MILOSEVIC TRIAL DISCUSSION ARCHIVE

Is Slobodan Milosevic getting a fair trial?
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• discussion archive

• Friday November 08, 2002 at 3:47 am
  Let's come back to the Dubrava prison. The El Pais article talks about the prison in Istok. The Kosovo indictment talks about the Dubrava prison. They are the same. An OSCE report says this: "Istok municipality is the location of the most notorious prison facility in Kosovo, the Dubrava prison." (Link to report).

  The report also has a separate heading on the Dubrava prison at the bottom. Maybe the gist of the story is this:

  "Although the OSCE-KVM, when deployed inside Kosovo, tried to gain access to this facility to speak to inmates who complained, through family members and lawyers, about ill-treatment and torture, the prison authorities never allowed the OSCE-KVM team access."

  OSCE-KVM (Kosovo Verification Mission) was, as we remember, the gang headed by Walker.

  However, even if one doesn't doubt the horrors of the Dubrava prison, there is something tragicomical about the report. It says:

  "It is believed that at least four or five men died as a result of injuries sustained while they were detained at the prison. Medical facilities within the prison were basic, although there was a doctor there. For prisoners with chronic complaints there appeared to be a lack of medicine. "

  That reminds one of the Scheveningen detention centre, doesn't it? But more to the point (i.e. the bombing):

  "Dubrava prison was hit by several NATO bombs in mid-May, which reportedly killed several inmates and Serbian prison officials. Allegations have been made that up to 100 detainees were later lined up and executed by Serbian forces, and later buried in a mass grave in nearby Rakos, alongside those killed in the air raid. These allegations cannot be confirmed from the data gathered by the OSCE-KVM, but are known to be under continuing investigation."

  As we know, these allegations have been proved wrong, as any sane person readily acknowledges by their absurdity alone.

  So we know (or get the impression, for those who have read Gil-White) that the Dubrava prison was known for the atrocities committed there. So the fact that the Serb guards (obviously there were no Albanian guards) gunned down 26 inmates was no surprise. Nato knew that the Serbs would descend to such low behaviour, and this alone gave them the reason to attack the prison, to demonstrate to the world the horrors of this prison.

  Another approach would of course be not to bomb the prison in the first place, because it was known that the guards would retaliate. After all, it was a humanitarian intervention.

  Now, we know that there may have been torture and a few deaths owing to the lack of medical care. That will hardly shock anyone who has kept up with what happens in Scheveningen.

  But the gunning down of 26 is a different matter. Were there gunnings before the Nato attack? Apparently not. So these 26 deaths were induced by the Nato bombing. In other words, Nato created the specific circumstances in which the "murders" would take place. And knowingly so. Normally, this would be called "aiding and abetting" of murder, but I guess the Clinton doctrine suggests otherwise.

  So let us use the trusted legal reasoning that we applied to the bombing of the RTS tower. What was the ingredient in the chain of events that brought about the deaths? In other words, which event, if it hadn't taken place, would have prevented the calamity with its absence? The answer is very simple: the bombing.

  If the bombing was needed to provide the "world" with a gripping story of Serb atrocities, which wouldn't otherwise have taken place, we speak of entrapment. I guess that accounts for the alleged criminal element in the story, which is of course to say nothing of the liability of Nato to repair the damages incurred by the victims (which is what we should have seen in the RTS bombing).

  But is gunning escaping prisoners down a war crime? I think it is part of any prison protocol in any country: if an escape cannot be stopped by any other means, the person has to be shot. I think this is the practice in Nato countries as well.

  So if we have done our sums correctly, about 75 deaths in the prison were caused by the bombing and 26 deaths by the shooting. Has the prosecution gone through the autopsies and so on? Do they know that the 75 deaths were caused by the Nato bombing? This has to be the case, if they listened to the Spanish investigation team and we got our sums right.

  So why does Del Ponte claim that she has "not enough evidence" to open an investigation to Nato war crimes? As we have been told, the prison was bombed several times. Does this systematic behaviour point to war crimes or is it still dismissed as collateral damage?

  It is also a useful pasttime to consider Milosevic's alleged responsibility in this incident. How is he implicated? By the fact that he could expect the prison guards to have a protocol which told them to shoot the escaping prisoners, if the escape couldn't prevented otherwise? Or did he issue orders to the effect that all escaping prisoners should be shot if Nato would bomb the prison? After all, he knew everything, including the impending Nato attack on the prison, not once but several times.

  So nobody should wonder why the doctors at The Hague would be trying to induce Milosevic's death (I think that means "kill" him). There seems to be no other way out. The Dubrava prison must be only one of the many fabrications that the indictments are riddled with. Does the prosecution concede defeat? It doesn't seem to. Besides, everybody knows that the matter is not in their hands. Are the powers that be going to admit that the whole thing was meant as a joke?

  Srebrenica.

  Did you notice that Gogol's quote included this sentence: "An investigation later revealed that hundreds of Moslem men were murdered"? That suggests a lower figure than the liturgical 8,000.

  In the latter quote, we learn that 20,000 Bosnian Muslims were killed in and around "safe areas". This is hardly surprising when the total death toll of the Bosnian war was 200,000-300,000.

  The Hitler salutes have been added for the dramatic effect. I should add that the Volkskrant, which tells the story, is a left-wing Catholic newspaper. I am not sure of the affiliation of NOS, but I read that some leftists boycott the NOS because it hasn't admitted the Dutch did anything wrong in Srebrenica. In fact, the NOS Dossier, which I have been using, doesn't even hint at the famous massacre.

  The Hitler salutes don't implicate the Dutch troops in themselves. On the other hand, one has to agree with Gogol. It is a spectacular twist in the popular perception that it is the Serbs who are the Nazis.

  And what do our trusted Security Council resolutions say of the alleged Srebrenica massacre? Nothing. Resolution 1004 (1995) says this in § 5:

  "Demands that all parties allow unimpeded access for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and other international humanitarian agencies to the safe area of Srebrenica in order to alleviate the plight of the civilian population, and in particular that they cooperate on the restoration of utilities".

  Well, that resolution was adopted on July 12, 1995, so the massacre might not have been discovered. Later, on August 10, 1995, Resolution 1010 (1995) says this in tits preamble:

  "Deeply concerned at reports of grave violations of international humanitarian law in and around Srebrenica and at the fact that many of the former inhabitants of Srebrenica cannot be accounted for".

  One should note that this resolution is called in the list "Mission Persons - Srebrenica and Zepa". It is not called the "Massacre" or "Genocide".

  Arms trade.

  I think the "joint criminal enterprise" refers first and foremost to the sanction-busting ring, i.e. smuggling of weapons. Maybe the Lazarevic cross-examination takes as its premise that secret arms deals were done (probably with Milosevic's blessing), although I can't make that out with any certainty. This is also a very natural presumption. Milosevic must have been the most important banker in the country.

  Del Ponte is perusing his offshore bank accounts. The NIOD report makes a point of the widespread arms trade.

  And most important of all, the specific crimes that the prosecution is trying to pin on Milosevic in the indictments make no sense (even apart from the facts) and don't stick (when the facts are considered). On the other hand, I think the military intelligence knows its stuff, and when stories leak suggesting secret arms deals were going on, one is prone to believe them.

  Of course, even if Milosevic knew of any of this is beside the point. First, the arms deals are not what the ICTY should be investigating. Second, there were a zillion ways for Milosevic not to know anything that would implicate him. This tactic is well-known even in children's comic books. For instance, I read "Bamse - the world's strongest bear". It featured Croesus the Mole. The first words he spoke were: "Remember, I don't want to know anything". And on and on it went, one rat phoned another and told the caller didn't want to know anything.

  So where is the order in the sense of Art. 7(1) of the Statute? Where is the "knowledge" in the sense of Art. 7(3) of the Statute? Del Ponte could argue by "aid and abet" of Art. 7(1) but that way she should indict all the capitals in the world, and I think she has too much bias to answer for as it is.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Friday November 08, 2002 at 3:59 am
  Kosova news from Kosova viewpoint. Read all about Kosova protests against the planned future status of Kosova at http://www.radio21.net .
  
  J N
  Finland

• Friday November 08, 2002 at 6:34 am
  

  In April 1999 the "propaganda" war as the Clinton boys and girls were seeing it was in deep trouble. As a result the Presidential Decision Directive was issued. This is US policy presently and I am sure it has been "improved". Here is one of the LINKS
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn. USA

• Friday November 08, 2002 at 6:36 am
  

  I meant PDD 68
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  USA

• Friday November 08, 2002 at 10:15 am
  Dear Vera

  It was I who copied and posted some of your comments onto the guardian forum.

  I did mean to ask, honest, but was busy on the first two occasions and then I thought you wouldn't mind.

  Your posts are so valuable to me over there on the GU. I am a Serb living out of Yugo for over 20 years, trying to argue with a young man posting from Belgrade. You will recognise the type, I am sure, when I tell you that he was born and raised in UK from Serbian parents. During the bombing and until recently he worked for some "NGO" that 'donated' computer equipment to B92. He is now in Belgrade, calling himself a 'journalist'. All his posts about Serbia and Serbs are negative. He presents Serbs just as most of West media like to present us - nationalistic, bigoted, xenophobic, murderous, liars, ‘peasants’ etc. Being able to post your comments helps me to show that there are other voices to be heard from Belgrade.

  I know I should have asked and I apologise.

  Jari, I copied and pasted some of your posts too. I will not do it again if you rather I did not.
  
  Mira (Guardian nom de guerre - Saramago)
  UK

• Friday November 08, 2002 at 11:01 am
  I am repeating myself, but here is an enigmatic passage from the OSCE report (I already quoted this one):

  "Dubrava prison was hit by several NATO bombs in mid-May, which reportedly killed several inmates and Serbian prison officials. Allegations have been made that up to 100 detainees were later lined up and executed by Serbian forces, and later buried in a mass grave in nearby Rakos, alongside those killed in the air raid. These allegations cannot be confirmed from the data gathered by the OSCE-KVM, but are known to be under continuing investigation."

  This innocent-looking passage has an awful lot of noteworthy points.

  First, it admits that the Dubrava prison was hit by several bombs, so this is no "collateral damage". It is usually forgotten, even by the Western propaganda, that the bombs actually accomplished what they were supposed to accomplish: kill the prison officials (at least I gather that would be a pretty logical objective). This report mentions that the air raids did kill prison officials. Maybe the pundits avoid mentioning these casualties, because that would make the officials of this terrible prison look too much like victims.

  No, the real victims of course were the inmates. Luckily, the air raids reportedly only killed "several" of them (an understatement).

  And actually it is not Nato that is to blame. The manner of burial decides everything. As we know from the report, both the bombing victims and the victims of later shooting were buried in mass graves. That does it. The Serbs did it. They buried the victims in mass graves! The mass grave was nearby Rakos. Now isn't that enough specifics.

  Now, after the air raid, an estimated "up to 100 detainees" were shot. The report knows it is making a wild guess, so it gets conciliatory. It says: "These allegations cannot be confirmed from the data gathered by the OSCE-KVM." This is curious. Why should the allegation be confirm by KVM? The air raid took place in mid-May, and the shooting took place after that. The Dubrava prison schedule dates the deaths on 22-23 May. (Perhaps this shows that these were the "later" shooting victims, because the bombing took place "mid-May".)

  But why would the report say that these allegations cannot be confirmed from the data gathered by the OSCE-KVM? The OSCE staff had left the province before the bombing started. That is, three months before.

  I think I am beginning to sound like Gil-White. That may be inevitable when one reads the official reports too much. I think in the real world things go as follows. I found this excerpts in Nebojsa Malic's latest column at Antiwar. It has to do with the deep-seated US aversion to arming Muslim militants in Bosnia:

  "Last Wednesday, the US ended an almost seven-year program of training and equipping the Bosnian Muslim military. The program, administered by a mercenary outfit MPRI, was part of a bribe to obstinate Muslim leader Izetbegovic, so he would approve the American-crafted peace proposal. The program was technically conditional on the Muslim regime deporting all foreign Islamic militants, the mujahideen, who fought on its side during the 1992-95 war. Izetbegovic 'solved' the problem by giving them citizenship. The program went on; many mujahideen stayed."

  As we remember, according to STRATFOR, the US is now increasingly anxious about the Bosnian Muslim arms trade. I wonder where they got the weapons.

  Gogol, Bush set up some government agency to sell his war on terror to the American public. I can't remember the name. Your link suggests that manipulation of the US citizens is against the American law. Times change and we change along with them.

  Of course my postings belong to the public domain.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Friday November 08, 2002 at 4:43 pm
  

  The prosecutor despairs!

  UN Prosecutors Call for Milosevic Trial Shake-Up
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  USA

• Friday November 08, 2002 at 4:45 pm
  

  Mr Noussianen wrote:

  [..] I should add that the Volkskrant, which tells the story, is a left-wing Catholic newspaper. I am not sure of the affiliation of NOS, but I read that some leftists boycott the NOS because it hasn't admitted the Dutch did anything wrong in Srebrenica. In fact, the NOS Dossier, which I have been using, doesn't even hint at the famous massacre.

  You are not very welll informed about the Dutch media. Since the late sixties De Volkskrant is about as Catholic as Ian Paisley.

  NOS is the state-funded Dutch public RTV service which reported on Srebrenica more than any other media in Europe. I count over fifty long NOS reports on Srebrenica (varying from 10 to 90 minutes) in Domovina's 1995 - 1999 archives - which hold just a fraction of the reports which were broadcast on the airwaves. Actually it was NOS reporter Twan Huys who forced the Dutch government into action on a number of occasions. Without Huys/NOS there would not have been a Van Kemenade inquiry, for instance. And it was again Huys who revealed a series of shortcomings in this very report.

  NOS's Internet archives started fairly recently, so their website is not a yardstick to measure their reporting by. As you have probably noticed, NOS links back to their own 'preserved' material on Domovina Net's Srebrenica archive page to paint the background for the parliamentary inquiry which is under way, with public hearings starting on Monday. And it will be NOS which will carry the sessions on TV and Internet, live and integrally, that is to say for some seven to eight hours every session day.
  
