MILOSEVIC TRIAL DISCUSSION ARCHIVE

Is Slobodan Milosevic getting a fair trial?
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• discussion archive

• Tuesday May 13, 2003 at 12:08 am
  Vera,

  There are no sessions this week because the troika says that it is "giving the accused time to prepare his defense."

  Apparently this Fadil Banjanovic whom the prosecution is in the midst of examining is a personal friend of Nasir Oric. On May 3 Mr. Banjanovic said to the Bosnian newspaper "Dnevni Avaz" that he intends to use his free trip to the Hague to "visit his friend Nasir Oric."

  START RELATED MEDIA REPORT

  Fadil Banjanovic: I will testify against Milosevic

  3 May 2003 - Dnevni Avaz/Oslobodjenje (page 3)

  A deputy of the RS House of Peoples and Assistant Minister for the Refugees and Return in Tuzla Canton, Fadil Banjanovic, was summoned to testify in the Milosevic trial. "I go to The Hague with great pleasure and I will tell everything that butcher Milosevic did in the area of Zvornik and Podrinje. They have offered me various mitigating conditions, but I have told them that I want to look in Milosevic's eyes and remind him of what he had done during the war," stated Banjanovic. He also said that he would use the opportunity of going to The Hague to visit his friend, Srebrenica wartime commander Naser Oric.

  END MEDIA REPORT

  Friends of Naser Oric that is who this so-called "prosecution" gets for a "witness." This Banjanovic is as credible of a witness against Milosevic as the grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan is against a Black man.
  
  Andy Wilcoxson
  Washington, United States

• Tuesday May 13, 2003 at 4:07 am
  Ann-Marie,

  Thanks for the info. You're right I hadn't realized that those witnesses had been the subject of a previous discussion. I'll be churious to see the April 28th transcripts.

  Do you know what the nature of the testimony in these transcripts that are being admitted under 92-bis is? I looked at the transcripts from the Foca cases and the pseudonyms were all different in each of them.

  Did anybody say to which pseudonym from which Foca case that these 92-bis witnesses will correspond to? Was the testimony in question given in private session or in open session during those hearings?
  
  Andy Wilcoxson
  Washington, United States

• Tuesday May 13, 2003 at 10:56 am
  Vera Martinovic is right of course, that as members of the public we would need the transcripts from the trial sessions on 16/17 April and 28/29 April, 2003 to make real headway concerning this alleged "smoking gun" (Monday May 12, 2003 at 11:29 pm).

  May that be the reason why these transcripts are still lacking? However, in furtherance of her fine comparative analysis of mr. Chris Stephen´s articles and comments in The Observer and IWPR Online respectively, may I point out, that the informed opinion voiced by Justice Richard J. Goldstone in this connexion appears to certify that in spite of all the efforts of the Prosecution during the 14 months of trial hearings prior to the sessions with protected witnesses B-129 and C-48 "not a scrap of evidence showed Milosevic ordering (any of these) crimes" (1).

  While their relief may still turn out to be undeserved, the preceeding frustration of the Prosecutors seems all the more palpable.

  "You can understand an upbeat feeling in the light of what's happened," Chris Stephen is quoting Justice Goldstone for saying; and while one may indeed have doubts with regard to the quality and aims of his journalism, you cannot dismiss the judgment of the South African, a former Chief Prosecutor of the UN International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

  In fact his tacit acknowledgement of the utter lack of evidence until now seems to me all the more important, since Justice Goldstone is also a former Chairperson of the International Independent Inquiry on Kosovo (2).

  (1)http://www.observer.co.uk/milosevic/story/0,10639,953376,00.html

  (2)http://www.concourt.gov.za/judges/jdgoldst.html
  
  Godfred Louis-Jensen
  Copenhagen
  D E N M A R K

• Tuesday May 13, 2003 at 8:15 pm
  

  Last night Ramsey Clark was on TV denouncing the excesses of American power. Ramsey had been the US Attorney General under the Johnson Administration from which he dully resigned.

  After this talk a few questions were asked, among then two I found interesting in showing how provocative and hardheaded the American public remains.

  If you're so dedicated to freedom etc., how come you are involved in the defense of a war criminal and dictator like Slobodan Milosevic? Interestingly enough Ramsey did not defended Mr. Milosevices reputation, except in saying people are demonized when it is convenient.

  Do you believe the State of Israel has the right to exist?

  He was a little warmer on this one, when he retorted so do the Palestinians, they have also the right to have their own state . . .

  American political scene is really a mixture of nazism and kindergarten infantilism.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Shangri-La

• Tuesday May 13, 2003 at 8:16 pm
  
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Shangri-La

• Tuesday May 13, 2003 at 8:52 pm
  Since no one else seems to have responded regarding timetables for this trial:

  JUDGE ROBINSON: So, in effect, if those three indictments were to be tried together, we're looking at a total of about 500 days for the Prosecution case. That would mean that if there was a trial of all these indictments together, taking account of the time that the Defence would need to present its case, the case would run at least three years; isn't that right? 31 Oct 2001 - Page 53

  Judge May: Now, in those circumstances, there may be an argument for saying the two should be tried together but Kosovo should be tried separately. Perhaps you might like to think about that and address us on it. And there is, of course, behind all this - while I am dealing with these matters - there is behind all this the manageability of the trial. I know you haven't reached that, and no doubt you will, of course, address us on it, but the sort of trial which you are arguing for, involving some 600 witnesses and lasting - I don't know how long you anticipate, Mr. Nice - but lasting some two to three years, is not one which at the moment would appear to be very manageable. 11 Dec 2001 Page 89

  Judge May: With all this in mind, we have decided that the Prosecution should have one year from today to conclude their case. That will give them a total of 14 months in which to finish the case, their case. In the view of the Trial Chamber, no Prosecution case should continue for a period longer than that. 10 April 2002 page 2784

  So I think a timeframe was clearer specified by Judge May within which the prosecution was to make its case. According to Judge May the time for the defence to take the stand is already overdue, assuming that Milosevic does not obtain the automatic aquittal he is entitled to request (not that he recognises the court) before presenting any defence.
  
  Ian Davis
  Waterloo
  Ontario, Canada

• Tuesday May 13, 2003 at 10:25 pm
  Andy,

  I've done my best to note down what Groome said about pseudomyms:

  First there were B1542 and B1543 who had testified about being repeatedly raped during captivity. They were known as FWS25 and FWS87 in Kunarac, Kovac & Vukovic. At least one of them was also a witness in Krnojelac (I think).

  Then Groome went on to talk of those he thougt could be called for limited crossexamination about JNA-involvement:
  B1015, B1533, B1618, B1120 were respectively FSW104, FSW15, FSW33 and FSW111.
  Then he talked about B1536 that had testified about paramilitairies from Serbia, Arkans and Seseljs men. He said B1536 testified in both trials but forgot to mention any pseudonym. So they were actually FIVE that will appear. All of them talk about the circumstances during the takeover of Foca.

  B1121, B1537 (can't currently be located), B1528 and B1540 all talk about the outbreak of the conflict in Foca and the conditions of the KP-DOM detention facilities. They were known as FSW111, FSW109, FWS69 and FWS54.
  (Here I got a little confused as Groome had already mentioned FWS111 as the pseudonym for a witness called B1120.)

  I believe FSW means Krnojelac and FWS means Kunarac, Kovac & Vukovic. I also think he said they were not all protected but he would only refer to them by number.

  He also said something about 8 witnesses from Dukmanovic being admitted. But we have only seen Bosanac. Mesic came on fully live and can't be one of them.
  
  Ann-Marie Laios
  Sollentuna
  Sweden

• Tuesday May 13, 2003 at 10:34 pm
  I meant to say of course that Groome mentioned FSW111 twice (not FWS111).
  
  Ann-Marie Laios
  Sollentuna
  Sweden

• Tuesday May 13, 2003 at 11:25 pm
  After looking at the weekly updates of both trials I think that Groome confused the letters. FWS is mentioned in both of them. It was only my assumption that the different combinations meant different trials. But FSW is not mentioned in the updates but that was clearly what Groome said for several of them.
  
  Ann-Marie Laios
  Sollentuna
  Sweden

• Tuesday May 13, 2003 at 11:59 pm
  Nicole J.. I went searching for your article by Chris Stephen and hit: Chris Stephen is IWPR's project managers in The Hague. Personally I would consider anything Chris Stephen wrote as suspect. One might observe that IWPR has an agenda, and clearly knows whose side it is on, perhaps in part because it knows which side its bread is buttered.
  
  Ian Davis
  Waterloo
  Ontario, Canada

• Wednesday May 14, 2003 at 12:10 am
  Walter: Re:

  Look at the life of Tesla, the giant among inventors and yet only one in a thousand high school students in North America might know something about him.

  How many US high school students have heard of Edison, or could tell you that he was an American? I think you are asking these high schools students to run before they are able to walk in expected them to know that Tesla was a Serb.

  Were I a Serb, I'd consider it more than satisfactory to know that Serb's knew who Tesla was.
  
  Ian Davis
  Waterloo
  Ontario

• Wednesday May 14, 2003 at 6:16 am
  

  The ICTY prosecutor Carla del Ponte, (a.k.a. Carla la Loca) got it all wrong: the crimes she is accusing Mr. Milosevic are truly no crimes at all, they are normal practice among the finest democracies or is it theocracies of the world:

  See HERE
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Shangri-La

• Wednesday May 14, 2003 at 6:23 am
  

  More work for the Belgian judges:

  Iraqis to File U.S. War Crimes Complaint Please consider using the new ICC. Promotional deals may be available.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Shangri-La

• Wednesday May 14, 2003 at 6:31 am
  

  The friends of the Iraqui people are getting even friendlier:

  Iraq, May 13 ? United States military forces in Iraq will have the authority to shoot looters on sight under a tough new security setup that will include hiring more police officers and banning ranking members of the Baath Party from public service, American officials said today.

  The far more muscular approach to bringing order to postwar Iraq was described by the new American administrator, L. Paul Bremer, at a meeting of senior staff members today, the officials said. On Wednesday, Mr. Bremer is expected to meet with the leaders of Iraqi political groups that are seeking to form an interim government by the end of the month. "He made it very clear that he is now in charge," said an official who attended the meeting today. "I think you are going to see a change in the rules of engagement within a few days to get the situation under control."

  Asked what this meant, the official replied, "They are going to start shooting a few looters so that the word gets around" that assaults on property, the hijacking of automobiles and violent crimes will be dealt with using deadly force.

  How Iraqis will be informed of the new rules is not clear. American officials in Iraq have access to United States-financed radio stations, which could broadcast the changes. ( . . . .)

  NYT for fair use only
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Shangri-La

• Wednesday May 14, 2003 at 6:35 am
  

  . . .attention looters, attention shoppers, this is Radio Sloboda, I mean Radio Free Iraq, anyone engaged in . . .will be shot on the back, on the spot, any spot you like . . . attention friends . . .

  As they say in the Colonies: "have a good day"
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Shangri-La

• Wednesday May 14, 2003 at 9:16 am
  

  David Im not sure what you mean by an 'execution field', if people were not lined up and shot then just how were they executed?

  Walter, I too have relatives in Serbia and truely I dont hear the kind of things you see on the internet although it is not how it was before the war of course.

  Thanks for the brief history of diaspora. I would like to ask another question the sons and daughters of the WW2 generation cetniks and ustase. Do they not feel a need to actually go to Serbia or Croatia to see if anything they heard from their parents was true or relevant today? Some of them speak with authority and represent their views as the views of those in the homeland when they cant even speak the language. We back in former Yugoslavia dont know how much damage diaspora from each side might have caused in the eyes of neutrals who might not actually be against them. It is very difficult to be able listen to people who might warn us about danger of the world media when their parents have done such an excellent job brainwashing them.

