By Vesna Peric Zimonjic
BELGRADE, Apr 25 2000 (IPS)

The church bells tolled solemnly as over 2.000 people gathered to remember 16 employees of Radio Television Of Serbia (RTS), killed during the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, NATO, rocket attack on April 23 last year.

The emotional ceremony was held at the weekend in front of the ruins of the RTS building in downtown Belgrade.

As the families placed flowers at the foot of a white monument, erected by them, in memory of their loved ones, the question etched into the monument and on the lips of everyone was ‘why?’.

Since wars of disintegration of former Yugoslavia in 1991, RTS was often described as ‘the most powerful propaganda tool’ of the regime of Slobodan Milosevic.

Only days after the NATO air raids against Serbia, which began in March 1999, due to Serbia’s politics over Kosovo province, NATO proclaimed RTS a “legitimate military target.

“RTS is as much a part of Milosevic’s murder machine as (is) his military,” Pentagon spokesperson, Kenneth Bacon, said at the time.

NATO rockets smashed through the glass doors of the main building of RTS and into the master room turning it into rubble and ashes.

It took days to establish who had died. Human parts were found hundreds of metres away, near the St Marko church in downtown Belgrade and on the roof of a nearby childrens theatre, while some of the dead were identified by DNA tests only.

Yet none of 16 who died were journalists.

They were technicians in their 20s and 30s and security personnel.

Their families claim that they were deliberately sacrificed by the RTS officials and the regime, in their propaganda war against NATO.

The families argue that, despite direct or indirect warnings, that the downtown building could be a NATO target, RTS did nothing to evacuate the premises and prevent a disaster.

The most vital sites in the capital, including several television stations, ministries, archives, government and parliament buildings were emptied during the 11 week NATO campaign.

“It was a premeditated murder of innocent people” says Mirjana Stojmenovska, whose son Darko (25) died in the attack.

“It was a deliberate sacrifice of people who were in the building, with the aim of provoking fierce reactions from the world public. It was the NATO rockets that killed 16 people, but the crime was also committed by RTS officials who were obliged to protect their staff,” she says emotionally.

None of the creators of the RTS information programmes were in the building at the time of the attack.

Deputy editor in chief of information programme, Dusan Vojvodic, came only hours before the attack and took his daughter Natalija home, witnesses say.

“They (RTS) played a dirty game, they provoked NATO openly to strike” Borka Banovic, mother of video mixer Ksenija (27) told IPS.

“They (RTS) were playing Russian roulette with our loved ones” she adds bitterly.

Only days before RTS was hit, Tatjana Lenard, foreign desk editor of RTS, appeared on the central evening news saying: “NATO can strike us, we are doing our work and sitting here in our building. They can compute the coordinates themselves”.

Lenard was in Hungary when RTS was hit.

The employees of RTS confirmed to IPS that there were warnings from foreign television crews.

“All the foreign crews said: “Once you don’t see us here any more, go away as you’re going to be hit soon,” a RTS engineer, who requested anonymity, told IPS.

She says the foreign crews, who fed from RTS exclusively during wartime, stopped coming to the building several days before it was hit.

The engineer says she relayed the warnings to the management of RTS. “The answer was that those who did not want to work could pick up their documents and go” she says.

“People could not believe that someone would deliberately force them to be sitting ducks… and that is exactly what happened” she adds.

She was fired from RTS soon after April 23.

Families of the victims say RTS officials never contact families of their killed workers. “It’s obvious why – we would tell them: why did you do nothing to prevent people being killed?” Mirjana Stojmenovska told IPS.

“If, for some time, we asked why did they have to die, now it’s time to say – we accuse all of them – RTS and the regime for that,” says Zanka Stojanovic, mother of technician Nebojsa (26), who died in the attack.

“The Public Attorney’s office should have acted immediately, as RTS did nothing to protect its employees, a thing it is obliged to do by law,” Belgrade lawyer Slobodan Sisic told IPS. “The office did nothing and it is more than obvious why, they are collaborating with the regime”.

RTS officials deny any responsibility for the deaths of the 16 people.

As the anniversary was approaching, they refused interviews with domestic and foreign media on the subject.

Milorad Komrakov, editor in chief of the information programme of RTS, limited himself to one statement only since last April 23.

In August 1999, when the independent media in Serbia started publishing articles on the controversial RTS bombing, he wrote an angry letter to several dailies, saying that ‘nobody could have known in advance that RTS would be a target’.

Long before the grieving families appeared at the memorial service at the weekend, a small RTS delegation came to the spot and layed a wreath close to the ruins of the building.

General manager of RTS, Dragoljub Milanovic, accused NATO for the deaths of 16 people.

“This crime will not be forgotten. NATO executioners and murderers are to be blamed for this… We know their names – (US President Bill) Clinton, (NATO commander General Wesley) Clark, (US Secretary of State Madeleine) Albright” Milanovic said.

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