  
  Frank Tiggelaar
  Amsterdam
  Holland

• Friday November 08, 2002 at 6:41 pm
  The Right to self-determination and the Serbian Question

  Source: The Serbian Questions in The Balkans, University of Belgrade, publisher - Faculty of Geography, Belgrade 1995.

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  In the twentieth century, South-eastern Europe saw the rise and demise of the Yugoslav idea which resulted in the creation and destruction of the common Yugoslav state. The fate of the Serbian people, the most numerous people in the central part of this region, which gave the greatest contribution to the creation of the common state, but which also became the tragic hostage of its forcible break-up, is closely linked to the fate of this idea and this state.

  At the end of the twentieth century, the world's leading political centres of power displayed incomprehensible double criteria: on the one hand, they talked about global European and world integration - "a new world order", while on the other - they accepted and supported the disintegration of a state created according to the model of the 19th century European integrations (the unification of the Germans and Italians), and they artificially split up a people that was the state's pillar. And all this is taking place after the fall of the Berlin wall and the reunification of Germany: new "Berlin walls" today threaten to split the Serbian people among five and perhaps even more states.

  The Serbian question, as the key problem of the Yugoslav crisis, appeared with the destruction of the Yugoslav state, when the Serbs started their struggle for preventing the total break-up of the Serbian people and, at the same time, for being united in one state community like the other Yugoslav peoples. Serbia is just a part of the entire Serbian entity, which is often not understood in the world, because for centimes one third of the Serbian people has been living on its ethnic territories which, until recently, were the parts of several former Yugoslav republics, primarily Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia. The question of self-determination of the Serbs can be understood in the best way from the historical point of view, because the past cannot be disregarded when speaking of the face of peoples and states.

  In order to understand and explain more deeply and extensively the Yugoslav crisis and the Serbian question the following facts must be borne in mind:

  1) The Serbs are among old nations because they had acquired their national identity before the modern doctrine of nationalism was formulated. They undoubtedly possessed awareness about their long-lasting history and tradition, about their great empire, gland medieval civilisation and cultural unity, regardless of the fact that they lived in different states after the Turkish conquests of their lands. National awareness and a feeling for cultural identity of the Serbian nation were common to most Serbs, regardless of the fact that, being divided, they also cherished their local traditions. The Serbs are proud of their history and tradition and for this reason, just like the Poles once, they cannot accept the imposed contemporary divisions which cut up the Serbian ethnic, geographical, and historical entity.

  2) The Serbian Uprising in 1804 marked the beginning of the national and social renaissance of the peoples of South-eastern Europe, in which the Serbs undoubtedly played a significant and even a leading role in certain periods. After the Serbian came the Greek Revolution in 1821, and then the national movements of the Croats (the Illyrian movement), Bulgarians, Romanians, and Albanians. In that lengthy and difficult struggle for liberation from the rule of the Habsburg monarchy and the Ottoman empire, which lasted over a century, the Serbs suffered enormous human and material losses. During that struggle of all the Yugoslav peoples only the Serbs managed to create two independent state centres - Serbia and Montenegro - during the 19th century, which became internationally recognised states in 1878 (Berlin Congress). And it was only these two Serbian states that built their independence and sovereignty into the foundations of the common Yugoslav state in 1918.

  3) The international professional and broader public often, especially now, overlooks an extremely important fact without which it is impossible to understand the essence of the Serbian liberation struggle in the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century and the reason for accepting the Yugoslav idea and creating a common state with other South Slav peoples. Despite the fact that the Serbs managed to form two state centres, until 1912 and until 1918 respectively, more than half of the Serbs lived under the rule of two empires - Austria-Hungary and Turkey, in the then historical provinces of Croatia, Slavonija, Dalmatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, southern Hungary (Vojvodina), Old Serbia, and Macedonia. Can one describe as "greater Serbian" aspirations their national desire to live in one state community in their ethnic area, along with Serbia and Montenegro, like other European nations? Why doesn't anyone then, according to this logic, speak of a "greater German", "greater English" or "greater French" Idea?

  The formation of a common state in 1918 was a part of Europe's democratic transformation at the beginning of the 20th century, the victory of the democratic spirit cherished by liberal and democratic Europe during the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century. That was a victory of the national over the imperial idea. The Yugoslav state was a multi-cultural community in the full sense of the word, for only as such it could be the state of the peoples of the same or similar ethnic origin, but of three religions - Christian Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Islam. That is why these peoples inherited several cultural and civilisation models.

  Aware of the great losses they had suffered for their liberation and also because of the dispersion of the Serbian ethnic region, from the very beginning the Serbs insisted on the preservation of the Yugoslav state community. I would like to mention here a dreadful fact about the human losses that the Kingdom of Serbia alone suffered in World War I (1914-1918). Before the war, 2,900,000 people lived within Serbia's old borders. Defending its bare existence from the aggression by the Central Powers (Austria-Hungary, Germany) and their Balkan allies, in World War I Serbia lost 1,247,000 people, of whom 845,000 were civilians and 402,000 solders. In other words, fighting for its liberation and the liberation of the unliberated Serbs, and of other Yugoslavs, in that catastrophic war Serbia lost 43% of its population. Such a demographic downfall took place only in German and western Slav provinces at the time of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648).[1]

  4) When one today discusses the right to self-determination and the question of the self-determination of the Serbs on the territory of the former Yugoslav state, especially in its western part, it is particularly important to note the fact that the Serbs, together with Croats and Slovenes, were an equal constituent factor also when a state union of the South Slav provinces of the Austro-Hungarian empire was formed, in November 1918. The Serbian name existed in the name of both the government and the state of that short-lived union which appeared after the break-up of the Habsburg monarchy. The National Council of the Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs was formed in Zagreb on October 6, 1918, with a programme for "...the unification of all Slovenes, Croats and Serbs into the people's free and independent state of the Slovenes, Croats and Serbs based on democratic principles."[2] Therefore, on the basis of the principle of the right to self-determination, the Serbs, along with Slovenes and Croats, separated from Austria-Hungary and formed a state union which soon decided to unite with the then Kingdom of Serbia, previously joined by Montenegro and Vojvodina, and most counties in the then Bosnia and Herzegovina.

  The question is now: If the Croats and Slovenes no longer want to live in a common Yugoslav state which they formed together with the Serbs, on the basis of what principles must the Serbs now live in their republics - states and not with the other parts of the Serbian people as they themselves had already opted for at their referendums in the former Yugoslav republics of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina? How can the Serbs, from a constituent people in the short-lived State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs, and in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, and understandably in Yugoslavia as well, now become a national minority in the same republics that were formed on the territory of the two state alliances? There is no need to even mention that it is precisely in the Yugoslav state formed in 1918 that most Yugoslav nations experienced their full national promotion and, for the first time in history, they formed their own states - republics, except the Croats, whose state lost its independence in 1102.

  5) It is unnatural that the west European and American public opinions are largely indifferent towards the Serbs' struggle for self-determination. In the same way, it is deeply unjust that the European Community and the United States keep refusing to acknowledge the Serbs their right to self-determination and to their own national aspirations. The light to self-determination, which was so strongly promoted in the 20th century both in theory and practice of international relations, has been seriously violated in the case of the Yugoslav crisis by European arbitration (the European Community and its bodies). contrary to its original meaning, this right was carried out as the right to secession of the Yugoslav republics of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Macedonia, mostly by forcible means, and not as the right to self-determination of the Yugoslav peoples. Thus, Europe favoured the unilateral secession of republics, to the detriment of the right to self-determination of peoples. Apart from that, Germany, as the leading state in the European Community, urged, in the way without a precedent, the disintegration of the Yugoslav state, the member founder of the League of Nations and the United Nations, the state that was cleared twice after the two German aggressions and defeats in the two World Wars. Germany did this right after having achieved its own unification.

  6) The biggest fundamental mistake, which the European Community and the United States do not want to understand and which is, among other things, the main cause of the tragic conflicts, lies in the fact that, with the disintegration of the common Yugoslav state, the Serbian people became the hostage of the exclusively administrative borders of the former Yugoslav republics.

  Namely, the borders among the former Yugoslav republics are not based on any of the three principles: geographical, historical, ethnic, nor were they defined through the democratic will of the peoples. They were defined at the end of World War II by a few members of the Yugoslav Communist Party's Central Committee Politburo, led by Josip Broz Tito. They are the result of the Yugoslav communists' concept for resolving the national question which was based on two crucial elements: a) the heritage of the Austro-Hungarian imperial ideology in the Balkans, especially in regard to the Serbian question (to fight against alleged "greater Serbian aspirations" by establishing an artificial "balance of forces among the Balkan nationalism's"); b) the Stalinist practice and theory of the Third Communist International in the period after 1924, when the socialist and communist ideology of internationalism was replaced by the most retrogressive forms of nationalism and nationalist awareness in Yugoslavia. In cooperation with clerical and pro-Fascist political groups and with the help of the Comintern (the Third International), the Communist Party of Yugoslavia worked on breaking up the Yugoslav state which was considered a "Versailles creation" and "the prison of peoples". The strategy of directly breaking up Yugoslavia was abandoned after 1935, but this spirit continued to live in the organisational structure of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, which during the World War II became the model for defining the borders of the Yugoslav federal units.

  7) The Communist Party of Yugoslavia (the Yugoslav League of Communists), that is, its leadership with Tito at its helm, played a crucial role in determining Yugoslavia's fate after World War II, since that party ruled constantly for almost five decades. Titoism, as a special version of Stalinism, and his national policy were, apart from a series of external factors that accompanied them, the main cause of the Yugoslav state's disintegration and the tragic conflicts which this break-up led to. Everything that has been happening since 1991/1992 represents only the finale of a long-lasting process of Yugoslavia's political, economic and cultural disintegration which was carried our by the Yugoslav League of Communists. For instance, trade between Yugoslav republics was of lower intensity over the past decades than that between the European Community countries. Nevertheless, the Serbs, as a people scattered among five federal units whose borders were solely administrative, were most interested in the preservation of even such a Yugoslav state which practically functioned as a confederation under the 1974 Federal Constitution.

  The Yugoslav communist leadership, in which Croats and Slovenes (Josip Broz, Edvard Kardelj, Vladimir Bakariæ) had the main say, manipulated with the national question, dissolved the ethnic unity of the Serbian people, obstructed Yugoslav political and cultural integration. Thus, instead of finding ways to overcome the political and religious disputes, it kept causing their deterioration, stimulating all forms of old historical divisions and creating new nations on a regional or religious basis. In order to preserve their power and privileges, the leading Serbian communists carried out Titoist ideas, possible critical views ended in removals from the political scene with mass political campaigns.

  8) In the period between 1945 and 1991 Yugoslavia represented the realisation of the Croatian-Slovenian concept of the Yugoslav state which was not based oil the equality of peoples, but rather on the alleged equality of federal units - states, or more precisely on an artificially established balance of power between national-communist oligarchies; Tito's ideology and technology for preserving power in such a state were based on the belief that a coalition of federal national-communist oligarchies (of the Croats, Slovenes, Muslims, Montenegrins, Albanians and Macedonians) against the Serbs would eliminate the "danger of an alleged Serbian hegemony". Even though the Serbs accounted or over 40% of the population in the Yugoslav state, with such an organisation of power and such a national policy they were in an unequal position in relation to other nations, because their participation in power, compared to other nations was way below their number and real strength. This conception was expressed in the notion - "weak Serbia, strong Yugoslavia." Out of all the six federal units only Serbia had two autonomous provinces (Vojvodina and Kosovo and Metohia), which, under the 1974 Constitution, were almost independent from their republic, while Dalmatia, for instance, did not get autonomy although it had been a separate province with its own assembly even when it was part of the Habsburg monarchy, but, nevertheless, it became part of the federal unit of Croatia.

  9) The only fair and permanent resolution of the Yugoslav crisis would be if the peoples of Yugoslavia had the right to self-determination, instead of the self-determination of republics (territories) whose borders were arbitrarily defined by the communist leadership, but which the European Community and the United States took as a "holy" principle in their arbitration in the crisis. The Serbs have an incontestable right to self-determination within the Serbian ethnic area, on the territories where they have been living for centuries and where they have constituted an ethnic majority for centuries. This primarily refers to the territories of the former Yugoslav republics of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

  The former Yugoslav republic of Croatia encompassed three historical provinces - Croatia, Slavonija and Dalmatia, but it was, nevertheless, organised on a unitary principle. Dubrovnik, for instance, was never part of the Croatian lands - it was the independent Republic of Dubrovnik for centuries, and at the beginning of the 19th century it became an integral part of the Austrian province of Dalmatia. During that period it was as much a Serbian as it was a Croatian town. The Serbian Military Border was a separate political unit within the Habsburg monarchy for centuries and only at the beginning of the eighties of the 19th century it was annexed to the civilian Croatia[3]. The Serbian border's defended the Habsburg provinces from the Turks. On the territory of the Military Border the Serbs constituted an ethnic majority for centuries, as they do today; that is why this region represents the largest part of the Serb Krajina which is a Serbian state unit on the territory of the former Yugoslav republic of Croatia.

