Third Conscientious Objector meeting in Srebrno Jezero

At the third conscientious objectors' meeting "Demilitarizing Ourselves and Our Environment" held from the 27-29 April 2001 at Srebrno Jezero near Pozarevac, participants from Aleksandrovac, Aleksinac, Belgrade, Cetinje, Kanjiza, Kragujevac, Kraljevo, Krusevac, Kula, Leskovac, Nis, Novi Pazar, Sabac, Tutin, Vrbas and Zajecar have concluded in complete agreement with the foreign participants from Croatia, Germany and Norway that the democratic changes of 2000 have created the necessary conditions for commencement of demilitarization of the country and region as a whole in order to transform this region into a zone of peace, stability and prosperity.

With that in mind we consider the following essential:

• recognizing the right to conscience objection and the right to do civil military duty, the same duration of military and civil duty limited to six months; we consider this a transitory solution until military duty be abolished which is our real aim;
• amnesty for all deserters, including those who were tried according to article 205 and 206 in connection with article 226 of the Law on Military Duty;
• cutting the military costs and number of men on active duty in the military service;
• civil control of the army and police;
• equal participation of the representatives of Non Government Organizations, parties in the Parliament and the General Staff of Army of Yugoslavia in bringing the military doctrine and proposing a law draft which regulates national defense;
• facing the collective and individual responsibility for war in the region through the process of denazification;
• penalization of all war criminals, the ones who gave orders and the ones who executed them and full cooperation with International War Tribunal in the Hague;
• consistent implementation of the legal prohibition to advocate hatred on national, racial or religious grounds as well as prohibition to advocate sexual hatred or gender discrimination;
• introduction to peace education to all institutions of the school system.

The announcement was signed by the following organizations: