Email this article
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 9, 2000
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------A tale of two delegations
Bulgaria tribunal examines NATO war crimes
By Bill Dorr
Sofia, Bulgaria
Two delegations from Yugoslavia traveled to this ancient Balkan capital in late September. Neither got much international media coverage, but for different reasons.
On Sept. 27 leaders of the U.S.-backed "Democratic Opposition of Serbia" met here quietly with representatives of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and NATO officials. They signed a "letter of intent" pledging that when they came to power they would raise prices, privatize state industry and dismantle Yugoslavia's free health-care system.
That was the price the United States and other NATO powers demanded for the hundreds of millions of dollars they pumped into the campaign to overturn Yugoslavia's Socialist Party government and for the promised lifting of Western economic sanctions.
Members of the other group had experienced a different form of Washington's largesse. They had lost children, parents, spouses and friends to the hail of NATO bombs and missiles that descended on Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999.
This second group came to tell an international tribunal about the price the United States and NATO imposed on Yugoslavs for not accepting the IMF's "economic restructuring" plan.
Yugoslavia and Bulgaria have a lot in common. They are neighbors closely related by language, culture, history and topography. They both underwent transitions toward socialism at the end of World War II.
And over the past decade both have been targets of U.S.-directed wars of destruction.
Against Yugoslavia that war was waged with bombs, missiles, CIA-backed terrorism and economic sanctions. In Bulgaria it took the form of IMF-dictated "shock therapy" imposed by the same type of "democrats" the U.S. now backs in Yugoslavia.
In 1990 a U.S.-funded movement similar to Yugoslavia's "Democratic Opposition" grabbed power in Bulgaria after a campaign of destabilization. As a result, the average Bulgarian today lives on 58 cents a day.
'Our economy was ruined'
"For the past 10 years, life here has been a catastrophe," said Dr. Mimi Vitkova, who was Bulgaria's health minister from 1995 to 1997. "We were never a rich country, but when we had socialism our children were healthy and well-fed. They all got immunized. Retired people and the disabled were provided for and got free medicine. Our hospitals were free.
"Today," she continued, "if a person has no money, they have no right to be cured. And most people have no money. Our economy was ruined.
"We had a lot of industry, but after privatization many plants shut down. We lost our trade with the Soviet Union, with Africa, Latin America and, of course, Yugoslavia. Officially unemployment here is 17 percent, but in many parts of the country it is 35 percent or more. At least 1 million of our most educated people have emigrated abroad.
"We were promised if we 'privatized' we would get access to West European markets, but it never happened. Instead what we get are tiny loans from the International Monetary Fund."
Vitkova is a member of the Bulgarian Antifascist Union, originally formed by Partisans who fought the Nazis and their collaborators during World War II. While Bulgaria's monarchy sent troops to aid the Axis in Yugoslavia and Greece, Bulgarian revolutionaries fought alongside Yugoslav Partisans against Hitler's troops.
"Our organization is made up of people who swore to never allow fascism to return," Vitkova said of the union. "Bulgaria was one of the few countries where all Nazi collaborators were punished. But today the pro-NATO regime is trying to clean up history, saying that Bulgaria never had fascism.
"Our main activities are educational, but they are not only excursions into the past. We may face the same forces in the future. Our people will not submit to the economic dictatorship that now rules our country."
International People's Tribunal meets
From Sept. 30-Oct. 1, the Antifascist Union hosted the fourth hearing of the East European-based International People's Tribunal on NATO War Crimes in Yugoslavia. Previous hearings were held in Russia, Ukraine and Yugoslavia itself. The tribunal cooperates with the Commission of Inquiry on NATO War Crimes headed by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark and with a similar group based in Berlin.
Judges from Bulgaria, Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Poland, Burkina Faso, Germany and the United States heard wrenching testimony from Yugoslav victims of NATO's bombing campaign. The hearing was opened by Antifascist Union President Vladimir Velkanov and tribunal President Mikhail Kuznetzov of Russia. Bill Doares of the International Action Center represented the U.S. anti-imperialist movement.
"NATO took everything from me," Olivera Simic of Novi Pazar told the judges. She described how her husband had gone with their 2-year-old son to buy parts for their car on May 31, 1999. That was the day generals at the Pentagon decided to destroy the center of Novi Pazar.
Simic, who was pregnant, stayed home. She only heard the explosion that demolished the city's central department store, killing her husband, her son and nine other people.
Elitza Yovanovic was at home on April 5, 1999, the day the U.S. Air Force bombed the town of Aleksinac. "Aleksinac was my Hiroshima," she said. She was not in the house when the missiles hit, but her aunt and uncle, her husband's parents and most of her friends died that day.
Yovanovic tried to dig her aunt out of the rubble, but it was too late. Her mother, a doctor, was wounded and died a few months later. Yovanovic's 6-year-old daughter survived the bombing, but still asks when her left leg will grow back.
Branko Brudaro recalled how he and his wife had decided to send their 9-year-old daughter to stay with his in-laws in rural Montenegro, far from any roads or military or industrial targets. But they could not escape the Pentagon's reach. On April 13, 1999, Brudaro's daughter, his wife's sister and her daughter were killed by NATO bombs.
'We stumbled through
smoke and fire'Milos Markovic is a journalist in the cultural section of Serbian television. He was working late on the night of April 23 last year when U.S. missiles destroyed the TV station. "We stumbled outside through smoke and fire only to see our colleagues' heads and arms lying on top of cars and in the streets," he reported.
Markovic noted that Western correspondents often worked overnight at Serbian TV facilities. But none were there the night the missile hit.
Stoyanc Petrovic's grandson was killed in the bombing. He himself was hospitalized with a fractured leg at the time NATO missiles hit the hospital. Twenty patients and medical workers died.
The tribunal also heard testimony about the murder and persecution of Serbs, Romas, Gorans, Turks and other minorities in Kosovo in the 13 months of NATO-KFOR occupation. The judges unanimously found the leaders and military commanders of the NATO countries guilty of war crimes against the people of Yugoslavia.
The final verdict called for the abolition of NATO as a "criminal organization," an end to the occupation of Kosovo and reparations to the Yugoslav people.
Among the Bulgarians attending the hearing was Blagovesta Doncheva, a former teacher who was once an anti-communist "dissident." She is now an anti-NATO campaigner.
"What is happening in Yugoslavia is exactly what happened in Bulgaria 10 years ago," said Doncheva. "The Bulgarian 'Union of Democratic Forces' was flooded with Western money, cars, trucks and computers until they consolidated power. They made big promises, and we believed them. Then the IMF and World Bank destroyed the very fabric of our society. Our industry was shut down, our pensions were taken away.
"Now our seniors are eating out of garbage bins, our children are dying in the streets from drugs and malnutrition. The last 10 years have been the most awful of my life. The people of the Balkans have to resist NATO and the IMF. It's a matter of survival."
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)HOME :: U.S. NEWS :: WORLD NEWS :: EDITORIALS :: SUBSCRIBE :: DONATE