  According to the population census carried out at the time of the Austro-Hungarian rule on December 31, 1910, the Orthodox, that is "Greco-Eastern" Serbs accounted for 24% of the population of the provinces of Croatia and Slavonija.[4] Slavonija later on became part of the Yugoslav republic of Croatia. (Dalmatia as well as the Roman Catholic Serbs who lived primarily in southern Dalmatia were not included here). Out of this percentage in most counties the Serbs constituted an absolute majority: Donji Lapac (91.79%), Graèac (72.33%), Korenica (73.48%), Udbina (73.13%), Slunj (53.19%), Vojniæ (72.18%), Dvor (87.49%), Glina (65.19%), Kostajnica (64.16%), Topusko (85.41%), Pakrac (50.96%). A high percentage of the Serbs also lived in the following counties: Gospiæ (47.54%), Otoèac (48.65%), Ogulin (47.54%), Petrinja (49.06%), Grubišno polje (46.87%), Daruvar (32.36%), Slatina (40.79%), Ilok (43.12%), Vukovar (36.19%).[5] During World War II, at the rime of the Nazi creation "The Independent State of Croatia", the Serbs were exposed to a monstrous genocide: around 800,000 people were killed. The Serbs' fear that the genocide could be repeated, due to the return of the symbols under which the previous genocide was carried out, is a first rate historical and psychological fact without which the Serbian question in these regions cannot be understood. According to the last regular population census in the former Yugoslavia in 1981, the Serbs accounted for 17% to 18% of the population in the Republic of Croatia, if one takes into account that a part of the Serbs declared themselves as Yugoslavs (officially 11.6% were Serbs and 8.2% Yugoslavs).[6]

  The case of Bosnia-Herzegovina is even more convincing. Since they came to the Balkan peninsula, the Serbs have been inhabiting these lands: from the 8th to the 10th century Bosnia was an integral pair of the first Serbian state. At the beginning of the 11th century, Bosnia became one of the several Serbian states, as well as Hum (Herzegovina), then Zeta (later on Montenegro) and Raška (later on Serbia). In the ethnic sense, today s Bosnian Muslims are mostly Serbs who accepted Islam after the Turkish conquests, during more than four centuries of the Ottoman rule. It is understandable that over the centuries they formed their own cultural identity based on the values of the Islamic civilisation circle, because of which the leadership of Tito's Yugoslavia proclaimed them a separate nation - Muslims. For centimes, all the way up until the 1960s, the Orthodox Serbs constituted the majority population in Bosnia-Herzegovina. According to the Austro-Hungarian population census in 1910, 43.5% of the population declared themselves as Orthodox Serbs (officially as Greco-Eastern Serbs), 32.3% as Muslims and 22.9% as Roman Catholics (the Roman Catholics included all people belonging to this confession who lived in the Habsburg monarchy - apart from the Croats there were also Germans, Poles, Hungarians, and others).[7] According to the first population census after World War II in 1948, there were 44.3% of Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina, 30.7% of Muslims (officially "undecided Muslims"), and 23.9% of Croats. According to the 1981 census, we find 32.0% of Serbs (but their number is certainly larger due to the 7.9% of Yugoslavs, the way the Serbs, especially in mixed regions, mostly declared themselves), 39.5% of Muslims, and 18.3% of Croats.[8] It is interesting that with this percentage the Croats have already formed their state unit within Bosnia-Herzegovina ("Herzeg-Bosnia"), on the other hand, they energetically deny the right of the Serbs who account for approximately the same percentage to have then own state unit the Serb Krajina, on the territory which used to fall within the administrative borders of the Republic of Croatia.

  10) The acknowledgement of the light to self-determination of the Serbian people on the territory of the former Yugoslav state could be the factor of stability in South eastern Europe and the Balkans. Otherwise, this region will constantly be explosive, it will threaten with new clashes and keep endangering peace in this region and perhaps even further. The constitution of state alliances on the principle of the right to self-determination could also be the basis for a possible new integration on this territory.

  The Yugoslav example displays the strategy of a complete revision of the European older established after the two world wars. The establishment of a new balance of power in Europe, and the world at large, is undermining all the principles which the contemporary world has been based on, imposing double standards and placing in the forefront an argument of force and forcible destruction. We are witnessing a serious crisis of the principles of international law and international relations. Unlike the time of a bipolar bloc structure when a precise codification of all principles was insisted on, now these principles are being completely relativized and are changing in the same direction in which interventionism is strengthening. This drastically endangers independence and sovereignty of small peoples and their states, especially if they are not ready to follow the concepts of the creator of the "new world order".

  NOTES

  1 Milorad Ekmeèiæ, Stvaranje Jugoslavije 1790-1918, 2 The Formation of Yugoslavia 1790-1918/ (Belgrade: Prosveta, 1989), p. 810.

  2 Ibid.

  3 Hugh Seton -Watson, Nations and States, An Enquiry into the Origins of Nations and the Politics or Nationalism, trans, Nada Šoljan (Zagreb: Globus, 1980), p. 138.

  4 "Popis žitelja od -31. prosinca 1910. u Kraljevinama Hrvatskoj i Slavoniji," /Census of December 31, 1910 in the Kingdoms of Croatia and Slavonija/ in Publikacije Kr. zemaljskog statistièkog ureda u Zagrebu, LXIII (Zagreb, 19)4), p.50-51.

  5 Ibid.

  6 "Nacionalni sastav stanovništva po opštinama - konaèni rezultati," /Population by Nationalities/ in Popis stanovnistva, domacinstava i stanova u 1981 .(Belgrade: SZS, 1991), p. 11.

  7 "Popis žitelja...", op. cit., p.48. See also: M. Spasovski, D. Živkoviæ, and M. Stepiæ, Etnièki sastav stanovništva Bosne i Hercegovine, /The Ethnic Structure of the Population in B&H/, Edition: Etnièki prostor Srba, 2 (Belgrade: Geografski fakultet, 1992), p.19.

  8 Spasovski, et al, Etnièki sastav... p.47.

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Dr Slavenko Terziæ, Historian and Balkanologist, is Director of the Historical Institute, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Belgrade. His major areas of interest are History of Serbia and the Serbian People in the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th, and History of the Balkans. In addition to numerous studies and articles (over fifty) on various aspects of this field, he has also published Srbjja i Grèka (1856-1903) -Borba za Balkan- /Serbia and Greece [1856-1903] -The Struggle for the Balkans -/ (1992); Srbija i Balkansko pitanje krajem 19 veka: povratak starim središtima /Serbia and the Balkan Question at the End of the 19th century: Return to the Old Roots/ (1992); Benjamin Kalay i srpsko pitanje /Benjamin Kalay and the Serbian Question/ (1992); Srpsko pitanje izmedju Rusije i Zapadnih Sila /The Serbian Question between Russia and the Western Powers/ (1993); Old Rashka (1993), and Ethnic and religious in the Serbian history problems of the national Integration's in the 19th and 20th centuries (1994). At present, Dr Terziæ is working on the book Russia, Slavophilism and the Serbian Question.

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
  Aleks Stajic
  Germany

• Friday November 08, 2002 at 11:19 pm
  Miro, no need to apologize for using my posts; I'm glad to be of any assistance to you - a real guerre you're fighting there and a dirty one, I might add.

  I do recognize the type you're arguing with: his roots severed, he floats "neither in the sky nor on the ground" and holds on to the first obvious thing: a distorted image of his ancestral homeland, painted by his adoptive, yet less than receptive domicile country, which he desperately tries to please. But the mere fact that he is now in Belgrade shows there's still hope for him. The archetype and the collective memory are powerful stuff, and the old Belgrade charm might work even on him.

  Of course, you already know that, but for the benefit of the others here I shall explain: Belgrade is the only real city in the whole of the ex-YU. All other places are small towns & villages (Zagreb, Ljubljana, Sarajevo, Skopje etc.), where everybody knows everybody's business or even what was for dinner. Only in Belgrade you can live in circles that may or may not touch or intertwine; and everyone is tollerated in an atmosphere of light irony. And you're right - the food is great.

  All the best to you, sister.
  
  Vera Martinovic
  Belgrade
  Yugoslavia

• Saturday November 09, 2002 at 12:59 am
  March 18 1999 was a day of infamy when Appendix B was introduced to the Rambouillet plan. Today is a similar day of infamy, when the Security Council was blackmailed by a gangster regime into an insanely unacceptable UNSC resolution against Iraq, one that violates the UN charter and is designed to trigger a war. The Security Council, when America blackmails it, can really be an instrument of total evil, free from any judicial review. The Milosevic trial is the result of another illegal and outrageous Security Council resolution. These criminal methods, used against the Balkans, continue to be used elsewhere. Today's appeasement of Bush is the wrong message to send at this point in time. This is truly a dark time.
  
  R. B.
  Canada

• Saturday November 09, 2002 at 8:59 am
  Mr Tiggelaar suprised us with:

  "Since the late sixties De Volkskrant is about as Catholic as Ian Paisley."

  If you want to classify the Volkskrant, I think you could call a left-wing Catholic newspaper. It has passed for a Catholic newspaper ever since the withering away of the verzuiling, no matter how nominal its Catholicity may now be. If taken literally, the expression "left-wing Catholic" sounds pretty much like an oxymoron.

  I can hardly believe that somebody would try this shot to discredit what I was saying. I was talking about the Srebrenica massacre and the few hundred bodies that were found there as opposed to the 8,000 that the genocide charge supposes.

  While the Dutch are arguing about the political leanings of the different news channels, the rest of us can take a close look at the alleged massacre. Of course Frank doesn't want us to go there, but that is why we should. And to be more specific, his nitpicking doesn't change the fact that the NOS Dossier doesn't even hint at the famous massacre.

  Now I don't know about the political leanings of Radio Netherlands, nor of the NIOD for that matter (I am sure we will hear more about them shortly), but considering that the Srebrenica massacre is the topic of the day, I couldn't help noticing the following. The site I am talking, to be more specific, is http://www.rnw.nl/hotspots/html/bosnia020410.html .

  So the Trial Chamber in the Krstic case was "satisfied" that the total number of the Srebrenica victims was thousands, probably 7,000-8,000 (those were the words they used). I am glad that they are satisfied because none of the more sane people are.

  Oh-oh. I am sorry Mr T, but the emphasis in the Radio Netherlands report seems to be on the tens of thousands of Muslim refugees.

  Now what do we know of Mladic's attitude to the refugees? The report says this: "The refugees had to be moved as soon as possible; that was the wish of the refugees themselves, of the Dutch, and of General Mladic."

  Paying attention to the refugees is of course bad enough, if the culprit's name is Mladic, but then the awful part follows. He insisted that women and children should be put in the buses.

  I think this is one of those good deeds of his that will never go unpunished. The "Bosnia and Herzegovina" indictment of Mladic has to have this in mind when it argues how much power Mladic actually had (§ 9):

  "RATKO MLADIC has demonstrated his control in military matters by negotiating, inter alia, cease-fire and prisoner exchange agreements; agreements relating to the opening of Sarajevo airport; agreements relating to access for humanitarian aid convoys; and anti-sniping agreements, all of which have been implemented."

  OK, the question is of course, what happened to the men after the women and children were put on the buses? We are not told. We are supposed to believe that these are the 8,000 Bosnian men and boys that Mladic rounded up and massacred. However, the report says something very strange:

  "Prior to the evacuation thousands of Muslim men - including many members of the Bosnian Muslim army - broke out trying to reach nearby Tuzla. This was a surprise to both the Dutch military and General Mladic. According to the NIOD report, the incident led General Mladic, who hated the Muslims, to organise mass murder."

  I have not italicized the phrase "who hated the Muslims", because it is quite beside the point. It was his job to kill the Muslims (yes, that is the job of the military), so I don't know if he was supposed to love the Muslims first and kill them later.

  But the report states that the escape of thousands of Muslim men to Tuzla caught everybody unawares. So obviously, if the Bosnian Serb army killed these thousands of men, that act would hardly qualify as genocide, because genocide pressuposes the "intent" to kill a population group. I would go as far as to say that some premeditation is involved (which would not be possible if the situation catches everybody unawares). Of course, ever since the Popovic indictment, one can qualify almost any killing as a genocide (except for Nato bombing and other humanitarian intervention).

  Again, if the Serbs were trying to prevent the escape to Tuzla - by shooting the men if necessary - I would feel pretty confident in saying that this was exactly what they were supposed to do. If this escape "led" Mladic to organize a mass murder, who was left? Apparently no-one. We know the men didn't get to the buses, but I think they could still walk. Of course, we are led to believe that Mladic held these men in store in case he later wanted to organize a mass murder. Still, this doesn't add up. It says that the escape, which caught him (and even the Dutch) unawares, "led" him to organize the mass murder. I guess an easy way to check things would be to see if there were any men among the refugees that survived this terrible ordeal.

  Now wait a minute. Could the genocide of 8,000 men actually have something to do with the thousands of Bosnian Muslim men who escaped to Tuzla? I mean, it is a funny coincidence that these "thousands of men" were 8,000 to be exact.

  To be more specific, turn the page to http://www.rnw.nl/hotspots/html/srebrenica010713.html . The funny coincidence is that there were 8,000 Bosnian government troops who were trying to get to Tuzla! See it for yourself:

  "The Bosnian troops were known as the government army's 28th Mountain Division, thought to number up to 8,000 troops. They were under the command of the Tuzla-based Second Army Corps, which in turn was led by Commander in Chief Rasim Delic. On the eve of the fall of Srebrenica, the 28th Mountain Division received orders to withdraw to Tuzla, moving through Serbian lines."

  Oh-oh (again). There were certainly a lot of people heading for Tuzla all of a sudden. One possible explanation is that these 8,000 government troops were the same people who escaped quite unexpectedly. It is a pity that the first time we hear about them in the report we are not told that they were Bosnian government troops. In fact, we are led to believe they were not. The first mention is kind enough to point out that thousands of Bosnian Muslim men tried to escape to Tuzla "including many members of the Bosnian Muslim army". Based on that interjection alone, we might believe the thousand men might have included some militaries but only a few.

  If the men that broke out and headed for Tuzla were the 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men we hear so much about, we would have some support for the conspiracy theories that explain the 8,000 myth by matching the number of missing persons (in the thousands) with the 8,000 soldiers that retreated to the headquarters in Tuzla.

  But that is not to say that all made it. The hundreds of massacred people still have to be accounted for. From the Erdemovic judgment we know that 1,200 people may have been massacred in Srebrenica. This comes remarkably close to what Radio Netherlands is reporting here:

  "According to the then army chief of staff, General Sefer Halilovic, some 6,000 troops arrived in Tuzla. A Red Cross official told Radio Netherlands at the time that he had seen 'a few thousand troops from Srebrenica' near Tuzla, with whom he wasn't allowed to talk. In August 1995, a month after the enclave's fall, Commander in Chief Delic reported to Parliament in Sarajevo that 'the withdrawal of the 28th division had been largely successful'."

