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A memorial ceremony was held
overnight in Belgrade in remembrance of the 16 technicians and
employees of the Serbian public TV station (Rts) who died during
the 1999 spring NATO bombing raids. Dozens of journalists, Rts
employees, family members, along with city authorities, gathered
in silence around a memorial stone with only the inscription
'Zashto' (Because, in Serbian) in front of the public TV
headquarters in the center of the capital to pay tribute to the
victims. The ceremony was held shortly after 2 a.m., the same
time the building was hit on April 23, 24 years ago, in a
massacre of civilians still the subject of outrage and
condemnation today. The Allied raids, decided against Serbia for
the repressions and ethnic cleansing of the then regime of
Slobodan Milosevic in Kosovo, lasted 78 days and ended on June
9, 1999 with the withdrawal of Belgrade's troops from Kosovo,
where about 50,000 NATO soldiers entered, the Kfor Force still
present today but with a significantly smaller number of
soldiers, about 3,500 men from various countries , with the
Italian contingent among the most numerous. In command of the
Kfor is currently Italian General Angelo Michele Ristuccia. On
Feb. 17, 2008, Kosovo, a southern province of Serbia with a
majority Albanian population, proclaimed independence, which was
recognized by a hundred countries, including the U.S. and Italy,
but not by Serbia, Russia, China and five EU member
states-Spain, Greece, Romania, Cyprus and Slovakia. An
EU-facilitated dialogue has been underway since 2011 to reach an
agreement on the normalization of relations between Belgrade and
Pristina.
