An international conference on “GLOBAL PEACE AND DEVELOPMENT VS. WARS AND DOMINATION” will take place in the Serbian capital Belgrade from 22 to 24 March 2019. It is a commemoration “against forgetting the NATO aggression 1999”.
Organizers are the “Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals”, the “Serbian Club of Generals and Admirals” and the “Serbian Guest Society” in cooperation with the “World Peace Council” (WPC). Two years after the war of aggression of the US-led NATO countries – including Germany – which was contrary to international law, I got to know the freedom-loving, courageous and cheerful Serbs with their touching folk songs and their beautiful country – and soon took them to my heart. Although German military attacked the Serbian people three times in the last century – in 1999 they tried to bomb Serbia back to the Middle Ages! – Germans are welcomed in Serbia like friends. The congress will therefore send out a message of peace that will unite peoples.
A war that will not end
The 1999 bombing of Serbia lasted 78 days. 1,031 soldiers were killed, 5,173 soldiers and policemen wounded, 2,500 civilians killed – including 78 children – and over 6,000 civilians wounded. The use of highly poisonous and radioactive uranium projectiles from US-led NATO (10 to 15 tons) proved to be particularly devastating for humans, animals and the environment (1). For the independent American analyst on radiation and public health, Leuren Moret, this war of aggression under the cynical code name “Merciful Angel” was the blueprint for the subsequent wars of aggression in the 1990s. As per Moret, Germany as NATO partner was one of the greatest beneficiaries of the smashing of Yugoslavia and the colonization of the Balkans. The German population let itself be deceived at that time by the bold lies of its own red-green government and its media, and the majority agreed to this war. (2)
In a professional article “Uranium Ammunition: Trojans of the Nuclear War” Moret writes about disturbingly similar parallels between the wars in Iraq, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan:
“The television and radio stations as well as the training facilities were bombed in all cities. (…) Cultural antiquities and historical treasures were recorded and destroyed as goals in all three countries, a kind of cultural and historical purification, a collective and national psychological trauma. The permanent radioactive contamination and environmental devastation of all three countries has never been seen before and unprecedented, followed by a high increase in cancer and birth defects on these attacks. These will increase overtime with unknown effects due to chronic exposure and increasing internal radiation exposure to uranium dust. The genetic effects will be transferred to future generations. Clearly, that was a plan for the extermination of the people, for genocide.”(3)
In Serbia, multiple cancers have now reached epidemic proportions. According to the Serbian Ministry of Health, about 33.000 people are affected annually. The entire country is contaminated. The damage to the genetic material (DNA) will cause malformed children to be born generation after generation. There is no family without malignant diseases.
According to latest statistics, the number of children falling ill in Serbia is about twice as high as in the rest of Europe, i.e. 355 infants per million inhabitants, while in the rest of Europe there are 165 per million inhabitants. Before 1999 there were 160 children. Leukaemia in particular is on the rise among children between the ages of five and nine. According to the oncologist Professor Slobodan Cikaric, the proportion of leukaemia patients is 110 percent higher than before the bombing. (4)
The serious radioactive contamination of humans and other living beings as well as the contamination of the environment are irreversible. But there is an urgent need to apologise to the people of Serbia for the crimes that have been committed and to make reparations, both material and immaterial, for the crimes that have been committed: these include the disclosure of the places of use and the composition of the weapons used, the cleaning of the soil and waters, financial compensation for all the victims and medical care for the families. Additional specialist doctors, nursing staff, medical equipment and medicines must be made available to Serbian hospitals. Destroyed infrastructure and industrial jobs must be restored.
But all NATO countries involved in the war crimes and genocide generally refuse to make reparations – there is much more speculation that the guilt will become statute-barred. On 18th October 2018, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg publicly told students at Belgrade University that the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 was “to protect the population and prevent further actions by the Milosevic regime”. The Serbian people are also abused by a leading NATO representative and the victims are insulted (5). There are no signs of solidarity from the international community in sight.
A whole generation leaves the Balkans for the West
Another serious consequence of the NATO war in 1999 was the emigration of the younger generation to the West because they could not find work in their homeland. “Brain drain” is the name given to this migration of scientists and highly qualified skilled workers abroad that has been going on for decades. As a rule, doctors and nursing staff leave their home countries only after completing their extremely expensive training, which was financed by the taxpayers. Since the rich target countries do not pay any compensation for this, the home countries are left with billions in training costs. In Germany, taxpayers have to pay around 200.000 euros for the studies of a licensed doctor. If the research costs closely associated with teaching are added to the medical studies, the training costs almost double. According to calculations by the Munich-based Ifo Institute, if a 30-year-old female doctor goes abroad, it costs the taxpayer more than one million euros. (6)
The economy and the people of Serbia are suffering badly. For years there has been a shortage of skilled labour, health systems have collapsed, mortality is on the rise, birth rates are falling, wages remain low, unemployment remains high and there is no end in sight to emigration. Rich EU states such as Germany have been massively influencing this exodus in their favour for years without compensating the country of origin. This increases the country’s need and its dependency. The country is being exploited – and that is pure neo-colonialism. The daily newspaper “Welt” headlined on 5th February 2019 “Serbia is bleeding out – and Germany is profiting”. (7)
Night thoughts and view
Heinrich Heine wrote already in 1844 in his poem “Nachtgedanken” the famous entrance verse:
„Denk ich an Deutschland in der Nacht,
Dann bin ich um den Schlaf gebracht,
Ich kann nicht mehr die Augen schließen,
Und meine heißen Tränen fließen.“(8)“If I think of Germany in the night,
Then I’m deprived of sleep,
I can’t close my eyes anymore,
And my hot tears flow.”
In Belgrade the last verse of the Heine poem will then be (slightly modified) for me:
„Gottlob! Durch meine Fenster bricht
Serbisch heitres Tageslicht;
Es kommt mein Weib, schön wie der Morgen,
Und lächelt fort die deutschen Sorgen.““Thank God! Through my windows breaks
Serbian bright daylight;
It comes my wife, beautiful as the morning,
And smiles away the German worries.”
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This article was originally published on the “Neue Rheinische Zeitung NRhZ” Nr. 694, 27.02.2019. Translation by Ullrich Mies
Dr. Rudolf Hänsel is an educationalist and psychologist.
Notes
(1) Siehe NRhZ Nr. 613 vom 4.10.2017
(2) Siehe NRhZ Nr. 633 vom 18.10.2017
(3) A.a.O.
(4) Siehe Interview des Autors in serbischer Tageszeitung „Novosti“ vom 24.02.2019 (5) Siehe NRhZ Nr. 677 vom 10.10.2018
(6) siehe NRhZ Nr. 625 vom 23.08.2017
(8) https://www.deutschelyrik.de/index.php/nachtgedanken.411.html
