© Photo: Tadija, en.wikipedia.org

After NATO military aggression against the former Fedral Republic of Yugoslavia ended in 1999 and after the establishment of the US/NATO Camp Bondsteel military base, American military bases began sprouting up all over Eastern Europe like mushrooms after a drenching rain. On the 15 year anniversary of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in an interview with the Voice of Russia Živadin Jovanović, the former and last Foreign Minister of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Chairman of the Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals stated that all of these bases are directed against Russia and Eurasia. All of the NATO infrastructure and military elements have nothing to do with democracy or with some struggle against organized international crime. All of the bases, warships, aircraft, nuclear missiles and anti-ballistic missile systems in Germany, Poland, Romania, Spain and elsewhere are all part of a new “Drang Nach Osten Doctrine” (the German Imperial and nazi [sic] “Drive to the East”). Mr. Jovanović believes this push to the East warrants very serious attention and is a very dangerous development.

PART 1

This is John Robles, I’m speaking with Živadin Jovanović. He is the former Foreign Minister of Yugoslavia and the Chairman of the Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals. This is part 2 of a longer interview. You can find the rest of this interview on our website at voiceofrussia.com.

Jovanović: In June, 1999, after NATO aggression was ended, then I can recall that soon after that there was a reconstruction and construction of four new American military bases in Bulgaria, and after that four new American bases in Romania. And how many they have in Czech or Slovak Republic, in Poland, in Baltic Republics and so on, it is not really so important, but what is important that after military aggression on Yugoslavia in 1999 and after establishment of the Bondsteel military base, American military bases in eastern part of the continent were mushrooming like after rain.

And now I would like to ask question for your listeners: how to explain the fact that in Europe today there are much more foreign military bases than at the time of the peak of Cold War era? Why they are needed? Is democracy in danger? Who is endangering democracy? Or what are the reasons? Can we believe that these bases are to fight terrorism, or what? It is really what is never recognized.

These bases to my sincere belief are directed against Russia, against Eurasia. And they have nothing to do with democracy, with struggle against organized international crime, with struggling against cyber dangers or anything else. We should be extremely naive to believe that these anti-ballistic systems in Poland, in Romania and elsewhere, in Spain, in Germany, that they are to relieve Europe of the dangers from Iran or from North Korea and so on and so forth.

Robles: Those are all lies. It is just part of the empire, it is part of their military force in order to increase and continue and expand their empire, and surround Russia of course, which they’ve continued to see as a threat even since the Cold War finished. NATO is the foreign military wing of their empire, they are trying to do and they are actually doing what Nazi Germany did: they are taking over the entire world through NATO.

Jovanović: I would only recall that this is new edition of a Drang nach Osten, and it really deserves high attention and very serious approaches. How to discourage, how to stop this extremely dangerous development?

I would like to add to this consideration another element, this is element of the world economic and financial crisis which seem not to be ending in foreseeable future. And I see that this global interventionism which is propped up by United States using NATO as a tool and I see that they actually are trying to pass the burden and consequences of the world economic crisis provoked by themselves to the back bone of other countries, especially to those countries which are rich with strategic minerals, strategic energy resources and so on in order to safeguard their privileged position and their good living standards and their privileged position in world economic relations. They are not ready to give up.

Robles: Can I comment on what you’ve just said about the living conditions? Because people in the West, a lot of people, and this is … it is a myth … the people themselves, they are living worse than they have since the 1960s. Things are bad for everybody. So this is only benefiting a small group of elites, I think.

Jovanović: Yes, I think you are right, because the victims of the world crisis are generally speaking poorer countries of the world, countries rich with energy and strategic mineral resources and the population of the West equally as the population all over the world. I think the hardest hit are peoples of Africa, of Asia, of Latin America and so on. And this using NATO as a tool of corporate capitalism is aimed at preserving privileged position of these corporate capital companies to preserve the monopolies and privileged position of industrial financial capital and especially military-industrial sector. And so, actually, all of us we are victims of militarization of Europe and militarization of the world relations in general.

I think that we should be aware of that military factor is dominating economy, dominating trade, dominating politics. And it is just a reason to ask a question: where we are leading to? Where does it lead to, and what is the future of such a strategy? I think we are faced with a very disturbing development and we should not allow ourselves such a luxury to become wise when it is useless, when it is late. We should be aware now, although we should have been aware much earlier.

I myself as a Minister of Foreign Affairs of Yugoslavia in 1999, when there was aggression of NATO against my country, I said: ‘Do you understand who is next?’ Today we know who were, who have been next so far. But each time, each stage has, let’s say, more ambitious objective of this military-industrial sector.

