This is a picture of him handling KLA weapons from the film Milosevic showed in court:
http://www.nezavisne.com/dnevne/dogadjaji/dog09302005-04.php
Posted on 09/29/2005 3:40:20 PM PDT by joan
The Hague: Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic showed a video Thursday of the international community's high representative to Bosnia apparently inspecting weapons held by the Kosovo Liberation Army in September 1998.
In the video, Paddy Ashdown advises a man dressed in KLA uniform to be "careful" with the hand grenades.
Milosevic, being tried for war crimes here, described as a "scandal" the weapons inspection by Ashdown, who at the time was deeply involved in monitoring the conflict.
The former officer in Britain's Royal Marines and former member of the British parliament should not have been so closely involved with a "terrorist organisation", Milosevic said.
Ashdown is a key prosecution witness in the trial, which has been running since February 2002.
On giving evidence shortly after the trial began, Ashdown told of a conversation he had held with Milosevic regarding the shelling of Kosovo Albanian villages.
"I told him that in my view, if he were to continue with these operations, he would make himself indictable for war crimes because he was personally responsible for any further continuation after this meeting," Ashdown said.
ping
What, was he a drug runner helping to pollute the streets of London with smack?
You know nothing but deceitful propaganda. If you have no comment on the article then shut up.
Har har.
That trash Ashdown, hasn't been hung yet ?
That trash Clinton hasn't been thrown in jail yet?
Send him back to Serbia and he will be.
This is a picture of him handling KLA weapons from the film Milosevic showed in court:
http://www.nezavisne.com/dnevne/dogadjaji/dog09302005-04.php
Milosevic's Courthouse Propaganda
Slobo has given up trying to defend himself and is now trying to score points for his buddies in Banja Luka - which is a complete waste of time considering how things are going for them.
The original aricle (from Joan's post) says:
...>>In the video, Paddy Ashdown advises a man dressed in KLA uniform...<<
While OHR talks about some freaking "villagers". So is it "villagers" or KLA-uniformed man?
Also, OHR claims that ..."During this trip they passed a small group of KLA soldiers, where part of the video aired yesterday was probably shot."... PROBABLY???
This OHR article seems to be a pretty lame damage control attempt.
Ashdown was travelling in company with a Brit defence attache in Kosovo, who's mission of monitoring both the KLA and Serb forces was covered by an agreement with Belgrade. After two days of touring Kosovo, Ashdown went on to Belgrade and met with Slobo and told he'd wind up being tried for what his forces were doing in Kosovo.
In short, there's no damage to control, and Slobo just wasting time.
>>In short, there's no damage to control, and Slobo just wasting time.<<
Tell me something: do you really think that Paddy's comments [that it was a scandal for the International community that they (Albanians) had such poor quality weapons, and his promise that he will do everything he can for them to receive proper weapons] were OK and not damaging?
Whether his "mission" was covered by an agreement or not has absolutely nothing to do with his comments on the video.
Page 2363
10 We descended into the village of Studencani where we met with the
11 elders of the village, old men in their 70s or 80s. We questioned them
12 about the story we had heard the day previously in relation to arms. They
13 described to us again the story of how they'd been visited, been given a
14 deadline of noon that day, and after some persuasion agreed to show us the
15 arms they claimed to have purchased.
16 They took us to a house, to an upstairs room, and they showed us a
17 collection of arms that they were due to hand over to the Serb authorities
18 that day. These arms were in no way hidden. They were in a cupboard.
19 They were not in use. I inspected them. Some of them could have been
20 immediately serviceable, but many were rusted beyond use. There were some
21 hand grenades there which were fully armed, highly rusty, and in a deeply
22 unstable state, and I recommended that these should be handed over as soon
23 as possible.
24 JUDGE MAY: So we can follow this, they were saying that the Serb
25 authorities or somebody had told them to purchase arms?
Page 2364
1 THE WITNESS: No, sir. No, Your Honour. They were told that they
2 were to give up arms at a deadline, which was noon that day. They were
3 informed that if they did not, their village would be subject to what they
4 were seeing going on around them.
5 They claimed that they had no arms in the village. They claimed
6 that they therefore gathered together 10.000 Deutschmarks and went out to
7 purchase arms on the black market.
8 JUDGE MAY: They did that, as it were, of their own initiative --
9 THE WITNESS: They did that --
10 JUDGE MAY: -- having been told --
11 THE WITNESS: -- because they knew if they did not deliver up arms
12 to the Serbs when they returned, then their village would suffer the same
13 fate as the others.
14 They described - I have no way of knowing whether this is true -
15 that there was a sort of circular operation. And I -- I'm bound to say,
16 Your Honour, that I do not believe that this means there were not arms
17 being used by the KLA in any of these villages. I can only relate to what
18 I was- informed. They said that the routine was that the Serbs would
19 descend on a village - they described them as Serbs - descend on the
20 village like their own, demand arms against the deadline with the threat
21 that the village would be burnt.
22 They said that what happened was that they went out and raised the
23 money in the village, purchased the arms on the black market, handed the
24 arms over to the Serb authorities. Those arms then went back onto the
25 black market so that the next villagers had arms to buy. And it was a
Page 2365
1 circular means of removing the villagers from their money.
2 Now, I have no way of knowing whether that's true, nor does that
3 in any way indicate that there were not other forces of the KLA operating
4 with effective arms in that area. All I can say is that about 30 per cent
5 or 40 per cent of the arms that I saw, which were in no way hidden and
6 prepared to be handed over - indeed, we recommended they should be handed
7 over - could not have been usable and were not used and could not have
8 been usable in somewhat of a deeply unstable state.
So tell me where you got it that Ashdown was promising the Albanians better weapons?
It is damaging that he was seen in concert with the "company" he was with.
Are you saying that video is authentic and without question, exactly what it looks like?
>>So tell me where you got it that Ashdown was promising the Albanians better weapons?<<
From Milosevic's remarks following the video.
No, I'm not a clone of Hoplite and yes, I do need a towel to wipe my mouth occasionally.
I have no way of knowing whether the video is authentic and that it is without question exactly what it looks like. Not sure I understand your point.
whereas in the Paddy video, it is quite evident what he has said and the purpose of his mission.
do you have links to the full vidoes for either clips? if so, can you provide a link, please?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.