Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Page 32157

1 Tuesday, 31 August 2004

2 [Defence Opening Statement]

3 [Open session]

4 [The accused entered court]

5 --- Upon commencing at 9.02 a.m.

6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, you may proceed with your opening

7 statement.

8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, for my opening

9 statement, I would need tomorrow as well. I would like to note that the

10 other side had three days, so I expect you to be so kind as to make this

11 day and the following day available to me as well.

12 May I start now?

13 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, this is your third bite at the

14 proverbial cherry. In response to the Prosecution's opening on the Kosovo

15 part of the case, you were allowed eight hours, two days. And in response

16 to the Prosecution's opening on the Bosnia and Croatian part of the case,

17 you were allowed three and a half hours. This is your third bite.

18 Please proceed.

19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, you personally, you

20 yourself, said that I have the right to a statement and to opening

21 arguments. What I made were statements. This is an opening argument. I

22 think that you should bear that in mind. I think that you should look at

23 this request that I've just put forth and I think that you should give me

24 additional time.

25 JUDGE ROBINSON: Please proceed, Mr. Milosevic.

Page 32158

1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. Robinson.

2 In the international public, for a long time and with clear

3 political intentions an untruthful, distorted picture was being created in

4 terms of what happened in the territory of the former Yugoslavia.

5 Accusations levelled against me are an unscrupulous lie and also a

6 tireless distortion of history. Everything has been presented in a

7 lopsided manner so -- in order to protect from responsibility those who

8 are truly responsible and to draw the wrong conclusions about what

9 happened and also in terms of the background of the war against

10 Yugoslavia.

11 There is a fundamental historical fact that one should proceed

12 from when seeking to understand what happened and which led to everything

13 that happened in the territory of Yugoslavia from 1991 until the present

14 day, and that is the violent destruction of a European state, Yugoslavia,

15 which was derived from the statehood of Serbia, the only ally of the

16 democratic world in that part of the world over the past two centuries.

17 There is no doubt that this fundamental historic fact is going to leave an

18 imprint on European history in the times to come.

19 A multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-confessional state was

20 destroyed, a state that had its historic and international legal

21 legitimacy. In its territory, according to the dictat of Germany and

22 Vatican, assisted by the United States and the European Community, pure

23 nation states, miniature nation states, were established. The state that

24 was destroyed was a member of all international organisations starting

25 with the first postal union from 1884 through the League of Nations, the

Page 32159

1 International Label Organisation, the United Nations, the World Bank, the

2 International Monetary Fund, and all other specialised agencies of the

3 United Nations all the way up to the Organisation for Security and

4 Cooperation in Europe.

5 Whose merit was this that this sovereign state was destroyed?

6 According to the Nuremberg principles, this constitutes the gravest

7 international crime, a crime against peace. Whose merit was it that a war

8 happened in which tens of thousands of civilians were killed, hundreds of

9 thousands of people wounded and maimed? Thousands of people lost their

10 homes and fled from their homes, mostly Serbs, and also there are millions

11 of damage in terms of property. The -- this is -- not speak of the

12 ecological disaster involved.

13 The international community will have to face up to all of this.

14 It is not only that a state was destroyed. The United Nations system was

15 destroyed. Also the corpus of principles upon which the world

16 civilisation was based has been destroyed. In addition to that, never in

17 history has a state disappeared by sheer coincidence. There was a great

18 deal of rhetoric involved in the destruction of Yugoslavia. When the

19 crisis first broke out, all the way up to the present day, everything that

20 has been said, including what this so-called Prosecution said, is wrong.

21 Yugoslavia did not simply disappear into thin air, as Mr. Robert Badinter

22 tried to explain, and in this way he resorted to some kind of legal

23 metaphysics. This country was destroyed through a plan, violently, and

24 through a war which continues to be waged, and a series of war crimes were

25 committed in this war.

Page 32160

1 An American theoretician, a prominent one, Stephen John Steedman,

2 noted, rightly so, in 1993 in the periodical Foreign Affairs that at the

3 beginning of the war, and I am quoting: "Slovenia or some other state did

4 not exist. There was only one state; Yugoslavia." So it is logical to

5 take that as a point of departure in any kind of legal analysis.

6 Yugoslavia, which was headed at this most critical time by a

7 member of the Presidency from Croatia, Stjepan Mesic, the Prime Minister

8 of the country at the time was also from Croatia; Ante Markovic. The

9 Foreign Minister was also from Croatia; Budimir Loncar.

10 As for the top echelons of the military, and we heard about that

11 here, among the 16 top generals, there were only two Serbs. The majority

12 were Croats, Slovenes, and people with other ethnic backgrounds.

13 This state had a strong armed force that was in a position to keep

14 the conflict under control and to prevent it from happening altogether.

15 However, this government let paramilitary formations, arms smugglers, have

16 their way, even the narco Mafia, when we look at the end of this process

17 in Kosovo. However, this government acted in concert with the European

18 Community, notably Germany and the Vatican.

19 As early as the end of June 1991, the European Community asked for

20 the legitimate army to remain within barracks and in this way to turn the

21 army voluntarily into detainees within their own country, which is only

22 logical -- and it is only logical that this led to secession and to the

23 creation of paramilitary formations. The secession of Slovenia happened

24 in 1991, and it was accompanied by armed action.

25 In June 1991, the Slovenian military formations without any cause

Page 32161

1 killed in cold blood JNA soldiers who were securing the border towards

2 Austria and Italy and took over border posts. From the point of view of

3 the UN charter, from the point of view of general legal principles

4 recognised by civilised nations, this is a classical example of an armed

5 rebellion against a state. Therefore the state is duty-bound to take all

6 necessary measures in order to restore law and order.

7 We know that when acting on orders given by the federal Prime

8 Minister, Ante Markovic, the commander of the 5th army, a Slovenian,

9 General Konrad Kolsek, informed the government of Slovenia that the

10 Yugoslav People's Army will regain control over the border and that this

11 task would be carried out.

12 The Slovenian leadership, instead of making it possible to carry

13 these decisions out peacefully, these decisions taken by the federal

14 authorities, said that they are taking this challenge and that they would

15 resort to force in order to oppose it, and that's what they did. Their

16 paramilitary forces, which then included 36.000 persons illegally armed,

17 were used by Slovenia to launch an armed offensive. All of them knew full

18 well that the Yugoslav army, educated in the spirit of brotherhood and

19 unity, would not shoot at Slovenians who they considered to be their own

20 citizens. So actually the killing of JNA soldiers was a mere premeditated

21 crime. It was no war.

22 Grave war crimes were committed. Not even military medical

23 institutions were spared. The troika of the European Community toured the

24 area and described the dramatic situation. There is a long list of crimes

25 and there is also film material documenting the crimes of the Slovenian

Page 32162

1 paramilitary forces, and this footage was shot by an Austrian TV company.

2 Due to the time constraints that you have imposed upon me, I do not have

3 the possibility of playing these tapes now, but I am going to call certain

4 witnesses and show them then.

5 On the 10th of July, 1991, the European parliament passed a

6 resolution condemning not the rebels, not the secessionists, but the legal

7 force, the Yugoslav People's Army. And inversion was carried out between

8 the victim and the executioner, and in this way the European Community and

9 the United States fuelled the war.

10 I am pointing this out because it has been said time and again

11 ever since that this is what happened in the former Yugoslavia, and this

12 is a formula that was resorted to all the time. In Croatia, crimes

13 against the Serbs started even earlier, even before secession was

14 declared. The same methods in the same areas where the genocide against

15 the Serb people started in 1941 by the Ustasha formations in the so-called

16 Independent State of Croatia.

17 World experts who studied genocide, the genocide that occurred in

18 different places and at different times, for example, Leo Cooper, Peter

19 Drost, Ted Gertz, Louis Horowitz, George Cram, and others came to the

20 conclusion that genocide over a people can occur only once. Any further

21 attempt would turn into civil war. And this thesis was confirmed in

22 Croatia.

23 The genocide over the Serbs in Croatia in 1941 started by making

24 lists and calling upon groups and giving -- in order to ostensibly give

25 them information. However, they were not given information. Serbs were

Page 32163

1 killed and sent off to concentration camps.

2 This time, when similar things were done, the Serbs resisted, and

3 they felt seriously manipulated by politicians who had defended ideals of

4 fraternity and unity and then called upon the people in a different way.

5 Old Ustasha formulas and old Ustasha symbols were resorted to. Laws were

6 passed along the fast track and the Serbs lost their status of a

7 constituent people. Without the army isolated in barracks, the Serbs in

8 Krajina were prepared to die, but they were not to submit themselves yet

9 to another genocide.

10 A long time before the secession of 1991 in Croatia, armed groups

11 functioned there. The so-called voluntary peoples protection forces;

12 Zebra, Black Wolves, the Wolves from Vukovar, et cetera. In Zagreb on the

13 28th of May, a military parade was organised a month before secession

14 where arms were shown, arms that particularly came from Germany. These

15 were only preparations for what would happen later. Groups of

16 paramilitaries were transferred from Croatia to Bosnia at that time

17 because President Tudjman had announced a change of borders and that the

18 borders of Croatia would be moved to the Drina.

19 In July 1991, the armed paramilitaries in Croatia started a

20 frontal war. From the 20th of July until the 4th of August, there were 75

21 attacks against the JNA.

22 THE INTERPRETER: Could the speaker please be asked to slow down.

23 It is impossible for the interpreters to follow any longer.

24 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, the interpreters are asking you to

25 speak slowly, more slowly.

Page 32164

1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] They could have said that to me. I

2 didn't hear them.

3 JUDGE ROBINSON: They did.

4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.

5 Serb houses were set on fire and individual crimes against Serbs

6 were transformed into mass liquidations. In the cornfield near the

7 village of Jankovci, 65 Serbs were slaughtered. All of them have been

8 identified. In the village of Svinjarevo 25 were killed, and so on and so

9 forth. Entire villages in the area of Papuk and Slunj were razed to the

10 ground. The most widespread form of terror over the Serbian people were

11 forcible evictions, and this was the strongest link between the years 1941

12 and 1991.

13 These activities began in Western Slovenia immediately after the

14 HDZ won the elections. A psychosis was created so that people would be

15 encouraged to move out. Various methods were used. Serbian children were

16 mocked in school. The people were brought into police stations. Serbs

17 were dismissed from work on a large scale, their houses were bombed. The

18 Crisis Staff in Slavonska Pozega on the 28th of October, 1991, issued an

19 order on the eviction of Serbs from 24 villages; Oblakovac, Orijaca,

20 Slatina, and so on, within a 24-hour period. This order was broadcast on

21 the radio and published in the press. Those who refused to comply were

22 taken to concentration camps. A large scale exodus of Serbs in the areas

23 of Podravska Slatina, and Daruvar took place.

24 From July to August 1991 to the -- 1992, many Serbian villages

25 were ethnically cleansed. Documents on all this were submitted to the

Page 32165

1 European Community.

2 War activities were then taken to the territory of Bosnia and

3 Herzegovina. The ideological foundations were laid in 1970 with the

4 Islamic declaration of Alija Izetbegovic. This was a secret platform.

5 Later on, in 1984, a book by the same author was published on Islam and

6 the West, and then the Islamic declaration was published again in 1990.

7 It is well known that it states that there can be no peace and

8 co-existence between the Islamic faith and non-Islamic faiths. This is

9 repeated many times in all these books and publications.

10 At the Bosnian and Herzegovinian Assembly session on the 21st of

11 December 1991, Izetbegovic said he was willing to sacrifice peace for a

12 sovereign Bosnia and Herzegovina. There was mass mobilisation and civil

13 war started with abundant financial help arriving from Saudi Arabia, Iran,

14 and other Islamic countries. After this, many Mujahedin arrived.

15 On the 6th summit of the organisation of the Islamic Conference

16 held on the 9th of December, 1991, before the war was fully developed and

17 before Bosnia and Herzegovina was recognised, support was given to their

18 brothers in faith, support for the creation of the first Islamic state in

19 Europe. Even today Bosnia and Herzegovina does not have a majority Muslim

20 population. Not only was there substantial financial help, but Alija

21 Izetbegovic was feted and honoured at the Islamic Conference held in Djeda

22 on the -- from the 1st to the 2nd of December 1991. They also extended

23 their concern to two areas in Serbia; to Kosovo and the area of Raska, or

24 as they called it, Sandzak.

25 The first holy warriors, the Mujahedin, arrived from Afghanistan,

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Page 32167

1 Lebanon, Morocco and Pakistan, armed with weapons sent by the CIA to the

2 rebels in Afghanistan. A group of 400 members of Hezbollah arrived in

3 Sarajevo as military instructors. Following the tradition from World War

4 II of a joint action under the auspices of Nazi Germany against the

5 democratic coalition to which the then Yugoslavia belonged, Tudjman and

6 Izetbegovic, the two leaders of the rebels, signed an agreement stating

7 that the armed forces of the Croatian Defence Council would be part of the

8 unified armed forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This was followed by the

9 expulsion of Serbs from areas under the control of Muslim forces. Tens of

10 thousands of people were expelled from Mostar, 2.000 from Gorazde, and so

11 on.

12 As happened in Croatia, in Bosnia and Herzegovina allegedly

13 retired American officers were sent to be instructors of the Muslim army.

14 Combat operations developed and moved from the north toward the south, and

15 they were finally transferred to the territory of Serbia, that is to

16 Kosovo. The pattern along which the destruction of Yugoslavia was

17 planned, Kosovo being the last phase, is very simple: Reliance was placed

18 on paramilitary rebel forces, criminals, and on Kosovo, the narco Mafia,

19 as well as terrorist forces.

20 During the time of Croatia and Serbia, the legitimate force was

21 the JNA, and later on the army of Yugoslavia. There was open aggression

22 on the remainder of Yugoslavia, Serbia and Montenegro. Tens of thousands

23 of bombs were dropped and various projectiles with depleted uranium and

24 five to six times more poison was dropped than was the case in Hiroshima.

25 All this happened in the aggression against Yugoslavia by the NATO pact.

Page 32168

1 The involvement of the West, primarily the Vatican and Germany,

2 was evident from the very beginning. Donald Horowitz, the well-known

3 American theoretician, presented arguments in his study on ethnic and

4 national conflicts, that they take on their worst form, war, when they

5 gain international support. And this is precisely what happened on the

6 territory of Yugoslavia.

7 The war on this territory was a synchronised activity by

8 secessionist forces and external forces who, in preparing the bloodshed

9 and fuelling the bloodshed, implanted into Yugoslavia Ustasha extremists

10 and Nazis, Islamic fundamentalists and Albanian terrorists whose role was

11 to be the detonator for the outbreak of the conflict. The external forces

12 in the initial phases acted behind the scenes, supplying the secessionists

13 with arms and money and infiltrating mercenaries into the country. The

14 final destruction of Yugoslavia was perpetrated through institutional

15 deceptions.

16 In the final act from -- the final document from Helsinki, the USA

17 and other countries promised to respect the integrity of all the countries

18 in the area, all the states, and said that they would refrain from any

19 activities against the territorial integrity and unity and independence of

20 every signatory country. This was signed in Paris in 1990. Only a year

21 after this, the international community acted openly on the political

22 scene as the main force for the destruction of Yugoslavia.

23 On Brioni on the 7th of July, 1991, a declaration was signed on

24 the peaceful resolution of the conflict in the SFRY. Relying on these

25 documents which I have mentioned, the European Community promised to seek

Page 32169

1 a peaceful solution and to respect the territorial integrity of

2 Yugoslavia, which was the only legally protected entity, which actually

3 gave it the mandate to mediate in this conflict. The whole process

4 started from several -- there were several possible solutions that were

5 proposed, and concessions were proposed that could be relied on.

6 Instead of all this, Lord Carrington, at a meeting on the 18th of

7 October 1991, set out an ultimatum, and there was no alternative to the

8 disappearance of Yugoslavia. This was the model applied by Hitler in

9 1941. Nazi values won the day. The right to the destruction of a state

10 to secession was given priority over preserving a state and the right to

11 preserve a state, a member of the UN.

12 The paradox is that the right that was given to the secessionists

13 of Yugoslavia is denied, for example, to the Irish by the British, and so

14 on. Let us remember that there was a time when Serbian fighters fought

15 together with the allies in World War II and that then the troops of the

16 so-called Independent State of Croatia, as well as some forces from

17 Bosnia, also then within the Independent State of Croatia, fought on the

18 side of the Nazi forces. At that time the well-known Handzar Division

19 from Bosnia was sent to France as part of the convicts unit, and there

20 they committed unprecedented crimes.

21 Let us go back to Carrington's document, which was the first blow

22 against the sovereignty of Yugoslavia. This is an evident deception.

23 This is something that transformed further negotiations into a farce.

24 After this, the secessionist republics were recognised under strong

25 pressure from Germany and the Vatican, against the elementary principles

Page 32170

1 of international law, the practice of the United Nations, and the practice

2 of a leading power, the USA.

