Milosevic "trial" synopsis
1. JANUARY 20, 2004: A PRIJEDOR WITNESS TESTIFIES
2. JANUARY 21, 2004: "EXPERT WITNESS" TESTIFIES ABOUT WHAT "GENOCIDE"
MEANS TO HIM
3. JANUARY 22, 2004: TUDJMAN'S CABINET CHIEF ADMITS CROATIA MASSACRED
ITS OWN CITIZENS TO PROVIDE A PRETEXT FOR OPERATION FLASH
4. JANUARY 26, 2004: PROSECUTION CLAIMS 2,541 BODIES FOUND AND 70
IDENTIFIED FROM SREBRENICA
5. JANUARY 27, 2004: A NATO SPY EMPLOYED BY THE PROSECUTION TESTIFIES
AGAINST MILOSEVIC
=== 1 ===
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/smorg012003.htm
MILOSEVIC "TRIAL" SYNOPSIS - JANUARY 20, 2004: A PRIJEDOR WITNESS
TESTIFIES
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - January 23, 2004
JANUARY 20, 2004 - Karem Misanovic, a Muslim from the National Defense
Secretariat of the Prijedor T.O. testified at the so-called "trial" of
Slobodan Milosevic on Tuesday.
He testified about the takeover of Prijedor, by the Bosnian Serb
Territorial Defense forces, on April 30, 1992. The takeover happened
without firing a single shot being fired. The Serbs were endeavoring
to prevent war from breaking out.
President Milosevic produced a telegram from Alija Mustafic of the B-H
Defense Ministry ordering the Prijedor T.O. to attack the JNA. The
telegram was sent on April 29, 1992 and it was the reason why the
Serbs took over the town the next day.
There were seven Muslims in the Prijedor T.O., including the witness,
and six of them kept their jobs after the take over. From this example
we can see that even after the Serbs took over there was no
discrimination against the Muslims.
The witness eventually left Bosnia and went to Serbia. He stayed in
Serbia until he could go to Germany. He didn't have any problems in
Serbia and he couldn't identify a single Muslim who did.
All in all he was a pretty insignificant witness. You would think that
with just a few days left to go to present their case that the
prosecution would try to come-up with something more than they
presented here.
After Misanovic withdrew Tom Zwann, a social scientist from the
Netherlands took the stand. Mr. Zwann wrote a report about genocide.
The point of his coming to testify was to try and broaden the
definition of genocide for the prosecution.
The prosecution seems to realize that Milosevic isn't guilty of what
most people understand genocide to be, so they are going to use this
witness in order to try and broaden the definition of the word.
Dr. Zwann bemoaned the fact that people measure genocide against the
Jewish experience during the Second World War. He thinks people set
the bar to high when it comes to genocide. He believes that genocide
doesn't have to be a large scale affair. More over he complains that
the legal definition of genocide is too restrictive.
Unfortunately, for the prosecution, Zwann put a caveat on his own
definition of genocide. If the supposed victim is armed and is
fighting a war with the other side then they aren't victims of
genocide.
The Bosnian Muslims were armed, and they were fighting a war that they
started themselves against the Bosnian Serbs. So even under Zwann's
excessively broad definition of genocide the Muslims still aren't
victims.
Zwann's examination in chief was completed on January 20th and
Slobodan Milosevic will cross-examine on January 21st.
=== 2 ===
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/smorg012104.htm
MILOSEVIC "TRIAL" SYNOPSIS - JANUARY 21, 2004: "EXPERT WITNESS"
TESTIFIES ABOUT WHAT "GENOCIDE" MEANS TO HIM
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - January 24, 2004
WEDNESDAY JANUARY 21, 2004 - Dr. Ton Zwann, a so-called “expert
witness” from a newly established center for Holocaust studies in
Amsterdam was cross-examined by President Slobodan Milosevic on
Wednesday.
Zwann wrote a report about “genocide” of course he didn’t use any
legal definition of the word. Instead Zwann’s report concentrated on
his own ideas and personal feelings about what he considers genocide
to be.
President Milosevic observed that this witness’s evidence was totally
irrelevant because it constituted nothing more than an opinion that
wasn’t based on any legal definition. Mr. May repeatedly reminded
Milosevic that he wasn’t supposed to make legal arguments, apparently
Mr. May feels that his so-called “courtroom” is no place for making
legal arguments. We wouldn't want something so trivial as the law
getting in the way of this show trial would we Mr. May?
Zwann complained in his report that the legal definition of genocide
was too restrictive. Therefore, he made up his own personal definition
that he used for his report. I’m not sure what exactly Zwann’s
definition of genocide is, but in Dr. Zwann’s world the Partisan Army
of Josip Broz Tito committed genocide against the Ustasha, so that
should tell you something.
