This is a document in Serbian and English
where you can find various information concerning
the NATO military action against Serbia.

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stvar je licne savjesti, a mozda i hrabrosti, odluka o tome da li staviti svoj potpis na tekst koji slijedi i za koji mnogi, s pravom, vjeruju da nece imati mnogo efekta.

No u razgovoru sa Canadian-Jewish prijateljima, malocas sam objasnjavao svoj stav, rekavsi da sam u pismu podrske jugoslovenskim narodima poslatom na pocetku rata izrazio svoj stav da im necu okrenuti ledja sad kad mainstream u civilizovanim zemljama to cini. I ne samo u civilizovanim, i ovi u balkanskim i iz balkanskih zemalja to cine rado i sa opravdanjem. Odgovor je bio da ja treba da radim kako mi unutarnje osjecanje nalaze, ali i da treba da budem spreman i da snosim konsekvence koje iz toga mogu proizaci.

I onda se razvila prica o vremenu izrazitog antisemitizma u Kanadi. I kako Kanada uopste nije tako friendly country kako nam na prvi pogled izgleda. Kako medju starosjediocima Toronta postoji otpor prema imigrantima, obojenima, Jevrejima, ali kako je taj otpor zataskan, pritajen od sredine sedamdesetih godina. Kako npr Eaton i Burks nisu zaposljavali nikoga do sedamdesetih godina ko bi na aplikaciju upisao religion - jewish.

Sreca za Jevreje u Americi je bila sto su imali crnce pa su se white supremacists vise bavili njima, nego Jevrejima.

Njegova je tvrdnja koja je u sustini i logicna, da je u vrijeme depresije i
nakon nje glavna krivica za krizu bila prebacivana na Jevreje, kako u
Evropi, tako i u Americi i kako je Americi nedostajao samo pogodan vodja alla Hitler, pa da se dogodi ista stvar, kakva se dogodila i Njemackoj.

Ja sam pokusao da doprem do odgovora, pa zasto su onda americki Jevreji tako spremni da podrze americku vladu kad je u pitanju agresija na Jugoslaviju? On misli da je to stvar asimiliacije i zelja da se bude veci katolik od Pape. Osim toga postoji stvarna intencija da se pomogne izbjeglicama od strane Jevreja, jer po njegovom misljenju vlada ne bi primila niti jednog Albanca da nije jevrejskog pritiska. Stvar je izravnavanja racuna iz vremena kad su brodovi sa jevrejskim izbjeglicama vracani nazad Hitleru u ruke. Jucer sam u plodnom i srdacnom razgovoru sa rabbi Moskovitchem dogovorio termin i okvir za forum u povodu kosovske krize i jevrejskog stava u odnosu na istu. Termin je najvjerovatnije 24.juni 99 i nalazimo se u procesu odabiranja moderatora skupa, kao i gostiju koji ce na njemu govoriti. On predlaze izmedju ostalih americkog ambasadora u Kanadi, a meni se cini da bi bilo mozda bolje imati kao govornika predsjednika Kanadskog jevrejskog kongresa koji je podrzao bombardovanje i kojem je upuceno pismo koje slijedi.

Smrt fasizmu - sloboda narodu

M. M.

Subject: Poslato je pismo Kanadskom Jevrejskom Kongresu

Evo ga konacni tekst Otvorenog Pisma, zajedno sa propratnim pismom g. Moshe
Ronenu, predsedniku Kanadskog Jevrejskog Kongresa. Primeticete da ima daljih izmena, jer sam se trudio da vase primedbe uvazim do poslednjeg trenutka.

Ako neko nije stigao da se stavi na listu potpisnika, a zeli da to naknadno
uradi, predlazem da posalje pismo ili e-mail direktno g. Ronenu, na donju
adresu ili na ronen@cjc.ca .

Hag sameah i puno pozdrava od Paje.

May 21, 1999 / Sivan 6, 5759

BY EXPRESS MAIL AND E-MAIL

Dear Mr. Ronen:

Re: An Open Letter to the Canadian Jewish Congress

Enclosed is an open letter to the Canadian Jewish Congress by a group of
Yugoslav-Canadian Jews. The letter reflects our concerns regarding the lack of critical thinking North American Jewish organizations in general, and the Canadian Jewish Congress in particular, have displayed in jumping onto the bandwagon fuelled by the U.S. and NATO propaganda machinery. By doing so, Jewish organizations have implicitly or explicitly underwritten an illegal and deeply immoral action amounting to an outright destruction of a small sovereign country by the mightiest military alliance in the world, an action that goes far beyond and in many ways contrary to the proclaimed
"humanitarian" objectives.

We feel a deep concern for the survival and the future of the Jewish community in Yugoslavia. We would like this letter to precipitate a debate within the Canadian Jewish Congress and other Jewish organizations in Canada as we believe that an informed, unbiassed position and support of Jewish organizations in the world are essential for the survival of the community we come from.

As an informal co-ordinator of our group, I will send copies of the Open
Letter to the Federation of Jewish Communities in Yugoslavia, to the Canadian Jewish News and to other media in Canada and internationally. Should you wish to contact any of the co-signors directly, I will gladly provide you with their telephone numbers, post office and e-mail addresses.

Chag sameach shel Shavuot!

Yours very truly,

P. Lebl

In a statement of April 5, 1999, the Canadian Jewish Congress has commended
the Government of Canada for acting "...to effect a cessation of the crimes
being perpetrated in Kosovo and to ameliorate the human suffering in the
region." The Canadian Jewish Congress has also stated that it "...stand(s) in solidarity with the efforts of the brave men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces..."

