Milosevic Transcript 2002-06-13

Page 6928

Thursday, 13 June 2002

[Open session]

[The accused entered court]

--- Upon commencing at 9.34 a.m.

JUDGE MAY: There are some procedural matters to deal with first of all.

Mr. Nice, I'm going to first of all give a ruling on the 92 bis applications for the next ten witnesses to hear argument about that. The Trial Chamber also wants to raise the question of the latest witness list. There is then the question of the Rule 70 applications and the issue as to Mr. Vllasi's evidence, all of which needs to be dealt with. I understand there is not unusually some pressure of time today.

MR. NICE: Yes, but I think these matters which have simply got to be dealt with can mostly be dealt will briefly and all serve the purposes of bringing efficiency to the trial.

JUDGE MAY: Very well. I turn then to the applications in relation to what were in the original list which I had, last week's list, the next ten witnesses who if was applied should be called under 92 bis. Mr. Thaqi Milazim, Draga Mustafa, Loshi Liri, Hoxha Hani, Haxhiavdi Ismet, Berisha Shyhrete, Gjogaj Ali, Berisha Halit, Berisha Hysni, Xhemajli Sadik. I read out the list as it appears on the Prosecutor's list. The Trial Chamber has had the opportunity of considering those statements. They are all witnesses who go towards the crimes themselves. None of them relate to the acts or conduct of the accused. They are all cumulative and therefore subject to any submissions which are made. They ⁶⁹²⁹ are admissible under Rule 92 bis. Technically, the accused has the right to be heard on these matters.

Mr. Milosevic, is there anything you want to say? We shall order in each case the witness shall be cross-examined unless you indicate that you would be prepared to forego cross-examination in any particular case. Is there anything you want to say about our ruling or as to why we shouldn't make the ruling?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] You know my position, that is to say that I object to this en masse use of Rule 92 bis, because it limits the possibility for cross-examination. I don't think that in any trial this rule is applied as massively as it is here, and everywhere else witnesses are heard for several days. It is only my time for cross-examination that is limited to 45 minutes or thereabouts. So I object.

JUDGE MAY: Very well. We've considered the matter of cross-examination and the length of it. We've considered is it in light of all the other considerations in this trial. It is not a relevant matter as far as whether these statements should be admitted. They will all be admitted under Rule 92 bis.

Mr. Nice, I turn next to deal with the latest Prosecution witness list. The -- if I may deal with it first in the comment. The number of witnesses to date called is 78, by my calculation. The new list which has appeared today does not contain numbers. We have asked that in future, witness lists contain numbers. Not only is it important for those who have to deal with the list, it also would bring home, perhaps, to those calling the witnesses the sheer number involved. ⁶⁹³⁰ On that list, there are 72 names. One we have heard, Mr. Walker. One is to be recalled, Dr. Baccard. But if leave were given for all 70 witnesses, as it would be, the total for Kosovo would be 148 witnesses. The original order was for 90 witnesses. An application to vary was made on the 2nd of May, when 41 witnesses had been called before that, and the application was to call a further 95, a total of 136. Mr. Nice, what is of concern to the Trial Chamber is that far from there being a reduction, we're now in the position of an increase in witnesses. It's gone up rather than down.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, can I explain? I'm sorry that the list alarmed you. Far from it being intended to alarm you, it was indeed intended to console you and cheer you, for reasons that I'll come to. As to the -- I know we're dealing with these matters more fully next week, but the reason I wanted to get this list in now, I'll come to in a second. But in fact, what the Prosecution has done - apart from eliminating further names from its previous list, as we'll see, and maybe including lists that cover both Kosovo and other parts of the indictment in this list - what we have done, as we will demonstrate next week, is get remarkably close to or very close to the deadline that was imposed, without prejudice to our arguments about the appropriateness of that deadline or the need for some additional time. But we've calculated - and we'll show you this more particularly next week - that if we follow Your Honour's observations on the last time this was discussed and, in general, take witnesses that deal with more than one part of the indictment later rather than earlier, we get actually very close to the 26th of July. But ⁶⁹³¹ that can be achieved, first of all, with some flexibility - and I'll explain what I mean by that and why I thought it helpful to serve this witness list annotated in the way it is now - and may also require some reconsideration of some of the 92 bis witnesses. As to flexibility, we are pretty nearly going to come to the end of crime-base evidence by the end of next week. There will be one or two things outstanding, but not much. It's only because we've had crime-base witnesses waiting that we've been able to keep your days full of evidence, which is absolutely essential when time is limited. When we move away from having a reservoir of crime-base witnesses, it's going to be more difficult to make the best use of time, and so we've had to give some thought to how we can best be certain not to lose time. If you'd be good enough to go to page 4 - this is one of the reasons for serving the document this week, ahead of the weekend, so the accused and others can plan - you'll see that two witnesses who are available because they work here, Coo and Torkildsen, have been moved up, subject to my leaves that may be required, but with a view to being called at roughly those points in the witness list. Because we can foresee, doing what we can by way of putting witnesses against days in the calendar, we can see the possibility of gaps occurring there, and therefore, we would ask that consideration be given to preparing those witnesses in time for them to be called about them, should a suitable gap appear or should it be appropriate to hear them then. The next aspect of flex --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, I'll just ask: Is the financial ⁶⁹³² expert's evidence, Torkildsen, is his evidence related exclusively to Kosovo?

MR. NICE: It's not. It's very substantially to Kosovo. So, I mean, there's always the chance of taking him outside. Our judgement was that it would probably be more helpful to have him here. We can reconsider that and take him in the latter part of the trial.

JUDGE MAY: If I may interrupt. I think, speaking for myself, that it would be helpful to have the broader witnesses later, when one has seen the full extent of the trial, and therefore the Trial Chamber will have the issues before it, rather than earlier, where it may be difficult immediately to see the significance of particular parts of the evidence.

MR. NICE: Well, that's a very helpful amplification of Your Honour's earlier remarks. We'll bear it in mind, and we may review the position so far as Torkildsen is concerned. Coo is pretty well specific to this part of the trial, so the same considerations don't apply to him.

JUDGE MAY: Pausing there, it may be helpful if I make this observation: that we've had from the amicus some objections to part of Mr. Coo's evidence.

MR. NICE: Yes.

JUDGE MAY: These deal with the witness making conclusions, which it appears, certainly at first glance, not appropriate for the witness. If you look at the amicus's response, you can see it.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, I've reviewed it, but not recently, and I think, in fact, a large number of them can be met by considerations of the text. I think it's the materials that constitute the conclusions rather ⁶⁹³³ than the witness. But we have that point in mind.

JUDGE MAY: Very well.

MR. NICE: The next aspect of possible flexibility that we've identified in this list is in respect of 92 bis witnesses, and it occurs to us that there may be some whom the accused himself, because of their particular status, he might not wish to cross-examine. K31 on page 3 is certainly one of them. And there are other witnesses who, it occurs to us - we'll discuss this in more detail next week, with your leave - that it may be appropriate for the Chamber even to reconsider as to whether they really merit cross-examination. Because, of course, it's not open --

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

MR. NICE: It's not just the accused saying that he requires or demands the rights of cross-examination. It is a matter for the Chamber. And so in the interests of shortening the duration of this part of the trial, we're going to ask you next week to consider that as a possibility for a number of witnesses, not that many, but for a number, and depending on the outcome of that, we'll have to make such further decisions in respect to some of those witnesses as we think appropriate. But this is all aimed at shortening things in a responsible way. And I should say that lest there be any doubt about it, right from the beginning we've been concerned to conduct this trial, and all parts of this trial, in the shortest proper period of time.

JUDGE MAY: Well, Mr. Nice, having heard you, and speaking for myself, I think that is sufficient for today.

MR. NICE: Thank you. ⁶⁹³⁴

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE MAY: But I do reiterate our order, so there's no mistake about it: 26th of July.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, we quite understand that. The Court knows that my last application was for a necessary extension. May I simply say that I think you will be heartened to discover how close we can get to that without the need for an application. There are --

JUDGE MAY: Well, we'll -- sorry.

MR. NICE: Can I just make two points, because I think they're important. Although there are understandable and good reasons for taking witnesses who cover more than one part of the indictment later rather than earlier - and of course, to take such witnesses earlier rather than later might be to put us in difficulties with meeting the 26th of July deadline - there may be one or two witnesses whom it is very important to take early, either because of their own personal positions or because of the effect that their giving evidence may have on others. And I'll return to that topic next week.

The second thing is that getting near to the --

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE ROBINSON: Who are those two witnesses?

MR. NICE: K33 is one of them, and he's down for three days. And I think the Chamber may have had an application in respect of him covering his pseudonym.

Now, perhaps I can say a little more about that next week, but one can imagine -- in the trial, we've already seen a change in the ⁶⁹³⁵ attitude -- we've seen a change in the attitude of witnesses coming to this Tribunal to give evidence, and it's a slowly developing and very welcome change. It needs every encouragement it can get.

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, the next topic - I can perhaps move more swiftly -- oh, no. Getting near to the 26th of July deadline does not allow for the remaining Rule 70 witnesses who remain unnamed in the list. As I indicated on the earlier occasion, A, I can't say anything about them; and, B, if they were to be available and if the Chamber decided it wanted to hear them, as it very well might, they would take some time. But that's an issue that's going to fall for resolution, if at all, later.

JUDGE MAY: I should deal with one application for two extra witnesses which you've made. We will allow that.

MR. NICE: Vlassi, can I deal with him briefly? You've had an opportunity to see Vlassi's brief statement, and we've reviewed the position overnight. Vllasi is a person able to give detailed evidence from great proximity to this accused at a time that is material in the development of the history, but it occurs to us that valuable though he would be in the Kosovo segment, he may be more appropriate as a witness in respect of the case as a whole, if at all, and so what we are going to do is to put back our application for leave to call him until a later part of the trial, the need being added to the other list, but we've given early notice, and we will revert to that matter later. Can I then turn to Dr. Baccard? We would like to be able to call him to deal with one outstanding issue next week. ⁶⁹³⁶

JUDGE MAY: Yes. We give leave for him to be recalled.

MR. NICE: I'm grateful. General Naumann. The Court gave an indication of its approach to General Naumann's testimony. He's here, ready to go today. His summary in English, signed, was disclosed on the 3rd of May and a signed version of his proofing summary on the 30th of May. These were, in each case , the earliest possible dates that they could have been served, General Naumann having been a witness whose status vis-a-vis Rule 70 may have been ambiguous to begin with, and as soon as those ambiguities were resolved, his statement was served.

JUDGE MAY: I think we gave leave to call him.

MR. NICE: Effectively, Your Honour. I understood it to be --

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

MR. NICE: -- thus. The Chamber has issued a Scheduling Order in respect of the Croatia-Bosnia part of the case for return next Thursday. I think I've already told the Chamber that for our discussions next week about witness lists, I'm anxious to be able to provide you with a combined Croatia-Bosnia order of witnesses, and my intention is that I shall be able to provide you with a reasonably certain list of witnesses to cover the first three or four months of that segment of the trial. And included in my reasons for wishing to do that is to ensure that the accused, who makes observations about the amount of material served on him, shall be able to identify what work needs to be done by himself and by his associates as soon as possible and certainly in the course of any summer break. So we hope to have that list available next week as part of the general material to guide the Chamber as to how the trial's going to ⁶⁹³⁷ develop.

As for the Scheduling Order, you will see my learned friend Mr. Groome here, he, as you know, having particular responsibility for the Bosnia part. And we hope that you will be heartened to know that of the 47 municipalities originally indicted, nine have been eliminated altogether. The proposal is to deal in full with 14, of which eight, it is hoped, can be dealt with fully by 92 bis, leaving only six municipalities to be proved in full.

As to the remaining 24, there is an intention further to reduce the material in order to focus simply on the best and most important pieces of evidence from those 24. That exercise, it may be difficult to complete by next Thursday, and therefore, although we will respond fully to your Scheduling Order by next Thursday insofar as we can, we may find difficulties in reflecting the proposed further reductions of those 24 municipalities.

JUDGE MAY: Very well.

MR. NICE: That brings me to the Rule 70 issue. I would ask that I be allowed to deal with this in private session because of the sensitivities of the government concerned.

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

MR. NICE: Thank you.

[Private session]

(redacted)

(redacted) ⁶⁹³⁸ Pages 6938 to 6958 redacted, private session.

⁶⁹⁵⁹

(redacted)

[Open session]

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] In view of --

JUDGE MAY: No, Mr. Milosevic. Mr. Milosevic, we've heard you firmly on these matters.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Your Honours --

JUDGE MAY: What is it? What is it?

THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, Mr. Nice explained that I could, during the summer recess, familiarise myself sufficiently with the documents and material.

JUDGE MAY: We are going to come back to that. We have to deal next week with the next part of the case. When we deal with that, we will ⁶⁹⁶⁰ consider what time is proper for you to have for preparation. All that's going to be resolved next week. It's not going to be resolved now. Now, we need to get on with calling the witnesses. We need to call one witness, anyway, or start one witness.

Mr. Nice, you can help us with this. We adjourn, I guess, at 11.00.

MR. NICE: The plan was to call a crime base witness followed by General Naumann. I've rather eaten into the time. It might be desirable to take General Naumann first, but I know that my learned friend Mr. Ryneveld, who is calling him, wishes to have I don't know how many minutes with him first, and of course, a crime base witness can take up to an hour and typically does. A possibility would be a short, early break, but then of course that imposes on the interpreters to go beyond an hour and a half in the second session, unless for any reason the Court wanted to arise early for the short adjournment.

JUDGE MAY: Just help us with this: General Naumann is anticipated to take how long in chief?

MR. RYNEVELD: Your Honours, I intend to lead him through the statement that has been disclosed, and I think I should probably take a session and a half in chief. He has -- I'm sorry. He has arrived during this session, so I've not had a chance to speak to him since April, as it were, and I need a couple of minutes just to ensure that matters will go smoothly in court rather than try to do it --

JUDGE MAY: He's available tomorrow; is that right?

MR. RYNEVELD: Yes. He's made himself available for the balance ⁶⁹⁶¹ of today and all of tomorrow, but I understand we have a short day tomorrow in the sense that we don't go to 4.00.

JUDGE MAY: As I recollect, it's 9.00 until 1.45.

MR. RYNEVELD: That's correct. So as long as he can complete by then that's fine. And I think rather than call a crime base witness and start and wrap around, it might be prudent if we start General Naumann forthwith. But as I say, I'd have to ask for the Court's indulgence for a short period of time just to ensure that everything's ready to go.