  Of course, the numbers are not everything, but for some reason I am very happy about this version. That would explain why the "thousands of Bosnian Muslim men and boys" were killed in the first place. They were killed in combat. The retreat to the headquarters in Tuzla can hardly be called a "humanitarian convoy". Or maybe they were caught, unarmed and shot, but that is not genocide but a war crime.

  Whichever it was, I am sure we will never know as long as everybody seems to be fixated with the genocide and organizing ever more inquiries and hearings until they get some support to their genocide myth. All those who don't buy it are said to be in denial, or more specifically, motivated by their political leanings not to recognize the facts. Is your maxim really "if it doesn't hurt, it can't be true", or why are you doing this? Or is it so important to get Milosevic nailed on genocide charges, because the genocide charge is now the only justification for him to be in The Hague in the first place.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Saturday November 09, 2002 at 6:49 pm
  

  In the article UN Prosecutors Call for Milosevic Trial Shake-Up the following is stated:

  " Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said in a written submission to judges on Friday that Milosevic's health problems should not delay his trial. Prosecutors have argued that Milosevic is not necessarily entitled to defend himself. Defendants were obliged to have a defense lawyer to represent them in court if they were accused of a serious crime in countries like France, Germany and Belgium. Significantly, in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia defense counsel is mandatory where an accused faces a possible sentence of over 10 years or a more severe penalty."

  More significantly according to the Constitution of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Mr. Milosevic is kidnapped from Yugoslavia and illegally held in a prison and tried in The Hague. How come that according to the New World order prosecution some times the Yugoslav laws are acceptable and some times they are not?

  It is obvious that The Tribunal is in the mode of picking and choosing laws around the globe in order to accomplish its ultimate goal: "I am your judge and do not have other judges then me".

  Since the prosecution is really serious about expediting this trial and winning their case I am proposing the following very consistent solution: The Tribunal should adopt, as its own, the laws that were established under comrade Stalin in the Soviet Union. These laws are simple strait forward, efficient and cheep. Trial, conviction, dead sentence and execution is guaranteed in five days. No waste of time or money, no confusion which laws to choose British, Jamaican, South Korean, Swiss, French, German, Belgium or Yugoslav in the Tribunal cocktail of laws.

  
  
  Pera Bora
  Canada

• Saturday November 09, 2002 at 7:08 pm
  

  To the JURIST moderator:

  Your posted story "Milosevic Trial Is A Throwback To Case History... West Morning News Sat Nov 9 11:12:00 EST 2002" has nothing to do with Prfesident Slobodan Milsoevic, Yugoslav history or his trial. It is about football . . .close but not quite.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  USA

• Saturday November 09, 2002 at 8:57 pm
  Mirko Klarin seems to be the official scribe of the Tribunal. His report on the latest witnesses fit this pattern. He falsely claimed that Lazarevic's "mistakes" had nothing to do with his important points, an untrue claim since he mentions these points, some of which were points on which Lazarevic made "mistakes". Naturally, as the Tribunal's scribe during this trial, he must pretend that a witness that has been discredited can somehow provide reliable testimony that can be used to convict a defendent. To top it all of, Mr Klarin again claimed that Milosevic's health problems are all related to Prosecution successes at the trial.

  Klarin earlier claimed that the Prosecution proved Milosvic's leading some conspiracy because the JNA spied on all the republics except for Serbia, that the JNA feared becoming "an army without a country". Thus, the army, an institution on its own independent from Milosevic, had a motive to thwart separatists, something that cannot be done by spying on Belgrade! He then claimed that Milosevic was woven in this by some link between this particulary conspiracy and Stanisic, who allegedly represented Milosevic's will. Even if this somehow proved a pro-active scheme. (as opposed to a set of contingency plans to be applied reactively) the indictment specifically claims that this conspiracy's purpose was ethnic cleansing. So Klarin mentions that a witness, a Bosnian Muslim officer, claimed to have heard something about "transfer" of people by some Serbian Democratic politicians. So, they are just local politicians. Thus, Klarin's contention that Milosevic is ill because he is devastated by this testimony is not supported by facts.
  
  R. B.
  Canada

• Sunday November 10, 2002 at 1:14 am
  The President of Slovenia, Milan Kucan may be called as a witness. What does Milan Kucan have to do with the price of tea in China? I thought that this was supposed to be about Kosovo, Bosnia, and Croatia. Where does Slovenia fit into the picture here? http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20021106/ap_wo_en_po/slovenia_war_crimes_1
  
  Andy Wilcoxson
  Washington, United States

• Sunday November 10, 2002 at 6:23 am
  

  Mr. Noussianen,

  You are making a hodgepodge of the Dutch media. RNW is a completely different organisation with no ties to NOS. Radio Nederland Wereldomroep is a Radio Service aimed at Dutch communities abroad; it is like NOS, state-funded.

  Your suggestion 'Of course Frank doesn't want us to go there, but that is why we should' is of course another one of your TROLL's: there would be no point in me supplying any URL's to Dutch-language sites on this international forum, and so I never did. All I tried to do is correct your gross misrepresentation of the facts - for the benefit of the lurkers on this forum.

  
  
  Frank Tiggelaar
  Amsterdam
  Holland

• Sunday November 10, 2002 at 8:55 am
  i think i got it now.... well hey there walter. you should read my posts a lot closer, even if they are untidy. in answer to walter's questions.... first one is easy.... you don't have to believe my numbers relating to Bleiburg.... i feel it is irrelevant to Croatia's make up. I mentioned it because I was answering a post by Pero. The few numbers I picked out of it were from my memory, after recalling having read them in my youth. The point was that Tito had a great interest in hiding the real numbers of people missing post-WWII, seeing as the whole future of his Yugoslavia was to eliminate all enemies...and then try and get everyone to forget about the war. The other request I am a little confused about. I don't know where you got the idea I was accusing anyone of anything. There was Croat terrorists...yes. They attacked Yugoslav (not Serb) political and economic targets, as well as trying to get into the news (via hijacking) to try and get their plight known around the world. These people wanted a free Croatia, so they went about it in a violent (incorrect) manner. One thing I can say is that... it is a fine line between illegal terrorism and legal terrorism....by which I mean there were Croat terrorists...acting illegally in many parts of the world... but the UDBA was seen as protecting its own state.....and thus acting properly, when in assasinated, abducted and framed over 100 Croatians living throughout the western world, excluding those they detained and killed inside Yuoslavia. No doubt many were terrorists..however..assasination is not the most correct fashion in stopping someone from disrupting your state. OK....so the point is....although there was no Serbian Terrorism..and I never did suggest there was...I would tend to call the actions of the UDBA against Croatians, inside Yugoslavia, and in many nations worldwide as terrorism. Just as those Croats were doing. My three cousins...Croatian born Australian citizens...students at universities...and active members in many demonstrations around Australia (attempting to draw the focus of the public attention in Australia to Croatia's attempts for freedom), were jailed in the late 1970s for a number of years, for alleged terrorist activities. Ilija Kokotovic 9 yrs Josip Kokotovic 9 yrs Mile Nekic 11 yrs (my cousin's husband) along with 3 other Croats...as well as an UDBA spy were jailed. The UDBA spy 'alias' Virko Vikez, was released after a few months jail after writing a letter to authorities. He then escaped and went to live in Serbia. Apparently they were conspiring to blow up Sydney's main water supply... The whole trial was a farce.... The was no evidence..and the men who were convicted had their names cleared finally when a recent Royal Commission in Police Corruption found that all through the late 1970s and 1980s the NSW Police Force was riddled with corruption...of which in this case there was falsification of evidence, and even a faked, taped, testimony. An Austrlian television program, '4 corners' ran the story of the 'Croatian 6' in the early 1990s...finally publicly clearing the name of these men..and partly of the Croatian community in general. These men were inncocent, there families were, yet in the name of a safe Yugoslav state, their lives and that of their families was destroyed. It was nothing else than a blatant act of intimidation by UDBA, to show the Croat-Australian communities that they should live in fear, for peacefully and legally expressing their culture and ethnicity. Walter...I am dissapointed in you that you still do not accept that I greatly dislike the Ustasa and its role as a quizzling Croat government. I have nothing to say about Mussolini's rule in Italy..except that one of the reasons I regard the Ustasa as traitors to Croats is because they gave Dalmatia to the Italians...the term 'friggin' was purely tongue in cheek to express the bewilderment I have of this decision by Ante Pavelic. I think the way Mussolini died shows how many of his own people thought of him....he was seen as a traitor to his country by they......just as I regard Pavelic a traitor to Croatia. regarding the Croat elections of 1990..i agree with you...that is why I raised it. I am in dismay as why it was allowed. The Australian govt obviously didn't have a real grasp on the situation in Yugoslavia at the time. ok....now we get to the good stuff.... ahem..... i stand by my point....WWII shouldn't have mattered..but it did... my point is being made in relation to how i think the war was inflamed...i think it is to do directly with the way people percieved WWII to happen...and the results of it..and how this was used by politicians to arouse nationalism. You have been living it for 50 years...thats exactly the problem, don't live it..forget it...its good to learn lessons..but not to look back in anger... too many people looked back not only in anger but in fear... whether it was the way Croats remembered or were told of Bleiburg, or the way Serbs remembered the death camps, or even as far back as the battle of kosovo Polje, therein lies the fault of all. i personally believe the only way to move forward now, is to forget.... WWII shouldn't have mattered...this last war shouldn't now matter... i have no idea why people on this post are mentioning census' from 1910....like who cares... they are only figures they don't give anybody from today any right to be in a certain place. playing with numbers is a dirty dirty game....and the only real reason for it is to legitimise a claim at the expense of other human beings. i noticed insinuations from others on this post that Slavonija wasn't a part of Croatia unitil 1918, i'm like...who cares...it is now..and the Croats would disagree with you anyway,,considering the Slavonijan coat of arms has been appearing on flags and banners with the Croat/ Zagreb/Dalmatian coat of arms since about 1000 years ago. deal with people and not with numbers. I really can't see a way out of this for Yugoslavs and Serbs (meaning their portrayal in the media/west etc) it is unfair and unjust, of course it is, but what can i say...isn't peace now better than war again??? because that is the only way many people on this post will get what they are wishing for. in fact all I can say is..welcome to the world of the freedom aspiring croats Post WWII....at least Yugoslavia still has its recognition on a world stage still.
  
  ivan kokotovic
  sydney
  australia

• Sunday November 10, 2002 at 1:52 pm
  Well, according to Bush (the Elder) Administration State Department Eurasia bureau chief David Gompert, Slovenia started the war. Warren Zimmerman likewise said "Slovenia started the war". Slovenia's Kucan set up an alliance with Kosovo Albanian separatists in the late 1980s in order to trigger the crisis that Slovenia used to justify its secession.

  Kucan thus can be cross examined into admitting to his own "criminal conspiracy" that would cast more doubt on this Greater Serbia claim. The Prosecution, however, will use Kucan in order to claim that Milosevic wanted Slovenia to secede and wanted the JNA to leave Slovenia and be posted on the territories of the planned Greater Serbia.
  
  R. B.
  Canada

• Sunday November 10, 2002 at 1:53 pm
  About Milan Kucan's "relevence" to the prosecution case.

  Well, according to Bush (the Elder) Administration State Department Eurasia bureau chief David Gompert, Slovenia started the war. Warren Zimmerman likewise said "Slovenia started the war". Slovenia's Kucan set up an alliance with Kosovo Albanian separatists in the late 1980s in order to trigger the crisis that Slovenia used to justify its secession.

  Kucan thus can be cross examined into admitting to his own "criminal conspiracy" that would cast more doubt on this Greater Serbia claim. The Prosecution, however, will use Kucan in order to claim that Milosevic wanted Slovenia to secede and wanted the JNA to leave Slovenia and be posted on the territories of the planned Greater Serbia.
  
  R. B.
  Canada

• Sunday November 10, 2002 at 10:16 pm
  According to an AP article, Kucan's testimony will focus on the events until spring 1991. This is a bad move for the prosecution, for this will allow Milosevic to prove that the actions interpreted as a Greater Serbia plot were in fact done in the context of a failed attempt by Milosevic to turn Yugoslavia into a real federation. These policies were to gain leverage to prevent secessions, or barring that, achieving Greater Serbia or, most likely, creating autonomous Serb entities within the new republics. The best the prosecution could have done is to try to cut off this context, to start with 1991 with the alleged move for Greater Serbia presented in isolation. This planned testimony of Kucan should be bad for the prosecution's case. A better move would be for them to concentrate on the summer 1991 events that supposedly prove that Milosevic wanted to kill Yugoslavia by accepting the Slovene secession.
  
  R. B.
  Canada

• Sunday November 10, 2002 at 11:30 pm
  Ivan, if you go to the archives you will find Peter Taylor’s explanation on how to break your post into paragraphs. After you end one paragraph place a < (back pointing bracket), follow this with a letter p, place a > (front pointing bracket) after the letter p.

  Ivan, history is not selective, nor should one interpret it to serves ones national interest. History, I think, allows humanity to strive for universal values and that is only possible when justice for small nations is as important as justice for the superpowers. Clarence Darrow once said that “History repeats itself. That’s one of the things wrong with history”. This is only true because we refuse to learn from history and continue to follow the policy of ‘He who laughs last’.

  I am sure that the Italians who were expelled from Istria (Istra), (Fiume) Rijeka, Sudeten Germans from former Czechoslovakia and Serbs from Krajina and Kosovo would disagree that their history should be swept under the carpet and that they should now just ‘kiss and makeup’. Ivan, history is what we are. We are all English, Germans, Frenchmen, Croats, Serbs, Russians and Chinese and so on. Understanding this allows us to strive for the best in humanity not the worst. Knowledge of history allows us to enjoy music, literature and films in a multidimensional way, however if we were just futurists we would be working in a vacuum.

