Belgrade, 24 Mar Amid the tense atmosphere caused by the war in Ukraine, Kosovars and Serbs recall this Thursday, with thanks the former and repudiation of the latter, the start of NATO bombing in the so-called “Kosovo war” 23 years ago. Today, “Freedom Day” for Kosovo, the “Days of Remembrance of the Victims of NATO Aggression” begins in Serbia, which the president of that country, Aleksander Vucic, compares with the current Russian attack on Ukraine. On the other hand, the so-called “humanitarian intervention” of the Atlantic Alliance against repression, by the regime of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, of the largely Albanian population of the then Serbian province of Kosovo, is commemorated by Pristina as a legitimate action. “23 years ago, NATO intervened to end the ongoing genocide against the people of Kosovo,” Kosovar President Vojsa Osmani wrote on Thursday on her Twitter account. “We are eternally grateful to the allies for supporting our path to freedom and democracy. Now more than ever, the democratic world must remember that success story,” he added. “Today, 23 years later, it is clear how horrible, wrong and illegal the action of 19 NATO countries was,” Vucic said in an interview with Serbian public television RTV broadcast last night. “It sounds stupid when they accuse Russia of aggression... and someone reminds them of what they did,” he considered. The central ceremony of the commemoration of the “NATO aggression” in Serbia will take place tonight in the city of Kraljevo. Events and demonstrations are also planned in the Serb Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina and northern Mitrovica, a city in Kosovo controlled by local Serbs. On March 23, 1999, then NATO Secretary General Javier Solana gave the order to attack Serbian military targets to the allied commander in Europe, US General Wesley Clark. The next day the first bombings began on Belgrade, Podgorica and Pristina. At that time, the Serbian Autonomous Province of Kosovo was inhabited by 1,794,000 people, 90% Albanians and 10% Slavs (Serbs and Montenegrins), accounting for 18.8% of the total population of Serbia. Non-Serbs constituted a majority in 27 of the 31 districts or municipalities of Kosovo. According to official Serbian data, in NATO bombings of Serbia, which lasted 78 days, 2,500 people were killed, including 89 children, while 25,000 homes, 470 kilometres of roads, 595 kilometres of railway tracks, 19 hospitals, 20 medical centres, 18 kindergartens and 69 schools were destroyed. Previously, according to the records of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the violent conflicts in Kosovo that preceded the Allied intervention resulted in 13,500 deaths and 800,000 displaced persons. NATO intervention paved the way for Kosovo to proclaim itself independent in February 2008. Since then, more than a hundred countries, including the United States and most of the European Union (EU) partners, have recognized the sovereignty of the young country, but not Russia, China or Spain, among others. CHIEF vb/wr/ig
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