Milosevic Is Unbowed After a Year in Detention

HE HAGUE, June 27 — Exactly one year ago, on June 28, Slobodan Milosevic arrived in The Hague in handcuffs, under cover of darkness. He was whisked off to a United Nations prison to face the first modern war crimes trial of a head of state.

During the 13 years Mr. Milosevic ruled Serbia, Yugoslavia disintegrated in four wars. More than 200,000 people were killed and over a million more were driven from their homes.

The bulk of the atrocities committed were carried out by Serbian forces, but Mr. Milosevic has consistently denied any link to the death and destruction committed in the name of the vision he long held of creating a Greater Serbia.

It is a pattern to which he has held throughout the trial, trying hard to best or ridicule the 80 witnesses for the prosecution who have appeared to date. He has fallen ill twice — each time after losing a sharp courtroom duel with an important Western official, most recently two weeks ago with Gen. Klaus Naumann of Germany.

Both General Naumann and Paddy Ashdown, a British politician, met Mr. Milosevic, the former Yugoslav president, when he was at the height of his powers. But during his courtroom confrontations with them, the usually combative Mr. Milosevic spoke as if he felt betrayed and disoriented. He then came down with a high fever and what was described as flu.

General Naumann testified that Mr. Milosevic had told him at a meeting in October 1998 that he would deal with the ethnic imbalance in Kosovo by killing Kosovo Albanians.

Mr. Milosevic countered that the German general, who in his role with NATO eventually led the 1999 bombing campaign intended to drive Serbian forces from Kosovo, was not telling the truth about the meeting.

For instance, he said, characteristically carping on a minute detail, the two men had celebrated their agreement with pear brandy, and not with plum brandy as the general said.

As the trial moves on, the strain on Mr. Milosevic, who is 60, the long hours in court and the evenings preparing for the next day's session, are becoming visible.

He slumps more often in his seat, and he misses important points. But he is still insisting on conducting his own defense. He has dismissed all the tribunal's offers of help, accepting only the assistance of two lawyers from Belgrade outside the courtroom.

"He is a politician, he wants to do the talking," said one of his two Belgrade lawyers. Speaking for himself also allows him to convey his own vision of history, which he does, bit by bit, at every session.

On normal days, when Mr. Milosevic seems in form, the rhythm is familiar, offering an insight into the psychological pressure and deceit that he employed both to gain and then retain power in Serbia.

This is particularly plain when Mr. Milosevic is confronted by insiders who — beginning in late May — were brought into court to expose the inner workings of Mr. Milosevic's government and war effort.

Their descriptions of power struggles, clandestine operations and corruption have driven Mr. Milosevic into furious tirades. Three more unnamed but key insiders are scheduled to appear in the coming weeks.

Ratomir Tanic, the first Serb to testify against Mr. Milosevic, was one of those insiders. Mr. Tanic said he worked for Serbian state security for much of the 1990's. From 1995 to 1997, he said, his mandate was to negotiate secretly with Kosovar leaders for a political solution to the growing unrest in Kosovo. But when a deal to allow Kosovo to regain a degree of self-rule, but not independence, seemed within reach in 1997, Mr. Milosevic abruptly changed his mind, Mr. Tanic said.

At a reception, Mr. Tanic testified, Mr. Milosevic told him that "the Serb authorities should reduce the number of Albanians to a realistic proportion," deal with terrorism, and only then settle the political problem.

So Mr. Milosevic's intent was to reduce this group through "ethnic cleansing," a campaign of violence and deportation along the model of Bosnia and Croatia, Mr. Tanic said. But because senior Serbian military and government officials were opposed to a fourth war — after those in Slovenia and Croatia in 1991 and and in Bosnia in 1992-95 — Mr. Tanic said, Mr. Milosevic set up an alternate chain of command to carry out his plans.

Mr. Milosevic was outraged, saying that he had never met Mr. Tanic and describing him as never playing a significant role. The judges were barely able to control the shouting match that followed.

