From: http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/
1. ZORAN LILIC TESTIFIES AT THE HAGUE TRIBUNAL
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/smorg061903.htm
2. MICHAEL WILLIAMS TESTIFIES AT MILOSEVIC "TRIAL"
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/smorg062403.htm
3. SPS HOLDS VIDOVDAN DEMONSTRATION AT REPUBLIC SQUARE IN BELGRADE, 28
June 2003
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/sps/news/sps062803.htm
4. BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF HAGUE WITNESSES: 30 JUNE - 11 JULY 2003
5. THE CIRCUS CONTINUES AT THE HAGUE, July 11, 2003
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/smorg071103.htm
=== 1 ===
ZORAN LILIC TESTIFIES AT THE HAGUE TRIBUNAL
www.slobodan-milosevic.org – June 19, 2003
Written By: Andy Wilcoxson
On Tuesday, June 17, 2003 Zoran Lilic began to give his testimony at
the so-called “trial” of Slobodan Milosevic.
Zoran Lilic has held the highest offices in Serbia and Yugoslavia. Mr.
Lilic was the President of the Serbian National Assembly, the
President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and the Deputy Prime
Minister of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
The testimony of Zoran Lilic is certainly the most important testimony
that the Milosevic “trial” has seen.
Two things were apparent from watching Lilic. The first obvious fact
is that Slobodan Milosevic is not a war criminal. The 2 nd obvious
fact, contrary to media reports, is that Mr. Lilic was not and is not
“in the hip pocket” of President Milosevic.
Indeed, Mr. Lilic was critical of Milosevic on some matters. First of
all, Lilic believed that Milosevic, as the SPS President, allowed the
JUL to have too much influence during the time that the SPS-JUL-ND
coalition was formed.
Lilic was also critical of the Kumanovo Agreement. Mr. Lilic favored a
different plan that had been put forward by Helmut Kohl.
It is therefore incorrect that the media should portray Mr. Lilic as
“Milosevic’s puppet.” Zoran Lilic is his own man, with his own
opinions, which as we see above do not always coincide Slobodan
Milosevic’s views.
When it comes to the subject of war crimes it was apparent that the
prosecution had made a mistake in bringing Lilic to testify. Lilic
proved to be a much better witness for the defense than for the
prosecution.
From the outset of his examination-in-chief it could be seen that
Preident Lilic’s statements were not what the prosecutor was looking
for. For example, Mr. Nice was trying to get Lilic to explain the
phrase “all Serbs in one state.” Mr. Nice obviously wanted Lilic to
say that this referred to some “greater Serbia plan,” instead Lilic
explained that the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY)
allowed all Serbs to live in one state and that the statement, “all
Serbs in one state” meant that the SFRY should be preserved at all
costs.
Mr. Nice also unsuccessfully attempted to get Lilic to say that
Milosevic “controlled” the leadership and the military forces of the
SAO Krajina and Republika Srpska. Lilic explained that Milosevic did
not control anybody over there, and when he did try to exercise
influence over them it was always to try and get them to accept peace
agreements.
At this point, in spite of efforts by Mr. Nice to change the topic,
Lilic went into the events in Srebrenica. Lilic explained that nobody
from the authorities of either Serbia or the FRY could have had
anything to do with what happened there.
Lilic explained that Milosevic’s reaction to Srebrenica was that of
shock and extreme anger when he heard what had happened there. Lilic
said that it was obvious that there was no possibility that Milosevic
could have had anything at all to do with Srebrenica, or any other
wartime event in Bosnia and Croatia.
On the subject of Srebrenica, it should be noted that it is the
“sweetest plum” in the prosecution’s false indictment. Srebrenica is
where the genocide charge emanates from.
When Milosevic cross-examined Lilic on the subject of Srebrenica, Lilic
further explained that when the FRY authorities inquired about
Srebrenica the Republika Srpska leadership was just as surprised as
anybody to hear about what had happened there. Lilic explained that
this meant that individual criminals, and not any government controlled
forces, had perpetrated the crimes that occurred in Srebrenica. Not
only does this testimony jive with the claims that Milosevic made in
his opening statement, but it also jives with the report of the Dutch
Government.
When Milosevic opened the cross-examination he began by asking Lilic
about Kosovo. Zoran Lilic is probably the best suited person to talk
about Kosovo and the position of the FRY government there. As the
Deputy Prime Minister of the time Lilic took numerous fact finding
missions to Kosovo. As a high official in the Government of Yugoslavia
Mr. Lilic was privy to all manner of intelligence reports.
During cross-examination Lilic explained that the Yugoslav and Serbian
authorities took exceptional care to protect Kosovo’s civilian
population. In fact so much care was taken that the Albanian
terrorists knew that by mingling themselves with civilians that they
would be able to flee from the authorities without being touched,
because the authorities were under orders never to fire on the
terrorists if doing so would endanger civilians.
Mr. Lilic explained Slobodan Milosevic’s position was that all
citizens and ethnic groups should be equal. Lilic stated that it was
President Milosevic’s firm conviction that nobody in Yugoslavia should
live as a second class citizen because of their ethnicity.
Mr. Lilic went on to explain that the Serbian and Yugoslav authorities
always differentiated between Albanian terrorists, and regular
Albanian civilians. He explained that orders were issued that human
rights need to be respected, and that all soldiers and police were
given copies of the Geneva Conventions to ensure that this happened.
Mr. Lilic explained that the V.J. and MUP protected Albanian civilians
precisely from the Albanian terrorists who were seeking to break
Kosovo away from Serbia. Lilic explained how both Albanians, and
non-Albanians were under threat from the KLA terrorists. Lilic stated
that normal Albanian civilians who wished to live as peaceful law
abiding citizens of Yugoslavia were under the greatest danger from the
KLA terrorists.
Lilic dismissed as an absurdity that Serbia or Yugoslavia could have
had any plan to expel Albanians from Kosovo. Lilic explained that the
Serb and Yugoslav authorities had a great desire, and made great
efforts to try to engage the Kosovo Albanians so that a peaceful
political solution could be found.
Being Yugoslavia’s Deputy Prime Minister at the time Mr. Lilic had
access to all manner of intelligence information regarding the
Albanian terrorists that were operating in Kosovo at the time.
On the basis of the intelligence information that he had received as
the Deputy Prime Minster, Mr. Lilic explained that the United States,
and in particular the American ambassador Hill, prepared the KLA
terrorists for their “spring offensive” and that this was done with a
view to provoke a conflict that would create a pretext for the illegal
NATO aggression and the eventual occupation of Kosovo and Metohija.
Lilic went on to explain how the Milosevic-Holbrooke agreement had
been abused. Lilic explained how the Kosovo Verification Mission of
the OSCE was being used as a cover to further arm the Albanian
terrorists. He explained that during that time the Albanian terrorists
had received East German weapons, and other high-tech weaponry that
could only come to them with the cooperation of foreign governments.
Lilic began to explain about how the KLA would force Albanians to flee
from Kosovo to create the false illusion that Albanians were being
expelled by Serbs, but at this point the so-called “Judge” May didn’t
want to hear anymore.
This same “Judge,” who is so deeply interested in hearing all about
what some local yokel says he heard second hand, from God only knows
who, off in some village in Bosnia, refused to hear what a high
government official knew from the intelligence documents that he was
privy to. The so-called “Judge” ruled the information as irrelevant
since the Deputy PM didn’t go out into the battlefield and gather the
information personally.
This so-called “Judge” must be smoking some good crack to be able to
say something as stupid as that. How could any government function if
the highest officials always have to gather the intelligence in
person? Does George W. Bush know that Osama bin Laden blew up the
World Trade Center because he was personally hiding in the cave in
Afghanistan listening to bin Laden make the plans? Of course not, but
he has the relevant intelligence information, and so he is perfectly
competent to say that bin Laden did it.
