CANA 83 Black Boy Lane London N15 3AP Tel: 44 20 88 02 21 44 cana.london@ic24.net

Immediate Release:

3rd February 2001

The Director of a UK based ecumenical Christian group CANA (Christians Against Nato Aggression) warns Americans against pursuing a vindictive strategy against former President Milosevic of Yugoslavia. "Serbia isn't Haiti & any attempt by the United States administration to push for the trial of Mr Milosevic for war crimes, either in Belgrade or anywhere else, will be a foreign policy blunder of the first magnitude," says William Spring CANA Director. Earlier tonight William Spring sent a message to the Yugoslav media calling on the citizens of Serbia to isolate Zoran Djindich, who William Spring says, has sought to hijack the Kostiunica revolution. William Spring comments: " BBC 24 Hours TV News was more sickening than usual. "Seeing Senator Lieberman & the Arizona Senator joining forces to demand that Serbia puts on trial her former leader  was quite sickening. "I tell the people of Serbia, don't believe the Americans. They have their own problems. They won't give you any money whatever you do, & in any event the embrace of the IMF is the embrace of financial death. "IThe real war criminals are to be found in the present British Government & the former US administration. "It is not Milosevic who has desecrated & destroyed almost 100 churches in Kosovo, (under the eyes of US troops), it is Nato's terrorist surrogates. "It is not Milosevic who has defiled this continent of Europe with so called 'depleted' uranium, with a half life of 4.5 billion years, it is Tony Blair & his arch criminal friend Clinton. " I feel that the US makes a big mistake in assuming Serbia is Haiti. I do not believe the Serbs will allow this gross interference in their domestic affairs to continue for much longer. "I was entirely opposed to the War Crimes Tribunal Spanish Inquisition so called Court coming to Belgrade. "It was to keep a foreign Court out of Belgrade that millions of men died in World War One - from the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Russia & the United States. "The real war criminals are the NATO war criminals. It was NATO who manufactured the Kosovo War & it is NATO which has presided over the genocide of the Serbian people in that province, expelled from a place where they have lived & built shrines of Christian worship for hundred of years, in a similar manner as they were earlier expelled from Krajina. "As for Carla del Ponte I regard her as a thoroughly evil woman. I will be writing to Senator Ashcroft asking him to use his influence in the US administration so that it stops pursuing the Clinton agenda, which aimed at the destruction of the Christian Orthodox states of the Balkans. "US Christians must wake up to the heinous crimes committed in their name by Clinton & Albright against the peoples of Europe & not allow the Bush administration to perpetuate them" ends A copy of the press release sent out earlier today to Yugoslav media follows.

CANA Christians Against Nato Aggression a London based ecumenical group which seeks the arraignment of NATO war leaders in Belgrade to answer war crimes charges has called on all patriotic elements in Serbia to isolate Zoran Djindjic. William Spring, Director of CANA, said: " I believe Mr Djindjic is an important politician in your country & although I know very little about him in what I saw of him on television at the time the Kostunica coalition came to power, he struck me as a rather disagreeable character. It now seems he has hijacked your revolution. "But from what I saw of  BBC television here in UK at the time of the Kostunica revolution, (which admittedly gives a very biased view on events in Belgrade, as BBC 24 Hours Television is continually subject to British governmental censorship) - anyway from what I saw it seemed that the revolution came about largely because of the personal popularity of Vojislav Kostunica. Yet in Serbian politics it seems the tail is wagging the dog: although Djindjic may have a bigger party than Kostunica does he have as much popular support as Kostunica? I don't know, as I'm not a Serb & I'm not in Belgrade, but I would think not.  In these circumstances it is the policy of Kostunica which should prevail in foreign affairs. There must be a unified government policy on the Hague Tribunal & how to respond to Carla del Ponte's impertinent demands. Last week I described this woman (in a separate press release) as 'morally sick.' Her tortuous logic led her to assert that Milosevic was to blame for the civilian deaths resultant from the NATO bombing of the Belgrade state television studios. But this is not a legitimate ethical position: whether a warning was given or not given by NATO is immaterial - all sorts of things happen in war, & in any case one cannot believe everything that NATO or Carla del Ponte (or Djindjic) says in respect of supposed warnings.

