DOS), as a symbol of the ongoing struggle for the Constitution, rule of law and national dignity. My death will be but a small contribution to the justified calls for new elections, which will see the triumph of those who will truly represent the interests of workers, peasants and all patriotic citizens of this country.
Everyone already knows that the DOS government is not a government of the people. By promising a better life, they have betrayed and deceived the people who voted for them. The DOS government is really a hand of NATO, led by the United States, tasked to obediently secure foreign military, political and economic interests here, regardless of our national interests. They accepted this obligation, and were well-paid for it.
The aggression against our country has continued, only through different means. Its purpose is to:
– Further fragment Yugoslavia, through the secession of Kosovo-Metohia, Montenegro, Vojvodina and Raska;
– Physically and spiritually destroy the Serbian people; do everything to obliterate its history, destroy its soul and leave it without an identity;
Under the guise of necessary reforms, they have:
– destroyed the economic system, by forcibly closing profitable domestic enterprises;
– sold off the domestic market, a respectable and until recently still preserved economic resource of the country;
– fragmented and dismantled the Army, especially through unjustified attacks and slander of the officer corps, as it is the guarantor of independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country;
– gutted and manipulated the law enforcement, which is the most important factor of protecting civilian lives and property, and thus the country’s security;
– launched an unprecedented, Goebbels-style media campaign to deny and denigrate the Serbian people’s civilized, economic, technological, cultural and athletic accomplishments, including its Christian-Orthodox values. On the other hand, they glorify such Western “values” as religious cults, narcotics, gun-running and human trafficking, and a double-standard morality (such as calling the bombing of civilians “Merciful Angel”).
It is a false and slanderous accusation that someone here is for the isolation of the country, against cooperating with the world and against integration. In fact all this was imposed on us by those very Western governments, contrary to international rules. Germany, the US and Vatican have supported the demands of separatists in the former Yugoslav republics for secession, and unilaterally recognized them, which led to the forcible expulsion of over 1 million Serbs from Slavonia, Baranja, Krajina and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
They have blocked our financial assets and prevented normal economic cooperation. They have destabilized Yugoslavia through the puppet regime of Milo Djukanovic in Montenegro, aiding and arming the Albanian terrorists in Kosovo-Metohia, and finally through armed aggression.
What does it mean to “accept political reality,” about which DOS constantly speaks? Does it mean to be a colony, accepting endless blackmail and humiliation? When it comes to cooperation, there has to be a line which none should cross: the defense of vital national and state interests, and national dignity.
The current DOS government is conducting a policy of capitulation. Why has it not asked its “friends” in NATO to compensate us for war damage? Why does it repay old debts for which we are not responsible, without taking them out of the losses caused by the creditors when they froze our assets and unilaterally violated trade arrangements? Why do domestic officials and media refer to Albanian terrorists as “armed Albanians” and “extremists”? Why is the criminal NATO aggression called a “NATO intervention”, and the murder of civilians with cluster bombs and depleted uranium simply “air strikes”? Why? There are so many whys.
Will our people just sit by and watch all this? I am certain they will not. Discontent is palpable: farmer revolts, workers’ strikes, protests of retirees, the disillusionment of the youth. Discontented workers assaulted government ministers (for example, at the “Zastava” auto plant in Kragujevac) and block ministers from touring their enterprises (for example at “Nisan” in Nis). Health care, education and culture are falling further into poverty every day, despite the boisterous announcements of humiliating western “donations” and “aid.”
* * *
The most aggressive and widespread subversive and illegal activities, aimed against the national and state interests, our institutions and values, are freely and without hindrance conducted by the so-called non-governmental organizations (NGOs). There are hundreds of them, but the most destructive are: Humanitarian Law Fund, led by Natasa Kandic; Yugoslav Lawyer’s Committee for Human Rights, led by Biljana Kovacevic-Vuco; Helsinski Committee, led by Sonja Biserko; Center for [Cultural] Decontamination, led by Borka Pavicevic; Open Society Fund (Soros) led by Sonja Liht; the so-called Association of independent media, (ANEM) led by Veran Matic; “G-17 plus” led by Labus, Dinkic and some bearded nonentity; and the “Otpor” movement, which includes many ex-convicts, drug-users, soccer hooligans and failed students.
These organizations are merely outposts, branches of foreign intelligence services and the International Monetary Fund, and represent the infrastructure of the New World Order. Their destructive and anti-national activities are supported by Serbia’s Civic Alliance (Goran Svilanovic). One of our famous publicists said of them, “In the terminology of necrophilia established by our Europeans and their allies, there are three undisputed truths: Albanian murders are revenge; NATO murders are collateral damage; Serb murders are atrocities.” Under the guise of free speech and claiming to represent the interests of our citizens, they peddle ideas and demands for compliance with intentions, plans and interests of NATO governments. Among them are justification of the NATO aggression, justification of the violent secession by former Yugoslav republics; independence of Montenegro and Kosovo-Metohia, justification of Albanian terrorism; slanderous and immoral attacks on the true leader of Serbs, Slobodan Milosevic; and the attempts to convince the world of the supposed “genetic predisposition of Serbs for genocide.” For all this, these women have been well-paid by their masters. This has been documented by the police.