  The above I write as somebody as citizen of a city that was rallying point. At the time we Bosnians (government) were the supposed good guys. The Serbs (Bosnian Serbs) were bad. Never mind poor bastards in Mostar who middle class in Europe and US forgot. Never mind that attrocities were going on all over Bosnia. Dont get me wrong Sarajevans had to take any hand that was offered whether Western middle class liberals or including that forces of nasty mudjahadin. But I was one of the luckier ones who escaped ironically enough to Serbia. It was a living hell leaving our friends in the s##t but we had no choice. Of course propogandists love to rub that in our faces using our flight and misery as evidence of heroic multi ethnic Serbia. No refugee went to Serbia as a refugee because of that. They went there because there was peace within its borders.

  The thing that is most puzzling is when you see people hitting US policy abroad but their understanding of a given conflict consists of opposing whatever they perceive to be the mainstream media view. Not exactly a thought out opinion. All of sudden Bosnians or today Bosnjaks become bad guys, all of us secret Islamic fundamentalists who want 5 wives and to give up alcohol! Serbs become hero's because Western media called them evil. Are these people so blind and stupid that they cant see they are just reversing the label? Same thing is true of Milosevic who has become rallying point for those who felt that media demonised him.

  But on the one hand we should laud democracy should we not Rebecka, the democracy that has led to the New World Order, Hitler, Tudjman, Milosevic, Izetbegovic and countless other autocrats. Or we can damn Communism because Mcarthyists like to go on witch hunts. Tito wasnt elected under the beloved capitalist system and he and Yugoslavia resisted it to degree but he is the bad guy. Under Tito most Yugoslav's saw economic prosperity and more importantly there was no war. Tell me more Rebecka about your precious democracy and capitalism please while you have a good life and we in balkans go down.

  As for the Markale incident. Thanks for using that to try to make a propoganda point about how evil Muslums are. I suppose you also belive that evil muslums were responsible for bombing themselves in Iraq too? By the way I was under impression that reports on Markale was not conclusive so no there is not scientific proof who fired Markale. There is much proof about hundreds of other bombs which were fired from Bosnian Serb positions like the Library and many many other places you didnt even hear of. It is strange when you hear first people say muslums fired on themselves in Sarajevo when there is as much proof in opposite direction and second how quiet muslum haters are about thousands of bombs that killed Saravevo civilians, Serb, Croat and Muslum, fired from Bosnian Serb positions.

  O Oasis of knowledge prey tell me who are my 'bestial' heros? I have not sung heroic nationalistic song (unlike you) to fit with your tribal view of balkan people. My hero used to be Yugoslavia but they killed her. In fact they killed her with the help of so called Cetnik lovers, ustase lovers and criminals inside and outside former Yugoslavia.
  
  Srdjan Arnautovic
  Sarajevo

• Wednesday May 14, 2003 at 9:40 am
  

  Viva Yugoslavia!
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Shangri-La

• Wednesday May 14, 2003 at 11:45 am
  Deja Vu
  Dodge Cities and Boot Hills all over Iraq in the making? So be it.

  What to do with 'nihilists' who because of the Mullahs are operating with half a brain, the bad half?

  Lotta criticism around here but no suggestions. W's got the job and like he says, he'll do what it takes for as long as it takes.

  BTW, I don't consider W 'responsible' for the NATO Balkan fiasco. Notice when Rummy rattled of recent 'dictators', he didn't include Milosevic.
  
  J P
  USA,Wis

• Wednesday May 14, 2003 at 12:36 pm
  Srdjan Arnautovic,

  I've always been of the opinion that war brokeout in Bosnia precisely because neither the rule of law nor the democratic will of the people was respected.

  In the 1990 elections Fikret Abdic got the most votes, but he was never able to take office. I dare say that if the election resilts had been respected and Fikret Abdic was Bosnia's president instead of Alija Izetbegovic that there would not have been a war in Bosnia in the first place.

  I also claim that if Izetbegovic had not renegged on the Lisbon Agreement back in 1992 that the war could have been avoided again at that point.

  The saddest thing about the Bosnian war is that it was totally pointless. Everybody who died in that war ultimately died for nothing. Everybody got roughly the same territory out of the Dayton Accords as they would have gotten out of the Lisbon agreement back in 1992. The only thing Bosnia has to show for the Dayton Accords today is the dictatorship of Paddy Ashdown. The only thing Bosnia got out of nearly 3 years of war is ethnic hatred that will take generations to heal.

  In my opinion, based on the research I've done. I consider Alija Izetbegovic to be the single greatest protagonist of the Bosnian war.

  As for Milosevic I absolutely fail to see how the president of Serbia could be in any way responsible for the outbreak of hostilities in Bosnia or Croatia. It seems to me that the Serbs in Bosnia and Croatia were simply reacting to the situation that they found themselves in; a situation that the president of Serbia could have no control over.
  
  Andy Wilcoxson
  Washington, United States

• Wednesday May 14, 2003 at 12:39 pm
  

  Sugestions?

  Stop saving the wordl, stay home, plant a tree, bake cookies, take care of your own for at the end when you will be old someone will have to.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Shangri-La

• Wednesday May 14, 2003 at 1:06 pm
  Hello Ian. You are right one must learn to walk before one can run and I know as you also know that majority of our high schools graduates are unable to walk academically. Waterloo University, I think, deflates marks of applicants by as much as twenty percent depending on the graduate’s high school before they consider their application for admission.