We, the Jews from the former and present-day Yugoslavia, who are privileged to enjoy the hospitality and citizenship of this great country, write this letter to express our strong disagreement with your decision to support the war NATO and Canada are waging against Yugoslavia.

We believe the initial support of the Canadian Jewish Congress was given in
good faith and with the best of intentions. It was, however, based on slanted, grossly prejudiced and, at times, deliberately false information available to the Canadian public both before and after the beginning of NATO's war against Yugoslavia. We hope your position would have been very different if you had access to a more responsible and objective assessment of the situation. Any such assessment would inevitably reveal the following points:

- The NATO war against Yugoslavia constitutes an unprecedented aggression
against a sovereign country in contravention of the very essence of
International Law, the United Nations charter, NATO's own charter, as well as the highest laws of participating NATO countries including Canada. This was attested to by a number of esteemed Canadian legal experts, as well as the former Canadian ambassador to Yugoslavia.

- If a "humanitarian exception" was to be used as a justification for the war, it should have been considered and authorized by the United Nations. Without such authorization, the NATO rationale for attacking a sovereign country is as convincing as Hitler's rationale for "humanitarian" invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1938.

- The so-called Rambouillet Peace Agreement was never agreed upon by the
conflicting parties. It was a US-drafted document presented to the Yugoslav
authorities on a sign-or-be-bombed basis. Such a document, amounting to an
outright capitulation, could not have been signed by the government of any
sovereign nation in the world and, even if signed under threat, would have
been null and void according to the International Law.

- The situation in Kosovo, prior to the beginning of NATO strikes on March 24, 1999 could have been described, at best, as a low level armed insurgency. It was not a civil war, much less a "humanitarian catastrophe." The total number of people killed, during the whole year, was less than 2,000 including armed members of all the conflicting groups. The civilian casualties were predominantly caused by the KLA (the self-proclaimed Kosovo Liberation Army) and included both ethnic Serbs and loyal ethnic Albanians. Although there were a number of internally displaced people, the presence of OSCE verifying mission improved the situation to a point where most of them were returning to their homes. There were no refugees outside Kosovo, except for a certain number of KLA members and supporters who took shelter in the neighbouring Albania.

- Although there is little dispute over well-documented examples of political repression, there never were any official or unofficial, explicate or implicate policies of ethnic cleansing against the ethnic Albanians on the part of any level of government in Yugoslavia. On the contrary, the policy of Yugoslav and Serbian governments was in the past 10 years chronically plagued by a lack of any consistent approach to the Kosovo problem.

- Military and intelligence experts of all NATO countries, and particularly of the United States, warned that the creation of a flood of refugees and of a real humanitarian catastrophe would be the likely results of any military action.

We have ample evidence in support of every point we have made and would
appreciate an opportunity to put our knowledge, experiences and insights at
your disposal.

We would like to acquaint the Canadian Jewish Congress with some of the
results brought about by the "efforts of the brave men and women of the
Canadian Armed Forces", together with their comrades from other NATO nations:

- Two months of bombing have resulted in more than 1,300 dead and 7,000
injured civilians throughout Yugoslavia, among them a significant number of
ethnic Albanians.

-The damage to predominantly civilian infrastructure and industrial capacities has, according to some estimates, reached $100 billion. At least 700,000 people, including ethnic Albanians, were left without jobs, which means that close to 3 million people, or more than a quarter of the total population of Yugoslavia, were left without a minimum sustenance.

- The destruction of oil refineries and chemical industry, predominantly in
Novi Sad and Pancevo, as well as the use of depleted uranium weapons, have
resulted in severe ecological crisis which is already spreading beyond
Yugoslav borders. The "background radiation" measurements in Kosovo reportedly point to an increase of over 30% compared to the last year's levels. Large areas of Pancevo and Novi Sad had to be evacuated. Hundreds of thousands were left without potable water. Oil spills, some of them longer than 20 kilometres, are travelling down the Danube river toward Romania, Bulgaria and the Black Sea.

- In addition to more than half a million of ethnically cleansed Serbian (and other) refugees from Croatia and Bosnia-Herze govina, Yugoslavia now has to deal with an equal or greater number of new refugees and displaced persons. Hundreds of thousands of them are ethnic Albanians who, considering themselves Yugoslav citizens, were labelled traitors by the KLA. An estimated number of ethnic Albanians in Belgrade alone has surged from 100,000 to at least 150,000. This also raises concerns about a serious rift within the ethnic Albanian population, a rift that will take years, if not decades, to heal.

We can understand that the initial support of the Canadian Jewish Congress was given as a result of incomplete and biassed information. However, the
continuation of such support after two months of NATO's ruthless destruction of a whole nation would be clearly indefensible. We call upon the Canadian Jewish Congress to withdraw its support of NATO war against Yugoslavia, and to demand an immediate cessation of the bombing campaign and resumption of the negotiations. We call upon the Canadian Jewish Congress and all Jewish organizations in the world to do everything in their power to help the cause of a viable, lasting peace - a peace that would ensure a future worth living and heal deeply shattered lives of people of all ethnic groups in Yugoslavia.

Finally, we call upon the Canadian Jewish Congress to remember the words of
the Scripture: "If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink" (Prov.25:21).

Please do everything in your power to make sure the help Canadian Jewish
community has so generously given reaches all the victims, on both sides of
this ugly, undeclared and illegal war.

Napomena:

Prema zeljama nekih od potpisnika, verzija koja se salje medijima nece
sadrzati imena.