3 Very well. On the basis of Smithson's declaration from the 7th of

4 January 1932, the United Nations -- United States promised not to

5 recognise countries arising from violent changes. This principle first

6 became the regional rule of the USA and then entered the universal rules

7 of international law. This time America trampled on its own law.

8 In July 1991, before the war started, the Minister of Foreign

9 Affairs of Germany, Genscher, advocated that Croatia and Slovenia be

10 recognised right away. A parallel action was waged by the Vatican. The

11 ambassador with the Holy See, Thomas Patrick Milady, in mid-1991, the

12 Vatican initiated an unprecedented action and led the forces lobbying for

13 the recognition of Croatia and Slovenia.

14 In August 1991, Pope John Paul II sent Archbishop Torano to

15 Yugoslavia. On his return, he submitted a report stating that Serbia was

16 indisputably the aggressor. This was another shameless lie. This was

17 hypocrisy on the part of a spiritual leader. Aggression on one's own

18 country is something that only be conceived of maliciously. However, this

19 was accepted by the press and there was perfect coordination between the

20 Vatican and Germany. In December 1991, Genscher visited the Vatican. On

21 his return on the 19th of December, he announced that Germany would

22 recognise Croatia and Slovenia regardless of the positions of other

23 countries. And this was carried out on the 23rd of December. The Vatican

24 did this on the 13th of January 1992.

25 Germany and the Vatican were led by their historical geostrategic

Page 32171

1 interests. For years they worked on the destruction of Yugoslavia. This

2 was stated by Helmut Kohl in the magazine Politics International, issue

3 66. He said that the creation -- that the decisive period started when

4 Kinkel became head of the security service of Germany, and he established

5 close links with the Ustasha emigres. These were forces which worked on

6 the break-up of Yugoslavia, according to the writings of the well-known

7 American analyst Eric Schmidt-Birnbaum. These were Josip Balovic [phoen],

8 Josip Boljkovac, Franjo Tudjman, and Stjepan Mesic, the present Croatian

9 president. Mesic confirmed his role on Slovenian television by stating

10 that the idea on the break-up of Yugoslavia was something he wanted to

11 transmit to those who had the strongest influence on its fate, Genscher

12 and the Pope.

13 "I met Genscher three times. He made it possible for me to contact

14 the Holy See. The Pope and Genscher agreed to the total break-up of

15 Yugoslavia." End of quotation.

16 After this, recognition followed by other members of the European

17 Community in January 1992. In the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, this

18 happened on the 6th of April of the same year. On the very date of

19 Hitler's attack on Yugoslavia in 1941; the 6th of April.

20 The federal entities were recognised, and in there, as it is

21 stated, "internationally recognised borders." However, never in any

22 international document were the administrative borders recognised. There

23 was not even an internal document about these borders. What is most

24 important in all this, recognition is a one-sided political act, whereas

25 the establishing of borders is a process, an internal process. The units

Page 32172

1 that were recognised did not meet the elementary prerequisites to be

2 recognised as states. For a state to be recognised, it needs to have a

3 legitimate state apparatus, stable political structures, there must be a

4 monopoly of power within the territory, full control over the use of

5 power, and, what is most important, a state has to express its strength

6 and its ability to provide security on the international and internal

7 levels. None of this was complied with. There was a bloody civil war

8 which will be recorded as something unique in modern history but in a very

9 negative way.

10 In legal circles throughout the world, the recognition of the

11 rebel forces caused great astonishment and was condemned. Cedric

12 Thornberry, the leader of the UNPROFOR, stated, I quote: "When Ambassador

13 Cutileiro notified us of the decision to recognise, General Morillon and I

14 were astonished." The French newspaper Figaro called this legal

15 hypocrisy. General MacKenzie, in his memoirs, states, "Although we were

16 not diplomats, all of us in uniform were sure that fighting would break

17 out all around us as soon as recognition is announced."

18 Special envoy of the UN, Cyrus Vance, stated that recognition of

19 Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina by the European Community and

20 the United States, I quote: "Led to the war that is being waged on the

21 territory of Yugoslavia." He said this in September 1992.

22 The recognition of fictitious states in a civil war represents an

23 indirect form of aggression against the Socialist Federative Republic of

24 Yugoslavia. Along with a powerful media campaign and a -- deluding the

25 international community by violation of international law and the laws of

Page 32173

1 the United Nations, the secessionist states were recognised as members of

2 the UN. The rest of the Yugoslavia, the core part of Yugoslavia, were

3 imposed with sanctions in May 1992, and the country was isolated, and in

4 July of the same year they were excluded or expelled from the United

5 Nations only because we did not accept, by a stroke of the pen, to have

6 the existing state deleted, the state in which we were living.

7 In this legal chaos and this moral decline of the leading powers

8 in the post-Cold War period and of the Vatican, the way was opened for

9 craziness and lawlessness from the borders in the south to Kosovo -- in

10 the north to Kosovo in the south. This ad hoc Tribunal was formed also

11 with the one and only objective of covering up the piled-up mistakes of a

12 Western policy and to justify the crimes, the destruction of a state, and

13 the highly technological barbarism committed by NATO countries in their

14 three-month bombing of Yugoslavia. Mass crimes were committed against its

15 citizens, medieval heritage of the Serbian people in Kosovo was destroyed,

16 and so on and so forth.

17 By instrumentalising extremely complex events in the territory of

18 Yugoslavia and by placing the responsibility on Yugoslavia and myself

19 personally as aggressors, a very obvious tactic was used to close the

20 circle and prevent logical thinking based on empirical principles.

21 Senseless, vulgar theories about bad guys and rough state cannot serve to

22 explain historical facts and provide the historical responsibility for the

23 destruction of a state. The joint criminal intent existed but it didn't

24 proceed from Belgrade, however, nor did it exist in Belgrade at all.

25 Quite the contrary. It existed through the joint forces of the

Page 32174

1 secessionists, Germany and the Vatican, and also the rest of the countries

2 of the European Community and the United States.

3 During my first appearance in this place and then on several

4 occasions after that, I questioned the legality of this so-called

5 Tribunal. During the trial, you have provided me with a lot of arguments

6 in support of my position. I will not dwell on the lack of the legal

7 basis for the establishment of this Tribunal. I would just like to recall

8 that the source of judicial power can only come from international

9 treaties and not resolutions, as stated by the UN Secretary-General

10 himself in a statement to the Security Council on May 3rd, 1993. However,

11 you owe a response to the international community of where does the right

12 of the Security Council come to suspend legal treaties? We have the legal

13 -- the Geneva Conventions from 1949 as well as Additional Protocols to

14 punish war crimes which place the responsibility for a trial of such cases

15 on national courts. An international court can have authority only if it

16 was created by a lege artis act and if it is of a general nature. This

17 Tribunal lacks both elements. The act of the establishment of this

18 Tribunal is of an individual nature. It's a political nature. The

19 elementary legal principle is equality. So then we have the question why

20 were not courts formed for all the wars that are being waged throughout

21 the world and that had been waged at least in the past decade of the 20th

22 century. Although there are no principled reasons for not doing something

23 like that and to apply to everybody if such a thing were legal.

24 In other words, this Tribunal represents the most serious form of

25 discrimination against one country, and it is a violation of the

Page 32175

1 protection against all forms of discrimination.

2 At the very beginning, I requested that this institution uses its

3 authority from Article 96 of the UN Charter and to ask the permission of

4 the General Assembly and to ask the International Court of Justice,

5 legally the highest judicial instance in the UN system which is authorised

6 to interpret the Charter and to provide its legal opinion on whether the

7 Resolutions of the Security Council establishing this Tribunal were in

8 accordance with the UN Charter or not. The fact that this Tribunal has

9 given it the right to decide for itself whether it was established in a

10 legally valid way and then concluded, as could be expected, that it was

11 done in a legal way does not mean that this conclusion is correct or that

12 it even had the right to reach such a conclusion. Namely, this so-called

13 Tribunal, just like any other Tribunal, is not authorised to bring

14 judgements on its own legality. That is why this decision is legally

15 invalid. Courts are authorised to decide on their own authority on

16 whether they are competent, on whether they are competent to decide on a

17 question or not. However, the question of the jurisdiction of a court and

18 the question of its legality are two separate issues. The question of

19 legality has precedence over the question of authority, because if a court

20 is not legal, then the question of its authority or jurisdiction is

21 pointless. As opposed to the question of its own authority, no court can

22 decide on its own legality, because by tradition it is not permissible to

23 judge in one's own matter.

24 Also, this illegal Tribunal does not have the right to deprive

25 persons before it from an answer of whether they are facing a legal or an

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Page 32177

1 illegal organ, particularly if there is a legally valid way to resolve

2 this question, because the person in question then is denied justice, deni

3 de justice, if this is not allowed to be answered.

4 However, I'm afraid that the people in authority in this

5 institution are aware that the International Court of Justice would be in

6 accordance with the view of their previous president, Mohamed Dejoui

7 [phoen], stated in his book The New World Order, and control of the

8 legality of the acts of the Security Council where, amongst the acts or

9 the laws that he mentions as controversial, both Resolutions referring to

10 this Tribunal are cited.

11 This Tribunal is not an International Tribunal and it is not an

12 independent organ, as you wish to present it. Amongst the public, there

13 has been an ideological fiction. The international community, which is

14 allegedly behind this Tribunal, is actually a deception. The ideal to

15 establish the Tribunal came from Kinkel after he succeeded Genscher, the

16 main criminal in the destruction of Yugoslavia. The idea was taken over

17 by Madeleine Albright, and the costs of the preliminary activities as well

18 as later activities were funded by the Soros Foundation who also founded a

19 coalition for international justice as an NGO in order to provide

20 "assistance" to the Tribunal. "Assistance" please I would like to place

21 in quotes, to these who are writing the transcript. These members and

22 other NGOs, some of whom today are working in this Tribunal today, were

23 engaged in 1992 in Bosnia and Herzegovina to gather the evidence on

24 alleged crimes by Serbs.

25 Albright presented this before the US Congress, engaged different

Page 32178

1 lobbies and different media for the purpose of fabricating a certain image

2 which would influence the public. Sometimes they have called her the

3 mother of the Tribunal.

4 As for the authenticity of the evidence given by the NGOs, we can

5 use a scandal about the false documents presented by representatives of

6 those organisations in which I was allegedly accused for alleged crimes in

7 Kosovo. A journalist of the New York Times who wrote an article based on

8 this false information was forced to resign for professional and ethical

9 reasons.

10 I have that issue of the New York Times here but I don't have time

11 to present it.

12 The drafter of the Statute, Michael Scharf, of the Tribunal gave a

13 very precise assessment of the Tribunal in an interview to the Washington

14 Post on October 3rd, 1999. I quote: "The Tribunal is a useful political

15 channel which serves to diplomatically isolate rogue leaders and to

16 strength political will in the world, to apply sanctions and to enforce

17 power."

18 In other words, the Tribunal is an instrument of war and not of

19 justice. This was confirmed in Globe and Mail, a Canadian magazine, by

20 Marcus McGee, who stressed that the Tribunal, I quote: "Is a part of the

21 NATO war strategy."

22 So this is a private justice only known to them imposed by a war

23 coalition, and the intention is to return the judiciary to the medieval

24 era.

25 In the world this Tribunal is called a propaganda instrument of

Page 32179

1 NATO, so there can be no question of any independence at all. We also

2 need to add that since 1996 there has been a constant communication

3 between the NATO Secretary-General and your Chief Prosecutor. And on 9th

4 of May, 1996, a memorandum was signed by the Chief Prosecutor and the

5 Supreme Commander of NATO for Europe about the modalities of cooperation.

6 Therefore, NATO, and not the United Nations, have taken over the role of

7 the Tribunal policemen, and that is why this Tribunal cannot be considered

8 an international institution at all but an institution of NATO.

9 Another factor supporting this claim, your own Article 32 of the

10 Statutes provides that expenses for the Tribunal should be covered by the

11 regular budget of the United Nations, but in practice the money comes from

12 very morbid sources, dark sources like the Soros Foundation, different

13 other foundations, and also from Islamic countries. The bulk of the money

14 comes from NATO itself. According to NATO spokesman Shea, I quote: "NATO

15 is the biggest financial source for the Tribunal." He stated this on the

16 17th of May, 1999, in Brussels.

17 We also need to recall that Soros is also funding the liberation

18 army of Kosovo, the KLA, and their main propaganda newspaper, Koha Ditore.

19 During the signing on the 12th of September, 1990, in Moscow,

20 together with the foreign ministries of the Democratic Republic of Germany

21 at that time, also France, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, the United

22 States, of the treaty on the definite order of Germany, Genscher stated,

23 "We do not want for anything else other than to live with all other

24 nations in freedom and democracy. State unity represents for us a greater

25 responsibility."

Page 32180

1 Very well, I will read more slowly.

2 "State unity represents for us a greater responsibility but it

3 does not at the same time represent our aspirations for having greater

4 power."

5 Chancellor Kohl, on the 3rd of October, on the day of the

6 reunification of Germany, sent a message to all world governments,

7 including the Yugoslav government, in which, amongst other things, he

8 said, "In future only peace will emanate from German territory. We are

9 aware that the inviolability of borders, the respect of territorial

10 integrity and sovereignty of all states in Europe are the basic condition

11 for peace, and we also have moral and legal obligations which arise from

12 German history."

13 Big words and big promises given to the rest of humanity and in

14 particular Europe at the point when the German nation finally was allowed

15 to remove the burden of its division which was imposed on it precisely as

16 a result of the darkest period of German history. Yes, this was a big

17 promise, but at the same time an empty promise, because how did the German

18 top leadership view the moral and legal obligations arising from German

19 history, which they cited, and what is their relation to the inviolability

20 of borders and respect of territorial integrity and sovereignty of all

21 states in Europe, as they said themselves as the main condition of peace.

22 You could practically at the same time see very well in Yugoslavia

23 how this was. In the territory of that state which German history -- at

24 that point of the 20th century inflicted the cost of 3 million lives,

25 1.247.000 victims in First World War, and 1.700.000 in World War II.

Page 32181

1 Precisely in that month of German reunification, security services of the

2 Yugoslav People's Army uncovered and managed to tape secretly activities

3 pertaining to the illegal import of weapons by Croatia aimed at

4 facilitating the armed secession of Croatia. So actually, we're talking

5 about the break-up of the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia. This

6 import of weapons went through Hungary but also went through some units of

7 Germany, which made it ironical that Chancellor Kohl said in his message

8 that only peace would emanate from German territory.

9 The arming of the secessionists was not the only or the first kind

10 of involvement of Germany in the break-up of Yugoslavia and in the

11 creation of the Yugoslav crisis. The entire activities of Slovenia and

12 Croatia in their violent achievement of independence was not only aided by

13 Germany but to a considerable degree was encouraged by the top state

14 leaders.

15 Within the efforts to prevent the conflict or to stop the conflict

16 in the territory of Croatia as well as to stop attacks on the JNA, the

17 Presidency of Yugoslavia and the leaders of the Yugoslav republics

18 gathered in Belgrade at a meeting on the 20th and the 21st of August,

19 1991, and then adopted several decisions for the purpose of stabilising

20 the situation. A small programme of political and economic cooperation

21 was adopted. A commission was formed to develop agreements on the future

22 form of the multi-ethnic states, and there was an agreement also reached

23 between the leadership of Croatia and the officials of the JNA.

24 On the 20th of August, there was an extraordinary ministerial

25 session in which the foreign ministers of European Community member states

Page 32182

1 concluded that they welcomed the readiness of all parties to embark on

2 negotiations about the future of Yugoslavia and requested all the sides to

3 conduct the negotiations in goodwill amongst themselves.

4 On that very same day, Genscher held a consultative meeting with

5 the foreign ministers of Slovenia and Croatia. On the 24th of August,

6 1991, he called Boris Filic [phoen], the Yugoslav Ambassador to Bonn, who

7 happened to be a Slovene, which was a guarantee that the message directed

8 to the Yugoslav authorities would also be directed to Ljubljana and

9 Zagreb, and told him if the bloodshed continues and if the policy of

10 violence with the support of the JNA is not stopped immediately, the

11 federal government will seriously have to consider the recognition of

12 Slovenia and Croatia within the existing borders. It will also conduct

13 the review on these matters within the European Community.

14 The question is the following: Was more impetus needed, was a

15 greater impetus needed to those who had already proclaimed secession and

16 who had already resorted to weapons in order to carry this through? Was a

17 greater impetus needed in order to violate the cease-fire? Was any

18 greater impetus needed than this message that continued bloodshed will

19 lead to the recognition of those states? Unfortunately, that's what

20 happened. The message did yield the desired effect because the Croatian

21 paramilitary forces gave up on the cease-fire that had already been agreed

22 upon and the conflict escalated.