At any rate, after Kosovo was discussed, Milosevic began to ask Lilic
about Bosnia and Croatia. Mr. Lilic explained in no uncertain terms
that neither Serbia, nor the FRY, nor any official from Serbia or the
FRY had any command or control over the Bosnian Serbs or the Krajina
Serbs, and Lilic in view of the positions he held, is in a better
position than anybody to know that.
Mr. Lilic proceeded to explain how the conflicts in Bosnia and Croatia
evolved and the manner in which the governments of Serbia and the FRY
were involved.
First of all Lilic, explained that all of the efforts of Serbia and
the FRY were directed towards humanitarian assistance and negotiating
an end to the armed conflicts.
Lilic explained that in Croatia the Serbian population was in jeopardy
from the Croatian government, and that the Krajina Serbs did not
launch aggression on Croatia, but simply defended their own land that
they had been living on for centuries.
Lilic explained how Serbia, the FRY, and Milosevic in particular
worked tirelessly to achieve the Vance Plan, and that all of
Milosevic’s efforts in respect to the Krajina, and the war in Croatia
were directed exclusively towards achieving peace.
As for the civil war in Bosnia, Lilic explained in no ambiguous terms
that neither Serbia nor the FRY had anything to do with that, and that
it was in fact a civil war in Bosnia and, not some sort of aggression
by Serbia or Yugoslavia.
Lilic explained that Serbia, even under sanctions, extended
humanitarian assistance to the people in Bosnia and to all of the
refugees who came to Serbia, irrespective of their ethnicity.
In fact, Serbia even allowed Muslim soldiers from the Army of B-H to
come to Serbia as refugees as long as they didn’t bring their weapons.
In this case both the R.S. and the Muslim authorities wanted these
soldiers handed over to them, but Milosevic steadfastly refused their
demands, and insisted that these soldiers be allowed to control their
own fate.
Lilic explained that the war in Bosnia broke out when independence was
declared on the basis of and illegal and unconstitutional referendum.
Lilic said that the first armed attacks of the Bosnian war came from
Muslim extremists who were attacking the Serb population in Bosnia.
Lilic explained how prior to the all out warfare that tore through
Bosnia that a peace plan had been reached. He told about how the
Serbs, the Croats, and the Muslims all negotiated and signed a peace
agreement in Lisbon called the Cutilero Plan. Lilic explained that
after the agreement was signed that the Muslim President, Alija
Izetbegovic reneged on the agreement, withdrew his signature, and the
war began in earnest.
Lilic explained that after the war began the Muslim side began to
bring in Mujahideens and Islamic fundamentalists from the Middle East
to fight against the Serbs.
During the examination in chief, Fikret Abdic was mentioned, because
he had traveled to Belgrade and met with President Milosevic. The
prosecution had tried to present this like some sort of secret meeting
even though it was reported quite openly in the Media, and Lilic
confirmed in the cross-examination that this meeting was no secret.
For those of you who don’t know who Fikret Abdic is I would encourage
you to research him. Fikret Abdic was the winner of the 1990 elections
in Bosnia, but unfortunately Alija Izetbegovic (who lost the
elections) managed to take over power from him.
Fikret Abdic is a Muslim of the Croatian ethnicity. He has dual
Croat/Bosnian citizenship. Unlike Alija Izetbegovic, Mr. Abdic got
along splendidly with the Serbs, and for a time with the Croats until
they allied with Izetbegovic.
Fikret Abdic and his Muslim followers in western Bosnia declared
independence from Bosnia, signed peace agreements with the Serbs and
Croats, and were able to escape the war, until Alija Izetbegovic sent
in the 5 th Corps of the Army of B-H to attack the Muslim population
there, killing them, looting their homes, and forcing the survivors to
flee to the Krajina where they lived with the Serbs until the Croats
committed genocide with Operation Storm and Operation Flash eliminating
nearly all of the Serb population from the Krajina.
Lilic confirmed Milosevic’s claim that Serbia and the FRY’s policy
towards Bosnia was exclusively a policy of peace aimed at ending the
bloodshed.
Lilic explained that nobody worked harder to bring peace to Bosnia
than Slobodan Milosevic. The Government of Serbia, the Government of
the FRY, and Slobodan Milosevic personally endorsed the Vance-Owen
Plan, the Owen-Stoltenberg Plan, the Contact Group Plan, the Action
Plan of the European Union, and the Dayton Accords.
Lilic testified about how hard Milosevic worked to negotiate the
Vance-Owen plan, and how hard Milosevic tried to convince the
Republika Srpska Assembly to accept the plan. Slobodan Milosevic
addressed the R.S. Assembly on 2 occasions to try to convince them to
accept the plan.
When the R.S. assembly refused to adopt the Vance-Owen Plan Milosevic
was furious. President Milosevic insisted that the Serbia/FRY
delegation leave immediately, even though it was a great risk to his
own personal safety since it was late at night, and a Muslim attack
was feared.
It was precisely the refusal of the R.S. to adopt the Vance-Owen plan
that strained relations between Belgrade and Pale, and that lead to
the decision of Serbia and the FRY to blockade the Drina River.
Lilic explained how, at Dayton, Slobodan Milosevic saved the Republika
Srpska from certain destruction. At the time NATO air strikes were
rapidly diminishing the R.S. territory and a failure to reach an
agreement at that point would have definitely meant the end of the
Republika Srpska.
Through the efforts of Slobodan Milosevic at Dayton the Republika
Srpska was recognized, and territory that had been lost over the
course of the NATO air strikes was even returned to Republika Srpska.
As the President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Zoran Lilic
served on the Supreme Defense Council together with Slobodan Milosevic
(while Milosevic was the President of Serbia). Therefore, Mr. Lilic is
in a unique position to be able to see how decisions were taken.
The prosecution has tried to allege that Slobodan Milosevic behaved
like some sort of dictator in the Supreme Defense Council. But the
testimony of Lilic proves otherwise. Lilic testified that the
decisions of the SDC were reached by consensus and that Milosevic
didn’t have any more power than any of the other members of the SDC.
The prosecution also alleges that the Serbia and FRY authorities
formed and supported paramilitaries and sent them to Bosnia and
Croatia, and that Milosevic is responsible for this. Lilic’s testimony
again proves otherwise. Lilic stated, and he produced the documents to
prove it that the SDC (which Milosevic served on) took a decision that
paramilitaries should be disarmed and abolished.
Lilic explained that some opposition parties were forming units, but
that the SPS never had any sort of units, nor did the SPS engage in
any sort of cooperation with the SDS. Lilic not only being the former
head of state, but also being a former member of the SPS himself,
would certainly be in a position to know about this.
Slobodan Milosevic asked Lilic point-blank if he knew of any order or
any de-facto policy emanating from the Government of Serbia or
Yugoslavia, or any officials of those governments that the Army or
Police personnel should commit any crimes against anybody. Lilic said
that there was absolutely not any such policy, and that the Army and
the police were under the strictest orders to combat crime regardless
of who the perpetrator was, even if the perpetrator was a soldier or a
police officer.
President Lilic’s testimony is the most important testimony that this
farce of a “trial” has seen. Historians will be able to read his
testimony and see quite clearly that Slobodan Milosevic is innocent.
In spite of the best efforts of this illegal tribunal, history will
never be able to successfully record the lie that Slobodan Milosevic is
a war criminal.
Lilic’s testimony is not yet complete. He will return at a later date
to complete his cross-examination, be cross-examined by the Amicus,
and be re-examined by the prosecution. No hearing is scheduled on
Friday. The next hearing will be on Monday, but other witnesses have
been scheduled.
---
Sequence of Events:
1. JUNE 17, 2003 – Lilic is examined by the Prosecutor, Mr. Nice.
2. JUNE 18, 2003 – Mr. Nice concludes his examination of Lilic.
3. JUNE 18, 2003 – Slobodan Milosevic begins his cross-examination
of Lilic.
4. JUNE 19, 2003 – Slobodan Milosevic continues his
cross-examination of Lilic.