  Ian, I am not expecting high school students to know that Tesla “was a Serb”. I am saying that his contribution to society has been ignored because he was a Serb. If he had been a Frenchman, an Englishman, an Italian or a German he would have been written up in high school physics texts. Yes, some texts mention the ‘tesla’ as a unit of measurement for magnetism without the mention of his contribution to our understanding of electricity, lasers, and motors. In 1943, The Supreme Court of the United States gave Tesla the patent for the invention of the radio and yet to this day high school physics texts credit Marconi with the invention of the radio. I attribute this to centuries of racism ‘the white man’s burden’ attitude of western Europeans.

  Ian even this trial smacks of racism. The Western press, I alluded to this in a previous post, sees Milosevic as a man with a dark side, melancholy, brooding and beady eyed all stereotypes of the Slavic people. May’s treatment of Milosevic is contemptuous and he does not even try to conceal it while Milosevic at least tries to conceal his contempt for May. May’s mind is made up, like most people who harbor prejudices; they ignore the facts as irrelevant.

  Srdjan, I question the “Markale incident” not because I think that “evil Muslums” as you write are the only one capable of such acts. Evidence points to Isetbegovic’s regime as being behind it and benefiting from it. French and Canadian military experts claim that the explosive was not lobbed in and the nature of injuries are more like those from a mine rather than from a mortar shell.

  Srdjan also writes that “multi ethnic Serbia” was not the reason that Bosnian and Kosovo Muslims and Bosnian Croats went to Serbia for refuge. They went there because they found safety with friends and relatives. There are several Muslim and Croat families here in Kamloops who went to Serbia and after the war came to Canada. I have not met a single Serbian family who went to Isetbegovic’s Bosnia or Tudjman’s Croatia seeking refuge but that does not mean that it did not happen.

  Srdjan writes that our example of Serbia as being a safe place as comments by “propagandists” who “love to rub that in our faces using our flight and misery as evidence of heroic multi ethnic Serbia”. My relative in Sarajevo (Ildja) was killed on his doorstep four month after the war was over and a Muslim family moved into his house one week later. Srdjan, you can verify that if you want but do you have any evidence that acts such as this took place in Serbia???? You also state that you went to Serbia,”because there was peace within its borders”. What does that tell you about the Serbian government of the day? Does it tell you that for the government of Serbia saw two kinds of Muslims and Croats and it was OK to be a Muslim and a Croat in Serbia but not in Kosovo, Bosnia or Croatia? I don’t think so!

  Srdjan, American foreign policy is a puzzle. They tear walls down in some places and build walls in other place. What does it feel like to live in Bosnia and everywhere you turn there is a border post? Americans live in fear every day because they refuse to see themselves as others see them. They only need to see themselves as their friends see them to learn half the truth. Their government refuses to entertain the idea that international security leads to national security since we are parts of the same world. Until the American government sees that terrorism against them comes from their foreign policies rather than from jealousy the walls will need to be bigger and stronger while democracy that they speak of so fondly will be like the Rosetta Stone.

  Yes Srdjan I personally blame Balkan tribalism for the walls that exist in former Yugoslavia today. This tribalism was used by the democracies to break the country up and those who opposed it were demonized including the young people of Sarajevo and leaders like Milosevic and Fikret Abdic. You seem to forget Karadjic’s warning of the Pandora’s Box during the illegal elections and referendums in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He warned you about this very tribalism. What you have in Bosnia today is what existed in 1908 under Austria. There is an irony when one speaks that democracy exists where capitalism exists. Citizens are guaranteed political rights in a democracy but capitalism does not grant every citizen equal distribution of economic rights. When this exists it is not possible for citizens to enjoy their political rights because of the golden rule. “Those that have the gold make the rules”. Its time for the Black Hand again Srdjan. “Bolje grob nego rob” better grave then a slave” Zivio Tito.
  
  Walter Trkla
  Kamloops BC
  Canada

• Wednesday May 14, 2003 at 5:15 pm
  Mr. Trkla,

  I admire your temper, patience and thoughtfulness in answering to Mr. Arnautovic.

  As to Markale, if one does not quite believe that it was self inflicted, one just has to read General Sir Michael Rose’s book to see not one but numerous such staged “events”.
  
  D. Jovanovic
  USA

• Wednesday May 14, 2003 at 5:23 pm
  

  The West killed Yugoslavia. It is interesting that Srdjan do not list Muslims fundamentalists in his list of responsible western cooperators in this endeavor. Srdjane when you were in Multiethnic Serbia were you hiding all the time so that you were not arrested by the Serbian police to be sent to the extermination camp run by the vicious Cetniks under the orders of Mr. Milosevic or Mr. Mihajlovic like you believe that happened to the Jews? Were you forced there to hide your "nationality"? Most of the Yugoslavs in the former Yugoslavia were the Serbs. But as you may know the New World Order Masters never recognized this nationality or Yugoslav language. What they did they recognized some invented language called Bosnian language and some invented Bosnian nationality and now we have this mockery of the same language in the Hague that is called some times Bosnian, some time Croatian and some time Serbian language.

  In the Former Yugoslavia you Yugoslav's had the army, the police and the government. You had all the power that was needed to preserve Yugoslavia as a whole. You had not guts to do that. The famous Yugoslav Army lost the war in Slovenia against 50 European monitors. Yugoslavs betrayed Yugoslavia not the Serbs, Croats or the Muslims. I felt like Yugoslav till 1990 but then I decided to become a Serb again, because the only thing that Yugoslavs were doing at that time and during the last war was having parties and singing Yugoslav patriotic songs.

  Poor Yugoslavs they are angry with the Serbs, since they expected the Serbs to fight and die for the Yugoslav cause in this last Balkan war as they did in the WWI and the WWII. This time Serbs at last came to their senses and refused. They fought for them selves and every one else that was reasonable to join them.