In Mr. Nice’s re-examination he asked Dr. Zwann if he could think of
any examples where Serbs engaged in genocidal activity and the witness
replied that the Partisan Army, which contained many Serbs, committed
genocide against the Ustasha.
In addition to claiming that the Ustasha was the victim of genocide at
the hands of the Serbs. Zwann sought to minimize the number of people
killed at the Jasenovac concentration camp by the Ustasha.
President Milosevic quoted data he obtained from the Simon Wiesenthal
Center stating that 600,000 to 700,000 Serbs, and 30,000 Jews and
Gypsies were massacred by Ustasha fascists at the Jasenovac camp, and
Zwann dismissed that data as being exaggerated. Zwann suggested that
the numbers were being inflated for propaganda purposes and that the
“real number” was between 100,000 and 120,000 victims in total,
including the Jewish victims.
Seeing as how the Simon Wiesenthal Center is the one of the most
respected institutions in the field of Holocaust studies in the world,
and has been studying the Holocaust ever since the Second World War.
In view of this fact President Milosevic asked the witness if, he
(whose institution has only existed for 4 months) considered himself
to be more competent than the Wiesenthall Center to assess the
holocaust, and the witness said that he considered their research to
be wrong.
Zwann never explained how come the Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human
rights organization, would be making propaganda for the Serbs. Nor did
Zwann explain where he got his numbers from.
At any rate, Dr. Zwann’s feelings don’t matter. As far as I am
concerned he can take his report and sit under a tree with a bunch of
dumb hippies; they can take some bong hits, they can sing “Kumbaya,”
and they can all discuss what “genocide” means to them. For all I know
that’s how he came up with his ideas in the first place.
Never mind that genocide already has a clear definition set out in
Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the
Crime of Genocide as adopted by Resolution 260 (III) A of the U.N.
General Assembly on 9 December 1948, and the definition is this:
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts
committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national,
ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated
to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
What happened here is obvious, seeing that they have not a single
shred of proof to accuse Milosevic of genocide, the prosecution has
decided to try and change the definition of genocide. They got some
jackass with a PhD. (Dr. Zwann) to come and put forward a bunch of
touchy feely psychobabble about what he thinks “genocide” is. This has
got to be one of the dumbest thing’s I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen
some pretty stupid things over the course of this fiasco they call a
“trial.”
After Zwann withdrew some administrative matters were discussed. Even
though they are nearly done presenting their pathetic excuse of a
case, the prosecution is still “unable” to provide Milosevic with the
documents for the upcoming witnesses. This is inexcusable, with only 11
days to go, that they can’t have the documents together.
Over two weeks ago Mr. Nice said that they had acquired a number of
documents from the Yugoslav Supreme Defense Council. Milosevic asked
for copies of those documents and still two weeks later he doesn’t have
them. All he wants are some lousy Xerox copies and the prosecution,
ignoring their own Rule 68, won’t give them to him.
After the break, Hrvoje Sarinic, Franjo Tudjman’s former Chief de
Cabinet, was examined by the prosecution. As one would expect, this
witness attributed God-like power to Slobodan Milosevic. This witness’s
basic claim was that every Serb everywhere was a mindless automaton
under the control of the all seeing and all knowing Slobodan Milosevic.
Slobodan Milosevic’s cross-examination of Sarinic was conducted on
Thursday and will be covered by this website in Thursday’s synopsis.
=== 3 ===
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/smorg012204.htm
MILOSEVIC "TRIAL" SYNOPSIS - JANUARY 22, 2004: TUDJMAN'S CABINET CHIEF
ADMITS CROATIA MASSACRED ITS OWN CITIZENS TO PROVIDE A PRETEXT FOR
OPERATION FLASH
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - January 27, 2004
THURSDAY, JANUARY 22, 2004 - Hrvoje Sarinic, Franjo Tudjman’s, former
Cabinet Chief was cross-examined by President Milosevic on Thursday.
Mr. Sarinic believed that the Krajina Serbs were a “Trojan horse” that
had been sent to Croatia to enact the politics of Slobodan Milosevic.
Milosevic joked that his control must have been so great that he was
able to send this “Trojan horse” into the Krajina centuries before he
was even born. The term “Trojan horse” was used more than once by Mr.
Sarinic to describe the Krajina Serbs, so it wasn’t merely a one time
slip of the tongue.
Mr. Sarinic also attempted to say that Milosevic controlled Arkan. He
didn’t have a single piece of proof to back this up. To explain his
lack of proof he said that “Milosevic covers his tracks too well.”
Slobodan Milosevic gave Mr. Sarinic more than he bargained for in his
cross-examination. President Milosevic had procured the transcripts of
top secret meetings held in the office of Franjo Tudjman.
From these transcripts Milosevic observed that Tudjman was speaking
quite openly about his desire to ethnically cleanse the Serbs from the
Krajina. In 1991 Tudjman was talking about "the need to cleanse Western
Slavonia.”
