Paris, May 5
"Even warfare, deplorable as all acts of violence are, is subject to rules designed to mitigate its effects on non-combatants. Ethnic cleansing, violence against civilians, targeting civilian property and educational, cultural and religious institutions are outlawed under laws governing warfare and by the majority of international treaties."
"Human suffering on the scale we are seeing in Kosovo arouses our indignation and must be stopped immediately. But, at the same time, we are concerned about the threat to the cultural heritage, which is an integral part of peoples' identity and a true testament of civilisation. As custom dictates and as the UNESCO Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (The Hague, 1954) stipulates, the protection of this cultural heritage is incumbent on all parties in the conflict."
"I call on all parties involved to avoid all attacks on human life, the first of all treasures to preserve, but also to avoid all kinds of aggression against what is a manifestation of their culture. I call on them, in accordance with the legal obligations binding on all parties involved in the conflict, to respect the museums, archives, libraries, religious and educational institutions, as well as the monuments and sites that are evidence of the civilisation and history of the region."
Paris, March 26
"Today, once again arms are doing the talking. The lives of men and women are being put at risk because others were not able or did not wish to establish dialogue and find a peaceful solution to their problems."
"The UN was created at the end of the Second World War 'to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.' We are indebted to the UN; several conflicts have been avoided, but prevention is not something visible. The Security Council should be involved in all decisions concerning the use of force as explicitly laid out by the North Atlantic Treaty. I deplore the fact that a precedent has been created that may have unforeseen consequences."
"UNESCO's mission being to 'construct in the minds of men the defences of peace,' I also deplore the reduction of investment in education and sustainable development while expenditure on arms has increased in recent years. This situation of war is a failure for all of us. I appeal to the reason of those responsible to renew dialogue forthwith so that a political solution may be found. The search for peace should be of the utmost priority. The force of reason should always prevail over the reason of force."
Paris, April 15
"While a human tragedy is unfolding before our eyes in Kosovo, UNESCO is being urged to reaffirm the 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and to do all it can to preserve monuments and archives."
"Human life is the primary monument to be preserved. Above all, we must protect the life of every child, woman and man. A speedy recourse to the United Nations is the best way to come out of this situation, as I already said in my press releases of March 25 and April 6."
"Keeping and consolidating peace is only possible through long-term, permanent work on the past and the contentions opposing peoples. The price of forgotten history must always be paid. Building peace in the minds of men - UNESCO's essential mission - is to be undertaken without respite through a multidimensional - cultural, educational and historic - attention to peoples and their past histories. Thus we can avoid situations such as the one in Kosovo today. It is in these areas that investments are needed."
"It is to favour the transition from the reason of force to the force of reason, that I speak of hope. It is at this price that we might obtain an immediate cease-fire, the return of refugees to an autonomous Kosovo, to their land, within their cultures and, under the aegis of the United Nations, favour progressive normalisation."
Paris, April 23
"How to avoid the scourge of war? Through world-wide sustainable development and just sharing. By helping all countries acquire the necessary skills. By favouring the participation of all, ensuring that they count in public affairs, that they are not merely counted in opinion polls and elections. Education is at the heart of the interactive triangle of peace, development and democracy."
"Instead of constructing peace, we have once again allowed the reason of force to prevail over the force of reason, over prevention, over a permanent effort of persuasion and dialogue. We have not established sub-regional alliances which could intervene rapidly in cases of disaster, to reduce their impact, to step and prevent, as far as possible, the destruction of fires, hurricanes etc. We have not yet learned that the wages of peace must be paid and we are, once again, paying the wages of war."
"Once again, force has been allowed to speak, and, this time [it is doing so] outside the United Nations system. This sets a very dangerous precedent. If the Security Council in its present form and with its present mandate, cannot act with the necessary speed and authority, it must be changed and improved. But dispensing with the United Nations means reinforcing the incoherence between national democracies charged with national problem solving and - at the global level - of an oligarchy which tackles trans-national issues."
"The United Nations constitute the only framework for solid international democracy, capable of tackling the roots of violence and terror which are all to often generated by nationalist, religious and ideological fervour. The United Nations is here to affirm the international community's refusal to recognise those who seize power through bloodshed instead of elections, and to interpose its forces vigorously and speedily wherever good governance is obviously disregarded and human rights are violated massively. Thus, all will know what to expect and it will be possible to avoid the tremendous confusion which is at the origin of every conflagration."
"We must again think and act as we did in 1945. At the threshold of a new century and millennium, we must take innovative steps to bolster unity among nations, to prevent violence and war. We must found this union on four new contracts: social, natural, cultural and ethical. On the global scale, we must devise and respect codes of conduct regarding the flow of capital, energy, water and arms. We must invest more in the wonder that is every human being. The cost is reasonable if we consider that arms expenditure alone exceeded US$ 800,000 million last year."