=== 2 ===
MICHAEL WILLIAMS TESTIFIES AT MILOSEVIC "TRIAL"
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - June 24, 2003
Written by: Andy Wilcoxson
Michael Williams, the former advisor and spokesman of the former chief
of the UN Mission to Bosnia Jasusi Akasi, testified at the so-called
"trial" of Slobodan Milosevic on Tuesday.
The main point of Mr. Williams's testimony seemed to be to bad mouth
the VRS and the Bosnian-Serb leadership. None of that has anything to
do with Milosevic, but this is the Hague Tribunal, and propaganda is
the main order of the day.
Mr. Williams's "evidence" against Milosevic was practically
non-existent. Williams doubted the veracity of the blockade that
Yugoslavia placed on the Republika Srpska, over their refusal to accept
various peace plans, but he didn't have any evidence that the Yugoslav
side was violating the blockade. All he had was his suspicions.
Williams did however confirm that Milosevic's policy from the
beginning was that the war in Bosnia should be stopped. He also
confirmed that Milosevic endorsed various peace plans aimed at ending
the war.
In other news, much has been made in the media recently over a
document produced by the prosecution last week which purports to
"link" Milosevic to the alleged events at Srebrenica.
The document in question is allegedly an order from a Bosnian-Serb
police commander where the MUP of Serbia mentioned as participating in
counter-insurgency operations in Srebrenica.
The document has some major problems. The problems indicate that the
document is quite probably a forgery:
1. The document is typewritten, but no Serbian type characters appear
in the typewritten text.
2. The document is typed on a blank piece of paper. It is not typed on
official letterhead.
3. The document isn't signed.
4. The document isn't stamped with the seal of the relevant government
organ.
5. The document contains typographical errors.
6. The words "very urgent" are typed in the English language on the
top of this alleged "Serbian document."
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE SCANNED IMAGE OF THE DOCUMENT:
http://www.iwpr.net/images/tribunal/tri_317_1_rs_order_ser.gif
From looking at the document it is quite obvious that anybody with
access to a typewriter and a blank piece of paper could have produced
it.
=== 3 ===
SPS HOLDS VIDOVDAN DEMONSTRATION AT REPUBLIC SQUARE IN BELGRADE
28 June 2003
On June 28, 2003 the Socialist Party of Serbia circulated a petition
around Serbia calling for the abolition of the Hague Tribunal, and an
end to the selling out of the country to Western capitalists.
Over the period of only a couple of hours the SPS managed to gather
more than 3,000 signatures at their desk at Republic Square in
Belgrade, and the SPS gathered more than 60,000 signatures for the
whole of Serbia.
The police in "democratic" Serbia were unhappy that the flag of the
SPS was displayed publicly and so they "invited" the organizer of the
demonstration to come to the police station with them.
Below are photos of the police, the demonstrators, and the citizens
queuing to sign the petition at Republic Square.
(see:
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/sps/news/sps062803.htm )
=== 4 ===
BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF HAGUE WITNESSES: 30 JUNE - 11 JULY 2003
Written by: Vera Martinovic - July 14, 2003
Here's a brief summary of the last 12 witnesses, 5 of which were known
by numbers instead of names, with blurred faces and distorted voices,
and 1 not even that (he was nameless and numberless, and it was simply
announced that his whole testimony would be given in a private
session).
B-1244, a Bosnian Serb civil official during the war, first confirmed
that 30 Frenki Simatovic's men [Commander of the Serbian Special
Police unit] participated in the military takeover of his town (being
asked about it by the Prosecutor Groome in a highly suggestive and
confusing manner]. Then, when Milosevic asked about these men in
detail, he clarified that they were in fact members of the Serbian
Radical Party who arrived in the municipality as volunteers with no
link to Simatovic or to the State Security Department of the Police of
Serbia whatsoever.
C-0006 seemed totally unreliable, claiming to be a Croat who was first
arrested by the local Serbs, and then forced to become a member of the
Serb Territorial Defence in Vukovar. As a shanghaied soldier, he was
somehow at liberty to be miraculously present at all the key moments
and places during these two critical days, seeing all of the important
players in action at least three times a day, listening to their
conversations, coming and going not once but twice to Ovcara Farm,
doing nothing, just puttering about.
He even claimed to have seen Major Sljivancanin in person at Ovcara.
Such a bold thing has never claimed by anybody so far. He even said
hello to the Major, but the latter failed to reply. To boot, he gave
his testimony in English. Yet, with all his alleged hovering presence
(like a Victorian novelist, he was even able to read minds of his
characters), his testimony boiled to already well-known general things
that could be told by anybody watching TV at that time.
Witness "X", testifying in a private session, probably gave crucial
relevant evidence based on his personal gut feeling about how
"Milosevic was a thief who was too much in love with his overweight
wife."
Vlado Vukovic, a former Croatian policeman who fought against the JNA
[Jugoslovenska Narodna Armija = Yugoslav National Army] in Krajina,
became POW and was exchanged later on, claimed that the JNA was in
fact attacking this defenseless Croatian village with no reason at all.
I repeat, he was captured while attacking a JNA facility near the said
village, together with the rest of Croatian policemen and irregulars.
C-1230 testified that how he was the only one who survived an alleged
execution by JNA soldiers in Krajina. The problem is that in his
previous 3 written statements given to the OTP he never mentioned JNA
soldiers, only some local Serb irregulars. Perhaps his memory got
better after several years.
Andreas Riedlemayer, a Harvard expert on Islamic architecture, was
again commissioned by the OTP (after his testimony about Kosovo) to
talk about the destruction of not only the Islamic, but also the
Catholic monuments in Bosnia (as an expert on the Islamic architecture,
of course, and not on destruction nor on Catholicism).
Riedlemayer was not tasked with researching the destruction of the
Catholic monuments destroyed by the Muslims, nor the destruction of
the Muslim monuments destroyed by the Catholics - only the destruction
of the Muslim and Catholic monuments destroyed by the Serbs.
While not being an expert on arms and explosives (by his own
admission), Mr. Riedlemayer somehow managed to know how, and under
what circumstances, all of those monuments were destroyed. Although he
had never bothered to investigate the destruction of Serb monuments,
he somehow knew their destruction was not substantial.
Riedelmayer, was even bold enough to claim that the fact he wrote a
letter to Clinton demanding the UN arms embargo against Bosnian
Muslims should cease to be respected by the US, did not affect his
professional objectivity in the least.
Zoran Lilic, former Yugoslav President, was summoned again, one month
after his previous appearance, to testify about some important
documents recently received by the OTP from the Yugoslav authorities,
namely the transcripts of the meetings of the Supreme Defence Council,
as well as some intercepted highly confidential phone calls.
It turned out to be an anticlimactic, the Council transcripts merely
demonstrated that Milosevic had even less influence, let alone direct
authority over Bosnian Serbs, who opposed him bitterly at every
meeting.
The intercepts (most probably made by the Croatian Security Services)
were useless due to the poor technical quality, so their written
transcripts had been used instead. Nevertheless, they were completely
uninteresting, except one: a phone call between Lilic and General
Perisic (the YU Army Chief of Staff), where Lilic said it had been
agreed that a written guarantee would be provided to General Mladic to
assure him he will not be delivered to the ICTY, in exchange for the
return of two captured French pilots [downed by the Bosnian Serbs
while their Mirage fighter participated in the NATO bombing of the
Serb positions near Pale].
The juicy detail was when Lilic said to Perisic he should explain to
Mladic when negotiating the release of the pilots that both French
President Jacques Chirac and Milosevic had agreed to give that same
guarantee [in order not to spoil the upcoming signing of the Dayton
Accords in Paris].
Another interesting intercept (or, alleged intercept, since there was
no tape at all, just the transcript) was the one in which Milosevic's
wife spoke to the Chef de Cabinet of Karadzic about those French
pilots. The alleged conversation contains no damning details at all, it
could only give a general impression of Milosevic's wife being
influential and meddling into her husband's business. The problem was
that in this transcript Mrs. Markovic called her interlocutor "Rajko"
and referred to her husband as "President Milosevic".