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE MAY: We'll take the break now until ten past eleven. We'll then start again. We may go on a little longer, with the indulgence of the interpreters. Not too long.

MR. NICE: Numbered witness lists now available.

JUDGE MAY: We will adjourn now until ten past eleven.

--- Recess taken at 10.40 a.m.

--- On resuming at 11.13 a.m.

[The witness entered court]

JUDGE MAY: Yes. Let the witness take the declaration.

WITNESS: KLAUS NAUMANN

THE WITNESS: I solemnly declare that I will speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

JUDGE MAY: If you'd like to take a seat.

THE WITNESS: Thank you.

MR. RYNEVELD: Your Honours, before I commence, I should advise the Court that General Naumann has kindly consented to come to testify. ⁶⁹⁶² He was a Rule 70 witness for whom consent has been given. He is aware of the conditions of Rule 70(C) and (D), and if necessary, is aware of the fact that if there are any questions which go into the issue of confidentiality, that he may invoke those personally.

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

MR. RYNEVELD: Thank you.

JUDGE MAY: We may be concerned about the implementation of Rule 70 and whether and how it applies in this particular case, but it would seem the sensible thing is to hear the evidence in chief and then consider Rule 70.

MR. RYNEVELD: It may be, Your Honours, that the issue will not arise. I just wanted to alert the Court before the issue...

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Ryneveld. There is an initial hurdle that has to be overcome by the Prosecution in relation to Rule 70.

MR. RYNEVELD: Yes.

JUDGE ROBINSON: That is in paragraph (B). I think it's entirely a matter for the Chamber to be satisfied that the Prosecutor is in possession of information that has been provided to it on a confidential basis, and that that information has been used solely for the purpose of generating new evidence. All of the other provisions in Rule 70 flow from that.

MR. RYNEVELD: From (B). That is correct.

JUDGE ROBINSON: From (B). So that is why I was a little concerned when you said that evidence is being given on the basis of Rule ⁶⁹⁶³ 70.

MR. RYNEVELD: It is perhaps more accurate to note that permission had to be sought for this witnesses to give evidence. That permission was granted. The witness is prepared to testify in accordance with what is in his statement, what has been disclosed. My understanding is that there may be some areas that go beyond the scope of his statement, for which the witness may seek to invoke confidentiality aspects.

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE MAY: Really, it's an issue of confidentiality --

MR. RYNEVELD: Absolutely.

JUDGE MAY: -- rather than Rule 70.

MR. RYNEVELD: Yes, Your Honour. Thank you.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. Well, let's hear the evidence in chief. Examined by Mr. Ryneveld:

Q. General Naumann, sir, I understand that you joined the German Bundeswehr in 1958 and you were trained and held a variety of command and operational positions. Is that right, sir?

A. That's correct.

Q. Sir, you were ultimately promoted to the rank of Brigadier General. What year was that?

A. That was in 1986, Your Honour.

Q. And then in 1991, were you further promoted?

A. I was repeatedly promoted, but in 1991 I was promoted to the rank of four-star General.

Q. All right. Now, sir, did you hold any position with NATO? ⁶⁹⁶⁴

A. Well, I held positions with NATO before my promotion to the rank of Brigadier General, as a Colonel, and then in 1994 I was elected to be the chairman of the NATO Military Committee, and I assumed my duties as NATO's highest-ranking military officer on the 14th of February, 1996.

Q. And how long, sir, did you serve in that capacity?

A. I served until the 6th of May, 1999.

Q. Now, sir, in your role as chairman of the Military Committee, I understand that you chaired a couple of committees. Could you very briefly describe what your role would have been as chairman?

A. Well, the role of the chairman of the Military Committee of NATO is to translate the guidance which the NATO council, in its various configurations, ranging from the Ambassadors' level through the defence and Foreign Ministers to the heads of state and government level, issues in two strategic directions to the two strategic commanders, Supreme Allied Commander Europe and Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic. And at the same time, the chairman of the Military Committee has to receive the requests, the proposals of these two strategic commanders, discuss them in the Military Committee and forward military advice to the council on all those matters which either nations or the strategic commanders wish to raise.

Q. I'm going to pause between your answers and my questions to allow for translation, because we both speak the same language here. General Naumann, in 1998 and 1999, were you, in the capacity you have described, concerned at all with matters of Kosovo?

A. Your Honour, beginning of -- at the beginning of 1998, NATO became ⁶⁹⁶⁵ seriously involved in the Kosovo conflict, and in my capacity as chairman of the Military Committee, it was my duty to report on the evolution of the situation and also to translate political direction given by the council how to deal with the crisis.

Q. In the course of your duties, sir -- I realise you had a number of duties, but I want to focus on these: Did you, in your capacity as chairman of the Military Committee, participate in meetings with the president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia?

A. On three occasions I met with the president of the former Republic of Yugoslavia. That was the first time when I accompanied the Secretary-General of NATO, Mr. Solana, when he went to Belgrade. I think it was on the 15th of October, 1998. Then I went a second time together with General Clark, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, to see inter alia Mr. Milosevic on the 24th and 25th of October, 1998. And we were sent a third time by the NATO council after the events in Racak on 19th of January, 1999.

Q. If we may deal with those three meetings, sir, in that order. I'd like you to focus your attention, first of all, to that first meeting on the 15th of October of 1998. Can you tell us what the purpose of that meeting was and how it was that it came about?

A. The meeting came about after NATO saw with ever growing concern the events in Kosovo which led to a serious deterioration of the situation, I think best expressed by the fact that according to figures provided by the UNHCR, some 220.000 citizens, inhabitants of Kosovo, were sitting as refugees somewhere in the bushes and winter was imminent and ⁶⁹⁶⁶ the hostilities in Kosovo continued. And NATO was desperately seeking a way to stop hostilities and find ways for these people to go back to their villages and towns. To that end, NATO had discussed what possibilities one could have, short of the use of military force, and had decided that NATO should be ready to act, and to that end an activation order had been agreed upon by the 16 NATO nations.

The Secretary-General of NATO, Javier Solana had been asked by the council to go to Belgrade to deliver a very strong, straightforward message to the president of the former Republic of Yugoslavia, to find ways to cease hostilities and to stop violence in Kosovo since it was the common view of all NATO nations that the events in this part of Europe really contained the risk that an entire region may be threatened in its stability and peace was in danger. And that was the mission of Mr. Solana, who went to Belgrade, was received by Mr. Milosevic, and he delivered this message. And Clark and I were more or less the military witnesses prepared to explain what the NATO message meant and what the demands were.

Q. I pause there to ask you, sir, you refer to an expression called an "activation order" that had been agreed upon by all 16 nations. What do you mean by an "activation order"?

A. We have in the NATO military parlance -- and, Your Honour, I ask for your forgiving me that I use such an expression. In the NATO military parlance, we have three steps of preparing the forces for action. The first one is the activation warning, which means that forces of nations get a warning order to be prepared for ⁶⁹⁶⁷ military action.

Then the next step is the activation request in which nations are requested to provide forces at a number which the nations have to decide upon and at a state of readiness which allows them to take action at rather short notice. And then they report back to NATO and tell NATO, "Our forces are ready for deployment." For instance, if forces have to be deployed from, let's say, overseas, from the United States or Canada, then they will presumably be deployed to forward bases in Europe if the theatre of operation is Europe.

And the last step is the activation order, which means that the nations will issue the order to their forces which they have committed for such a NATO operation to execute military operations against a country or an alliance as authorised by the NATO council.

And this means in many countries, for instance in my country, that the parliament has to take a decision on this activation order, since with that decision, activation order, the forces of all NATO countries have to be prepared to start military operations wherever it may be necessary.

Q. And do I understand your evidence to be, then, sir, that at that particular stage, approval from the various authorities of the representative countries had all been obtained and you had your activation order ready to be acted upon if and when required? Is that what I'm understanding? Please correct me.

A. No. Your understanding is absolutely correct. And I may recall that Mr. Holbrooke had been in Belgrade to negotiate with Mr. Milosevic, not on behalf of NATO, but he acted as an American envoy. And he came ⁶⁹⁶⁸ back and reported to NATO that he may achieve an agreement, but he may need a last convincing argument, and that is the threat of NATO to undertake military actions, if necessary, if no agreement was possible. And when he gave this impression of his to the NATO council - if I remember correctly, it was on the 12th of October, 1998 - the NATO council, after deliberations and consultations with capitals, agreed, right in the middle of the night - quite unusual for Brussels habits - to declare the activation order, and with that NATO decision in his pocket, Mr. Holbrooke returned to Belgrade.

Q. I see. I'm grateful to you for answering that sort of side issue, but I want to get back to the meeting of the 15th of October. And you've indicated, I believe, that there were a number of people from NATO that went. You referred to Solana and you referred to General Wesley Clark and of course yourself. When you met there, with whom did you meet? Do you recall, or would you require assistance from your notes or ...

A. I think -- I definitely remember that of course Mr. Milosevic was present, who welcomed us in the palace, in the White Palace of Belgrade. It was also General Perisic there, the then chief of General Staff, and Mr. Milutinovic. These are the ones I recall by memory. But if I had to read out the other names, I think I'd have to ask for the permission to look into the written evidence.

JUDGE MAY: If you want to look at your notes, General, at any time, do.

THE WITNESS: Thank you very much, Your Honour. Well, as I have stated in my written statement, it was there ⁶⁹⁶⁹ Mr. Milosevic, Mr. Milutinovic, Mr. Perisic, a personal advisor to Mr. Milosevic, possibly Bojan Bugarcic; and on our side it was Mr. Solana, General Clark, and myself.

MR. RYNEVELD:

Q. And you've already told us, sir, about how the meeting came about. Were there any specifics discussed at that meeting? In other words, you've told us in general why NATO was concerned and what they had done in preparation, but at the meeting did you give any specific message, or were you present when a specific message was given to the accused, Mr. Milosevic?

A. Well, the specific message which Secretary-General Solana conveyed to Mr. Milosevic was that NATO was willing to act militarily if the violence in Kosovo was not stopped; if the military in feud positions, which was supporting the police, were not withdrawn to the barracks; and if the access deployment, which had taken place of special police forces, so-called MUP, and the military had been reduced to the normal peacetime posture.

We also during this discussion presented some of the evidence which NATO had, based on intelligence sources, and in order to dispel the concerns which Mr. Milosevic raised that NATO's allegation were wrong and not based on the truth, precise data were presented to the Yugoslav side, and, inter alia, General Clark mentioned numbers of police units which we had seen acting in Kosovo and also army units which had been employed there, although they hadn't been garrisoned in Kosovo, and we did this by providing the numbers of these units. And I remember very well that ⁶⁹⁷⁰ Mr. Milosevic turned to the Chief of General Staff and asked him, "Are these forces there?" And after some reflection, General Perisic confirmed that the military forces we had mentioned were there and they were forces which are not garrisoned in Kosovo in peacetime, which do not belong to the Pristina Corps. They had been brought into Kosovo from the outside.

Q. Do I understand you to say that General Perisic was confirming to Mr. Milosevic what you were alleging to be the case?

A. Yes.

Q. Now, one other question, sir. Were interpreters used during these meetings or were the proceedings conducted in English? Do you recall?

A. The conversation was entirely done in English. Of course, there were moments when Mr. Milosevic talked to his people, and using his mother tongue, but in all, interchanges between Mr. Milosevic, who did most of the speaking on the side of the Yugoslav authorities, and NATO, the language was English.

Q. Now, in outlining these specifics, was there a general theme about the proportionality of force, for example, in these discussions?

A. Well, for us, the NATO side, the principle of proportionality is something which belongs more or less to our basic rules. We all are aware of situations that a country sees internal unrest, is confronted with terrorist attacks or something like this, and then it's our common understanding that a country has a right to defend itself against that. But if such a situation occurs, then of course the proportionality in reaction is more or less an iron rule. And I remember -- it was not on this event, but I remember - I think it was on the 24th, 25th October ⁶⁹⁷¹ meeting - that I mentioned in the discussions we had to Mr. Milosevic and his advisors that my country, for instance, had also seen terrorist threats in the 1970s, when the Red Army faction really posed a serious terrorist threat to Germany, but we never had considered - and I think I mentioned this really literally - we never had considered the use of military force to cope with terrorism, and we never had considered to use military force or police force in a disproportionate way. So when we had a terrorist problem, we did never consider, even not in the wildest dreams of everyone, to surround the city by tanks and artillery and impound the city of the village first and then look after the terrorists after.

Q. We'll come back to that in some further detail when we get to the 24th, 25th of October meeting. In the meantime, sir, you've indicated to us that specifics were mentioned and that there was a discussion between General Perisic and the accused. Now, moving on, if I may, how long did this meeting last? When had it started and how long did it take?

A. We arrived late in the afternoon, and the meeting ended up 10.00, 10.00 p.m. So all in all, I think some five hours or so. And I was present almost during the entire time. There was only a short moment when Mr. Solana asked for a one-on-one with Mr. Milosevic. And I know only from Mr. Solana's debrief what his general message was, and he told me later that this was a moment where he had really issued a rather stern warning to Mr. Milosevic to take NATO's preparedness to act serious and that this was the last chance to avoid hostilities.

Q. Was there a particular reason why it was Mr. Milosevic that these warnings were given to? In other words, what was it about Mr. Milosevic's ⁶⁹⁷² position that made you feel that he was the one to speak to?

A. Well, first of all, he was the head of state of the country concerned. He was, as far as I know, the commander-in-chief of the military forces, and military forces were involved in the activities. And as head of state, he is also, I think, to some extent at least, responsible for what the police is doing. The police may be under the direct command of the Minister of the Interior, but nevertheless - at least, that's my understanding of responsibility - you can't carve it up at your liking. Responsibility for such actions is indivisible.

Q. That is your understanding of his, if I want to use a legal phrase, de jure status. What was it, if anything, about the way in which Mr. Milosevic conducted himself at these meetings that led you to conclude he was the right person to talk to?

A. Well, at all these meetings which I had with Mr. Milosevic, I had the impression that he was the man who was really in control of the situation. It was him who gave directions to our interlocutors, and it was him who had the final right to take a decision. And I think the most convincing episode to underline that, Your Honour, is on -- it happened on the 24th of October when we were in discussions with members of the police and of the General Staff in the building of the General Staff, and we had, after two or three hours of negotiating, we had not achieved too much. We had achieved - and it's also in my written evidence - we had achieved an agreement on a small, tiny area of Kosovo, but if we continued in that way, it was obvious that we would not achieve anything within the 48 hours which were given to us. And so we asked Mr. Perisic for a meeting with ⁶⁹⁷³ him.

