Statements

Vuk Draskovic, head of the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) deputy group: "It is our duty to respond to the essential questions. The first question is - are we for peace or not? I believe that every political party must take a stand on this question. Are we for total war or not? If we are not for total war, and the SPO is not for that kind of war, then it is the duty of every party to condemn all who fan the flames of war and who would like to see the Balkans and our territory, the heartland of the Serb people, turn into a Vietnam.

Who are those forces? It means that one must condemn those world powers that are attempting to align themselves or are already openly aligned with one side in this war, the Muslim-Croat side, which is clear by the clearly revealed intentions to give one side in the conflict credits worth five billion dollars for the purchase of weapons.

However, must one keep silent about and not also condemn political and military extremists on the Serbian side, both in the Bosnian Serb Republic (RS) and the Republic of Serb Krajina (RSK), whose only goal is to at any cost drag Serbia and Montenegro into a total war?"

Draskovic insisted that "the peace plan must be signed" and that there must be a distancing from "the fascist policy that the Serb people on the other side of the Drina are conducting in complete isolation and that threatens the destruction of its youth".

"To sit here in this comfortable room and call for the sacrifice of other people and their children - this is dishonorable regardless of who does it, whether they are on the left, the right, or in the center. In this war against the entire world, even if it were necessary, can one expect victory? How?..."

Democratic Party (DS) leader Zoran Djindjic said that he would not speak as a sign of protest of the fact that other deputies were unable to say what they thought. According to him, "the only solution would be for the Parliament to prepare some sort of formal report after the heads of the deputy groups have spoken. To ask how it is possible that the UN Security Council cannot convene a session for five days when regular Croatian army troops are attacking Bosnia-Herzegovina, but succeeds in convening a session three hours after the appearance of unconfirmed reports that RSK troops participated in attacks on the territory of that same Bosnia-Herzegovina. That might calm the citizenry. But for us to now allow each party 10 minutes to present its opinion about that - I don't think that's good and therefore I don't want to take advantage of those 10 minutes."

Tomislav Nikolic, head of the Serbian Radical Party deputy group, accused the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) of changing its original stand regarding the Serbian people's struggle for self-determination.

He said that the ruling party first led the Serbs into war and has now left the Serbian people at the half-way point, "between an abyss and a fait accompli".

Nikolic stated that he did not want to bring Serbia and Yugoslavia into the war, but that the people in the RS must be helped in a situation where "the entire world is helping the Croats and the Muslims". The government in Serbia is only being asked to "lift the blockade, that all of us here work for free for one, two, three, or five months, as long as necessary, in order to produce everything that they need, while they will fight the war themselves", said Nikolic.

"This bombing is a warning to the Serbs, but it is an even bigger warning to NATO. No one has informed you that an English plane was shot down. Let me tell you. It fell near Gospic. You need to know that too. They are not as indestructible as it seems."

Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) leader Vojislav Kostunica stated that the Parliament needs to answer the question of whether the Serbian people have the right to self-determination. "Because, let me remind you. We live in three internationally unrecognized countries, and the names of those countries are: the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SRJ), the RS and the RSK. We view these three countries as authorized to realize the right to self-determination and one united Serbian state. When this will happen - I don't know... But I do know that it is our moral and political responsibility to constantly show our disdain toward the artificial administrative borders by which the world has divided us."

The Serbian Parliament must decide "whether we want to remain one people or we want to disown a portion of that people", and he added that "the least that this Parliament can do is to briefly condemn this latest barbaric, bullying action by NATO over something which represents, if not now then in the future, our state and ethnic territory".

Zoran Andjelkovic, acting head of the SPS deputy group, stated that the SPS strongly condemns the NATO attack on the Udbina airport and civilian targets, but also the policy that brought about a rejection of the peace plan and a continuation of the war. He thinks that "the main question today is whether the people must suffer because of the vanity and greed of their politicians", and he added that the SPS condemns warmongerers and political profiteers.

"Those who desire to profit politically from the suffering of the Serbian people, and I want to make it completely clear that they are Djindjic, Kostunica and Tomislav Nikolic. With their insistence upon a prolonged war, they are undisguised political profiteers of the suffering of the Serbian people. The SPS confirms its belief that the interests of the Serbian people are protected by peace, not war. The vast majority of the citizens of Serbia support this policy, whether you like it or not."