Milosevic claimed his wife never knew any of these people, let alone
on a first-name basis, and expressed surprise that she should refer to
him as "President Milosevic", after spending her whole life with him.
He expressed his concern that the evidence might be forged. He said he
would love to hear the tape of this conversation be played in the
courtroom. It turned out that Mr. Nice couldn't produce any tape, and
so he withdrew this particular piece of "evidence".
Edin Pasic, former translator for Arabic and Turkish in the
ex-Yugoslav federal bodies and the current Ambassador of Bosnia &
Herzegovina to Kuwait, stated that, while passing the corridors of the
Presidential palace on his way to his task of interpreting the
telephone conversation between Muammar el Gaddafi of Libya and the
Yugoslav President Dobrica Cosic in 1992. He saw men in mudded
uniforms who were talking of the killings and throat-cutting they had
done in Bosnia. He must've passing those clean corridors real slow to
be able to hear all the colorful details by those mudded fighters.
Pasic said that the Belgrade mosque on Knez Mihailova street, which he
said he attended regularly, was attacked by a hand grenade. When
Milosevic pointed out that the mosque (repaired and guarded by the
police after that) was not on that street, and when Tapuskovic showed
some interest in how come a Communist like Mr Pasic was attending a
mosque at all, Mr Pasic explained that the mosque must've been
somewhere in the general vicinity of the park (the man had lived in
Belgrade for 16 years, mind you), and that he was not a Communist, but
merely a member of the League of Communists.
Pasic expressed his disdain for the Belgrade Mufti [the head of the
Muslim community], who was regularly seeing Milosevic, or, as the
witness put it "flirted with Milosevic".
Pasic claimed that the Muslims in Belgrade lived under terror, feeling
as if they were wearing "yellow arm-bands" (used by Nazis to identify
Jews), and that the ethnic cleansing had in fact started from
Belgrade. To strengthen such a claim he used his own "horrifying
experience:" President Cosic allegedly offered him to be his adviser
for Islamic countries, but he proudly refused, not wanting to become a
puppet to Milosevic, which Cosic already was (the hapless Cosic
allegedly admitted as much in desperate whispers to his
interpreter/wannabe adviser, who fell down on his knees, begging Cosic
to protect the Bosnian Muslims).
After that, Pasic felt as if he had been followed and his apartment
entered. The terror was such that full 4 years later Pasic calmly left
with his whole family to Hungary, and thence to Egypt, regularly using
his passport to do so. Milosevic didn't appreciate the kneeling
melodrama in the Presidential cabinet and reminded the witness that
Cosic was alive and could testify that nothing similar had happened
and voiced his disgust that such a story came from the witness in the
worst of taste.
May said the bad taste is unimportant, only the sterling quality of
the evidence this witness is providing. Mr Pasic had to say something
damning about the Colonel Sljivancanin, too: apparently, during an
official reception, the Colonel's face literally "lit up when Milosevic
entered the room."
Safet Avdic, a Muslim from Foca who had been a POW in a Bosnian Serb
detention facility and who was subsequently exchanged, described his
prison days, complaining that he has lost a lot of weight there. Oddly
enough, he has never been maltreated, but he heard that some other POWs
had.
Jusuf Taranin, was another Muslim from the same municipality, who
described how 7 Muslims were killed by a bunch of irregulars in a
warehouse that used to belong to the JNA (that must've been the reason
the Prosecution summoned this particular witness - the JNA had been
somehow mentioned in his testimony). He also stated that 10 days
before the clashes began, the JNA came and distributed guns to local
Serbs. When Milosevic asked whether this could have been local
Territorial Defence guys who came and distributed guns, the reliable
witness said: "I don't know, could be."
B-1120 was in the same detention facility in Foca as Safet Avdic, and
he also claimed that the local Muslims were unarmed when attacked by
the vicious Serbs, and that they never fired at all towards the Serb
positions. He had trouble answering how come the battle for Foca lasted
for full 8 days, then.
C-1171 was a member of the ZNG [Zbor Narodne Garde = Croatian National
Guard Corps] in Vukovar, who saw the end was near and with hundreds of
other zenge came to Vukovar Hospital, pretending to be wounded or a
staff member, to be able to come out of the town in a humanitarian
convoy. Along with the others, he was arrested and taken to the Ovcara
Farm. He managed to jump out of the truck, but was caught again.
Strangely enough, he was not executed as could have been expected from
the Serbs on a killing spree, but was shipped to the Belgrade Military
Prison, where he had not been maltreated and where it was established
he was a suspect war criminal (a member of the ZNG explosives unit,
who demolished private Serb property in Vukovar, killing civilians).
C-1171 was subsequently exchanged. His damning testimony re the Ovcara
case was that he, unlike the omnipresent earlier witness C-0006, never
saw Colonel Sljivancanin at the Ovcara Farm at all. He did see some
uniformed men there who had parts of the JNA uniforms on plus fur hats
and various insignia, so sometimes he referred to them as the JNA
soldiers and sometimes as the local irregulars.
When directly asked by Milosevic whether he could confirm these people
were the JNA soldiers, the witness said he didn't know and playfully
added that Milosevic should answer that instead. Witty, but not
evidence. There was an interesting moment when Milosevic produced and
tendered into evidence the original Vukovar Hospital register [taken
away by the JNA after they took over the Hospital], showing that only
45 wounded persons in all (both civilians and military) had been
admitted during the fiercest final battle between 2 and 18 November
1991, a far cry from that horrifying picture that the Hospital
Director Dr Bosanac had painted of overcrowded facility with hundreds
and hundreds of wounded.
The problem with this legal procedure is that it needs some relevant
and hard evidence to build up the case against the defendant. So far,
it was as described above, or even worse. May I suggest to May & Co.
to explain their final sentence by the damning testimony of that
secret witness "X"?
Vera Martinovic is an independent writer based in Belgrade Yugoslavia.
Article Posted For Fair Use Only
=== 5 ===
THE CIRCUS CONTINUES AT THE HAGUE
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - July 11, 2003
Written by: Andy Wilcoxson
After over 10 days of not watching I found that the so-called "trial"
at the Hague to be as much of a joke as ever.
Today there were 2 secret witnesses who testified, B-1120 and C-1171.
B-1120 was a 92-bis witness for Foca, and his testimony was downright
comical.
B-1120 was a member of the main board of the SDA in Foca virtually
since the inception of the party in 1990.
B-1120 initially claimed that Muslims in Foca armed themselves and
formed armed night patrols before the war began. However, as is often
the case at this so-called "trial," he changed this story 5 minutes
later and claimed that the Muslims had no weapons.
B-1120 explained the deaths of 1,100 Serbs and the burning of Serb
houses and the mass-exodus of Serbs from Foca to Montenegro was all
done by the Serbs themselves!
According to B-1120 the Serbs were killing themselves, expelling
themselves, and burning down their own houses. Only at the Hague
Tribunal could a cock and bull story like that make sense.
The next witness to testify was another secret witness called C-1171.
C-1171 was a member of the ZNG in Vukovar.
Apparently, C-1171 is some sort of war criminal himself, but the
details of his crimes were dealt with in closed session.
At any rate C-1171's testimony had nothing to do with Milosevic. The
only thing that could possibly be connected to Milosevic was the time
that C-1171 spent in the JNA's military prison in Belgrade, and C-1171
testified that nobody mistreated him there.
Between those 2 secret witnesses the so-called "trial chamber" dealt
with the testimony of 6 other secret witnesses who gave mostly secret
evidence in other "trials".
So what we have here is secret witnesses testifying about
God-knows-what with no opportunity for President Milosevic to ask
these secret witnesses about their secret evidence.
This circus in The Hague puts Barnum and Bailey to shame.
