Dear friends;mars at rsc.com.mk I am sorry I have not been able to inform you and react promptly on the rapidly unfolding developments here. As missiles and bombs rain ruthlessly on the people and infrastructure of Yugoslavia, only 15 kilometres north from where I live in Skopje (the capital of Macedonia), shocking news are coming in by the minute.
You might have heard in the headlines that the biggest and most violent protests against NATO involvement in Yugoslavia so far, took place in Skopje about 5 hours ago. An outraged mass of demonstrators, mostly young, carrying Macedonian and Yugoslav flags (along with some very witty transparents and symbols:) stormed the US Embassy and set several private cars and adjoining objects in the courtyard on fire. Afterwards they ransacked some vehicles parked by the nearby hotel where a lot of foreign journalists and representatives are based. During this occasion, the reporter of CNN, Matthew Chance, who by the way has been constantly incorrectly informing about the events here, had to run for his life in panic right in the middle of a live broadcast. Afterwards the demonstrators stormed the German and British Consulates, but were attacked by the special police, who up to that moment were only observing the situation. Consecutively, 60 of them have been arrested.
On almost all the major world newscasts this evening, a transparent with the words 'Enough, Pinocchio!' portraying Clinton with a long nose and a swastika on his forehead (in reaction to the blatant lies he used to justify the criminal attack) was shown. I am proud to inform you that this transparent was created and carried by three activists of the Ecologists' Movement of Macedonia - Youth (DEM-Youth) - Daniela Stojanova, Emil Krstanovski and myself (btw, I assume full responsibility for the poor art on the slogan and the swastika ;-)). Unfortunately I was not present during most of the demonstrations, but I have just heard that Daniela, the co-ordinator of DEM-Youth, was in the front lines facing the special police, while Emil, among other heroic involvements, has been known to have made a precise hit on an US Embassy Representative with an egg.
We are shocked and deeply distressed to see that green movements across Europe are silent to this criminal act, the complete end and destruction of international law and peace. The arguments used to justify it are false and immoral: instead of averting a 'humanitarian catastrophe,' the intervention will and is already creating one: as innocent people throughout the Yugoslav cities are suffering casualties and unimaginable psychological stress, refugees from Kosovo continue to storm Macedonia in fear of retaliation from the Yugoslav Army. We have come to a situation where world leaders speak straight-faced in front of their nations, with statements implying that bombs and missiles are delivered to innocent civilians as humanitarian aid.
The situation here in Macedonia is also very tense and psychotic, as we are very close to the border and our country is also ethnically mixed. In addition to NATO heavy machinery on city streets, rapidly increasing demand for certain products in stores and gas lines, now we can hear the whipping sound of invisible warplanes flying right above us. I am on the phone non-stop with concerned friends/relatives, I cannot sleep for nights trying to tap all the media reports I can get .... but still it is hard to imagine the horrifying situation in which the citizens of Yugoslavia have been placed without their will.
I stand firmly in their support, in the name of justice and peace.
During the next day I will be drafting a declaration against the strikes that I will propose to the Federation of the Young European Greens for adoption. It's high time that we took some action on this. Please send emails of support to me personally, to DEM (bimadem at lotus.mpt.com.mk) or to MARS (mars at rsc.com.mk) if you agree with such an idea. I will then regularly inform you about the progress made.
Together with my colleagues we have been thinking of initiating an email campaign as well. More on this tomorrow. Please inform us of any mailing lists on the issue that you might know of on the issue.
Stefan Buzharovski, Vice Chairperson of the Federation of Young European Greens