12 August 2016
On 12 July 2016 in Zabljak, North Eastern Montenegro, the Union of Associations of Veterans and Antifascists of Montenegro hosted a regional meeting for the SCEA Working Group for South Eastern Europe. In attendance were delegates from Albania, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro, as well as WVF President Dan-Viggo Bergtun in the absence of SCEA Chairman, Gen. Stanislaw Wozniak.
APPEAL
ADOPTED BY THE MEETING OF THE SCEA WORKING GROUP
ON SOUTH EASTERN COUNTRIES
We, the participants of the meeting of the Regional Working Group for South East Europe of Standing Committee on European Affairs of the World Veterans Federation (15 representative members) held on 12th July 2016 in Zabljak, Montenegro want to inform the public that we had had an exhaustive discussion after which we made the following conclusions:
– Modern society is on the crossroads from which it can go either in the direction of further escalation in tension and strengthening of threats to global peace and stability or decisively heading towards the process of creating international opportunities and further democratic development and stability on a permanent basis of peace.
– Therefore we appeal to the international community, governments, political parties and all participants in international relations to strongly and responsibly stand for the prevention of threatening and increasingly prominent terrorist activities. We must acknowledge that expanding terrorism represents the biggest threat, and the dangers that ensue. Terrorism jeopardizes the basic values of civilization as well as achieved democratic standards and accomplishments. Therefore there is no more important task for all democratic forces in the world than to take joint action organized not only in order to stop terrorism but also to eradicate the causes which serve its development and perpetuation (by changing the state of mind and spirit of those who stand for it) but also to integrate the numerous refugees more efficiently.
– The central place for establishing the strategy for this fight is the United Nations Organization, where a dialogue between all member states should be held in order to promptly establish and implement jointly found solutions. Standing member states of the Security Council should have special responsibility for this dialogue.
– The fact that the destiny of countries and all of humankind is nowadays decided on in a closed circle of some states and, even worse, in unofficial financial groups is not good practice because it separates those who are privileged and those who obey, which leads to new divisions and block alignments. Those tendencies are also increasingly noticeable in Europe where new alignments appear.
– We veterans, are willing to contribute not only to fighting against expanding terrorism but also to the achievement of more equality in international relations based on the principle of independent states and to preventing the deepening of economic differences between the rich and the poor, in particular where it is the result of exploitation, for, none could be more interested in peace and the stable and safe development of humankind than those who proved themselves in fight against Nazism and fascism in World War II.