Posted on 01/13/2005 5:59:05 AM PST by uplandgame
Defense Witness, French Col. Patrick Barriot presented an Interpol document to the Hague Tribunal on Wednesday. According to the document, Mohammed Atta was present in central Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1994, 1995, and 1999. Atta was one of the suicide hijackers who crashed a civilian jetliner into the World Trade Center in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Both Milosevic and Col. Barriot, who serves on the anti-terrorism task force of the French government, said that this document offers proof of “deep-rooted Islamic terrorism in Bosnia.”
The tribunal did its level best to block the evidence regarding terrorism. The judges questioned its “relevance.” Judge Robinson asked what it would change, as regards the indictment, if it were to be established that a strong terrorist network existed in Bosnia. Mr. Nice expressed concern that information regarding Balkan terrorism would be picked-up by the press, as Mr. Nice put it, it made “attractive fodder” for reporters. Carla Del Ponte said that the presence of an Islamic terrorist network “would not change one iota” regarding the charges against Milosevic.
I think Mr. Nice was closest to the mark regarding the tribunal’s reason for wanting to block this evidence. The tribunal does not want this information to come out in the press. The tribunal does not want the Western public, especially the American public, to learn that these poor pathetic “victims of the Serbs” were in bed with Al-Qaeda, and with the self-same terrorists who massacred 3,000 Americans on September 11th.
The question of relevance is nonsense. Only a complete moron could fail to see the relevance. The indictment hinges on the allegation that Milosevic led a massive conspiracy, or “joint criminal enterprise,” to create an ethnically pure greater Serbian state. This goes directly to the motivation of the Serbian forces and the Serbian leadership. The indictment alleges that the Serbian leadership was pursuing the alleged conspiracy, and that the main war objective of the Serbian forces was the pursuit of the conspiracy.
Milosevic claims that the conspiracy, alleged in the indictment, never existed. It is his contention that the Serbian side was forced to defend itself from a radical Islamist regime in Sarajevo, and the KLA that was in bed with Islamic terrorists such as Mohammed Atta, Khaleed Sheikh Mohammed, Ayman Al-Zwahiri and Osama bin Laden.
Proof of the existence of Islamic terrorism in the Balkans goes to show that there was a threat to the Serbian population. The fact that a threat existed lends credibility to the Milosevic’s contention that the Serbs were acting in self-defense, and not in the pursuit of some big conspiracy as the prosecution alleges.
Col. Barriot’s evidence regarding Muslim refugees from the Bihac pocket who found refuge in the RS Krajina lends further credibility to Milosevic’s claim that no conspiracy existed among the Serbs to establish ethnic purity.
Barriot, who is a medical doctor, served as a humanitarian aid worker in Krajina. He worked with scores of Muslim refugees who fled from the 5th Corps of the B-H Army. These refugees were moderate Muslims who followed Fikret Abdic. They were assaulted by Izetbegovic’s Islamist regime because of their friendly relations with the Serbs. This evidence directly contradicts the indictment. If the Serbs wanted ethnic purity why would they give safe haven to over 40,000 Muslim refugees?
During his work with the UN and French intelligence, Col. Barriot had the opportunity to speak with Gen. Mladic in August of 1995, a month after the fall of Srebrenica.
Milosevic asked Col. Barriot what Mladic had told him about Srebrenica. Mladic told Barriot that there were a hand-full of summary executions (less than 100) carried out by local Serbs who recognized certain Muslims who had participated in attacks on the surrounding Serb villages. Mladic emphasized that he did not order any executions, and that his objective in Srebrenica was to neutralize the 28th Infantry Division of the B-H army – not to harm the civilian population, or alter the ethnic make-up of the enclave.
Mladic told the witness that the VRS took 750 prisoners in the Srebrenica operation, released 500 of them, and held the remaining 250.
Mladic told the witness that there were 15,000 armed Muslims in the woods around Srebrenica (presumably trying to breakthrough the VRS lines towards Tuzla). The Serbs took approxamately 500 casulties in the fighting, and Muslim losses were estimated to be between 1,500 and 1,800 men.
The Judges would not let Col. Barriot finish his explanation of what Mladic had told him, and this clearly irritated the witness who, unlike the tribunal, believes that it is important to know what Mladic said about Srebrenica in August of 1995.
