Esattamente tre anni fa, in seguito al clamore suscitato da una strage al mercato di Sarajevo che non era stata commessa dai serbi, la "comunità internazionale", cui apparentemente stanno a cuore solo i diritti umani, la pace e la fratellanza tra i popoli, organizzava e realizzava un bombardamento prolungato contro obbiettivi, militari e non, sul territorio controllato dai serbi di Bosnia.
In quella occasione nessuna voce di dissenso si alzò, nè a destra nè a sinistra, nè in Italia nè altrove. Solo due anni dopo alcuni organi di stampa (tra cui la rivista italiana "Guerre&Pace") svelavano alcuni retroscena di quell'azione: in particolare si parlò dell'uso di ordigni all'uranio impoverito che avrebbero causato una contaminazione del territorio che ancora persiste

NATO MIGHT FACES HAGUE TRIBUNAL CHARGES FOR USE OF RADIOLOGICAL AMMUNITION IN REPUBLIKA SRPSKA
Tanjug, 1998-08-07

The Yugoslavia-based Association of Serbs from Bosnia-Herzegovina will file charges with the Hague international Tribunal against those who ordered and executed bombing using radiological ammunition of the territory of Republika Srpska in 1995, which is a violation of international humanita rian laws and conventions which ban the use of biological warfare, associ ation President Bogdan Jamedzija said.

Dr. Jamedzija told a press conference that all available scientific and medical documents had been prepared and that they would be sent, together with the charges, to the Tribunal which deals with crimes committed in t he former Yugoslavia since 1991.

"in the second half of September 1995, NATO planes used special ammuniti on whose cores contained U-238 in the bombing of military, but also civil ian targets, which resulted in high radioactivity in the territory of Rep ublika Srpska, and consequently the occurrence of a series of grave disea ses in humans, and also contaminated the environment," Dr. Jamedzija said 2E

Medical experts recorded a higher incidence of miscarriages, fetal death s, premature births, and still-born children among the population of Mili c, Vlasenica, Han Pijesak, Sokoc, Pale, Vogosca, Rogatica, and other plac es throughout Republika Srpska. Experts also recorded more frequent death s of cattle in these areas, he said.

Moreover, herbs picked on Mt. Romanija showed a radioactivity of 1,100 b ecquerels per kilo, while the maximum permitted level is 600 Bq/kg.

Dr. Jamedzija said the association's team of experts had data that the e ntire Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina showed a 400 percent increase in c ervical cancer following 1995.

The responsibility of the principals and executors of crimes against the civilian population of Bosnia-Herzegovina is based on articles 86 and 87 of the Protocol of the first Geneva conventions, and article 91 establis hes responsibility for caused damages. The Association therefore maintain s that NATO members, or the member-states whose troops had been the parti cipating parties, cannot be beyond the reach of justice.

U.N. Liaison Office Spokesman Jay Carter said here Belgrade on Wednesday that the United Nations had not taken a stand on whether the Hague-based Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia should launch an investigation into NATòs use of radioactive ammunition in the Republika Srpska.

Speaking at a news conference, he said that such a request should be off icially submitted to the United Nations.

Spokesman for the Belgrade Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refu gees Mons Nyberg spoke about the organisation's activities aimed at helpi ng the jeopardised in Kosovo and Metohija.

Carter said that the U.N. Secretary-General had decided to send a team o f experts to Albania in early June to work with Albanian authorities on c ollecting civilians' weapons and controlling the taking of arms from the country.

Speaking about the return of refugees to Croatia, Nyberg and Carter quot ed Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granic as saying that about 30,000 requ ests for the individual return had been submitted in keeping with the exi sting procedure and that Croatia would present a comprehensive plan for t he return of Serb refugees by June 20.

Nyberg said that neither the UNHCR nor the international community were satisfied with the Croatian Government's document referring only to indiv idual return and that they would insist on making possibilities for the r eturn of Serb refugees and expelled persons in groups.

The bombing of civilian facilities and the use of ammunition containing impoverished uranium in NATO air raids on Republika Srpska (RS) during operation 'Resolute Responsè, from late August to September 1995, is contrary to numerous international conventions and declarations on war law and conduct in war, is the joint assessment of a number of Yugoslav experts. The experts said that "those who gave orders, the direct and indirect participants of the bombing in RS, have violated many norms of international Law and should answer for this individually." The law experts set out that the participants of these events should be aware and "should bear in mind that there is a no statute of limitation for war crimes." The experts told Tanjug that according to the Statute of the Hague Tribunal, all persons committing criminal acts in the territory of the former Yugoslavia since 1991, should be held responsible regardless of their nationality.

This means that, apart from the citizens of the former Yugoslavia, the citizens of other countries can not avoid criminal responsibility, including members of NATO, iFOR, SFOR and other international forces and organizations if they violated the norms of international Law. "We believe that the violation of these international declarations, also signed by NATO members whose aircraft bombed RS without approval by the U.N. Security Council, represents a solid legal basis for the Belgrade Association of Serbs from Bosnia and Herzegovina to rise charges with the Hague Tribunal against responsible persons from 16 NATO countries," the Yugoslav experts said.

They set out that one of the major international documents "violated" by most of the then signatories, now NATO members, who participated in operation 'Resolute Responsè, is the 1868 Petersburg Declaration on the Prohibition of the Use of Certain Missiles in War. Combined with the basic use of this cannon ammunition for the destruction of armoured vehicles and fortified points, its radioactive effect is not to be ignored and has been recorded by measuring the scattered parts of missiles found in the field after the air raid. The legal experts said that radioactivity does not "differentiate" between civilians and soldiers, nor between friends or enemies and that this violated the basic postulates of international Law. "Another major document violated by those who took part in the bombing of RS, are the 1992 Hague Regulations whose Article 24. says that "air bombardment is legal only if it is directed against military facilities whose partial or entire destruction brings military advantage to the warring side," the experts said. They said that the document precisely named military facilities and that these do not include facilities targeted in RS by NATO planes, such as houses, roads, pharmacies, pig farms, bridges or dams. "The regulations also stipulate that if military facilities are located in such a manner that their bombardment could not be carried out without harming the civilian population, the aircraft must refrain from bombing," the legal experts said pointing out that the bombardment of the Technical-Repairing institute in Hadzici, which is surrounded by civilian facilities, is an example of the violation of these regulations signed by the United States whose A-10 bombers carried out the attack. Despite recent claims by SFOR spokesman Peter Clark that ammunition made out of impoverished uranium, which was used in RS, is not "atomic ammunition' but just like all other types of ammunition "with a minimum health risk," the facts speak differently. in the bombed regions in RS, there is an increased number of people suffering or dead from malignant diseases, and there were cases of the mass death of livestock or the birth of freaks. Also, changes on plants have been recorded.