23 Finally, as Germany was ready to support Slovenia and Croatia in

24 this illegal secession, even at the cost of serious clashes with their

25 partners from the EC and the United States, Lord Owen speaks about this

Page 32183

1 too. You have admitted into evidence this -- his book here. He says: "I

2 remind you Genscher's letter to Perez de Cuellar, written in German,

3 invoked public statements that led to greater tensions in Yugoslavia and

4 invoked the Paris charter. But as Perez de Cuellar reminded him in his

5 reply, Genscher forgot to refer to the EC declaration adopted in Rome on

6 the 8th of November, 1991, which said that the prospects for recognising

7 the independence of those republics that so wished could only be looked

8 into within the overall environment."

9 I end the quote I referred to from Owen's book.

10 So, as I said, the European Community, on the 26th of March, 1991,

11 supported the unity of Yugoslavia but then the European Community, on the

12 8th of November, 1991, also called for a comprehensive solution in yet

13 another declaration that was adopted then.

14 Finally, the German position did prevail, and once Pandora's box

15 was opened, once the illegal secession was recognised, even at the cost of

16 human lives, it was difficult to stop the bloodstained process. Things

17 did not end, in the case of Slovenia and Croatia, irrespective of the

18 bloody consequences. A further step was made.

19 At the end of his book, on page 384, Lord Owen says -- I've been

20 asked to read quotations slower so I'll try to do that. "The mistake made

21 by the European Union regarding the recognition of Croatia could have been

22 redressed had the situation not been complicated by the recognition of

23 Bosnia-Herzegovina irrespective of consequences. The United States of

24 America that opposed the recognition of Croatia in December 1991 became a

25 very active advocate of the independence of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1992.

Page 32184

1 However, it was not logical and it was not unavoidable to recognise

2 Bosnia-Herzegovina, a Yugoslav republic that consisted of three large

3 constituent peoples with very different positions regarding independence."

4 So one mistake followed the other. One impudence followed the

5 other, and the cost was paid in human lives. And if human lives are the

6 price that had to be paid, then this is turned into a crime, a crime

7 against peace. And it is probably no accident that this illegal

8 institution does not have jurisdiction over that, crimes against peace.

9 Warren Christopher, the US secretary of state, in his interview to

10 US Today, which was also carried by Die Welt on the 18th of June, 1993,

11 Christopher said in this interview: "During the overall process of

12 independence, and especially the premature recognition of independence,

13 grave mistakes were made and particular responsibility in this respect is

14 borne by the Germans. Many experts believe that the problems that we

15 confront today stem from the recognition of Croatia and later on Bosnia."

16 Roland de Mar [phoen], Christopher's French colleague, says in the

17 Deutsche Zeitung, on 21st of June, 1993, when he was criticising the

18 European Community for recognising Slovenia and Croatia, he says in a

19 hasty and precipitous manner, and this speeded up the break-up of

20 Yugoslavia. I quote: "The responsibility of Germany and the Vatican for

21 the escalation of the crisis is enormous, obviously."

22 Another participant in these events, the then Dutch Prime

23 Minister, Ruud Lubbers, said in 1997 that German Chancellor Kohl exerted

24 pressure on the European Community in order to have it change its position

25 that the independence of Croatia could not -- should not be recognised in

Page 32185

1 order not to fan a civil war. I quote: "Van den Broek and I could stand

2 on our heads. The other Europeans could only look around in astonishment.

3 The Germans did what they did, and that was a catastrophe." That is Au

4 Courant, the 21st of December, 1997.

5 When all this support to Slovenian and Croatian secessionists in

6 their efforts to carry out their plan is taken into consideration, then

7 those statements made by Stjepan Mesic should come as no surprise when he

8 spoke about the role of Genscher and Pope John Paul II. But Germany's

9 strong support to the break-up of Yugoslavia and the recognition of the

10 independence of its break-away republics is something that is general

11 knowledge now. However, the question remains in many people's minds what

12 are the motives of this kind of action and this kind of obstinacy and

13 persistence on the part of top leaders in the German state that had just

14 been reunified. This question is answered by one of the world's leading

15 geopolitical experts, General Pierre-Marie Gallois, a person who worked

16 closely with General de Gaulle. And he said in an interview on the 23rd

17 of July, 1993, the following: "The break-up of this country and the

18 linking of Croats and Slovenians to German industry led to the

19 emancipation of those peoples who used to be associated with the Empire in

20 the heart of Europe and then with the Third Reich. On the other hand,

21 that meant punishment of the Serbs, who, in both world wars, stood by the

22 allies. Thirdly, this led to the disappearance of the last remnants of

23 those treaties that punished Germany twice for their defeats."

24 Although many would not be willing to support these views of the

25 old French anti-fascist general, believing that the ambitions of Germany

Page 32186

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Page 32187

1 are just a thing of the past and that the catharsis that the German state

2 went through would be a sufficient guarantee to believe the assurances

3 given by German politicians during these events that took place during the

4 reunification of Germany, it is sufficient to look at Klaus Kinkel's

5 article entitled German Foreign Policy in the World in the light of The

6 New World Order published on the 19th of March, 1993, in Frankfurter

7 Allgemeine Zeitung. In this article, the task of the German foreign

8 policy is expressed as follow: "Something has to be carried out now and

9 we failed in doing so twice in the past."

10 It is quite clear what this means. I believe there is no one in

11 the world who does not understand where it was that Germany failed twice

12 vis-a-vis the outside world.

13 So according to the foreign minister of Germany himself, the

14 foreign policy of this country was to use its potentials to achieve what

15 it did not achieve through two world wars, and the question remains

16 whether this will be resolved through new means or old means.

17 On the day of the recognition of Croatia's secession, Kohl himself

18 said in a TV programme, "There is a particularly intensive relationship

19 between Croats and Germans which has a great deal to do with history."

20 This historical vertical line that Kohl pointed to in Germany's foreign

21 policy, the one that was pointed out by Kinkel as well, and finally also

22 what their Croatian cronies did through their own policy is shown by many

23 things that were said during the two world wars and during the war against

24 Yugoslavia, the third war. So there were anti-Yugoslav pressures

25 constantly in all three wars. First there was bloodshed in order to

Page 32188

1 prevent the creation of the Yugoslav state, and later on every effort was

2 made to wipe it out altogether.

3 The red thread through all the rhetoric of the German bloc, that

4 is to say Austria, or rather Austro-Hungary, and Germany in the Balkans is

5 the thesis of a danger of creating some kind of Greater Serbia. This

6 danger, this key thesis took a central place in this false indictment

7 against me; a Greater Serbia. This thesis, this myth, was created by

8 Austro-Hungarian propaganda as far back as the second half of the 19th

9 century. It is an integral part of efforts made by a rotting empire to

10 keep its occupied Southern Slav territories.

11 As for this fear that the Southern Slav people still occupied by

12 the Austro-Hungarian empire and this was this broad wave of emancipation

13 in many European nations who wished to free themselves and also they

14 wished to integrate into one state, as was the case in Germany itself, the

15 fear that this might be carried out although there was a historical

16 legitimacy involved and a natural legitimacy involved as far as the

17 unification of the Southern Slavs was concerned.

18 Yet another German, Ambassador Ralf Hartman, in his book The

19 Honourable Mediators, on page 31 says as follows, and this illustrates the

20 depth of this fear and how far back it goes into the past. I quote:

21 "Already in 1876 when the Serb Prince Milos supported the rebellion of the

22 Christian population of Herzegovina and Bosnia against the Turkish rule

23 and declared war on Istanbul, the Russian Prince Gorchakov, German

24 Chancellor Bismarck, and the Austro-Hungarian Prime Minister Andraszy

25 exerted Habsburg pressure on the so-called memorandum that in case the

Page 32189

1 Serbs won" - this is his quotation - "the powers will not tolerate the

2 creation of a large Slav state. For Germans, Italians, Spaniards,

3 Russians and everybody else this was an understandable right, the right to

4 live in a single state. The Southern Slavs should be deprived of this

5 right forever. It was a heresy, that is what they declared it, and they

6 were not allowed to unite. The name of the heresy was a Greater Serbia.

7 So although the Serbian Kingdom, in spite of all its aspirations, was

8 small and weak compared to the European powers, and also the Serb

9 population never exceeded 10 million, for decades this remained in Vienna

10 and Berlin and this spectre continues to live until the present day."

11 This indictment is the best proof of how correct all of this is,

12 because it is spectres that are referred to here.

13 What is particularly striking is that as far as back as in the

14 Austro-Hungarian propaganda, the freeing of the people from the

15 Austro-Hungarian yoke and the unification of the Southern Slavs, not only

16 the Serbs, was called the expansion of the Serbian state, or a Greater

17 Serbia. And this formulation means that there should be some kind of

18 expansionist tendencies, tendencies of conquest among the Serbs. It is a

19 fact that this would then mean that part of the Southern Slav peoples were

20 under foreign rule. However, that is not true. It is among the Croatian

21 people that the idea of a single state for a Southern Slavs was born. In

22 spite of that, when the Serbs espoused this in order to help their

23 enslaved brothers, their brothers who were enslaved under Austro-Hungary,

24 each remained as an idea of a Greater Serbia.

25 And there are two ideas that were always considered to be

Page 32190

1 identical and they are absolutely not identical, that is to say Yugoslavia

2 on the one hand, the joint state of the Southern Slav peoples, and on the

3 other hand some kind of Greater Serbia which is actually the product of

4 anti-Serb and anti-Yugoslav propaganda. So then and now, somebody's

5 tendency to dominate the territories populated by Southern Slavic peoples

6 and keeping them enslaved had to be kept under the guise of a propaganda

7 smokescreen that it was primarily the Serbs who had such intentions and

8 that they wanted to spread into territories that belonged to others. And

9 this is a sheer lie.

10 I have another quotation. This comes from German archives. The

11 German ambassador conveyed to his government what he talked about with the

12 Count, the foreign minister of Austro-Hungary. I'm quoting from the

13 archives. "The minister said that he considered it his obligation to

14 familiarise the German government with the position of the monarchy, the

15 Southern Slavic issue, and that is to say the unhindered keeping of

16 Southern Slav populated provinces is a vital issue for the monarchy, and

17 Serbian supremacy in the Balkans could not be allowed. If Serbia defeats

18 Bulgaria and extends its boundaries beyond the old Serbia, they would have

19 to intervene." When I asked how this would happen, the minister said that

20 a good psychological moment could be found. A pretext came soon, the

21 well-known assassination in Sarajevo, when Gavralo Princip, a member of

22 the organisation Young Bosnia, assassinated Franz Ferdinand, the

23 Austro-Hungarian archduke and heir. No one says what the truth was and

24 that is that about 20 young men were part of this conspiracy. That was

25 this Young Bosna. Ethnic Serbs and Croats and others alike. Although it

Page 32191

1 was never established that the government of Serbia was involved in the

2 assassination in any way, accusations were immediately levelled against

3 Serbia, the Serb people, the Serb government, and war happened.

4 In this mentioned book, Ambassador Hartman says: "In

5 Austro-Hungary and Germany, a fierce anti-Serb campaign was initiated and

6 the German ambassador in London, Lichnovsky, was charged with notifying

7 Gottlieb von Jagow that the entire Serbian nation as a people of

8 evil-doers and criminals has to be branded." And this is obviously

9 something that challenges the authorship of these accusations.

10 The meaning of this evil above all evils, Greater Serbia, is

11 something that nobody wanted to consider or go into. It has been used

12 here in a very facile manner, very arrogantly. Nobody has investigated

13 its origins. Had they done so, this entire propaganda exercise would have

14 burst like a soap bubble.

15 It is well known that on the 23rd of July, 1914, the Serbian

16 government was given an ultimatum by Austria Hungary after false

17 accusations of Serbia's involvement in this assassination and a number of

18 demands were made on Serbia which no sovereign country in the world could

19 have accepted. The failure to meet this ultimatum was expected, and the

20 only role of this ultimatum was to cause war, to be a pretext for war,

21 just as happened in Rambouillet. The British foreign minister, Sir Edward

22 Grey, described this text, and I quote Grey: "The most astonishing

23 document ever engendered by diplomacy." "The most astonishing document

24 ever engendered by diplomacy." Grey probably never even dreamt that in

25 that same century the Serbian people and the Serbian state would be

Page 32192

1 exposed to a number of similar and even more arrogant and amazing

2 ultimatums and that, together with Germany, Austria, and some other

3 Western countries, and even some Serbian allies from that time such as

4 France and a little later the USA, his own country, Great Britain, would

5 share the authorship of such new ultimatums just as it would share the

6 authorship and participation in the implementation of murderous assaults

7 on the Serbian people in the late 20th century carried out by means of

8 unscrupulous lies, and this will be shown very clearly here before the

9 public. There were merciless economic sanctions as well as bestial

10 attacks against people whose chief sin was that they tried to protect

11 their country and their people and preserve what they had acquired with

12 great difficulty with the help of allies in two world wars.

13 It is hard to imagine the shame Sir Edward Grey would have felt

14 had he known of the role his country would play in completing this crime

15 against the Serbian people at the end of the 20th century, and this is

16 taking place here before this institution with the flagrant violation of

17 international law because the resolution establishing this illegal

18 Tribunal is part of what Sir Edward Grey defined as the most astonishing

19 document ever engendered by diplomacy.

20 It is general knowledge how the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and

21 Slovenes was established, later renamed Yugoslavia, as the common state of

22 the Southern Slav peoples. The German bloc wanted to prevent this and

23 this state was to vanish from the face of the earth. However, the old

24 myth of Greater Serbia remained as a smokescreen to conceal their own

25 crimes and their own evil deeds. It is in this institution that the lie

Page 32193

1 of Greater Serbia found its natural foundation and grew into a monstrous

2 construction of unprecedented magnitude.

3 To make the irony and absurdity even greater and to make the lies

4 and injustice against the Serbian people even worse in contrast to their

5 Balkan neighbours, it is only the Serbian people who, although they had

6 ample opportunity and much greater opportunity than others, tried to

7 create their own extended state, because it is well known that in 1915,

8 the allies of Serbia, in the so-called London Treaty, offered Serbia,

9 after winning the war, an extension of its territory to Bosnia and

10 Herzegovina, parts of Dalmatia, parts of Slavonia, and so on and so forth.

11 There are documents to show all this. But Serbia did not do this. Serbia

12 instead embraced and espoused Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes alike from the

13 former territories of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and this is how the

14 Kingdom of Croats, Serbs and Slovenes was created, later on to be called

15 Yugoslavia.

16 This option taken by the Serbian state to create a common state of

17 Yugoslavia rather than their own state provided protection to our Croatian

18 and Slovenian brothers. We protected them from territorial fragmentation.

19 And also, after they had been part of a defeated state, they became part

20 of the winning camp.

21 However, in the last throes of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the

22 Serbs have been branded with this lie of Greater Serbia, and this is still

23 being maintained. In order to understand the whole matter it is useful to

24 look on the other side of the front, World War I. In 1915, the German

25 theoretician Friederich Naumann published his book Middle Europe, Mittel

Page 32194

1 Europa, in which he set out a project for the reorganisation of Europe.

2 It was then expected that the Germans would win the war, of course. And

3 the reorganisation of Europe would imply the creation of a greater Germany

4 encompassing all of Central Europe surrounded by small and weak states

5 which Naumann in this book calls Trabant states. And --

6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, we are going to take a break at

7 half past.

8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, I understand it's

9 9.30. I hope you are aware of the fact that the interpreters often tell

10 me to slow down so that I think it would be a good idea for you to

11 consider extending my time and to give me some time tomorrow in addition

12 to today.

13 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, to the extent that you have a

14 written presentation, you might consider making it available to the

15 interpreters.

16 We will adjourn for half an hour.

17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, I do not have anything

18 in writing. I just have my notes. So I cannot give them my notes. They

19 would not be able to read my handwriting anyway. The documents I have

20 that are printed out would be completely useless to them. That's why I

21 asked you to consider --

22 JUDGE ROBINSON: Very well, Mr. Milosevic. Very well.

23 We will adjourn for half an hour.

24 --- Recess taken at 10.31 a.m.

25 --- On resuming at 11.05 a.m.

Page 32195

1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, you may continue.

2 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Satellite states --

4 JUDGE ROBINSON: Microphone, please. No translation.

5 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Microphone is not working? Is it

6 working now? Yes.

7 It's all right now. All right. Thank you.

8 I mentioned Friederich Naumann, the German theoretician who, in

9 his book on Central Europe or Middle Europe, explained a greater Germany

10 surrounded by satellite states which would be completely dependent on the

11 great and powerful German state. Naumann never mentioned Serbia, not even

12 as a satellite state because, according to him, "Serbia as a fortress that

13 is in the way in this area has to be wiped off the map."