It also emerged that Tudjman, together with this witness and other top
Croatian officials, on April 30, 1995 planned to stage a “Serb” attack
on Croatian vehicles traveling on the Zagreb-Lipovac highway. The idea
behind staging this attack was to provide a pretext for the launch of
Operation Flash. Sure enough, late on that same day this attack was
carried out, and Operation Flash was launched the very next morning on
May 1, 1995.
At first Mr. Sarinic tried to deny these facts, but then he gave in
and admitted that it was true. He said that it was only “military
tactics,” and that “Operation Flash was justified.”
The result of Operation Flash was that thousands of Serbs were killed
or wounded and hundreds of thousands more were made into refugees.
But, oh well, it’s only “military tactics,” right Mr. Sarinic?
To top this off, Zagreb carried out this “Serb” attack on its own
citizens, at the same time as it was negotiating a peace agreement with
the RSK authorities in Knin.
These same people who massacred their own citizens on the highway in
order to provide a justification for their ethnic cleansing operations
have provided the prosecution with some of the intercepts that it is
using as “evidence” against Milosevic.
I’m sure we can trust the authenticity of their tapes, Sarinic himself
even "authenticated" some of the tapes. So what if the Croats murdered
their own people on the highway so that they could have an excuse to
ethnically cleanse the Serbs? They’re much too honest to doctor some
tapes. I’m sure we can trust them.
Mr. Sarinic, told Mr. Nice during the examination in chief that the
RSK Prime Minister, Bora Mikelic and Slobodan Milosevic had a “master
and slave relationship” with Milosevic as the master. It turns out that
Mr. Mikelic watches the “trial” and he saw Sarinic saying this.
Mr. Mikelic wrote a letter which was exhibited by President Milosevic.
In the letter Mikelic explains that he and Milosevic had a
relationship of equality and mutual respect, and that Sarinic knew this
and was spreading lies.
Sarinic was more candid than one might expect. He admitted that the
former Croatian Defense Minister, Martain Spegelj planned the blockade
and attack on JNA barracks in Croatia before the outbreak of
hostilities.
Sarinic also admitted that the United States, and in particular the
Clinton Administration, gave Croatia the green light to carry out
Operation Storm, and that it was the Americans who called off the
operation when it began heading towards Banja Luka.
With a wink and a nod from the United States, Croatia launched the
operation, and because the Americans were the ones running the show it
was the USA who called the operation off when their objectives had been
achieved.
What was their objective? If the result is any indication, it was to
carryout the largest ethnic cleansing in the Balkans since the Second
World War, since that is exactly what happened.
Mr. Sarinic was of the opinion that Croatia was the victim. In his
opinion the Serbs, who had been living in the Krajina for many
centuries, were “occupying” Croatia. He insisted that operations
“Storm” and “Flash” were justified.
Another admission that Mr. Sarinic made was that a French General,
named DeBoul (phonetic) who investigated the shelling of the Markale
Market in Sarajevo told him that the fatal shell could only have come
from Muslim-held positions.
Slobodan Milosevic read out transcripts of Mesic’s remarks at his
meetings with Tudjman. On November 21, 1991 Mesic said that Croatia
should “paint the JNA” as an aggressor army. He said that Croatia
should go to the UN and argue that Yugoslavia no longer existed, and
ask the UN not to recognize Yugoslavia anymore. Mr. Sarinic looked at
the transcript and basically confirmed that it was all in the
transcript, and that it was in line with their position at the time.
It seems like Croatia had a pretty self-important view of itself.
Croatia leaves Yugoslavia; and so on the basis of that it concludes
that Yugoslavia no longer exists. If Delaware left would the United
States cease to exist?
After Sarinic withdrew some administrative matters were discussed.
Even at this late date, Mr. Nice still can’t make-up his mind about
which witnesses he will call. On Monday the prosecution will call, Dean
Manning, an investigator who has been employed by the Office of the
Prosecutor to investigate Serbreica.
=== 4 ===
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/smorg012604.htm
MILOSEVIC "TRIAL" SYNOPSIS - JANUARY 26, 2004: PROSECUTION CLAIMS
2,541 BODIES FOUND AND 70 IDENTIFIED FROM SREBRENICA
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - January 29, 2004
Monday, January 26, 2004 - Dean Manning an investigator employed by
the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICTY testified against Slobodan
Milosevic on Monday.
Prior to his employment in the Office of the Prosecutor Mr. Manning
was a detective for the Australian Police.
As an investigator for the prosecution, Mr. Manning prepared a report
about what he has found over the course of the exhumations of mass
graves connected to Srebrenica between 1996 until the present day.
Contrary to media reports the graves have not unearthed 8,000 bodies.
According to Mr. Manning 2,541 different bodies are confirmed to have
been found, and only 70 bodies have been identified by the ICTY.
Manning claimed that the B-H government may have identified more
bodies, but he didn't know how many.