By accrediting William Montgomery as the US Ambassador to Yugoslavia, president Kostunica and the Federal government insulted and humiliated our citizens and our country. Montgomery is a man who organized, coordinated and financed the political and economic destabilization of Yugoslavia from offices in Zagreb and Budapest; with NATO, he coordinated the bombing, destruction, and murder of civilians. It is supremely cynical that a Clinton administration official speaks of humanitarianism and helping the Serbian people, while persisting in the policies of pressure, blackmail and occupation of our country.
* * *
I want to warn that western intelligence services have blackmailed certain DOS leaders with the knowledge of their personal life and thus secured their blind obedience. The people in question are inclined to homosexuality: Miroljub Labus, Zarko Korac, Dusan Mihajlovic, Bozidaru Djelic, Aleksandar Radovic and others. Holding positions of responsibility in the government and blackmailed by foreign powers, these men are seriously endangering the country’s economy and security.
* * *
After the armed aggression of NATO ended, the EU continued its pressure and blockade of our country, so as to hinder reconstruction and economic recovery, worsen the citizens’ standard of living and spur their discontent for the government. Enterprises, banks and institutions were “blacklisted” and could not deal with EU companies. On this occasion, I wish to inform the public that the EU delegated the Dutch Embassy in Belgrade to compile these lists, and it was aided by the leadership of New Democracy, namely its president Dusan Mihajlovic. Mihajlovic was involved in a filthy, treasonous task of economic subversion and destruction of our enterprises. Even more deplorable was that certain enterprises submitted to blackmail and had to pay sizeable amounts of money to be taken off the “blacklist.”
* * *
I am proud of my record as head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs between April 1997 and October 2000.
This was an extremely difficult time, a period of great temptations for our people and our country, of continuing political, economic and media pressure that eventually escalated into an armed NATO aggression. Everything was done to subvert the country from within and without, its politics, economics and security. They tried to forcibly replace the government and deploy NATO troops in Kosovo-Metohia and Serbia as a whole. They have organized, trained, and armed terrorists in several European centers.
Law enforcement shared the fate of the country and the people, successfully fighting Albanian terrorism and the NATO aggression while conducting their everyday tasks of protecting the lives and property of citizens, preventing and solving crimes. The extent to which the citizens are endangered today, under DOS and the “flowering of democracy,” is illustrated by the fact that in the one year that Mr. Mihajlovic has been Minister of Internal Affairs, there have been many times more murders and ten times more abductions than in 3.5 years when I was on that position.
In protecting the citizens and their property, law enforcement adhered to the supreme standard of legality and professionalism. By constantly fabricating untruths and repeating lies, twisting the facts, insinuating, threatening and persecuting, the DOS authorities believe they will change the truth, create their own facts and eventually re-write history.
The most blatant example of DOS lies, their corruption and immorality, is their incessant repetition of the allegation that in my time, Serbia had 150,000 police officers, so as to prove there was some sort of dictatorship. The real number was 21,000, which has been confirmed even by the current minister. Then there were the lies that members of the so—called “Otpor” aired here and abroad, about the alleged persecution of some 100,000 of their members. This is absolutely untrue. Over the course of 18 months of their illegal operation, only 1000 persons were identified and arrested for vandalism, destruction of property, assault on citizens and police officers, illegal weapons possession and causing major public disturbance. Only 30 persons were charged with misdemeanors, and another 25 with criminal offenses. This was also confirmed by Minister Mihajlovic.
During this period, anti-terrorist activities and other internal affairs in Kosovo-Metohia were conducted on behalf of the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) by Vlastimir Djordjevic, Jovica Stanisic, Sreten Lukic, Zivko Trajkovic, Goran Radosavljevic, Milorad Lukovic and others. They conducted themselves in accordance with the law and rules of the service, and demanded the same of their subordinates. The country’s leadership demanded that, in accordance with the constitution and the law, the MIA take measures to protect the lives or our citizens – of every ethnicity – their property and the country’s security, whether endangered by Albanian terrorists, NATO aggressors or individual criminals. Individual criminals, who tried to use the wartime situation, great destruction and civilian casualties caused by the NATO bombing and the intensive assaults of Albanian terrorists, were prosecuted to the full extent of the law. In early May 1999, the MIA announced that 616 persons of all ethnic groups in Kosovo-Metohia were charged with 744 counts of serious crimes. Of that number, 379 were in custody. Among them were 15 law enforcement officers.
For their professional and responsible behavior in conducting their tasks, our law enforcement was recognized in writing by several members of the OSCE verification mission, representatives of the International Red Cross, UNHCR and several foreign journalists.