14 Let me mention that this creator of the greater German project

15 which implies the wiping out of Serbia from the map of Europe, in

16 accordance with the anti-Serbian propaganda waged at that time and the

17 well-known slogan of the time "Serbia must die," "Serbia must termia," for

18 the sake of rhyming, this theorist is considered the ideologue of the

19 Liberal party in Germany, a party which has long served to balance the

20 German political scene and which was in charge of German foreign policy

21 during the time of Genscher and Kinkel. The same Kinkel who in 1993 felt

22 the need to publish the idea of German revision of historical processes

23 and who said that "something has to be done externally that we have twice

24 failed to do."

25 The importance attached by German Liberals, especially the two

Page 32196

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Page 32197

1 above-mentioned leaders of German diplomacy, that they attach to the ideas

2 of Naumann is best seen in the fact that the foundation for the Liberal

3 Party is called the Friederich Naumann Stichtung or the Friederich Naumann

4 Foundation, and the same name is borne by the headquarters of this party

5 while its followers are best seen in the crazily destructive efforts of

6 these two towards Yugoslavia who wanted to fragment the Central European

7 and Eastern European territories, and this in fact happened. You have the

8 example of Czechoslovakia, not to mention the USSR, one of the winning

9 powers, the leading powers that won World War II.

10 When Serbia was sentenced to death in this deformed view of the

11 exponents of greater German aspirations, when it was drowned in the

12 Southern Slav state, the propaganda on Greater Serbian aspirations was

13 continued in relation to the newly established state of Yugoslavia. It is

14 well known that in Serbia there were protests against the government

15 decision to forge links with Hitler's alliance, and Churchill then said,

16 "Yugoslavia has found its soul again." This was stated on one of the

17 opposed sides. On the other side, Hitler, on the day Yugoslavia was

18 attacked, stated that "This military coup was directed against the same

19 criminal clique, the same creatures who, through the assassination in

20 Sarajevo, pushed the world into an unprecedented misfortune." This

21 reminds us of what a new theorist stated on the eve of a new bombing of

22 Yugoslavia. Clinton, the then president of the USA, on the night of the

23 24th of March, when explaining to the American public via television the

24 beginning of the air campaign, as he called it, against Yugoslavia, he

25 said, "The Serbs did not cause only World War I. Without them, there

Page 32198

1 would have been no Holocaust." So much for the knowledge of history of

2 these two criminals.

3 The rest is contained in the German archives. The Fuhrer, Hitler,

4 was determined to destroy Yugoslavia through military means and destroy it

5 as a state. To destroy Yugoslavia as a state, this can easily be linked

6 up to the message given in the notorious report by the president of the

7 Presidency until that time of Yugoslavia, Stjepan Mesic, to the Croatian

8 parliament on the 5th of December, 1991. He said, "Thank you for

9 entrusting me with fighting for the interests of Croatia in the segment

10 entrusted to me. I think I have performed my task. Yugoslavia is no

11 more."

12 When speaking of these efforts and this crime which was

13 perpetrated against Yugoslavia and other countries, before the attack on

14 Yugoslavia, in Germany there were directives given as to propaganda.

15 Ambassador Ralf Hartman speaks of well-known traditional lines of German

16 Balkan propaganda as follows: A, it is only the Serbian government that

17 is the opponent of Germany which fanned the flames of struggle against

18 Germany. B -- all right, I'll slow down. I'll read more slowly. I quote

19 further: "As the Serbs implemented a ruthless dictatorship against the

20 other peoples of Yugoslavia, primarily the Croats and the Macedonians, and

21 this is an absurdity, we can clearly tell them that the German Wehrmacht

22 is not entering Yugoslavia as enemies of the Croats and Macedonians. They

23 will in this way be protected against slaughter by the Serbian

24 chauvinists." In the German puppet state of the Independent State of

25 Croatia, this resulted in genocide against the Serbs, Jews and Gypsies.

Page 32199

1 On the territories of this monstrous state a million Serbs were wiped out,

2 over half of them being expelled and then driven to their death amid the

3 most grievous sufferings. This monstrous activity was certainly

4 contributed to by the directive of Joseph Goebbels, which remained alive

5 and topical in German practice, political practice, to toady up to the

6 Croats in order to work against the Serbs, and this is evident in the

7 German relationship to the Balkans in the 20th century, the late 20th

8 century.

9 But this is best illustrated by the next quotation, a statement by

10 the Croatian leader Ante Pavlic, "The independence of Croatia is due to

11 the Fuhrer and to the German Reich. And we can compare this to the song

12 Danke Deutschland, "Thank You, Germany," sung in Croatia in 1991 and 1992

13 and the role of Stjepan Mesic and what he said about the role played by

14 Genscher and Pope John Paul II, in the break-up of Yugoslavia.

15 When we're talking about the second key international participant,

16 according to what Mesic said, the key international participant in the

17 break-up of Yugoslavia, the Holy See, it is also characterised by its

18 historical continuity and its anti-Yugoslav activity as well as the

19 stability of its alliance with those who fought against the establishment

20 of Yugoslavia before and during World War I and who fought throughout its

21 existence against it, in particular during World War II. The deep roots

22 of this policy by the Vatican and the war inciting anti-Serb propaganda of

23 the Vatican are attested to by a quotation from a report by the Austrian

24 envoy to the Holy See sent to Vienna on the 27th of July, 1914, before war

25 was declared against Serbia, report on his conversation with the

Page 32200

1 Cardinal's state secretary Marie Del Vallo [phoen]: "During the last

2 year, His Holiness several times expressed his regret that Austro-Hungary

3 failed to punish its dangerous Danube neighbours. The Pope and the curate

4 see in Serbia a sickness that is eating away at the essence of the

5 monarchy and which will cause it to disappear. The destruction of this

6 bastion for the church -- the destruction of this bastion for the church

7 would constitute a loss of the firmest stronghold in its struggle against

8 orthodoxy and the loss of its major fighters. The cardinal's first

9 secretary expressed the hope that the monarchy will follow this through to

10 the end."

11 So according to the official position of the Vatican, Serbia was

12 to be destroyed in order to strengthen the Austro-Hungarian monarchy as

13 the stronghold of Catholicism in that area and in particular to serve as

14 its basis to expand to the east. This of course has nothing to do with

15 the teachings of Christ and it's more than evident but it is also more

16 than evident how much this has to do with the teachings which two decades

17 later were propagated by Adolf Hitler in his crazed idea that he had a

18 divine mission to achieve -- in his pull towards the east, the Dynastie

19 [phoen]. And this is something that will be embodied later in the axis

20 powers headed by Hitler. In Croatia this was achieved through the close

21 ties of the Catholic church with the Pavlic's Independent State of Croatia

22 whose minister of education, Mile Budak, stated in Gospic, "A part of the

23 Serbs we will destroy, another part we will expel, the others will be

24 converted to Catholicism and turned into Croats. In this way, we will

25 eradicate their traces and what will be left will be just a bad memory of

Page 32201

1 them."

2 Professor Edmund Paris, in his book Genocide in Satellite Croatia

3 1941-1945, Chicago 1961, says that "The biggest genocide during World War

4 II against a majority of a population did not take place in Nazi Germany

5 but in the satellite State of Croatia" which was created by the Nazis.

6 Also Professor Helen Feyne [phoen] in her book Accounting for

7 Genocide, New York, The Free Press, 1979, says that Croatia -- I am

8 quoting: "The Croatian state planned and executed a massacre against the

9 Orthodox Serb minority and that the Catholic clergy approved of this

10 massacre," according to McMillan's Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, pages

11 323 to 328, "In the NDH, Independent State of Croatia, more than half a

12 million Serbs were killed" -- I'm quoting -- "a quarter million were

13 expelled, and another number were forced to convert to Catholicism. The

14 genocide in the Independent State of Croatia against the Serbs is one of

15 the most concealed secrets of the 20th century, just as the rescue of

16 Ustasha criminals has not -- has also been kept a secret by the US and its

17 allies."

18 The United States, Great Britain and some of its allies played an

19 extremely sinister role in the rescue and fleeing abroad of a large number

20 of Ustashas primarily to South America, including the highly ranking ones,

21 amongst them Ante Pavlic who was their leader.

22 The reasons to rescue Ustashas and other Nazis and to transfer

23 them secretly through the Vatican secret channels was in the interest of

24 the Vatican in its struggle against the USSR and against the communist

25 threat in which no methods were discriminated against. The objective was

Page 32202

1 to save criminals, practising Catholics, whose crimes they approved of.

2 This concealment of crimes, making it possible for the criminals to

3 escape, was done because if the role of the Vatican and the Pope Pius were

4 announced publicly in some dominantly Catholic countries in Europe, there

5 could be negative repercussions. Primarily he's thinking about France and

6 Italy. These criminals were later used in order to weaken the communist

7 countries of Europe and to carry out terrorist activities.

8 The attempts of the Vatican to have as close as possible ties with

9 the main victors in World War II, the United States in particular, was a

10 success at the beginning of the '80s when at a meeting between the Pope

11 and Regan it was leaked that they discussed the solutions that were

12 adopted at Dialta [phoen] in 1945. There was also a series of meetings

13 held in the presence of their associates in the course of which firm ties

14 were established which Richard Allen, the White House advisor for

15 security, described as one of the greatest secret alliances of all times.

16 There is a book by Carl Bernstein --

17 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, the Chamber has allowed you some

18 latitude in making your statement. That is consistent with the practice

19 in this Tribunal, but you have to be careful. It is questionable whether

20 a lot of what you are saying is relevant to the case, and certainly it

21 would not be admissible in evidence. But a broad historical sweep is, to

22 a certain extent, permissible in an opening statement, but you must

23 discipline yourself, particularly if you want us to consider favourably

24 your request for additional time. Proceed.

25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The nature of this secret alliance

Page 32203

1 is written about by Professor Smilja Avramov in her book, although the

2 three theory Catholics, Brzezinski, Casey, and Walters, prepared the

3 ground for alliance, and although President Regan at the most prominent

4 places in the administration appointed Roman Catholics, for example,

5 Aleksandar Hague whose brother was a bishop, it would be wrong to claim

6 that the Roman Catholic faith was a decisive factor in the policy of

7 United States in that period. The administration of the United States did

8 not see an expression of religion in the alliance but the power of the

9 church as an institution which has been placed in the context of real

10 politics. Washington used the Vatican or the Roman Catholic Church in the

11 same way that it will try to do a bit later with Islam.

12 "Through this alliance, the reshaped geopolitical shape of the

13 map, a new aggressive politically -- political planetary bloc was created

14 which will have the most fatal consequences in relation to Yugoslavia."

15 The words of prominent intellectuals about the role of the Holy

16 See were confirmed by Mikhail Gorbachev who said in La Stampa in 1992,

17 "Everything that happened in Eastern Europe over the past few years would

18 not have been possible without the participation of Pope John Paul II."

19 In Eastern Europe over these past few years Yugoslavia was broken up in

20 blood, a state whose creation the Vatican wanted to prevent during World

21 War I and in whose break-up and bloodshed, the vast bloodshed which

22 accompanied this break-up it took part once before supporting Hitler, the

23 Ustasha state and the Ustasha crimes in the course of World War II.

24 The Vatican's policy towards Serbia was shaped as is evident from

25 the quoted letter from 1914 and also dating back to the time before the

Page 32204

1 creation of Yugoslavia. After the Kingdom of Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes

2 was created, this multi-cultural state was considered to be the main

3 barrier in the spread of Vatican -- of Catholicism to the East. That is

4 why the policy of Pope John Paul II and the Catholic church in general at

5 the time of this poke towards Yugoslavia constitute just the final phase

6 in the activities of the Catholic church in the break-up of Yugoslavia.

7 I will skip a series of examples of meetings held from 1991,

8 during 1991 and during 1992 which confirmed this, but I will include this

9 in the text that I'm going to submit because time does not permit me to

10 quote all that I have prepared.

11 Following the recognition of Slovenia and Croatia, followed by the

12 recognition of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Vatican suddenly adopted a

13 peace-making policy. It was proposed in 1994 that the Pope visit Zagreb

14 and Sarajevo. The Vatican diplomacy viewed the expulsion of Serbs from

15 the territory that they lived on for centuries in Croatia in the Storm and

16 Flash operations, and I will remind you that Lord Owen called the Storm

17 Operation "the greatest ethnic cleansing in the territory of the former

18 Yugoslavia." The Vatican dubbed those actions as the recapturing of the

19 terrain, this territory where Serbs lived for centuries.

20 On the 19th of October, 1995, the Pope said about that that in

21 certain situations use of force is not ruled out if this is necessary for

22 the defence of the justified rights of a certain people. In such

23 situations we're talking about a humanitarian intervention in order to

24 protect human lives.

25 No human lives were threatened at that time, nor were there any

Page 32205

1 attacks from the UN protected zones or from Krajina to the areas

2 surrounding them, contrary to the Srebrenica protected zone from where

3 attacks were conducted throughout that whole year and when hundreds of

4 villages were attacked and a lot of Serb population was slaughtered. A

5 retired chaplain - and I'm saying "chaplain" for the interpreters and not

6 "captain" - he stated in Pittsburgh in January in 1999 that the Vatican

7 is to blame for all the troubles that occurred in Yugoslav territory and

8 that he personally saw bank accounts of the Vatican confirming that the

9 Catholic church, together with the German government, destabilised

10 Yugoslavia and caused a decade of bloody events. He claims that the

11 Vatican pumped in millions to separatists in Yugoslavia and that the

12 Catholic church was very active in the events in Croatia and Slovenia.

13 It is well known that the Vatican and the press supported the

14 demonstrations of Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija in 1989, and they did

15 the same -- and this was also done by the Ljubljana and Croatia

16 archbishops. The Pope supported the demands of secessionist Albanians in

17 Kosovo and Metohija in 1994. He was the first one to call for energetic

18 action against Serbia in 1998, and then he turned into a peacekeeper on

19 the 30th of May when he called the ambassador of the NATO member countries

20 and started an initiative to stop the war against Yugoslavia, and he also

21 wrote a letter to Clinton to stop the bombing over the Easter holidays.

22 When we have all these activities of the Vatican in mind which

23 relate to the break-up of Yugoslavia, the message of the 12th of May, 2000

24 sounds frightful when the Pope said, "We cannot and not recognise the

25 betrayal of the gospels committed by our members and the voice of

Page 32206

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Page 32207

1 consciousness, and we ask for forgiveness of the sins of the Catholic

2 church." Professor Smilja Avramov, in her book Opus Dei recalls the

3 critical reactions to this statement, underlining the following words of

4 Leo Lyndaker [phoen], a Dutch religious scholar. She quotes him: "The

5 Pope expressed regret for what was done in the past but there are no

6 indications that he is thinking about changing his behaviour at present,

7 in the present."

8 As far as the United States is concerned, it has its own interests

9 in the area of Eastern Europe and the former Yugoslavia. The mutual

10 antagonisms and conflicts, the impoverishment and the inability to

11 function independently in the political, economical or any other plane of

12 the little countries created in the former Yugoslavia are a favourable

13 ground in order to implement the United States' economic, political and in

14 particular military presence in Europe. Especially this last one is very

15 important, because after the fall of the Warsaw Pact, the US military

16 presence in Western Europe has lost any kind of pretext or justification.

17 So it is not surprising that the United States has been active in

18 establishing this sorry situation that is currently in effect in the

19 majority of the Balkan countries.

20 After the break-up of the Eastern Bloc, some kind of Cold War has

21 continued in this context in order to prevent in any way the survival of a

22 society which could serve as an example of a successful alternative to

23 this current simple introduction of the -- or imposition of the capitalist

24 model. Two different problems. In any case, Yugoslavia was not to

25 outlive the Warsaw Treaty, because the Eastern European countries would

Page 32208

1 have an uncomfortable example of independent development and alternative

2 -- and an alternative to unquestioning acceptance of the values of the

3 West, thus posing an obstacle to the new world order as introduced or

4 imposed by the United States as the only remaining superpower in the

5 world, namely the transformation of the world to a corporation society

6 under the leadership of the World Bank and the United States where robbery

7 would be the main motive.

8 It is a well-known thing that the US Congress in March adopted a

9 foreign operation law stopping all assistance to Yugoslavia except for

10 democratic parties, and then neo-Nazis and fundamentalists were included

11 among these democratic parties that were supposed to be assisted. Later

12 on, Albanian terrorists, too, and Albanian separatists all the way along.