"It is never too late for peace. Better today than tomorrow. Let us cease fire and place the prodigious [resources presently] at the service of the war machine, at the service of the peace machine! Let all those who have been driven from their homes and their land return to an autonomous multiethnic Kosovo under the surveillance of the United Nations! A few hours suffice to inflict injuries which take far longer to heal. This is why we must begin as soon as possible. And as soon as possible we must start on a new road and write history differently. This would be our best tribute to our children and grandchildren whom in 1945 we pledged to spare the scourge of war."
Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Savezno ministarstvo za inostrane poslove
Kneza Milosa 26, 11000 Beograd
Tel: +381 11 36 16 333 (int: 2738, 2687)
Fax: +381 11 36 18 030
yucomm_unesco@smip.sv.gov.yu
NATO began its aggression against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia at 20:00 hours local time, on 24 March 1999. US, British, French, Canadian, Italian, German and Spanish warplanes and cruise missiles in massive air strikes have been hitting for nine days already not only military installations abut also civilian targets and cultural monuments all across Yugoslavia.
Of the 2,787 cultural monuments and architectural heritage registered in the territory of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, of which 1,300 only in Kosovo and Metohija, many have been destroyed or damaged. By bombing Yugoslavia, the NATO aggressors are also killing the most precious parts of the European civilization.
All the four monuments included in the UNESCO List of World Heritage are in direct danger: the National Park of Durmitor; the Old Ras - Sopocani and Studenica, which ought to be included in the List of Endangered Heritage without any further delay. The List of Endangered Heritage should also incorporate the Decani monastery and the National Park of Biogradska Gora, heritage that have already been nominated for the List of World Heritage, as well as several dozen other cultural monuments in Kosovo and Metohija, the list of which has been transmitted to UNESCO.
About 1,700 particularly valuable natural beauties are also threatened in the FR of Yugoslavia.
So far, hundreds of educational institutions and many scientific and cultural institutions have been damaged.
Destroyed were also facilities important for the economy, refugee centres, hospitals, water supply systems, telephone lines and other communications, roads, civilian airports, apartment buildings, etc., even chemical storage facilities which threaten to produce an environmental disaster.
We call on your National commission to condemn an unwarranted and insane aggression of NATO against sovereign and peace-loving Yugoslavia.
We express the hope that you will raise your voice against this criminal act as an act against the law and humanity which is unprecedented in history and contrary to the fundamental principles of UNESCO, and therefore destroying the UN system as well as the rights and freedoms conferred by international legal instruments.
Yours sincerely,
For and on behalf of
the Yugoslav Commission for UNESCO
Milenko Kasanin
Dear colleagues,
In this dramatic moment of the brutal aggression performed by the NATO alliance against Serbia and Montenegro, and the Serbia people as a whole, we are deeply moved by solidarity expressed by the democratic and free world all round Europe - from Athens, Sofia, Skopje, Bucharest, Moscow, Prague, to Berlin, Stuttgart, Milan, Rome and other cities.
Aggressive NATO aviation destroy everything below it, attacking not only military targets, but also hospitals, schools, sacre places, women and children, the whole civilian population. The attacks are massive and indiscriminant, mostly performed at night, especially from midnight until morning. Many innocent people have been killed.
Thus, the NATO alliance is responsible for a humanitarian catastrophe, not seen in Europe since the Second World War. More over, it for the third time in this century, that Belgrade and other Serbian cities towns are being bombed and destroyed.
Against all principles of liberal and democratic Europe, the NATO alliance wants to create ethnically clean Greater Albania, by taking away of t of Serbia one its part- Kosovo and Metohia. In Kosovo we actually fight for the survival of great civilization achievements of Europe.
The NATO alliance is actually killing Europe in us!
Each voice raised for the defense of Kosovo and Metohia is the voice for the defense of the European civilization from new international terrorism. Help stop the crimes against Christian Serbian people, which has always been and is still today the inseparable part of the European civilization.
Stop the biggest possible humanitarian catastrophe in Europe in the second half of the 20th century. The NATO alliance is not defending Europe, but burying it.
Sincerely yours,
Slavenko TERZIC, Ph.D.
Director of the Historical Institute of
Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
To cultural public of the world
Center for study in cultural development from Belgrade, which collaborates, with UNESCO since early seventies, embittered and with great exasperation, observes uncivilized, barbarian and deeply anti-cultural actions of NATO aggressors. By bombarding our country they want to destroy not only human lives or material goods, but in a very perfidious way, they want to destroy our cultural inheritance to deny our present existence and our existence in the past. Our culture existed for centuries as well as it exists today!
Therefor this act is considered an attack upon our cultural development in the future.
Therefor, we have to warn them decisively, that their actions could not possibly provoke our fear but only our great anger and even greater determination to defend our country and protect everything that belongs to us.
We must also remind them, that once when they did still believe that cultural inheritance of every nation on this planet, was common value, they in their good will, understanding and appreciating the worth of one GRACANICA, the monastery that was built in 1318th, protected IT as a cultural monument of international importance. These days we live to see that they themselves with their bombs destroy that beauty of ours, GRACANICA as well as monastery in Rakovica which first foundation was laid also in 14th century.
