Bill ------- start of forwarded message -------
Subject: Alive and well for now Date: Fri, 2 Apr 1999 14:03:30 +0300
Dear Tim,
Just to let you know that I'm alive and well. You know that I was never much into politics but this is gone too far. I just need to explain to my friends the situation here. This is my way of letting the anger go and if I could tell you the truth - well, this is the only way I can contribute to the peace.
First of all, we are under constant bombing of your airplanes and constantly in shelters. And without any sleep it's kind of hard to laugh in this situation. We are not spared of bombings even if we are hundreds of kilometers away from Kosovo. The sign for air raid lasted yesterday for 26 hours. People are literally sleeping for 2 hours if they can. Can you imagine sitting in a cold shelter for that long and listening to the bombings?! Lots of people got sick and little children too. I know that you think that we are killing those bloody Albanians but believe me, it's not that simple as your television is trying to present. Yesterday, American planes bombarded the bridge in Novi Sad, town in the northern part of our country, some 600 kilometers from Kosovo, and it's a historical monument. How that bridge has anything to do with the Kosovo refugees? And do you honestly believe that only one nation suffer in this as your government is trying to portray? The planes are bombing all Kosovo, and as they say, bombs do not make a difference who is Serb and who is Albanian. The same number of Serbs fled from Kosovo because of bombing of NATO and Albanians too. Speaking of Albanians (I did not want to try to explain the situation but I see I have to and to explain why I was so bitter in my last e-mail), They want an independence and part of our territory that has been ours for 900 years. The soul and everything connected to our culture and us as a nation is there. Monasteries from 12-13th century are there. They are part of world's heritage and protected by international law. And yet, one of it (so far) has been severely damaged by bombing and there is no military troops around that village. It's not by an accident that this happened. They bombed that region couple of times. I cannot understand (whatever the cause is) how someone can do that. And constant threats of your President and government. there must be something wrong with the picture if one nation is satanised as we are from your media? There is an American organisation for Human Rights that did a study on this problem and said, too, that NATO did not use all the means, political and peaceful, to bring to terms both sides. And Albanians, who are actually terrorists trying to gain something that does not belong to them, by force, are using NATO attacks to attack our army from ground. So it looks like their action is simultaneous.
I know that you can't see on your television all the protests around the world that are held in our support and against NATO, but believe me there are many of them and lots of famous people are saying that what NATO is doing is insane.
Another thing - even if they think that bombing could stop war in Kosovo (though none is ever heard that it did, by additional bombing and escalating the conflict), why do they bomb the capital, Belgrade? Is it not hypocrisy to say that they don't have anything against the Serbian people, just our President? Can just one man cause all these sufferings?
The prime target is for NATO to settle here and there is no question about it. It is well known that one who holds the path of Budapest (Hungary) - Belgrade - Thesaloniki (Greece), controls the Balkan. And we've seen what will happen to us if will allow it. It's in Bosnia and the people in part of Bosnia that is under control of Serbs, they elected they president by legal voting. Now, West doesn't like him and they removed him from his position (since the troops and some monitors who are overlooking the situation are still there). How can someone overthrow a legally elected president? We do not want to happen in our country. And it is the right question to ask - how West did not take any action when 300,000 Serbs fled from Croatia couple of years ago? We have around 850,000 refugees from the war in Croatia and Bosnia and no one is talking about that.
You say that we kill innocent people. I'm sorry but I have to say - it's a big, big lie. The only one we are killing that are "innocent" are terrorists that attack us. They are entering from Albania, your commanders train them and some "dogs of war" are on Kosovo too. They just like killing, I guess. We are just defending our country and our lives. I can go on and on but I think that this gives you the rough idea of what's been going on here. Just another thing - the spokesman of White House, James Rubin, is constantly trying to place the lies in public. The last one was that we formed something like a Nazi camp in stadium in Pristina, the biggest town in Kosovo, holding 100,000 Albanians there. Associated Press (or it was French, I forgot) reporter let him say that and asked him who told him that. He said that he heard it directly from one of the Albanian leaders (terrorist already convicted for his prior terrorist activities but wasn't in YU to serve the sentence). Then, the reporter said, in front of everyone at the conference meeting, that he was there personally and that no one entered the football stadium for months let alone 100,000 people being there. He also asked him how can he not be ashamed of placing constant lies to public. James Rubin was so nervous and speechless and abruptly finished the conference. And this is not the first time NATO and White House being caught in lying in this war propaganda. It's all money game. New weapons should be made, the one that are close to expire should be dropped somewhere and to control whole world if possible. Next one is Russia. We are just a place where they can practice how it would be with Russia. Now, Russians entered the Mediterranean and who knows what will happen. I sincerely hope everything will settle.
Thing is, we are in Europe, we are not some minor country in god-forgotten part of this globe. We are sovereign country, having our state for thousands of years and this is our inward problem and nobody else's (no one even thinks to enter in conflict and tell England what to do with Ireland). We didn't attack anyone. NATO attacked sovereign country, neglecting UN and all international laws. This is the precedent, and it will leave serious damages in the world's relations. Clinton says we will be responsible if NATO and UN fall apart. Well, we didn't invite them (NATO) to this conflict and we surely didn't ask them to bomb us. Albanians are not innocent as they are trying to portray them. Over the years they killed hundreds of Serbs there. We were giving them all the autonomy they could get. We did not put them in reservation camps like you did with Indians and they are settlers. Albanians are not settlers here. They came after the Second World War from Albania here and have numerous families (12 children in family). But they don't want that. They want their country. Well, they have it - Albania. Kosovo is our sacred land (like Jerusalem for Christians, not just Jews) and that's all. We never, in our history, invaded another country nor plan to do so. We are just defending our territory.
I hope that you'll understand this and starting to see it through a different light. There is no democracy in what your government and NATO are doing. I see CNN and BBC and see what they are placing to you. It's sad and it's a shame and it's a big, big LIE. You should see little babies in shelters that are cold and dump; 2-3 months old!!! They didn't deserve this. And media (Western televisions) do not show that. All Yugoslavia is under attacks and lots of people are suffering from this. But we are united because we know we are fighting for truth and we'll survive this. History will reveal the truth. I just hope we'll live to see it. I know that this is unfamiliar to you and that a lot of information I gave you in this letter but I've just tried to explain it to. Lots of bad feelings get into your hart in situations like this and we need all the support we can get. I just want to cry because of politicians and their greed for power that we are all suffering. I just prey they come to their senses before it's too late. Emotions are running high these days over here and it is sometime hard to control them and think rationally. I'll keep you posted. For now on, everything is quiet. I came from shelter at 4 AM this morning and got up at nine. It's quiet now so I'll go to take some sleep to endure trough another sleepless night.
The concerts that we are holding every day in the centre of the town under the title "Song kept us alive", where more than 50,000 people gather, really ease us a little bit and even that air raid is going on we still are there. The spirit and the humour of the people - they can't destroy that. Some of the best paroles we've seen these days are - "Sorry, we didn't know it was invisible"; "I've seen him too - Homer"; "NATO - New American Terrorist Organisation"; "Bil, come and blow at our "saxophone" a little"; "From Monica oral, from Serbia anal"; "CNN reported that Hitler was cloned successfully. For the moment he is living in US. People call him Bill"; Hope I didn't offend you with this. If I did, sorry. This is just toward those idiotic politicians.
Hope they'll come to their senses. For now I think it's more than enough. I'll keep you posted. Over and out. Love, Ivana Lots of love from shattered Belgrade, Ivana ------- end of forwarded message -------