May 8^th, 1999

Morning testimony from locations destroyed by NATO in Belgrade

Members of our web team went to visit locations destroyed by NATO last night (night between 05-07-99 and 05-08-99). Hear is the report:

     The building of Chinese Embassy suffered numerous direct shots. One half of the building is literally destroyed. On neighboring buildings window glasses are broken. By the Chinese Government there were something about 30 persons in the building at the moment of the attack. That responds to our estimate based on the 14 cars destroyed in Embassy parking. The building has been shot from the southern (New Belgrade) side. This means that the Embassy is not hit accidentally during the bombing of Yugoslavia Hotel, because the Hotel was attacked from the north (Danube) side, by other airplanes. Witnesses from our crews report that the airplanes that hit the Embassy came over New Belgrade Block 45. It is interesting, that while our crew was in front of the building totally spontaneously started demonstrations of 250 Chinese who are living in Belgrade. They headed to Chinese Embassy in the center of the city revoking sympathy of the people in New Belgrade. Demonstrations were spontaneous for sure, as the police and Serbian State TV caught with demonstrators on Brankov Bridge (some 4km and 50 minutes away from starting point of demonstrations). Funny, but the air raid started when demonstrators started to pass over the Bridge. Big Chinese community is living in Belgrade. These are mostly wealthy businessmen who are trading with goods from China. Slogans they were carrying and the fact that they used iconography and the trajectory same as the Serbian democratic opposition in 1996/97 demonstrations against Milosevic creates conclusion that the demonstrations were spontaneous, and not organized by Milosevic regime.

     NATO bombing heavily damages Yugoslavia Hotel. Western (Zemun) side of the Hotel suffered direct shot and completely is destroyed. On the other wing of the Hotel, as on the neighboring buildings windows are broken. It is for sure that there were guests in the Hotel during the attack, because the Hotel parking was full with cars, which are damaged. The office of Inex rent-a-car is destroyed, as the NISSAN dealer-ship. Your reporter counted 39 destroyed cars personally, and that was the part of the parking what wasn't destroyed completely and where you could count something. When we visited the location, Yugoslavia Hotel looked very sad. The owners of the shops in the west wing were carrying out the remains of their property. One should bear in mind that the Yugoslavia Hotel is the only Belgrade 5 stars hotel that is owned totally by Yugoslav capital (all other Belgrade 5 star hotels are partly or totally owned by foreigners). The only imaginable motive why Yugoslavia Hotel was the target is that the owner of Casino which is at the entrance of hotel was Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan, leader of paramilitary formation which was active during the war in Bosnia Just like before, the Casino left undamaged, and the hotel is completely destroyed.

     Most of the Knez Milos Street is closed as the majority of buildings in that street are damaged. The worst damaged are the buildings of Yugoslav Army HQ and the building of Serbian Government. The building of Serbian Government was left without the roof, and the bigger part of facade is on the fell down to the street. It is sad to even look at the building of HQ - some parts of the building are literally hanging, and the other became parts of neighboring buildings (parts of HQ building plunged into the building of Federal Ministery of Foreign Affairs). The dust is covering something that used to be a park in front of the HQ. People are forced to walk through neighboring streets because bigger part of Knez Milos Street is closed. This walk around becomes walking on the glass. It was risky to walk on the streets because the glass is falling from the windows. Two blocks above and under the HQ there was no building with the whole window. People were carrying out full buckets of glass from the buildings, with broken window frames, broken parts of furniture...
Urology and Nephology Institute remained without the windows, walls cracked... This institute was the only one that was qualified for the heavy surgeries of kidney patients. There were performed dialyses, too. Majority of the population of neighboring buildings spent the night in their homes with fear of repeated attacks on HQ. That is the reason why there was less causality.
NATO damaged the Embassies of its members - Italy (broken windows and cracked walls) and Poland (broken windows). Some other administrative buildings were damaged heavily: Republic of Serbia Property Directorate, Federal Census Bureau, then the building where were most of the Ministries situated and the Supreme Court of Republic of Serbia. Beogradjanka (Palace Belgrade), one of the symbols of the city is damaged too.

Freeserbia web team