Participants of International Conference in Serbia Signed Appeal to World Public

25 April 2014

Belgrade, Serbia. 25 April. INTERFAX-MNA — The participants of the International Scientific Conference «The First World War: Causes, Lessons, Conclusions and Modernity» urged the world public to avert new wars that are to be real threats to the existence of the modern civilization.

This appeal to the heads of states and governments, as well as to public, veteran and youth organizations was adopted by the participants of a conference which was concluded on Friday in Belgrade, Serbia.

«The World War One was a global tragedy which took many millions lives. More than 70 million people were mobilized for military operations, more than 10 million civilians were killed about 20 million soldiers and officers wounded, over 11 million civilians died, which led to immeasurably grave social and economic implications and human suffering», noted in the Appeal.

The participants of the Conference which was held under the auspices of the International Advisory Committee of Organization of Reserve Officers (IAC) and the Club of General and Admirals of Serbia, stressed that «under present-day conditions it is critical to make every endeavor to prevent wars and military conflicts that would be even more terrible and pose a real threat to the existence of our civilization.»

As a correspondent of Interfax-MNA reports, in their presentations the speakers studied the causes of outbreak of the War and underlined the unacceptability of falsifications of «historical facts of this world-wide catastrophe».

The two-day discussions of the consequences of the WWI became a forum for more than 20 academicians, pubic figures, reserve generals and officers from over 15 European countries including those from Russia, namely, Army General Makhmut Gareev, President of the Academy of Military Sciences, Lieutenant General Alexander Sinayskiy, Secretary of the Council of Ministers of Defense of the Commonwealth of Independent States, Academician Evgeny Velikhov, President of International Association of Economic and Social Councils and Similar Institutions.

Particularly, Prof. Milan Rikhter (Czech Republic) at the end of his emotional presentation made his apology to the Serbian people for the remark by Václav Havel, Czech President, on the American bombing Belgrade in 1999.

To the shame of the Czech people, President Václav Havel called this enemy aggression «a humanitarian bombing of Yugoslavia». «Allow me, many years afterwards, on behalf of all members of the Civil Association „Soldiers Against War“ to offer my apologies to the Serbian people for this irresponsible remark», Milan Rikhter stated.

When summarizing the results of the Conference, Mr. Aleksander Kanshin, IAC President, Chairman of Commission of Public Chamber of the Russian Federation for Problems of National Security, stressed that the members of IAC of Organizations of Reserve Officers will continue to be oriented to using their experience and capabilities for countering modern threats.