Miloš Topić

On this day in 1999, NATO began bombing its illegal bombing campaign of Yugoslavia without permission from the UN Security Council. Between 1200-2500 civilians were killed and 5000 were wounded. During the 3 months of bombing, NATO dropped between 10-15 tonnes of depleted uranium bombs. After years of supporting right-wing nationalist forces to undermine and weaken the integrity of Yugoslavia, NATO begun its campaign to break up the socialist state. Though it claimed to be intervening to stop ethnic cleansing, the Assistant to US Secretary of Defense Strobe Talbott revealed the real reason for the war: "It was Yugoslavia's resistance to the broader trends of political and economic reform, not the plight of Kosovar Albanians, that best explains NATO's war.” NATO openly bragged about its destruction of Yugoslavia’s infrastructure, with its spokesperson Jaime Shea proudly saying in 1999 “And the fact that the lights went out in 70% of the country…we can turn the power off whenever we need to and whenever we want to.” Between the 24th of March and 5th of June 1999, 78 industrial sites and 42 energy installations in Yugoslavia were damaged by bombing or missile strikes. The air strikes destroyed over 20 chemical and petrochemical installations, accounting for around 70% of Yugoslavia’s oil-processing capacity.