A SUMMARY OF THE GENERAL CLARK'S CAMPAIGN STOP IN THE 'TRIAL OF THE CENTURY'

A SUMMARY OF THE GENERAL CLARK'S CAMPAIGN STOP IN THE 'TRIAL OF THE CENTURY' How can anyone believe that for eight years Clark, the general in command when NATO bombed Yugoslavia, had information on genocide and he didn't shout it until he's running for president?

Retired American General Wesley Clark testified in front of The Hague Tribunal on Monday and Tuesday. From the outset it was apparent that his testimony would be stage-managed and restricted so as not to embarrass the "perfumed prince" or his government. It was indeed what happened.

As soon as the proceedings started, President Milosevic objected to the terms of Clark's testimony saying, "I don't quite understand the position of this witness since my understanding was that he would be testifying in closed session and that you described that as a temporarily closed session, and then, in the meantime, representatives of the government of his country may be able to review the transcript, to approve some of it, to redact some of it possibly, and only then to release it to the public. I am not aware of any legal court in the world delegating its authority of this kind to any government. This would be the first time for any such thing to happen. Of course, you consider yourself to be a legal court."

It turned out that the U.S. Government had no real need to redact the transcript. President Milosevic's ability to cross-examine Clark was so radically limited that he couldn't ask any questions unless the prosecution had already asked about the topic first. Essentially the prosecution dictated the terms of the cross-examination, and the so-called "trial chamber" enforced those terms.

Before Clark's testimony even started the so-called "Presiding Judge" Richard May, expressed concern that Clark's witness statement was too broad, and would therefore enable too wide-ranging of a cross-examination by President Milosevic.

Mr. May also expressed concern that admitting Wesley Clark's book would enable President Milosevic to ask questions about the contents of the book. Therefore, it was decided that the book would not be exhibited, with the stated objective being to limit President Milosevic's cross-examination. The suppression of Clark's book and public statements was ordered by the court in the end.

After the Examination-in-chief was concluded, Mr. May was very keen to limit the cross-examination. The fist thing he said to President Milosevic was "Mr. Milosevic, before you begin cross-examining, you should know that there are parameters in this case beyond which you cannot go. We've already made an order which restricts the scope of cross-examination. I'm not going to go into the reasons for it again. It is limited to the statement which the witness has given, which means that you are restricted in a way that you are not restricted with other witnesses, because then you're allowed to ask any relevant matters. You're restricted in this case to the witness's evidence. So you can give -- ask him questions, of course, about what he's said here but not about other evidence. He's given no other evidence against you apart from the matter which General Clark has dealt with here. So your cross-examination in this case is limited."

"We have refused to admit the book. It's not part of the evidence. We therefore will not allow some free-ranging cross-examination through it, but you may, if you are entitled to do so, and that will be a matter of relevance, you can, if you wish, ask General Clark about passages of the book which are related to his evidence, and that largely will be -- not entirely will be the matters which are already underlined. So subject to those matters, of course you may conduct your cross-examination, but you will be stopped if you go beyond those particular bounds."

At the beginning, Clark spoke of a a war making Milosevic, one who was responsible for the breakup of Yugoslavia. It was very different from Lord Owen's account who even desribed Milosevic as a 'peacemaker'. Clark, a man who claimed to have spent more than 100 hours with Milosevic, would turn out to be not so knowledgeable on many of the details when asked.

In fact he made a better case against himself than he did against Milosevic. On August 1, 1975 the Helsinki Final act was signed by the U.S. Government and also by Yugoslavia. Signatories to the Helsinki final act are obliged under Sec. VI to "refrain from any form of armed intervention or threat of such intervention against another participating State," and to "refrain from direct or indirect assistance to terrorist activities, or to subversive or other activities directed towards the violent overthrow of the regime of another participating State." Section II of the Helsinki Final Act states that "the participating States will refrain from any acts constituting a threat of force or direct or indirect use of force against another participating State. Likewise they will refrain from any manifestation of force for the purpose of inducing another participating State to renounce the full exercise of its sovereign rights. Likewise they will also refrain in their mutual relations from any act of reprisal by force."