1. ZORAN LILIC TESTIFIES AT THE HAGUE TRIBUNAL
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/smorg061903.htm
2. MICHAEL WILLIAMS TESTIFIES AT MILOSEVIC "TRIAL"
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/smorg062403.htm
3. SPS HOLDS VIDOVDAN DEMONSTRATION AT REPUBLIC SQUARE IN BELGRADE, 28
June 2003
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/sps/news/sps062803.htm
4. BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF HAGUE WITNESSES: 30 JUNE - 11 JULY 2003
5. THE CIRCUS CONTINUES AT THE HAGUE, July 11, 2003
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/smorg071103.htm
=== 1 ===
ZORAN LILIC TESTIFIES AT THE HAGUE TRIBUNAL
www.slobodan-milosevic.org – June 19, 2003
Written By: Andy Wilcoxson
On Tuesday, June 17, 2003 Zoran Lilic began to give his testimony at
the so-called “trial” of Slobodan Milosevic.
Zoran Lilic has held the highest offices in Serbia and Yugoslavia. Mr.
Lilic was the President of the Serbian National Assembly, the
President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and the Deputy Prime
Minister of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
The testimony of Zoran Lilic is certainly the most important testimony
that the Milosevic “trial” has seen.
Two things were apparent from watching Lilic. The first obvious fact
is that Slobodan Milosevic is not a war criminal. The 2 nd obvious
fact, contrary to media reports, is that Mr. Lilic was not and is not
“in the hip pocket” of President Milosevic.
Indeed, Mr. Lilic was critical of Milosevic on some matters. First of
all, Lilic believed that Milosevic, as the SPS President, allowed the
JUL to have too much influence during the time that the SPS-JUL-ND
coalition was formed.
Lilic was also critical of the Kumanovo Agreement. Mr. Lilic favored a
different plan that had been put forward by Helmut Kohl.
It is therefore incorrect that the media should portray Mr. Lilic as
“Milosevic’s puppet.” Zoran Lilic is his own man, with his own
opinions, which as we see above do not always coincide Slobodan
Milosevic’s views.
When it comes to the subject of war crimes it was apparent that the
prosecution had made a mistake in bringing Lilic to testify. Lilic
proved to be a much better witness for the defense than for the
prosecution.
From the outset of his examination-in-chief it could be seen that
Preident Lilic’s statements were not what the prosecutor was looking
for. For example, Mr. Nice was trying to get Lilic to explain the
phrase “all Serbs in one state.” Mr. Nice obviously wanted Lilic to
say that this referred to some “greater Serbia plan,” instead Lilic
explained that the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY)
allowed all Serbs to live in one state and that the statement, “all
Serbs in one state” meant that the SFRY should be preserved at all
costs.
Mr. Nice also unsuccessfully attempted to get Lilic to say that
Milosevic “controlled” the leadership and the military forces of the
SAO Krajina and Republika Srpska. Lilic explained that Milosevic did
not control anybody over there, and when he did try to exercise
influence over them it was always to try and get them to accept peace
agreements.
At this point, in spite of efforts by Mr. Nice to change the topic,
Lilic went into the events in Srebrenica. Lilic explained that nobody
from the authorities of either Serbia or the FRY could have had
anything to do with what happened there.
Lilic explained that Milosevic’s reaction to Srebrenica was that of
shock and extreme anger when he heard what had happened there. Lilic
said that it was obvious that there was no possibility that Milosevic
could have had anything at all to do with Srebrenica, or any other
wartime event in Bosnia and Croatia.
On the subject of Srebrenica, it should be noted that it is the
“sweetest plum” in the prosecution’s false indictment. Srebrenica is
where the genocide charge emanates from.
When Milosevic cross-examined Lilic on the subject of Srebrenica, Lilic
further explained that when the FRY authorities inquired about
Srebrenica the Republika Srpska leadership was just as surprised as
anybody to hear about what had happened there. Lilic explained that
this meant that individual criminals, and not any government controlled
forces, had perpetrated the crimes that occurred in Srebrenica. Not
only does this testimony jive with the claims that Milosevic made in
his opening statement, but it also jives with the report of the Dutch
Government.
When Milosevic opened the cross-examination he began by asking Lilic
about Kosovo. Zoran Lilic is probably the best suited person to talk
about Kosovo and the position of the FRY government there. As the
Deputy Prime Minister of the time Lilic took numerous fact finding
missions to Kosovo. As a high official in the Government of Yugoslavia
Mr. Lilic was privy to all manner of intelligence reports.
During cross-examination Lilic explained that the Yugoslav and Serbian
authorities took exceptional care to protect Kosovo’s civilian
population. In fact so much care was taken that the Albanian
terrorists knew that by mingling themselves with civilians that they
would be able to flee from the authorities without being touched,
because the authorities were under orders never to fire on the
terrorists if doing so would endanger civilians.
Mr. Lilic explained Slobodan Milosevic’s position was that all
citizens and ethnic groups should be equal. Lilic stated that it was
President Milosevic’s firm conviction that nobody in Yugoslavia should
live as a second class citizen because of their ethnicity.
Mr. Lilic went on to explain that the Serbian and Yugoslav authorities
always differentiated between Albanian terrorists, and regular
Albanian civilians. He explained that orders were issued that human
rights need to be respected, and that all soldiers and police were
given copies of the Geneva Conventions to ensure that this happened.
Mr. Lilic explained that the V.J. and MUP protected Albanian civilians
precisely from the Albanian terrorists who were seeking to break
Kosovo away from Serbia. Lilic explained how both Albanians, and
non-Albanians were under threat from the KLA terrorists. Lilic stated
that normal Albanian civilians who wished to live as peaceful law
abiding citizens of Yugoslavia were under the greatest danger from the
KLA terrorists.
Lilic dismissed as an absurdity that Serbia or Yugoslavia could have
had any plan to expel Albanians from Kosovo. Lilic explained that the
Serb and Yugoslav authorities had a great desire, and made great
efforts to try to engage the Kosovo Albanians so that a peaceful
political solution could be found.
Being Yugoslavia’s Deputy Prime Minister at the time Mr. Lilic had
access to all manner of intelligence information regarding the
Albanian terrorists that were operating in Kosovo at the time.
On the basis of the intelligence information that he had received as
the Deputy Prime Minster, Mr. Lilic explained that the United States,
and in particular the American ambassador Hill, prepared the KLA
terrorists for their “spring offensive” and that this was done with a
view to provoke a conflict that would create a pretext for the illegal
NATO aggression and the eventual occupation of Kosovo and Metohija.
Lilic went on to explain how the Milosevic-Holbrooke agreement had
been abused. Lilic explained how the Kosovo Verification Mission of
the OSCE was being used as a cover to further arm the Albanian
terrorists. He explained that during that time the Albanian terrorists
had received East German weapons, and other high-tech weaponry that
could only come to them with the cooperation of foreign governments.
Lilic began to explain about how the KLA would force Albanians to flee
from Kosovo to create the false illusion that Albanians were being
expelled by Serbs, but at this point the so-called “Judge” May didn’t
want to hear anymore.
This same “Judge,” who is so deeply interested in hearing all about
what some local yokel says he heard second hand, from God only knows
who, off in some village in Bosnia, refused to hear what a high
government official knew from the intelligence documents that he was
privy to. The so-called “Judge” ruled the information as irrelevant
since the Deputy PM didn’t go out into the battlefield and gather the
information personally.
This so-called “Judge” must be smoking some good crack to be able to
say something as stupid as that. How could any government function if
the highest officials always have to gather the intelligence in
person? Does George W. Bush know that Osama bin Laden blew up the
World Trade Center because he was personally hiding in the cave in
Afghanistan listening to bin Laden make the plans? Of course not, but
he has the relevant intelligence information, and so he is perfectly
competent to say that bin Laden did it.
