Greek rail workers block NATO war train
By Gary
Wilson
On April 28, Greek railway workers blocked a train carrying
31 British military vehicles that are being shipped to the NATO
occupation force in Macedonia.
U.S. and British troops are being built up in Macedonia in
preparation for a ground invasion of Kosovo.
The workers prevented the train from leaving the Greek port
of Salonika, which is the main entry port for troops and
material going to Macedonia.
Macedonia's biggest daily newspaper, Dnevnik , reported on
April 28 that NATO will soon have 22,000 troops deployed on
Macedonian soil along with an "impressive [collection] of
sophisticated heavy military equipment."
The paper wrote: "Some experts say that with this arsenal,
NATO troops are adopting a much more offensive stance" than
they will admit.
NATO continues to
target civilians
NATO continues to target civilians in Yugoslavia. On April
28, at least 20 people were killed in the Serbian agricultural
village of Surdulica.
Eleven missiles destroyed a third of the town. Twelve of
those killed were children. Dozens are missing. Some 300
families are now homeless.
NATO spokesperson Jamie Shea said that it was a
"precision-guided" attack and declared it to be successful
because a small, empty army barracks was destroyed in the
process. He said the civilian casualties were "unintended," but
implied that the Serb people were to blame for resisting NATO's
demands.
Thousands protest NATO war conference
On April 24, thousands of anti-war protesters rallied
outside the NATO war conference staged by Washington. Chants of
"stop the bombing" could be heard by the White House.
Demonstrators came from around the United States.
A pro-war, pro-NATO rally the day before drew only a handful
of people.
As the imperialist attack on Yugoslavia by United
States/NATO forces continues, protests against the war are
growing bigger and more widespread.
Organizers for the June 5 march on the Pentagon report an
impressive list of over a thousand endorsers.
A call issued by the Emergency Mobilization to Stop the War
says: "People in the United States helped to end the Vietnam
War 30 years ago. We must go into the streets to stop this new
war. ... We must act to build a broad and deep movement that
says `no' to this madness." Readers can get more information
about the demonstration at the International Action Center web
site, www.iacenter.org.
150,000 rally in Rome
An April 24 Rome rally against NATO's bombing drew 150,000
despite driving rain, organizers reported. Most of the
protesters were students.
Many protesters pinned paper targets on their clothing, in
solidarity with the Yugoslav people who are being targeted by
NATO bombers.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was among those scheduled
to speak at the rally.
Thousands also joined in rallies in Genoa, Milan and Naples,
Italy.
Argentina's `Mothers Of Plaza De Mayo' in
Belgrade
The president of Argentina's Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo
went to Belgrade April 16 to join the protests against NATO's
bombing. Hebe de Bonafini said she was going to show support
for the people of Yugoslavia against "NATO's killer
strikes."
The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo is a group of women who
brought world attention to the thousands who "disappeared"
under Argentina's military dictatorship from 1976 to 1983.
Palestinians denounce NATO aggression
The April 11 edition of "al-Hadaf," the magazine of the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, carried the
following report from the PFLP condemning the U.S.-NATO
aggression against Yugoslavia:
"The official spokesperson in the name of the Popular Front
for the Liberation of Palestine has presented a statement in
which he condemned the American-NATO military aggression upon
Yugoslavia. This aggression constitutes a crying violation of
international law and a brazen interference in Yugoslavia's
internal affairs. It threatens the unity and security of the
territories of that country and also constitutes an escalation
of the policy of hegemony and force which American imperialism
is trying to impose upon the peoples of the world.
"The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, at the
same time as it condemns this aggression and demands that it be
halted, affirms the need to arrive at a democratic, peaceful
settlement of the problem of the Kosovo region that would
guarantee both the rights and security of the minorities and
also the territorial unity of Yugoslavia."
German women go
to Belgrade in solidarity
A group of 130 women from the German organization "Mothers
Against the War" arrived in Belgrade April 24. Ilona Rothe, one
of the organizers, said, "We want the war to stop
immediately."