"No such threat or use of force will be employed as a means of settling disputes, or questions likely to give rise to disputes, between them."

During his examination-in-chief Clark explained that he met with Milosevic several times in order to force him to withdraw Yugoslav army and police forces from Kosovo. Clark says he told Milosevic that if he didn’t remove the army and the police then NATO would attack Yugoslavia. Mr. Clark just confirmed to the world that he, Wesley Clark, went to a sovereign state and told the head of state that unless they removed their army and their police forces from their own territory that they would be bombed, and as we know Yugoslavia was bombed. Wesley Clark quite clearly proved that he broke international law, but he didn’t demonstrate that Milosevic did, his "evidence" was worthless to the prosecution in many aspects.

At one point Clark bragged to Mr. Nice that he told Milosevic, "NATO is going to be asking - these [NATO] leaders are going to be asking what is it that you [Milosevic] are trying to do to this country? You forced professors to sign loyalty oaths, you have crushed democracy, you have taken a vibrant economy, you've wrecked it. They're going to be asking, what kind of a leader are you?"

First of all, what Clark said was completely untrue. Professors didn’t have to sign any loyalty oaths to Milosevic. Not even professors who support DOS allege such a thing. The economy was wrecked by sanctions imposed from outside, and Milosevic was elected in multiparty elections.

Clark went on to explain to Mr. Nice that after he made that remark to Milosevic then he didn’t make any more progress with him in the "negotiations". Will wonders never cease? Wesley Clark went to Yugoslavia, met with the head of state, presented him with threats and ultimatums, generally behaved like a belligerent man, hurled lies and insults at him, and then he wondered how he did not get what he wanted? The only thing that Clark said, which even remotely incriminated Milosevic was when he said that he asked Milosevic: "Mr. President, you say you have so much influence over the Bosnian Serbs, but how is it then, if you have such influence, that you allowed General Mladic to kill all those people in Srebrenica?" Clark said that Milosevic replied by saying, "Well, General Clark, I warned Mladic not to do this, but he didn't listen to me."

Of course the only alleged witness to this alleged conversation was Joseph Kruzel, and he’s dead. But it defies belief that Milosevic would tell someone like Wesley Clark something like that. Slobodan Milosevic has never attributed any killings at Srebrenica to Mladic. Slobodan Milosevic has consistently claimed that mercenaries, and not the VRS, carried out killings. Secondly, he has consistently stated that he fond out about Srebrenica after the fact, so how could he have told Mladic not to do it ahead of time?

Because Kruzel is dead, we have Clark’s word against Milosevic’s word, and Milosevic branded Clark’s claim as a blatant lie. Itis very hard to believe that Milosevic would confide in Wesley Clark and tell him something that he didn’t tell anybody else. Wesley Clark spoke about the MUP and VJ’s actions in Kosovo, Mr. Nice asked him to explain what his sources of information were and Clark replied by saying, "I got this from both the news media and other reliable sources."

The news media, and some unnamed "reliable sources." Well now, one should be really impressed with the prosecution’s case! Mr. Nice got the former NATO Supreme Allied Commander and the former Commander-in-Chief of the United States European Command to testify on the basis of what he saw in the media. Excelsior to you Mr. Nice! Words can’t express how impressed one should be with your case. When the cross-examination did start, Mr. May limited it to two and a half hours. As he explained to President Milosevic, "two and a half hours should be adequate to deal with the limited matters which the witness has given in evidence." The elephant in the room was of course Wesley Clark’s command over the NATO aggression against Yugoslavia, and President Milosevic was prohibited from asking him any questions about that. Yes you read that right, Slobodan Milosevic was the president of Yugoslavia, and while he was the president of Yugoslavia, Wesley Clark conducted a war against Yugoslavia, and this "minor detail" was something that President Milosevic was prohibited from asking questions about, because it was not the subject of the examination in chief. One would wonder why.

