Typography 丨 Sunny day
Edit 丨 National Film Documentary
Twenty-two years ago, countless Chinese people took to the streets to protest at the US consulate to ask the United States for an explanation, because the Chinese embassy in Serbia was bombed by the US Air Force. At 45:00 p.m. on May 7, 1999, local time, the Chinese staff in the embassy were already resting, and under the cover of night, a B2 stealth bomber flew over the embassy and mercilessly dropped 5 bombs, the entire embassy was blown into rubble, three Chinese journalists were unfortunately killed, and dozens of people were injured. After this incident, Chinese Ambassador Li Zhaoxing went to the White House to meet with Clinton, who was the US president at the time. What happened to the murderers who bombed the embassy? What is the purpose of bombing the embassies of major powers?
First of all, we must know the historical background in which the Chinese Embassy in Serbia was poisoned by the US military. Kosovo is an autonomous province of Serbia, but If Kosovo wants to become independent, Serbia will certainly not agree, and immediately sent troops to suppress and stabilize the situation in Kosovo. Originally, this was only Serbia's own domestic affairs, but the Western countries led by the United States wanted to expand their own power in Europe, so the NATO forces led by the United States intervened strongly in the war, and this behavior of the Western countries was opposed by Serbia, so the Kosovo War broke out.
The side is NATO, a total of 19 countries, of which 13 member states directly sent troops to participate in the war. On the other side is the Republic of Yugoslavia, which is composed of Serbia and Montenegro. NATO forces carried out several airstrikes against Yugoslavia. Millions of people here have suffered from war, causing tens of thousands of casualties. Many people fleeing the bombardment of the NATO Air Force will live around the embassies of other countries, and there are many local people gathered around the Chinese Embassy in Serbia. Embassies are a special kind of existence, international conventions stipulate that the territory of the embassy belongs to the territory of the host country, usually, even if there is a war in a certain place, it will not directly bomb the embassy, but this time there is an accident.
The staff in the Chinese embassy also know that the current war situation is very tense, and after NATO troops began to intervene in the war, they have begun to transfer to the Romanian embassy, but it is still necessary to leave a group of people to maintain basic work operations in the Serbian embassy, and these people will continue to live in the embassy to overcome the fear of the war, after all, even the two sides of the war will not directly hurt the emissaries, let alone the emissaries of other unrelated countries. Just in case, embassy staff also taped the "meter" sign on the apparent windows, just to be a little safer. In addition, rooms on the upper floors and rooms near windows are not allowed to live, so as to avoid innocent influence when NATO forces bomb the surrounding buildings. Some of the security measures that can be done have been put in place.
As the war continued, the bombardment of NATO troops caused great damage to Serbia, important roads and railways were destroyed, a large number of landmark buildings in the city were blown into rubble, the whole society was basically paralyzed, and living supplies were very scarce. Factories have become the main target of attack, some factories need chemicals when producing, after being blown up, these toxic chemicals will also leak out, in order to achieve a greater degree of destruction, NATO troops even dropped depleted uranium bombs. The entire city was severely damaged. But in order to solve this problem, the embassy chose to use diesel generators, but the supply of diesel fuel is very inconvenient, because it can only be used for a limited time every day, and the power will be cut off at 11 o'clock every night.
At 11:00 p.m. on May 7, Serbian time, the embassy staff had been busy all day, and when it was time for power outages, everyone had finished their work and went back to their houses to rest. The staff who live here have to keep a very nervous nerve every day, and they will be very tired at the end of the day, and sleeping in bed has become the only time to relax. But at this time, nato army B2 stealth bombers were flying towards the embassy. Half an hour later, it reached the vicinity over the embassy, meeting the conditions for dropping the bomb. Five bombs fell from the sky. A loud explosion sounded, and the embassy was bombed by the first bomb. The window glass of the entire building exploded and began to shake violently, the roof was blown out of a large hole, the people of the embassy were awakened by the sudden and huge explosion, and the people who were fortunate enough to survive were scattered. The violent shaking makes people unconsciously grasp the things around them, and everyone is very afraid. With the explosion the whole building also ignited a fire, but the bombing did not end, there was a second bomb, a third bomb. NATO bombers kept dropping bombs at the embassy, and the flames from the explosions were very harsh at night. The loud explosions covered the screams of fear from people, and how helpless they were at this time, no one could hear the cries for help inside the embassy. It wasn't until 5 bombs were dropped that the B2 stealth bomber disappeared into the distant night sky.