According to Mr. Manning's report 1,175 bodies were killed by gunshot
wounds. 67 were killed by shrapnel or blast injuries. 11 were killed
by a combination of gunshot wounds and shrapnel or blast injuries, and
the cause of death for the rest is undetermined, meaning that the
cause of death for over half of the bodies is unknown.
All of the corpses are men, except for one woman. The youngest body
found is thought to be approximately 12 years old. The vast majority
of the cadavers are of military aged men.
President Milosevic asked Manning if there was any indication that
anybody from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was involved. Manning
said that there was no evidence that anybody from Yugoslavia was
involved with any of the killings.
Manning said that there are only two known perpetrators. One is a VRS
soldier who was later killed in the war, and the other is Drazen
Erdemovic, who is a Croat.
Erdemovic was sentenced to 10 years in prison for taking part in
executions, and was let out of prison after serving only 6 years.
Mr. Manning claimed that it was 30,000 men who had set out to
breakthrough the Serbian lines together with the B-H Army towards
Tuzla in July of 1995, and not the 15,000 that had been claimed by
earlier witnesses.
Mr. Manning knew that people were killed in the fighting around
Srebrenica, but he didn't know where they were buried. Manning held
the opinion that nobody in the graves had been killed in battle, even
though he didn't know how half of them had been killed.
Mr. Manning was only briefly examined by Mr. Nice. Rule 89(F) was used
and the examination-in-chief was over in just a few minutes. President
Milosevic was only given an hour and a half for his cross-examination,
and Mr. Tapuskovic was only given 15 minutes. It seems more than a
little odd that a witness of this nature would be examined so quickly.
The next witness was Reynaud Theunens. He holds the rank of commandant
in the Belgian army, and he works for the Office of the Prosecutor
too. He wrote a report for the Prosecution about the command structure
of the armed forces operating on the territory of the former SFRY. His
cross-examination will be covered in the summary of Tuesday's
proceedings.
=== 5 ===
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/smorg012704.htm
MILOSEVIC "TRIAL" SYNOPSIS - JANUARY 27, 2004: A NATO SPY EMPLOYED BY
THE PROSECUTION TESTIFIES AGAINST MILOSEVIC
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - January 30, 2004
TUESDAY, JANUARY 27, 2004 – Reynaud Theunens completed his
examination-in-chief and was cross-examined by Slobodan Milosevic on
Tuesday.
The first thing you should know about this witness is who he is. Mr.
Theunens holds the rank of commandant in the Belgian army, where he
serves as an active duty intelligence officer. In other words he’s a
NATO spy whose area of operation is the Balkans, and he is currently
employed by the Office of the Prosecutor at the Hague Tribunal.
Mr. Theunens “expert report” was entitled “Armed Forces in the SFRY
and the war in Croatia.” Even the title of his report was misleading
because he didn’t talk about all of the armed forces on the territory
of the SFRY who took part in the war in Croatia. He didn’t mention the
Croatian forces at all. Practically no mention was made of the HVO,
HOS, or ZNG forces, and when President Milosevic would ask the witness
about these forces he would say that it was outside the scope of his
report.
Mr. Theunens only dealt with armed forces that the Serbs were part of.
He didn’t look at all of the warring factions. He tried to say that
volunteer units were the same thing as paramilitary formations. He
didn’t seem to, or want to, understand that a volunteer unit is
subordinated to the command of either the army, or the territorial
defense forces, whereas a paramilitary unit is an armed group that
isn’t subordinated to any legal command structure.
Mr. Theunens had the opportunity to look over many documents from the
JNA, VJ, VRS, and SVK forces. With this in mind President Milosevic
asked the witness if he had seen any document where either he or the
VJ main staff issued orders to the VRS or the SVK forces. Mr. Theunens
reply was “just because we don’t have these documents it doesn’t mean
that they don’t exist.”
The closest thing to an order that Mr. Theunens could come up with was
a request that Milosevic sent to Martic asking him to let UNPROFOR
pass through SVK territory, and the reason why Milosevic sent the
request in the first place was because Akashi had asked him to.
The Yugoslav Army’s 30th and 40th personnel centers came up again and
President Milosevic again had to explain that these centers existed to
pay salaries, pension, and health benefits to the former officers
Yugoslav People’s Army and their families. Nobody who didn’t first
serve in the JNA got a dime from these personnel centers, and this is
material that has already been confirmed and explained by the former
Yugoslav President Zoran Lilic when he came to testify.
There is no proof that these personnel centers issued any orders. They
were just personnel centers, and no army anywhere in the world is
commanded by the personnel department.