Let’s get this perfectly clear President Milosevic asked the following question, "Mr. May, just in order to clarify the basic attitude towards me in relation to this witness, is it in dispute that General Clark was in command of NATO during the war against Yugoslavia? And is it disputed that that was his most important role in everything that related to Yugoslavia? And is it in dispute that you're not allowing me to ask him anything at all about that?"

Mr. May’s response was "That's right," and so President Milosevic asked him again. He said, "So I cannot ask him anything at all about the war waged by NATO against Yugoslavia. Is that what you're saying?" And May said, "Yes." At that point President Milosevic denounced the proceedings as a farce, and then in order to prove President Milosevic right "judge" May said, "I also restrict your comments too." The first substantive topic that Clark spoke about in cross-examination was his meeting with Mladic regarding the Contact Group Plan in 1994. For some reason Clark went out of his way to describe Mladic as angry and belligerent, he said that the meeting was unproductive because of Mladic’s alleged intransigence.

Pictures from the meeting tell a different story. They show a smiling Clark, and a happy looking Mladic wearing each other’s hats like a couple of buddies out having a good time. A whole secret scandal errupted after the picture was released. The Cross-examination was grinding and tedious. President Milosevic was repeatedly prohibited from bringing up matters of key importance.

Milosevic attempted to bring up the fact that Wesley Clark admitted in the November 17, 2003 issue of the New Yorker that NATO’s Kosovo war was "technically illegal" because according to Clark, "The Russians and the Chinese said they would both veto it. There was never a chance that it would be authorized." While it may be irrelevant to the prosecutions case, Milosevic has stated on numerous occasions that he sees the trial as a farce, it does set matters into context for his defense.

I guess if Clark thinks that the NATO bombing was "technically illegal" then that makes him technically a war criminal, because he commanded it. Unfortunately, Milosevic couldn’t make that point because his microphone was constantly being switched off by Mr. May. In fact, Amnesty International accused NATO of war crimes. Mr. May was unusually quick to switch off Milosevic’s microphone during Clark’s so-called "testimony."

During Clark’s examination-in-chief he boasted that he took Milosevic aside and "warned him that if he didn't comply with the request of the United Nations [SC RES 1199], that action would be taken against him in the form of bombing." The "request" Clark is referring to is the withdrawal of Yugoslav security forces from Kosovo. President Milosevic asked Clark if Resolution 1199 authorized the use of force against Yugoslavia and all Clark would say was, "The content of the Resolution is a matter of public record, and I was following the instructions from NATO and from my government."

Clark is right, it is a public document, and it turns out that Resolution 1199 doesn’t authorize any bombing. Therefore, the instructions issued to Clark by the U.S. Government and NATO contradicted the resolution.

Furthermore Resolution 1199 simply demanded, "the withdrawal of security units used for civilian repression." Seeing as how no Yugoslav army or police units were in Kosovo for the purpose of repressing civilians Yugoslavia wasn’t obliged to withdraw any of its security forces. All of Yugoslavia’s security forces were in Kosovo to protect the civilians.

As with day one of Clark’s "testimony", much of day two was spent discussing Slobodan Milosevic’s roll at the Dayton peace negotiations.

In the most cynical display one could see at the trial, Wesley Clark was trying to use Slobodan Milosevic’s leading roll in ending the bloodshed in Bosnia against him. The essence of Clark’s testimony was Milosevic took the leading roll in the negotiations; therefore he must have taken the leading roll on the battlefield.

The fact of the matter was that NATO wouldn’t deal with the Bosnian Serb leadership. As Clark himself explained, "they were indicted war criminals, and so it wasn't our desire to speak to either Karadzic or Mladic."

So now, the man the considered to be capable of negotiating is guilty for doing so, because Clark and Co. refused to contact someone else.

Because the most senior Bosnian Serb leadership couldn’t attend the negotiations, lest they be arrested, the remedy was to form a single delegation joint delegation of Yugoslavia and Republika Srpska. The delegation consisted of three members from Republika Srpska and three from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and as he held the most senior position among the delegates Slobodan Milosevic led the delegation and was given the decisive vote. Without Slobodan Milosevic there would have been no way to negotiate and end to the war.

