COMMUNICATION



TO THE PUBLIC OF ALL NATO MEMBERS-COUNTRIES





On 24 March 1999, an aggression was launched against an European sovereign

country and its people who have never, troughout their long history,

pursued a conquering and aggressors' policy, and who have suffered

enormous victims in this century, in both wars, to champion the world's

peace.



Herewith we are addressing you as the representatives of this

freedomloving people, wishing only to live normally and freely just the

same as the peoples of your countries.



We are the citizens of Kragujevac, a city that has most dearly paid its

freedom in the last war - in the blood of its children, all beastly

executed in a single day, and of its workers and citizens.



We are the employees of the ZASTAVA factory which for over 150 years has

been the home of its employees and which today directly provides for the

living of its 38,000 employees, 60,000 employed in the ancillary

industries, and for the living of all their families. We have all, each in

keeping with his individual expertise and ability, built in the future of

this factory all our creative abilities, and with honest work have created

the positive preconditions to make our living on the work in the future as

well.



But, due to an irrational act of a handful of men from the Western

countries, first through the imposing of sanctions, and now by an insane

military operation against a sovereign country, the very existence of us

and our families is brought into the question.



We want to protect what has remained of our future, and therefore we, the

workers of this factory and our management have taken the decision not

even at the alarm sound to leave our factory workshops and go to shelters,

but to remain in the production plants of our factories. This live wall

made of the employees, their families and citizens of Kragujevac shall be

protecting the factory round-the-clock, seven days a week, as long as the

war operations against our country go on.



On many occasions in our history, we were, unfortunately, forced to guard

and defend what is ours - alone, with our own forces. Therefore also this

decision that we have taken is, as a matter of fact, the only thing that

we can do. This is our debt to all those who have built in their own lives

into our future.



Dear Sirs,



In this way we wish to inform your public that an attack on our factories

covering the area of 305 hectares, located in latitude 44=BA N and in

longitude 20.55=BA E, and employing 38,000 men shall mean a direct death

to several thousand men who will all the time be present in the factories

while the war operations against our countries go on, and an enormous loss

to their families.



We appeal to the conscience of your workers, intellectuals and all other

citizens to prevent an awful catastrophe that may come up due to this

insane act.



We know that in all the countries there are honest people who respect what

is human in other men, and precisely, in this way, we wish to address

them, and urge them to raise their voice of reason in our protection.



Kragujevac, March 26, 1999



EMPLOYEES AND MANAGEMENT OF "ZASTAVA"