We have some interesting documents that might be published some day, various messages in different directions where our role as prophets shows, and the events unfolded exactly as we predicted on the basis of an elementary calculation of what was going to happen. We were familiar with the Yugoslavs' traditions: they fought against 40 of Hitler's divisions and among the countries that took part in that war it was Yugoslavia that had the highest percentage of dead compared to its total population. The Soviet Union had about 20 million, as was always said, with a population of about 250 million. Higher figures were given later but 20 million was the one always reported, a round figure. The Serbs must have had some 1,700,000 dead in that war. I cannot tell you right now how accurate that figure is but I do know that it was the country that suffered the highest number of dead with relation to its population. They fought then using methods of irregular warfare and a concept of fighting with the involvement of all the people.

Right now, the Serb troops are withdrawing from Kosovo with almost all their tanks, cannons and armored vehicles. It is amazing! It is amazing that complete units are being withdrawn, as shown on television, despite the density and the intensity of the attacks launched against them. They were in perfect conditions for ground combat.

I really believe that they should have developed other concepts. I say this in all sincerity. This is an issue to which we have given a lot of thought. They had complete units although this was not a war of conventional Serbian war units against NATO units. They could have used tanks, cannons and whatever they wanted but with the units organized in unconventional ways. Perhaps, or almost certainly, they had them deployed in a way that was absolutely appropriate for the type of war they might have had to wage. We have no information on what they did and how they did it.

We knew beforehand what was going to happen, namely, that they were going to resist. If it had not been for the pressures they came under from friends and enemies alike, which seems to have been enormous, possibly the Serb leaders would have continued to resist. I will say no more. The people would surely have resisted indefinitely. NATO would have had to decide on a ground campaign or else suspend the bombing and in a ground war it would not have been easy for NATO to overcome the growing political obstacles nor would the war ever have ended. That is my point of view.

Well then, the draft resolution by NATO and the Group of Eight was adopted and the bombings stopped. In one of its sections, the resolution adopted reads, and I quote, that the UN Security Council:

"Decides on the deployment in Kosovo, under United Nations auspices, of international civil and security presences," the words seem so harmless, "... and welcomes the agreement of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to such presences." Well, it does not say what presences. International security forces, it does not say whose.

It later reads that it: "Requests the Secretary General to appoint, in consultation with the Security Council, a Special Representative to control the implementation of the international civil presence." The question is who is in command there? The United Nations leads the civil presence, "and further requests the Secretary General to instruct his Special Representative to coordinate closely with the international security presence to ensure that both presences operate towards the same goals and in a mutually supportive manner."

It asks its man to coordinate with the leaders of those troops while still not saying which troops --a civil leadership which is the one under the orders of the United Nations-- and it asks the civil representative to coordinate with the security forces, in case they pay any attention to him.

"Authorizes Member States and relevant international organizations to establish the international security presence in Kosovo as set out in point 4 of annex 2 with all necessary means to fulfil its responsibilities under paragraph 9 below."

It authorizes, they are not under its command. It invites, knowing beforehand who were invited. It is said that many are called but few are chosen.

"Affirms the need for the rapid early deployment of effective international civil and security presences to Kosovo, and demands," a terribly strong word, "that the parties cooperate fully in their deployment." In other words, that the different countries cooperate fully. We are also ready to cooperate if they want doctors but not one soldier because that is not an internationalist or a peace mission. It is an imperialist mission with very specific objectives. We are ready to cooperate to save lives. As for the rest, the decisions taken by each one do not concern us.

It is known, however, that the British will have 13,000 troops in Kosovo --the main forces-- with a British General in command. The number of Americans is unknown. Some marines have already landed in Greece --they will probably arrive in the thousands. The French too, and all the aggressors. The figure of Russians is not public although it is known more or less how many Russians are already there; a press dispatch has brought the news that somebody said that there could be between 2,000 and 10,000. Who is commanding them? We will see because this is a bone of contention.

As to the possibilities for the presence of Russian soldiers, a statement was made yesterday by the current Russian prime minister [Stepashin] which reads: "The armed forces are in such a catastrophic state that the military-industrial complex and the army are barely surviving. We must remember this in next year's budget." What will be next year's budget? Nobody knows. Even if it is catastrophic, they would have to cover the costs of the troops which will come to 4,000 or 5,000. If they get to 5,000, they would only be 10 percent of the so-called security forces.

What is well known is that regardless of who accompanies NATO, it will be NATO that will have 90 percent of the occupying troops under its direct command, and not only its own troops but also the accompanying troops. There will be countries, such as Ukraine, that will offer some soldiers. A Latin American country might offer a small group of soldiers, some young draftees. But, NATO will have everything there in addition to the thousand planes that took part in the bombing.

The Russians will, at most, have a helicopter, a light aircraft to fly from one place to another. (LAUGHTER) The Ukrainians might have some jeeps and maybe even a helicopter. NATO will have everything on air, land and sea and command over everything. The discrepancy now is with the Russians who are embittered, humiliated and threatened, that is the truth. Actually, with that precedent anybody might think that any day now missiles, laser-guided bombs and millions of other things could begin falling on them, especially when it has been admitted that "the armed forces are in a catastrophic state", which does not exclude the fact that the strategic missiles do work and they have thousands of them. Yes, they have thousands of strategic missiles. They are a nuclear power and, of course, all that is expensive.

The UN Security Council: "Welcomes the work in hand in the European Union and other international organizations to develop a comprehensive approach to the economic development and stabilization of the region affected by the Kosovo crisis, including the implementation of a Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe with broad international participation in order to further the promotion of democracy, economic prosperity, stability and regional cooperation."

The adopted resolution does not say: The international community should contribute to rebuilding everything destroyed there, whether Kosovar or Serb. No, what the NATO leaders are declaring is that the government that made an agreement with them, and yielded to the advise or the pressures of the Group of Eight’s mediators, must step down now and appear before the International Tribunal for Yugoslavia where it has been accused.

Not a word about building anything in Serbia. About Montenegro, they do say that it will receive suitable treatment, that it has behaved very well and accepted refugees. But, nothing about Serbia. Before, they dropped bombs on them for having such a government and now, for the same reason, they will not help them to feed themselves, and that after all the destruction. Look how noble, how generous and humanitarian the United States and NATO are! Do you not think? What is the fault of children there aged from zero to one, 10, 15 years old? What is the old people’s fault ? What is the fault of the pregnant women, the retired, ordinary men and women who have lived through such a traumatic experience?

Often, the most traumatizing about a bombing is the explosions, the noise. The Nazis, who have been quite well imitated in this merciless war --and I say this from my heart-- used some terrifying sirens in their Stuka planes when dive-bombing their targets. I remember that war. I had just turned 13 when it began but I was interested in all the news and I read about it. I remember the war almost as if it were yesterday. In their combat planes, they had some sirens that made a hellish noise aimed at sowing fear, panic and disarray while they dropped their bombs, which were not at all like those of today. They were toy bombs compared to those dropped by NATO over Serbia.

The terror of bombings produces lifelong trauma, much more so in a child of three, four, five, six, seven, eight years, who remain day after day and every night under the noise of the sirens and the explosions. Would any doctor, any psychologist dare say that those children and millions of people will not endure a lifelong trauma with the terror they lived under for 80 days from the air-raid sirens plus the hellish roar of the combat planes engines as they flew at ground level, which is much more deafening than the Stuka sirens and with much more powerful explosions than those of the Nazi bombs?

Yet, they must now be punished: not one dime to rebuild a school of those they say were mistakenly destroyed, not one hospital, not one power plant. What are they going to live on? Well, now it is a hunger bombing. An agreement was signed with certain leaders who will handle things and they will know what they are doing. But, I consider it a crime to deny even a handful of wheat to the Serb people after dropping 23,000 bombs and missiles on them. Then, if the man presiding Serbia remains in government for three months or six or if he simply stays longer, a year --I do not know, nobody can foretell-- the people will be subjected to a genocidal war for a year, all the civilians, all those who are in no way responsible for any ethnic cleansing or for the masses of refugees.

There were 20,000 refugees but when the massive bombings began people withdrew for many different reasons: out of fear or because they were afraid of being evicted or suppressed, or maybe because they were terrified by the bombings or afraid of dying. You can never say it is only one reason. What is the fault of the children, the civilians, the hundreds of thousands who were left jobless and other workers, the peasants, the farmers, the pensioners, the civilian population in general? What is their fault, really? It is a crime to keep them waiting until the government changes. To make them wait for a month is 30 times more criminal and a year would be 365 times more criminal. Each day that they are denied food is a crime.

I remember that during our liberation struggle we had an enemy force under siege, with no water or food because we had cut off their water supply and they had run out of food. Our combatants handed their cigarettes and their food to the exhausted soldiers who surrendered because a sense of chivalry had been created in the revolutionary troops and there was a policy in place for treating the enemy. If a policy like that does not exist, a war cannot be won. If you mistreat your enemies, if you torture them, they will never surrender. They will fight to their last bullet.