  Srdjane what is stopping you Yugoslavs to organize your own party in all the countries of the Former Yugoslavia, win the elections in them and re-unite the country? Bosnia is now a democratic country why you guys do not start it today or even better why you have not started that already. Or may be you should start paying USA congressman and senators real money (contributions not bribes) so that they will start promoting the concept of Yugoslav re-integration wit the USA
  
  Pera Bora
  Ottawa
  Canada

• Wednesday May 14, 2003 at 5:29 pm
  

  I am sorry my last sentence in my last post was not what I wanted to say, so here it is again:

  Or may be you should start paying USA congressman and senators real money (contributions not bribes) so that they will start promoting the concept of Yugoslav re-integration with the USA government.
  
  Pera Bora
  Ottawa
  Canada

• Wednesday May 14, 2003 at 6:57 pm
  Another "scholarly" article written by a prof from Princeton, who also claims that Mr. May is a great judge. Totally disgusting!

  http://www.foreignaffairs.org/
  
  vesa v.
  france

• Wednesday May 14, 2003 at 7:06 pm
  It seems that Srdjan is bitter that his part of the former Yugoslavia has been ethnically cleansed, by his own people as a matter of fact, and Serbia has not. The fact is that Serbia is very much multi-ethnic and the only multi-ethnic part of the former Yugoslavia -- the...only...one (here I do not lay much blame on Slovenia, but on Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo - definitely. There is some multi-ethnicity in Macedonia and Montenegro, but compare it to Serbia and there IS no comparison. That speaks well of the government in Serbia and of the Serbian people and of all the ethnic minorities there.

  It's so easy to blame the Serbs, Srdjan, for everything -- that was the common pastime in other parts of Yugoslavia long before Yugoslavia was torn to pieces. I am surprised, I must say, that your hero was Yugoslavia, since you're the first Bosnian I have heard say that. Not that I'm not glad to know it, but it's not something I have heard before from that part of the world. I can distinctly recall Serbs, almost without exception, calling themselves "Yugoslavs" and Croats but Slovenians, for example, calling themselves Croats or Slovenians, not Yugoslavs. Perhaps some Bosnians were not like that, or maybe YOU are an exception. Confusing Serbs in general with whatever persons were going around during the Bosnian war, calling themselves Chetniks, and believing that they stood for anything to do with Mihajlovic is comopletely misguided. Any paramilitary gang, if that is what they were, can call themselves whatever they want. Look at Rumsfeld who tries to get us to buy that the U.S. is a democratic interventionist in Iraq. Look at Clinton who wanted us to buy that the U.S. is "humanitarian." Anybody can call himself anything, but it doesn't necessarily reflect the truth. A case in point, they call this farce at the Hague a "trial," but we all know it isn't, not according to any known rules of law.

  
  
  Anna P
  California

• Wednesday May 14, 2003 at 7:08 pm
  ...but Croats and Slovenians calling themselves...
  
  Anna P
  California

• Wednesday May 14, 2003 at 10:12 pm
  I found this on the Hague Bard website: http://hague.bard.edu/ICTY_documents.html EXPERT REPORT OF AUDREY BUDDING " Serbian Nationalism in the Twentieth Century" / part 1 / part 2 / submitted May 29, 2002 Part 1: http://hague.bard.edu/reports/hr_budding-29may2002-pt1.pdf Part 2: http://hague.bard.edu/reports/hr_budding-29may2002-pt2.pdf I ask myself what Milosevic has to do with Serbian nationalism in the twentieth century, given that he was not even alive during the Balkan Wars and WWI, was a child during WWII, and only rose to power in the late 1980s. I think the fact that the prosecution is tendering this as evidence (and that the chamber is accepting it as "evidence", while disregarding Milosevic's very real arguments for Serbia's economic and logistic support of the Bosnian and Croatian Serbs in the face of all the crimes enumerated (half of the Bratunac witnesses presented by prosecution have been involved in the killings of Serb civilians in the Bratunac-Srebrenica area)) is proof that this trial is not about Milosevic at all. While I think that the West has nothing particularly against the Serbs because of their identity, it certainly seems that they are attempting to smear them with the "collective guilt" nonsense (any rational person will realize that the very notion of collective guilt in the first place is pure nonsense), so as to use this for political concessions and as a means of rewriting history to justify crimes perpetrated by NATO and by proxies of NATO as an institution and proxies of its member states (read Germany - Croatians and Albanians; Turkey - Bosnian Muslims; America - Albanians, Croatians, and Bosnian Muslims)
  
  P. M.
  USA

• Wednesday May 14, 2003 at 10:19 pm
  [b] In his opening statement, prosecutor Peter McCloskey called the massacre "a Bosnian genocide". "For many Serbs Srebrenica is still a myth, a story beyond belief... for these accused it is their legacy - a disgrace to humanity that will follow them into the miserable legacy of this war," he said. Two of the men accused of genocide - Vladoje Blagojevic and Dragan Obrenovic -were in command of the troops that took over the town. Along with a third man, Dragan Jokic, who was a major, they are also charged with extermination, murder and persecution. [/b] Why is the prosecution invoking the sentiments and opinions of Serbs as an entire nation? What does that have to do with the "individual guilt of the accused"? This trial is a farce, its nothing about individual guilt. Its just about piling up useless evidence, accusing countless numbers of Serbs (some genuine perpetrators of crimes, a few innocent), ignoring crimes perpetrated by everyone else (except if they're Croats who killed Muslims - Muslims are holy victims for the ICTY), and from this mountain of junk to make a case for the collective guilt of the Serbs, their army, the media, academia, cultural institutions, women, elderly people, the church, children, animals....everything remotely attached to Serbia is guilty, and Milosevic is merely the symbol of Serbia to this false court. Disgusting!
  
  P. M.
  USA

• Wednesday May 14, 2003 at 11:58 pm
  http://www.foreignaffairs.org/contact/feedback

  Email to above

  Disgusting article by Gary Crass, re Milosevic at the Hague.
  Who in their right mind would subscribe to Foreign Affairs when they publish such a contrived hit piece? To pass it off as scholardly, is an insult to anyone who can read. It's evident that the article is by an apparent 'paid hack' and a blatant attempt to continue the demonization of Milosevic and Serbia, sans the actual facts.
  But quite the opposite is going on at the Haque, and anyone following the proceedings know it.
  
