Posted on 03/13/2002 3:09:34 PM PST by vooch
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (Reuters) - Former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic slammed evidence at his war crimes trial in The Hague Wednesday that systematic killing by government forces in Kosovo in 1999 sparked a mass exodus of ethnic Albanians from the province.
Albanians were forced to flee the war-torn province due to a government crackdown and not because of NATO bombing and a separatist guerrilla campaign by the Kosovo Liberation Army, U.S. statistician Patrick Ball told the Hague war crimes tribunal.
Ball, who helped compile a report funded by the American Bar Association and American Association for the Advancement of Science called "Killings and Refugee Flow in Kosovo: March-June 1999," referred to technical charts during his testimony.
"The evidence we have found is consistent with the Yugoslav forces as the cause of the observed patterns," the bearded and bespectacled scientist told the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia.
"But you know very well that you are dealing with a complex issue related to a very complex conflict," said Milosevic, who is defending himself and vigorously cross-examining prosecution witnesses.
"Do you think it is a considerable simplification or one- sided approach to boil it down to a statistical representation related to Kosovo Albanian refugees?" the former Yugoslav President said, leaning back nonchalantly in his chair.
"Have you ever heard of any figure of the number of Serb refugees who left Kosovo Metohija during the NATO bombing? Do you know that this figure is about 100,000 Serbs that fled due to the intensive NATO bombing?"
Milosevic, who does not recognize the court and refused to plead to the charges, prompting judges to enter not guilty pleas on his behalf, is accused of spearheading the deportation of 800,000 ethnic Albanians from Kosovo in March-June 1999.
Kosovo has been under U.N. control since NATO's 1999 bombing campaign drove out government forces.
The witness told the court the report he helped to draw up was based on evidence from interviews with refugees, exhumation records and information from governments and international agencies on the mass exodus from Kosovo.
Milosevic asked Ball about his experience drafting earlier reports for human rights groups in El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Sri Lanka and South Africa.
"Is it possible to state that all the mentioned countries had crises, conflicts and that the American administration was involved in all of these crises and conflicts?"
Ball replied, "I don't think U.S involvement is clear in all of them."
"And where was it not involved of where you have mentioned?" Milosevic said, prompting presiding Judge Richard May to ask the accused about the relevance of his question.
"Mr. May, the relevance is in the fact ... that the greatest statisticians of the world can prove anything by statistics and this is done to serve the purposes of American politics," Milosevic shot back.
The former Yugoslav leader has accused President Clinton and his Western allies of a global conspiracy to topple him in a bid to gain greater influence in the Balkans after the Yugoslav federation broke up in the 1990s.
Earlier this month he brandished an FBI document showing that al Qaeda backed Muslim fighters in Kosovo, Bosnia and Chechnya.
International Balkans envoy Paddy Ashdown, the first major international political figure set to testify against Milosevic, is expected to take the witness stand later this week.
12:38 03-13-02
Copyright 2002 Reuters Limited.
The report is so full of first and second order errors as to be a prime example of why mathes education in this country needs a bottom up transformation. Any first year grad student in stats can demolish this "study" using a first year statistics textbook.
Go, Milo, Go!
(Yikes, what am I saying? However, any foe of the former Traitor-in-Chief is playing my song!)
Leni
This from someone who fabricates data to support her economic analysis of Slovenia. PPPathetic.
I missed judge May's answer. Damn rebuffering... every time it gets interesting.
To my surprise, as I got the real video back, the day's session was over.
Are the 3 Judges equal or Judge May is the "head judge" while the other 2 are following directions? Seems to me Judge May is always interrupting, rushing or cutting the defendant and allowing witnesses to avoid yes or no answers with "I don't know" or "You are confused"
Show me the bodies! Show me the bodies!
Care to enlighten me?
Duh.
Better accuracy than our NATO forces.
A lot of people are going to be in for a reinforcing of their "unjustly victimized" mentality if Milosevic keeps up his show instead of defending himself against the charges.
Mr. Hoplite. Thank you for you staunch defence of the lost case! (I mean "lost" in a special sense since this trial must end in the "victory" of your side as it is preordained by the infinite justice of the "International Community".)
What would we do without you willing to play a role of a sparring bag? The debate would die out in a boring agreement. Please do not give up!
That is lacking here on FR - as evidenced by Vooch, Spar (aka Pericles), Banat (aka Vojvodina), and a host of others when confronted with proofs to the contrary of their claims.
(And if any of you three clowns don't think I can't pull up multiple examples to illustrate the point, you haven't been paying attention.)
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