At any rate, after Kosovo was discussed, Milosevic began to ask Lilic
about Bosnia and Croatia. Mr. Lilic explained in no uncertain terms
that neither Serbia, nor the FRY, nor any official from Serbia or the
FRY had any command or control over the Bosnian Serbs or the Krajina
Serbs, and Lilic in view of the positions he held, is in a better
position than anybody to know that.
Mr. Lilic proceeded to explain how the conflicts in Bosnia and Croatia
evolved and the manner in which the governments of Serbia and the FRY
were involved.
First of all Lilic, explained that all of the efforts of Serbia and
the FRY were directed towards humanitarian assistance and negotiating
an end to the armed conflicts.
Lilic explained that in Croatia the Serbian population was in jeopardy
from the Croatian government, and that the Krajina Serbs did not
launch aggression on Croatia, but simply defended their own land that
they had been living on for centuries.
Lilic explained how Serbia, the FRY, and Milosevic in particular
worked tirelessly to achieve the Vance Plan, and that all of
Milosevic’s efforts in respect to the Krajina, and the war in Croatia
were directed exclusively towards achieving peace.
As for the civil war in Bosnia, Lilic explained in no ambiguous terms
that neither Serbia nor the FRY had anything to do with that, and that
it was in fact a civil war in Bosnia and, not some sort of aggression
by Serbia or Yugoslavia.
Lilic explained that Serbia, even under sanctions, extended
humanitarian assistance to the people in Bosnia and to all of the
refugees who came to Serbia, irrespective of their ethnicity.
In fact, Serbia even allowed Muslim soldiers from the Army of B-H to
come to Serbia as refugees as long as they didn’t bring their weapons.
In this case both the R.S. and the Muslim authorities wanted these
soldiers handed over to them, but Milosevic steadfastly refused their
demands, and insisted that these soldiers be allowed to control their
own fate.
Lilic explained that the war in Bosnia broke out when independence was
declared on the basis of and illegal and unconstitutional referendum.
Lilic said that the first armed attacks of the Bosnian war came from
Muslim extremists who were attacking the Serb population in Bosnia.
Lilic explained how prior to the all out warfare that tore through
Bosnia that a peace plan had been reached. He told about how the
Serbs, the Croats, and the Muslims all negotiated and signed a peace
agreement in Lisbon called the Cutilero Plan. Lilic explained that
after the agreement was signed that the Muslim President, Alija
Izetbegovic reneged on the agreement, withdrew his signature, and the
war began in earnest.
Lilic explained that after the war began the Muslim side began to
bring in Mujahideens and Islamic fundamentalists from the Middle East
to fight against the Serbs.
During the examination in chief, Fikret Abdic was mentioned, because
he had traveled to Belgrade and met with President Milosevic. The
prosecution had tried to present this like some sort of secret meeting
even though it was reported quite openly in the Media, and Lilic
confirmed in the cross-examination that this meeting was no secret.
For those of you who don’t know who Fikret Abdic is I would encourage
you to research him. Fikret Abdic was the winner of the 1990 elections
in Bosnia, but unfortunately Alija Izetbegovic (who lost the
elections) managed to take over power from him.
Fikret Abdic is a Muslim of the Croatian ethnicity. He has dual
Croat/Bosnian citizenship. Unlike Alija Izetbegovic, Mr. Abdic got
along splendidly with the Serbs, and for a time with the Croats until
they allied with Izetbegovic.
Fikret Abdic and his Muslim followers in western Bosnia declared
independence from Bosnia, signed peace agreements with the Serbs and
Croats, and were able to escape the war, until Alija Izetbegovic sent
in the 5 th Corps of the Army of B-H to attack the Muslim population
there, killing them, looting their homes, and forcing the survivors to
flee to the Krajina where they lived with the Serbs until the Croats
committed genocide with Operation Storm and Operation Flash eliminating
nearly all of the Serb population from the Krajina.
Lilic confirmed Milosevic’s claim that Serbia and the FRY’s policy
towards Bosnia was exclusively a policy of peace aimed at ending the
bloodshed.
Lilic explained that nobody worked harder to bring peace to Bosnia
than Slobodan Milosevic. The Government of Serbia, the Government of
the FRY, and Slobodan Milosevic personally endorsed the Vance-Owen
Plan, the Owen-Stoltenberg Plan, the Contact Group Plan, the Action
Plan of the European Union, and the Dayton Accords.
Lilic testified about how hard Milosevic worked to negotiate the
Vance-Owen plan, and how hard Milosevic tried to convince the
Republika Srpska Assembly to accept the plan. Slobodan Milosevic
addressed the R.S. Assembly on 2 occasions to try to convince them to
accept the plan.
When the R.S. assembly refused to adopt the Vance-Owen Plan Milosevic
was furious. President Milosevic insisted that the Serbia/FRY
delegation leave immediately, even though it was a great risk to his
own personal safety since it was late at night, and a Muslim attack
was feared.
It was precisely the refusal of the R.S. to adopt the Vance-Owen plan
that strained relations between Belgrade and Pale, and that lead to
the decision of Serbia and the FRY to blockade the Drina River.
Lilic explained how, at Dayton, Slobodan Milosevic saved the Republika
Srpska from certain destruction. At the time NATO air strikes were
rapidly diminishing the R.S. territory and a failure to reach an
agreement at that point would have definitely meant the end of the
Republika Srpska.
Through the efforts of Slobodan Milosevic at Dayton the Republika
Srpska was recognized, and territory that had been lost over the
course of the NATO air strikes was even returned to Republika Srpska.
As the President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Zoran Lilic
served on the Supreme Defense Council together with Slobodan Milosevic
(while Milosevic was the President of Serbia). Therefore, Mr. Lilic is
in a unique position to be able to see how decisions were taken.
The prosecution has tried to allege that Slobodan Milosevic behaved
like some sort of dictator in the Supreme Defense Council. But the
testimony of Lilic proves otherwise. Lilic testified that the
decisions of the SDC were reached by consensus and that Milosevic
didn’t have any more power than any of the other members of the SDC.
The prosecution also alleges that the Serbia and FRY authorities
formed and supported paramilitaries and sent them to Bosnia and
Croatia, and that Milosevic is responsible for this. Lilic’s testimony
again proves otherwise. Lilic stated, and he produced the documents to
prove it that the SDC (which Milosevic served on) took a decision that
paramilitaries should be disarmed and abolished.
Lilic explained that some opposition parties were forming units, but
that the SPS never had any sort of units, nor did the SPS engage in
any sort of cooperation with the SDS. Lilic not only being the former
head of state, but also being a former member of the SPS himself,
would certainly be in a position to know about this.
Slobodan Milosevic asked Lilic point-blank if he knew of any order or
any de-facto policy emanating from the Government of Serbia or
Yugoslavia, or any officials of those governments that the Army or
Police personnel should commit any crimes against anybody. Lilic said
that there was absolutely not any such policy, and that the Army and
the police were under the strictest orders to combat crime regardless
of who the perpetrator was, even if the perpetrator was a soldier or a
police officer.
President Lilic’s testimony is the most important testimony that this
farce of a “trial” has seen. Historians will be able to read his
testimony and see quite clearly that Slobodan Milosevic is innocent.
In spite of the best efforts of this illegal tribunal, history will
never be able to successfully record the lie that Slobodan Milosevic is
a war criminal.
Lilic’s testimony is not yet complete. He will return at a later date
to complete his cross-examination, be cross-examined by the Amicus,
and be re-examined by the prosecution. No hearing is scheduled on
Friday. The next hearing will be on Monday, but other witnesses have
been scheduled.
---
Sequence of Events:
1. JUNE 17, 2003 – Lilic is examined by the Prosecutor, Mr. Nice.
2. JUNE 18, 2003 – Mr. Nice concludes his examination of Lilic.
3. JUNE 18, 2003 – Slobodan Milosevic begins his cross-examination
of Lilic.
4. JUNE 19, 2003 – Slobodan Milosevic continues his
cross-examination of Lilic.