This was a wasted day for the prosecution. Not even this NATO spy who
works for the Office of the Prosecutor at the Hague Tribunal could say
that Milosevic or the VJ main staff issued any orders to the SVK or
the VRS or to any other soldier serving outside of the borders of the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
1. JANUARY 20, 2004: A PRIJEDOR WITNESS TESTIFIES
2. JANUARY 21, 2004: "EXPERT WITNESS" TESTIFIES ABOUT WHAT "GENOCIDE"
MEANS TO HIM
3. JANUARY 22, 2004: TUDJMAN'S CABINET CHIEF ADMITS CROATIA MASSACRED
ITS OWN CITIZENS TO PROVIDE A PRETEXT FOR OPERATION FLASH
4. JANUARY 26, 2004: PROSECUTION CLAIMS 2,541 BODIES FOUND AND 70
IDENTIFIED FROM SREBRENICA
5. JANUARY 27, 2004: A NATO SPY EMPLOYED BY THE PROSECUTION TESTIFIES
AGAINST MILOSEVIC
=== 1 ===
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/smorg012003.htm
MILOSEVIC "TRIAL" SYNOPSIS - JANUARY 20, 2004: A PRIJEDOR WITNESS
TESTIFIES
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - January 23, 2004
JANUARY 20, 2004 - Karem Misanovic, a Muslim from the National Defense
Secretariat of the Prijedor T.O. testified at the so-called "trial" of
Slobodan Milosevic on Tuesday.
He testified about the takeover of Prijedor, by the Bosnian Serb
Territorial Defense forces, on April 30, 1992. The takeover happened
without firing a single shot being fired. The Serbs were endeavoring
to prevent war from breaking out.
President Milosevic produced a telegram from Alija Mustafic of the B-H
Defense Ministry ordering the Prijedor T.O. to attack the JNA. The
telegram was sent on April 29, 1992 and it was the reason why the
Serbs took over the town the next day.
There were seven Muslims in the Prijedor T.O., including the witness,
and six of them kept their jobs after the take over. From this example
we can see that even after the Serbs took over there was no
discrimination against the Muslims.
The witness eventually left Bosnia and went to Serbia. He stayed in
Serbia until he could go to Germany. He didn't have any problems in
Serbia and he couldn't identify a single Muslim who did.
All in all he was a pretty insignificant witness. You would think that
with just a few days left to go to present their case that the
prosecution would try to come-up with something more than they
presented here.
After Misanovic withdrew Tom Zwann, a social scientist from the
Netherlands took the stand. Mr. Zwann wrote a report about genocide.
The point of his coming to testify was to try and broaden the
definition of genocide for the prosecution.
The prosecution seems to realize that Milosevic isn't guilty of what
most people understand genocide to be, so they are going to use this
witness in order to try and broaden the definition of the word.
Dr. Zwann bemoaned the fact that people measure genocide against the
Jewish experience during the Second World War. He thinks people set
the bar to high when it comes to genocide. He believes that genocide
doesn't have to be a large scale affair. More over he complains that
the legal definition of genocide is too restrictive.
Unfortunately, for the prosecution, Zwann put a caveat on his own
definition of genocide. If the supposed victim is armed and is
fighting a war with the other side then they aren't victims of
genocide.
The Bosnian Muslims were armed, and they were fighting a war that they
started themselves against the Bosnian Serbs. So even under Zwann's
excessively broad definition of genocide the Muslims still aren't
victims.
Zwann's examination in chief was completed on January 20th and
Slobodan Milosevic will cross-examine on January 21st.
=== 2 ===
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/smorg012104.htm
MILOSEVIC "TRIAL" SYNOPSIS - JANUARY 21, 2004: "EXPERT WITNESS"
TESTIFIES ABOUT WHAT "GENOCIDE" MEANS TO HIM
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - January 24, 2004
WEDNESDAY JANUARY 21, 2004 - Dr. Ton Zwann, a so-called “expert
witness” from a newly established center for Holocaust studies in
Amsterdam was cross-examined by President Slobodan Milosevic on
Wednesday.
Zwann wrote a report about “genocide” of course he didn’t use any
legal definition of the word. Instead Zwann’s report concentrated on
his own ideas and personal feelings about what he considers genocide
to be.
President Milosevic observed that this witness’s evidence was totally
irrelevant because it constituted nothing more than an opinion that
wasn’t based on any legal definition. Mr. May repeatedly reminded
Milosevic that he wasn’t supposed to make legal arguments, apparently
Mr. May feels that his so-called “courtroom” is no place for making
legal arguments. We wouldn't want something so trivial as the law
getting in the way of this show trial would we Mr. May?
Zwann complained in his report that the legal definition of genocide
was too restrictive. Therefore, he made up his own personal definition
that he used for his report. I’m not sure what exactly Zwann’s
definition of genocide is, but in Dr. Zwann’s world the Partisan Army
of Josip Broz Tito committed genocide against the Ustasha, so that
should tell you something.
In Mr. Nice’s re-examination he asked Dr. Zwann if he could think of
any examples where Serbs engaged in genocidal activity and the witness
replied that the Partisan Army, which contained many Serbs, committed
genocide against the Ustasha.
