THE SO-CALLED "DEFENSE" CALLS ITS FIRST WITNESS

www.slobodan-milosevic.org - September 7, 2004

September 7, 2004 - Slobodan Milosevic's so-called "defense" was launched at the Hague Tribunal today, although he had no control over it, and did not participate in it.

Milosevic told the tribunal, "You took away my right to defense and put it in the hands of Mr. Kay. He does not represent me. He represents you. I ask you to return my right of self-defense to me." At that point, Mr. Robinson, cut-off his microphone and directed Mr. Kay to start questioning the witness.

Milosevic was told that he could briefly question the witness after Mr. Kay was finished, but he refused. Clearly angered, he said that he would not satisfy himself with "breadcrumbs" offered by the tribunal which has said that he can occasionally put additional questions to witnesses, but only if the so-called "judges" decide to let him. Milosevic said, "I have no intention of exercising any rights as Mr. Kay's assistant. I'm not going to accept that."

Milosevic who has refused to meet with Mr. Kay, said that "Kay's questioning has nothing to do" with his defense, and added that Kay was "completely unprepared" for questioning.

Mr. Robinson repeatedly cut off Milosevic as he kept protesting against the forced appointment of the two lawyers, Mr. Kay and Ms. Higgins, who had previously acted as court-appointed "amici curiae."

In addition to the disgusting spectacle of a man being denied his right to present a defense, a witness did testify.

Ms. Smilja Avramov, a retired Belgrade professor of international law, and Milosevic's advisor for international affairs from 1991 to 1993 was the first defense witness to take the stand. Milosevic had named Avramov as his first defense witness before the tribunal imposed his so-called "defense lawyers" on him, against his will.

Avramov resigned from her position in 1993 because she thought that Milosevic was too accommodating to negotiators from the West.

According to her, Milosevic sincerely wanted the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to survive. "He was all the time cooperating with the international community in finding the peaceful solution to Yugoslav crisis. He did not have any significant influence on the Serbs in Bosnia and Croatia who had organized them themselves because of increasingly repeated terrorist attacks."

According to Avramov, "Milosevic was obsessed by brotherhood and unity, obsessed by Yugoslavia." She said that, “Milosevic was obsessed with the idea that Yugoslavia must be preserved and called for tolerance.  No one could say a word about any kind of Greater Serbia." she went on to explain that Milosevic held on to those convictions even after Serbia was cheated by the ultimatum of Lord Carrington which insisted on the breakup of Yugoslavia.

She said that Milosevic's statement that all Serbs should live in one state referred to the state of Yugoslavia and not to any sort of "Greater Serbia."

She said that Slovenia and Croatia refused to respect the constitution and federal laws before their violent secession and before ethnic terrorist organizations tried to divide Yugoslavia along ethnic lines.

According to her testimony, violent conflict was brought about in Croatia by the "Ustasha émigrés [who] came to power in Croatia in 1990". She said that while Milosevic aimed for a peaceful solution, Croatia and Slovenia were intent on mounting a violent campaign of succession against Yugoslavia.

Even tough Mr. Kay's questions were totally directed towards Milosevic's alleged role in the eruption of armed conflicts; Professor Avramov still managed to volunteer some crucial information, about the role of the international community in the violent destruction of Yugoslavia.

According to the professor, "The turning point [in the Yugoslav crisis] was the Brioni Conference that the Serbian delegation was not invited to participate at. The conference was called by [Yugoslavia's] then foreign minister Budimir Loncar. The conference decided that the international community should be allowed to mediate in peaceful settlement of the crisis with respect of the existing borders of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Lord Carington's plan at the Hague Conference on October 18, 1991 was a shock because it stipulated secession of all republics in as he put revolutionary, communist borders. That plan was presented to Serbia as an ultimatum. That was a flagrant violation of the international law. According to it the right of choice is in front of the right of secession. Such right was not given to the Serbs in this case. Nevertheless, any Milosevic's plan about the greater Serbia is completely out of question. I have never heard him saying anything of the kind. Also he did not speak about using the army's assets for conquering of the territories."

To prove her statements, she submitted numerous documents, including a document drawn up by a team of independent Serbian intellectuals, including herself, as the basis for talks with Croatia and the European Union at the culmination of the Yugoslav crisis.

The Prosecution alleges that Milosevic designed and carried out a complex conspiracy, or "joint criminal enterprise," to create an ethnically pure "Greater Serbia" by expelling or murdering non-Serbs in the former Yugoslav republics.

But Avramov said that no such plan ever existed. "It is ridiculous, to put it mildly," she said.

She said that she had never heard Milosevic speak about any plan to seize territory and added that, even after the illegal secession of Slovenia in 1991, he had said there was no need to blame all Slovenes and that good relations with the remaining republics must be maintained.

The Prosecution continually ran into walls in its cross-examination, "Was there any policy that supported the use of force to take control of territory in Bosnia or Croatia?" Mr. Nice asked.

"No, I state categorically, no," she responded.

"Was there any question of the expulsion of people, that you know of, within his policy?" Nice asked.

"Never, gentlemen," she told the tribunal.

In response to questions from Mr. Nice, she praised the former Bosnian-Serb president, Dr. Radovan Karadzic, as an "intellectual with high moral integrity" and credited his continued popularity among Serbs to "the fact that he took the side of his people in the most difficult time."

"As for Gen. Mladic, a man I met several times, I have a very high regard of him as a soldier. I know some heroic feats of his in which he saved civilians, both Muslim and Serbian civilians," she said.

Avramov, who was born in 1919, is a vocal opponent of the tribunal. She denounced the institution saying that she had studied law in Nazi-allied Austria just before the Second World War, and that the tribunal was even worse than that.

The hearing was adjourned and will resume tomorrow with further testimony from Avramov.

Because of the tribunal's draconian decision to deny Milosevic the fundamental right to present his defense, they are facing more than just angry words and denunciations form some of their witnesses.

A witness boycott appears to be in the works. According to Serbia's FoNet news agency, some defense witnesses have already sent letters to the tribunal informing it that they do not wish to testify unless Milosevic defends himself.

The first witness to publicly refuse to testify is Nikolai Ryzhkov, a Senator in the Russian Federation Council, who said on Tuesday that he would refuse to testify.

"Slobodan Milosevic has invited me to appear as a defense witness. I was planning to leave for the Hague on September 13 and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia was informed of my plans," Ryzhkov said in a public statement issued in Moscow on Tuesday.

"However, under these conditions I refuse to speak in that trial," Ryzhkov said, referring to the ICTY's "illegal decision to appoint a lawyer to the former president of Yugoslavia against his will."

Ryzhkov went on to say that "The international tribunal made an illegal decision in appointing Milosevic a lawyer. It was done against the wishes of Milosevic, who has been handling his defense on his own for over two years now." Adding that " The decision of ICTY severely violates its own Statute, which (Article21, paragraph 4) guarantees the right of a defendant to defend himself in person."

“That is a widely excepted norm in international law, and the fact that The Tribunal has decided to seriously break those established codes of conduct is worthy of the lodging of serious complaints.“ Rizkov said.

In addition to a possible witness boycott, the tribunal is being roundly condemned by the victims that it is supposed to be avenging.

According to Bosnia's ONASA news agency, the Republika Srpska Union of camp inmates sent an official note to the ICTY Appeals Council, complaining against the "forcing of Slobodan Milosevic to have a defense attorney."

The note read that the ICTY is "violating all conventions on human rights in Milosevic's case" and that "the defense attorneys are not informed of the circumstances resulting in the tragic war in ex-Yugoslavia."
 

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