  Ivan you say that “that Tito had a great interest in hiding the real numbers of people missing post-WWII” . This should make you a Tito fan because he, according to you, wanted the Yugoslavs to forget their history. I want you to know Ivan that I liked Tito, not because of how he did things but because of his “Brotherhood and Unity” vision. I don’t believe that violence is justified and you seem to indicate an aversion to violence and yet instead of condemning it outright you qualify it by saying “One thing I can say is that... it is a fine line between illegal terrorism and legal terrorism....by which I mean there were Croat terrorists...acting illegally in many parts of the world... but the UDBA was seen as protecting its own state.....and thus acting properly, when in assasinated, abducted and framed over 100 Croatians living throughout the western world”. You also write that “playing with numbers is a dirty dirty game” and yet you tend to use numbers when it suits you without any evidence where they came from.

  Ivan you also write that “I would tend to call the actions of the UDBA against Croatians, inside Yugoslavia, and in many nations worldwide as terroris doing.” UDBA seems like an innuendo for Serbs, like Virko Vikez, who were terrorizing innocent Croats. How can one be innocent and yet participate in terrorism??? You also write that “The UDBA spy 'alias' Virko Vikez, was released after a few months jail after writing a letter to authorities. He then escaped and went to live in Serbia”. Vitez was released and yet escaped must be some sort of Serbian Houdini trick that he preformed. On the other hand, I think Rankovic was in charge of the UDBA and he was a Serb but if I recollect correctly more Serbs wound up on Goli Otok than Croats. Does more justify less? I would say no but your post is full of justifications based on history which you would rather forget.

  You also write that “An Austrlian television program, '4 corners' ----- finally publicly clearing the name of these men..and partly of the Croatian community in general. Why is this important if history is unimportant??? Did the government compensate and apologize or was this investigative journalism that we on this web page would like to see from the media on all aspects of the breakup of Yugoslavia.

  Ivan you write “Walter...I am dissapointed in you that you still do not accept that I greatly dislike the Ustasa”. I am disappointed in you Ivan that you did not say, “I am totally opposed to everything that the Ustase represented” since to me “greatly dislike” means that there is lots that you do like and admire about them. We should only admire and respect those that promote peace that improves the well being of all humanity.

  Ivan, I also disagree with your conclusions about Mussolini. Many Italians of the WWII generation, in Kamloops at least, still admire Il Duce.

  On Feb. 2nd 1943 Stalingrad, July 9th Sicily landings and July 5-15 Kursk; Italians like Croatians saw the “beginning of the end” as Churchill said and they started to switch sides. Mussolini was arrested and later rescued by his student Hitler. Pavelic escaped thanks to the help of the Catholic Church only to die in Spain from bullet wounds paid for by an UDBA hired assassin in Haiti where he was head of Trujillo’s body guard. As to Mussolini’s rescue it was short lived. The partisans captured him and with his mistress Flora Petacchi they were machine-gunned and hanged by their toes in Milan. Italians who massively supported fascism for twenty years needed a scapegoat for their defeat and Il Duce was it. One day a hero next day they urinate on you. Sound similar to the NATO- Djindjic treatment of Milosevic.

  I am not convinced of your position when you write “WWII shouldn't have mattered..but it did... my point is being made in relation to how i think the war was inflamed...i think it is to do directly with the way people percieved WWII to happen...and the results of it” The revisionist historians who state that Chamberlain was to blame for the outbreak of the war would agree with you. I don’t agree with you. You only need to read Mein Kampf, the doctrine of Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartie , the Hossbach memorandum and Hitler’s admiration for Nietzsche and Fichte . Enough said about that.

  Ivan also writes “i personally believe the only way to move forward now, is to forget.... WWII shouldn't have mattered...this last war shouldn't now matter”. Ivan tell this to the Jew, the Russians, the Serbs, the Finns, the French and so on and I am sure they will tell you on this remembrance day that it does matter.

  Ivan writes that since I “have been living it for 50 years...thats exactly the problem, don't live it..forget it...its good to learn lessons..but not to look back in anger... too many people looked back not only in anger but in fear”. Ivan, Canada I think is one of the least nationalistic nations on this globe but I am proud to say that I AM A CANADIAN Yugoslav of Serbian ethnicity. Anger and fear have nothing to do with my posts. The point I am trying to make is, we can’t speak about anything with certainty if we live in a historical vacuum. So Ivan do you “welcome to the world of the freedom aspiring croats” the Krajina Serbs or do they have to cross themselves with two fingers before that happens??
  
  Walter Trkla
  Kamloops BC
  CANADA

• Monday November 11, 2002 at 3:43 am
  Mr T. Where did I suggest that Radio Netherlands is tied to NOS? It is unbelievable how someone can miss the point so spectacularly (to borrow Lord Robertson's words). Or where did I suggest that you should give us Dutch-language links? You exlicitly wanted me to be "more specific" (remember?) so I gave you the Dutch NOS link. Nowhere did I suggest that you should give us Dutch-language links. I only acted on your request!

  I am sorry that I ventured on the sacred ground of the Dutch media by bringing up the background of the Volkskrant. And you know why I did it? It struck me as odd that someone should make such a big deal of the Hitler salutes, so I thought it had something to do with the well-known "leftism" of the Volkskrant. In no way was I trying to dismiss leftism as such, because I know most of the people on this forum have some connection with the political left. So you missed the point there too, if you had one. Neither did I say that a distinct perception of what happened in Srebrenica hinges on one's political persuasions,whereas diverting the attention away from it might.

  I am more right than you think. You say I misrepresent the facts grossly. That is a very general statement. You are only using your incomparable expertise on the Dutch media to dismiss everything the others say as incompetent ranting. So we, the non-Dutch, should not venture to interpret the plain reports given by the Dutch media which simply give the lie to the Srebrenica genocide.

  But we don't even have to enter the holy land of the Dutch media. There are much more reliable sources.

  As we know, there were three Dutch battalions in Srebrenica. They replaced the Canadian battalion (Canbat). Which one of these saw a genocide or even a massacre?

  If you remember what you, Mr T, gave us to read in the summer, you might find yourself in an inconvenient position. You gave us the link to the General Assemly report on the Srebrenica etc. You may have thought that no-one would read such a long document, but you forgot that we have wordsearches. And what did it reveal? The GA report said that the number of victims in Srebrenica was a little over 1,000 (I can't remember the exact figure).

  Or do you want Security Council resolutions? Where is the Srebrenica genocide even as much as mentioned?

  Then we have the Erdemovic judgment, where the number of Srebrenica victims was put at 1,200.

  Then we have the Podrinje Identification Project in Tuzla, where 4,800 are said to be. 2,000 of them come from Srebrenica. At least 2,000 are Serbs, identified or not. How can the 8,000 victims be crammed to the 2,000 found in Srebrenica?

  So where did I go wrong Mr T? Which facts did I misrepresent when I concluded that the number of the Srebrenica massacre must be about 1,500? Do you think that the 8,000 is true, just because there is no shred of evidence to substantiate it? I think Nikolay Gogol should have written a book on Srebrenica by now. Where are the bodies (or the "dead souls")? The story of the 28th Mountain Division comes later. Or do you think that the matter depends on whether Radio Netherlands is tied to NOS, which nobody suggested anyway? I think the only person you are discrediting is yourself.

  Why should the Dutch media matter so much? And I am afraid it does. You must remember that the point of the whole Milosevic trial is the genocide at Srebrenica. Alas, the NIOD report didn't satisfy the incomparably subtle Dutch mind, so we have to endure a parliamentary inquiry. This is televised (according to Frank, which I must say, before he starts questioning it), so now that the Milosevic trial is delivering such poor results, we have a sort of parallel trial in the Netherlands, which is allowed to be broadcast, if it is what the networks want to hear, which is more than we can say of the Milosevic trial.

  What would be the point in organizing such an inquiry, if the premise were not that a genocide took place and Milosevic is guilty? Mr T linked the parliamentary inquiry to the failure of the NIOD report to lay any link to Milosevic (which was how I heard about the parliamentary inquirty). It matters little what the official agenda of the inquiry is. The mindset is borne out by all that is happening in The Hague anyway.

  The only thing I would like to know more about (because I think that is something the Dutch troops did wrong) was the failure to demilitarize the "safe haven". Everytime we hear about something the Serbs did, the setting is always the military activity of the Muslims. So a Dutch tank (or literally: armored vehicle) got under Serb fire. Why? The Muslims said the Dutch should fight the Serbs with them, and when they didn't, one of them threw a handgrenade in the vehicle and killed one Dutch soldier. Were the Muslims having an innocent picnic, or where did they get the handgrenade?

  So to quote Lord Robertson, the people miss the point spectacularly. Only, this time they miss the havoc wreaked by the Muslims from Srebrenica. I think the failure to indict Naser Oric has something to do with this near-universal memory loss.

  Why would Mladic round up the men and separate them from the women and children? Oh-oh. I said "why". That is one word the genocide buffs never use. To them, the whole thing lacks any reasonable explanation, so it must be genocide. However, to those who make a hodgepodge of the Dutch media, Mladic's actions seem quite deliberate. He took over the Srebrenica "safe area", because the Dutch couldn't stop the Muslim attacks. Now, of course he took some Dutch hostage, which one cannot approve of, which in turn is the reason it is so easy to pin everything on Mladic.

  So he got to the city, and giving some persons the benefit of the doubt, he put the women, children and elderly on the buses. His problem was: at least some of the men must be militants, because the attacks from the safe area went on. So he decides to go on separating the militants from the real civilians, which takes time. The militants, however, knew their days were numbered, so quite unexpectedly, they broke out and headed for Tuzla.

  This was a massive operation, because the base in Tuzla said they had 8,000 men out. If they were all in Srebrenica, no wonder Mladic lost his patience. By the way, even if all of the 8,000 men did not get to Tuzla, all of them may not have been killed, because they could have been other places they could have gone.

  So this must be the "why" of the takeover. Of course, because some subtle minds want to dismiss everything that happened as a genocide, they never ask for the "why's", because genocide is something a human mind can never decipher. Very clever.

  And then the question some people again miss spectacularly. What is the role of Milosevic in the alleged genocide? The breaking out of the 8,000 was a surprise to everybody. Apparently, it was not a surprise to Milosevic. After all, he knew everything. He knew that the thousand of militants would break out, quite unexpectedly to everybody else. That is why he had told Mladic to kill the bastards if they would even think about escaping. But if Mladic carried out the plan, the breaking out couldn't have been unexpected.

  There are two problems, though. It is unlikely that Milosevic would have encouraged Mladic to act in a certain way in a theatre of war, because the Federal government (read: Milosevic) had already cut all ties with the Bosnian Serbs. It says so in the Security Council resolutions, but apparently La Iena and Frank know better. In fact, Frank paraded a very impressive-looking telegram which said that Milosevic "facilitated" a meeting between Karadzic (or Mladic) and Bildt. Now, which of these two alternative explanations does this little detail support? Was Milosevic a peace-maker or a warmonger?

  Another problem is of course a kind of replay of the Dubrava problem. If Mladic took the thousands of men as prisoners, it would have been a bad idea for them to escape. I am not sure what the Geneve Conventions say of shooting escaping POW's and I am sure that Frank doesn't either, but the difference is that to me, it counts. On the other hand, I have to be fair to Frank (which I will no doubt come to regret): Mladic's reputation was already tarnished by the taking the Dutchbat hostage, so anything could be expected of him.

  I am sorry, but I think it is the job of the military to kill people. What I don't approve of is the fact that so may people are killed by doctors, especially in Scheveningen. To us who make a hodgepodge of pretty much everything, the Scheveningen detention centre seems like a prolongation of the humanitarian intervention. What would be a more suitable conclusion for a humanitarian intervention than letting the doctors do the rest of the killing? I mean, that is pretty humane, isn't it? The doctors say they help people, just like the Nato warplanes, so what would be more comforting than to be killed by an angel of death who wears a white coat?

  Finally, I have to address the need for Milosevic to get a lawyer. How does the machinery only now hit on the idea that the lawyer is necessary? The Trial Chamber made the decision - quite in line with his basic rights - that Milosevic could defend himself in person. Apparently, Milosevic is a "hobbyist" and it is unacceptable that he beats the "professionals". The "professionals" are the lawyers who don't have a clue what the rules are and who know nothing about the law, at least in the sense of fairness. That is why it makes sense that Del Ponte, for instance, does not consider the possibility that there might be an estoppel for the tribunal to change its policy on legal counsel, even if the prosecution is losing.

  The most natural solution for Del Ponte to solve her time constraints would be to get a few good witnesses and letting these third-rate witnesses be. Only, then there would be too few witnesses, and the trial qould get too short for such a case of world-historical dimensions (which must be somehow reflected in the length of the trial).

  You know, Carla, the trial would have been quite credible, if you hadn't paraded all these witnesses. Ooops! I shouldn't have said that, I shouldn't have said that. Of course you already knew that. That is why the whole affair should have been taken care of by written depositions, as was your original plan. Now, how long will it take the judges to realize that you were right? Now the few people who exercise their right to follow the trial can see quite clearly that Milosevic is innocent (at least in terms of the charges). This is not what the prosecution should be doing, but of course you already knew that.

  Luckily the Dutch come to your rescue. Now the parliamentary inquiry is under way. But wait a minute. Is it still not clear that there was a genocide in Srebrenica? Well, I guess someone is misrepresenting the facts grossly, because if the Dutch are now having the parliamenty inquiry, how could the Trial Chamber in the Krstic judgment be "satisfied" that there was a genocide in Srebrenica, with probably as many as 7,000-8,000 victims? As long as the inquiry is under way, I am sure the Dutch Ministry of Justice will not turn to Kofi Annan with a request to revoke the immunity of the prosecution. However, that is kind of strange, because the immunity should be revoked exactly because the ICTY is not waiting for any results before it makes its decisions. I am sure the prosecution has something to do with that.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Monday November 11, 2002 at 7:24 am
  

  The beat goers on . . .

  Monday November 11, 7:02 PM

  Dutch begin inquiry into Srebrenica massacre

  The Dutch parliament opened a public inquiry into the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia, where Dutch peacekeepers failed to keep more than 7,000 Muslims from being killed by Serb forces.

  An April government report on the massacre, the deadliest atrocity in Europe since World War II, blamed Dutch political and military leaders for giving the peacekeepers an "impossible" mission and forced the cabinet to resign.