So Clark and I and a police general went to Perisic's office, and after Perisic had managed to get rid of the police officer, he told us, "If you want to achieve something, you have to seek another meeting with President Milosevic, since it's only him who can make the difference, and it's only him who can give the instructions." And from that I take that what I had said theoretically reflected also the practical reality.

Q. I see. Now, sir, you've already told us that about 10.00 or os the meeting was over, and I understand that the delegation then returned to Brussels, did it?

A. We returned first to a hotel in Belgrade where Secretary-General Solana had a meeting with some press people. They were -- I think they were press people of press media or media who were not so much liked by the government. Some of them were opposition, clearly opposition. And that was a meeting in the -- in our hotel in Belgrade where Mr. Solana answered questions of these people and also declared the purpose of the visit. After that, we left and returned to Brussels.

Q. I'm not going to dwell on the details, sir, but you've already told us about being present on the 12th of October when Holbrooke obtained the activation order which you've described. Did you -- you were also in Brussels, I take it, when General Solana then briefed NATO about this visit you'd been on. Is that correct?

A. That's correct.

Q. Now, sir, did you and General Wesley Clark obtain a tasking basically to do something after Mr. Holbrooke had established a framework ⁶⁹⁷⁴ for a formal agreement?

A. If you refer to the second task which we were given to go back to Belgrade on the 24th and 25th, yes, we got a tasking. Mr. Holbrooke had, if I may say so, achieved to -- to internationalise the Kosovo conflict, but he had not negotiated any details which led to a withdrawal of the forces which were there in excess of peacetime establishment. And the end of hostilities, the cessation of hostilities was not so obvious after Holbrooke's visit to Belgrade, and the signature of this Kosovo verification regime and -- that was the bilateral agreement between the Yugoslav authorities and SACEUR. But the withdrawal of forces was not settled. So the council, concerned that the situation may continue to deteriorate, decided to send General Clark and myself to Belgrade with the mission to find a way to reduce the forces.

I'm using these words which may sound strange to you in order to avoid the word "negotiate," since at least one nation in the NATO council did have serious misgivings about sending generals to negotiate in something which they regarded as a political task. They had agreed and they had asked us, the military, to do this, but they didn't want to use the word "negotiate."

And I think Mr. Milosevic will remember that we -- that we explained our, to some extent, awkward situation to him as well, that we are not there to negotiate, but the result we were supposed to achieve was the result of negotiation and was an agreement.

So we went back with the aim to achieve an agreement which allowed NATO not to execute the activation order. So we wanted to find a peaceful ⁶⁹⁷⁵ solution which avoided the outbreak of hostilities between NATO and the former Republic of Yugoslavia. That was our aim. And with that intention, we came to Belgrade.

Q. That brings us squarely to the October 24th and 25th meeting; is that correct?

A. That's correct.

Q. That's the purpose of the meeting, and that's how you got there.

A. Yes.

Q. All right. When you got there, what happened?

A. Well, we arrived at the airport, were received by Ambassador Miles and the head of the KDOM mission - Kosovo Disengagement Observation Mission or something like that - Mr. Shaun Byrnes. They gave us a short briefing on the situation, and then we went to the White Palace and were received by Mr. Milosevic.

Q. And when you say "we," were you accompanied by the US Ambassador Miles and Shaun Byrnes or it was just you and --

A. Yes. They were with us when we went to the palace.

Q. Yes.

A. And we also had, of course, a couple of collaborators with us. And we were -- one of them as -- and he was also present during most of the discussions. That was the Diplomatic Advisor to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Mr. Mike Durkee, an American citizen who is on NATO's payroll and is acting an a NATO employee, if I may say so.

Q. Was anyone tasked to take notes of these meetings?

A. Yeah. Mr. Durkee took notes, and he also produced, together with ⁶⁹⁷⁶ ^{BLANK PAGE} ⁶⁹⁷⁷ my personal staff officer, a German air force colonel, Gerhard Bischoff, they, together, produced on the way back, based on Durkee's notes, the report which we then gave to the NATO council in a written form.

Q. All right. We've gotten a little ahead of ourselves but I just want to develop the structure. So on Saturday the 24th and Sunday the 25th, you then had these separate meetings; is that correct?

A. Yes.

Q. And who was present on behalf of the Yugoslav authorities?

A. Well, when we were welcomed by Mr. Milosevic, it was of course obviously himself; then General Perisic, the chief of the General Staff; the Deputy Prime Minister of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Mr. Sainovic, who was introduced as the one who is responsible for the Kosovo affairs; Mr. Milutinovic, I think the chief of the personal cabinet of Mr. Milosevic and the Foreign Affairs Advisor. Then later on we met with a couple of other military and police generals. This first meeting lasted approximately one and a half hours, and it more or less -- the aim was to set the scene and to explain for what reason we had been sent and what we wanted to achieve. It was followed by a meeting in which Mr. Milosevic was not present. It was done at the headquarters of the General Staff where we met with a couple of generals, colonels, officers, and where on our side also personnel of the KDOM mission was present.

Q. All right. Before we get to that, at this first hour and a half meeting, did you deliver a message to Mr. Milosevic?

A. Yes. And I recall very much, very vividly, the words we used. I ⁶⁹⁷⁸ think the message we started with was that we said, "Mr. President, we came to deliver a very clear-cut, straightforward message. The hammer is cocked, the clock is ticking, and you have got 48 hours to deliver." That was the gist of the message. This straightforward, not very diplomatic language was not received with much enthusiasm, I should say, but it clearly set the scene.

Q. And were any specific details discussed in that initial hour and a half meeting, how to avoid the implementation of the activation order?

A. Yes. We clearly stated that the key to everything was to reduce the military and police forces in Kosovo, to redeploy those forces who were in excess of peacetime establishment in Kosovo, and to cease the disproportionate use of force against civilian population. We also made very clear to Mr. Milosevic that we were only there to receive and obtain an answer to these demands and that we had to bring them back to the NATO council, that we were not entitled to enter any obligations for NATO with regard to the activation order. That was a decision to be taken by the council.

Q. Well, once you delivered that message, sir, did Mr. Milosevic respond in any way?

A. Well, as far as I recall, Mr. Milosevic rejected the right of NATO to threaten his country with the use of force. He also rejected what he called our accusations, that the police and the military were using disproportionately force. He said that according to his knowledge, his police and his military acted in full concurrence with Serbian law, and he repeatedly denied that his forces, be it police or be it military, used ⁶⁹⁷⁹ tanks or artillery against villages and civilians.

Q. Is this when you told him the story about --

A. That's --

Q. -- your experience in your country?

A. Yes.

Q. Yes.

A. I then took the -- mentioned an example which we had -- an information which we had gotten a couple of minutes before we had landed about an incident which had happened. According to the information we had, that the inner village was shelled. And Mr. Milosevic turned to Perisic and asked him whether he was aware of something like that. Perisic denied and said this did not happen.

But of course, I would not -- neither blame Mr. Milosevic nor Mr. Perisic of not knowing something like this which had happened a couple of or perhaps hours ago. As we all know -- at least I know. And, Your Honour, you may not know it. I know how long it takes until an information is passed through the military chain of command and is really at the -- in the hands of the head of state or the head of the General Staff.

Q. Well, as a result of that conversation which you say took about an hour and a half, did something else happen? In other words, were you directed to meet with other people? I believe you intimated that you did, later on, meet with other generals.

A. Well, at the -- after this exchange, this first exchange, and the explanation to Mr. Milosevic what our mission was all about, he directed ⁶⁹⁸⁰ his people to negotiate with us how we could come to an agreement, and we called it then, I think, technical discussions, to do this in the headquarters of the General Staff and to report back to him as soon as we had achieved a result.

Q. And that meeting, I take it, did take place later that same day, did it?

A. That meeting began immediately after we drove down to the -- somewhere in Belgrade to the building of the General Staff. As I had intimated earlier on, we began with rather technical discussions with this huge delegation on the other side, did not achieve too much of progress. We concentrated first on an area, I think it was around the little town of Malisevo in Kosovo, and we discussed back and forth how -- what one could do to reduce tensions there and to find an agreement. It took us, I think, some two or three hours until we had found a more or less feasible solution for this tiny area. And we -- Clark and I, we came both to the conclusion it doesn't make sense to continue in that way since, otherwise, we would still be there when NATO was about to bomb. That would not have been a big problem for us, but otherwise, we would not achieve the aim to avoid hostilities.

Q. You were concerned about the length of time these --

A. Right.

Q. -- the minutia of the discussions were taking?

A. We had -- we had 48 hours.

Q. Ah, I see.

A. And within these 48 hours, we were supposed to achieve a tangible ⁶⁹⁸¹ result that we could present to the NATO council so they did not take the decision to unleash the dogs of war. And for that reason, I think we pressed a little bit on time. And then we asked Perisic, as I had mentioned earlier on, what can we do to speed up the proceedings a little bit and really achieve a result. So Perisic advised us to go back and to see Mr. Milosevic, which we did, and the permission was granted to see the president a second time in the White Palace.

Q. Is this the incident you referred to earlier that if you really wanted to achieve something you had to speak to Mr. Milosevic?

A. Exactly.

Q. I see. All right. So did you do that?

A. We did do this, and we were -- Mr. Milosevic kindly agreed to see us a second time. So we went back to the White Palace, explained in -- I should say in a rather vivid exchange, if I may recall it properly, that it is now on the side of the Yugoslav authorities to turn the table and to reduce the forces, to withdraw them, to cease hostilities and to stop this disproportionate use of force.

That was the content of the exchange which took place between Clark, myself, and Mr. Milosevic. And if I recall it properly, it was approximately after one and a half to two hours that Mr. Milosevic said that he wanted to consult with his close advisors. He went to a neighbouring room with them, and after a couple of minutes, perhaps half an hour, he came back and told us that he instructed them to negotiate with us with the aim to achieve an agreement. He also seconded Mr. Milutinovic to participate in these talks in the headquarters of the ⁶⁹⁸² General Staff.

And so we went back and began discussions, negotiations, which I think commenced around 11.00 in the evening and lasted until approximately something between -- I think we were in the hotel at 5.00 in the morning. But then we had a paper which both sides had accepted at referendum, and which both sides were prepared to present to Mr. Milosevic in the morning at 10.00 in the palace.

Q. I'll stop you there, sir, and just back up.

MR. RYNEVELD: Your Honours, there's just a couple of details from paragraphs from 16 through 20. We've just sort of finished paragraph 20. We went very quickly over that. Just a couple of details that I'd like to return to.

Q. Without having you name the various individuals that were involved in these meetings in the technical discussions, sir, did you have any discussions about an appropriate figure during peacetime for MUP forces to be in Kosovo?

A. Yes. We had a discussion, and I do not hesitate to inform the Court, Your Honour, that we, Clark and I, went to Belgrade with a number, which was 6.000, as peacetime strengths for the Kosovo police. That was violently denied by the Yugoslav authorities, and they told us - and they provided written information on that - that the number was 10.014, I think, approximately around 10.000. We had to admit that we may have good intelligence and reliable intelligence on military forces, where we can do based on information which you can obtain with overhead images, where you can calculate the strengths of military forces. You can't do those with ⁶⁹⁸³ police. And so after exchange of information, we agreed that we should accept the Yugoslav figure of 10.000, which meant that they had to reduce their police force which was in Kosovo at the point in time by about 5.000 to 6.000, within 48 hours.

Q. Now, the limited knowledge that you did have about MUP forces or police forces, did your intelligence sources basically tell you where some of these other police had come from? Were they all locals, or did you have information about where they had come from?

A. We had, I think, fairly good information of where they came from and where their peacetime garrisons were. But what we did not have - and that was what I intimated to earlier on - is how strong such a police unit is, since some of them are sometimes doing their duties in civilian clothes, sometimes they're in uniform, and so it's much more difficult with military forces to come to a clear estimate how strong is such a police unit in terms of personnel.

MR. RYNEVELD: Now, just reference to paragraph 19, Your Honours.

Q. You've told us that as a result of this sort of private chat with Perisic, when he told you that if you wanted to achieve something, go speak to Milosevic, you did that, and this is now this two-hour meeting you talked about. Did you at that meeting discuss anything about the reduction of military and police? And if you've talked about that, I apologise. Just a little bit more detail. Did you actually say that to Mr. Milosevic?

A. To the best of my knowledge, Your Honours, we clearly said to Mr. Milosevic that our aim is to bring the police force back to the ⁶⁹⁸⁴ peacetime strengths, the normal peacetime strengths in Kosovo, and that all military forces should be withdrawn from their field positions and should go back into garrison.

Q. Were there, in the course of that discussion, any reference made to the KLA, or UCK?

A. Yes. There was repeatedly, of course, made reference to the KLA, or UCK, when Mr. Milosevic described that they were taking action and that they were using force against Serb police forces, against Serb citizens, and that it was his duty, I think he said it in that way, to make sure that the country is defended against such people and that the citizens can live without -- free of fear.

Q. Was there a response?

A. Well, that brings us back, Your Honours, to the point we have discussed earlier on. I think we both said - and it also is reflected later on in the statement which we agreed upon - that of course a country has the right to defend itself against such -- against any terrorist threat, but the proportionality of defensive measures has to be observed, and that was not the case, according to our information and to our judgement.

Q. All right, sir. Now, as I understand the progression of things - please correct me if I'm wrong - after that meeting, he consulted with his advisors, came back, and said, "All right. Go away and negotiate." I'm paraphrasing this. And you hammered something out between 11.00 at night and 5.00 in the morning, and the deal then was to go back and meet with Milosevic the next morning at about 10.00, is that ⁶⁹⁸⁵ right, Sunday morning?

A. That's correct. Sunday morning, at 10.00, in the Palace.

Q. Could you pick it up from there, sir, as to what happened?

A. Well, we presented our results to Mr. Milosevic. He, I think, had read it, and he had also discussed it with his advisors, particularly with Milutinovic. It was another three-hour meeting. There were some details which were not liked by Mr. Milosevic, and there was also a certain problem on our side, since we had been very specific on the numbers of the police forces. But that was something which gave one country in NATO some difficulties, and so we negotiated some changes in that paper. And we called this agreement "statement." I think this paper is in the possession of the Court.

Q. Yes. Perhaps I might show this document to you.

MR. RYNEVELD: Your Honours, you can find it in Exhibit 94, and I believe it's tab 3.