The group started their trip from Dresden, Germany, because
it is a symbol of civilian casualties from brutal air attacks.
Dresden was flattened by U.S. bombers at the end of World War
II.
The two-day incendiary raid by almost 2,400 bombers created
a fire storm that consumed the city and killed some 135,000
civilians. There were no military targets in Dresden, which did
not even have any heavy industry. It was a terror action
against German people, most of them refugees from the front
lines to the East.
Members of the "Mothers" delegation said that they were
shocked by what they saw on the way to Belgrade. "The worst
side of the war" is not being seen on NATO-controlled
television reports broadcast in Germany, Britain, France and
the United States, they said.
There were also demonstrations against the war of 5,000 in
Frankfurt, 4,000 in Hamburg, 3,000 in Munich and thousands more
in dozens of German cities.
Thousands march
in Belgrade
In the aftermath of the bombing of the main Serbian
television station, thousands joined an April 26 procession in
Belgrade to honor those who were killed.
So far 15 bodies have been recovered. Another 20 are
missing. And 18 others were wounded.
It is a crime under the Geneva Convention to target
civilians or journalists in a war zone. NATO Commander in Chief
U.S. Gen. Wesley Clark personally ordered this war crime.
Even Hitler did not order the bombing of radio stations and
publishing houses, said composer Mikis Teodorakis, a leading
artist in Greece, in a statement condemning the bombing.
Serbian TV bombed to stop its exposure of NATO
lies
Why did NATO bomb Serbian RTS TV? Was it because the station
refused NATO's demand to broadcast NATO propaganda for eight
hours a day in prime time?
Not really. In fact, the people of Yugoslavia have full
access to such pro-NATO media as CNN, the BBC and Sky
television. If the Yugoslav people want to hear NATO propaganda
they can.
No one in the United States, on the other hand, has easy
access to reports from Serbian TV. That's effectively banned in
the United States.
NATO went after RTS television because it was exposing
NATO's lies about the war to the rest of the world.
NATO officers were outraged when RTS television showed that
NATO pilots had targeted a civilian tourist train. NATO
attempted to deny this attack, but the RTS video showed that
NATO was lying.
Then NATO tried to deny that it had massacred a column of
refugees in Kosovo, killing at least 64 Albanians. RTS
television exposed NATO again.
NATO Gen. Giuseppe Moroni tried to deny what could be
clearly seen on Serbian TV. "I understand that tractors were
filmed," he said. "Nevertheless, what I want to say is that
when the pilot attacked the vehicles they were military
vehicles," Reuters reported April 15.
NATO officials were eventually forced to admit that they had
massacred the civilian refugees.
Now, NATO is bombing Serbian television studios and
transmitters every day in an attempt to silence the only
sources of independent information about what NATO bombers are
doing to the people of Yugoslavia.
The brave Yugoslav television workers keep coming back.
Somehow, they have successfully started broadcasting again
after every NATO attack.
Sit-in at Rep. Bernie Sanders office
The Instant Anti-war Action Group has begun a sit-in at U.S.
Rep. Bernie Sanders' office in Burlington, Vt.
"We are in Bernie's Sander's office to help bring a halt to
the escalating war in Yugoslavia and the ongoing war against
Iraq, both supported by Sanders," the group said in an April 26
statement.
Many of those in the sit-in are anti-war activists who had
worked on Sanders' campaign staff in the past because of his
campaign promises to oppose war.
Civilian casualty report
An April 25 report from the Yugoslav news agency Tanjug
says:
From the onset of NATO aggression against our country up to
24 April 1999, the North Atlantic Alliance made over 10,000
criminal attacks against the territory of the Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia. In air strikes were used: 806 warplanes--of
which over 530 were combat planes--and 206 helicopters
stationed in 30 air bases situated in five countries and on six
warships in the Adriatic sea.
More than 2,500 cruise missiles were launched and over 7,000
tons of explosives were dropped.
About 1,000 civilians, including 13 children, were killed
and more than 4,500 sustained serious injuries.
This article is copyright under a Creative
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