* * *
My opinion of the so-called Hague Tribunal and its indictments is well-known. This is a political tribunal, an instrument of western powers – the US, first of all – created for the purpose of achieving their geopolitical aims, and to justify the crimes they committed in violation of international law in the former Yugoslavia.
Albright and Louise Arbour issued the indictments (Slobodan Milosevic and associates) in the second half of May 1999, when even after two months of intensive bombing NATO was unable to break the resistance of the Yugoslav people, its Army and police.
Their purpose was to amnesty the real criminals and blame their victims. Yet their ambition goes even further, to falsify the history of the Balkans through “court” proceedings, avoiding the facts about their dirty involvement in the bloody events in Yugoslavia (theories of “Greater Serbia,” the genocidal nature of the Serbs, Clinton’s words that Serbs “caused two world wars,” charging Serbian intellectuals with greater-Serbian nationalism, etc.).
Illustrating who has an interest in this tribunal’s existence, though it is nothing but a farce, is the fact that the United States is almost its sole financial backer, paying over $100 million per year.
There is no doubt that the unconstitutional abduction and extradition of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was part of a widespread and orchestrated campaign intended to cover the tracks of NATO’s aggression on Yugoslavia. By launching fabricated stories of Serbs as a people in need of purification and catharsis, and finding so-called “mass graves,” the DOS authorities were manufacturing public consent for the illegal extradition.
Jurists know the arguments about the nonexistence of legal basis for the establishment of ICTY by the UN Security Council. Even though the Security Council, as the executive body of the UN, is charged with keeping peace and security in the world, and even allowed to establish auxiliary bodies for that purpose, it does not by itself have judicial powers, and therefore cannot bestow the powers it does not possess on any auxiliary body.
There is no doubt that the FRY Constitution forbids extradition of our citizens, both to other countries and to international organizations. That includes the Hague Tribunal.
Article 17, Section III of the FRY Constitution says: “No Yugoslav citizen shall be stripped of citizenship, exiled from the country or extradited to another state.” The Serbian Constitution (Article 47, Section II) also says: “No citizen of Serbia shall be stripped of citizenship, exiled from the country or extradited.” Therefore, any law or decree, passed on any level, allowing for extradition of Yugoslav citizens to the Hague Tribunal, would be unconstitutional. Any act of extraditing any of our citizens to the Hague Tribunal would also violate the Constitution. This is the judgment both of legal experts at the Belgrade University Law College and the Yugoslav Supreme Court.
That, however, is not the judgment of DOS leaders, obedient quislings of the West. It is sad and tragic that an uneducated merchant such as Zoran Zivkovic can proclaim “legal interpretations” of this problem. I am not surprised by the brazen and tyrannical behavior of Zoran Djindjic, who breaks the Constitution often and rules as an autocratic dictator, since this fits his character of a mobster and a criminal. I am surprised at the conscious but irresponsible behavior of Vojislav Kostunica, president of Yugoslavia, whose elementary obligation was to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law. There is no higher interest of the country, no matter how great the foreign pressure and blackmail, that would justify violating the Constitution. Otherwise lawlessness, injustice, insecurity and chaos would ensue, which could lead to violence and bloodshed. As for the Montenegrin leadership, it is obvious that Milo Djukanovic is a puppet of the American authorities used to destabilize Yugoslavia. Leaders of the Yugoslav Coalition are political turncoats, betrayers of their voters, whose political influence DOS used to support its destructive aims.
* * *
I have known Slobodan Milosevic since he was very young. I have always considered him a moral family man, educated, patient and dedicated to his people. He was modest, but strict, and beloved everywhere he went, a man of great charisma. I worked with him most closely in my official capacity as chairman of the Yugoslav Chamber of Commerce, the Serbian Chamber of Commerce, and the Minister of Internal Affairs of Serbia. Our families had good, friendly relations. He trusted me very much, and I always told him the truth. He always insisted on respect for the law, security of citizens, prevention of crime and security of the country.
Slobodan is a symbol of struggle for peace in this region, a struggle for our state and national interests. He is a symbol of resistance to hegemony and world domination.
For the sake of our future, and the future of our children, I wish him victory at The Hague!
* * *
PS: I can see and hear, even as I die, the orchestrated media campaign of DOS, conducted by the treated drug addict Ceda Jovanovic: explanations and rationalizations, replete with malicious comments about my tragic death, peddled by frenzied NATO reporters, stuttering self-proclaimed political analysts and fuming spokesmen of the DOS parties – all aimed at using this event, the death of Slobodan Milosevic’s “close associate”, to further demonize the heroic struggle of the Serbian people and its leadership to preserve peace, survive and live in this region, and secure a safe, prosperous and happier future for our descendants. My only answer to them would be a verse from Njegos:
In his long statement, which is now posted on Emperoros Clothes, VS concluded by commenting as follows about his sdeicison to take his own life. He said:
“A man is born to die but once;
his honor and dignity are forever.”
April 2002.
Belgrade
Vlajko Stojiljkovic
Representative, House of Republics
Federal Parliament
Translated by Nebojsa Malic and Jared Israel