13 It is a well-known thing that this privatised MPRI, Military

14 Resources -- Resourcing Incorporated, played with the Croatian army and in

15 the final stages of the Croatian offensive against the Krajina. This also

16 confirms that American action in relation to the Yugoslav crisis had as

17 its aim the maintaining of US presence in Europe, including Kosovo and

18 Macedonia, as well as the influence of the US and NATO throughout Europe.

19 Economic interest as an interest that stands above all others is one that

20 I believe I need not refer to here and now.

21 Such aspirations for domination in this area are the only

22 explanation for some irrational actions at first glance taken by the

23 United States. For example, influencing Alija Izetbegovic to withdraw his

24 signature on the Cutileiro plan. And also what is less known is that the

25 Vance-Owen and Owen-Stoltenberg plans were thwarted in some stages. It is

Page 32209

1 obvious that it was not in the interest of the US to have peace in the

2 Balkans until the military presence of the US and NATO were not ensured

3 and conditions were not created to have a solution found under US

4 patronage. The US insisted in Rambouillet for -- on NATO military

5 presence throughout Yugoslavia, and also this aggression which had as its

6 aim the occupation of Kosovo, the occupation of all of Yugoslavia, and

7 ensuring the lasting presence of NATO throughout the area.

8 The administration of William Clinton got involved in dangerous

9 liaisons with Islamist fundamentalists, and they include the Hezbollah, al

10 Qaeda, the KLA terrorists in Kosovo, et cetera. So it is precisely those

11 individuals and organisations that, after the 11th of September, have

12 considered -- have been considered the greatest threat to the United

13 States and to the world in general. The price that has to be paid for

14 this policy of the Clinton administration is an enormous one and has to be

15 paid, unfortunately, by innocent citizens throughout the world, including

16 American citizens, but others, too, like Spaniards, et cetera.

17 However, if the aspirations and objectives of Germany and the

18 Vatican and the USA in the Yugoslav crisis were more or less evident, what

19 is shocking is the behaviour of the members of the other members of the

20 European Community, later on the European Union, especially under German

21 influence. In spite of the declaration of the European Community about

22 Yugoslavia, and I quote: "A democratic Yugoslavia has the best prospect

23 of fitting into a new Europe appropriately." And this was a quotation.

24 After Slovenia and Croatia were recognised and after an armed

25 conflict broke out, the European parliament, in Strasbourg in 1991,

Page 32210

1 adopted a resolution which did not support unilateral secession of these

2 two Yugoslav republics. Other organs of the European Community also

3 supported the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia. A Euro-American forum

4 at the OSCE Council of Ministers at their meeting in Berlin on the 19th of

5 January, 1991, adopted a declaration and it, inter alia, expressed its

6 support to the territorial integrity and unity of Yugoslavia in line with

7 Helsinki. What was particularly underlined was maintaining the

8 territorial integrity of the country.

9 Had a similar stand prevailed at that point in time in the other

10 -- or actually, it became obvious that this kind of stand was espoused on

11 the other side of the Atlantic too. And Baker, after his visit to

12 Yugoslavia, said that America supports a democratic and united Yugoslavia

13 and that its future should be ensured and he particularly pointed out that

14 the USA would not recognise any one-sided acts of secession.

15 Nevertheless, the European Community, an organisation that came

16 into being as the result of a progressive process in Europe and in the

17 world, opted finally towards the end of 1991 to support a retrograde

18 movement, that is to say secession in Croatia and Slovenia and other

19 secessionist republics, and on the 17th of December, 1991 it adopted a

20 declaration on the criteria for recognising the newly-established states

21 in the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe and a declaration about

22 Yugoslavia, calling upon all Yugoslav republics to submit requests by the

23 23rd of December including proof that they have met criteria for

24 independence. In this way, the European Community not only trampled on

25 what it said itself on the 26th of March, 1991, in its own declarations

Page 32211

1 but also in another document, an EC declaration in Rome, the 8th of

2 November, 1991, that requests for independence put forth by those

3 republics who so wish can only be looked at in a particular context.

4 The role of Germany is clear in the change of this position of the

5 12. Nevertheless, it comes as a surprise and it is self-defeating that 12

6 states permitted themselves to be coerced into doing something that they

7 in principle did not agree with. And all of this was done under the

8 pressure of one of these 12 states only.

9 This regarding the strength of that state, I have to point out

10 once again Friederich Naumann and what he said at the beginning of the

11 20th century and the creation small obedient statelets, and he called them

12 satellites. Of course, when creating satellites, he did not think of the

13 West. However, the dictat that had to do with the secession of the

14 Yugoslav republics that was imposed upon the European Community members

15 and the fact that they accepted that even though there were separatist

16 tendencies in some of these countries themselves, and this was in contrast

17 to their very own interest, this just shows the fact that many countries,

18 including some former great powers, became German satellites. They

19 stooped that low because of the opportunism of their leaders, and this

20 lead to the NATO aggression against Yugoslavia and they all became

21 satellites of the United States of America.

22 So one cannot bring into question at all the right of Yugoslavia

23 to survive, or can one bring into question the illegal character of its

24 break-up as the basis and reason for the conflict. It is cynical, to say

25 the least, that those who brought the peoples of the former Yugoslavia to

Page 32212

1 mutual wars and a cycle violence and hatred, that they now, pretending to

2 be naive, allow themselves to administer justice, as they call it. Our

3 peoples should never forget who the guiltiest party of all is for the

4 tragedy in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, and that will be shown

5 and proven clearly.

6 In Nuremberg, the first and basic crime was the crime against

7 peace, which in this illegal Tribunal of yours is not the case only

8 because those who had established this unlawful institution would have to

9 take themselves to trial first and foremost.

10 When looking at historical developments, and there are documents

11 and writings about all of this, and the side opposite has the -- all of

12 these documents, the war in Yugoslavia did not -- was not started by Serbs

13 nor did it come from Serbia. It was started by the ultra-rightist

14 separatist movement in Croatia, in Kosovo and Metohija, in

15 Bosnia-Herzegovina, by the Ustashas and neo-Nazis, to put it briefly,

16 Islamic fundamentalists, and Albanian terrorists. It is not hard to

17 prove, and you will see how this will take place that the fratricidal war

18 in the territory of the former Yugoslavia was instigated and supported

19 precisely by those who established this court of yours; Germany, the

20 Vatican, and the United States. The destruction and the break-up of a

21 sovereign state was something they carried out in spite of international

22 and national law. Also, it is not difficult to prove that they resorted

23 to highly undemocratic methods in the break-up of Yugoslavia although they

24 kept claiming that they were very humane. They called themselves the

25 international community, but in the territory of Yugoslavia, Croatia,

Page 32213

1 Bosnia, Kosovo, they supported a totalitarian chauvinist elite terrorist,

2 Islamic fundamentalists, neo-Nazis whose objective was an ethnically pure

3 state, that is to say a state without any Serbs. The methods of cleansing

4 the Serb people that the Croatian ultra-nationalist movement carried out

5 through their paramilitary units in the beginning of 1991 are quite

6 identical to what happened to the same people in the same area 50 years

7 before that.

8 In the early 1990s, it was the Serbs who were killed and expelled

9 from Croatia, and this happened just before Tudjman came into power. It

10 was Serbs who were being killed and expelled from Kosovo and Metohija.

11 This international community, headed by the USA, favoured in

12 Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo Islamic fundamentalism, and Islamic

13 fundamentalists carried out many crimes in the territory of

14 Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. In addition to everything else, crimes

15 against Serbs are being committed in Kosovo with the full assistance of

16 the NATO-led coalition, fully trampling upon Resolution 1244 of the

17 Security Council which codified the terms of the cease-fire that were

18 offered to Yugoslavia.

19 When Yugoslavia could not be taken and when the war had to be

20 stopped, terms were offered guaranteeing the sovereignty and territorial

21 integrity of Yugoslavia, that the protection force of the United Nations

22 would come to Kosovo to protect the entire population. That was their

23 obligation. And to a certain extent the army and the police of the

24 Yugoslav state and Serbia would have to go back to Kosovo.

25 None of this was actually accomplished. Everything else was

Page 32214

1 accomplished. NATO soldiers came, together with criminals, expelled a

2 large number of people, torched many churches, but I will move on to that

3 later. What I wish to say now is that as far as crimes against the Serb

4 people are concerned over the past ten years, there is an enormous amount

5 of documents, and they were offered to this institution and to many

6 institutions throughout the world. The side opposite did not even glance

7 at these documents. The reason is that the international community, when

8 causing a conflict in our territories decided in advance that the Serbs

9 were to be blamed for everything, and that is why everybody else had to be

10 portrayed as a victim.

11 As to how the war started in the territory of the former

12 Yugoslavia, the authors of the so-called Kosovo indictment against me, in

13 paragraph 79 and 80 presented one of their rare true assertions contained

14 in this otherwise totally false and shameful document. I am quoting their

15 text: "Slovenia on the 25th of June, 1991, proclaimed independence from

16 the SFRY which led to the outbreak of war." That is what it says in their

17 document. "Croatia proclaimed its independence on the 25th of June, 1991,

18 which led to fighting between Croatian military forces on the one hand and

19 the JNA and paramilitary units and the army of the Serb Krajina on the

20 other hand." "Bosnia and Herzegovina proclaimed its independence on the

21 6th of March, 1992, which, after the 6th of April, 1992, led to a war of

22 wide proportions."

23 So even the authors of this false indictment probably did not

24 envisage that they would issue an indictment against me for Croatia and

25 Bosnia later on, said themselves who caused this war. This is indeed a

Page 32215

1 criminal enterprise, and there are protagonists both at home and abroad

2 and they acted in contravention of Yugoslav law and international law.

3 This is a trampling of law. And then there was a forceful secession of

4 Yugoslavia and Slovenia, and they carried out the gravest of all crimes

5 that was dealt with in Nuremberg and Tokyo and that is the crime against

6 peace.

7 As opposed to the authorities of Croatia and Slovenia and the

8 Muslim authorities of Bosnia-Herzegovina that carried out an armed

9 secession and as opposed to their instigators, aiders and abettors from

10 Germany, Austria, the Vatican, the European Community, and later on the

11 USA and NATO, the Serb people and the Serb leadership and I personally

12 made every effort to preserve the Yugoslav community. In this way, we

13 were on the side of the law, whereas the destroyers of Yugoslavia were

14 flagrantly violating national and international law. They were invoking

15 the right to self-determination but this was only a smokescreen, and they

16 were trying to hide their efforts involved in unlawful secession because

17 the Yugoslav peoples and Yugoslav republics did not have the right to

18 one-sided secession according to the constitution of Yugoslavia and

19 according to the constitutions of those republics and in accordance with

20 international law. In particular, they did not have the right to achieve

21 this objective by killing other people and breaking up the state.

22 Article 5 of the constitution of Yugoslavia, which was in force

23 then, was a constitution that was adopted in 1974, and it states: "The

24 territory of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is a unified

25 territory and is composed of the territories of the socialist republics.

Page 32216

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Page 32217

1 The borders of the SFRY cannot be changed without the agreement of all the

2 republic and autonomous provinces."

3 It follows from this unambiguously that no single republic or

4 nation within the SFRY, as explicitly stated in the constitution, had the

5 right to secede from the SFRY one-sidedly. This was possible only on the

6 basis of agreement, the agreement of all.

7 Bearing this in mind and bearing in mind the desire expressed in

8 Slovenia and Croatia, and later on in Bosnia and Croatia and Macedonia, to

9 leave the Yugoslav Federation and in an attempt to avoid any kind of

10 conflict, the Serbian side, as confirmed by witness Borislav Jovic, the

11 president of the Presidency of Yugoslavia and later on the member of the

12 Presidency, the Serbian side, beginning in August 1991, tried to convince

13 the representatives of the other republics in the federal bodies to adopt

14 a law which would regulate this appropriately.

15 As Jovic said in his book which was quoted here, they were

16 determined to follow this through even though at the cost of incidents and

17 conflicts.

18 Let me remind you from Tudjman's great speech, which was quoted

19 here when he said there would have been no war had Croatia not wanted it,

20 without such a war, no one would have been able to expel half a million

21 Serbs from territories which they had inhabited for centuries, and who at

22 the time of Croatian secession were not asking for a state but only for

23 autonomy and who, up to that point according to the Croatian constitution,

24 were a constituent people in Croatia because Croatia had been defined as a

25 state of the Croatian people, the Serbian people, and others, and this was

Page 32218

1 later deleted.

2 When bearing in mind the provisions quoted from the constitution,

3 the Yugoslav republics of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Slovenia

4 declared their independence and their secession in violation of the

5 constitution. In view of the fact that the secession was conducted by

6 armed force, this was illegal, violent, armed secession, and illegal,

7 armed, violent secession leading to tens of thousands of people killed,

8 leading to crimes is a crime under international law, just as aiding and

9 abetting this is a crime, and this was done by others. These were the

10 same ones who are behind this illegal court, and they are trying to gain

11 amnesty for themselves and to shift the blame onto the actual victims.

12 The secession of the former Yugoslav republics and the way it was

13 carried out is not permissible. This situation as regards secession, the

14 secession of the former Yugoslav republics, is confirmed explicitly by

15 Antonio Cassese, the former president of this institution, in a monograph

16 that he wrote dedicated to The Right of Peoples to Self-determination,

17 Cambridge University Press 1995. On pages 269 and 270 he points out that

18 the Yugoslav republics did not have the right to self-determination either

19 under international law or under Yugoslav internal law. Cassese says on

20 the pages I mentioned the following: "As in the case of the 12 Soviet

21 republics, under international law, the six Yugoslav republics did not

22 have the right to external self-determination. This right was not

23 provided for in the Yugoslav constitution. However, unlike the Soviet

24 constitution, the Yugoslav constitution did not provide for the secession

25 of the six republics making up Yugoslavia," and he quotes the constitution

Page 32219

1 of Yugoslavia.

2 Therefore, as this illegal prosecution in a moment of inattention

3 quoted in some paragraphs of the so-called Kosovo indictment, paragraphs

4 79 and 80, as to who caused the war in the former Yugoslavia, the former

5 president of this court, in the same book on page 273, after establishing

6 the illegality of the secession, draws an identical conclusion, identical

7 to the one that the Prosecution inadvertently slipped into these

8 paragraphs. He says: "It is well known that Croatia, Bosnia and

9 Herzegovina, as well as several former Soviet republics, that in these

10 republics it was secession that revived the ancient hatreds and led to

11 bloodshed. That it is generally known, this is correct." Anyone who

12 wishes to and who has a minimum of honesty has to accept this as true.

13 Those who do not have a minimum of honesty can permit themselves to

14 distort generally known facts and transform them into their opposite. But

15 inadvertently from time to time the truth slips out, even from them. It

16 must not be forgotten that to have the truth as one's ally is a guarantee

17 sooner or later of victory. Having the truth opposing you is a certain

18 path to a humiliating defeat. Everything I'm saying is true about the

19 bloody break-up of Yugoslavia, an internationally recognised state, which

20 both under law and according to morality and historical facts, and what is

21 most important, the real interests and well-being of its citizens, had the

22 right to survive.

23 Time does not permit me to set out some indispensable facts and

24 conclusions. I hope you will not oppose, in the case of Kosovo, accepting

25 the seven white books of Yugoslavia which are in evidence, and all the

Page 32220

1 documentation which has been submitted to the regular and legal

2 International Court of Justice in The Hague pertaining to the aggression

3 against Yugoslavia. Later on, I will tender other documents as well.

4 In relation to Kosovo, I wish to say only a few things which, with

5 hindsight, show how correct Yugoslavia's approach was. What happened?

6 What are the consequences?

7 In the first year of the foreign presence in Kosovo and Metohija,

8 from the moment the JNA and the Serbian police withdrew from this Serbian

9 province in June 1999, 5.000 acts of terrorism were perpetrated in Kosovo

10 and Metohija, in one year alone. Several thousand people were killed or

11 abducted. One hundred and fifty churches were destroyed. Had 150 mosques

12 or Catholic churches or synagogues been demolished anywhere in the world,

13 the whole world would be buzzing about it.

14 Under the auspices and protection of the United Nations, all these

15 crimes were committed, trampling on the UN resolution, transforming the

16 security forces of the United Nations into forces of occupation in

17 collaboration with the Albanian terrorists. Over 300.000 inhabitants were

18 expelled under the auspices of the United Nations and in collaboration

19 with them.

20 On the other side, more than 200.000 Albanians, foreign citizens,

21 moved into Kosovo, mostly from Albania and other countries. Persecution

22 of all non-Albanians continued with undiminished fervor and continues to

23 this day.

24 As a result of this criminal hysteria, almost everything that is

25 Serbia and non-Albanian has already been cleansed from Kosovo, and that is

Page 32221

1 the reason for the fall in volume and in scale, because there is less and

2 less that this violence can be directed towards. Even what little is left

3 that is not Albanian in Kosovo and Metohija has been too much for these

4 terrorists, so that the combination of the anti-Serb violence in Kosovo

5 and Metohija occurred on the 17th of March this year, after the most

6 recent efforts by witness Halid Barani, who testified here. He, of

7 course, is not the only criminal who has testified here. Numerous

8 criminals has testified here, but this has been proved.