  The inquiry will focus on the responsibility of politicians, government officials and soldiers and will question more than 30 witnesses in hearings that are being broadcast on national television.

  The first witness called was Captain Jelte Groen, a company commander in the Dutch peacekeeping battalion, Dutchbat, which was on the ground when the July 1995 massacre took place.

  More than 200 Dutch soldiers were on mission in Srebrenica, which was a so-called "protected enclave" guarded by UN forces.

  But Bosnia Serb troops led by General Ratko Mladic seized the town. More than 7,000 Muslim men and boys, most of them civilians, were then slaughtered.

  Mladic has been in hiding since the issue of an international arrest warrant against him for war crimes.

  The then prime minister, Wim Kok, stepped down after the publication of the government-commissioned April report, which concluded that "humanitarian motivation and political ambitions drove the Netherlands to undertake an ill-conceived and virtually impossible peace mission".

  Many survivors in Srebrenica have complained that the Dutch government's resignation was not enough and demanded that Dutch and UN officials stand trial.

  
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn. USA

• Monday November 11, 2002 at 7:28 am
  

  On the eleven month, eleventh day at the eleventh hour may the victims of all senseless war be remembered.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Con.. USA

• Monday November 11, 2002 at 8:04 am
  Vera I understand that the trial of Ratomir Markovic is starting in Belgrade today. Markovic exposed the lies and manipulations of the rogue court in the Hague, and for this he will probably be severely punished by the regime in Belgrade. If it is not too much trouble, could you keep us abreast of events in the Markovic trial. Just the key points will do. Thanks MT
  
  Michael Thomas
  London
  UK

• Monday November 11, 2002 at 8:07 am
  Is there some way to stop this double posting? I only ever press "Post" once but the same message appears twice.
  
  Michael Thomas
  London
  UK

• Monday November 11, 2002 at 10:08 am
  Vera has Mladic or Karadjic made a statement about Srebrenica. I know that they are in hiding but have there been any mail drops or comments to get their version of events out into the public domain???

  MODERATOR:

  Is it possible to stop the split screen image? I am forced to copy and paste to MWord in order to read the posts.
  
  Walter Trkla
  Kamlloops BC
  CANADA

• Monday November 11, 2002 at 12:56 pm
  

  Rewriting history in The Natoland:

  Dutch army accused of cover-up as probe begins into Srebrenica Click on the title.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  USA

• Monday November 11, 2002 at 12:58 pm
  At Srebrenica, there were very few men who were "separated" at the Potocari UN post. Of those, most were sent to Bijeljina and not killed. Most of the killed people were those who were in the column along with the 28th Infantry Division of the BiH army.

  The Krstic trial provided one witness who was separated at Potocari who said he ended up at the alleged Kravica warehouse massacre. This alleged massacre is the only case of a massacre that actually took place near Srebrenica itself. It is also suspicious in that this was a way to explain war-related deaths as a massacre. Most witnesses said they were in the column and were taken prisoner near Nova Kasaba. They then were taken from place to place until ending up in the Zvornik area.

  Also in the Zvornik area at that same time was their column in which they were once moving towards Tuzla. The Krstic trial reported that with Mladic's decision to divert forces to Zepa, the VRS was in danger of collapse at the hands of the column and Muslim reinforcements coming in from Tuzla. The biggest battles took place near Zvornik as the alleged executions took place. The executions were said to be done by a very small number of troops, fewer than ten per site. French was reported in their communications. This fits in with Milosevic's allegation that they were involved with French intelligence. Intercepted communications also revealed that the difficult military situation had them considering the release the prisoners around Zvornik. One set of prisoners attempted to overwhelm the guards at one point as reported at the Krstic trial.
  
  R. B.
  Canada

• Monday November 11, 2002 at 1:14 pm
  One thing that is ignored when dealing with Milosevic's alleged crimes is the problem that plagued the Serb sides in these wars throughout; the lack of soldiers, and the role this played in the kinds of military operations that were implemented. In Republika Srpska, thanks to the US-EC conspiracy to recognise a non-existant country, the Yugoslav army was forced to withdraw leaving a small force of 80,000 VRS to defend very long borders and prime guerrilla territory, some of it populated with people loyal to Izetbegovic. Why has it not occurred to anyone that this was why "ethnic cleansing" took place, at least as sanctioned by the military, setting aside the desires of some radical politicians. How could 80,000 VRS defend a long border and chase guerrillas at the same time? In fact, there were cases where they left some areas alone only to be forced to "cleanse" them because of such guerrilla activities. Such "cleansing" would be meant to be temporary and for military reasons only and when the land is recognised as part of RS, then refugees can be free to return. Thus it can't be proven that the motive is to permanently expel people, at least, again, when you look at the military leaders.

  This is also a reason why militias were used; it was a way to get Serbs from Serbia to participate without having Serbia participate officially. It helped boost troop levels. By the way, Serbia had a clear interest in getting involved, to prevent a massive influx of refugees.

  The lack of troops also was a problem in Kosovo. In this case, it was NATO threats that caused the Yugoslav side to keep force levels that was inadequate in dealing with a guerrilla conflict. The Pentagon spokesman in mid-July 1998 said so much. Clinton and Albright, however, demanded that force levels be kept down. What resulted often was the reliance on heavy weapons and the destruction of homes and property.
  
  R. B.
  Canada

• Monday November 11, 2002 at 8:08 pm
  

  "I have to insist you honour, the accused hasn't been seen by a doctor in the last three days"

  amici curiae Tapuskovic during today's session.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn. USA

• Tuesday November 12, 2002 at 3:08 am
  Several years ago reports emerged about strange illnesses affecting Canadian soldiers who served with the UN in Croatia. The illnesses at the beginning were attributed to PCB’s and radiation resulting from soldiers handling contaminated dirt used in building bunkers.

  The Canadian government appointed a fact finding commission which has issued its findings. The conclusion was that the illnesses were due to psychological stress (PCSD) or post combat stress disorder. As a result of the release of these findings CBC did a documentary on the Medak Pocket and the surrounding area in Krajina Croatia. The documentary by Carol Off aired on CBC on Remembrance Day news segment at ten pm.

  Major General Sharpe and several soldiers and officers were interviewed about their experience in Krajina. Ms. Off also revisited Krajina nine years after the event with two of the soldiers that were on duty when they attempted to stop the Croatian from killing old men women and children in and around Medak. One soldier showed photos of what he witnessed. He was asked by Off why he took the photos, to which he replied, “So that some ‘son of a bitch’ does not deny that it took place.” They showed burned out villages, slaughtered animals, poisoned water wells, dead old men and women and two little girls whose bodies were cut to pieces and partially burned in their home.

  Major General Sharpe’s report states that the Military knew of the atrocities but refused to reveal them to the public because Canadian public was not ready for the truth. He stated that the Military was involved in damage control over Somalia where the Canadians shot an innocent Somali boy who was stealing food from their camp. To release this new failure they felt would be too traumatic for the military after the Somalia incident. The Commission stated that the Canadian soldiers felt responsible and guilty for not stopping the atrocities so they felt the best option was to sweep it under the carpet. Sharpe states that the government made a conscious decision to walk away.

  The documentary blamed Croatian General Bobetko, the (Albanian Croat general who later led the KLA) and Franjo Tudjman the Croat President for planning these atrocities. Carol Off quoted Tudjman as saying that Serbs were a problem in Krajina and one way or the other they will be removed from Croatia.

  What I found interesting about this report was that it was the first of its kind. The second thing that was interesting was that the government of Canada had no problem blaming the Serbs and exposing Canadians to the breadline massacre, Racak and so on even when all the facts about these atrocities are still under investigation.
  
  Walter Trkla
  Kamloops BC
  Canada

• Tuesday November 12, 2002 at 3:39 am
  It seems the number of the dead Bosnian Muslims is not at issue in the Dutch parliamentary inquiry. Every time the press mentions the inquiry it is said that the inquiry is meant to determine the responsibility for the massacre of more than 7,000 Muslims. If the inquiry is brought to conclusion, then, the very premise of "more than 7,000 Muslims" is reinforced. And it is all on TV.

  Gogol's latest link makes quite sweeping statements about the events.

  What is clear is that the Bosnian Serbs held hundreds of Muslims in a house of interrogation. There were also many discarded passports and some executions. Rutten makes no secret that this sight upset him. His reaction is emotinal. When the women and children were put on the buses, he "knew" that things were "going the wrong way".

  On the other hand, nobody seems to stop to think why this separation took place, even if the house of interrogation is expressly mentioned. The men were "separated" for interrogation! The intended effect was of course to have us believe that this was a massacre. It is spectacular that the report uses the word "massacre" a couple of times in the opening lines, only to use a few corpses as evidence for the massacre.

  This tactic is almost epidemic, in fact. The Krstic judgment does something similar. It speaks of executions of Bosnian Muslim men in § 70 and then parades the Prosecution's military expert as saying as a kind of non sequitur:

  "...it is hard to envision a better bargaining chip in dealing with the political authorities of certainly the BiH government and of the International Community than having 10,000 to 15000 Muslim men in the middle of Potocari in a legitimate prisoner of war facility under the control or under the supervision of certainly the UN troops that were there and the ICRC at a point in time. That is the ultimate bargaining chip, to be able to get significant political leverage from people, one would think , and this chip was thrown away for another reason."

  Nota bene. This is Prosecution's military expert speaking in the judgment! So the Prosecution's military expert functions as a kind of power-witness. If he didn't, somebody might notice that what he says only confirms that the POW facility was legitimate!

  R.B. makes more sense. Let me recount the story in my own words.

  So in Srebrenica or in the vicinity there was probably only one massacre: the Kravica warehouse massacre. Indeed, the Krstic judgment says in § 171: "Some were put on buses or marched towards the nearby Kravica Warehouse." The witness that we are talking about must have been one of them.

  The Kravica massacre was not the only one, however. It was probably the only one that took place near Srebrenica. The Krstic judgment says in § 77:

  "Overall , however, the forensic evidence presented by the Prosecution is consistent with the testimony of witnesses who appeared before the Trial Chamber and recounted the mass execution of thousands of Bosnian Muslim men at Cerska Valley, Kravica Warehouse , Orahovac, Branjevo Farm, Petkovci Dam and Kozluk."

  Most of the action took place near Zvornik. For instance, the "Branjevo Farm" listed above is actually the "Pilica Farm", which was dealt with in the Erdemovic case. The Pilica Farm, too, is near Zvornik, "north-west of Zvornik", to be exact, according to the Erdemovic judgment.

  So what kind of people do we have near Zvornik? First, the Muslims that were taken prisoner near Nova Kasaba. Then the Muslim column heading for Tuzla (28th Mountain division and the possible civilians, maybe as "human shields"). And then there were the Muslim troops coming from Tuzla, after some of the Serb troops were heading for Zepa.

  It was near Zvornik that the biggest fightings took place. but also the biggest massacres. The death-toll of the Pilica Farm massacre was, for instance, 1,200, as we remember. Still the death toll doesn't come anywhere near the 8,000. In § 73 of the Krstic judgment we read that "the experts were able to conservatively estimate that a minimum of 2,028 separate bodies were exhumed from the mass-graves."

  We have to consider a couple of complicating factors: Serbs were killed too, and not all of the Muslims can have been killed outside of combat. The composition of the people that were near Zvornik at that time suggests otherwise. Besides, it is pointed out in the judgment that not all the autopsies had been finished!

  Also, not all Muslims must have been killed by the Serbs, as the French connection suggests. Maybe the little detail of mass-graves says something to the "experts". Maybe it gives a hint that these now-exhumed bodies were all killed by the Serbs, because only the Serbs used mass-graves (I don't know how that lie came about, but it seems to do the job). More to the point, if some foreign execution service was at work, they would obviously never have hit on the idea of using mass-graves.

  This is a strange tribunal. That is all one can say. Why are the French not charged? Or should that surprise us, when the Prosecution's military expert is used as an authority in the Krstic judgment?

  By the same token, why doesn't the tribunal consider the possibility that if Milosevic gets killed in detention, his death will cause him to appear as martyr? The tribunal's labour will then be lost. But I guess plans have already been made for that scenario. Maybe Del Ponte will finally get her Nobel Peace Prize, which will obliterate all memory of this regrettable death in the Scheveningen detention centre.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Tuesday November 12, 2002 at 3:49 am
  Yes Walter. A lot of dirty linen to be washed, I am sure. Those now using the genocide at Srebrenica as a red herring in the Dutch parliamentary will hopefully be the first ones whose heads will roll. Why doesn't Frankie for instance report that the evidence he has given us suggests that there were no 8,000 killed in Srebrenica? One day, all this will be history. Even if we can't change the outcome of the Milosevic trial, we can start writing history right now.
  