=== 2 ===
MICHAEL WILLIAMS TESTIFIES AT MILOSEVIC "TRIAL"
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - June 24, 2003
Written by: Andy Wilcoxson
Michael Williams, the former advisor and spokesman of the former chief
of the UN Mission to Bosnia Jasusi Akasi, testified at the so-called
"trial" of Slobodan Milosevic on Tuesday.
The main point of Mr. Williams's testimony seemed to be to bad mouth
the VRS and the Bosnian-Serb leadership. None of that has anything to
do with Milosevic, but this is the Hague Tribunal, and propaganda is
the main order of the day.
Mr. Williams's "evidence" against Milosevic was practically
non-existent. Williams doubted the veracity of the blockade that
Yugoslavia placed on the Republika Srpska, over their refusal to accept
various peace plans, but he didn't have any evidence that the Yugoslav
side was violating the blockade. All he had was his suspicions.
Williams did however confirm that Milosevic's policy from the
beginning was that the war in Bosnia should be stopped. He also
confirmed that Milosevic endorsed various peace plans aimed at ending
the war.
In other news, much has been made in the media recently over a
document produced by the prosecution last week which purports to
"link" Milosevic to the alleged events at Srebrenica.
The document in question is allegedly an order from a Bosnian-Serb
police commander where the MUP of Serbia mentioned as participating in
counter-insurgency operations in Srebrenica.
The document has some major problems. The problems indicate that the
document is quite probably a forgery:
1. The document is typewritten, but no Serbian type characters appear
in the typewritten text.
2. The document is typed on a blank piece of paper. It is not typed on
official letterhead.
3. The document isn't signed.
4. The document isn't stamped with the seal of the relevant government
organ.
5. The document contains typographical errors.
6. The words "very urgent" are typed in the English language on the
top of this alleged "Serbian document."
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE SCANNED IMAGE OF THE DOCUMENT:
http://www.iwpr.net/images/tribunal/tri_317_1_rs_order_ser.gif
From looking at the document it is quite obvious that anybody with
access to a typewriter and a blank piece of paper could have produced
it.
=== 3 ===
SPS HOLDS VIDOVDAN DEMONSTRATION AT REPUBLIC SQUARE IN BELGRADE
28 June 2003
On June 28, 2003 the Socialist Party of Serbia circulated a petition
around Serbia calling for the abolition of the Hague Tribunal, and an
end to the selling out of the country to Western capitalists.
Over the period of only a couple of hours the SPS managed to gather
more than 3,000 signatures at their desk at Republic Square in
Belgrade, and the SPS gathered more than 60,000 signatures for the
whole of Serbia.
The police in "democratic" Serbia were unhappy that the flag of the
SPS was displayed publicly and so they "invited" the organizer of the
demonstration to come to the police station with them.
Below are photos of the police, the demonstrators, and the citizens
queuing to sign the petition at Republic Square.
(see:
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/sps/news/sps062803.htm )
=== 4 ===
BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF HAGUE WITNESSES: 30 JUNE - 11 JULY 2003
Written by: Vera Martinovic - July 14, 2003
Here's a brief summary of the last 12 witnesses, 5 of which were known
by numbers instead of names, with blurred faces and distorted voices,
and 1 not even that (he was nameless and numberless, and it was simply
announced that his whole testimony would be given in a private
session).
B-1244, a Bosnian Serb civil official during the war, first confirmed
that 30 Frenki Simatovic's men [Commander of the Serbian Special
Police unit] participated in the military takeover of his town (being
asked about it by the Prosecutor Groome in a highly suggestive and
confusing manner]. Then, when Milosevic asked about these men in
detail, he clarified that they were in fact members of the Serbian
Radical Party who arrived in the municipality as volunteers with no
link to Simatovic or to the State Security Department of the Police of
Serbia whatsoever.
C-0006 seemed totally unreliable, claiming to be a Croat who was first
arrested by the local Serbs, and then forced to become a member of the
Serb Territorial Defence in Vukovar. As a shanghaied soldier, he was
somehow at liberty to be miraculously present at all the key moments
and places during these two critical days, seeing all of the important
players in action at least three times a day, listening to their
conversations, coming and going not once but twice to Ovcara Farm,
doing nothing, just puttering about.
He even claimed to have seen Major Sljivancanin in person at Ovcara.
Such a bold thing has never claimed by anybody so far. He even said
hello to the Major, but the latter failed to reply. To boot, he gave
his testimony in English. Yet, with all his alleged hovering presence
(like a Victorian novelist, he was even able to read minds of his
characters), his testimony boiled to already well-known general things
that could be told by anybody watching TV at that time.
Witness "X", testifying in a private session, probably gave crucial
relevant evidence based on his personal gut feeling about how
"Milosevic was a thief who was too much in love with his overweight
wife."
Vlado Vukovic, a former Croatian policeman who fought against the JNA
[Jugoslovenska Narodna Armija = Yugoslav National Army] in Krajina,
became POW and was exchanged later on, claimed that the JNA was in
fact attacking this defenseless Croatian village with no reason at all.
I repeat, he was captured while attacking a JNA facility near the said
village, together with the rest of Croatian policemen and irregulars.
C-1230 testified that how he was the only one who survived an alleged
execution by JNA soldiers in Krajina. The problem is that in his
previous 3 written statements given to the OTP he never mentioned JNA
soldiers, only some local Serb irregulars. Perhaps his memory got
better after several years.
Andreas Riedlemayer, a Harvard expert on Islamic architecture, was
again commissioned by the OTP (after his testimony about Kosovo) to
talk about the destruction of not only the Islamic, but also the
Catholic monuments in Bosnia (as an expert on the Islamic architecture,
of course, and not on destruction nor on Catholicism).
Riedlemayer was not tasked with researching the destruction of the
Catholic monuments destroyed by the Muslims, nor the destruction of
the Muslim monuments destroyed by the Catholics - only the destruction
of the Muslim and Catholic monuments destroyed by the Serbs.
While not being an expert on arms and explosives (by his own
admission), Mr. Riedlemayer somehow managed to know how, and under
what circumstances, all of those monuments were destroyed. Although he
had never bothered to investigate the destruction of Serb monuments,
he somehow knew their destruction was not substantial.
Riedelmayer, was even bold enough to claim that the fact he wrote a
letter to Clinton demanding the UN arms embargo against Bosnian
Muslims should cease to be respected by the US, did not affect his
professional objectivity in the least.
Zoran Lilic, former Yugoslav President, was summoned again, one month
after his previous appearance, to testify about some important
documents recently received by the OTP from the Yugoslav authorities,
namely the transcripts of the meetings of the Supreme Defence Council,
as well as some intercepted highly confidential phone calls.
It turned out to be an anticlimactic, the Council transcripts merely
demonstrated that Milosevic had even less influence, let alone direct
authority over Bosnian Serbs, who opposed him bitterly at every
meeting.
The intercepts (most probably made by the Croatian Security Services)
were useless due to the poor technical quality, so their written
transcripts had been used instead. Nevertheless, they were completely
uninteresting, except one: a phone call between Lilic and General
Perisic (the YU Army Chief of Staff), where Lilic said it had been
agreed that a written guarantee would be provided to General Mladic to
assure him he will not be delivered to the ICTY, in exchange for the
return of two captured French pilots [downed by the Bosnian Serbs
while their Mirage fighter participated in the NATO bombing of the
Serb positions near Pale].
The juicy detail was when Lilic said to Perisic he should explain to
Mladic when negotiating the release of the pilots that both French
President Jacques Chirac and Milosevic had agreed to give that same
guarantee [in order not to spoil the upcoming signing of the Dayton
Accords in Paris].
Another interesting intercept (or, alleged intercept, since there was
no tape at all, just the transcript) was the one in which Milosevic's
wife spoke to the Chef de Cabinet of Karadzic about those French
pilots. The alleged conversation contains no damning details at all, it
could only give a general impression of Milosevic's wife being
influential and meddling into her husband's business. The problem was
that in this transcript Mrs. Markovic called her interlocutor "Rajko"
and referred to her husband as "President Milosevic".