"You're claiming I wanted to ethnically cleanse Albanians and kill Serbs, too," in a war, Mr. Milosevic yelled.

Usually, Mr. Milosevic feigns indifference or scribbles notes while a witness testifies against him. Then Mr. Milosevic homes in for cross-examination. He often asks derisive, confusing or repetitive questions. Frequently, he takes more time than the prosecution and goes off into political arguments.

The three judges try to rein him in, and reprimand him for arguing with witnesses. In response, he scoffs.

"What is most striking is his complete insensitivity toward human suffering," said Zivorad Kovacevic, a former Yugoslav ambassador to Washington and a critic of Mr. Milosevic. "The topic may be the killing of children or the pain of the victims, but he speaks with the sternness of a prosecutor."

Although Mr. Milosevic had studied law, he had never conducted cross-examinations before, because that is not part of Yugoslavia's legal system. He has learned on the job, and international lawyers concur that he has at times scored points, catching a witness in a contradiction. But they also believe he has so far failed to undermine most of the evidence against him.

Early next year, when the prosecution is expected to rest its case, it will be Mr. Milosevic's turn to call witnesses in his defense.

Proceedings are still dealing only with atrocities committed during the 1999 Kosovo conflict. The earlier wars in Bosnia and Croatia, for which Mr. Milosevic faces charges of war crimes and genocide, will be examined later, as part of the same trial.

Most witnesses until now have been Kosovo Albanians who have said much about the brutality of Mr. Milosevic's forces as they carried out their campaign of deportation and death in the Serbian province.

But there have also been interesting and intense sessions with Western envoys, including William Walker, an American diplomat who headed a short-lived and ill-fated mission of Western observers to Kosovo who were meant to keep peace but found themselves unable to prevent war.

One witness, a Kosovo Albanian identified only as K5, said he had joined a Serbian police sabotage team after being blackmailed into collaborating with the police. Before team members went on a mission, he said, the police gave them emblems of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Among their tasks was looting stores and burning vehicles of rebel sympathizers and killing Kosovo Albanians who financed the rebels or had relatives among them.

But one witness who intrigued Mr. Milosevic was Mehmet Aliu, a businessman from Kosovo who testified that he was in charge of logistics of the Kosovo Liberation Army, the rebels fighting for Kosovo's separation from Serbia. He said he also bought military equipment.

"How were you supplied with weapons?" asked Mr. Milosevic, who turned uncommonly polite.

"We bought them with cash," Mr. Aliu said, pausing briefly before delivering the jab. "Eighty percent of our weapons came from your army and police."

Mr. Milosevic seemed captivated. As Mr. Aliu described a Serbian arms shipment to Kosovo in early 1999, Mr. Milosevic wanted to know the names of the four members of the Serbian army and police who delivered the weapons. Mr. Aliu said he did not know. One was "one of Arkan's men," he said, referring to a notorious Serbian militia leader who was later murdered in a Belgrade hotel — many suspect at the behest of Mr. Milosevic.

"They escorted us to Stedine village, where the truck was waiting," Mr. Aliu said. "There were also 5,000 meters of cloth for making uniforms, some mortars, 35,000 rounds of ammunition, 100 sniper rifles, Kalashnikovs."

The four Serbs and the rebels stopped in a local cafe for drinks. Mr. Aliu said he asked the Serbs what would happen if Mr. Milosevic and the Kosovar Albanian leader, Ibrahim Rugova, found out about the arms deals.

The Serbs responded by cursing both leaders, he said, then one added, "May God allow this war to go on so we can keep doing good business."

If this is the whole article, en toto, I think you may want to run this article by the moderator. If not, nevermind.

Otherwise, I will never understand how the Republican party backs this blatant sham of a trial and mass murder of Serbian civilians, under the false pretense of manufactured genocide on the part of Milosevic. Clinton committed a war crime in Serbia and the truth needs to see the light. Clinton aided and abetted Islamic heroin trafficking terrorists in order to get attention off of his pattern sexual harassment.

"They were promised lots $$$ if they handed him over."