The agreement to form the single delegation was reached on August 29, 1995 at the Yugoslav army residence in Dobanovci. Present at the meeting were: The president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Zoran Lilic; the President of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic; the president of Montenegro, Momir Bulatovic; the president of the federal government, Dr. Rade Kontic; federal Defence Minister Pavle Bulatovic; and the Yugoslav Army General Chief of Staff, Colonel General Momcilo Perisic. President of the Republic of Srpska, Dr. Radovan Karadzic; vice-president Dr. Nikola Koljevic and Dr. Biljana Plavsic; president of the Assembly of Republika Srpska, Momcilo Krajisnik; the president of the Republika Srpska, Dusan Kozic; Minister of Foreign Affairs Dr. Aleksa Buha; the Commander of the Main Staff of Republika Srpska Colonel-General Ratko Mladic with Generals Zdravko Tolimir, Milan Gvero, and Djordje Djukic. Under the terms of the agreement reached by the Governments of Yugoslavia and Republika Srpska:

The leadership of Republika Srpska is in agreement with the complete coordination of its approach to the peace process with the leadership of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the interests of peace.

The leadership of Republika Srpska agrees that binding decisions for the delegation in relation to the peace plan be made by the delegation at a plenary session based on a majority of votes. In the event of an equal number of votes, the vote of President Slobodan Milosevic would be decisive.

Also present at the meeting were the patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church, His Eminence Pavle and Bishop Irinej Bulovic, who bestowed their blessings on the agreement.

So we can see that the single delegation came about on the basis of an agreement between the government of Yugoslavia on the one hand and the government of Republika Srpska on the other. The agreement was reached to coordinate the approach rather than any kind of alchemistry on the part of Milosevic. The Republika Srpska leadership was locked out of the process by NATO and so President Milosevic had to go to Dayton in their place, and he went in their place only after he received their authorization. He insisted on having this agreement and having the casting vote so that there wouldn’t be a repeat of what happened with the Vance-Owen plan. President Milosevic worked for tirelessly for peace and even Lord Owen admitted that, he just wanted him to take it further, but Clark in complete contradiction to Owen, claimed something else.

Milosevic asked him a simple question about a criticism leveled against him by the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Henry Shelton. Shelton says, in the November 17, 2003 issue of the New Yorker that "the reason he [Wesley Clark] came out of Europe early had to do with integrity and character issues ... Wes won't get my vote"

Wesley Clark responded by saying "I want to, Your Honor, thoroughly disabuse the accused of the idea that there was any reflection on my character and integrity." Then he proceeded to read out a 10 minute long speech about his great character, as it was expected he would be asked that question. Mr. Clark immediately proceeded to correct Milosevic, but then admitted that he did indeed "reported to the Secretary of Defence through General Shelton." So one can say, that Mr. Shelton was in a clear position to justify his comments.

All Clark had to say was that Shelton is a political opponent of his, and was only saying bad things about him for political reasons, sort of like what he was doing to Milosevic.

As if listening to him read a 10 minute long speech about how great he is wasn’t enough, Wesley Clark procured a fax from Bill Clinton calling him a great officer and calling Milosevic a liar. In clear violation with the Tribunal's rules, Mr. Clark was allowed to call the fomer president, with the help of the Chief Prosecutor, and then produce that fax to the court. The oddest thing of all was that he was allowed during his testimony to stand up and leave his bench, make a telephone call, or something else. The other unusual thing is that Clark was allowed to contact Bill Clinton during the testimony, to ask him to send a letter or fax supporting his claims. He was allowed to read out Clinton’s fax despite the fact Judge May always warns witnesses that during the break they are not allowed to talk to anyone. The Tribuna's spokesman Jim Landale has confirmed that they are investigating the matter. Clinton calling Milosevic a liar that’s a good one; Bill Clinton the man who was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives, because he lied to a grand-jury is calling Slobodan Milosevic a liar.