Milosevic claimed his wife never knew any of these people, let alone
on a first-name basis, and expressed surprise that she should refer to
him as "President Milosevic", after spending her whole life with him.
He expressed his concern that the evidence might be forged. He said he
would love to hear the tape of this conversation be played in the
courtroom. It turned out that Mr. Nice couldn't produce any tape, and
so he withdrew this particular piece of "evidence".
Edin Pasic, former translator for Arabic and Turkish in the
ex-Yugoslav federal bodies and the current Ambassador of Bosnia &
Herzegovina to Kuwait, stated that, while passing the corridors of the
Presidential palace on his way to his task of interpreting the
telephone conversation between Muammar el Gaddafi of Libya and the
Yugoslav President Dobrica Cosic in 1992. He saw men in mudded
uniforms who were talking of the killings and throat-cutting they had
done in Bosnia. He must've passing those clean corridors real slow to
be able to hear all the colorful details by those mudded fighters.
Pasic said that the Belgrade mosque on Knez Mihailova street, which he
said he attended regularly, was attacked by a hand grenade. When
Milosevic pointed out that the mosque (repaired and guarded by the
police after that) was not on that street, and when Tapuskovic showed
some interest in how come a Communist like Mr Pasic was attending a
mosque at all, Mr Pasic explained that the mosque must've been
somewhere in the general vicinity of the park (the man had lived in
Belgrade for 16 years, mind you), and that he was not a Communist, but
merely a member of the League of Communists.
Pasic expressed his disdain for the Belgrade Mufti [the head of the
Muslim community], who was regularly seeing Milosevic, or, as the
witness put it "flirted with Milosevic".
Pasic claimed that the Muslims in Belgrade lived under terror, feeling
as if they were wearing "yellow arm-bands" (used by Nazis to identify
Jews), and that the ethnic cleansing had in fact started from
Belgrade. To strengthen such a claim he used his own "horrifying
experience:" President Cosic allegedly offered him to be his adviser
for Islamic countries, but he proudly refused, not wanting to become a
puppet to Milosevic, which Cosic already was (the hapless Cosic
allegedly admitted as much in desperate whispers to his
interpreter/wannabe adviser, who fell down on his knees, begging Cosic
to protect the Bosnian Muslims).
After that, Pasic felt as if he had been followed and his apartment
entered. The terror was such that full 4 years later Pasic calmly left
with his whole family to Hungary, and thence to Egypt, regularly using
his passport to do so. Milosevic didn't appreciate the kneeling
melodrama in the Presidential cabinet and reminded the witness that
Cosic was alive and could testify that nothing similar had happened
and voiced his disgust that such a story came from the witness in the
worst of taste.
May said the bad taste is unimportant, only the sterling quality of
the evidence this witness is providing. Mr Pasic had to say something
damning about the Colonel Sljivancanin, too: apparently, during an
official reception, the Colonel's face literally "lit up when Milosevic
entered the room."
Safet Avdic, a Muslim from Foca who had been a POW in a Bosnian Serb
detention facility and who was subsequently exchanged, described his
prison days, complaining that he has lost a lot of weight there. Oddly
enough, he has never been maltreated, but he heard that some other POWs
had.
Jusuf Taranin, was another Muslim from the same municipality, who
described how 7 Muslims were killed by a bunch of irregulars in a
warehouse that used to belong to the JNA (that must've been the reason
the Prosecution summoned this particular witness - the JNA had been
somehow mentioned in his testimony). He also stated that 10 days
before the clashes began, the JNA came and distributed guns to local
Serbs. When Milosevic asked whether this could have been local
Territorial Defence guys who came and distributed guns, the reliable
witness said: "I don't know, could be."
B-1120 was in the same detention facility in Foca as Safet Avdic, and
he also claimed that the local Muslims were unarmed when attacked by
the vicious Serbs, and that they never fired at all towards the Serb
positions. He had trouble answering how come the battle for Foca lasted
for full 8 days, then.
C-1171 was a member of the ZNG [Zbor Narodne Garde = Croatian National
Guard Corps] in Vukovar, who saw the end was near and with hundreds of
other zenge came to Vukovar Hospital, pretending to be wounded or a
staff member, to be able to come out of the town in a humanitarian
convoy. Along with the others, he was arrested and taken to the Ovcara
Farm. He managed to jump out of the truck, but was caught again.
Strangely enough, he was not executed as could have been expected from
the Serbs on a killing spree, but was shipped to the Belgrade Military
Prison, where he had not been maltreated and where it was established
he was a suspect war criminal (a member of the ZNG explosives unit,
who demolished private Serb property in Vukovar, killing civilians).
C-1171 was subsequently exchanged. His damning testimony re the Ovcara
case was that he, unlike the omnipresent earlier witness C-0006, never
saw Colonel Sljivancanin at the Ovcara Farm at all. He did see some
uniformed men there who had parts of the JNA uniforms on plus fur hats
and various insignia, so sometimes he referred to them as the JNA
soldiers and sometimes as the local irregulars.
When directly asked by Milosevic whether he could confirm these people
were the JNA soldiers, the witness said he didn't know and playfully
added that Milosevic should answer that instead. Witty, but not
evidence. There was an interesting moment when Milosevic produced and
tendered into evidence the original Vukovar Hospital register [taken
away by the JNA after they took over the Hospital], showing that only
45 wounded persons in all (both civilians and military) had been
admitted during the fiercest final battle between 2 and 18 November
1991, a far cry from that horrifying picture that the Hospital
Director Dr Bosanac had painted of overcrowded facility with hundreds
and hundreds of wounded.
The problem with this legal procedure is that it needs some relevant
and hard evidence to build up the case against the defendant. So far,
it was as described above, or even worse. May I suggest to May & Co.
to explain their final sentence by the damning testimony of that
secret witness "X"?
Vera Martinovic is an independent writer based in Belgrade Yugoslavia.
Article Posted For Fair Use Only
=== 5 ===
THE CIRCUS CONTINUES AT THE HAGUE
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - July 11, 2003
Written by: Andy Wilcoxson
After over 10 days of not watching I found that the so-called "trial"
at the Hague to be as much of a joke as ever.
Today there were 2 secret witnesses who testified, B-1120 and C-1171.
B-1120 was a 92-bis witness for Foca, and his testimony was downright
comical.
B-1120 was a member of the main board of the SDA in Foca virtually
since the inception of the party in 1990.
B-1120 initially claimed that Muslims in Foca armed themselves and
formed armed night patrols before the war began. However, as is often
the case at this so-called "trial," he changed this story 5 minutes
later and claimed that the Muslims had no weapons.
B-1120 explained the deaths of 1,100 Serbs and the burning of Serb
houses and the mass-exodus of Serbs from Foca to Montenegro was all
done by the Serbs themselves!
According to B-1120 the Serbs were killing themselves, expelling
themselves, and burning down their own houses. Only at the Hague
Tribunal could a cock and bull story like that make sense.
The next witness to testify was another secret witness called C-1171.
C-1171 was a member of the ZNG in Vukovar.
Apparently, C-1171 is some sort of war criminal himself, but the
details of his crimes were dealt with in closed session.
At any rate C-1171's testimony had nothing to do with Milosevic. The
only thing that could possibly be connected to Milosevic was the time
that C-1171 spent in the JNA's military prison in Belgrade, and C-1171
testified that nobody mistreated him there.
Between those 2 secret witnesses the so-called "trial chamber" dealt
with the testimony of 6 other secret witnesses who gave mostly secret
evidence in other "trials".
So what we have here is secret witnesses testifying about
God-knows-what with no opportunity for President Milosevic to ask
these secret witnesses about their secret evidence.
This circus in The Hague puts Barnum and Bailey to shame.