As regards Mladic, Judge Robinson suggested that Milosevic should call Gen. Mladic as a witness. "Mr Milosevic, it is also perfectly open to you to call Mr. Mladic as a witness in your defense."
After a short silence, Milosevic replied: "Well, if you plan to arrest him, I will certainly not do so."
As far as the evidence of the witness is concerned, Barriot accused former UNMIK chief Bernard Kouchner of having been on the side of Albanian terrorists in Kosovo and to have acted outside mandate given to him by UN.
The witness also pointed the finger at certain American diplomats, “Terrorists in Kosovo were receiving support from several sides. Madeleine Albright and Richard Holbrooke were giving them diplomatic support,” Bario claimed relying on information he got from his contacts with Western intelligence services.
The witness was in Kosovo in the summer of 1998 to offer his services as a doctor. He observed that Albanians were not mistreated or sacked from their jobs as alleged by the indictment. He said that Albanian flags and newspapers were all over the place, and that it was difficult to find Serbian newspapers in Kosovo at that time.
As a doctor in Kosovo, Barriot treated people who had been attacked by the KLA. He said that the KLA’s victims were non-Albanians, and also moderate Albanians who had any friendly relations with the non-Albanian population.
During Cross-examination by Carla del Ponte, Barriot reiterated his claims that U.S. armed forces participated in Operation Storm. Ms. Del Ponte claimed that it was not the US that bombed Knin, but that it was NATO who may have been using the U.S. Air Force who attacked. I don’t know how that is supposed to impeach the witness or advance the prosecution case, but it’s an interesting thing for Ms. Del Ponte to have admitted.
Barriot disagreed with Del Ponte’s characterization of Serbs as aggressors and told the court, “Serbs in Kosovo, Croatia and Bosnia were not aggressors but found themselves in a position to defend themselves. Serbs only responded to aggression and that is what happened in Croatia in 1991 and in Srebrenica in 1995.”
The witness also claimed in his testimony that 2/3 of the French Blue Helmets who died in Bosnia were killed by Muslim snipers.
Del Ponte selectively quoted from Lewis MacKenzie’s book where he speaks of the Markale Massacre and uses the phrase “who knows” referring to the perpetrators. Del Ponte’s use of the book gave Milosevic the opportunity to fully quote Gen. MacKenzie in re-examination. According to MacKenzie, Markale was stage-managed. MacKenzie’s book says that the Muslims cordoned off the street and brought reporters to the market right before the attack. This jibed with the witness’ knowledge of the incident. The witness, who worked with ballistics in the French army, said that it would have been impossible for the Serbs to hit that bread queue from their positions around Sarajevo. He said that all of the French experts believed that the Muslims attacked the Markale Market.
"Are we still paying US$100 millions/year for this travesty of justice?"
Call it a freedom fighters protection program.
Wonder who is paying the bill for this 'trial'.
Meanwhile, back in the real world.
Let's see--Slobo is facing 60+ charges. Over 30 of them are for war crimes against the Christian Croats. In bed with Al Qaeda?
The Kosovar Alb & the Bosniak goals were exactly the same as the goals of the Christian Slovenes, the Christian Croats, and the Christian Macedonians--they wanted out of Slobo's little nationalist paradise; I suppose they "were in bed" with Al Qaeda, too.
Nice touch by the author to sarcastically describe the people killed as "poor pathetic" victims. I guess the author's denigration of the humanity of the people the Serbs murdered should have been a little surprising, but then the source is slobodan-milosevic.org.
You can't believe Rather and other MSM types in their participation of the covert EU-NATO land grab.
It's coming home to roost.
Explain that.
Milosevic was defending his country as we are
That is both untrue and an insult to America and its military.
In what may have been an attempt to facilitate his new work, Hassanein acquired a diplomatic passport in March 1992 and became a Sudanese cultural attache. The move allowed him to transport large amounts of cash through Austria and into Croatia and Slovenia without being subjected to police checks, Western officials said.The agency's first large operation came to the attention of Western intelligence agencies in September 1992, when Soviet-built transport planes began arriving in Maribor, Slovenia, from the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. While the cargo was marked humanitarian aid, it contained more than 120 tons of assault rifles, mortars, mines and ammunition, intelligence sources said. Investigators say the arms originally came from surplus stocks of Soviet weapons stored in the former East Germany and were probably purchased by the Bosnians in Europe. It is not known whether Sudan played a role in the deal other than as a point of transport.