  J P
  USA,Wis

• Thursday May 15, 2003 at 3:27 am
  They can try the Serbs as much as they like at the Hague but they will never defeat the reality of the Serbs and Serbia. SERBIA REMAINS THE MOST MULTI-ETHNIC OF ALL THE STATES IN THE BALKANS RIGHT TO THIS VERY DAY. No ethnic cleansing in Serbia at all! How are they ever going to get over that?
  
  David
  Australia

• Thursday May 15, 2003 at 3:33 am
  

  JP

  Foreign Affairs is published by the Council on Foreign Relations. Any idea what they do and who comprises the Council? The same people who staged the whole show in YU and Iraq and lots of other places! (At least the think-tank part of the same crowd.) Your W is just the front man for their policies, just like Cigar Bill was.
  
  David
  Australia

• Thursday May 15, 2003 at 9:48 am
  Regarding the timetable: In the interests of justice on 10 April 2002 the Judges did fix a date for the Prosecution to conclude their case (Pages 2782-84 of Trial Transcripts refer).

  Indeed it follows from Ian Davis posting (May 13, 2003 at 8:52 pm) that the Prosecution should have until 10 April 2003. Hence it seems fair to assume (as does Ian Davis) that now "the time for the Defence to take the stand is overdue" (by more than a month), - unless that decision has been overruled? I have found no confirmation that a new date has been fixed, neither in the transcripts of the hearing held on 10 April 2003 nor on 11 April 2003, - which is the latest to date, that hearing merely "to be reconvened" on 14 April 2003 (Trial Transcript, Page 19150).

  Counting from the Opening Statement made on Tuesday, 12 February 2002 the timeframe decided upon would give the Prosecution a total of 16 months in which to present their case, - and "in the view of the Trial Chamber, no prosecution case should continue for a period longer than that", the argument being that while the prosecutors must be given opportunity to put forward their case:

  - the longer it goes on the more difficult and onerous it is for the accused to defend himself against the charges. And in order to ensure a fair trial the chamber must make sure that an accused is in the position to do so.

  - the longer the trial goes on, the more difficult it is (for the chamber) to give a judgement.

  It appears, that the crucial issue (in the Milosevic case) is going to be the connection between the accused and the allegations; said Judge May on 10 April 2002: "It may well be that the issues will never be plain until the beginning of the Defence case in the particular circumstances of this case."

  - Then why did the Prosecution not conclude its case on 11 April 2003?

  As I believe, that a request has been made for an extension of the time available for the Prosecution, which might even carry us into February 2004, I wonder on which basis - in the light of the above - such a request is being considered! Whether mr. Milosevic in the circumstances would be entitled to an "automatic aquittal" (as suggested by Ian Davis), I have no idea. Do you?

  I wonder whether answering these and related questions (from a mere member of the public) would fall within the role of the amicus curiae?
  
  Godfred Louis-Jensen
  Copenhagen
  D E N M A R K

• Thursday May 15, 2003 at 9:58 am
  David

  Big difference, W won't get up and 'blatantly' lie and fabricate 'facts'.

  W doesn't smoke! Compare the 'crowd' on Cigar Bills' cabinet and the 'crowd' on W's. It's a different 'think-tank'.

  Try to get to second base in your analysis.
  
  J P
  USA,Wis

• Thursday May 15, 2003 at 10:24 am
  

  W did not lie, fabricated facts? Where are the weapons of mass destruction he used to justify his war in Iraq?

  By the time he leaves the White House his nose would have grown bigger than Willie's!
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Shangri-La

• Thursday May 15, 2003 at 10:42 am
  Thanks Vesa V. and J.P. for alerting us to the propaganda article by Gary Bass at http://www.foreignaffairs.org.

  I sent the following to http://www.foreignaffairs.org/contact/feedback:

  Dear Editor,

  The article "Milosevic in the Hague" by Gary Bass is a piece of propaganda. Similar pieces are continuously published by writers of various non-governmental organizations that are aiming not at Balkan "justice" or "reconciliation" but at securing a Milosevic conviction, helping the careers of their unscrupulous and opportunistic operatives and demonizing Serbia as a nation in order to conceal NATO's responsibility and continue the economic and political colonization of the Balkans. This is an obvious goal not only of the blatantly biased Hague "Tribunal" but also of many NGOs such as the International Crisis Group, Human Rights Watch, Coalition for International Justice and the Institute for War and Peace Reporting. All of them are intimately related to a small group of powerful individuals and lobbies most notable of which is the multibillionnaire speculator George Soros. I urge you not to take my opinion at face value but to carefully read transcripts of some of the most important testimonies at the Milosevic trial. You will then realize that the indictment cannot stand legal or logical scrutiny but is a politically motivated fraudulent construct. I also urge you to investigate the dubious legal framework, political dependencies and funding sources of the Hague "Tribunal" and its cozy relations with the aforementioned NGOs. In conclusion, you are advised to keep distance from the Hague "Tribunal" because sooner or later its blatantly fraudulent goals and workings will be widely acknowledged.

  Sincerely,
  
  Pythagoras Crotoniatis
  Greece

• Thursday May 15, 2003 at 11:49 am
  The whole world said Iraq had WMD in the 1st resolution. Powell and W believed it also. As the world UN 'slunk' away from its' responsibility, W followed through.

  Exactly what would you call the 'gas' that killed Iranian troops and the Kurds in Iraq?

  Willy's nose runs in the 'family', re Hillary, and is now the montra of the Democrats. Do you also suppose Laura B will grow into a Hillary?
  
