On May 2nd, 1999, from the NATO-headquarters in Brussels, orders were given to bomb Yugoslavia.
On the same day, also in Brussels, not far from there, Branko Kitanovic, the secretary-general of the New Communist Party of Yugoslavia, has spoken.
The bombing had started on March, 24th.
In May 1999, seventy delegations of revolutionary parties and organizations from forty-eight countries participated in the Brussels Communist Seminar. They particularly surrounded the representatives of the New Communist Party of Yugoslavia (NCPY), Branko Kitanovic and Veselin Nicolic. The repercussions of the war on the whole of the Balkans were explained. Party representatives from Ukraine, Russia, Estonia and Georgia stressed the direct threats that NATO posed to the territories of the former Soviet Union.
Bombings of Iraq had started since December 1998, and in Congo also US-imperialism had provoked war.
The struggles of the peoples against war emerged as one of the essential elements of proletarian internationalism, with the contributions on the seminar of the Communist Party of Cuba and the Workers’ Party of Korea, the Communist Party of the Philippines and the Communist Party of Iraq.
In his appeal to the 1999 seminar, Branko Kitanovic (NCPY) stated:
“On April 6, 1999, the new fascists, grouped within NATO, celebrated the shameful jubilee, the commemoration of Hitler’s aggression against Yugoslavia. On this bloody jubilee, the descendants of Hitler and Goebbels, under the leadership of Clinton, Blair, Schröder and Chirac, bestially murdered a hundred women, children, old people in our country… After 35 days of crazy bombing, NATO destroyed or damaged about 50 large factories, 25 vital bridges, 220 schools, 45 kindergartens, 5 oil refineries, 12 power plants, 25 libraries, 12 university institutes, 18 churches and monasteries. In the attack on the building of the television station in Belgrade, 17 journalists were killed and 18 injured. 500.000 people have no jobs and 2 million no roof above their heads.
The main culprit for the collapse of the former Yugoslav Federation is the imperialists and their fifth column in the Balkans. NATO aggression wants to destroy all the remnants of socialism on our continent. But they came up against the bold resistance of the majority of the population.
The second reason for this aggression is that NATO wants to install a vassal power in Yugoslavia, so that communist power does not return to Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and the other states of the former USSR. For this to happen, Kosovo, as the central region of the Balkans, it is necessary to fragment today’s Yugoslavia into puppet mini-states, and to install a military base on their territory. To this end, they have, in a systematic and scabrous way, incited and amplified historically arose problems between Serbs and Albanians, who live in Kosovo. They have lived together for centuries and they have to live together in friendship.
The third reason for NATO’s aggression against Yugoslavia is to terrify every state, every people daring to contradict American diktats. According to the logic of the Washington military club, this means that anyone who opposes the US and NATO will be punished like Yugoslavia today.
The fourth reason: NATO considers it necessary to secure its southern flank during its expansion, towards the territories of the former USSR, particularly against Ukraine and Russia. Hitler did the same in April 1941: before attacking the USSR, he invaded Yugoslavia.
The fifth reason: the strengthening of the ‘fifth column’ in the Balkans which represents a capitalist network.
The sixth reason: to test in practice the new military systems and the new tactics and strategy of aggression, which will be used in other parts of the world, especially at the appropriate time against Russia, China and other countries.
The seventh reason: to set up military bases in Kosovo and in the other regions of Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Albania, Romania, etc., which will violently counter the return of progressive forces, first and foremost the communists.
Yugoslavia is for peace. All our people support the patriotic government of Slobodan Milosevic, the number of traitors is insignificant. Of course, the Marxist-Leninist NCPY has a different view of things with regard to essential aspects than that of Milosevic’s government. But it is our internal affair and at present the defense of our homeland is the most important.
We will not accept the construction in Kosovo of a ‘puppet state’ of the Albanian separatists, i.e. an American protectorate.
If the progressive forces of the world do not defeat the aggressors of NATO today, tomorrow the target of its aggression will be Bulgaria, Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, China, Korea… Before a Third World War begins, all progressive forces must be organized into a union to prevent NATO from continuing its expansion and thwart its plan of aggression. The communists defeated fascism in World War II and they will do so again today.”