Of course, Clark couldn’t just hand the fax in to the "judges." No, he had to read the whole thing out, and we had to listen to him going on again about what a great guy he is. It’s no wonder they call him the perfumed prince.

Wesley Clark also made his views on the KLA known. He said "I don't accept the definition of the KLA as a terrorist organization. I want to state that for the record." Very well Mr. Clark, you are now on record saying that these happy KLA members holding the severed Serbian heads in this photo aren’t terrorists.

Wesley Clark also said that "NATO had no relationship with the KLA, period." Really? In this next photo we see the top NATO and KLA leadership posing for a friendly group photo. Clark himself is the one on the far right. Surprisingly, Ms. Del Ponte asked the Accused to pass the picture onto her, despite it being published in the Yugoslav media for now 3 months and it having been forwared to the Hague on several occasions through Mr. Batics, Serbia's current Minister of Justice.

Slobodan Milosevic said, they looked like "[the] three Musketeers where he [Clark] is like D'Artagnan with the leaders of these terrorists"

It looks to me like, far from having no relationship, that NATO has a very friendly relationship with the KLA. It also appears to me that the KLA are terrorists. The complicity of the court in hiding evidence was exposed by Mr. Key when he reminds Mr. May that Clark’s book was pulled at the last minute as evidence. Mr. Key tells Mr. May "And so in many respects, the accused has approached this witness from a particular way which it seems has been changed at a very late stage, and of course that has caused him difficulties with his case strategy. The court allowed it to be pulled so Clark would not be forced to answer for his crimes against the Serbian people.

Mr. Key goes on and tells Mr. May "Yes. The history of it is quite important, because when we started with this witness and the Rule 70 issues, the book was served by the Prosecution {---} and there's been a situation where Rule 89(F) could have been used in relation to the book and that be the basis of the testimony.

He then went on to ask, "General, just taking up the last series of issues the accused was asking you about before the question concerning Racak. It would be right to say, would it not, that the UN Security Council did not pass a Resolution affirming your bombing of Yugoslavia?" Clark responed by stating "Yes your Honour, that's correct." Like stated, Clark refused to call the KLA a terrorist organization, but Mr. Kay would not let up, and proceeded to ask, "The Security Council Resolutions, of course, were concerned with the generality of the problem and on both sides they expressed condemnation of the Serbian state but they expressed condemnation of the other side as well, the KLA, the terrorists. You're aware of that?" Clark shot back, "I don't have the specific language in front of me but I do recall in general that."

So the UN is calling the KLA attacks terrorist attacks and Mr. Clark who allegedly got the UN's agreement to bomb Yugoslavia is not calling the chopping off of these heads terrorist attacks.

Then Mr. May jumped in and reminded Mr. Kay, a very well respected lawyer, of his duty to the court. One may recall May's outburst towards Mr. Tapuskovic, another 'friend of the court'. Mr. May said to Tapuskovic, "You are not here to defend Serbia." Soon after, Tapuskovic decided/(was fired) to leave. Mr. Kay then delivered a final blow to Clark's statements, what happened next is extrodinary,

"If we could just look at this issue then because it's important and the Courts are plainly interested in it: Were you aware that under Lord Owen's concerns, President Milosevic had warned Dr. Karadzic in 1993 about not to attack Srebrenica?

Mr. Kay: Were you aware that Milosevic, as stated publicly, was in fact very exasperated and concerned about that particular safe haven, Srebrenica

MR. KAY: We've heard evidence anyway, but the point here is that this is being presented now as a confession, if you like, that --

MR. KAY: -- the accused had foreknowledge of what was going to happen when the fact of the matter is that there is evidence that he had warned. You have allowed in the impression of what the accused was saying to this witness, and what I am questioning now is what this witness's own state of knowledge was of the whole circumstance. Was he aware that there was concern for Srebrenica and the safe havens and indeed warnings to Karadzic - it doesn't mean any warnings to Mladic - concerning not to attack the safe havens?

