Former Yugoslav President Denies Being a Witness at The Hague
The former President of Yugoslavia Zoran Lilichh (1993 – 1997) has denied that he will be going to The Hague, saying his showing at The Hague as a witness for the prosecution is “out of the question”.
I will go there only if my country decides I should and if I go, I will first give my testimony about everything I have to say to our government, said Mr. Lilich.
The former President says he “doesn’t follow the trial on a regular basis” but that he thinks that Mr. Miloshevich “isn’t guilty of whatever he’s been charged with”, but that he “should be tried in our courts”.
In his opinion, Mr. Miloshevich “handles the Albanian witnesses with ease”.
“The Hague prosecutors are trying to define, in the first phase, that the crimes have been committed. The second phase involves the identification of the perpetrators, and the third phase is the naming of those who gave the orders. Our government is way too blasé about the whole thing. They should be paying more attention to the trial and consider the possible massive damages to our country” - says the former President.
According to Mr. Lilich it’s “absurd that our state hasn’t yet filed a lawsuit against Croatia and Bosnia and asked for war reparations”.
In an interview given to a Serbian weekly some months ago Mr. Lilich said: “It is true I was a close assistant of Miloshevich. Not only an assistant, I really believed in the politics in use in the 1990s. If I hadn't believed it, I wouldn't have participated in it. I was one of his most reliable and sincere assistants, even if that perhaps was not a clever move on my part.
It is true that I know many things from that period that The Hague tribunal is interested in and that The Hague would like to have me present in court in any capacity. I still don't know what kind of presence this will be and I don't want to comment on it.
I know for certain that there's no element that could put me on the list of indicted persons by command responsibility. Anyway, I hope that the life of The Hague tribunal will end soon, and that it will not judge Yugoslavia, Serbia, and the Serbian people, but rather certain individuals who committed crimes of one kind or another. It should not be doubted that the tribunal is a reality — it exists, it judges, it accuses, it sentences, and on top of all that, it is writing history with a pen that could write many incorrect, or I would say lethal, things for our people and state.
I haven’t met any ICTY investigators and I have no intention of testifying against Miloshevich.
As for the popular myth of a “Greater Serbia”, Mr Lilich says – “We didn't have a breakup of the state; a breakup is usually negotiated and everything occurs peacefully. This case was about a violent seccession from the former Yugoslavia. I can't agree that the JNA [Yugoslav People's Army] and the Serbian people were the only participants in some awful crimes. There were individual actors who carried out those crimes, because there were extremists in every group. That's why I don't accept the argument that the "Greater Serbia" concept was created here. It was recently said in The Hague that the Greater Serbia concept called for "the whole of Kosovo annexed to Serbia. Kosovo was always part of Serbia; it was never part of Albania.
In 1997, Mr. Lilich ran for President of Serbia.
“In the days before those elections, Miloshevich and I talked often. At one point he said I might be thankful one day if I were not elected president of Serbia. I am really thankful I am not the president of Serbia now. If I look at my personal interests and those of my family, I have to be very grateful to him. If I look at some other things, it is not like that.
Maybe it sounds immodest, maybe even daring, to say now that the situation in Kosovo would have been different if I had been president. Perhaps I would be on The Hague tribunal list for it, but I am sure that our police and military would still be in Kosovo, doing their duty under the law, and that there would be Serbs there. There are no Serbs in Kosovo. That fact is more important to me than my personal satisfaction and happiness that I am not imprisoned at The Hague. Maybe it would be much better if more of us were in that prison with a better situation in Kosovo.”
Mr. Lilich is currently the president of the Serbian Social Democratic Party.