  J N
  Finland

• Tuesday November 12, 2002 at 4:11 am
  

  LATEST:

  Mr. Milosevic being seen by a doctor this morning. Reported exhausted and with blood pressure very high. Judge May (NATO) told Mr. Nice (NATO) he has ordered another detailed medical examination and a detailed report. Obviously the detention center can't provide such pronognosis to determine the continuation of the trial. Judge Kwon (OCCUPIED) tells Mr. Nice (NATO) the chamber wants to consider a substantial reduction of the prosecution's case to which Mr. Nice (NATO) objects saying the case is alreaday to its bear minimum(!) So, here we have it from kangaroo court to murder court . . .
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn. USA

• Tuesday November 12, 2002 at 5:18 am
  How is this.... I hate the Ustasa!!!! How about this I don't care about UDBAs actions....I don't care about the Croat terrorists...I don't care about Bleiburg..... I don't care what Tito did..... All I know is my cousins, who weren't terrorists were jailed due to a NSW Govt/UDBA conspiracy. They weren't terrorists. I am just putting to you that UDBA illegally interfered in the lives of people with whom they shouldn't have. Its not a justification, it is in fact a tale of truth........................................... The reason why I don't care...I think the way people remembered the events of history is why the war in the former Yugoslavia started. Whoever started it. They remembered their history differently.....despite the fact it was a shared history. Got it??? I do not agree with your sentiments on 20th Century history...as far as I'm concerned there are many versions of history...and that is the problem with it. People see and get out of it what they want. So, I say......forget about it. My only justification of any argument I have made on here is that people's memories is the problem...because there are big bits of hidden truth in there, which people wish to keep secret...and they have all done it...and I can give you example if you so wish. Nobody who comes out of Yugoslavia is telling the "real" truth..about everything that has happened there. This is because they are all trying to justify something....or convince someone. Therefore I say forget about history....because it is only used to justify things...,............................... if it continues as it has been then Serbs will feel hard done by in Krajina and blame the Croats..who will point at Vukovar,and the Croat repression in the Croatian Spring, who will blame the Serbs who will blame the Croats for the Ustasa killing....the Croats will then blame the Serbs from the Serbian Monarchy ruling Yugoslavia...they will both then blame muslims and ottomans for taking over their land and converting their people to islam. I think it is enough....the problem with history is that people remember it differently..... and on and on it goes...... fresh start ...new face ... but it will never happen because fair minded and egalitarian people such as Walter living in a wonderfully homogenous/diverse Canada will continue to rehash/justify their understandings and their take on history...because they find themselves to be self-important, and they love telling people who don't know anything, like Ivan in Sydney, how it all should be.................... Unfortunately, again Walter, you have misread everything I have tried to spell out to you... maybe its the generational gap???
  
  ivan kokotovic
  Sydney
  Australia

• Tuesday November 12, 2002 at 6:18 am
  " maybe its the generational gap???

  How funny!

  Didn't Mark Twain said something like this: "When I was a lad of 20 years or so, my father was so ignorant, I couldn't bare to be in the same room with him...Few years later, I was amazed to see how much he learned in such a short time."
  
  Mira \"Saramago\"
  UK

• Tuesday November 12, 2002 at 6:26 am
  Balkan gangs traffic 200,000 women annually. “The dominant group involved in trafficking women, according to intelligence sources, is ethnic Albanian, and may account for as much as 65% of Balkan human trafficking. Albanians are involved in a number of routes from start to finish, a trend increasingly mirrored in Albanian heroin trafficking. There are Albanian criminals working in Chisinau, trafficking women through Europe, and then sending women onward to Albanian-controlled brothels in Albania, Kosovo, the UK and other European countries where Albanian organised crime is active. In London's Soho district and other parts of the West End, Albanians have achieved almost total control of off-street prostitution in the last five years.” JANES Intelligence Review extract, November 2002. This is the Greater Albania Blair and his buddies slaughtered Serbs for in Kosovo? Message for Michael Thomas: I found that if after posting I wait for the JURIST Discussion file to reappear and then, and only then, close the file I avoid multiple posts.
  
  Peter Taylor
  Herts/UK

• Tuesday November 12, 2002 at 9:16 am
  Ivan, would you please explain one simple point which i often think about and can not solve by myself. I refer to the aftermath of WWII related to the partion of territories between the winners(allied,Russia,Tito) and defeated part(Nazi,fascists,Ustasha). As it is well known the italian would have never lost Istria and Dalmatia if they would have choosen the "right" side and similarly the Croat State of Ante Pavelic would have lost all the above land if Croats would have find themselves at the "wrong" loosers' side. It is because of Tito(Croat)who lead the victorious struggle against Nazi-fascist that todays' indipendent Croatia maintained the whole Dalmatia and Istria. If we put aside the ideology, you should be thankful to Tito who worked in the interest of all populations in the Balkan. The same is valid also for Slovenia which would not have "seen the seaside" without him.
  
  Serjoe b
  Italy

• Tuesday November 12, 2002 at 11:30 am
  

  I am not surprised and yet greatly disappointed by the lack of forsight by judge May (NATO) when he did not deal yesterday with the very pressing issue of Mr. Milosevice's health. This naive or perhaps ill-intentioned, certainly biassed judge is utterly concerned about pleasing his English and NATO fellowman prosecutor Mr. Nice (NATO).

  Judge May (NATO) seems to be unconcerned about Mr. Milosevice's health outside of the scope of his trial and its speed. Why was the whole issue of his health, the trial expendient conclusion heard yesterday?

  amici curiae Tapuskovic was right to insist on the this issue when he reminded the court Mr. Milosevic had not been seen by a doctor in three days, and this callous unconcerned judge disregarded his concerns by insisting with the examination of yet another "star" witness from the prosecution. Today Mr. Milosevic has to be seen once more by a medical team and the court will be presented with yet another report, another recommendation perhaps this time to be followed not only in its "spirit" but also in its "letter".

  Mr. Milosevic told the court very clearly he wants to defend himself, saying no defence councel can improve his health and the latter could improve drastically if he could be let free to prepare his defence.
  
  Gogol Charlemagne
  Conn. USA

• Tuesday November 12, 2002 at 12:16 pm
  If someone is released from the detention centre a few weeks before his death, Mr T calls this pretty humane. Slobo's brother has now told he has only a few weeks to live. If he is not released, would you call that pretty inhumane?

  Talking about building a house from the roof down. I think the ongoing Dutch parliamentary inquiry is a good example. Nowhere is the 7,000-8,000 figure substantiated, and yet that is the presupposition of the exercise. The Krstic judgment mentions it, but strangely enough, the otherwise exquisite footnotes, a sure sign of a legal professional, are missing in this instance. That would suggest that the 7,000-8,000 figure cannot be referenced.

  So what happens when a whole parliamentary inquiry is to find those guilty of a crime that didn't take place? And accuses them of a cover-up? I think the inquiry is itself a cover-up, only on a bigger scale. That means the inquiry will be an even bigger mess than the Dutchbat.

  Not to let Mr T get away so easily this time and retire in his Olympian heights of the Dutch media, let me remind you that he gave us in August a UN General Assembly report on Srebrenica. I am sure he wants me to be "more specific". That happened on Saturday, July 17. The reference is here.

  The only time I noticed the report refer to the death-toll in Srebrenica was in § 467. It says: "The mortal remains of close to 2,500 men and boys have been found on the surface, in mass graves and in secondary burial sites". That was in 1999. The Krstic judgment was given last year, and by then the figure had gone down to 2,028. As the judgment says in § 73: "...the experts were able to conservatively estimate that a minimum of 2,028 separate bodies were exhumed from the mass-graves."

  What should we make of the reliability of the report? I must also remind you that the UN General Assembly report dismissed all the conspiracy theories concerning the breadline and Markale marketplace massacres, which say that the Bosnian Muslims were killed by Bosnian Muslims.

  I found Walter's posting on the CBC documentary on the PCSD very interesting. I was aware of the strange symptoms the Canadian soldiers had, but this is the first time I hear they could have been caused by stress! We already knew they witnessed some pretty horrific things and were paid not to tell the tale.

  Anyone who has read his Crime and Punishment is familiar with this phenomenon. You can devise the most splendid schemes, but you cannot fool nature. Your own body sets the parametres for the tales you can tell. Which might show that Milosevic's hypertension doesn't necessarily demolish the prosecution's case. On the other hand, there must also be a limit to how much rubbish you can bear to hear about yourself.
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland

• Tuesday November 12, 2002 at 12:48 pm
  Yes, Serjoe, right question, however Serbs tend to disagree that Tito worked in the interest of all populations in the Balkan. Main thing. Serbian King during a WW II lived in London and was supported by Churchill. London beleived that a real freedam fighter against Hitler was Draza Mihajlovic. When Lodon swithced to support Tito instead of Draza, Serbs lost its freedom and sovergnity. Read: http://www.suc.org/culture/history/Draza_Mihailovich/independent.html Tito as Croat in fact qonquered Serbs in WW II. That doesnt matter if the most of his partisans were Serbs. If Tito had acted for the betterment of all Balkan people he would act jointly with Draza and Serbian King. He new quite well for the outcome of the WW I and how Croats in fact were saved by joining Serbian Kingdom, otherwise they will be responsible for the reparations. The same thing happened after WW II like Serjoe pointed. Not only that the ending operations and Yugoslav army offensives 1944/45 were tailored to save Croats and were Chatastrofic for Serbian lives. First of all Yugoslav Army was first fighting for Trieste than for Zagreb. (He was fighting to enlarge Slovenia and Croatia, but with Serbian soldiers - There were 5000 Serbs from then devastated Krajina send in the first front line on Trieste without guns) Then - He saved many Croats just not allowing Red Army to go to Croatia. Croats started changing sites in 1944 - just to be on a right side once more, when the war ends.
  
  Pero Peric
  Canada

• Tuesday November 12, 2002 at 1:26 pm
  At Srebrenica, the death tolls were probably inflated by the creation of phantoms for the purpose of increasing the amount of humanitarian assistance to the enclave. These people who had never existed become "missing" and dead. Isn't it interesting that the Krstic trial witnesses described much larger crowds in their collection centres than is reasonable? Moreover, Albright, when she showed pictures of the Nova Kasaba stadium, claimed 600 prisoners within it. At the trial, the number was claimed to be 2,000 or even 2,500.

  More proof of this can be found in the fact that the number of women and children who were bused to Tuzla was significantly less than the estimate of such people in the enclave, and yet the claims of missing men are based on the same estimates. At the Krstic trial, the method of determining who was there and who became missing had a fatal weakness; they refused to use the 1991 census as a starting point. Without that, their research is fatally compromised, probably as intended.

  Lastly, how can anyone be taken seriously on this if they claim that the Serbs had 11,000 male prisoners at Potocari when no such thing ever happened. It was at the famous pig sacrifice that Mladic asked the Muslim leader and the UN representative where these people had gone. Of course at the Krstic trial, they never repeated the standard claim that as the pig was sacrificed, Mladic informed the Muslim leader that this would be his fate and that of his people. I guess that even at this Tribunal there is a limit to the lies they are willing to tell
  
  R. B.
  Canada

• Tuesday November 12, 2002 at 1:26 pm
  Pots and Kettles or Facts and Myths?

  Sheberghan, Qala-i-Janghi V Sebrenica, Racak

  Black

  Blacker than Black

  Blackout

  Black Blair

  We all witness the ‘established’ Western media’s ongoing hysterical outbursts on the alleged atrocities of Serb forces in Sebrenica, Racak and in trucks in the Danube. What shall we hear from these same journalists about the Anglo/US forces’ complicity in the massacre of prisoners at Sheberghan, Qala-I-Janghi and in trucks in the desert? Black Holes.
  
  Peter Taylor
  Herts/UK

• Tuesday November 12, 2002 at 1:32 pm
  At the Krstic trial, they abandoned the story of Mladic sacrificing the pig to tell the Muslim leader that he and his people would be killed, replacing it with a claim that he sacrificed the pig in order to offend Islamic sensibilities!
  
  R. B.
  Canada

• Tuesday November 12, 2002 at 3:21 pm
  Check out General Candic's tie. It looks like something familiar. A red and white checkerboard, is it?
  
  R. B.
  Canada

• Tuesday November 12, 2002 at 8:33 pm
  Ivan, I don’t think it is as you write “maybe” a “generational gap” it is how we define justice. You seem to want to personalize justice while I want to internationalize it. We are all individuals with our own myth and reality and everything we do as individuals involves society, however, as soon as we come into contact with others our values change or come into conflict until a new set of values is created. You want to burn the history books to create this new thesis I want to have a dialogue with the past so that I don’t become a marionette in the hands of people like Bush and Blair. Justice for the Kokotovic family in Australia is as important to me as justice for the Serbian farmer in Krajina, a Muslim teacher in Herzegovina or a Croat truck driver from Sarajevo.

  You write Ivan that hate will never stop “because fair minded and egalitarian people such as Walter living in a wonderfully homogenous/diverse Canada will continue to rehash/justify their understandings and their take on history...because they find themselves to be self-important, and they love telling people who don't know anything, like Ivan in Sydney”. Yes Ivan, I do believe in democracy. Yes Ivan Canada is diverse but we do have many faults and not everything is wonderful. No Ivan my intent here is not to “rehash” history but to learn from it. No Ivan I do not find myself “to be self-important” just because you don’t like my take on how we can learn from history. No Ivan it is not that I “love telling people who don't know anything, like Ivan” I am just asking questions and you don’t seem to agree with the answers so you become condescending in your posts. If I have misread something in your post I am sorry I do try to read them with care.

  Ivan, as you write, justice is not being served by this trial and you are right there is enough injustice to go all around. You are also right that the hate has to stop but we disagree on the cause of this hate. You claim that injustice is caused by rehashing history while I claim it is caused by our ignorance of history. Please don’t take this personally.

  Ivan, we seem to agree that injustice exists, so how do we get justice??? I think education is one way but you Ivan want to burn all the history books while I want them studied in detail. I believe that this way we can synthesize the values worth keeping and disregard the ones that cause hate. So how do we agree on what to throw out and what to keep? We must go back to the lessons of history, leaving things to Fate is not the answer.
  
  Walter Trkla
  Kamloops BC
  Canada

• Tuesday November 12, 2002 at 9:11 pm
  Mustafa Candic (originally C-034) was the most incoherent, mixed-up witness so far. Almost each one of his answers was a non sequitur and although I tried hard, I was often unable to understand what the man is really trying to convey. He's a nitpicking stickler for insignificant details, mortally offended if either the Prosecution or Milosevic misquote/misrepresent one iota in his contradictory web of tales (a bit like our Frank T. here), but completely missing the point either of the segments or the whole of his own testimony. He exasperated even May, who on two occasions lost his patience and sharply instructed him to stop telling unrelated stories but answer the question. In fact, such an observation could be made for almost each one of his answers.

  The explanation for such behaviour lies in his profession: until 1992 he was a member of the Military Intelligence ( contradictio in adjecto! ). Unlike the "spy" Lazarevic, this one was a real JNA officer (Major), but of the pencil-pushing, low-level type, obsessively tidy and precise, jealous of the rank of others, in love with everything military, convinced of his own overwhelming knowledge of high-level politics in the way a personal driver of a high company executive throws around the financial terms he overheard while driving his boss. Candic is a Muslim born in Bosnia, serving in Belgrade, who left JNA in 1992 and joined the Bosnian Army of Alija Izetbegovic, but prior to that he offered his info to the Croatian Intelligence Services and even appeared as a witness at a trial there!

