European Movement of Serbia

H. E. Mario Soares
President
International Organization of the European Movement
P – 1200 Lisbon Rua..
S. Bentos 176
Fax: (351-1) 396-41-56

Belgrade, March 31, 1999

Dear Mr. Soares,

The European Movement in Serbia condemns the violence of Europe and USA in Yugoslavia! We did not believe that it would ever be possible for this sentence to be written.

We are addressing you, as personification of all the best in the European tradition, as a man who has performed the leading role in creation of peace, stability and democracy in Portugal, a small imperial power, whose colonial strength was destroyed in a dirty war. A war that had exhausted the country and ruined the grounds of the Salazar’s authoritarian regime. We are addressing you as a man who has helped his country in joining proudly the European community of people, after all the disasters.

Today, you are the head of the European Movement, the organization that has just last year celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. The European Movement in Serbia has, since 1993, been a part of this giant and noble effort of generations of Europeans who found strength in them to confront the war and the destruction on their continent and to bring it to peace and prosperity.

Please help us, Mr. Soares. We are asking for help from the International organization of the European Movement, to which we also belong. Help us understand why Europe has accepted to solve the crisis in Yugoslavia in such manner. Have the numerous European institutions not had any possibilities to act in another way?

The ongoing NATO action is destroying the fragile fiber of democratic values and institutions – which were built due to efforts of many NGOs and other democratic forces in Serbia and Yugoslavia, over the past years, within highly unfavorable conditions. There are over 20,600 different NGOs in Yugoslavia today. Among them, there are about 1,000 new, autonomous NGOs dealing with the deep social crisis, promoting social activism and social change, addressing new social issues, mobilizing various social groups. Their number dramatically increased in the nineties, focusing on anti-war, humanitarian, human rights and feminist issues, as well as media strengthening, alternative educational, research and cultural activities.

The enormous energy which emerged in the civic protests against the electoral fraud at the local levels, during the winter of 1996/97 has not been lost, despite great frustration and dissatisfaction with the political leaders of the opposition parties, who were not able to channel the wide-grass roots support and benefit from it. The reaction was the flourishing of genuine local third sector led by many dynamic, imaginative, young NGO managers.

The European Movement in Serbia has played a significant role in the process. We have cooperated with the Association of Free towns and municipalities, where the opposition has won the 1996 elections. We use to have a friendly and sincere cooperation with many organizations and individuals of Kosovo, Montenegro and of the neighboring countries. The wide, yet fragile structure had predominantly been built at the local level – and is now destroyed by the NATO intervention. We are constantly being questioned – «Where is your Europe now?» – by all sorts of skeptics and doubters in good intentions of the European institutions and of the countries mediating in the Yugoslav crisis, since 1991. How could we preach now the faith in the European institutions and good intentions in this region? Is Europe aware of the fact that what is going on now in Yugoslavia represents the seed of the new wars?

Does Europe believe that this helped the Albanians? Or, did it help the democratization of Serbia and Montenegro? Have a look at the revolt and absolute homogenization of a defending nation! How do we confront the growing anti-European and anti-American mood? Is there something you could do to make Europe help Serbia the way it helped your Portugal to overcome the difficult period of transition to democratic society and to modern market economy?

In 1905 Miguel de Unamuno stated: «If the 20th century is to be a century of struggle among the great nations, and not the century of their tempered dissolving in order to prepare for a universal federation based on ethnic units, it is better not to witness this century. I, on the contrary, believe that it is the surplus of evil that will bring the cure». Europe is entering the 21st century with horrid wars on the Balkans, while the cure remains the same.

Is Europe capable of preserving its complex being or will it be arranged to fit the new monoliths of the «clash of civilizations»? We are asking you to struggle for, and not against us. Do not let the monster-states ruin the being of the Europe we all loved so.

Mr. Soares, please address the nations of this country, first of all the Serbs and the Albanians living in the inferno of mutual conflicts and devastation, now encouraged by the NATO intervention. As the country is in war, the laws of war are in power. And still, the idea of the European Union emerged during the war and saved Europe from further wars. Make us believe that the new Europe will not be a new imperial power, executor of a discretionary justice.

Conscious of the arduous state of affairs, confident in the fact that peace and democracy here require a remedy other that the lethal one, please, grant the words of encouragement to us. To us who, in spite of everything, see our future in Europe and in peace with our neighbors.