9 Halid Barani with his new invented story of the alleged Serbian

10 crime against three Albanian boys who drowned in the river allegedly

11 fleeing from their Serbian persecutors gave the signal, the green light

12 for a hysterical mass assault on everything Serbian, for which reason KFOR

13 arrested him as well. And another witness here, Shukri Buja, another

14 criminal and terrorist who confirmed here that he was in command of a UCK

15 unit, a KLA unit in Racak and that he was the first to open fire from a

16 machine-gun on a policeman there, and of course together with his fellow

17 -- fellows.

18 This pogrom of the Serbian people in Kosovo and Metohija is the

19 result of a joint criminal enterprise between this institution and its

20 witnesses whose interest the defence here -- and with whom it collaborates

21 and those who are behind it with the most retrograde movement engendered

22 in Europe in history. Bearing in mind what happened in Croatia and Bosnia

23 and Herzegovina, especially the evident continuity between the separatist

24 and nationalist tendencies and movements and their pro-Nazi and extremist

25 predecessors from World War II, and bearing in mind the irrational fervor

Page 32222

1 and zeal with which this so-called Prosecution tries to justify the acts

2 of those who persist in revising the results of two world wars and to

3 achieve what they did not manage to achieve because they were defeated in

4 those wars, then a very worrying conclusion emerges that the joint

5 criminal enterprise, of which this institution is a participant, is far

6 broader, both by the number of participants and the criminal plan and the

7 time span and the territory involved.

8 Today many in the West are trying to justify the violence

9 perpetrated by the terrorists in Kosovo by saying it is revenge for the

10 long-term terror and repression over the Albanian population in Kosovo and

11 Metohija. This is a lie. Where are these people who were persecuted and

12 imprisoned all those years?

13 These arguments are not only based on false facts but they cannot

14 hold water in the face of historical continuity. The historical

15 continuity of the persecution of the Serbian and Christian population of

16 the territory of Kosovo and Metohija from the times of the Turkish

17 occupation with short breaks until today, although there were really no

18 interruptions to speak of.

19 The ethnic cleansing of the Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija has a

20 long history, and it became especially intensive after the founding of the

21 so-called Albanian League in Prizren in 1878 which drew up the idea of

22 creating a Greater Albania. Konstantin Jiricek, the eminent historian,

23 says of the old Serbia that is Kosovo from 1878 to 1912, 150.000 Serbs

24 were expelled, amounting to a quarter of the Serbian population. In

25 addition to many Russian, French, and other sources, this process is also

Page 32223

1 dealt with in British documents, diplomatic documents, for example, by Sir

2 George Banham to the Marquess of Lansdowne in 1901, where he speaks of the

3 expulsions of Serbs and then about the expulsion of large numbers of

4 Serbian families, but I have no time to quote this right now.

5 The development of the situation in Kosovo and Metohija has shown

6 that nothing has changed in the methods of de-Serbianising the area. On

7 the contrary, the policy of pressure and terror over Serbs and

8 Montenegrins by Albanians has become even worse, and this became

9 especially evident during World War I, especially during the withdrawal of

10 the Serbian troops through Albania in 1915. And there are numerous

11 documents about this. When at the beginning of World War II Italy created

12 the puppet Greater Albania, including the largest part of Kosovo and

13 Metohija, this was an opportunity for new terror over the non-Albanian

14 primarily Serbian population, as evidenced by the statement of Mustafa

15 Kroja, the Prime Minister of June 1941 of the puppet Albanian state, who

16 said: "Maximum efforts have to be invested to expel all the Serbs from

17 Kosovo, to take them to concentration camps in Albania. The immigrants

18 who are Serbs have to be killed." Reminding you of the statement made by

19 the Albanian Prime Minister, a famous historian says that from the

20 beginning of the war, April 1941 to August 1942, killed 10.000 Serbs and

21 expelled hundreds of thousands of people. A similar number of Albanians

22 moved from Albania to Kosovo.

23 Herman Neuebacher, special envoy of the Third Reich to

24 south-eastern Europe wrote in 1943 in the autumn: "The Albanians have

25 hurried to expel as many Serbs as possible from the country. When General

Page 32224

1 Nedic bitterly complained to me, I urgently recommended to the Albanian

2 government to stop the persecution. When I saw that my intervention did

3 not produce any results, I asked to resign from my mission in Albania."

4 And this was written by the -- by a man authorised by the Third Reich, a

5 Nazi, and he was horrified by this.

6 Priest Makarije, on the 3rd of April, 1968 wrote to Serbian

7 Patriarch German because the Yugoslav authorities after World War II

8 concealed the persecution of the Serbs from the public, especially the

9 public outside of Kosovo, he says: "The Albanians are again showing their

10 historic hatred towards the Serbs. We are in a difficult situation, more

11 difficult than during Austria and Turkey. Violence is an everyday

12 occurrence. Thefts in the middle of the day, insults. You probably hear

13 from others what is going on with Serbs from Kosmet."

14 The department for internal affairs in the province in 1966 says:

15 "In high schools, gymnasiums, and teacher training colleges, nationalism

16 is legally being taught to the youth. Enemy activity is growing and there

17 are more and more activities like this. Physical attacks against Serbs

18 and Montenegrins in order to expel them are also happening, and there are

19 publicly hostile speeches being made in public places."

20 Russian Balkans expert Professor Elena Guskova, in her book The

21 History of the Yugoslav Crisis From 1990 to 2000, on page 444, says:

22 "Demonstrations in the province are followed by diversion or acts of

23 sabotage in factories, dispersion of flyers in order to turn the province

24 into an ethnically clear territory. The chauvinists are using all sorts

25 of methods, including the threat of physical exterminations of Serbians

Page 32225

1 and Montenegrins. They have been burning Orthodox monuments, houses,

2 taking others' land by force, and limiting freedom of movement. The

3 consequence of that is the mass departure of Serbian families from this

4 area. From out of 1.451 settled places in 1981, there were no Serbs

5 except in six of them. There are only 216 Serbs left there. During the

6 ten years in this place, there was Albanian terrorism in play which was

7 very hard to suppress. During these ten years less than 10 per cent of

8 Serbs remained in the territory."

9 So the term "ethnic cleansing," "ethnically clean," began to be

10 used for the first time and appeared in relation to these events. And

11 your witness here Slovenian professor of law, of constitutional law, Ivan

12 Kristan, in an article entitled The Constitutional Position of Autonomous

13 Provinces in the SFRY, which was published in 1981, and I note in 1981

14 says, and I'm quoting from this article of his: "The Albanian nationalist

15 concept of an ethnically clean or pure state of Kosovo and the unification

16 of all Albanians into one territory violates all of the objectives

17 achieved after World War II. Instead of equality of peoples and

18 ethnicities, they are encouraging them to check their numbers all the time

19 and they are engendering chauvinism."

20 This is cited by the Slovenian professor here, who testified here,

21 and he said this in 1981. I continue to quote him: "Against other peoples

22 and nationalities, pressures are being exerted and there are chauvinist

23 excesses which go as far as to make the members of certain ethnic groups

24 move out. This has been going on for a while in Kosovo from where a

25 considerable number of Serbs and Montenegrins have moved out, so that

Page 32226

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Page 32227

1 according to the census of 1981 in comparison to the one from 1970, there

2 are much fewer members of these two ethnicities than before."

3 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, before you continue, we're going

4 to take a break now for 20 minutes, and we will sit, with the cooperation

5 of the interpreters, until 2.00 p.m. So we are adjourned for 20 minutes.

6 --- Recess taken at 12.20 p.m.

7 --- On resuming at 12.43 p.m.

8 JUDGE ROBINSON: Please continue, Mr. Milosevic.

9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Judge Robinson, I insist that you

10 allocate some time for me for tomorrow.

11 JUDGE ROBINSON: We will consider that near to the end of today's

12 session.

13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well. Kristan, and I'm

14 repeating, this is an article by a witness of yours from 1981, who points

15 to a crucial link between the greater Albanian fascist movement from World

16 War II, the so-called Balists, with the separatist Albanian movement of

17 the 1980s, the same movement, the same participant which at the end of the

18 20th century, and especially intensely from 1988 grew into overt terrorism

19 with secessionist motives and by terrorist means and in cooperation with

20 the aggressor troops from 90 NATO countries, finally ethnically cleansed

21 of Serbs and other nationalities this birthplace of Serbian culture. This

22 link and the continuity of greater Albanian fascists from World War II,

23 Kristan says in the cited article the following: "The irridentist

24 aspirations of Albanian nationalists in Kosovo are not recent. They

25 actually appear as an extension of various quisling and fascist

Page 32228

1 organisations. Greater Albanian aspirations and territorial pretensions

2 of Albania are not dead and gone and they date back from World War II,

3 together with their German and Italian Nazis and fascists. We see by the

4 conduct coming from Albania and Kosovo and Metohija the General-Secretary

5 of the Albania Communist Party, Enver Hodza, thus, in a letter to the

6 Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party in 1949 relying on the

7 conflict of Yugoslavia with Stalin at the time wrote, I quote: "The

8 Berlin Congress and the Versailles Peace Treaty unjustly damaged the

9 interests of Albania and the Albanian national minority in Kosovo. They

10 did not agree with this resolution of that question and they do not wish

11 to remain within the borders of Yugoslavia independent of its political

12 order. Their only solution would be to politically join Albania." The

13 mentioned Russian historian Elena Guskova, in her quite voluminous work,

14 says: "The separatist activity of the radically minded section of

15 Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija started immediately after World War II

16 and did not stop for a second."

17 Already in 1956 the security service discovered in the province

18 several groups which a few years earlier were infiltrated to Kosmet from

19 Albania in order to create illegal nationalist organisations. At the end

20 of the '50s and in the early '60s the organisation of the revolutionary

21 movement for the reunification of Albanians was active in Kosmet and it

22 was headed by Adem Demaci."

23 Citing that in the course of the '60s, Albanian terror became much

24 more active, meaning that the Albanian separatists in that period

25 organised "provocations, sabotages, and that they attacked religious

Page 32229

1 facilities," the same author explains that the situation did not calm down

2 even in the '70s despite the fact that in 1974, Kosmet practically was

3 ripped away from the legal system of Serbia, and citing an interview that

4 the number one person of the police, the minister of internal affairs, a

5 Croat, by the way, Franjo Herljevic gave, says that he cited the following

6 fact, and I quote: "From 1974 until 1981, the security organs discovered

7 over 1.000 people who were involved in undermining the system from the

8 positions of Albanian nationalism. Many of them, according to him, are

9 linked to one of the most active organisations of the so-called red front.

10 It's a pro-Albanian organisation active in the territory of the Western

11 countries aimed at -- which is aimed -- directed and channeled by the

12 Albanian Party of Labour. Following the unrests of the Albanian

13 separatists from March 1981, the Albanian separatist movement openly

14 advocates the idea of a Kosovo republic or the secession of Kosovo from

15 Serbia and then from Yugoslavia, and finally this territory joining the

16 territory of Albania."

17 If you look at the demographic structure of Kosovo and Metohija at

18 the end of the 19th century and then at the end of the 20th century, you

19 can see that it had drastically changed, to the detriment of the Serbs.

20 The biggest changes took place specifically during the crimes which

21 occurred during World War II from 1941 to 1945.

22 After the adoption of the constitution in 1974, each political,

23 judicial or executive power in Kosovo was in the hands of the Albanian

24 minority there. In particular from 1966 and then of course following the

25 adoption of the constitution in 1974, the Albanians in this part of Serbia

Page 32230

1 used this power to harass the Serbian majority and to flame inter-ethnic

2 intolerance, which resulted in daily expulsions of Serbs instead of the

3 essential spirit of tolerance and understanding and civilised cultivation

4 of relations with other people. The paradox of this whole situation lies

5 in the fact that the Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija whose leadership

6 claimed that for centuries they were discriminated against actually -- and

7 oppressed, actually achieved such a level of economic prosperity that

8 already in the 1980s you could see a vast difference between the situation

9 in Kosovo and the situation in Albania where they had their own national

10 states, of course in favour of their position in Kosovo and Metohija. The

11 Albanian minority in Serbia, namely in Kosovo and Metohija, went through a

12 rebirth in the scientific, cultural and educational sense, primarily

13 thanks to the educational authorities of Serbia precisely during the

14 period when the Serbian population in the province drastically reduced.

15 Of course there was also the moving out of Serbian intellectuals

16 under pressure from Kosovo. Only in the course of 1981, scores of doctors

17 left the medical centre in Pristina. Scores of professors of university

18 were leaving the faculties in Pristina. On the other hand, the Greater

19 Albanian chauvinist propaganda achieved its peak from 1975 to 1980

20 following the adoption of the 1974 constitution giving a province

21 attributes of statehood.

22 Between Yugoslavia and Serbia, actually between Kosovo and

23 Metohija and the neighbouring Albania, there was practically no border.

24 And this was during the golden era of the rule of Enver Hodza in Tirana.

25 To the extent that the Kosovo Albanians during the time of Tito were given

Page 32231

1 ever growing autonomous rights, their appetites for even greater

2 independence grew as the first step towards secession.

3 The first mass destructive demonstration date from November 1968.

4 It became evident that later, following the period of 1980, they were no

5 longer satisfied with broad autonomy and guaranteed political and human

6 rights as provided for under the constitution of 1980, and this was

7 expressed in the mass rebellion of Albanian separatists in the spring of

8 1981 under the slogan of the creation of Kosovo Republika, Kosovo

9 Republic. And this is also something that was mentioned by your witness

10 Ivan Kristan.

11 The influence of foreign factors who supported and aided the

12 break-up of Yugoslavia was quite considerable. Precisely, these factors

13 of influence came out with quite a malicious claim, and that is that the

14 crisis in Kosovo and Metohija actually occurred in 1989 with the adoption

15 of the amendments to the constitution of Serbia, stating that they

16 abolished the autonomy in Kosovo and limited the human rights of

17 Albanians.

18 This is quite without foundations. The Serbian constitutional

19 amendments in 1989 established a constitutional or unity of the Republic

20 of Serbia which up until then was under the tutelage of its two provinces

21 because Kosovo and Vojvodina, up until the adoption of those amendments,

22 participated in the rule of that republic but the republic did not have

23 any influence over what was going on in the provinces. So the republic,

24 in parts of its own territory, could not implement its constitutional

25 authority, primarily -- one primarily being to care for the benefits of

Page 32232

1 its own people. By the amendments in the Republic of Serbia in 1990, the

2 anomalies were corrected in the position of the Republic of Serbia in

3 relation to its autonomous provinces, and these amendments of 1989 and the

4 constitution of 1990 did in no way infringe on or abolish the human rights

5 of Albanians. They still continued to enjoy free education, press,

6 publishing in their own language. And in everything else, proceedings

7 before judicial organs, they could do that in their own language. And

8 they were more protected than any national minority in any other country.

9 With the secession of Slovenia and Croatia, the Kosovo crisis

10 entered into a new phase. From the forming of the terrorist KLA, the

11 Albanian secessionists began with overt terrorist attacks. That

12 organisation, and this will be shown by documents that will be presented

13 here, armed and trained its members with the assistance of some foreign

14 countries, first of all Germany, the United States, Switzerland, and some

15 other -- some Islamic countries.

16 At the time, lists of names of banks and the numbers of bank

17 accounts where contributions were sent for the KLA were published in

18 Germany and Switzerland. I'm not going to go into this because I don't

19 have enough time.

20 According to reports in the European and the Concrete magazine

21 from March 1999, the latest weapons were delivered to Kosovo via Albania

22 worth several million German marks. According to OSCE members from a

23 checkpoint which was on the border of Albania and Yugoslavia, observers

24 noted there with surprise that members of the KLA actually were wearing

25 German uniforms. In any case, the German intelligence service admitted

Page 32233

1 that it had organised the training of Albanian terrorists in Berlin and

2 other places as well as the transport of Albanian terrorists. There was

3 also help and assistance from Turkey and also from the Albanian drug

4 Mafia. This is something that is known, and we have quite reliable

5 sources about these issues.

6 The main tasks with the arming of these forces were given to the

7 US intelligence service in assistance with the British service, and the

8 Scotsman says that the US intelligence service got in contact with MI5 in

9 order to train the KLA, and then MI5 or MI6 actually passed these tasks on

10 to certain British security companies which then in turn implemented these

11 tasks. Then they also published the lists of weapons and so on, and I

12 have no time to speak about that today.

13 The most frequent targets of the KLA were police stations and

14 military institutions as well as the civilian population initially. Their

15 victims were very often members of their own people just because they were

16 loyal citizens of Serbia. The terrorist activity was increasing from year

17 to year.