Perhaps, Mr. Usher ... Is that it? Thank you very much. Could you show it to the witness, please.

JUDGE KWON: What's the tab number?

MR. RYNEVELD: Tab 3, I'm sorry, of Exhibit 94. I think it's called "Record of meeting in Belgrade, 25th October 1998," and it bears ERN number 00766673.

THE WITNESS: That's correct. That's a paper which we agreed and signed.

MR. RYNEVELD:

Q. All right. And perhaps, if you would, please, sir -- there are ⁶⁹⁸⁶ some signatures there, and perhaps you can tell us -- we'll actually deal with some of the document itself later, but the signatures, can you tell us how those appeared and some details of how they were placed there?

A. Well, it was obvious that the paper had to be signed by those who had participated in the negotiations, and that was Mr. Sainovic, who signed it as the one who was responsible for everything in Kosovo; and it was also signed by Colonel General Djordjevic, who was at the time the Chief of Public Security of the Ministry of the Interior of the Federal Republic of Serbia. And then General Wesley Clark and myself signed the paper for the NATO military authorities. And we had some discussions with Mr. Milosevic whether he should sign this paper or not. Both of us, Clark and I, insisted that he should sign the paper.

Q. Why?

A. Well, Mr. Milosevic asked the same question and was initially not inclined to do it, but we said to him, "We believe, Mr. President, that it is important that this agreement is signed by you, since without your authorisation, this paper will not have -- will not be fully respected in your country, and for that reason we ask you to sign it." After some lengthy discussions, Mr. Milosevic, if I may say so, grudgingly agreed to sign the paper and signed it, and that is the signature which you see on this paper without any printed name underneath it.

Q. And just to an untrained eye -- do you know what kind of script or writing that's in, or is that ... Does that sort of look like a "C" with a dot and then the first thing looks like an "S" -- ⁶⁹⁸⁷

A. I think the "C" with a dot stands for this Cyrillic "S."

Q. Oh, it's Cyrillic. I see. Okay. So you're saying this line to the right of the two signatures, you watched it signed by --

A. I watched that Mr. Milosevic signed that.

Q. All right. Now, the document itself -- and the Court has it as an exhibit, and I don't want to take undue court time to go through it. But basically, sir, what does this document -- just if you were to summarise the effect of this document, what did you want it to show?

A. Well, the first page, which is the signed page, is simply a record of what happened.

Q. Yes.

A. And we attached as an integral part of it this statement, which indicates what we negotiated, what the obligations were, which the Yugoslav authorities undertook in terms of bringing back excess forces to peacetime garrisons. It also spells out that the Yugoslav army will remain with some -- I think three company-size teams in field positions deployed to protect lines of communication, which are specifically mentioned in this document. It indicates at which point in time the withdrawal and redeployment will take place, and it provides for obligations which the Yugoslav side entered to inform KDOM and, later on, after deployment, an OSCE observer mission, to provide information so that they could also inspect the redeployed forces. And in addition, I think there's -- no. That was a separate statement. We have a separate agreement on the police behaviour.

Q. Thank you. ⁶⁹⁸⁸

MR. RYNEVELD: Tab 4 of Exhibit 94. Might the witness be shown tab 4 as well.

Q. This is a document, sir, that is entitled, "Understanding between KDOM and Ministry of Interior of the Republic of Serbia," and it bears number 00766672, and it's got a date 25 October 1998 on it. Is this the document to which you refer?

A. Yes, sir. That's exactly the document. And it contains what the police is allowed and obliged to do. It indicates that 27 observation points will be established along the lines of communication. The lines of communication are spelled out and the number of observation posts on these lines of communications is clearly indicated. It also spells out the obligations which the police forces entered. And the paper is signed by Mr. Djordjevic and Shaun Byrnes, the chief of the KDOM mission at the time.

Q. And just so we're clear and the Court has a clear description, was this document also then signed at that same time, or was that document already in hand? I realise it's the same day, but ...

A. That document was in hand when we presented our work to Mr. Milosevic. And I have to add for the Court that this was presumably the piece of the paper which took us most time to negotiate, since we really were confronted with the attitude of the negotiating police officers, which wanted to more or less establish full and permanent control of every single, I should say, path in Kosovo.

Q. All right. So when you say there was a meeting from 11.00 to 5.00, did this document result from that lengthy -- ⁶⁹⁸⁹

A. It took us quite a time to get them to these numbers.

Q. All right. But that document was available for Mr. Milosevic to read at the time he was asked to sign tab 3, Exhibit 94?

A. That's correct.

Q. I see. All right, sir. You told us that he appeared somewhat reluctant but then did sign it. Was there a change in attitude at all after he signed the document?

A. After the document was signed, I think we saw a certain relaxation of the, to some extent, tense atmosphere we had had before that, and Mr. Milosevic kindly also offered us at this time I think a glass of slivovitz, and we talked a little bit more relaxed on what the future may bring. I think all of us had at this point in time the hope that this would lead to a reduction of hostilities and that we really would not be brought into the position to execute what we were sent to Belgrade to threaten Mr. Milosevic with.

Q. All right. And during these discussions, sir, do you recall any particular statement that was made that you felt was of interest to the Court?

A. Yes. I recall one statement. And since I know that this statement has certainly some meaning, I double- and cross-checked it again with General Clark, who was also present. And I think, to the best of my recollection, Mr. Milosevic stated that he will try to find a solution for the Kosovo problem in spring of 1999.

We had -- I should add for the information of the Court, Your Honours, that we had talked also about the proportion between the Serb ⁶⁹⁹⁰ ^{BLANK PAGE} ⁶⁹⁹¹ population and the non-Serb population, in particular, the Albanians, or Kosovars, and we had discovered that Mr. Milosevic and we had different numbers in our mind. He was always talking of a relationship which more or less meant that the approximately 900.000 Kosovar Albanians should be in Kosovo, and approximately 600.000 other nationalities, including Serbs. Our figures were considerably larger with regard to the Kosovar Albanians.

In that context, he had also stated, and I think Sainovic as well, that one of the preconditions for a solution in the Kosovo area is to achieve a balance between the two ethnic groups. And he expressed -- or Sainovic, I think it was, expressed his concern that the reproduction rate of the Kosovar Albanians was much higher than of the Serbs, and that they had to find a solution which would not bring them back into the same problem within a couple of years. And in that context, it was talked about a solution in spring 1999. And we were wondering what he meant, and so we asked, "What do you mean with a solution?" And the answer was then, "We'll do the same what we did in Drenica in '45 or '46."

Q. Did you know what that was?

A. Well, we didn't -- of course, we didn't know, and so we asked, and the answer was -- and that was a little bit -- well, it was difficult for us to take, but the answer was, "We got them together and we shot them."

Q. Who was present during that meeting, sir?

A. Milutinovic. I think this advisor was the black beard. Mr. Milosevic would better know who it was. I think Bugarcic or something like that. The police general and Perisic. And on our side there was ⁶⁹⁹² Clark and myself, and I believe also Mike Durkee was also there.

Q. Now, during that particular meeting of the 25th, and I'm talking a whole Sunday, did you form any impression about whether or not the accused was aware of what the Serb police were doing?

A. I think in general he was presumably aware. I do not know whether he got all details. What they reported to him, in which detail, I simply don't know, but I left Belgrade with the impression that Mr. Milosevic was the man who was in control of the situation. Whether he knew all detail, whether he authorised all details, that, to the best of my knowledge, Your Honours, I cannot answer.

Q. Well, in particular, referring to Exhibit 94, tab 4, the understanding where it details the relationship between the KDOM and the MUP, during the course of your discussions, did the accused seem to know about the details in that document?

A. I'm really confident, Your Honours, that Mr. Milosevic was carefully briefed on the contents of this. And I also, as one of the reasons why I'm coming to that conclusion, I have to say that Mr. Milosevic repeatedly indicated that he is very concerned that the sovereignty of Serbia is fully respected. And what we agreed upon in this piece of paper means that a foreign authority, an international authority - in this case, for the first instance, the US KDOM, but later to be replaced by the Kosovo verification regime, KVM - would control Serb police forces and also, in the other agreement, Serb military forces, which is, for a man who was so concerned about national sovereignty, is clearly an infringement on national sovereignty. So I take from that that ⁶⁹⁹³ he was briefed on the details and that he agreed on these details as a way out for the time being.

Q. Thank you. Now, you've already told us that Mr. Sainovic had been introduced to you in a particular capacity by the accused Milosevic; is that correct?

A. That's correct. And I can only repeat that he was introduced as a deputy prime minister and the man responsible for Kosovo.

Q. I see.

JUDGE KWON: General -- I'm sorry to interrupt you. When you heard from Milosevic that -- Mr. Milosevic, when he said, "We got them all together and shot them," how did you respond to those words? Did you try to clarify the words or ...

THE WITNESS: No, we did not. I think both of us were simply flabbergasted by that. We took it -- we couldn't -- we simply couldn't believe it.

JUDGE KWON: Thank you.

MR. RYNEVELD: Turning now to paragraph 27, Your Honours.

Q. General Naumann, you've told us the purpose of the meeting, you hammered out these Exhibits 94, 3, and 4, and as a result of that, I take it, you recognised that by signature of that document, that the activation order would not have to be implemented; is that correct?

A. Well, we -- I think we had clearly said to Mr. Milosevic, Your Honours, that we had no authority to make any promises to that end. But I think we also indicated that we would recommend in our military capacity to the council to -- not to execute the activation order ⁶⁹⁹⁴ if this agreement was really met with full compliance.

Q. I see. So you left the same day, Sunday, that afternoon, and went back to Brussels, did you?

A. We went back to Brussels, went directly from the airport to Mr. Solana's residence where we met with Mr. Solana; the Deputy Secretary-General, Mr. Balanzino; and the head of the private office Mr. Domecq. We reported to them orally and undertook to provide a fully written report during the night for distribution to the NATO council. Before midnight of that Sunday the report was written, was circulated, and the next day the Secretary-General convened a council meeting where we had to amplify on our report orally and to share impressions with the council. And at the end of this council meeting on Monday, 22nd, the council came to the conclusion should the agreed withdrawal be fully implemented and should we get the respective confirmation by the people on the ground, the KDOM, then the activation order would not be implemented.

Q. So subject to it being respected, the activation order was not acted upon.

A. No. The activation order was put on the shelf. It remained dormant there as an instrument to be used should there be any violations. But on this very day, I think the NATO council was very pleased to see that there was a chance to avoid hostilities.

Q. As a result of that, to your knowledge were observations made as to whether or not this agreement was being complied with?

A. To the very best of my knowledge, Your Honours, I have to say that the Yugoslav authorities honoured the agreement. They withdrew the forces ⁶⁹⁹⁵ according to this statement. That did not last for too long, I should say, but it happened.

Q. Initially, initially there was compliance.

A. There was compliance, and I think one has to really pay tribute to what the Yugoslavs did. This was not an easy thing to bring 6.000 police officers back within 24 hours, but they managed. And I think we -- we all were very optimistic at the end of October that we had achieved a breakthrough.

Q. So as a result of your agreement that Mr. Milosevic signed, these things happened; is that correct?

A. These things happened. And I think that is a clear indication of what I had said earlier on. What Mr. Milosevic had decreed to do, it was done, and that was true in this case as well.

Q. Did that last?

A. It did not last for too long a time. We saw -- as of November, we saw again and again reports of violations.

I should really say, in all fairness, to the best information I got from the reports on the ground, from KDOM and later on from the Kosovo verification regime, many of the incidents were triggered by the UCK, who obviously tried to exploit the vacuum created by the withdrawn Serb security forces and who then sneaked in to take control of regions or areas. They also, I think, launched provocations, and they were not free of violence in doing that.

The problem is that in many cases, as far as I have seen later on, particularly in the course of November and December, that the Serb side ⁶⁹⁹⁶ reacted again in a disproportionate way. It was, if I may say so, the old attitude to react to an incident where perhaps an individual had tried to kill or had killed a police officer, that they then again went in and used heavy weapons against villages and using disproportionately force against civilians.

Q. I see. And by December of 1998, had those reports caused you any further concern?

A. Yes. I had to report more or less permanently to the NATO council, and we had two concerns. First, that the entire regime was falling into pieces and that we were back in the spur of hostilities; and secondly, that we really lacked an instrument how to get the UCK or the KLA under control and how to influence them. We did not have an instrument to force them into compliance.

And in addition, I have to say, Your Honours, we were not allowed. I, in my NATO capacity, I was never allowed to talk to any UCK man or representative since we had -- NATO had initially called these people terrorists. And the iron rule was that NATO will never negotiate with terrorists. That is also -- that's something which is not unimportant if you look at the composition of NATO, since in some NATO countries we have terrorist movements, and for that reason, these governments insisted that we should not talk to terrorists directly. With hindsight, it was perhaps a mistake.

Q. But you complied with that directive, and you did not speak to any --

A. No. I never spoke -- ⁶⁹⁹⁷

Q. -- KLA?

A. I never spoke to any KLA man. I can assure you I never met anyone.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Why do you say, General, in hindsight it was a mistake?

THE WITNESS: Yes, I said this.

JUDGE ROBINSON: I'm asking why. Why do you say in hindsight it was a mistake?

THE WITNESS: I think if you are in such a conflict, you should presumably talk to both sides and try to influence them to the best -- in the best possible way. Perhaps we could have -- we could have reduced difficulties in this area. Whether it would have led to -- to a peaceful solution, I cannot tell you, Your Honour. But I live with the conviction one should make every attempt possible to defuse a situation before one uses military force in order to enforce peace.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.

MR. RYNEVELD:

Q. Having said that, sir, you've told us slightly earlier in your evidence that during one of your meetings with Milosevic and/or Sainovic, there was some discussion about -- I believe it was on the 25th of October there was this discussion about the Albanian Kosovar problem and some suggestion that that problem might repeat itself, and then you've discussed the comment that was made.

Have you had an opportunity to reflect, sir, on what happened after December of 1998 in relation to that? ⁶⁹⁹⁸

A. Well, we saw -- of course, after December we saw increased escalation. We saw increased violence, hostilities. We saw an increase of the numbers of refugees, and we -- we saw that more or less both sides tried to -- to expel people of the other ethnic group from the areas where they lived. That is definitely true for the Serb side, but it's also true to some extent for the Albanian side which also tried to get the Serbs out of the pockets where they clearly had the majority. And both sides, based on all the information we got from the OSCE mission, really had taken off their gloves and were using brutal force to some extent.