In addition to claiming that the Ustasha was the victim of genocide at
the hands of the Serbs. Zwann sought to minimize the number of people
killed at the Jasenovac concentration camp by the Ustasha.
President Milosevic quoted data he obtained from the Simon Wiesenthal
Center stating that 600,000 to 700,000 Serbs, and 30,000 Jews and
Gypsies were massacred by Ustasha fascists at the Jasenovac camp, and
Zwann dismissed that data as being exaggerated. Zwann suggested that
the numbers were being inflated for propaganda purposes and that the
“real number” was between 100,000 and 120,000 victims in total,
including the Jewish victims.
Seeing as how the Simon Wiesenthal Center is the one of the most
respected institutions in the field of Holocaust studies in the world,
and has been studying the Holocaust ever since the Second World War.
In view of this fact President Milosevic asked the witness if, he
(whose institution has only existed for 4 months) considered himself
to be more competent than the Wiesenthall Center to assess the
holocaust, and the witness said that he considered their research to
be wrong.
Zwann never explained how come the Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human
rights organization, would be making propaganda for the Serbs. Nor did
Zwann explain where he got his numbers from.
At any rate, Dr. Zwann’s feelings don’t matter. As far as I am
concerned he can take his report and sit under a tree with a bunch of
dumb hippies; they can take some bong hits, they can sing “Kumbaya,”
and they can all discuss what “genocide” means to them. For all I know
that’s how he came up with his ideas in the first place.
Never mind that genocide already has a clear definition set out in
Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the
Crime of Genocide as adopted by Resolution 260 (III) A of the U.N.
General Assembly on 9 December 1948, and the definition is this:
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts
committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national,
ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated
to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
What happened here is obvious, seeing that they have not a single
shred of proof to accuse Milosevic of genocide, the prosecution has
decided to try and change the definition of genocide. They got some
jackass with a PhD. (Dr. Zwann) to come and put forward a bunch of
touchy feely psychobabble about what he thinks “genocide” is. This has
got to be one of the dumbest thing’s I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen
some pretty stupid things over the course of this fiasco they call a
“trial.”
After Zwann withdrew some administrative matters were discussed. Even
though they are nearly done presenting their pathetic excuse of a
case, the prosecution is still “unable” to provide Milosevic with the
documents for the upcoming witnesses. This is inexcusable, with only 11
days to go, that they can’t have the documents together.
Over two weeks ago Mr. Nice said that they had acquired a number of
documents from the Yugoslav Supreme Defense Council. Milosevic asked
for copies of those documents and still two weeks later he doesn’t have
them. All he wants are some lousy Xerox copies and the prosecution,
ignoring their own Rule 68, won’t give them to him.
After the break, Hrvoje Sarinic, Franjo Tudjman’s former Chief de
Cabinet, was examined by the prosecution. As one would expect, this
witness attributed God-like power to Slobodan Milosevic. This witness’s
basic claim was that every Serb everywhere was a mindless automaton
under the control of the all seeing and all knowing Slobodan Milosevic.
Slobodan Milosevic’s cross-examination of Sarinic was conducted on
Thursday and will be covered by this website in Thursday’s synopsis.
=== 3 ===
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/smorg012204.htm
MILOSEVIC "TRIAL" SYNOPSIS - JANUARY 22, 2004: TUDJMAN'S CABINET CHIEF
ADMITS CROATIA MASSACRED ITS OWN CITIZENS TO PROVIDE A PRETEXT FOR
OPERATION FLASH
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - January 27, 2004
THURSDAY, JANUARY 22, 2004 - Hrvoje Sarinic, Franjo Tudjman’s, former
Cabinet Chief was cross-examined by President Milosevic on Thursday.
Mr. Sarinic believed that the Krajina Serbs were a “Trojan horse” that
had been sent to Croatia to enact the politics of Slobodan Milosevic.
Milosevic joked that his control must have been so great that he was
able to send this “Trojan horse” into the Krajina centuries before he
was even born. The term “Trojan horse” was used more than once by Mr.
Sarinic to describe the Krajina Serbs, so it wasn’t merely a one time
slip of the tongue.
Mr. Sarinic also attempted to say that Milosevic controlled Arkan. He
didn’t have a single piece of proof to back this up. To explain his
lack of proof he said that “Milosevic covers his tracks too well.”
Slobodan Milosevic gave Mr. Sarinic more than he bargained for in his
cross-examination. President Milosevic had procured the transcripts of
top secret meetings held in the office of Franjo Tudjman.
From these transcripts Milosevic observed that Tudjman was speaking
quite openly about his desire to ethnically cleanse the Serbs from the
Krajina. In 1991 Tudjman was talking about "the need to cleanse Western
Slavonia.”