18 A vast number of attacks occurred. I will mention only some. In

19 the report for 1998 from January 1st until December 31st, there were 1.129

20 terrorist acts in which 115 members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs

21 were killed, out of which -- well, I don't want to go into division. No,

22 actually 215 were -- 216 were killed, 115 were wounded, and 187 were

23 likely wounded, while a number of them were also hijacked. There were

24 also 755 terrorist attacks and provocations directed at citizens. The

25 figures before referred to police officers. 173 citizens were killed out

Page 32234

1 of whom 46 Serbs and Montenegrins, 77 Albanians, three Gypsies, two

2 Muslims, and 42 unidentified persons. As you can see, in 1998, the KLA

3 killed more Albanians than Serbs.

4 In that year the terrorists abducted 292 citizens, out of which

5 173 Serbs and Montenegrins, 100 Albanians, 14 Roma, one Bulgarian, one

6 Greek, and one Macedonian. They killed 31, 142 are missing, and nine

7 escaped.

8 Then further explanations are given in terms of everything that

9 was used: Mortars, hand-held rocket launchers, explosive devices,

10 anti-tank mines, and so on and so forth. All of this happened at the time

11 when Ibrahim Rugova claimed that the KLA is just a figment of the

12 imagination of the Serb propaganda, that it doesn't really exist.

13 This information is sufficiently clear, and I wonder if any

14 government in the world would remain passive vis-a-vis such terrorist

15 activity. It is only understandable that the police not only had to react

16 to terrorist attacks but it was indispensable for it to take action in

17 order to neutralise and combat terrorist groups in order to re-establish

18 control.

19 Attacks against the army is something that you know of very well,

20 and the entire public does. In a broad spectrum of views of different

21 international political structures, particularly in part of the

22 international public opinion, especially since 1998 there was this

23 misconception that was launched on purpose of the KLA as some kind of

24 liberation movement, which is quite unfounded. So for example, the FAS,

25 which is considered to be a think-tank, published a report in which it

Page 32235

1 says that the terrorist KLA was included among the best-known terrorist

2 countries -- terrorist organisations in the world. In addition to the

3 FAS, the State Department is the only institution in the US that deals

4 with the question of terrorist organisations seriously.

5 John Pike, security head of the FAS, stated that his organisation

6 carried out a detailed analysis studying the entire structure of the KLA,

7 as opposed to the State Department which bases its opinions on opinions

8 only rather than such careful analysis. The tactics of the KLA consist of

9 ambushes, then KLA members are organised in members of three to five --

10 cells of three to five members, which is characteristic of terrorist

11 organisations. The members of the group are visibly obsessed with their

12 idea of secession from Yugoslavia and annexation to Albania, and they

13 carry out orders without any protest. There are a thousand mercenaries in

14 the KLA from Saudi Arabia, Albania, Bosnia and Croatia, and some Western

15 countries that I cannot go into now, and they work there as experts.

16 Also, the camps are listed, the camps on the territory of Albania.

17 The FAS report also states that the open, long-term objective of the KLA

18 is to unite the Albanian populations of Kosovo, Albania, and Macedonia

19 into a Greater Albania. The KLA represented a typical terrorist

20 organisation, with all the accompanying characteristics, and that was the

21 position of all the police forces of the Western countries because they

22 were aware of the links of this organisation to drug dealers and white

23 slave traders.

24 Gelbard, in 1998, on the 23rd of February, stated at a press

25 conference in Belgrade, and I quote: "We are deeply disturbed and we

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Page 32237

1 condemn the impermissible activity of terrorist groups in Kosovo

2 especially the KLA. There is no doubt that this is a terrorist group. I

3 do not accept any kind of justification. Having worked on the subject

4 of terrorist activity for years, I know very well how to define a

5 terrorist group, and I base this on facts, not any kind of -- any kind of

6 rhetoric. Their activities speak for themselves."

7 He called upon Albanian leaders to condemn terrorism and to show

8 on which side they were, and nothing came out of this as we all know.

9 Outside the establishment, outside the Clinton administration, the

10 second half of 1998 there was an unequivocal belief that the KLA was a

11 typical terrorist organisation. This is also confirmed by a carefully

12 compiled document prepared by the Senate Committee of the Republican Party

13 in 1999, which says and I quote: "At the time when the NATO bombing

14 started, the partnership between the Clinton administration and the KLA

15 was unequivocal. Such demonstrative acceptance on the part of leading

16 persons from the Clinton administration of an organisation which was

17 branded a terrorist organisation by one of its officials only a year

18 beforehand is shocking, to put it mildly. It is even more important that

19 the new partnership between Clinton and the KLA can conceal the worrisome

20 characteristics of the KLA that Clinton did not take into account."

21 This is an official document of the Senate of the United States of

22 America.

23 The nature and role of the KLA as a terrorist organisation is the

24 subject of documents. And in the transcript of the US Congress from the

25 year 2000 Frank Ciluffo from the programme called Globalised Organised

Page 32238

1 Crime Programme, when testifying before Congress with the representative

2 juridical committee, stated: "What was concealed from the eyes of the

3 public was the fact that the KLA got part of its funds from the sale of

4 narcotics. Albania and Kosovo are in the middle of the Balkan route which

5 links up the crescent of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Western Europe. The

6 value is about 400 million US dollars per year and about 80 per cent of

7 the heroin intended for Europe goes along that route."

8 All of this was said in a hearing in the US Congress. (redacted)

9 (redacted)

10 (redacted)

11 (redacted)

12 (redacted)

13 (redacted)

14 An analysis of Security Council Resolutions in Kosovo and

15 Metohija --

16 JUDGE ROBINSON: I think the witness is protected.

17 MR. NICE: I'm finding it a little hard to follow exactly what the

18 accused is saying but I think the passage that deals with protected

19 evidence ought probably to be given protection now.

20 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. It will be redacted, and be more careful in

21 the future, Mr. Milosevic.

22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] This is not evidence that has to be

23 protected, it is the witness who has to be protected. I did not mention

24 who the witness was or his name, I'm just reminding you of what the

25 witness testified about over here.

Page 32239

1 Resolutions of the Security Council about Kosovo and Metohija

2 adopted before the NATO aggression against Kosovo show that the Security

3 Council believed that in Kosovo and Metohija there were terrorist attacks

4 that had taken place, and the KLA in these resolutions was clearly defined

5 as a terrorist organisation.

6 Resolution 1160: "Condemnation of all acts of terrorism by the

7 KLA or any other group or individual or any kind of external support to

8 the terrorist activity in Kosovo, including the financing, arming and

9 training thereof..." And we can see who was involved in this training, et

10 cetera.

11 In paragraph 2, the leadership of the Kosovo Albanians is called

12 upon to "condemn all terrorist actions," and it underlines that all

13 elements of the Albanian community in Kosovo should achieve their means

14 and objectives -- their objectives only by peaceful means.

15 In paragraph 8 reference is made to similar matters.

16 This remained a mere promise never fulfilled. Terrorist

17 activities were reinforced, more and more weapons brought in, and the

18 terrorists acted even more intensively with the engagement of the West.

19 Resolution 1199, I quote: "Condemns terrorism as a means of

20 obtaining political objectives of any group or individual and condemns any

21 kind of external support to such activity in Kosovo, including the

22 provision of weapons for terrorist activities in Kosovo."

23 What the Clinton administration did and which led to what happened

24 on the 11th of September is a major thing and nobody can deny that. You

25 can see how many of the suspects who were arrested took part in activities

Page 32240

1 conducted by the KLA in Kosovo. There is ample proof of that in Kosovo

2 and Bosnia-Herzegovina, practically as members of al Qaeda.

3 The Security Council expresses its concern over reports of

4 constant violations of the bans of providing weapons to terrorists, as

5 stated in Resolution 1160, and again in paragraph 6 it insists on the

6 condemnation of all terrorist activities and that all members of the

7 Albanian community should achieve their goals through peaceful means only.

8 In paragraph 11, it is stated that financial resources should not

9 be gathered in the territory of any country.

10 In Resolution 1203, there is a condemnation of terrorism of any

11 group or individual in order to achieve political objectives, including

12 the provision of weapons in Kosovo and the carrying out of terrorist

13 activities in Kosovo and also concern is expressed over continued

14 violations of previous resolutions passed by the Security Council.

15 In paragraph 10, I quote -- all of this has been a

16 quotation: "The Security Council insists that the leadership of the

17 Kosovo Albanians should condemn terrorist activities. However, they had

18 never done so." Terrorist activities of the KLA, that is.

19 So in contrast to these evident facts which pointed to the

20 terrorist character of the KLA and according to Security Council

21 Resolutions, every country had the duty to do their best to suppress such

22 activities. The Clinton administration, under the influence of a strong

23 Albanian lobby and their drug-related money, from 1999 onwards publicly

24 and directly sided with this terrorist organisation and became its

25 protector. Therefore, it is not surprising that after that period it took

Page 32241

1 measures to prevent the break-up of the KLA and to ensure them the status

2 of a party involved in the entire process, and it is in this capacity that

3 they brought them to Rambouillet even.

4 In this public rehabilitation Holbrooke, together with Gelbard,

5 the other US representative, met with a group of terrorists of the KLA and

6 conducted a dialogue with them before TV cameras. Soon afterwards he

7 admitted that Gelbard had previously established contact with them

8 already.

9 During August and September 1998, the police forces practically

10 broke up and neutralised the terrorists of the KLA and their strongholds.

11 Then again representatives of the Clinton administration came to the --

12 came onto the scene and then the Verification Mission came. Later on, it

13 was established that their only objective was to revitalise and re-animate

14 and protect the KLA.

15 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Milosevic, would you hold a minute.

16 [Trial Chamber confers]

17 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Continue, Mr. Milosevic.

18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The appointment of William Walker as

19 the leader of the Verification Mission was no accident. This was done at

20 the insistence of the CIA whose agent he was. It should be remembered

21 that he was the US Ambassador in Salvador and that he was in charge of

22 special operations in Nicaragua, such as the supplying of arms and the

23 forming of the death squads.

24 The developments of the late 20th century showed that the Clinton

25 administration used the nationalist and separatist movement and similar

Page 32242

1 movements in the world in order to achieve their interests. Therefore,

2 they whole-heartedly supported such movements, usually by way of sponsored

3 terrorism. This was shown on Kosovo and Metohija, and it is also

4 confirmed by the conclusion of the Committee for Foreign Affairs of the US

5 Congress in 1992 which said activate Kosovo and wherever possible get

6 concessions from Belgrade.

7 In an analysis of a commission of the republican Senate, it says

8 that the NATO intervention was planned beforehand by the American

9 administration but it lacked a media event which would, in the eyes of the

10 international community, serve as a political pretext for intervention.

11 There were lies upon lies waiting for a trigger to set events in motion.

12 Official NATO structures were recruited on time and during Clark's mandate

13 they established initial contacts with the KLA. This follows from the

14 background briefing in the American Ministry of Defence on the 15th of

15 July, 1998. These initial contacts were recognised by NATO in mid-1998.

16 They were given covert support from the mid-1990s onward by the CIA and

17 the BND. These secret operations were supported by NATO and were known to

18 NATO, as can be seen by -- in the book Kosovo, The Freedom Fighters, under

19 quotation marks. All of this confirms that the KLA, which was initially

20 treated as a terrorist organisation from mid-1998 due to a decision by the

21 Clinton administration entered into close links with NATO. Preparations

22 for the NATO aggression were conducted in this partnership together and in

23 parallel with the farcical negotiations in Rambouillet.

24 The turning point was the above-mentioned media event which was

25 created pursuant to what happened in Racak, according to the tried and

Page 32243

1 tested scenario from Bosnia in the case of the Markale market. There was

2 allegedly a massacre in the village of Racak, and the experienced chief of

3 the OSCE mission, Walker, called it an unprecedented crime by the Serbian

4 security forces. This was the peak of the preparations carried out in

5 order to create a pretext for the NATO aggression according to a plan

6 developed previously by the Clinton administration. There was an attempt

7 to describe this event in these terms here as well, and I showed you a

8 video where you can see the orange uniforms of the Verification Mission on

9 the hill overlooking Racak when Walker's deputy testified where you can

10 see what really happened there, and you could see the testimony of their

11 commander over there.

12 I have no time to go into it now on this occasion, but I wish to

13 quote what the military commentator Milovan Drecun said in the book The

14 Second Kosovo Battle about the Racak case. He said: "The Racak case will

15 enter many textbooks as a brilliantly executed and pure anti-terrorist

16 action carried out by members of the police but also as one of the most

17 monstrous media deceptions ever seen by the world. We are witnesses to

18 the fact that the events in Racak are daily being manipulated, especially

19 in The Hague where persistently serious falsification is being

20 perpetrated."

21 It is well known that the sponsors of these events did not want it

22 to be published that there was no massacre in Racak but attempts were made

23 throughout to blame the Serbian side.

24 JUDGE ROBINSON: That is the commentator, Mr. Milosevic, the

25 commentator that you just referred to.

Page 32244

1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Milovan Drecun, in his book The

2 Second Battle of Kosovo.

3 JUDGE ROBINSON: And he's from where?

4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Belgrade.

5 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thanks.

6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] There are facts that show that after

7 the agreement on the presence of the Verification Mission in October 1998

8 on Kosovo until the end of January 1999, over 500 KLA attacks were

9 perpetrated. And in the same period, using the Verification Mission as a

10 screen, 35 villages inhabited by Serbs and Montenegrins were ethnically

11 cleansed. And on -- in November 1999, 80 terrorist attacks were

12 perpetrated by the KLA on the police and on civilians.

13 As a reward for these and all other crimes they perpetrated,

14 primarily against the Serbs but also against other non-Albanians and also

15 against Albanians, and for their collaboration during the NATO aggression,

16 the KLA was renamed the Kosovo Protection Corps, and the UN gave it

17 legitimacy, making it possible for them to access funds in Western

18 countries through bilateral channels, including direct military aid. It

19 was understood, however, that they had to disarm immediately. This is

20 only one of many details in a sea of abuses that occurred. And Agim Ceku,

21 a notorious terrorist, was put at the head of this protection force.

22 There were many crimes against Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija committed

23 under his orders. Serbs and Albanians were killed because of their

24 loyalty to the state they lived in, Serbia. This same person fought

25 against the Serbs as an officer in the Croatian army in Croatia, and he

Page 32245

1 was especially prominent because of the crimes he committed against the

2 Serbs during Operations Flash and Storm and in the Medak pocket where

3 women, after being raped, were doused with gasoline and set on fire.

4 There is certainly data about this. But he is protected. He is an ally

5 in spite of the fact that he is a notorious murderer and terrorist.

6 You're able to see, for example, in 2003 in November in the

7 Belgrade press, photographs. I have no time to use photographs in my

8 opening statement because my time is too short, but you can see KLA

9 members in uniform holding heads of Serbs in both hands and where you can

10 see a bag full of heads of Serbs who had been beheaded. Everybody can see

11 that the person being photographed holding Serbian heads in his hands is

12 Sadik Cuflaj, and they carried out, they perpetrated crimes in Pec and

13 other places, Zvelan [phoen] and Pec. And this is just a part of

14 everything. Names, dates, information was published, but this was all

15 neglected and ignored. And now this same Cuflaj, with thousands of other

16 terrorists of the former KLA is a member of the Kosovo Protection Corps

17 and he holds a rank in it and he's a corporal. And they have been

18 entrusted by the international community to maintain order in Kosovo where

19 the Serbs are in constant fear of extinction.

20 In Kosovo and Metohija, for example, the USA and the West have

21 shown that they have a double standard when it comes to terrorists. I

22 know I have no time, but please look at this. On the 26th of August,

23 2004, the Washington Post writes about an Australian being tried for war

24 crimes. He was captured in Afghanistan, and in the article published by

25 the Washington Post it says how Hicks went from kangaroo skinner to

Page 32246

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Page 32247

1 alleged al Qaeda fighter. How he did that is not clear but the prosecutor

2 says he converted to Islam "[previous translation continues] [in English]

3 ... Kosovo Liberation Army, received training in al Qaeda camp, and took

4 up arms with a terrorist organisation against US forces in Afghanistan."

5 The question arises to illustrate this double standard whether he

6 is a Taliban and al Qaeda war criminal when he's fighting against

7 Americans in Afghanistan or was he also a criminal when he was fighting

8 against Serbs as a member of the KLA.

9 Every day an information such as this one comes to light. This

10 one is only a few days old.

11 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, in view of the extended break that

12 we had to take for technical reasons and the fact that you have had to

13 slow down, and I notice now that you are speeding up, I should tell you

14 that the Chamber has considered your request for an extension and has

15 decided that if you need it, you may have the first session tomorrow

16 morning. Only if you need it.

17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I certainly need it. I need much

18 more than that, but I will certainly make use. There is no doubt about

19 it, I will make use of it.