So, Serbia was a very tiny, small sanctions exhausted country, it was not perhaps so risky to attack by the strongest military alliance in the history of civilization. But later on they were going on and we know that they were attacking much bigger countries and having a plan to expand this. And I think all leads us to one conclusion: developments in the world relations, and especially in Europe, are very, very disturbing. Let us be aware about it.

Robles: Libya, Syria, Ukraine – it is basically one formula they are using. You mentioned supporting terrorists, you mentioned synthetic revolutions. What other mechanisms did you see as the Foreign Minister to bring about the destruction of Yugoslavia? And what can you say about Libya, Syria, Ukraine, the Middle East, Egypt? The list is almost too long to mention already.

Jovanović: Well, let me first of all say that NATO aggression against Yugoslavia in 1999, exactly 15 years ago, was a turning point in world relations point of starting global interventionism. NATO did empower itself, illegally of course, contrary to all the laws existing in the world relations to intervene in any spot of the globe.

Just it was necessary to proclaim that United States or NATO have national or state interests in certain part of the world and they then prepare for aggression for invasions. To do so they in most instances use so called formula of humanitarian interventions. They invoke obligation to protect as they recently reformulated this humanitarian intervention pattern.

They in Yugoslavia accused Yugoslav government of massively violating human rights of Albanian national minority in Kosovo and Metohija. There was not anything similar to that. We have, let’s say, documents including written documents of German diplomats, of Austrian; one German general said: ‘before the aggression there were no systematic, no organized violations of human rights of Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija’. Another German diplomat Dietmar Hartwig said that accusations of that sort were perceived by himself as preparation for the aggression and so on.

In Libya you recall that they said that civilians were in danger and that they needed protection, in Mali they also said that terrorists were endangering stability and civil life in general. In Syria they say sarin gas was used by the government forces while the UN observers never indicated such a thing. They said only that there were proofs of sarin having been used but they could not state who used the sarin gas, while later on it was linked to the opposition forces and to Saudi Arabia, and whomever else.

In various other places this was also formula: protect civilians, protect human rights, and when such a signal comes from Washington then the whole network of so-called NGO, financed from Washington, from Soros Foundation, from Norway, from Great Britain, from Germany – they accelerate such an accusation and they make atmosphere of transforming lie into truth. Because mass media would accept such directives, and like CNN and some other networks of global nature would be disseminating such accusation. And they would at the same time later, at a later stage that were parallel with this, they finance opposition, inside opposition of targeted country.

They finance so-called democracy, democratization apparently to counter or to remove the totalitarian regimes. Then they would arm them. Next stage they would finance armament and train them in many directions for military actions: how to write paroles and symbols like symbol of OTPOR or the other symbols that we have seen in Maidan in Ukraine, in Kiev or in Cairo or in many other places, in South America and so on and so forth. So they then would provoke a staged event which should be signal that there is no other solution than to use military force. In case of Yugoslavia that was Reka case, in Bosnia and Herzegovina that was Markale Incident, we know the places in Syrian and other countries.

And then sometimes they have apparent diplomatic efforts, but not aimed at finding a political diplomatic solution, only saving diplomatic efforts in order to show that the regimes, so-called regimes, are unbearable and that they are not cooperating and that there is no other means than military means to resolve the problem. So this is mainly the pattern: humanitarian or intervention or responsibility to protect.

Robles: Right. Can you give us your opinion on what is going on now in Ukraine? So we’ve seen everything you’ve been talking about, we’ve seen everything that a lot of analysts and experts have been talking about, we‘ve seen this artificial outside implemented color revolution, we’ve seen and we’ve heard US officials having conversations about who is going to be in power. It is, just everything is out in the open now. But do you see something like a terrorist act or some big act going to happen soon in Ukraine? That would be the next step, I think.

Jovanović: Of course, I presume that Russian analysts and journalists and editors, like yourself, would be much better to interpret the events in Ukraine because it is not only geographically closer to you, but from any point of view, but I can imagine that most thinking people in Europe and the world would have their own assessments of events in Ukraine. As far as I’m concerned I think it is a repetition of the colored revolutions, so-called colored revolutions, and some of the elements of the pattern that I have previously elaborating are being clearly seen in developments in Ukraine.

But perhaps I would like first of all to say that it is part of the western strategy of expansion toward East. It is indeed to my profound belief the part of strategy to reach Russian borders and, well, they are abusing social, economic and other problems which partly resulted from their strategies and their policies of crediting or not crediting, policies implemented through IMF and World Bank, through European banks and so on. Sometimes I believe that they make people hungry in order to finish their strategy.

You were listening to part 2 of an interview with Ћivadin Jovanovic, the former Foreign Minister of Yugoslavia. He is also the Chairman of the Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals. You can find the rest of this interview on our website at voiceofrussia.com. Thanks for listening and we wish you the best.

PART 1