  What the Prosecution wanted to get from him was a testimony about JNA supplying arms to the Serbs in CRO and B&H. The witness was incapable to concentrate on that and to simply state the occasions when he heard or saw something related to the matter; instead, he plunged into dozens of other things (Memorandum of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Serbia; signing of the statement on loyalty to Milosevic by the Army Generals; killings of 4 civilians by one JNA soldier). By adding these other issues he managed only to dilute his testimony, instead of strengthening it. Because, when cross-examined, he pompously dwelt on the smallest details, getting confused, forgetting what he said before or gave in his written statement, so all those items crumbled one by one. The fateful Memorandum, according to the witness, contained pretty much everything that anybody may require (something like the famous Milosevic's speech at Kosovo Polje): it was misquoted, added-to, distorted and actually never read. The existence of the statements on loyalty to Milosevic that some Generals supposedly signed he tried to prove by a lengthy story of how one General demonstratively left one meeting (this is where May snapped at him that this story is not at all related to proving that the man has actually signed any statement). And the case of the soldier killing civilians? Well, the witness of course never reported what he heard to anybody, because "I was a lower cadre, it was not my obligation, I was going about my specific duty there." And strangely, it was also never mentioned in his written statement.

  So, when Milosevic finally got to cross-examine him about the key issue (arming), it came to nothing. The trucks shipping arms to the Serbs from an Army depot, where "at least 3-4 Army trucks he saw each day, driven by the JNA soldiers" (page 4 of his statement), miraculously became the trucks owned by local Serbs, coming to collect the arms: "The arms were not smuggled to the Serb civilians, but instead they were arriving with their own trucks to load it" (page 5)! When asked which one of the 2 versions is true, the witness said that "none is", he "only once saw 2 parked trucks" and that it is possible that it was a lapsus in translation, that he doesn't know who translated it... Milosevic just drily remarked that the translators here are excellent and that the arguments about faulty translation have been aleady heard number of times.

  Even the other "operative action" "Breakthrough 2" was proven to be a mere "6-8 long barrels" given to the friends of the Service as a reward for the outstanding co-operation. Milosevic: "Could this be called 'the arming of the Serbs' then?" Witness: "I did not say that it was the arming of the Serbs." But yes, that was the alleged purpose of 2 secret operations led by the Army Intelligence Service, as testified by the witness: "Breakthrough 1" (the witness once saw 2 trucks parked in front of a depot) and "Breakthrough 2" (the witness was told that few Service collaborators were rewarded each with a complimentary rifle)!

  To conclude with all this, Milosevic quoted to the witness from his written statement again: "By the end of the war in Slovenia, JNA has retreated up to the line which Milosevic had determined as the border of the Greater Serbia." The witness said: "I do not believe I've said something like that." Milosevic: "As an Intelligence officer, kindly inform me when did I determine the borders of the Greater Serbia?" Witness: "I have never said that. You've only determined the borders of SR Yugoslavia when you became its president.(?!) I don't know who wrote this?"

  No further comment is needed here.
  
  Vera Martinovic
  Belgrade
  Yugoslavia

• Tuesday November 12, 2002 at 10:10 pm
  Michael, the Radomir Markovic trial (co-defendant with 3 of his colleagues, all ex-State Security men) concerns their alleged "revealing a secret of the State" (i.e. they supposedly failed to keep at the safe place some diskettes, containing records on few opposition politicos that are now in charge, namely Djindjic & Co.). All 4 were already sentenced to 1 year imprisonment, but this has been annulled by the Supreme Court of Serbia and will be now on retrial. At least he was shown on TV the other day: entering the courtroom, accompanied by guards, handcuffed, but with unchanged defiant, placid expression. This man's stamina impresses me: he had everything to lose, nothing to gain by what he said at The Hague, yet he testified as he did.

  Walter, there were no statements from Karadzic or Mladic ever since they are in hiding. They obviously deeply mistrust the press and with a good reason: few months ago one of the Bosnian papers printed a large story on how a journalist via some secret contact, blidfolded, was brought to Karadzic's hide-out and got a short interview from him, full of rantings against Milosevic; immediately after that, the wife of Dr Karadzic published an open letter denouncing this as a complete falsity. There was a real interview with his mother later on, an ancient Montenegrin peasant, still vital and handsome; you know that SFOR has been trying to catch her son by lurking around this tiny village almost at the border between B&H and Montenegro, because they expect him to visit his ailing mother. But, obviously everybody is protecting him; there is a rumour he's been using truck drivers to verbally communicate, avoiding mobile phone. His mother just showed the journalist her son's photograph that she keeps on the table, said she's proud of him, and kept all the other info to herself. Clever woman. Here in Belgrade there are big graffiti on the walls: RADOVAN, HOLD ON! and the T-shirts with his image (as well as those of Ratko Mladic) are sold in the main street. As regards Srebrenica and the number game that Jari is pointedly writing about, as well as the French intelligence involvement in actual killings - we all knew this way back in 1995; it was all over newspapers and I personally heard it from one of the ex-volunteers (when he came to fix my water-heater). Our public doesn't need any statements from them on that subject. And the public abroad would hardly believe them, I'm afraid.

  Peter, something for you from today's POLITIKA: Tim Marshall (SKY NEWS editor and the YU correspondent) promoted his book called "Shadow Game" yesterday at the Belgrade Media Centre. It concerns the famous 5 October "revolution" that toppled Milosevic. It confirms what Milosevic has been telling all along: that foreign secret services, namely the British, organized it, according to the Tim Marshall's investigations. As he explained at the promotion: "It is difficult to conceive that on the 5 October one million people woke up and said - let's burn the Parliament down. Something had to be organized." He went on to say he didn't believe in revolutions, that "the Western public could not even dream how easily a country can be disintegrated" and that his book is intended for the British public as well. Interesting point is made by the editor-in-chief of B92 Veran Matic, who praised the book as based on facts and investigative journalism, and interesting for the supporters of the theory that the global conspiracy took place in Serbia to help boost up their arguments.
  
  Vera Martinovic
  Belgrade
  Yugoslavia

• Tuesday November 12, 2002 at 10:15 pm
  Walter....... you want to go back and study the history books?????? of Yugoslavia?????? Lord help you.....as I said previously, there isn't a total truth in any of the history books on Yugoslavia, because there was too much to gain from lying, or hiding the truth....from everybody there. By lying....or believing ignorantly (as you put it) people were discrediting their enemies. The history is divided by the way people remember it..despite it being a common history. A perfect example is Pero's view on the way Serbs were treated by Tito in World War II. It is different from my father's understanding....that Croats were forced to suffer more than the Serbs at the hands of Tito's forces. like i said before and so the endless circle goes on..... If people can learn to understand that WWII is not important to the people there anymore, then perhaps they can understand that war is not important as well. .......I think it is a generational gap thing..........the young people of Yugoslavia/Croatia/Bosnia who have been born in the last 7 years will grow up listening to nationalist vitriol from their parents...and democratic mantras from the likes of you, Walter (i do not doubt your intent is good)....but don't you see????? each of these kids will grow up thinking they are in the right, that they are democratic, and innocent, and the victims of horrendous crime. It doesn't matter what side they are on..this will keep going on and on and on....each generation will learn of their take on war, the way they have been told history...and then (hopefully not) be involved in one. the only way to get over this.......is not to look back....and apportion blame....if this is done then some people will be aggrieved..finger pointing will start again....and tensions will rise again. The kids born today don't need to know that their great grand-father was murdered. Not least when the kids they blame (for being from a different ethnicity) have had great grand-fathers also murdered and killed. I speak from experience.....I used to hate all Serbs, without ever having met one. This is because (according to my father's family) my uncle was killed by Chetniks in WWII. -Firstly...I don't know for sure if the story is true.. -Secondly...my father could be bending the truth because it is a good story and it gets his children believing the right thing...which was..we must fight for an independent Croatia. -Thirdly....therefore I hate any Serb ever previously born..and ever to exist again. It wasn't until I met a Serb when I was 18 that I realised wow....what was that shit all about!!!!!! ...................... To conclude my point......I think peace can only be achieved if people set aside their differences and accept others as they are.....not where they have come from and what has happened to them. The people of Yugoslavia must only live for today. this cannot be done if differences in people's memories continue. The history has to be set aside for the benefit growth of a prosperous and peaceful future. .....Serjoe....I don't want to tell you how you should be thinking....but if you are often thinking about the end of WWII..and about Istra in particular....I think you are thinking about it too much...and that perhaps you wish it to belong to Italy. Such comments about land/territory are quite medieval in their gestation.....we are not living in 1600...Venice as a state does not exist...no matter how much people wish us to return to such times when conquering was acceptable. Personally I have nothing to say about Istra....except that it is now a part of Croatian borders...and has been since 1945. It is not relevant. Lastly....Tito....people assume I hate him because I am Croatian. Tito had a job to do....he did it well....I could not care less about Tito....it has happened....now is a new era in all of the republics....let peace ring out.
  
  Ivan Kokotovic
  Sydney
  Australia

• Tuesday November 12, 2002 at 10:17 pm
  Why did I think that Candic was a general? Mirko Klarin's ridiculous articles have their lingering after-effects!
  
  R. B.
  Canada

• Wednesday November 13, 2002 at 3:38 am
  The reason the Dutch are having this parliamentary inquiry is that they are afraid of the Muslims. The Bosnian Muslims wrote a letter to some Dutch organ. The letter said that it is good the Dutch are doing something to patch up the NIOD disaster but if the parliamentary inquiry doesn't yield satisfactory results, the Muslims would consider taking legal action against the Dutch! These threats come from Muslims who used the safe area as a base to stage their attacks on the surrounding Serb area. Now, in what sense was the enclave then to be a safe area?

  I insist that the failure to demilitarize the safe area was the biggest shortcoming of the Dutch and they should answer for that, if for anything. On the other hand, I don't think they could have used any more force than they did.

  But every cloud has a silver-lining. It is interesting if the parliamentary inquiry will yield any useful results for the Milosevic trial. Now the Dutch army is on the defensive, it could actually clear Milosevic of the genocide charges!

  You may not like Nato troops. However, the Dutchbat were not Nato, they were UNPROFOR. It is only after the Dayton Agreement that the UNPROFOR evolved into the Nato-led IFOR and SFOR. However, Nato seems to have had its foot in the door. I am not sure who exactly administered the no-fly zones and the UNPROFOR airpower. It seems plausible that the simple answer is: NATO. And to check the history of the "peace-keeping missions" in Yugoslavia, here is the link to the Security Council resolutions once more (I will need it). http://www.nato.int/ifor/un/un-resol.htm .

  Why is the death toll in Srebrenica so important? But that is exactly the point. Why is it? Why don't the Muslims settle for 2,000 (which is still inflated)? I think the answer is that they vie for the honour of suffering the biggest humanitarian catastrophe in Europe since WWII. Maybe there is some numerical threshold to pass. It is just funny that there are three catastrophes that have been called the biggest humanitarian catastrophes since WW II. First, Sarajevo. Second, Srebrenica. Third, Kosovo. All of these took place in the Balkans and all of them happened to the Muslims. Isn't it obvious that the Muslims want a bit of that Holocaust aura to have a say in the world affairs? However, one has to be careful. If all three catastrophes were biggest since WWII it is only logical that the first of the three was a little less catastrophic than the second, and the second a little less catastrophich than the third. That way, each of them could be biggest catastophes since WWII. Maybe that explains why Srebrenica must have 7,000-8,000 victims and Kosovo 10,356.

  But the real reason that the numbers are so important is more practical. There is a difference between killing 1,000 people and killing 8,000 people. Actually, not necessarily. We are kept completely in the dark how many people the Serbs lost. It would be vital to compare the losses on both sides before one can get an idea of the situation in which these deaths took place. But even in absolute terms it seems that killing 8,000 people (and we are supposing they were civilians) takes some premeditation, whereas 1,000 can be dismissed as collateral damage, which they probably were, in as far as they were not used deliberately as human shields (which must have been why Naser Oric took over Srebrenica).

  As to the French doing the dirty job in Pilica Farm...Why does Nato now accuse the French every time it fails to catch Karadzic? At least the French cannot defend themselves by saying: look at all that we did near Zvornik! So if the French did the dirty job in Zvornik, blaming them for the failure to catch Karadzic makes sense, in a curious dirty-works kind of way. And conversely, the French have made a name for themselves as constant critics of the Americans, so using them for massacres would also make "sense".

  If the Yugoslavs were aware of this in 1995, there should be enough evidence to make even the people in the West interested. I think Tim Marshall shows that truth will never go out of style even in the West.

  I would like to come back to what RB said yesterday. The Pentagon spokesman said mid-July 1998 that Serbia needed more forces in Kosovo to deal with the guerrilla conflict. Remember the context. Those were the good old times, when Richard Gelbard dismissed the KLA as a terrorist organization and promised the US would never have any dealings with them. However, Clinton and Albright threatened Serbia (just like Papa Bush had done in December 1992) if the force level were raised. So heavier weapons were used by the Serbs. The situation is somewhat similar to Israel, I guess, where the Israelis don't want to use their more sophisticated weaponry and bulldoze houses instead.

  Walter, if you have any specifics on the CBC documentary on the Canadian troops in Croatia, I would be receptive to any extra info. I did a preliminary search with Google yesterday but remained empty-handed. Maybe I should check the CBC homepage (the trouble is I don't know when Remembrance Day is).

  The Albanian-Croatian leader you referred to must be Agim Ceku, who has just been indicted by ICTY (just kidding, sorry). Janko Bobetko's health is said to be too poor, and Franjo Tudjman is dead. This gentle approach by the ICTY allows some Croats to be so philosophical about the point of writing history at all. I think some life convictions in ICTY would make the Croats face the realities a little better.

  Now that we have seen the reputation of the French tarnished, let us do a little damage control. There is an independent French periodical on the Balkans. The homepage is www.b-i-info.com and www.b-i-infos.com .
  
  Jari Nousiainen
  Finland