A lot of empty promises. The Serbs never get the full amount of money they were promised. What's more, the average people never benefit, but grow more and more impoverished as the puppet government constantly raises prices - such as for electricity - and closes down banks and businesses on orders issued from their masters.

Any aid they were promised, they only get a small amount, and that's after they've submitted to more blackmail - like releasing all the Albanian terrorists and convicted prisoners (Macedonia was pressured to do this for its Albanian prisoners too) they had - well over 2,000.

Investment the country thought it would receive just doesn't seem to be panning out either. So are all these layoffs and sell-offs for nothing, but to just further ruin the country. Is there ever going to be anything good on the horizon for the citizenry as a whole?

That's just pro-Milosevic propoganda. The communists and Milosevic supporters want Serbs to think there country is worse today then it was under Milosevic. It's sad you believe it. Fortunatly, the people there don't fall for it because they realize that they have more money now and that economy is growing.

The fact is that living conditions are improoving fast, and are already much better then under Milosevic. The average salary is 8635 dinars. 1.16 salaries are required for minimum cost for a family of 4. Still not great, but much better then Milosevic years. For comparing, it took 2.09 salaries for minimum cost in September 2000, so as you can see situation is better now then with Milosevic.

An article from the Tehran times – hardly Milosevic connected – shows that there is a big difference between what the current government says and what the regular people are saying. Even the spokespersons for the World Food Program and Red Cross report more people needing help or being worse off than ever.

Serbian Town Shows Price of Western-Praised Reforms

…red cross helps thousands the red cross branch in kragujevac, which assists 18,000 people every month, says more people are now asking for help and it is appealing to international donors for assistance.
daily living costs here and elsewhere in serbia jumped after the authorities removed price controls on goods such as milk, bread and heating -- offsetting any salary rises for many people.
thousands of serbian workers face unemployment as socialist-era corporate dinosaurs either close down or radically restructure in a bid to survive and attract the foreign investors the economy desperately needs to recover.
opinion polls show most people still believe they are either worse off or have seen no improvement, even though a growing minority says their situation is better than a year ago.
"life has not become much easier for the people at all," said robert hauser, senior emergency coordinator in belgrade of the united nations food aid agency, the world food programme.
asked whether living standards had improved, he said: "the government says yes. if you look at supplies in shops you would say yes. if you look into the pockets from which the money has to be pulled out to pay for all of that, i would say -- not yet."

I just had to make corrections to a few paragraphs of the 'article' . The author was told to write a hit piece, IMO, and as is, it is not factual from what I've seen on the video archives.

June 28, 2002

Milosevic Is Unbowed After a Year in illegal Detention

By MARLISE SIMONS

HE HAGUE, June 27 — Exactly one year ago, on June 28, Slobodan Milosevic arrived in The Hague in handcuffs, under cover of darkness. He was kinapped,whisked off to a United Nations prison , where you start serving time before conviction, to face the first modern political war retribution, crimes trial, by a kangaroo tribunal, of a head of state.

That trial, focusing first on charges of crimes by Serbian forces in Kosovo, is in its fifth month now, with Mr. Milosevic conducting his own blustery defense as he tries to cast himself as another martyr for the Serbian cause.He is sucessfully showing what a sham it is, to the point that an information curtain has been drawn on the proceedings.

During the 13 years Mr. Milosevic ruled Serbia, countering first sanctions and then aggression by NATO, Yugoslavia disintegrated in four wars. More than 200,000 people were killed mostly Serbs and over a million more mostly Serbs were driven from their homes.

The bulk of the atrocities committed were carried out by Albanian separatists, led by foreign Islamists, financed and trained by NATO and supplied by the Middle East. Serbian forces were accused , but Mr. Milosevic has consistently denied any link to the 'alleged attrocities , convincingly arguing the death and destruction committed were in the battle fortification areas and caused by KLA actions and NATO's inhuman bombing of civilians. The vision he long held of creating a Democratic Greater Serbia was being crushed.

to be continued

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