JUDGE MAY: It will be a matter for us, first of all whether the statement was made and, secondly, what we make of it and what the significance of the statement was. That surely is the crucial factor.

MR. KAY: Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I thought the Court was very concerned about this evidence today and -

JUDGE MAY: Indeed. Indeed. But what somebody said to somebody else doesn't seem to me to have any relevance on it.

MR. KAY: Well, if there's been a warning given by someone of importance in the issue to someone else, that surely indicates that there is a background to this that is entirely different from the impression that the witness was able to put before this Court based on his impression when having mentioned it in 1995.

Soon after this event, the court went into private session and any record of it was redacted to protect the 'national interest of the United States' and not the public's.

Wesley Clark continued by saying he had "no recollection of the details of the Serb position" but later he clearly names places such as Brcko Posavina and Banja Luka, names he seems to remember when it suits him. One on occasion, it seemed that the other two judged overruled our Mr. May to allow a question to be asked.

Surprisingly, much of the evidence of Borislav Jovic was left untouched. Mr. Jovic was very critical of Milosevic's character, but did leave no doubt when questioned about Milosevic's goals towards peace. In an interview published after his appearance in the Hague, Mr. Jovic claimed in the daily Novosti, he said "There was no idea of a Greater Serbia. There is nothing in my book that talks about those things, but the Hague desperately wants those things."

Mr. Jovic account was also damaging in terms of an international look. While Mr. Jovic critisized Mr. Milosevic and his character, there were no disagreements between the two men when it came to the war.

Wesley Clark’s "testimony" proves beyond any doubt that this so-called "trial" is a not a fair trial at all. The restrictions imposed on President Milosevic’s cross-examination were completely unjustified. While it is always argued that we should do what is in the "interest of the public" one must wonder, why in this case, the General's statements were not given in full light.

Clark's appearance was an embarrassment for the "tribunal" and it was an embarrassment for the U.S. Government. They brought in a high-profile witness with a lot of fan fare; it attracted global attention and what did the world see? They saw a vainglorious manhiding from difficult questions behind the "presiding judge’s" robes.

A limited cross examination, a secret trial for 48 days, redacted statements, and most importantly, the inability to question the credibility of the witness on his most important function clearly demostrated a sad case of international justice.

It can all be summarized in one sentence: This was basically an show with a NATO flag draped over it.

I am glad that many of you liked the report. I used several sources, if needed I can post them. It has been almost unbelievable to watch this trial unfold before the public's eyes. It is a true travesty of justice.

The prosecution has 15 days left to present any evidence and it seems that Clark was their most senior witness.

Three month ago when in Europe I got hold of a Dutch TV documentary on the kangaroo court in the Hague. The documentary's position is basically along the lines we see in your post: whatever are Milosevic's character and political physiognomy, he doesn't receive fair justice in the Hague.

It was sort of hit last year, so I asked for the producers' permit for a non-commercial screening of the film here in New Zealand. I hoped to show it in some discussion club and may be to get TVNewZealand interested enough eventually to include it in their programme.

And you know what? Lefty intelligentsia entrenched everywhere in the mainstream media, on the campus, in the arts etc. doesn't want to know.

For them, Serbs are savages, Milosevic is a criminal, Muslim Albanians are sort of noble tribesmen oppressed by bad white Christians... and the farce taking place in the Hague is an affirmative action. Policy takes prevalence over the principle, it's not something that their radical minds would denounce.

So, anything that doesn't unconditionally condemn Serbia is a no-goer here... unbiased information just isn't admitted to the pages and screens...

Want to watch the documentary in question? Welcome to my place!

We have the spectacle of rwo war criminals involved in a trial with the presiding judge protecting one over the other. With this example of kangaroo proceedings, I cannot fault President Bush for opting out of this type of tribunal for our troops and citizens. It is too bad that in this instance Clark can escape justice though. NATO was not served well by Clark as its commanding general. I shudder to think of this man being on the ticket with Dean winning the Presidency.

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