Q. I see. That brings us, sir, to the 19th of January meeting. And before you do --

MR. RYNEVELD: Your Honours, I didn't have it clarified with you. Do you intend to go right to the normal time for the break?

JUDGE MAY: No. We'll go just beyond quarter to.

MR. RYNEVELD: Thank you. That gives me an idea. I'm about to start paragraph 30 on page 7.

Q. Sir, you've told us there were three meetings. The third meeting took place when?

A. The third meeting took place on the 19th of January, 1999, in Belgrade.

Q. And this is after Racak, I believe you said?

A. That is after Racak, yes. And Racak was the event which triggered the -- our dispatch to Belgrade.

Q. Why did you go?

A. Well, we were sent by NATO council to tell Mr. Milosevic that ⁶⁹⁹⁹ something like Racak was simply intolerable. I -- again, I do not hesitate to inform you, Your Honours, that both General Clark and I had done the utmost we could do ask the council not to send us, since we didn't regard the mission we were supposed to do as a military mission, and we thought we were the wrong people to do it. In contrast to the October meeting, we also did not have something which I would call a compelling argument for Mr. Milosevic since our stick, if I may say so, the threat with the activation order, had gotten a little bit weak and soft and was more a rubber baton than a stick. So we were not too happy to go, but we got the order. And for military officers, there is one thing which they have learned: They have to obey the orders.

Q. And in compliance with that order you went and did what?

A. We went to tell Mr. Milosevic, I think in clear-cut words, that Racak and a repetition of Racak was simply unacceptable and could trigger military reaction. We also asked Mr. Milosevic to consider to give approval to Mrs. Arbour, who was sitting with the ICTY team in Skopje in Macedonia, to enter Kosovo and to visit the site of the events in Racak. And we also discussed with President Milosevic that the decision to declare Ambassador Walker to be a persona non grata in the country should be reconsidered and he should be allowed to remain in Yugoslavia. And of course, we also were there to invite Mr. Milosevic to return to the terms of the agreement we had had on the 25th of October, 1998.

Q. When you say return to those terms, by this time did you feel that there was no longer compliance?

A. No. There was no compliance. There was no compliance with regard ⁷⁰⁰⁰ to the police forces. There were more police forces in Kosovo at the time than agreed upon. And of course, and perhaps most importantly, the size of the army was far in excess, and also the use of force had returned to the disproportionality which had been one of the reasons for our negotiations in October.

Q. I don't believe we indicated. Where did this meeting take place, and tell us what happened perhaps in stages. You've given us the points. Perhaps you can talk about Racak first. But first of all, where did this meeting take place and who was present?

A. The meeting took place in the White Palace in Belgrade. Mr. Sainovic, I think, was present. I think also the foreign secretary was present.

JUDGE MAY: And the date, please.

THE WITNESS: The date was the 19th of January, 1999, Your Honour.

MR. RYNEVELD:

Q. All right. And -- well, you told us that one of the subjects was Racak. Did you discuss Racak with the accused, and if so, what did he say?

A. We discussed Racak. We had -- on the way to the palace, we had stopped with Ambassador Walker and received his report on the situation, what he had seen on the site. And we shared the observations of Ambassador Walker with President Milosevic, ending with the conclusion that based on that, we had every reason to believe that these people were not killed in combat, as had been alleged by the Yugoslav side, but that ⁷⁰⁰¹ they had been shot after some incident had taken place there and that after all, they were civilians, and one of them was a 14-year-old boy.

Q. Did you put that allegation to Mr. Milosevic?

A. Yes, we did, and it was clearly rejected. Mr. Milosevic got angry when we mentioned this, and he -- he clearly told us that Serb police and military would never do anything which is against Serb law. He -- he accused us of having -- more or less having fallen or taken -- fallen into the trap of Mr. Walker's accusations, which had led to the declaration of him being a persona non grata, and that we took sides with Walker and that we made outrageous statements on this event.

Q. Did you, General, as a military commander, did you make any observations of what you'd heard about the injuries to the accused?

A. We had -- Walker had shown us some photographs of these killed people, and I -- I think I -- I said to Mr. Milosevic that I could not imagine that anyone who can think of an infantry operation, that he could see the victims of such an operation with the wounds which were clearly visible on these photographs since most of them had shots in the neck. And you clearly could see that -- that this is not the way in which you kill people in an infantry operation.

Q. How would -- how are soldiers trained to --

A. Well, to shoot someone in the neck means, first of all, that the person you are fighting has to turn his back to you. That's normally not the attitude you have when you are fighting someone. That's the way how someone is behaving when he is caught and then you can -- can do it, if you do not obey to the law of war. ⁷⁰⁰² And secondly, if -- if one is fighting people in combat, most of the wounds will be somewhere in the upper body or in the head area and not in the neck and in the back.

And we -- I think I can tell the Court that I have very often in exercises myself fired at targets. I do not -- I do not -- I do not remember a single event where even in an exercise one came into a situation where one could shoot into the neck of someone.

Q. Well, you told us that Mr. Milosevic got angry. And how were you able to judge that he was angry?

A. Well, occasionally he got a little bit louder so that our people who were sitting in the anteroom watching those nice paintings which they have in the White Palace of Belgrade, that they got aware of that and were preparing for departure since they thought that we were about to be thrown out.

Q. Did the topic then turn to Judge Arbour?

A. Yes. That was the next issue we discussed. We tried to convince Mr. Milosevic that he should allow Judge Arbour to enter the country and to visit the site.

As I have indicated in my written statement, there was no way in, and all formulas which we proposed were rejected. And of course, Mrs. Arbour, whom we telephoned in Skopje - General Clark did this using his cellular phone - did not accept anything which was less than unrestricted access to the site. And from an investigator's point of view, I think she was correct in doing this, since otherwise you can never come to a clear-cut judgement what happened at the site. ⁷⁰⁰³

Q. Now, I take it there was some negotiations, but a stalemate, I take it, eventually was reached or -- I don't want to paraphrase here. What was the ultimate conclusion? Did a Finnish team eventually have access?

A. Yes, but -- that's correct. The finish term got later on access, and I think many of you, and in particular, Your Honours, you may have read the statement of Mrs. Ranta, I think was the name of the Finnish doctor. She, as far as I recall, made a public statement on the 17th of March, 1999, after she had conducted some autopsies, and she clearly came to the conclusion that these people were not killed in combat, and we provided detailed evidence for that so that the -- that there is still reason to believe that Racak was not a combat event but was the site of a crime.

Q. Now, sir, at the time these discussions were taking place, do you know whether or not, as negotiations to call in a Finnish team were taking place, whether or not autopsies had already commenced?

A. As far as I know. But I have to say, Your Honours, I'm basing that on public information. I have no detailed and specific information that Yugoslav authorities had begun to conduct autopsies before this international team had access to the corpses.

Q. All right. I should clarify, General Naumann, in fairness to you. I'm not asking you to give us this evidence for the truth of it but whether or not that was information that you received that you then put to the accused and his reaction to it.

A. We mentioned that we had heard this and that this made it very ⁷⁰⁰⁴ difficult for an independent investigation to come to conclusions.

Q. And that was put to the accused by you or Clark?

A. It was put to Mr. Milosevic by either me or General Clark.

Q. And his response?

A. Well, he did not accept the argument. And since -- and I think, as far as I recall, this came back to the question of national sovereignty.

Q. You also mentioned, sir, that Mr. Walker's status as persona non grata was the subject of discussion, and I think you've mentioned to us that's as a result of what he had said about Racak; is that correct?

A. Yes. That was our impression, that the decision was taken after Walker had made public statements on his impression on the events in Racak. And we tried, and I think -- yes, I did this. I tried to convey to Mr. Milosevic the impression that a country like Yugoslavia should not expel, more or less, an OSCE Head of Mission without having consulted with the head of or with the chair of the OSCE, which was at the time Mr. Vollebaek, the then Foreign Minister of Norway. And we also made the point that it would be good if Mr. Milosevic could agree to receive Minister Vollebaek, who was due to travel in his OSCE capacity to Belgrade. President Milosevic indicated that he was not willing to reconsider his attitude towards Mr. Walker since he had made incorrect and insulting statements.

Q. So was the matter --

JUDGE KWON: Excuse me, Mr. Ryneveld. I'd like to get back to the word before it disappears from the transcript. ⁷⁰⁰⁵ General, you said that Racak was not a "combat event." Did you know that there was some -- there was a unit, KLA unit, in the village of Racak and there was combat and some KLA members were killed at that time?

THE WITNESS: I know that in the entire event approximately some -- as far as I know, some 45 people were involved. Seven of them obviously were KLL -- KLA that were killed. But the people who were found in this trench or what it was, were obviously not KLA. They were unarmed civilians.

JUDGE KWON: Yes.

THE WITNESS: And what you -- that is not far-fetched, Your Honour, since if you undertake an autopsy of someone who fought in combat, you will find traces of black powder on the hands if he had used a weapon, and Mrs. Ranta clearly stated that none of the victims had any traces of black powder on their skin.

MR. RYNEVELD: Your Honours, I note the time. Sorry. Sorry.

JUDGE KWON: When did you come to know the fact that there were KLA members among the people killed there at that time?

THE WITNESS: When we talked to Mr. Walker on this event, we asked him, "Did anything take place like a combat, a skirmish, between the KLA and the Yugoslav forces?" And he said that there had been an incident in this area, that some exchange of fire had taken place, but then in the -- in the often-described disproportionate use of force they had -- the Yugoslav security forces had entered the village and, according to what he had learned, got the people together and started to separate them or to take prisoners or whatever you, and some of them were obviously killed. ⁷⁰⁰⁶

JUDGE KWON: Thank you.

MR. RYNEVELD: Following up on that question.

Q. The conversation you had with Mr. Walker was on the 19th of January, upon your arrival, or earlier?

A. No. It was on the 19th of January. We went to the embassy and got the information there.

MR. RYNEVELD: Your Honours, I'm about to start with paragraph 35. Did you wish me to continue?

JUDGE MAY: That would be a convenient time; is that right?

MR. RYNEVELD: Yes. Thank you.

JUDGE MAY: We will adjourn for an hour and a half. General, would you remember, please, I must give you the formal warning since you're giving evidence, not to speak to anybody about it until it's over, and that does include the Prosecution team. Would you be back, please, at 2.25.

THE WITNESS: Yes, Your Honour.

--- Luncheon recess taken at 12.50 p.m. ⁷⁰⁰⁷

--- On resuming at 2.29 p.m.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Ryneveld.

MR. RYNEVELD: Thank you, Your Honour.

Q. General Naumann, just before the lunch break, you had been telling us about the discussions you had with the accused on the 19th of January, 1999. You had earlier told us about four points, and I think we got to the fourth point, which had to do with the perceived non-compliance with the October 25th agreement. Can you tell us at this time, sir, what the particular issues were that were discussed on the 19th of January in that respect?

A. Well, we discussed the excess number of police officers who obviously had been brought back into the Kosovo area; we discussed the non-compliance in terms of disproportionate use of force by police forces, as well as by military forces; and also the fact that armoured units were not in the garrisons, as it was agreed upon in the statement which we discussed earlier on here in these court proceedings. And in order to substantiate our claim of violations, we handed over a list of I believe ten incidents where we believe that the Serb security forces really had grossly violated the agreement.

Q. And can you describe, if you would, please, how the accused responded to your indicating that there was non-compliance and providing him with details of the non-compliance?

A. Well, our accusations or allegations were not accepted, we never got a reply to the list which we had handed over, and our statement was rejected by Mr. Milosevic. ⁷⁰⁰⁸

Q. In particular, about disproportionate use of force?

A. In particular that, yes.

Q. Was there any comment about increase in troop movements or anything like that?

A. Well, not from Mr. Milosevic's side. From our side, we indicated that we had seen increased troop movements outside Kosovo, which were referred to as winter manoeuvres, something like that.

Q. And can you describe for us, if you would, please -- do you know what he meant by "winter manoeuvres"?

A. Well, I think that is what everyone understands with that, that all military forces used to train occasionally, and when there were winter manoeuvres, winter exercises was used, we knew that the forces were out of the garrison, doing military exercises, routine exercises. The unfortunate connotation was that it was -- that these exercises took place so closely to the Kosovo area, and that with the deployment of the forces into the field, of course reaction time for an eventual deployment into Kosovo was shorter than if they had been in garrison.

Q. I see. Now, when you provided this list, what was Mr. Milosevic's response, if any?

A. Well, the usual polite response: We'll look into that.

Q. And did you in fact subsequently get anything back from the accused --

A. No.

Q. -- concerning that list or --

A. No, we never got anything back, but presumably that is also due to ⁷⁰⁰⁹ the development of the situation and the evolution of the situation. As you know, soon thereafter, the Rambouillet/Paris process started, and so these incidents, I think, were more or less overtaken by the political events.

Q. Now, how long was that meeting, sir?

A. It was approximately, I think, seven hours.

Q. And who was present in terms of the Yugoslav side?

A. It was, as I had stated earlier, Mr. Milosevic, Mr. Milutinovic, Mr. Sainovic, the foreign minister, Jovanovic, and the gentleman whose name I always have difficulties to pronounce, I think Bugarcic.

Q. Now, you've earlier, sir, taken pains to explain to us that both you and General Clark were somewhat reluctant in order to take this task but that you did go out on orders and fulfil this. As part of what you were to do, did you deliver any kind of a warning?

A. Well, we stated that NATO would not watch without action the ongoing escalation and the increase of violence and that Mr. Milosevic should not be under any illusion that NATO would not be prepared to act.

Q. Now, after you had this meeting, I take it you prepared a report and went back to -- you went back to NATO and reported on this meeting; is that correct?

A. That's correct.

Q. And at some point you had handwritten notes, and those notes have been transcribed in your written statement, is that correct, sir?

A. Yes. Most of it. As you may have seen from my handwritten notes, there are some elements of assessment in it. We did not include ⁷⁰¹⁰ assessment elements in our written reports to the council. We provided the factual information, what had happened, how far we had come, and we reported on our -- I should say on our impressions the assessment part in a verbal way to the council.

Q. Sir. Are you able to share with the Court your impression of Mr. Milosevic during your meetings?

A. Well, in -- yes, I can, Your Honours. During this meeting, I had the impression that Mr. Milosevic was no longer, I should say, amenable to arguments from our side. He seemed to be set on a certain course, and he -- he did no longer accept our main argument which we had used in October that Yugoslavia should be a part of Europe, a respected part of Europe, and not a country which by its own behaviour puts itself outside the community of European nations. That argument did no longer fly during that meeting. Perhaps -- and that was also an impression which I had at the time.