Responding to the appeal of the NCPY, 54 parties of the International Communist Seminar, belonging to different ideological communist approaches, signed the “Resolution on NATO’s aggression against Yugoslavia”
“We, the participants in the International Communist Seminar in Brussels, strongly condemn NATO’s barbaric aggression against Yugoslavia. The war against Yugoslavia serves to strengthen imperialism militarily and economically, not only in Europe, but also in relation to the strategic regions of the Middle East and the former Soviet Union.
If the progressive forces of the world do not defeat the aggressors of NATO today, tomorrow the target of its aggression will be Bulgaria, Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, China, Korea… Before a Third World War begins, all progressive forces must be organized into a union to prevent NATO from continuing its expansion and thwart its plan of aggression. Brussels, 2 may 1999.”
The central points of this Seminar can be summarized as follows:
The danger of an imperialist war is increasing throughout the world.
We must fight the American superpower and fight for the dissolution of NATO’s aggressive pact.
Only socialist revolution can put an end to imperialist wars.
All analyses and predictions of Branko Kitanovic (NCPY) have proved to be right.
After Yugoslavia, US-Nato forces and its puppets have invaded, occupied and bombed Afghanistan, Iraq, Lybia, Syria, Donbas, and are now threatening also China-Taiwan and Korea.
On the Paris 2022, October 14th, Congress of the World Anti-Imperialist Platform,
Aleksandar Denic declared, on behalf of the New Communist Party of Yugoslavia (NCPY):
“In February 2014, with the direct assistance of the USA and other Nato-countries, a government coup took place in Ukraine. Neo-Nazis came to power. On 11 May 2014, in the national referendum, the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics were formed on the initiative of the popular masses. After several unsuccessful attempts to seize DPR/LPR, the Kyiv Nazis resorted to terror. During eight years of constant bombardment by heavy artillery, almost 14000 civilians were killed. Major countries in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America see the events in Ukraine as Russia’s struggle against the US-led unipolar world. We are conscious of capitalist contradictions in Russia, but the major enemy for peace is NATO and Western imperialism.
The Southern part of Serbia, Kosovo and Metohia, is occupied by NATO. There is the biggest US military base in Europe. Western imperialism insists on continuation of breaking Yugoslavia.”
Today
On the international scene we observe the existence of two military alliances.
On one hand, there is the aggressive, imperialist alliance led by US imperialism, containing 30 NATO countries and armies, and in East Asia also Japan, South Korea and Australia.
Against this alliance, on the opposite side, a de facto, factual, military alliance of China, Russia, DPR of Korea, Iran, Syria, Belarus.
The victory over the US-led imperialist war-alliance will open the perspective of the unification of the international communist movement and the stade of the socialist revolution.
We need
1. A common analysis, program, theoretical platform of the world anti-imperialist movement
2. A concrete organisation that directs this movement, today, the ‘World Anti-imperialist Platform’
3. Participation in the concrete actions that resist the US-led war, NATO
4. The perspective of unification of the international communist movement, the socialist revolution, socialism
Branko Kitanovic (NCPY) signed in 1999, May 4th, the Declaration of the International Communist Seminar.
It is necessary to constitute as broad a world anti-imperialist front as possible, led by the Communist and Workers’ Parties, based on the working class and toiling masses and working for peace in the clear perspective of world socialism.
The global anti-imperialist front is made up of different forces:
There are the socialist countries, there are the oppressed and exploited peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America who are fighting against imperialism, for national liberation, and there is the working class of the capitalist countries, who are fighting against the dictatorship of the bourgeois monopolies and for peace.
Only the communists, united throughout the world in the great party of the proletariat, can form the locomotive that will lead the train of humanity towards people’s democracy, socialism and communism. The restoration of its unity on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism is the most urgent international task. The international communist movement was divided into different tendencies. These different opinions can be debated scientifically in order to overcome prejudice and subjectivism, and to formulate scientific conclusions. When parties have ideological differences on certain issues, they can gradually overcome them in a process of common practical struggle against the international bourgeoisie.