  J P
  USA,Wis

• Thursday May 15, 2003 at 12:17 pm
  From todays B92

  Kosovo-Albanian liberation war recognised by parliament | 14:01 -> 15:51 | SRNA PRISTINA -- Thursday - The Kosovo Parliament has today ratified a resolution formally recognising the Kosovo people’s liberation war for freedom and independence. According to the document, the Kosovo people’s liberation struggle has been deemed a political fight in all its phases and forms, beginning with peaceful resistance and culminating in armed conflict carried out by the Kosovo Liberation Army. The resolution recognises the enormous contribution of the international community and also assesses that the fight to free Kosovo from Serb rule and establish a contemporary democratic society was a just conflict. Before Kosovo-Serb MPs walked out of the session in protest, Return Coalition caucus chief Dragisa Mrstovic said that Serbs could not accept that those who caused so much harm to the Kosovo-Serb people could be proclaimed liberators. Krstovic said that the document would only have negative consequences for the future of Kosovo and that the resolution equated to an open message to displaced Serbs that their return to homes in Kosovo was not wanted and that coexistence would be impossible.
  
  vesa v.
  france

• Thursday May 15, 2003 at 12:26 pm
  Bravo Pythagoras!
  
  vesa v.
  france

• Thursday May 15, 2003 at 4:58 pm
  

  
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Shangri-La

• Thursday May 15, 2003 at 4:59 pm
  

  An Orgy of Lying
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Shangri-La

• Thursday May 15, 2003 at 5:06 pm
  

  Journalistic ethics, hypocrisy and war at the New York Times
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Shangri-La

• Thursday May 15, 2003 at 5:20 pm
  Friends on this site,

  Those of you who follow Milosevic trial and perhaps other trials at the Hague may be in a position to give us a view of what is going on at the Srebrenica trial of four Serb officers.

  Since the very beginning I was trying to follow the details about that “alleged massacre of 8000 Muslims”. Thus far I have not seen any substantive proofs or evidence.

  Could somebody , please, educate me on what transpires
  
  D. Jovanovic
  USA

• Thursday May 15, 2003 at 5:28 pm
  "...the Kosovo people’s liberation war for freedom and independence..."

  Hmmph!

  More accurately stated: the outright theft by Kosovo Albanians, with major help from the U.S. et al, of the Serbian heartland, called Kosovo, from the Serbs who naively helped Albanians by letting them live in Kosovo and giving them more rights than even the indiginous Serbs had.

  That's what you get for thanks from such people. I know it was mostly Tito's doing, but will the Serbs learn from this and stop trusting everybody to do the right thing?
  
  Anna P
  California

• Thursday May 15, 2003 at 6:09 pm
  I think it is high time that we Serbs face that fact that a crime took place in Srebrenica, and that that crime needs to be exposed and understood. I think that several thousand men were probably killed there, but as to their identities, whether they were fighters or civilians, we cannot really know. It is likely that the majority were civilians, and some were fighters and war criminals involved in Naser Oric's death squads. I also don't think that Milosevic had anything to do with it, and that French intelligence and Alija Izetbegovic probably played a role in it as well, so they should be sitting in the Hague for complicity in the crime and not Milosevic. As for Srebrenica, the reason why I find it so repulsive is that it is being explanded into more than it is and is used to, in a way, cover up all the sufferings of Serbs in the past and in the recent wars. In a similar way, Kragujevac (which was a real massacre without all this nonsensical media hype), was used by the Communists to demonize the Nazis and to draw a screen over the domestic genocide of the Serbs, that is, in Jasenovac and in other camps and sites of killing in the Independent State of Croatia. In this way, Kragujevac, the murder of 7000 men and boys (the 3rd and 5th grade of the Kragujevac elementary school, there is even a plaque dedicated to these 3rd and 5th graders in the school), which was a horrible crime, became more engrained in the Serbian (I am speaking of Serbs from Serbia) conscience than Jasenovac and Stara Gradiska, in which probably 100 times that number of men, women, and children, mostly Serbian, some Jewish, Romany, Croat, and others, were murdered by the Ustasas. So, as regards Srebrenica, I think it should be exposed, and that it should be placed in the context of previous events in Srebrenica and Bratunac, and that everyone involved in that war and in all the Balkan wars should be brought to justice. But that's just a pipedream. The way things are going, the ICTY will "prove" that genocide of 7000 people took place in Srebrenica (who ever heard of a genocide of 7000 people, when we are speaking of a nation of millions), although the evidence of 7000 bodies hasn't yet been found, and in this way, the Serbs will be removed from their position as a nation tht lived through a true genocide in 1941-1945 and made into a nation that perpetrated a (fake) genocide in 1991-1999. In this way, lies and manipulations will be transferred into the truth, Serbia can be blackmailed, the Croatian Serbs will never return to Croatia, Sandzak and Vojvodina will "justifiably" be severed and given to the "Bosnians" and the Hungarians, Kosovo lost to an expanding Albanian empire, and Republika Srpska destroyed as "it was built on genocide". The end result will be "Beogradjanski pasaluk" filled with millions of Serbian refugees, and centuries old Serbian lands will be proclaimed to be merely the pretensions of a Greater Serbia. Disgusting!
  
  P. M.
  USA

• Thursday May 15, 2003 at 9:46 pm
  To Pythagoras: Your answer to the Foreign Affairs piece hits the nail on the head. Let me just add few side issues. Gary Bass writes as he is told to, but his writing is of the poorest quality. Perhaps he's a great scholar and knows his stuff inside out and upside down, but his reasoning is deeply flawed. Why people with surgically removed ability of logical thinking insist on writing analytical pieces on any subject? Here are some of his constructions, which require no rebuttals at all, because Mr Bass himself took good care of it in his own article: his innovative style is to state something and then contradict his own statement.