Mr. Milosevic was also disappointed that we on our side hadn't been able to, if I may say so, restrain the KLA. He certainly had hoped that in return for what he had done in complying with the 25 October agreement that the KLA would refrain from action, but perhaps his expectations had been higher than one could reasonably have had since it's always a -- is an evolution which goes much farther back than 1998. And he obviously saw no longer a chance to come to terms with the KLA in a way which we had expected he could consider them, namely, a peaceful way.

Q. As a result of your discussions with the accused, was it clear to you that the accused knew that there was a distinct risk that Yugoslavia ⁷⁰¹¹ would be bombed?

A. Yes. Mr. Milosevic knew that NATO had the capability to really inflict serious harm on Yugoslavia. I think he also learned from our -- from our interventions that there was a determination to act if necessary as a last resort, if everything else had failed.

Q. Having -- sorry. Having made that clear to the accused, did he respond in any way?

A. Well, as far as I recall, he -- he angrily said to us on one occasion, "I know that NATO has the ability to destroy Yugoslavia." And if I recall it properly, he also accused us that if we contributed to that, that we would be killed here as well.

Q. Did he express any concern?

A. Mr. Milosevic, you mean?

Q. Yes.

A. Well, as I have said in my -- in my written statement, he said, "Well, you could do what you wish. I do not care." And I think that was another indication that he had given up on believing that we could find a solution.

Q. Now, I believe you've told us earlier, General, that it was clear that you and General Clark wanted to negotiate or deal with or have meetings with the accused, Mr. Milosevic. You did so. Did you, after these meetings, deal with any other authorities of the FRY or the former FRY?

A. I never had any other contact with any other authority of the FRY.

Q. Why was that? ⁷⁰¹²

A. Well, that -- then the process was taken over by the so-called Contact Group. The Contract Group consisted of France, Britain, United States, Germany, Italy, and Russia. They took the crisis management over in this phase. NATO was not to form a part of that negotiations, and in my NATO capacity I had no access to the negotiations, and I had influence on them.

Q. Now, sir, I'm going to draw on your experience as a military general, if I may, and looking in retrospect at what occurred in the spring of 1999, are you able to indicate from just your military experience whether what appears to have occurred in the aftermath of -- in March and April, et cetera, of 1999, whether or not that required any planning, and if so, whether it would -- what groups would have to have been involved in that?

A. Well, looking at the scale, complexity, and magnitude of the operation which later on the Yugoslav forces carried out in Kosovo, it seems to me that such an operation cannot happen without careful preplanning and preparation. And if we had to do this in a NATO country on a national basis as Yugoslavia did it, it would require, I should say, preparation which may last three to four months or something like this. So the beginning, the decision, must have been taken, if they applied our standards, by the end of 1998. It was -- if you look at it, it was without any doubt a carefully planned and carefully executed operation which, by the way, started well before the first NATO bomb was dropped.

Q. Now, you mentioned earlier about in the discussion with the accused giving an example of how forces might be used in your own country ⁷⁰¹³ of Germany to deal with terrorist groups. Are you aware of anything from General Perisic about the use of military forces for internal security action?

A. In -- I had only one meeting with General Perisic and that was the one on 24, 25 October 1998. And in this discussion which General Clark and Perisic and I had, he gave us the impression that he did not want the Serb army to be committed and employed in operations against citizens of Yugoslavia.

Q. Are you aware what happened to General Perisic subsequently? Did he remain in office?

A. No. He was ousted. I think it was by -- somewhat in November or so 1998. But I recall as a statement of Perisic which may play a certain role, he told us that he is fully aware that NATO could destroy the Serbian army if NATO wishes to do so and that his interest is to preserve, as far as possible, the integrity of the Serbian army which he described, and I think that is a verbal quotation, as the only democratic institution in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Q. Now, sir --

MR. RYNEVELD: Turning to paragraph 44, Your Honours.

Q. Did you have any conversation with Mr. Milosevic about the military problem in Kosovo?

A. Yes. During the discussion which we had, Mr. Milosevic stated his belief that the Yugoslav armed forces could destroy, annihilate, eliminate the KLA within a couple of weeks.

Q. I see. And you've told us about three conversations you had. Do ⁷⁰¹⁴ ^{BLANK PAGE} ⁷⁰¹⁵ you recall which one of these conversations -- which one of these three meetings that conversation may have taken place?

A. I'm not entirely sure whether it was the October or the January conversation.

Q. Now, at some point, sir, you're aware that the KVM withdrew from Kosovo, and what can you tell us about - from what you know in your military experience - about the type of tactics that were used after KVM withdrawal?

A. Well, as long as the KVM was in place, we had the impression that the impact on the Serb security forces was to some extent a restraining impact. They did not want to give too much evidence of severe violence. When the KVM was withdrawn, we saw an increase of violence, and this restraining effect had gone. On the other hand -- and some of -- perhaps, Your Honours, you may accuse us, when you hear that: Why did you then insist on the withdrawal of the KVM? Our problem was that we had 1.400 or more unarmed people in the territory of Kosovo, and we simply did not want them to be hostages should there be a further escalation.

Q. When you say "escalation" of violence, were you able to determine, from the information you had, as to what Serb forces were involved in this and to what degree?

A. Well, not in detail, sir, I have to say, since with the withdrawal of the KVM, of course, I should say, the detailed knowledge of what happened on the ground decreased to some extent. We then had to rely on technical intelligence. And as you may remember, the weather conditions in this part of the year 1999 were not too favourable in the beginning of ⁷⁰¹⁶ March to allow us to follow with our technical gadgets the events on the ground as closely as we would have liked.

Q. Were you able to determine whether or not the VJ was involved in any way?

A. Based on some intelligence, we came to the conclusion that the VJ was involved.

Q. How about the MUP?

A. The MUP was definitely involved. I think most of the actions were carried out initially by the police forces.

Q. From what you could see or determine, based on your military experience, was there any coordination between these two forces?

A. We had seen incidents where obviously the VJ had been ordered to hand over materiel to the MUP, which then the MUP used. I also came to the conclusion, when we looked at the entire picture which was unfolding, that the operations were coordinated and that the central command for these operations was somewhere in Belgrade.

[Trial Chamber confers]

MR. RYNEVELD:

Q. Now, were you aware at all of any particular units or armies or corps that were involved?

A. We came to the conclusion that the VJ 3rd Army Corps, with the headquarters in Nis, was the coordination centre, but on the other hand, the command and support which was necessary to sustain such an operation I think required support from elsewhere. So it was not the 3rd Army alone. The chain of command was presumably somewhere -- the 52nd Corps, which was ⁷⁰¹⁷ in Pristina, then running up to the 3rd Army in Nis, and from there to the General Staff in Belgrade.

Q. One final area, sir. There came a time, I take it, in March of 1999, that you're aware that Ambassador Holbrooke saw the accused, Milosevic, on one final occasion. And thereafter, were you present, sir, when he reported back?

A. I was present at the council meeting which followed thereafter. Ambassador Holbrooke had been sent to Belgrade after the Rambouillet/Paris process of negotiations had broken down, and that was a last attempt to avoid hostilities. And he reported back that Mr. Milosevic was not prepared to negotiate, which meant at the same time that the political, diplomatic options had all failed. And with that impression, shared with the NATO council, the NATO council discussed the situation and then eventually authorised the Secretary-General to execute the operation.

Q. And by executing the operation, are you talking about acting on the activation order?

A. Well, the activation order was in place. What I mean with "to execute the operation" was that the operation plans which had been presented to the NATO council for a limited air option, as well as for an air operation against the former Republic of Yugoslavia, were executed, and that was what I meant with "the execution order."

Q. Thank you, General. Those are my questions.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. RYNEVELD: Your Honours, just before the cross-examination starts -- ⁷⁰¹⁸

THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, Mr. Ryneveld, please.

MR. RYNEVELD: Sorry. Just before cross-examination starts, I'm asking if perhaps the Court might consider reserving five minutes at the end of today for a somewhat urgent administrative matter to be discussed. I just thought I'd announce that now. Thank you.

JUDGE MAY: Just remind us, if you would.

MR. RYNEVELD: Thank you. Cross-examined by Mr. Milosevic:

Q. [Interpretation] General Naumann, is it true what I'm going to read out to you now:

[In English] "The attack on Yugoslavia constitutes the most brazen international aggression since the Nazis attacked Poland to prevent 'Polish atrocities' against Germans."

"Polish atrocities" are under quotations. [Interpretation] Is that true?

A. I would violently disagree with that statement.

Q. That is the position of Walter J. Rockler [phoen], former Prosecutor, Nuremberg war crimes trial. On the 10th of May, 1999 was when it was given and when it was published.

JUDGE MAY: [Previous translation continues]...go into it. It's another opinion.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I asked whether it was true, Mr. May.

JUDGE MAY: You got the answer. It isn't. Yes.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] ⁷⁰¹⁹

Q. You, as a general of the German army, who has reached the topmost ranks and has a long career behind you, what do you think about the fact that your country, on three occasions in the twentieth century --

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, we don't want this -- we don't expect to hear these generalisations. They're quite irrelevant. We're dealing with events now in 1999 and 1998. Restrict your questions to them.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, please. Would you bear in mind the fact that the witness spoke about our discussions and arguments, and he even mentioned that I told him that NATO did not have the right to threaten Yugoslavia; and that he conveyed these threats, together with Clark; that those threats had a political background to them and that he spoke about that political background publicly, and indeed here too. I therefore do have the right to examine him with respect to the circumstances and the political background and positions from which he departs in his presentation, and you cannot restrict that right of mine.

JUDGE MAY: Most certainly we can. You will ask questions which are relevant to the evidence which this witness gave. Now, if you want to ask him about the meetings, you should do so, but broad historical questions are irrelevant. Now, ask questions, by all means, about his evidence.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, this is linked to his evidence and testimony, Mr. May.

JUDGE MAY: Move on. Move on to another topic, please.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, I don't think it's very flattering for you to protect the witness in this way. ⁷⁰²⁰

JUDGE MAY: He is not being protected. The only protection is that of the Court against its being abused by you. Now, we'll continue.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. How do you explain the fact that within the former Yugoslavia, a support for the aggression in 1999 you found precisely in those forces in Kosovo which were on the side of Germany in World War II, fought on the side of Germany in World War II?

JUDGE MAY: What's the relevance of this? What's the relevance of this?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The relevance is that we are discussing the highest representative of NATO to take the floor here so far, and he was the top most military functionary of Germany, which played the leading role in breaking up Yugoslavia and that is precisely the subject of what we're talking about here in this room.

JUDGE MAY: We'll stop there. The General can deal with that allegation since it may have some relevance.

What is alleged is that Germany played the leading role in breaking up Yugoslavia. General, you've heard that allegation. Was it your motive to do anything like that?

THE WITNESS: I can assure you, Your Honours, it was not a motive. I have heard these allegations repeatedly as a German citizen and as a German military. Mr. Milosevic may remember that Germany executed a huge degree of restraint when all these events in the former Yugoslavia started. We're talking here about the fourth war which Mr. Milosevic ordered his forces to unleash. In the first three, Slovenia, Croatia, and ⁷⁰²¹ Bosnia-Herzegovina, Germany executed the utmost restraint. But when we saw at the end that no other way was possible to restore peace and stability in a region of Europe which is not too far away from Germany, then we joined the consensus in NATO.

It was a difficult discussion in my country, Mr. Milosevic, very difficult. And I myself have very often stated, when I was still the Chief of Defence Germany, that Germany, due to what it did in World War II, for which it tried to really to draw consequences and conclusions -- I may remind perhaps this high court that Germany is presumably the only country in Europe which bans by constitution a war of aggression, and no German citizen has ever violated that constitutional ban. That is, I think, a clear consequence of what World War II meant. But we also came to the conclusion, and for that reason Germany participated in the end in the Kosovo operation, that sovereignty means that a head of state is not allowed to do to his citizens whatever he wishes to do, that sovereignty is a responsibility to protect the citizens and to make sure that they can live under the conditions of pursuit of happiness. And when we saw that there is a country in Europe which is not able to do this and willing to do this, we joined the consensus in NATO and participated.

JUDGE MAY: Now, Mr. Milosevic, we've dealt enough with history. Let us deal with the witness's evidence. You were at the meetings, so you've got the opportunity to rebut what was said, if you want to, and ask the witness about it. He made one or two very serious allegations, and you should deal with them in your cross-examination, but there has been ⁷⁰²² enough history now.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I will come to those accusations in due course, Mr. May, but may I deal first with what the witness has just said?

JUDGE MAY: No. That was an answer to your allegation at the beginning. He was given an opportunity to answer it and now that has exhausted that topic. Let's move on to something else.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Well, a moment ago the witness said that I used my forces in wars in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, and because during those wars I was President of Serbia, I don't know what army it was that I had and what army Serbia had in the wars in Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia, and I'd be very grateful if --

JUDGE MAY: Very well. Those are other matters subject to this trial at a later stage. They're not, for the moment, relevant. Now, let's move on. You don't need to stop to argue about that.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Now nothing is relevant. Excellent, Mr. May.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Naumann, do you know what Germany chose the 6th of April, 1992 to recognise the independence of Bosnia-Herzegovina on the day when Hitler bombed Belgrade in World War II?

JUDGE MAY: Really, Mr. Milosevic, this kind of question is getting us nowhere. If you are suggesting that this witness is biased in some way, then you must put it clearly to the witness, but general ⁷⁰²³ allegations of that sort are of no assistance.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, this is not an accusation of any kind. It is a question based on the fact that Germany did proclaim the recognition of the independence of Bosnia-Herzegovina on the 6th of April, and on the 6th of April 1941 Hitler, without any intimation, bombed Belgrade and destroyed it. And I'm asking now --

JUDGE MAY: I'm not going to permit this sort of accusation. If you can't cross-examine this witness properly about his evidence, then the cross-examination will be brought to a stop. Now, you know what evidence he gave, and you should be dealing with that.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Are you forbidding me to question the witness about his positions, Mr. May, about his political --

JUDGE MAY: Yes. It's totally irrelevant.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Anything that has to do with his public appearances and statements?

