Foreign Interference In The Yugoslav Elections
Before as well as during the electoral process conducted so far, the Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia and its citizens have been incessantly exposed to systematic and brutal
pressure by some influential international factors, primarily the United States
Administration and NATO countries, with an undisguised aim of directly interfering in the
electoral process in the FR of Yugoslavia and of bringing an inadmissible pressure to bear
on the electoral will of its population.
a) Political and psychological pressures and subversive
activities: In the period prior to elections in Yugoslavia, centres for assisting Yugoslav
opposition and destabilization of Yugoslavia were established in neighbouring countries
(Szeged, Hungary; Timisoara, Romania; Sofia, Bulgaria; Skopje, Macedonia; and Tirana,
Albania).
A month before the elections, a US Regional Centre was set up to co-ordinate the
work of centres in individual countries of South Eastern Europe in order to exert
political, psychological, diplomatic and subversive pressure (on 15 August 2000). The
Budapest-based US Centre has engaged more than 30 experts for intelligence, propaganda,
military intelligence and subversive activities against the FR of Yugoslavia under the
direction of former US Ambassador to Croatia William Montgomery. The Centre recruits
experts from USIS, CIA, USAID, DIA and other similar US agencies. For this reason, the FR
of Yugoslavia lodged an official written protest with the United Nations Security Council
on 18 September 2000 by qualifying the establishment of this centre as a violation of the
Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic and Consular Relations and international law and
describing it as a gross interference in the internal affairs of the FR of Yugoslavia
(S/2000/880). During the month of August this year, Director of CIA George Tennet visited
the broader region of South Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, Romania) to step up and co-ordinate
pressure in the run-up to elections in Yugoslavia.
A ring of radio and TV centres was established around the FR of Yugoslavia to
transmit anti-Yugoslav propaganda, the well-known system of NATO propaganda such as Radio
Free Europe, Deutshe Welle, Voice of America and others. Hundreds of hours of
anti-Yugoslav propaganda aimed at psychological and political pressure on the citizens of
the FR of Yugoslavia, concocted in US and NATO centres of subversion and destabilization,
are being aired via these systems and their transmitters from the territories of the Czech
Republic, Hungary, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Albania, on a
daily basis. Many of these radio and television transmitters operate illegally on the same
frequencies that, according to international conventions, belong to the FR of Yugoslavia
and that are used by Yugoslav radio and television stations.
Also, statements of representatives from NATO countries have been noted to the
effect that Security Council resolution 1244 (1999) concerning the Serbian province of
Kosovo and Metohija will not be implemented as long as the opposition in Belgrade is not
victorious, which directly represents continuation of support for separatism, terrorism
and international crime in Kosovo and Metohija and in Montenegro.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, on the very date of the elections (24
September) said: If opposition comes to power, the United States will take steps to lift
the sanctions, but if President Milosevic stays in power, it will continue with its policy
of sanctions and further isolation of the Yugoslav Government. This being recognition of
the fact that sanctions have been used to wear down and punish a nation and as a form of
prolonged aggression.
The European Union too sent a "message to the Serbian people" on 18
September, on the eve of the elections, giving overtly support to the Serbian opposition
and promising to lift sanctions against it if it votes for the opposition. This is
evidence of the illegal nature and unjustifiableness of sanctions as an instrument to
violate fundamental human rights, grossly intervene in internal affairs and bring about
the accomplishment of illegitimate political goals. On this score, an EU representative
was delivered the strongest protest in the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 21
September and at EU headquarters in Brussels on 22 September, respectively.
Similar malicious views were publicly expressed every day in the media by the
President of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, by the Foreign Ministers of a
number of EU countries, the EU High Representative and Commissioner for External
Relations, as well as by the EU Stability Pact Co-ordinator and the Secretary General of
the Council of Europe, with a view to exercising an organized pressure on the public in
the FRof Yugoslavia and on its electoral bodies and to prejudicing election results.
b) Opposition funding:
The US Administration, the Governments of NATO countries and various foundations,
such as the Soros foundation, openly finance Yugoslav opposition and various forms of
subversive activity aimed at destabilizing the FRof Yugoslavia and at overthrowing its
legitimate Government. This funding has been intensified in particular after the
announcement of nation-wide parliamentary, presidential and local elections. Funds have
openly been allocated to opposition political parties and their leaders, to the so-called
independent media, associations and structures of the so-called civil society and to
individuals. Prior to these elections, the US Administration paid US$ 77.2 million to
Yugoslav opposition, a public fact also confirmed by a daily close to US Administration,
The Washington Post, on 22 September 2000. The same was also confirmed by sources in US
Congress, the Department of State and others.
Only a day after the elections and the first round of Presidential election in the
FR of Yugoslavia, US Congress passed on 25 September the "Democratization of Serbia
Act", making a series of gross and unsubstantiated allegations against the legitimate
authorities in the FR of Yugoslavia and appropriating additional financial resources, to
the tune of US$ 105 million, to bring them down, i.e. for the purposes of the Serbian
opposition. This document, under the guise of an alleged concern for human rights, openly
supported the separatism of ethnic Hungarians in the Serbian province of Vojvodina, where
the majority Serbs live in harmony with 25 minorities.
A week before the elections, the Charge d'Affaires of the Royal Norwegian Embassy
in Belgrade handed out cash funds in Deutsche marks to students and young people in
several towns in Serbia, thus directly promoting the cause of the opposition. The
so-called independent media and the statements made by the Norwegian Charge bear witness
to it. Such conduct by the Norwegian Charge, as an abuse of the hospitality of the
Yugoslav Government , contradicts his diplomatic functions, whereas giving bribe is
punishable by law in all countries of the world. The Charge was twice officially warned
(on 30 August and on 22 September 2000) in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that such
activity is a flagrant interference in internal affairs and a gross violation of the
Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. He was asked not to do so and to channel all
assistance in accordance with the agreements and the normal practice existing in
co-operation among sovereign States, via competent Government authorities, which the
Charge completely ignored.
c) Military pressure:
Prior to the elections, NATO forces began a series of military exercises in the
immediate neighbourhood of the FR of Yugoslavia. Thus, during the month of September the
territory of Romania was used to stage the military exercises codenamed "Co-operative
Key 2000", while during the course of October the exercises "Aquanaut 2000"
are being conducted in the Romanian waters of the Black Sea, with the participation of
British and Dutch commandos. These exercises have been followed by those carried out
jointly by NATO forces in the Aegean and Black Seas and in Eastern Mediterranean, with the
participation of about 70 warships. The American Sixth Fleet demonstrated force in the
Adriatic close to the Yugoslav coast on the pretext of staging joint exercises with the
Croatian armed forces.