It also emerged that Tudjman, together with this witness and other top
Croatian officials, on April 30, 1995 planned to stage a “Serb” attack
on Croatian vehicles traveling on the Zagreb-Lipovac highway. The idea
behind staging this attack was to provide a pretext for the launch of
Operation Flash. Sure enough, late on that same day this attack was
carried out, and Operation Flash was launched the very next morning on
May 1, 1995.
At first Mr. Sarinic tried to deny these facts, but then he gave in
and admitted that it was true. He said that it was only “military
tactics,” and that “Operation Flash was justified.”
The result of Operation Flash was that thousands of Serbs were killed
or wounded and hundreds of thousands more were made into refugees.
But, oh well, it’s only “military tactics,” right Mr. Sarinic?
To top this off, Zagreb carried out this “Serb” attack on its own
citizens, at the same time as it was negotiating a peace agreement with
the RSK authorities in Knin.
These same people who massacred their own citizens on the highway in
order to provide a justification for their ethnic cleansing operations
have provided the prosecution with some of the intercepts that it is
using as “evidence” against Milosevic.
I’m sure we can trust the authenticity of their tapes, Sarinic himself
even "authenticated" some of the tapes. So what if the Croats murdered
their own people on the highway so that they could have an excuse to
ethnically cleanse the Serbs? They’re much too honest to doctor some
tapes. I’m sure we can trust them.
Mr. Sarinic, told Mr. Nice during the examination in chief that the
RSK Prime Minister, Bora Mikelic and Slobodan Milosevic had a “master
and slave relationship” with Milosevic as the master. It turns out that
Mr. Mikelic watches the “trial” and he saw Sarinic saying this.
Mr. Mikelic wrote a letter which was exhibited by President Milosevic.
In the letter Mikelic explains that he and Milosevic had a
relationship of equality and mutual respect, and that Sarinic knew this
and was spreading lies.
Sarinic was more candid than one might expect. He admitted that the
former Croatian Defense Minister, Martain Spegelj planned the blockade
and attack on JNA barracks in Croatia before the outbreak of
hostilities.
Sarinic also admitted that the United States, and in particular the
Clinton Administration, gave Croatia the green light to carry out
Operation Storm, and that it was the Americans who called off the
operation when it began heading towards Banja Luka.
With a wink and a nod from the United States, Croatia launched the
operation, and because the Americans were the ones running the show it
was the USA who called the operation off when their objectives had been
achieved.
What was their objective? If the result is any indication, it was to
carryout the largest ethnic cleansing in the Balkans since the Second
World War, since that is exactly what happened.
Mr. Sarinic was of the opinion that Croatia was the victim. In his
opinion the Serbs, who had been living in the Krajina for many
centuries, were “occupying” Croatia. He insisted that operations
“Storm” and “Flash” were justified.
Another admission that Mr. Sarinic made was that a French General,
named DeBoul (phonetic) who investigated the shelling of the Markale
Market in Sarajevo told him that the fatal shell could only have come
from Muslim-held positions.
Slobodan Milosevic read out transcripts of Mesic’s remarks at his
meetings with Tudjman. On November 21, 1991 Mesic said that Croatia
should “paint the JNA” as an aggressor army. He said that Croatia
should go to the UN and argue that Yugoslavia no longer existed, and
ask the UN not to recognize Yugoslavia anymore. Mr. Sarinic looked at
the transcript and basically confirmed that it was all in the
transcript, and that it was in line with their position at the time.
It seems like Croatia had a pretty self-important view of itself.
Croatia leaves Yugoslavia; and so on the basis of that it concludes
that Yugoslavia no longer exists. If Delaware left would the United
States cease to exist?
After Sarinic withdrew some administrative matters were discussed.
Even at this late date, Mr. Nice still can’t make-up his mind about
which witnesses he will call. On Monday the prosecution will call, Dean
Manning, an investigator who has been employed by the Office of the
Prosecutor to investigate Serbreica.
=== 4 ===
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/smorg012604.htm
MILOSEVIC "TRIAL" SYNOPSIS - JANUARY 26, 2004: PROSECUTION CLAIMS
2,541 BODIES FOUND AND 70 IDENTIFIED FROM SREBRENICA
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - January 29, 2004
Monday, January 26, 2004 - Dean Manning an investigator employed by
the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICTY testified against Slobodan
Milosevic on Monday.
Prior to his employment in the Office of the Prosecutor Mr. Manning
was a detective for the Australian Police.
As an investigator for the prosecution, Mr. Manning prepared a report
about what he has found over the course of the exhumations of mass
graves connected to Srebrenica between 1996 until the present day.
Contrary to media reports the graves have not unearthed 8,000 bodies.
According to Mr. Manning 2,541 different bodies are confirmed to have
been found, and only 70 bodies have been identified by the ICTY.
Manning claimed that the B-H government may have identified more
bodies, but he didn't know how many.
