UN Commission on Human Rights

Fifty-fifth session

Provisional agenda item 5

The right of peoples to self-determination and its application to peoples under colonial or alien domination or foreign occupation

Oral statement by the Transnational Radical Party, a non-governmental organisation in general consultative status.

Geneva, 24 March 1999

Delivered by Marino Busdachin

Madam Chairperson,

The last massacres and the entire situation in Kosovo show to the entire world the full responsibility of the Belgrade regime. The profound reason of the recent tragedy of the Balkans is necessary to find in the criminal policy set up by the national communist dictatorship acting as a mafia group still in power in Belgrade. The Yugoslavian regime denies any fundamental rights and respect for human rights in its state, there is no freedom of press, no freedom for political action of citizens, no most elementary rules of democracy.

Two days ago in this room, Mrs. Mary Robinson, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, noted that "In Kosovo, systematic discrimination against Albanians after 1990 was accompanied by torture and other brutal human rights violations, which created fertile conditions in which the seeds of the present conflict could take root". Indeed, the international community as a whole - with some exceptions - realises today that the continuous and escalating repression, violent police actions and the excessive use of force against Albanians by the Belgrade regime, which denies its citizens to oppose to its criminal policy, is the root and the reason of the current tragic conflict in Kosovo. But it should become also more evident for the international community that its long-lasting political neglection of the consideration of the final status of Kosovo as well as its "tolerance" to the activities of Belgrade regime contributed decisively to the continuation and worsening of the situation.

Despite the activities of the UN agencies and number of NGOs, despite many meetings of contact group, arms embargo against Federal Republic Yugoslavia (FRY), presence of NATO and OSCE in the region, UN Security Council's resolutions, no sufficiently decisive steps were taken so far by the international community to let Mr. Milosevic, at large the major responsible for the bloodshed in the Balkans, and his regime understand that the world will do anything effective to deter further violence and help improve the situation.

Only after the number of civilian deaths increased from hundreds to thousands, after almost half a million people (22% of the Kosovo population) had to flee their destroyed homes, after the world witnessed the massacre in Racak, one of the last and clear military operation which was rightly classified as a crime against humanity in the reports of the independent experts and NGO's investigation, was the international community able to find enough political will to intensify and concretise its efforts.

No Peace Without Justice, TRP's international campaign demonstrates in its report on its field investigation handed to the ICTY in The Hague the chain of command which demonstrates the indirect and direct responsibility of top members of the Government and of the President of FRY himself.

The Kosovo representation has already signed the interim political agreement, while Belgrade continues to obstruct any political settlement and undertakes further bloodshed. It is therefore a duty for the international community to do its utmost, without delay, and to employ all the necessary means, including the action of both air and ground military force to put an end to the ethnic cleansing policy of the Belgrade regime, so far unfortunately successful.

No one today can find consistent or serious thinking about the Great Albania which will face a Great Yugoslavia or Serbia. The Balkan mess demonstrates that there is no more space for considering such an idea. It would be simply ridiculous taking it into consideration in the era of inter-dependence and globalisation.

The Transnational Radical Party (TRP) considers that, in the frame of seeking the form of the final status of Kosovo, the due attention and big respect should be payed to all Kosovo's inter-dependencies: be they political, economical, social or cultural, be they international or regional. The TRP is convinced that taking into account all these conditions, inter-dependencies and multilateral diplomacy, the question of a wide autonomy or independence of Kosovo should not be a tabu anymore.

Moreover, the TRP, in the framework of its campaign for the indictment of President Milosevic for crimes against humanity by the ICTY signed by hundreds of thousands politicians and citizens worldwide, considers immediate indictment of Milosevic essential for the restoration of the respect of human rights, the enhancement of the rules of law and democracy in Serbia, Vojvodina, Montenegro and Kosovo.

The first issue today has to be the respect for human rights and rules of democracy for the FRY citizens in order to pass from the rule of the strongest to the rule of law and honour the principle of the right to life for the life of rights.