Chartered Russian helicopters ferried some weapons to the Muslim-controlled towns of Tuzla and Zenica in Bosnia. The choppers refueled in Croatia's Adriatic port of Split. Investigators said a Russian-American joint venture called Eco-Trends, an aircraft leasing business, is believed to have provided the helicopters. An official for the Moscow-based firm recalled something about the case but added that many unsavory Russian characters used the name of the firm to win contracts abroad.
The Maribor weapons deliveries stopped in September 1992 when Croatia closed arms smuggling routes in apparent preparation for severing an alliance between its Bosnian Croat proxies and the Bosnian Muslims. The remaining 10,000 assault rifles, 750,000 rounds of ammunition, rockets and explosives sat in the warehouse in Maribor until Slovenian officials revealed their contents almost a year later. Their value was placed at about $10 million.
Austrian agents earlier had identified the relief agency as the financier of the deal, police officials said, after discovering it was paying storage fees for the weapons in the airport.
...Stern said the relief agency was implicated as the financial broker of the deal. Malaysian and Turkish troops who were participating in the U.N. Protection Force then operating in Bosnia smuggled the arms into the country from Croatia, several Western sources said. Commanders of the U.N. force, which was disbanded last year, were unaware of the smuggling, investigators said. Like the Maribor shipment, the weapons are believed to have come from arms stocks in Europe of the old Soviet Red Army, Western officials said. http://www.xs4all.nl/~frankti/Government_96-1/wartime_arms_supply.html
BTTT
Thanks to the first deployment of U.S. troops in the Balkans--an infantry battalion in ~1993; sent to Macedonia and put on the Serb-Macedonian border to prevent/deter such violence--part of UNPROFOR.
And you miss the point. The goal for each of the various entities of the Former Yugoslavia, Muslim & Christian alike, was to get away from Serb-dominated rule from Belgrade. All of them wanted to do so peacefully, but unfortunately, they all had to fight except for Macedonia.
Joan, you don't need to spam me with accounts of atrocities committed against Serbs. I am fully aware and support the arrest and trial of those responsible. It's just that those guys don't have a bunch of Serb nationalists executing a propaganda campaign on this forum trying to hide the criminal culpability of Milosevic et al.
The Serb and "Yugoslav" population/s within those entities did not want to break away. The Serbs were about 34% of Bosnia, more if you count ethnic Serbs who registered as "Yugoslavs." The Croatian Serbs 12.2% were/are definitely doomed in an independent Croatia (and Kosovo) as well. Much of the war was by local Serbs defending themselves and their villages with often no or little support by the Yugoslav army, which was disintegrating as the Croats, Muslims, Slovenes and Albanians defected into the separatist armies.
I know, Joan, that's part of why it was so messy. Unfortunately, the populations were in the pattern of a mosaic versus one coherent mass for each nationality.
The Croatian Serb population of 12.2+% before the war is only 4.5% according to Croatia's census back in 2001 or 2002. And Serbs say that the 4.5% is too high, and actually counts refugees who live in Serbia, but are registered for their pensions and the like in Croatia, yet DON'T live there. Many who can't even go back to their homes because they are destroyed or have Croats (some of these Croats from the diaspora - Australia or who have additional homes in Croatia) living in them to prevent Serbs reclaiming their former property.
Yanno... sometimes I think I'm the only voice of reason. I've no love for the islamists, nor am I blind to the faults of the Croats or the Serbs. I left Bosnia with the overwhelming feeling of "it could happen here," and I want to make sure it doesn't.
I dunno. The next couple years are going to be interesting. I hope my friends are okay and that they don't get caught up in more violence - from *either* side.
Bwahaha. = )
Seriously though, I think the cluelessness and indifference outside the Balkans which allowed the post-Yugoslav wars to take place have passed, and the various nationalist parties there don't have good prospects for long-term rule. As to "here", I think David Duke, who realized he had to embrace 'racism lite' in order to get anywhere probably came the closest, and even then he was a dismal failure.
Still, we're probably better off keeping our fingers crossed and eyes open, just in case.
How many Croats have been allowed to return to Republika Srpska, Joan? Banja Luka used to be 16% Croat, now it is only 1%. Shall I continue?
1-15 Infantry....."Can Do!" Historic unit. Audie Murphy. China. Were you with them in Germany or at Stewart?
Shaddap, Hop. :)
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