According to Mr. Manning's report 1,175 bodies were killed by gunshot
wounds. 67 were killed by shrapnel or blast injuries. 11 were killed
by a combination of gunshot wounds and shrapnel or blast injuries, and
the cause of death for the rest is undetermined, meaning that the
cause of death for over half of the bodies is unknown.
All of the corpses are men, except for one woman. The youngest body
found is thought to be approximately 12 years old. The vast majority
of the cadavers are of military aged men.
President Milosevic asked Manning if there was any indication that
anybody from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was involved. Manning
said that there was no evidence that anybody from Yugoslavia was
involved with any of the killings.
Manning said that there are only two known perpetrators. One is a VRS
soldier who was later killed in the war, and the other is Drazen
Erdemovic, who is a Croat.
Erdemovic was sentenced to 10 years in prison for taking part in
executions, and was let out of prison after serving only 6 years.
Mr. Manning claimed that it was 30,000 men who had set out to
breakthrough the Serbian lines together with the B-H Army towards
Tuzla in July of 1995, and not the 15,000 that had been claimed by
earlier witnesses.
Mr. Manning knew that people were killed in the fighting around
Srebrenica, but he didn't know where they were buried. Manning held
the opinion that nobody in the graves had been killed in battle, even
though he didn't know how half of them had been killed.
Mr. Manning was only briefly examined by Mr. Nice. Rule 89(F) was used
and the examination-in-chief was over in just a few minutes. President
Milosevic was only given an hour and a half for his cross-examination,
and Mr. Tapuskovic was only given 15 minutes. It seems more than a
little odd that a witness of this nature would be examined so quickly.
The next witness was Reynaud Theunens. He holds the rank of commandant
in the Belgian army, and he works for the Office of the Prosecutor
too. He wrote a report for the Prosecution about the command structure
of the armed forces operating on the territory of the former SFRY. His
cross-examination will be covered in the summary of Tuesday's
proceedings.
=== 5 ===
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/smorg012704.htm
MILOSEVIC "TRIAL" SYNOPSIS - JANUARY 27, 2004: A NATO SPY EMPLOYED BY
THE PROSECUTION TESTIFIES AGAINST MILOSEVIC
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - January 30, 2004
TUESDAY, JANUARY 27, 2004 – Reynaud Theunens completed his
examination-in-chief and was cross-examined by Slobodan Milosevic on
Tuesday.
The first thing you should know about this witness is who he is. Mr.
Theunens holds the rank of commandant in the Belgian army, where he
serves as an active duty intelligence officer. In other words he’s a
NATO spy whose area of operation is the Balkans, and he is currently
employed by the Office of the Prosecutor at the Hague Tribunal.
Mr. Theunens “expert report” was entitled “Armed Forces in the SFRY
and the war in Croatia.” Even the title of his report was misleading
because he didn’t talk about all of the armed forces on the territory
of the SFRY who took part in the war in Croatia. He didn’t mention the
Croatian forces at all. Practically no mention was made of the HVO,
HOS, or ZNG forces, and when President Milosevic would ask the witness
about these forces he would say that it was outside the scope of his
report.
Mr. Theunens only dealt with armed forces that the Serbs were part of.
He didn’t look at all of the warring factions. He tried to say that
volunteer units were the same thing as paramilitary formations. He
didn’t seem to, or want to, understand that a volunteer unit is
subordinated to the command of either the army, or the territorial
defense forces, whereas a paramilitary unit is an armed group that
isn’t subordinated to any legal command structure.
Mr. Theunens had the opportunity to look over many documents from the
JNA, VJ, VRS, and SVK forces. With this in mind President Milosevic
asked the witness if he had seen any document where either he or the
VJ main staff issued orders to the VRS or the SVK forces. Mr. Theunens
reply was “just because we don’t have these documents it doesn’t mean
that they don’t exist.”
The closest thing to an order that Mr. Theunens could come up with was
a request that Milosevic sent to Martic asking him to let UNPROFOR
pass through SVK territory, and the reason why Milosevic sent the
request in the first place was because Akashi had asked him to.
The Yugoslav Army’s 30th and 40th personnel centers came up again and
President Milosevic again had to explain that these centers existed to
pay salaries, pension, and health benefits to the former officers
Yugoslav People’s Army and their families. Nobody who didn’t first
serve in the JNA got a dime from these personnel centers, and this is
material that has already been confirmed and explained by the former
Yugoslav President Zoran Lilic when he came to testify.
There is no proof that these personnel centers issued any orders. They
were just personnel centers, and no army anywhere in the world is
commanded by the personnel department.
This was a wasted day for the prosecution. Not even this NATO spy who
works for the Office of the Prosecutor at the Hague Tribunal could say
that Milosevic or the VJ main staff issued any orders to the SVK or
the VRS or to any other soldier serving outside of the borders of the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.