We had a strict policy in that sense: after 24 or 48 hours, they were set free. At the beginning, they fought very hard. Later, when they realized they were lost, they parleyed and the officers were allowed to leave with their pistols. We did not want to make them go hungry nor could we give them what little food we had. At times, we called in the International Red Cross, as we did during the last enemy offensive when we took hundreds of prisoners in two-and-a-half months of combat. During the war, we ended up with thousands of prisoners that we had taken in combat. Entire units were besieged and we treated them gently because they were our arm suppliers.

We did not receive arms from anybody during our short but intense liberation war while fighting against quite powerful forces but it did not occur to any of us to surrender. At a certain time I only had two rifles and other comrades were left with five. We were two armed groups when we met again, after a significant setback, to resume the struggle. Comrade Raúl's group had five rifles and four men and my group had two rifles and three men. In total, we were seven men with seven rifles but we were not discouraged. Twenty-four months later, we attained victory.

This is not self-glorification. It was a real situation that we had the privilege to live through and I cannot help but remember it at this moment. When there is a will, when men are not discouraged, when they believe in what they are doing, no setback will make them back down!

As I said, our supplier was Batista's army, organized, equipped, trained and also advised during all that time by American officers. It was not an army to look down on, not at all. They believed themselves to be the masters of the world. We had to endure great needs but we gave our enemy prisoners our food and even our medicine.

We have the right to ask ourselves about that Serbia destroyed by NATO, if the West is going to refuse a handful of wheat to a pregnant woman in a country that is said to have surrendered and accepted every condition and still more conditions than those demanded by the Group of Eight? Is that correct? Is that fair? Is that humanitarian? I needed to ask those questions.

I already told you that they were arguing over who was going to lead that security force. Of course, there is in the first place the speech delivered yesterday in the United Nations by the U.S. ambassador. Actually, that Security Council agreement does not say under whose command the security forces are going to be. It only calls for them to go and it is known beforehand who can go and who will go.

Now the Yankees are interpreting the agreement. There comes the time for interpretations! This resolution establishes an international security force in Kosovo. Now here is the catch. In his speech, the United States representative says, among other things: "The authorities of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia accepted that KFOR," I do not know how to pronounce it but that is the acronym --I do not know if it is in English or in what language-- "the Kosovo International Security Force will operate with a unified NATO chain of command," this was just yesterday, after the resolution, "under the political direction of the North Atlantic Council, in consultation with non-NATO force contributors."

It is NATO and under the direction of the North Atlantic Council, in other words, the NATO Council. Who gave them permission? The Security Council? No. This demand was contained in the agreement of the Group of Eight meeting of May 6. Because, on May 6, when they saw that the bombings were continuing through March and all of April, forty-odd days had passed, three days many times over and there was not the least sign of capitulation, they began to worry. Many of those in NATO began to make up things and they put up a Group of Eight meeting that took place on May 6, that is, 44 or 45 into the bombings, and they adopted certain agreements. The Russian prime minister had still not been changed but before that change took place somebody had been appointed as special envoy of the Russian government for the so-called peace efforts.

I am not criticizing that, of course. I think it was very appropriate that the Russian government did everything possible to try to find a political solution to the conflict. That conflict could not have a military solution and they were not in any condition nor they had any possibility to help the Serbs militarily, only with nuclear weapons and that is out of the question. Nobody would agree to that. That form of support would have seemed to us absolutely insane and impossible and it would have been a worldwide suicide.

But, it was obvious that the Russians did not even have the possibility of sending a plane with ammunition to Serbia. Nothing could be sent by land or sea. Hungary, a new NATO member is there on the border. There are other similar countries there. Nothing could be sent by land; nothing by air; nothing by sea. They had nothing but their nuclear weapons left and, let us say, political support, the firm denunciation of it all.

There was the Agreement of the Group of Eight under which a peace plan was adopted, a peace plan that after thorough discussions, was signed on May 6 and adopted or accepted by the Yugoslavs on June 3, that is, almost a month later. After its approval in May, many efforts were made: [President] Ahtisaari, from Finland, comes and goes, the same as Chernomyrdin. There were American envoys and Russian envoys until June 3, when during a visit to Belgrade the Russian envoy and the President of Finland convinced the President of Yugoslavia to accept the formula.

It has been said that the President of Finland went out and the Russian envoy once alone was finally able convinced the President of Yugoslavia. Some day we shall know what they said and how they said it. So, I am not criticizing the Russian peace efforts, that is quite different from the question of Yugoslav leaders accepting the conditions imposed on them. I have my personal view of the different things that might have happened. I will just say that in spite of its immense power, NATO's position was already weak because you cannot go on bombing and killing every day before the eyes of the whole world that is watching a live show of what is going on. There comes a moment when the killing becomes too scandalous and intolerable.