  Bass mocks Milosevic that he was 'raging against NATO conspiracies and victor's justice'. Yet, only a few paragraphs into the article, Bass openly admits this complaint to be more than justified: 'The tribunal's most important impact will be not in the legal sphere but in the political one. Success will be measured by how much the enterprise helps sideline dangerous leaders'. [Interesting concept: legal impact is insignificant, as opposed to the political impact; therefore, the enterprise outside of the legal sphere that helps sideline dangerous leaders could have been hanging, shooting, poisoning etc. and not a trial.] Then, Bass quotes Mary Robinson, the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who confirms how politically useful the tribunal can be: 'The process itself is a success. He is no longer a respected figure in Serbia.' [Smearing done, mission accomplished, and trial in itself is a success because of that, although legally it may limp heavily.] And then, Bass spits it out quite plainly: 'Even if this trial turns out to be a minor train wreck, the prosecution has managed to get him out of Balkan politics once and for all.' Yes, yes, Mr Bass, my thoughts exactly. You have answered nicely to those silly jurists who preach how this 'trial' helps international justice to bloom and how legality and fairness are abundant at The Hague. Who needs opponents to the ICTY when an apologist such as Assistant Bass is there! I'd let him assist me anytime. His logic is so garbled that he actually supports the issues he argues against.

  Mr Bass used a few outright lies to spice up his article, one of them being to attribute to Biljana Plavsic the infamous non-existent statement about feeding children to the lions: '…Biljana Plavsic - a wartime Bosnian Serb leader so delusionally nationalist that she once told a senior UN official that Serb babies were being fed alive to the animals in the Sarajevo zoo…'(?!). Revealing! When was this 'once' and who was that 'senior UN official'? Gary, Gary, was this not the propaganda piece from the Belgrade press, as another 'expert' de la Brosse teaches us, and not something that Biljana said?! As far as I know, this statement is actually from (and by) the CNN, and attributable to whomever it is convenient. But shouldn't the 'experts' writing on behalf of the 'Tribunal' at least read each other's reports, just to avoid silly repetitions and cross-borrowing?

  I will not even go into the 'witness' Slobodan Lazarevic, whose 'testimony' Bass used throughout his article to prove his point how after admittedly weak Kosovo stage some strong stuff finally came up. This could be believed only by those who never watched the trial nor read the transcripts. Unfortunately, this is only the majority of people. So, Bass did well, basically. Who cares if his piece is utter nonsense, it served the purpose. For those who still want to think, it is interesting to know that this alleged former officer and military intelligence agent Lazarevic was debunked by another witness to the Prosecution, real former Head of Intelligence Service General Vasiljevic: 'I can state quite categorically that Slobodan Lazarevic did not have anything to do with the Intelligence - with the Security Service and its organs, with the UB. So this is the man I don't know at all, nor do I know - nor am I familiar with his name within the UB of the JNA. And he was not an active official of the JNA at all, officer of the JNA.' [transcripts of 12 February 2003, page 15945] But, such things as following the trial he's writing about would be too much to expect from the 'expert' of the stature of Assistant Bass.

  To Godfred: You wonder at the time-table of the Milosevic 'trial' and the pending extension of the time for presenting the Prosecution's case. It gets really more and more difficult for everyone involved to simply follow (let alone defend oneself against or decide upon) the case which is bloated beyond recognition. Remember that the original indictment, on the strength of which Milosevic was kidnapped and delivered to The Hague, contained only the Kosovo segment, and that Croatia and Bosnia were subsequently added. How legal is that? And this is their 'jewel in the crown' case, on which they work with care and effort. I'll give you just a glimpse to the legal quagmire of other, less prominent cases: do you know that Momcilo Krajisnik, a former member of the Presidency of Bosnia & Herzegovina and the Parliament Speaker of Bosnian Serbs, abducted by the SFOR soldiers in the middle of the night from his home, after they blasted his front door with explosive, scaring his grandchildren and whisking him to The Hague in his pyjamas and slippers three years ago, is still waiting for his trial to begin? More than one thousand days in the cell and no trial! One would think , with all that urgency at his arrest, that everything was ready to begin the very next day. Instead, the Prosecution is still 'investigating' and 'collecting evidence', as the spokesperson explains from time to time. Meanwhile, they are profiting of every conceivable excuse to postpone this even more. First, there was the hope that Karadzic and Mladic would be arrested soon and tried together with Krajisnik. When that didn't happen, the idea was that Krajisnik would be tried together with Biljana Plavsic. When she plea-bargained for her Swedish vacation out of jail, Krajisnik was left to be tried alone, but still nothing happened. Then, his US defence lawyer got suspended at home, so now he has to be replaced, and Judith Armatta is furious at Krajisnik for wasting the precious time of the Tribunal! Read her piece in the CIJ titled 'Krajisnik Trial Fiasco Spotlights Questionable Defense Practices'. There she blasted defence lawyers in general and Krajisnik defence lawyers in particular, but simply forgot to explain his three-year waiting. How long a man could be kept without a trial in Scheveningen, does anyone know? Five years? Ten? Indefinitely? Perhaps the learned Assistant Bass could explain. Ms Armatta is understandably nervous: the closing-time for the Tribunal is approaching, the US has announced they will pull the plug by 2008, so The Hague and its NGOs have to start wrapping it up.
  
  Vera Martinovic
  Belgrade
  Yugoslavia

• Thursday May 15, 2003 at 10:15 pm
  The only propaganda piece I find more entertaining is when they say the Plavsic "stepped over the body of a dead Muslim to kiss Arkan, the Serbian warlord". Where and when did this happen? A photo as evidence? It seems that, unfortunately, the prosecution has comparable if not greater power than the judges. In the re-examination of the secret witness from Bratunac, and after nice took his time up to 20-30 minutes, May, in a wheedling voice and with tension rising, finally demanded that Nice finish. Nice didn't seem the least bit perturbed. Why does May curry favor with the prosecution? Would he allow Milosevic to go 15 minutes over in cross-examination once May had said it was over?
  
  P. M.
  USA