20 While American planes were transporting al Qaeda terrorists from

21 Afghanistan to Guantanamo in chains, at the same time the then puppet

22 regime in Belgrade received a demand that they should release from prison

23 all Albanian terrorists without any condition because they were allegedly

24 political criminals, and these were -- political prisoners, and these were

25 in fact murderers, and they were released.

Page 32248

1 I think that the consequences of what the Clinton administration

2 did in support of terrorism are evident, both in the USA and elsewhere.

3 And now they have become the greatest threat to modern humanity.

4 Clinton -- Clinton's administration, throughout its time in

5 office, applied this policy of double standards which has now turned very

6 brutally against the Americans themselves, as can be seen from what

7 happened on September the 11th.

8 From the aggression of the NATO pact on Yugoslavia, five years

9 have elapsed. This is not a great distance in time, but it is enough to

10 draw some conclusions about the consequences of this disgusting act and

11 the consequences on the population and the cultural and other values of

12 the country that came under attack. It is known for a fact, and it shall

13 be established here through documents and witnesses, reliable witnesses,

14 that the aggression was planned for a long time. It was inspired and

15 organised by those who concealed its true causes through a propaganda

16 trick about the alleged humanitarian catastrophe on Kosovo. The powers

17 that be in the NATO pact proclaimed the KLA terrorists to be peaceful

18 civilians, and they accused the military and political forces of the

19 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia of alleged crimes against the civilian

20 population while in fact they were legally fighting against terrorists.

21 The question should be put to them if this was the case, what did

22 a thousand soldiers and policemen die of? Were they killed by these

23 peaceful unarmed civilians? How come so many citizens died? Was this

24 caused by these peaceful and unarmed civilians? What are the facts that

25 can be taken as valid?

Page 32249

1 Clark himself, the then Commander-in-Chief of the NATO pact for

2 Europe whom you did not allow me to cross-examine here either about the

3 war or about his book in which he himself denied these charges in a very

4 obvious manner, he says in his book that NATO brought forces to Macedonia,

5 apparently for the pull-out, and everybody knew the extraction forces, and

6 everybody knew that there was no threat to the Macedonians, and they

7 escorted them to the border when they expressed a wish to go. And as

8 General Naumann testified here, they went when the aggression on

9 Yugoslavia became imminent and then they told the Verification Mission to

10 withdraw so as to make the bombing possible.

11 On page 168 of his book, he says the following: "When the army of

12 Yugoslavia, in spite of all the threats of bombings seized the troops" --

13 I will slow down. "The army of Yugoslavia when it seized troops at the

14 border, reacts by strengthening its forces toward that border." Then

15 Clark calls General Ojdanic, that's on page 168 of his book, and asks him

16 why he was bringing in new troops. Ojdanic replied that this was a

17 response to the new NATO troops in Macedonia, and then Clark said, "From

18 the Serbs' position the strengthening of his forces makes sense but it is

19 also a pretext for strengthening the forces again the Albanians.

20 Therefore, when a direct threat causes the strengthening of forces as a

21 consequence, this consequence is transformed into a cause for new

22 escalation."

23 And Madeleine Albright - this is on page 172 of his book - I

24 quote, says that: There is continuous deployment and strengthening of

25 Serbian troops. That's what he reported to Madeleine Albright, but before

Page 32250

1 that he said that it made sense from the Serbs' point of view. Then he

2 transforms a consequence into a cause, and this is what he says in his

3 report on the 6th of March, 1999, 18 days before the bombing, before there

4 were any refugees, he explains the scenario, what would happen after the

5 airstrikes and what the airstrikes would lead to. That's what he says in

6 page 173 of his book.

7 "Albright: If we start with the airstrikes, will the Serbs

8 attack the population? Clark: Almost certainly they will attack the

9 population. This is what they are promising to do. If we begin the

10 airstrikes, will they attack?" And he is talking about the attack not in

11 the past tense but as something that is to be expected as a consequence of

12 the airstrikes. Will the Serbs attack if the airstrikes begin? And he

13 says almost certainly they will. "Albright: What should we do? How can

14 we prevent their attacks on civilians? Clark: We can't. In spite of our

15 best efforts, the Serbs will attack civilians. This will be a race of our

16 airstrikes and the damage we do to them and what they can do on the

17 ground. In the short-term they will win the race. Albright: So what

18 should we do? Clark: We will have to strengthen our powers, our forces.

19 We will have to do more. We can be superior to anything they have, but it

20 will not be pleasant.

21 That's what it says in his book. Of course he doesn't mention the

22 KLA. As it can be seen clearly, the fight with the KLA he calls the

23 fighting with the civilians, but undoubtedly one or the other would be

24 caused by bombing consciously in a planned way. It's expected, and it

25 will be resolved by the bombing of the whole of Yugoslavia over a longer

Page 32251

1 term. Therefore, he himself, the Supreme Commander of NATO for Europe at

2 the time, discards the main thesis that the Serbs are responsible for the

3 persecution of Albanians because, he says, when we attack, then the

4 attacks will continue. He says that Rambouillet is not any kind of

5 unsuccessful negotiating situation but a process planned to produce an

6 ultimatum to be able to move from peace to war. This indicates that the

7 unscrupulous bombing of the towns, villages, the infrastructure and the

8 enormous human casualties are not a mistake but a calculated race, pouring

9 fuel onto the fire from a safe distance in order to burn down whatever can

10 be burned down as soon as possible, and then the fire-fighter would be

11 responsible whose duty it is in all fire conditions to spare human

12 casualties and to give them help.

13 He says that he planned the air operation against Yugoslavia, and

14 he wanted to be able to introduce NATO to Kosovo. I expect when he's

15 issued the summons to come and testify here we will see whether you think

16 that it is worth charging Wesley Clark for the crimes committed in the

17 former Yugoslavia for which you claim that you are responsible for, it's

18 under your jurisdiction. Then we will see.

19 Then we will see evidence that will show that the NATO pact -- or

20 I shouldn't say NATO pact, I should say the Clinton administration rather,

21 because Clark was one of his closest associates, and the rest, of course.

22 The Clinton administration falsified the reasons for their aggression

23 against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

24 The Canadian General Lewis MacKenzie, one of the former commanders

25 of UNPROFOR in Bosnia, in his text of the 6th of April, 2004 in the

Page 32252

1 Canadian daily National Post, says: "NATO decided on the action although

2 no member of the NATO alliance was in danger. It was decided to bomb not

3 only Kosovo but also the infrastructure and the people of Serbia, and this

4 without a resolution of the United Nations." I continue to quote: "We

5 mentioned that the West is placing itself on the side of the extremists,

6 of a militant separatist movement of Albanians from Kosovo, but we were

7 pushed aside as unobjective, and it is without doubt that the Kosovo

8 Liberation Army, which is fighting for the secession of Kosovo, was

9 characterised as a terrorist organisation which was receiving assistance

10 from Osama bin Laden," and we will present documents about this.

11 MacKenzie continues, contrary to what this illegal Prosecution insists on

12 in their unfounded indictment, he says: "All the information served to

13 cover or justify the bombing of Serbia turned out to be serious

14 forgeries."

15 General Lewis MacKenzie is no pro-Serb Canadian, he's only a

16 professional soldier speaking about the campaign to expel from Kosovo all

17 those who are not Albanian so that Kosovo would link up with mother

18 Albania and fulfil the objective of a Greater Albania, MacKenzie says:

19 "The campaign began with an attack on Serb security forces in the early

20 1990s. Milosevic's strong response to these attacks were managed to be

21 used by Albanians to get sympathies from the world for their objectives.

22 Quite contrary to Western claims, the genocide did not happen. Out of an

23 alleged 100.000 buried in mass graves, about 2.000 were found, and these

24 were members of all ethnic groups, including those who were obviously

25 killed in war, while taking part in combat."

Page 32253

1 Let us not even speak about how many of those were killed by the

2 KLA. You have here in prison this Limaj who is charged with the murder of

3 nine Serbs and 13 Albanians. So for the murder of more Albanians than

4 Serbs. Well, he only had nine Serbs in the prison and he had many more

5 Albanians, so he killed all of those nine Serbs and out of the rest of the

6 Albanians, he picked those 13 to kill. We have witnesses who will tell

7 you here, tell you and the international public how many Albanians were

8 killed and in what way by the KLA, and all this of was ascribed to the

9 Serbs.

10 And finally, playing with these numbers with your alleged experts

11 who are doing statistical calculations about the possible number of Serbs

12 is senseless in any kind of procedure which pretends to be a criminal

13 procedure.

14 MacKenzie goes on: "The Albanians from Kosovo played with us just

15 like a maestro plays with a violin. We helped and indirectly supported

16 their forceful campaign for an ethnically cleansed and independent Kosovo.

17 We never blamed them for the violence from the 1990s. We still present

18 them as victims although facts speak to the contrary. Think what kind of

19 a message of encouragement this would be to other terrorist movements in

20 the world who are seeking independence. If the Albanians achieve the

21 independence of Kosovo with the assistance of our taxpayer dollars as well

22 as those coming from bin Laden's al Qaeda."

23 He does not mention many other dollars received by them but we

24 will have the opportunity to discuss those as well.

25 He goes on: "Following the NATO intervention in 1999, Kosovo

Page 32254

1 became the biggest centre for crime in Europe, a white slave trade and

2 also a smuggling route on its way to Europe and North America. There is

3 proof that the largest quantities are coming from -- through Kosovo from

4 another country liberated by the West, Afghanistan. Members of the KLA

5 are personally implicated in these in this organised crime."

6 Admiral Gregory Johnson, the commander of the NATO forces in

7 Kosovo, or the commander of the NATO Southern Force, stated on the

8 occasion of the crimes in March 2004 that the conflicts which followed

9 constituted an action organised in advance, an action of ethnic cleansing

10 organised in advance by Albanians.

11 Damjan Krnjevic, he's an editor of the US magazine National

12 Interest and an associate of the Centre for South-Eastern Studies, in an

13 article published in the Wall Street Journal, under the title

14 Kristallnacht in Kosovo, underlines that Serbs for years warned about the

15 true nature of the Siptar movement and that the West claimed that they

16 were making this up and exaggerating. Krnjevic characterises this

17 anti-Serb activity and the position of the Serb people in Kosmet in the

18 following way: "Murder followed by murder, kidnapping followed by

19 kidnapping, and arson followed by arson, and finally the pogrom, which

20 confirmed the fears of the Serbs that they had been left to the mercy of

21 barbarians," and this under the auspices of the United Nations. This is

22 something that I added that is not his quotation. His quote ends at

23 "barbarians."

24 In this article Kristallnacht in Kosovo, he presents the fact that

25 from June 1999, 3.000 were kidnapped or killed. This is what I already

Page 32255

1 told you, and that "the mission of the United Nations in Kosovo constantly

2 deceived the entire world during the past five years with their alleged

3 successes while they were actually concealing the militarisation taking

4 place there."

5 Just like General MacKenzie, he quotes Derek Chapel, the spokesman

6 of the NATO police, who stated, "Everything is planned in advance." And

7 then he concludes based on that: "The only thing that is lacking or that

8 was lacking was the trigger. Now it is clear that certain Kosovo

9 politicians believe that by expelling Serbs, which they have already

10 achieved from 1999 with two-thirds of the Serbs, they can present the

11 international community with a fait accompli, and they can then take this

12 cleansing to be a sort of foundation for a sort of independence."

13 The Florida Times Union daily, shortly before the March escalation

14 of Albanian terrorism in Kosovo, March of this year, so prior to the

15 escalation in 2004, expressed the demand that Kosovo be returned to Serbia

16 because, I quote: "It is final time that Kosmet be returned to its true

17 owners."

18 Reporters of the Russian agency Novosti informed their readership

19 about the scale of the activities of the Albanian extremists in an article

20 entitled Vandals of the 21st Century. The aggressively minded section of

21 the Albanian population is destroying Christian monuments probably because

22 these monuments are direct evidence of the life and existence of Serbs in

23 that territory from ancient times and because they present authenticate

24 history which cannot be negated or eradicated from the collective memory.

25 The conduct of the protectorate power and the outrages of the Kosmet

Page 32256

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Page 32257

1 rulers are characterised in the following ways: Every time with new

2 crimes against Serbs the protectorates have expressed condolences to those

3 who have collaborated in these crimes. So is it those who are in power

4 there who have command responsibility there and everything else that is

5 used here in the -- to the most possible degree? And they have four times

6 as much power than we had at the time when it was possible to maintain

7 public law and order to protect the citizens in the entire territory of

8 Kosovo.

9 Russian historian Naro Chichkaya, who is also the deputy president

10 of the Commission for International Relations of the Duma of Russia, in a

11 text entitled Kosovo, The Monstrous Boil on the Body of Europe, which was

12 published in the Belgrade newspaper Srpska Oblada on the 14th of April,

13 2004, says: "The bitter fruit --" that "They are the bitter fruits of the

14 anti-Serbian phobia of the West. The author says that it is still not

15 talked about the fact that not a single crime ascribed to the Serb police

16 and army has not been proven and that The Hague Tribunal has been

17 projected in order to justify the aggression against the sovereign Federal

18 Republic of Yugoslavia and that it has been a complete fiasco."

19 The well known and respectable London Financial Times expresses

20 the dilemma whether Kosovo will ever be safe, answers that first of all

21 depends on, I quote, "whether the West will think and review its policy

22 towards Kosovo from the very beginning."

23 The news from Kosmet indicate that the members of the KFOR are not

24 only allowing the rages of the Albanian terrorists but look on it

25 favourably. So they prevented a Serb from putting out the fire on his own

Page 32258

1 house with the words "Tonight everything Serbs must burn." Members of the

2 German KFOR peacefully looked on as terrorists burned down four churches,

3 demolished the monastery of St. Archangel and also the monument to Emperor

4 Dusan. This is not the first time that they did that. They set fire on a

5 Serbian religious building with people still inside, and they also burned

6 the fresco of philosopher Plato that was inside. A German officer coldly

7 and cynically commented the burning and the destruction of medieval

8 churches of vast cultural and historical importance in Prizren and its

9 environs by saying, "Well, those churches were old anyway."

10 I will skip over the propaganda activities and the statements of

11 various people or figures from the West. I will mention Kinkel who, on

12 the 27th of May, 1992, said that "Serbs should be brought to their knees."

13 Helmut Kohl in 1993, "Let the Serbs drown in their own stench." Blair in

14 1999, "War against Serbia is no longer a military conflict. It's a battle

15 between good and evil, between civilisation and barbarism." Clinton, who

16 said on 23rd, 25th of April in 1999 that "The Serbs were inflicting terror

17 and raping Albanian children."

18 This political psychological and psychopathological, I will say it

19 that way, situation is the conditions under which the NATO aggression

20 against Yugoslavia was conducted.

21 It has already been documented here, already I have shown a large

22 number of photographs about the bombing, but this is also in the

23 voluminous documentation which I will tender as an exhibit along with my

24 opening statement. Apparently it was not enough that so many Serbian

25 facilities were destroyed and so many citizens of Yugoslavia were killed

Page 32259

1 and wounded. That was not enough. So they even fired at the Chinese

2 Embassy and killed some Chinese and destroyed their embassy. Along with

3 using ammunitions with depleted uranium, this has polluted the ground, and

4 this will go on for many thousands of years. It can be said with

5 certainty that the pollution of the environment is not something that

6 occurred not only on the territory of Yugoslavia, but this pollution has

7 occurred on a broader area in Eastern Europe. Depleted uranium ammunition

8 was mostly -- mostly used in Kosovo. That is where there are many sources

9 of rivers which flow throughout Europe, so it was obvious that this was

10 the intent, to poison the rivers which flow into Serbia. Velika Morava,

11 Sava, and the Danube. So this led to an ecological catastrophe by

12 polluting major rivers as well as many spas in an area which is one of the

13 richest of medicinal waters. In the production of food, first of all,

14 which is something that is very expensive in Western Europe and the United

15 States, we're talking about organically grown food, and it's something

16 that Yugoslavia thought it had a future in. So this was jeopardised.

17 There was also a long-term strategic plan for agriculture which was made

18 by Yugoslavia until the year 2020 and where biologically or organically

19 grown food had a specific special place, health food. And with bombing,

20 many impermissible chemicals were introduced, thus jeopardising the

21 long-term production of this health food.

22 According to the findings of experts of the District Court in

23 Belgrade in the indictment against NATO leaders, the cluster bombs which

24 were dropped by NATO dissipated over a large area, and that is why it is

25 not possible to direct their activity only at military targets even though

Page 32260

1 -- even their use against military targets was a crime but they dispersed

2 to a much greater territory.

3 JUDGE ROBINSON: I'm sorry to interrupt you but I think we have to

4 leave it there for the day.

5 We will adjourn now and resume tomorrow morning at 9.00.

6 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 2.00 p.m.,

7 to be reconvened on Wednesday, the 1st day of

8 September, 2004, at 9.00 a.m.

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