NOGO: IT IS NECESSARY TO RAISE ISSUE OF INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY OF EACH OF THE COUNTRIES

BELGRADE, MAY 18 /SRNA/ - Professor of international criminal law Sreto Nogo told SRNA that the iceberg of cancer disease, as a result of the NATO bombing of Serbia and Republika Srpska with depleted uranium in recent years, is reaching its maximum, and that it is necessary to raise the issue of individual responsibility of each member of the Alliance that participated in it.

"You can't sue NATO as an alliance, but you can sue its members, but you have to know which plane dropped bombs. For example, an Italian plane dropped bombs on RTS, so let's sue the Italians, a German plain dropped bombs a train in Surdulica. We know that they also dropped bombs on the Žeželjev Bridge in Novi Sad, so we should sue the Germans," Nogo emphasized.

Nogo stated that war crimes do not have a statute of limitations and that the proceedings before the national courts of the aggressor countries would be easy, but the problem is that the state will not hand over the list on which terrain the planes of a certain country operated to the Serbian Association for International Criminal Law in 2001, of which he is the president.

"On behalf of the Association, about fifteen years ago, I officially asked the Government of Serbia for a list of whose planes bombed what, and then I was told that it was a `state secret`. I don't know why it was a state secret; they offered me to get that list under that table, but I didn't want it that way," said Nogo.

He emphasized that the International Scientific Conference on "International Criminal Law with a View to Environmental Protection," which he organized at Tara last weekend, seriously dealt with the topic of NATO bombing because it is an undeniable fact that the environment was destroyed 26 years ago, and the consequences are unfathomable.

"Cancer diseases are epidemic, and even animals are not spared from it. We know that in affected areas, deformed cubs are born with two heads, five or six legs, which is more than catastrophic," he warned.

Nogo emphasized that the idea of the conference participants is to find a model so that those responsible, if nothing else, undertake to clean those spaces.

"Uranium decomposes for more than 20 million years. Therefore, are we condemned to die quietly or can we change something?" he asked.

Nogo said that Serbs, unfortunately, behave like campaigners, so the problem of NATO bombing and its consequences are discussed periodically.

"Of course, this is a current problem and we need to keep coming back to it, and more states, that is, state bodies, need to take care of it, not us, individuals, scientific workers, but state institutions, our state. Serbia is not ready to deal with it. We are. We need good will to give us lists," said Nogo.

During the 11 weeks of bombing of FR Yugoslavia, starting on March 24, 1999, 2,300 airstrikes were carried out on 995 objects throughout the country.

NATO launched 1,300 cruise missiles, dropped 37,000 cluster bombs, which killed around 200 and wounded hundreds of people, and it used prohibited ammunition with depleted uranium.

In 78 days of bombing, between 1,200 and 2,500 people died, of which 126 were children.