At that time, the embassy had been bombed into ruins, the whole building had been blown to pieces, the people in the house had no time to react, after the house broke, the staff living on the relatively high floor fell from above, and when the bombing was over, everyone began to run outside, but the whole building was hit by a devastating blow and ignited a fire, the stairway could not go out at all, only jumped out of the crack, and everyone who could come out was injured. Several others were buried in the rubble. After no one came out again, Pan Zhanlin, as the ambassador here, began to check the casualties and found that there were fewer people, namely Shao Yunhuan, a reporter from Xinhua News Agency, Xu Xinghu and Zhu Ying, reporters of Guangming Daily, and the two people behind them were a couple, as well as Ren Baokai. Subsequently, these injured people began to carry out rescue operations as best as they could, and in the end, only Ren Baokai was found and luckily survived, and the other three were killed on the spot.
After the on-site investigation, 4 of the 5 bombs dropped by NATO troops exploded, and one bomb was buried in the ground, and it was not until 5 years later that Serbia sent professionals to destroy the bomb. The bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Serbia quickly spread back to China, causing an uproar, and countless citizens, while grieving for the victims, were even more angry at the actions of the NATO army led by the United States. Therefore, in every city with a US embassy in China, there are Chinese people who have come to ask for an explanation, and at the same time, China has also issued a solemn statement that NATO is responsible for this matter.
The reason they gave was that the bombing mission was to blow up a television station, but in fact there was no television station near the embassy, and the nearest one was also two kilometers away. No one would believe such nonsense, and as the situation continued to tense, the United States came forward to make another explanation. It probably means that accidents in war are inevitable, and this is a mistaken bombing incident. Originally, the target of the bombing was a supply point in Serbia, but the bombing mission was formulated using an old map, which was not marked by the Chinese embassy, and the intelligence personnel also made a wrong report, which eventually led to the tragedy.
If this is indeed the case, why do NATO interpret it differently? Therefore, no one believes it at all, and the people of other countries also demand that the United States face this incident and give a reasonable account to the victims and the people of the world. There are many enthusiastic young people in China, and if the United States does not have a satisfactory way to deal with it, it hopes to solve this problem by force. In addition, in the United States itself also began to blame its own government. There are also many countries in the world that support China and condemn the brutal behavior of the United States in bombing the Chinese embassy without humanitarianism, and the attitude of handling this matter afterwards is very arrogant and shameless.
After feeling pressure from all sides, Clinton, then US President, called China many times, but all of them were hung up by our country, and on May 9, Clinton wrote an apology letter and sent it to express his apologies to the victims. In order to show the sincerity of the apology, Clinton met with Chinese Ambassador Li Zhaoxing at the White House; when he went to the White House, Li Zhaoxing also prepared a book of condolences to bring to the White House. Li Zhaoxing took out the condolence sheet and asked President Clinton to write it down now. Clinton hesitated for a moment and then complied. It is not much written, which is to express the condolences of the victims and the apologies to their families and Chinese. Clinton then said that she would definitely investigate the matter, and no matter what the results of the investigation were, they would be announced as soon as possible.
Internationally at the time, it was undeniable that the United States was already a superpower, and it was ultimately able to make such an apology. If this problem is resolved by force, it will be the common people who will suffer in the end, so this incident will be resolved peacefully. The result was $4.5 million in compensation for all victims and $28 million for the embassy. The three people who died in this incident were awarded the title of martyrs. The other injured people also returned to healthy and normal life after treatment.
The United States did investigate the incident, firing the CIA personnel who participated in the bombing mission, and a man named William Bennett was identified as the culprit. During his service, he was in charge of the drawing work. Ten years after the bombing of the Chinese embassy, william and his wife were accidentally involved in a car accident in 2009, and some people speculated that William knew too many secrets to end this fate, and other claims, but none of them have been confirmed.
There are also three main theories about why the Chinese embassy was bombed, the first of which is that the former Yugoslav president hid in the embassy in order to carry out the decapitation mission. The second theory is that the embassy has a collection of advanced American stealth fighter F117, in order not to leak the core technology. The third argument is to knock on China, which was developing at a high speed and made the United States feel threatened. Either way, it hurt the Chinese.
War can only bring pain to the people, and this incident is also fierce, and we can only work hard to build the motherland and make China strong enough that it will be respected by more countries in the future.