The facts are NATO attacked over 78 days a large number of civilian targets in a war of aggression against a sovereign state & this was contrary to international law. All deaths in that war, whether civilian or military, were unjustifiable homicides, & I believe it is the NATO leaders who should be arraigned before a Court.  Indeed during the NATO war I tried to get Tony Blair & Madelaine Albright  & the Canadian Foreign Minister & the other NATO leaders summoned to Highgate Magistrates Court London to answer summonses under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act. Regrettably the Magistrates refused to issue the summonses, but I'll keep trying. But the Serbians already have an indictment out against Blair & co - I have it in my hands now -  instigated  by Nebojsa Maras, Deputy Public Prosecutor, & translated into impeccable English by Marija Los. It seems to me that this indictment KT- 420/99 should be energetically pursued & there should be no question of delivering any Serbians up to Carla del Ponte's kangaroo Court until & unless all NATO leaders involved in the decision to begin bombing voluntarily surrender themselves to Nebojsa Maras. All this seems obvious to me, but not to Mr Zoran Djindjic, who I have heard yesterday in Washington told Colin Powell, the new US Secretary of State, that he, Djindjic, is to set up a committee to process Mr Milosevic's prosecution before Carla Del Ponte's so called 'Court'. Zoran Djindjic consistently undercuts everything we in CANA have been trying to do, in terms of restoring a legal order to this planet, abandoned when NATO decided it had no obligation to obey international law. He also undercuts Yugoslavia's Federal President. Surely Mr Djindjic must see - & all Serbians must see - who the real criminals are. Putting Milosevic on trial before the Hague Tribunal would be the equivalent of putting Abraham Lincoln on trial before a Confederate Court. Whatever faults Mr Milosevic has as an individual, in his political role these last years, he has endeavoured to maintain the unity & integrity of the Yugoslav Federation, which was a legitimate political role.  This may have been a hopeless task: preserving the territorial integrity of any state is difficult when you had a pack of scavenging states in possessing far greater weaponry descending on it in order to dismember it.  Yugoslavia's real crime was that it did not have a nuclear weapon - had you had a nuclear weapon would the Italians have bombed you? As for Mr Milosevic his real crime is (supposedly) losing the war;  (I refer here to the Kosovo War ) & I say 'supposedly' because it is not clear that he actually did lose it, as the terms NATO settled on were quite humiliating to a military alliance possessing such enormous power, & a retreat from the diktat demanded at Rambouillet. I speak all this as a complete outsider, with no axe to grind. But it should be made clear to the international community who it is who speaks for Serbia. Kostunica's position on the War Crimes Tribunal strikes me as admirable: I was very heartened by him giving this horrible woman a flea in her ear last week. Obviously Djindjic is trying to undercut these efforts. There needs to be a regrouping of patriotic forces in Serbia, whether of right or left, around the Federal President. The idea that Serbia should surrender Mr Milosevic to Carla del Ponte is preposterous & immoral. ends Add copy: CANA welcomes delegates from Belgrade to London to the DAY OF TRUTH. William Spring comments: "this is our second one day Conference in London. We held one a year ago, all about the ruined churches of Kosovo. This time we are holding the conference in association with Campaign for Justice for the Peoples of Yugoslavia, a secular body. We welcome journalists & participants from Belgrade. All victims of NATO get in free." Details of the Conference are posted below:  NEW DANGERS FOR EUROPE: 2nd CANA One Day Conference Friends House (opposite Euston Station) Euston Rd London 10 am - 4.45 pm Saturday 24th February 2001 - A DAY OF TRUTH ON YUGOSLAVIA

An invitation to a public seminar on the new expansionist NATO sponsored by CANA (Christians Against Nato Aggression) in association with CJPY (Campaign for Justice for the Peoples of Yugoslavia).

The old NATO treaty was scrapped in 1999. NATO can no longer credibly claim to be an organisation set up for defensive purposes and operating within the limitations of the UN Charter: the new treaty authorises it to carry out military action anywhere in the world, without reference to the UN and to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states. The bombing of Yugoslavia demonstrated how a newly assertive NATO was to be feared. If thwarted it would bomb, occupy, and control. East of the Balkans countries have recoiled, regrouped and reshaped their defence plans. A new arms race has been triggered. If the West has forgotten the Kosovo War, Russian and China have not. On this Day of Truth distinguished speakers explore the causes, methods, propaganda, legality and outcome of the war. We focus on the role of William  Walker and ask how UK got into a war organised by the CIA & how a new treaty came into being without public debate. We consider what MPs,  and we, the ordinary people, can do to respond both to the needs of Yugoslavia and in empowering  a peace movement. Following the NATO war can the integrity of treaties and respect for international law ever be restored?

SPEAKERS: BORIS RADOVIC - Director of International Aid Yugoslavia, Belgrade,  a non governmental organisation working in partnership with CAFOD the Catholic foreign aid programme. YUGOSLAVIA TODAY AND TOMORROW: THE EFFECT OF WAR & SANCTIONS

DAVID CHANDLER - has written widely on international relations,  democracy and human rights. His book, "Human Rights and International Intervention" will shortly be published by Verso. INTERNATIONAL RULE OVER KOSOVO

TITUS ALEXANDER: Founder of "Charter 99 - a charter for global democracy." Author of "Unravelling Global Apartheid: an overview of world politics."

THE ACCOUNTABILITY OF INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS AND  REFORM OF THE UN

LIONEL TRIPPETT CND Information Officer: DEPLETED URANIUM -ITS USE AND EFFECTS - WHAT POLITICIANS SHOULD DO

RODNEY ATKINSON: political & economic commentator, journalist and author of seven books on political economy, including "Treason at Maastricht" and "Europe's Full Circle"  THE NEW FASCIST EUROPE AND THE THREAT TO THE US

SIR ALFRED SHERMAN, formerly a Foreign Policy Advisor to Margaret Thatcher. CAUSES AND IMPLICATIONS OF THE SERBO-PHOBE CRUSADE

MICHAEL STENTON: a historian and associated with The Byron Foundation. US GOALS AND OPTIONS

MARKO GASIC:  political commentator & Serbian spokesman. A member of Chatham House and the Forum for UN Renewal NATO & THE BREAKING OF INTERNATIONAL LAW

PHILIP HAMMOND: a Senior Lecturer in Media at South Bank University, contributor to "The Kosovo News and Propaganda War" and co-editor of "Degraded Capability: The Media and the Kosovo Crisis", (Pluto Press, 2000)

KOSOVO - THE PROPAGANDA WAR

DAVID ROBERTS Chairman CJPY Campaign for Justice for the Peoples of Yugoslavia will speak on WAR BY DECEPTION - BYPASSING DEMOCRACY and introduce a panel discussion including Dr James Thring of Planning for Peace, Adolpho Olaechea of JUSTIN (Justice International),  and William Spring CANA (Christians Against NATO Aggression) Director. A specially recorded video interview with Walter Rockler, a US prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal will also be shown during the Conference.

Admission is by ticket only: £10 suggested donation ( +  usual concessions for students/ nato  victims  etc -  you decide amount!)  Ticket includes cost of packed lunch and a drink. (Please makes cheques payable to CANA)

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