JUDGE MAY: If you want to cross-examine him about something he said in public, you can certainly do that, but let's move on to it.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. I'll start from that end, then.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Naumann, at that time you were inspector general of the Bundeswehr. That is actually the chief of the army, right, the inspector General of the Bundeswehr? In European Security Magazine dated 1995, volume number 1, page 8, you say:

"Germany has been united since the 31st of August last year. It ⁷⁰²⁴ is free from occupation troops, and in this way fully sovereign for the first time since the days of Richelieu. For the first time in 300 years, we have the satisfaction of not being an object of external pressures either from the East or the West. In this way, our country has the possibility of acting politically rather than reacting and can put all of this on a firm basis in NATO and the European Union. This only enhances the responsibility of Germany."

Mr. Naumann, what do you mean when you say that from the days of Richelieu up to 1994, that is to say at the time between 1914 and 1918, when you waged the First World War, and from 1933 until 1945 in the days of Hitler that Germany was denied the privilege of not being subjected to external pressures? So what is the novelty of this all?

JUDGE MAY: I've already said that history is not relevant. Now, let's move on. Find something which he said about Yugoslavia and you can ask him about that or about these particular events we're dealing with in the trial. Of course you can ask about that. But irrelevant matter just wastes the time of the Court.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Do you not wish to answer this question?

JUDGE MAY: No. What the position of Germany between Richelieu and 1914 or whenever it is is totally irrelevant. Now, let's move on.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] And -- all right. Is this question relevant, Mr. May? In the light of what I've just quoted, I would like to ask Mr. Naumann why the borders in the Balkans now, with smaller ⁷⁰²⁵ variations, are the same as they were in the Second World War.

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Naumann, you haven't answered -- General, I should say, you haven't had the chance to answer anything yet. Is there anything you can usefully say about that?

THE WITNESS: Well, Your Honours, first of all, I think that Mr. Milosevic is -- is really to some extent confusing one issue. I was a German general serving NATO. I did not act on behalf of Germany. I acted on behalf of 16 sovereign nations of which Germany is one. And I think, Mr. Milosevic, I told you that on one of our first meetings that it is absolutely irrelevant which uniform I'm wearing. I'm there as a military representative of NATO and not of a NATO country. That is my understanding of my duty as chairman of the Military Committee, or was my understanding, I should better say.

And this regard with respect to these historical issues, I can only repeat once again that in all actions, all counsel which I provided to NATO council - and that is the only the subject here - I did never get any German instruction by no one. I never acted on behalf of Germany. The only thing I did was to act on behalf of the council and the direction which I was given by the NATO council and the NATO Secretary-General. So the question of my German past did not play the slightest role. I would really, Your Honours, for the record, state here I never got any national instruction in the entire Kosovo crisis.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. I'm not asking you about instructions only, instructions from your country. I'm asking you about a -- I'm asking you as a German general who ⁷⁰²⁶ is familiar with the policy of his country and especially the military aspect. A little while ago, you said that the KLA was considered to be a terrorist organisation, that this was a separatist movement. So that is not being contested; right? Or is that being contested? Is that what you said? Is that what you said? Was that your position?

A. The -- Your Honours, if I may respond to that. Of course we initially -- and you can read this in NATO statements. Initially we considered the KLA to be -- to act as terrorists, and that is stated, for instance, in the Luxemburg minutes of May 1998. But it would be an absolutely flawed perception if you simply wanted to convey the message that the KLA triggered it all. That is not true. The KLA is to some extent a result of politics which were pursued by your government. It's a result of suppression, of denying of human rights. And you may recall your own role in the Dayton process where it was you who prevented that the issue of Kosovo was discussed or that some of the delegations were of the opinion that one could not find the solution to the Balkan's problem without finding a peaceful solution for Kosovo.

So please, Mr. Milosevic, try -- do not try to portray the issue too one-sidedly. You know better than, presumably, I what led to the foundation of the KLA and to the failure of the violence-free process.

Q. Mr. Naumann, please. Are you asserting that Dayton was devoted to Kosovo as well? As far as I can remember, Dayton had to do with peace in Bosnia. That is how it was entitled as well, "General Framework, Peace Agreement on Bosnia." And I imagine that neither you nor I are saying that Kosovo is in Bosnia. So Kosovo was not the subject of any ⁷⁰²⁷ discussions in Dayton, or perhaps is your information different?

JUDGE MAY: Let the witness clarify that.

THE WITNESS: Of course Kosovo is not in Bosnia. We are on full agreement on that. And of course the Dayton Agreement does not deal with Kosovo. But you may remember very well in negotiations and in the final phase there was an attempt made by a couple of people to discuss Kosovo and that this attempt failed because you didn't want to discuss it.

Q. Since I asked you about this separatist movement, can you give me an answer to the following: Why the protagonists of the struggle for various separatist projects in the Balkans have a continuity with the fascist allies from the Second World War?

JUDGE MAY: This is precisely the sort of irrelevance which is not going to be allowed. If you persist in asking these questions, Mr. Milosevic, your cross-examination will be brought to an end. Now, you come to some relevant matter.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I believe that all of this is relevant, but I hope that you won't consider it to be irrelevant if I ask the following.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. When you lectured at the Klausewitz Association on the 30th of August 1999 to the elite, you summarised 1999. You said that, "We did not think it would last for 78 days. And without the pictures of refugees in the media, we could not have taken it for more than 78 days." So that is what you said. I am quoting you.

A. Well -- ⁷⁰²⁸

JUDGE MAY: Let the witness -- let the witness answer. Let him answer.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. But it's not being denied that you said this. Yes or no? Just say yes or no.

A. I do not deny that. I said this, yes.

Q. Well, then, let me put a question to you. You are certainly a soldier, and I'm a civilian, so you can give a better answer than this. Is there a war without refugees? Have you ever heard of a war without refugees, as you studied all types of military sciences? Yes or no?

A. There was, I think, never a war without refugees, but there is a difference between refugees which flee because of the effects of war and refugees which are driven out of their own -- of their homes and towns by military forces or police forces of the country to which they belong.

Q. Please. A moment ago, towards the end of the examination-in-chief, you said yourself that when the KVM withdrew, violence started. During this violence, after the withdrawal of the KVM, do you include in this violence the NATO bombing and the KLA offensive that carried out mobilisation parallel to the NATO attack on Yugoslavia? Do you include these two elements in violence, or when you refer to violence, are you referring to the violence of Yugoslavia?

A. If you had carefully listened to what I had to say, and provided that the translation was correct, you may have noticed, Mr. Milosevic, that I said that the violence increased when the KVM was withdrawn. That means clearly that there was violence before the KVM was withdrawn, and ⁷⁰²⁹ that is also that violence was there before the NATO bombs were dropped. And I think I said this explicitly.

Q. But the first reports, the first international reports, recorded flows of refugees only on the 27th of March, on the borders of Macedonia and Albania. Are you aware of that fact?

A. Mr. Milosevic, I think you have forgotten, and perhaps I may remind you - although you, as the former president of this country, should have known that - that thousands of people had left the country in 1998. They left because forces of your country executed violence in the province of Kosovo. You may also remember that the United Nations refugee relief organisation, the UNHCR, reported that 220.000 citizens of Kosovo, that is, citizens of your country, for which you were responsible, were living outside their villages, towns, and cities in fall 1998, and at this point in time no military action of any foreign country had taken place in your country. So please do not create the image that NATO caused it all. It had begun long before NATO dropped the first bomb, and you know that.

Q. Well, I understand what you've been saying, that without images of refugees, you could not have taken it for 78 days. Was it the same logic -- and this was the essence of your testimony, just as the essence of the efforts made by this illegal Tribunal, is to justify the aggression of NATO against Yugoslavia and to proclaim that it was Yugoslavia that carried out an aggression against itself, and that everything that happened, all the crimes that occurred, happened because Yugoslavia attacked itself, not because NATO attacked it on the 24th of March.

JUDGE MAY: Do you understand that question? ⁷⁰³⁰

THE WITNESS: Well, I understand it from the point of view of the accused, but I think the term "aggression" to be used in connotation with NATO's actions is presumably not the understanding of the majority of nations in this world.

You may remember, Mr. Milosevic, that a country which definitely is not a part of NATO, namely, Sweden, commissioned an independent inquiry on the Kosovo crisis and came to the conclusion that the NATO air operation was legitimate, although it had a legal deficiency, since it did not have the authorisation of the Security Council. But in this report, which I think is absolutely neutral, the legitimacy of NATO's action is not put into any doubt at all.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. As for the authority of the United Nations Charter and its obvious violation --

JUDGE MAY: We're not going into that now. This is going to be a matter of argument, and no doubt legal argument, in due course. The witness has dealt with what was a very general question. Now, can you ask something particular, and particularly relating to the evidence which he's given, as opposed to these general arguments.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Well, here, Mr. Naumann, in a special TV show of the ARD Television in Germany - and the authors are two persons, and it was broadcast on the 25th of October, 1999, at 2100 hours - you said, with regard to December 1998, I quote:

"In this period, the KLA played an unfortunate role. The KLA saw ⁷⁰³¹ a vacuum and took advantage of it. It showed in its zones partial territorial sovereignty. In this way, it no doubt provoked the Serb side, and the Serb side reacted just as communist dictators would react, and we see it now in Chechnya as well. If there is a terrorist organisation that crops up, then tanks and artillery are used to attack villages and towns."

Now, my question is the following: Is America led by communist dictators in the struggle against terrorism?

JUDGE MAY: I'm going to consider whether this cross-examination shouldn't be brought to an end. You have not taken the slightest notice of what you were told and you are abusing the right to cross-examine by these general questions. I'm going to consider the matter with the Trial Chamber.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] May I not ask the witness even about his own statements on television?

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE MAY: We're not going to stop you yet, but you have come very close indeed to having the entire cross-examination stopped. You must understand that the role of cross-examination is to ask the witness questions about his evidence. It's not to try and score political points, which you are doing. If you try and score political points, you'll be stopped. You're abusing the right of cross-examination and you're abusing the process of the Court. So it's a matter for you, Mr. Milosevic, whether this cross-examination continues and how long it's allowed to continue for. But you must understand this, that you've been formally ⁷⁰³² warned that if you continue in this way, it will be brought to an end.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, I must say for my own part, I found the General very frank and very candid in the evidence that he gave. For example, he said that he regretted that he was not able to have contact with the KLA, and I found that to be a very frank admission. You might want to ask him whether, as a result of the lack of contact with the KLA, whether the conclusions that he arrived at might have been in any way prejudiced. Well, I'll ask the General himself.

General, you said in your examination-in-chief that you were not able to have contact with the KLA, and you conceded that, in your view, it would have been better, in terms of your objective, in terms of what you were trying to do, to achieve, reconciliation and peace, if you were able to have this contact. So it has occurred to me that the conclusions that you arrived at might in some way have been affected by this lack of contact, by the lack of information that would otherwise have been available to you. Would you like to comment on that?

THE WITNESS: Your Honour, of course, with great delight. But first I really should say that I tried to describe the phase between October 25 and December 1998 in a, if I may say so, in a balanced way. I did not accuse one side of being responsible for the outbreak of hostilities and the increase of violence. I tried to convey to you, Your Honours, that both sides contributed to it. And what I had said in that statement Mr. Milosevic quoted a minute ago meant nothing but the fact that the disproportionality, which again and again was applied by the Serb forces, contributed to the escalation, and that, I think, has to be kept ⁷⁰³³ in mind.

Coming to your question, Your Honour, if we had had a chance to talk to the KLA, we might have been able - but I don't know for sure - we might have been able perhaps to de-escalate. And I said in front of this Court that, with hindsight, I believe we made a mistake by not being allowed to talk to the KLA. Whether this might have resulted in a peaceful solution or not, I simply cannot answer that, Your Honour, since, if I may say so, in all frankness, there are always two to tango, and if one side is not willing to consider peaceful solutions, then all discussions will at the end of the day fail.

So I believe there's a lesson learned from the Kosovo involvement. We should really try to do everything to contact all sides concerned, in all future crises, before we resort to the use of military force, since, after all, we are touching upon one of the basic principles of the United Nations Charter, and that is the sovereignty of nations. I'm fully aware - although it has tried to convey that I'm not aware of that - I'm fully aware of Article 2.6 of the United Nations Charter, which clearly forbids intervention. But as a last resort, if everything else had failed, and if there is a risk that thousands of people will be killed, innocent people, or will be expelled, then the international community must have an opportunity to act, and for that reason I dare to say the NATO action was legitimate.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. When you say "the international community," do you mean the United ⁷⁰³⁴ Nations or do you mean the regional organisation of NATO?

A. Mr. Milosevic, you may be aware that NATO is not a regional organisation under the premises of Chapter 8 of the United Nations Charter.

Q. I understand. But when you say "the international community," when you use that term, I assume that the institutions which represent the international community - the UN General Assembly, the Security Council - that those are them, and not the NATO committee or council. Is that right or not?

A. Yes, of course the United Nations are the supreme international authority. They are the only authority which can authorise the use of force. And only in cases - and we had such a case - where the Security Council fails to do its duty and to authorise military action, although the risk of considerable loss of life is imminent, one may come to different conclusions, as did the 16 nations of NATO in the case of the Kosovo intervention.

And you should not forget: This was not a decision which came easy for the NATO nations. It was a painful discussion. There were 16 nations which had to take a political decision. In many countries this decision had to be brought to the parliament and had to be agreed upon by 16 - or not in all cases - by a couple of freely elected parliaments. So I think also politically - although I'm, as a military, not here to justify political decisions - I think the political authorities of the NATO countries took the greatest pains possible to come to a balanced conclusion, and as a last resort they authorised the use of force. ⁷⁰³⁵

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, another area that you must attend to in your cross-examination is that part of the examination-in-chief where the General attributed certain words to you in a meeting that you had with him and, I believe, Mr. Clark. You were reported to have said, in relation to the Kosovar Albanians, "We will find a solution." And when asked for an explanation --

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I'll come to that, Mr. Robinson.

JUDGE ROBINSON: [Previous translation continues]... "same to them as we did in Drenica in 1945 or 1946." "What was that, Mr. President?" "We got them all together and shot them." You must deal with that.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I'll come to that, Mr. Robinson. And if you really wish me to, I'll come to it straight away. Actually, I don't know whether even a small child can have any doubts as to the absurdity that we're dealing with.

JUDGE MAY: Don't comment, Mr. Milosevic. You're not here to comment. You're here to ask some questions.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] How can someone who, five minutes prior to that, signed an agreement, after which, as Mr. Naumann says, everybody felt much easier, said that he has no intention of complying with the agreement but that he would shoot everyone, kill everyone? How can any reasonable being conceive of that? Not only because it would be a crime, but also because it goes against the grain of every assumption as to logic. And Naumann said that finally we have reached an agreement on an issue that was --

JUDGE MAY: You are here to ask questions. You are here to ask ⁷⁰³⁶ questions and not make a speech.