Is it the dusk of a civilization which suffocating in material goods lost every sense for spiritual values?
Our culture, cultural identity, values, goods and cultural development are not the matter of trend or profit, but they are in our genes, they are the values that we get with our birth.
Therefor, we saved our cultural identity as well as our cultural inheritance through centuries and we will save them even today.
Belgrade, 3. 29. 1999.
CENTER FOR STUDY IN
CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT
Director Dusan Jovanovic
Dear colleague,
The military forces of the NATO alliance have performed on 24th March 1999 a brutal and criminal aggression against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Those attacks, which the ultra modern weapons, destroy only military, but also many civilian targets. A lot of civilians have already suffered.
We are strongly convinced that this aggression is the sign of sunset of the liberal and democratic tradition of the Western words, sunset of the tradition that always was the initialization and example for the Serbian society. We had always deeply cared about the scientific dialogue with all other scientific centers.
The brutal military aggression on our sovereign state has been followed by terrible manipulations by the media about the Serbs and their history. The Albanians in region of Kosovo and Metohia are not the victims of the systematic ethnic cleansing performed by the Serbs, but on the contrary, the Serbs are the victims of the systematic ethnic cleansing performed by the Albanians, under the cover of the Ottoman reign in the period 1878-1912, and especially during the fascistic occupation of Serbia in 1941-1945. It had been done with the aim of creation of the ethnically clean Greater Albania, which is directly on the contrary of the basic principles of multi-ethnic and multi cultural world. Such Greater Albania should be a state based on original principles of the radical political Islam.
Kosovo and Metohia, as the central part of ancient Serbia had always represented the spiritual, cultural and state center of the Serbian People. The siege of the Serbian church had been in Kosovo (Pec) for ages. The Albanians, from their mountain regions of northern Albania of today had populated Kosovo and Metohia, starting from the beginning of the XVII century until nowadays. It is natural that they could be equal citizens of our country, but they reject in every way to integrate into the Serbian and Yugoslav society. They want, beside their national state of Albania, to create another Albanian State on the territory of Serbia.
I do invite you to raise your voice against false presentation of the history of the Serb and history of Kosovo and Metohia.
We sincerely hope that between our colleagues there are many those who are not ready to follow the totalitarian and militaristic way of thinking expressed by the political and military oligarchy of the NATO.
Sincerely yours,
Slavenko TERZIC, Ph.D.
Director of the Historical Institute of
Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Our elementary school "Kralj Petar Prvi", from Belgrade, which is the oldest school in Serbia, and has 1.400 pupils, is the member of UNESCO ASPnet.
Being shocked by the ominous aggression towards our peacefully and sovereign country, we would like to appeal for an immediate stop of bombarding of the NATO forces.
This is an urgent appeal for peace in the name of all schools in our country. We wouldn't like to see our school buildings destroyed by bombs, or our very young children killed.
Nous, les enfants deYougoslavie, les enfants de l'ecole experimentale de Belgrade "Vladislav Ribnikar", l'ecole unique les Balkans ou on apprend la langue francaise depuis 30 ans, la langue adoree par nous tous, nous les eleves cahes dans les refuges et dans les caves, attendants les missiles et le pire, nous vous demandons: pourquoi vos peres veulent nous tuer? Qu'est-ce qu'on leur a fait, nous qui adorons La France, La tour Eiffel, la litterature francaise...
Nous voulons vivre en paix, jouer avec nos amis, chanter a vox haute, danser sous la musique internationalle, apprendre les langues, etudier l'histoire et la geographie, faire le tour de la planete. Nous voulons la meme chose que vous - LA LIBERTE!!!!!!!
Nous somes trop jeunes pour etre coupables! Trop jeunes, les memes que vous, pour vivre dans les caves, pour vivre dans la peur.
Tendons les mains les uns vers les autres! Parlons a voix haute pour qu'on nous entend!
Aidez-nous!
La force de l'amour et de l'amitie est la force la plus grande du monde.
The children of Yugoslavia are sending out their message to you hoping that you will hear us and are willing to help us. We appeal to your conscience.
During this monstruous bombing of our country a great number of schools have been destroyed which means that the Nato bombs are capable of killing children.
Our school isn't large but it has a great heart that hasn't stopped beating. It's heart beat isn't beating evenly and it has even stopped for a moment because the children of Yugoslavia are scared for their lives and some are even injured.
The sky above us isn't blue anymore. It has turned black with red , orange and yellow flames. We know know that they are not fireworks but dangerous bombs. The sky is black day and night.
We have left ours schools not by our own will but, because we were forced to by grown ups all over the world who have children of their own. They are making a distinction between the children all over the world. They are saying that their children are better than us. We think that all children deserve to be happy and are entitled to live a normal life. Please don't take our childhood away from us.
The children of Yugoslavia still have faith in this organization. We know you can hear us, the question is wether you have any conscious left .
The children from Yugoslavia send their love to you and the rest of the children in the world.