Russia severs all contact with NATO

IN its strongest official protest so far against the air strikes in Yugoslavia, Russia has expelled members of NATO's information office in Moscow and broken off all contact with the alliance. Announcing the move, the Russian Foreign Minister, Mr Igor Ivanov, used traditional Cold War language and accused NATO of genocide in Yugoslavia.

Those who gave military orders, he said, should be held responsible before an international tribunal for their actions including those of a "criminal character", he said after a meeting between President Yeltsin, the Prime Minister, Mr Yevgeny Primakov, and other members of the Russian cabinet.

His message was underlined t by the statement that there was a double crime being committed in Yugoslavia: "NATO aggression and open genocide against the peoples of that country."

ITAR-TASS later quoted Mr Ivanov as having decided to send aid. "It is clear that peaceful people are suffering, that hospitals have been destroyed, there are many wounded, they need medications. The Yugoslav people are in need, we must help them,"

The NATO raids have served not only to push Russia into a bitter anti-Western stance but have also managed to unite politicians of all hues against the action. Some of the more extreme leaders have called for Russians to volunteer to fight for their "brother Serbs" in an action reminiscent of scenes in Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina in which young Russian volunteers marched to railway stations to go off to defend Serbia.

The call for volunteers caused the only rift among Russian politicians on the Kosovo issue, with Mr Grigory Yavlinsky of the democratic Yabloko Party deploring such actions. They were, he said, "absolutely inadmissible and totally counterproductive".

Mr Yavlinsky, who was mainly responsible for the moves which led to the election of Mr Primakov as Prime Minister last September, said he had called on Mr Primakov not to allow Russia to be dragged into the Yugoslav war.

Once again anti-NATO protesters gathered in large numbers outside the large yellow building which houses the US embassy in Moscow, carrying Serbian flags and pictures of Monica Lewinsky while chanting anti-American slogans. There were smaller protests outside the British embassy. And, for the first time, a small group of protesters arrived at the embassy of Poland, which became a member of NATO on March 16th.

Russian news agencies reported yesterday that up to 130 people had been killed in the NATO bombings. Television coverage focused on the use of US "stealth" bombers and interviews with Serbs in bomb shelters. Russia's embassy in Belgrade is still open and reporting back to Moscow on the situation in Kosovo.

In a further show of unity against the NATO raids Russia's religious leaders called for an immediate halt to the bombing. The official ITAR-TASS news agency quoted Metropolitan Kirill of the Orthodox Church, the Islamic leader, Chief Mufti Ravil Gainutdin, Rabbi Adolf Shayevich and the Buddhist leader, Damba Ayushev, as having signed a statement of protest against "the barbarous bombings of Yugoslavia".

"The North Atlantic alliance's latest action has cancelled the efforts of the international community aimed at solving the crisis by peaceful means, and has fully discredited the UN," the statement said.

NATO's aggression had eliminated the last line of division between politics and international terrorism and had "unleashed political and religious extremists". The statement added that the raids had set a dangerous precedent for the use of force in similar disputes, driving peace initiatives into the background.

THE Communist Party of Ireland mounted a picket of the Department of Foreign Affairs yesterday to protest against the NATO action in Yugoslavia.

About 30 people took part in the protest, which culminated with the handing in of a letter to the Minister.

A spokesman, Mr Sean Edwards, said the picket was designed to highlight the Government's acquiescence in the "highly illegal and highly dangerous" military action, which was worsening rather than lessening the problems it aimed to solve.

The letter of protest said Ireland's silence on the NATO campaign had "exposed the mistruths about our joining Partnership for Peace", and it called for a referendum on the issue.