I take it from what's being said that this is challenged, and the accused is saying that he did not say this to you. Mr. Naumann, can you clarify that, please?

THE WITNESS: As I said in my statement, Your Honour, I cross-checked this with the other man who was present and who has exactly the same recollection. And as I also said in a response to your question, Your Honour, we did not comment on that, since we simply couldn't believe it, that anyone could say something like this. So I can only repeat what I have stated. That is my recollection. And as I had said earlier on, I will not say anything but the truth.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Well, precisely because that statement is so unbelievable, how come this astonishing statement on my part, if I gave it, was not used, when the NATO bombing started, in the media campaign which was launched, resorting to all means against Yugoslavia? Why didn't you make use of that statement? But you've just thought about it three years later. You've come up with this absolutely ludicrous statement. How come you didn't publish it anywhere?

A. If I may, Your Honours.

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

A. I have said this, as has General Clark said, that you made this statement in public long before this day today. And if I recall it properly, it is also mentioned in publications which were published in the United States of America by General Clark. So it's nothing new. ⁷⁰³⁷

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Naumann, for me this is quite new. I did not expect somebody of your rank to create --

JUDGE MAY: No.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Please, do you feel now that this is very doubtful from the aspects of material truth, when we bear in mind the fact that what you quoted, what you quoted me as saying about Drenica, was not what happened? Now, do you know -- are you aware of the fact that in the Drenica region, the war of the then Yugoslav army lasted a full two years, with the vestiges of the Balist formations which belonged to the Hitler coalition during the time of the Second World War, and that that struggle --

JUDGE MAY: We must come to a question. We're not here for speeches.

Are you aware of this history which the accused is putting forward, General, or not?

THE WITNESS: Well, I'm aware of, I should say the general lines of that part of history. After our meeting, I tried to dig out facts on this Drenica thing which was not known to me, and in the history books which I have been able to look into so far, I did not find sufficient details for that. But that, I think, is also not relevant since it was just my curiosity which drove me into that type of research to find out what really happened there. Presumably one has to read books which are written in a language which I don't understand and am not able to speak. ⁷⁰³⁸ ^{BLANK PAGE} ⁷⁰³⁹

JUDGE MAY: In any event, whatever happened is irrelevant as far as this trial is concerned. The issue is whether the accused said it or not. Do you have any doubt that he did?

THE WITNESS: Your Honour, as I said, I have no doubts that he did it, and I really cross-examined myself and my memory - which is known throughout, I should say, the German military as being a very good one - again and again.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Naumann, but it is clear to you that what you quoted as having happened in Drenica in 1945 and 1946 and which I allegedly repeated to you, that is to say that we would do the same again, was no kind of gathering up of Albanians and killing Albanians but a continuation of the war with the bands and groups which belonged to the former Hitler units and hid in those hills, and that nobody spoke about Albanians but bands, that nobody had gathered any Albanians in 1945 and 1946 in Drenica to kill them? Are you aware of that fact? Is it something you know about? It is a material -- it is in material opposition to the material facts what you're just saying.

JUDGE MAY: What are you putting? Did you say something then about bands being gathered to the generals? Is that what you're saying you told them then, Mr. Milosevic? What is it that you said to them?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, I am talking about what happened historically at that time, what happened in history.

JUDGE MAY: You can tell us all about history, insofar as it's relevant, in due course. At the moment, all that is relevant is what it ⁷⁰⁴⁰ is said that you told the generals.

Now, you've asked the general about history, and he's told you what he knows and nothing more, so there's no point going on about that. If you have some alternative case as to what you told them, if you say it was something to do with gathering together bands or something of that sort, then you should put it so that the general can deal with it. Otherwise, I think we have about exhausted this topic. Equally, you should put that you said nothing of the sort, if that is what you claim.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, at all events, and categorically, I did not say that we would gather them and kill them in Drenica, because that would be quite absurd. And I brought up a historical fact to the witness by saying that neither in 1945 or in 1946 did anybody collect Albanians in Drenica to kill them. But in 1945 and 1946, there was still going on with the vestiges of the Hitler army which was made up of Albanian army called the Balist. And now I'm going to add something else which has an even longer history between the First and Second World Wars --

JUDGE MAY: No, you're not. Now, if there is anything more relevant to this question, you can put it. The general doesn't know anything about the history. You can -- you can tell us about it when it comes to your case. This is what he says that you said to him, and there's no doubt about it.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, somebody who knows history, the history of his own country, could not say something like that at all. And that is why I presented this as an argument. It is a material ⁷⁰⁴¹ untruth, materially incorrect.

JUDGE MAY: This is the way in which time is wasted, with you arguing all the time.

THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

JUDGE MAY: Judge Robinson has a question.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] ... and that's my next question.

JUDGE ROBINSON: This is an important issue because it could go to mens rea and other elements that are crucial to the indictment. General, what language was the -- this interview conducted in?

THE WITNESS: Your Honour, you the mean conversation between Mr. Milosevic and --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Conversation, yes.

THE WITNESS: That was done in English.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Both General Clark and yourself and the accused spoke English?

THE WITNESS: Yes, we did.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. I asked a question. General Naumann, do you know that what you're claiming that I said happened in 1945 and 1946 does not correspond to historical truth?

JUDGE MAY: I'm not going to allow this. This is an argument that you are putting the whole time with the witness. The witness knows nothing about the history apart from what he's read in the books. This is what he says that you said. That's the importance of the evidence, ⁷⁰⁴² whatever the history of it is. Now, he can answer no further, so there's no point going on putting the same question again. Move on to another topic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] Very well.

Q. The BBC, on the 12th of March, 2000, broadcast a special programme entitled "Moral Combat; NATO at War," which was prepared by Alan Little. In that programme, to make a long story short, I have your quotation in answer to his question, which was: "Ambassador Walker, in the NATO council, presented the fact that peace was generally being violated by the KLA."

Did you say that?

A. If you have the quotation of the BBC, I said it --

Q. Yes.

A. I can't recall it at the moment, but I would like to make one point, Mr. Milosevic. I said in my evidence, and you may have heard that, that in the phase between beginning of November 1998 and December 1998, the majority of incidents was triggered, to the best of my knowledge, by the KLA. But I also stated that the response by the Serb security forces was again and again characterised by disproportionate force -- use of force. And that, I think, explains what I said and what I used as quotation of Ambassador Walker to which you referred to.

Q. And are you aware, Mr. Naumann, how many people were killed, citizens in Kosovo, by the KLA, both Serbs and Albanians and Turks and Romas? How many policemen were killed, how many soldiers, throughout that time, prior to your intervention? And are you bearing all this in mind ⁷⁰⁴³ when you're talking about the disproportionate or proportionate use of force?

A. Yes, Mr. Milosevic, I bear that in mind. And I think I said also in my written evidence which is in front of this Court that I have spoken to German police officers who were serving in Kosovo, who reported to me that KLA/UCK elements really misbehaved grossly in killing and torturing Serb police officers. And that is simply intolerable. On that point I think we are in full agreement. But one should never forget, first of all, how did it all come about; and secondly, who was in control of the spiral of escalation which later on led to a conflict for which we saw no other resolution.

And please don't forget, if you talk about the victims on the side of the Serbs, that there were hundreds and thousands of people in Kosovo, citizens of your country, who lost their life because of the action of your security forces. And it started all in this escalation in spring 1998, and you are -- I think you're aware of that. So don't try to -- to establish a balance which I think at the end of the day will not play in your favour.

Q. Mr. Naumann, did I hear you properly? Did you say that hundreds of thousands of citizens lost their lives in Kosovo? Is that what you said?

A. I said hundreds or thousands.

Q. Hundreds or thousands, or thousands, of citizens. Well, that's what I'm talking about precisely. Now, I'm precisely talking about that. Several thousands lost their lives in the war, several thousands in the ⁷⁰⁴⁴ war. Serbs died, Albanians, Turks. Romas died.

War is a crime, but as far as I'm able to understand, that war was launched by the NATO pact, Mr. Naumann, is that correct or not, the war against Yugoslavia?

A. Mr. Milosevic, according to the statements of your own authorities, approximately 500 civilians of your country were killed during the NATO air operation, and a couple of hundred military personnel. That, I think, is what was done. I do not hesitate to say that any innocent civilian who lost his life, regardless of which nationality, is one too much. By I also really dare to say, with good confidence, that we took the utmost pain to avoid casualties among the civilian population.

Q. Well, let's move on, and I hope we will be a bit more dynamic. But did I understand you correctly? The figures you've just quoted, as far as I was able to understand, they refer to the ones that you killed from the air, the people you killed from the air.

A. That is correct, yes.

Q. In your statement for the Senate Armed Service Committee in Washington on the 3rd of November, 1999, you said that the most important thing was, as you say, to question the myth that ethnic cleansing only began after the start of the bombing; isn't that right?

A. I said that. You have it in writing, presumably, in front of you.

Q. Yes. Therefore, you are endeavouring in every way possible to justify the NATO aggression by saying that the fact of the mass exodus, ⁷⁰⁴⁵ the mass exodus took place after the bombing, you're trying to challenge that and question it and to make it seem that it all began much earlier and that the exodus of the civilians was not the result of the bombing but, rather, the result of some sort of violence on the part of the Serb forces. Is that your point?

A. That's absolutely correct, Mr. Milosevic, and I don't know how often --

Q. Very well. All right.

JUDGE MAY: Let the witness finish. Let him explain.

A. -- how often I have to repeat that 220.000 citizens of your country were living under miserable conditions in October 1998, somewhere in the forests of Kosovo, because they were driven out from their homes by your security forces. So the exodus began before the first bomb was dropped.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Naumann, are you aware of the fact that people fled just from the areas where the KLA was waging struggles against the police and army? Do you know about that, that quite simply the citizens wanted to get away from an area in which there was shooting? The internally displaced persons would go to another village where they had relatives if there was shooting going on in their own village. Are you aware of that?

A. Well, I think that's one way to put it. I have heard other witnesses saying that they simply fled because security forces, police or someone else, or militia, simply drove them out of their homes, burned their homes and the villages, and they had nowhere to go but to live ⁷⁰⁴⁶ somewhere in the forest. And by the way, we took some aerial photographs of that.

Q. All right. And tell me this: How do you explain, in view of the proportions of the population and all the rest of it, why, then, if the refugees are the consequence of other reasons and not the NATO bombing, why, then, did 100.000 Serbs, during the bombing, flee from Kosovo? Who were they fleeing from then?

A. Well, unfortunately, I think some of them may have left their homes because of fear of NATO attacks. On the other hand, I think you will agree that NATO took really great pain to avoid the bombing of housing areas and things like this. We strictly targeted military targets. And that was also checked by international authorities, and they -- they agreed in their findings that NATO's rules of engagement were very strict and in full compliance with international law.

Q. If you say that you strictly targeted military targets, I wish to ask you the following: Here, for example, it is the front line that I have, and I'm quoting you, the question was: "Could I ask you it terms of authorisation of airstrikes what was the most difficult target or set of targets you had to authorise?" [In English] "[Previous translation continues] ...was the thing that sticks in your mind? [Interpretation] Your answer: [In English] "[Previous translation continues] ...I think difficult things was to really go for the first target in downtown Belgrade. We had -- General Clark asked us, the Secretary-General and myself, to authorise a strike against the police headquarters, Ministry of Interior..." [Interpretation] and so on. And you say that there was a ⁷⁰⁴⁷ hospital close by and that great care had to be taken that the hospital should not be hit. Of course, the hospital was hit. Now, I am asking you, in view of the fact that you say that Clark asked you and the Secretary-General -- now, did you, the Secretary-General and Clark, were you the body, the authority, which authorised the targets to be bombed?

A. I mentioned that example in one statement in public to indicate that we really took the utmost care in targeting areas even in downtown Belgrade. And General Clark had not been given the authority to target downtown Belgrade without special political permission, and to that ended to go to the Secretary-General. And he provided us with aerial photography of the target. That the MUP headquarters was a target which was targetable under international law is without any doubt, but unfortunately, we had this hospital right next to it. And I saw it on the aerial photography, and we asked General Clark to go back and to recalculate the targeting of this specific target in such a way that he could guarantee us with the utmost certainty that not a single window would be broken in the hospital. He came back. He assured us that this would be possible, and then the Secretary-General authorised this target. And on the very next day, we saw on the aerial photography, and we heard it also by your own media, that indeed not a single glass was broken in that hospital. It was absolutely unharmed.

Q. All right. And who authorised the destruction of the mining centre in Aleksinac and the mining town of Aleksinac with a civilian character and where there were no military installations? The bombing of ⁷⁰⁴⁸ Aleksinac, a mining town in the centre, in the heart of Serbia where the population is poor. Poor people live there. So their houses, et cetera.

A. Mr. Milosevic, I'm -- I really do not know every single target since it was not the task of the Military Committee to overlook every single target. What we did was to authorise, let's say, the general rules of engagement and to set the limits for the executing Supreme Allied Commander, and we closely watched to which extent he really remained within the limits. And I can report to the Court that SACEUR really scrupulously remained within the authorised limits. There were exceptions or there were -- there were stray bombs, as you know. But again I should say, so that we put the record straight, of the approximately 28.000 munitions which were dropped throughout these 78 days of the air campaign, 1 per cent failed, to some extent due to hostile anti-aircraft fire, to some extent due to technical failures or pilot errors. But that, I think, has to be said as well. And again I say if there were civilian casualties -- if there is one civilian casualty, Mr. Milosevic, it's one too much. But we did --

Q. All right. Please.

JUDGE MAY: We are going to bring this to an end. The time has now come. It's after 4.00. There is another matter to attend to. We will continue in the morning.

General, would you be back please tomorrow morning at 9.00 to conclude your evidence.

Mr. Milosevic, we've considered how long you should have and nature and manner of the cross-examination so far. We've borne in mind ⁷⁰⁴⁹ the significance of the evidence. We've come to the conclusion that you will have two hours more in the morning, so you should prepare your examination accordingly.

General, if you would like to retire now. We've got some other matter to deal with.

[The witness withdrew]

MS. ROMANO: Your Honour, I wish to go into private session.

[Private session]

(redacted)

--- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 4.05 p.m., ⁷⁰⁵⁰ to be reconvened on Friday, the 14th day

of June, 2002, at 9.00 a.m.