Milosevic Transcript 2003-10-23

²⁷⁹⁹³

Thursday, 23 October 2003

[Open session]

[The accused entered court]

--- Upon commencing at 9.06 a.m.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE: The next witness, who's had protection until giving evidence, is Ante Markovic. I trust the Chamber has a copy of a witness summary that has been signed by him a couple of weeks ago now and has been served on the accused in both English and B/C/S. My request is that, to the extent the Chamber judges it appropriate, the signed statement may stand as his examination-in-chief.

Before concluding what I have to say, may I have, well, 30 seconds or a minute in private session, please.

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

[Private session]

[redacted]

[redacted] ²⁷⁹⁹⁴

[redacted]

[Open session]

THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May.

JUDGE MAY: Just a moment. Just a moment. We, you know, cannot rule on these summaries to admissibility unless we have them in advance. I've not seen this before sitting down today.

MR. NICE: Yes. Your Honour, they were certainly sent earlier on my instructions, and Ms. Dicklich tells me they were with your legal officers on Monday, or they were sent to your legal officers on Monday because I had this problem, of course, in mind. And I think I mentioned last week that they either had been served on the accused and were forthcoming, but there was no reason for them not to be available to you a ²⁷⁹⁹⁵ long time ago.

JUDGE MAY: We'll look into that, but I haven't seen this. What is the -- we could quickly go through it.

Yes, Mr. Milosevic, you wanted to say something.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I only have two remarks, Mr. May. The document from Igalo has already been produced here. I don't know through which witness, and in public session. It's the document from the meeting when Lord Carrington was there, Veljko Kadijevic and myself, and this document has been under consideration, so it is under no restriction of any kind. However, Mr. Nice, of course, has overlooked this. My second remark, in connection with Jovic's book. I suppose Jovic himself can introduce it. Why should Ante Markovic introduce Jovic's book?

JUDGE MAY: The only relevance, I guess, are episodes which deal with Mr. Markovic himself, in which case he can -- is in a position to comment on them.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, it was certainly my recollection that the Igalo document had been produced. We searched for it last night in the various indices and couldn't find it. That's the reason I've taken the cautious step of seeking it again and then finding it was subject to Rule 70.

JUDGE MAY: I don't recollect it. I recollect talk of it, because having read my notes, there is talk -- mention of the Igalo agreement. But I do not remember the agreement. It is may be that it is in the -- in some of the Defence documents which were produced to Mr. ²⁷⁹⁹⁶ Samardzic or a witness of that sort, but I don't recollect it. But in any event, a search can be made.

Yes.

MR. NICE: In summary, of course, if I can just explain, of course, Mr. Markovic was the last Prime Minister of the federal -- equivalent to Prime Minister of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He gives an account of, in very summary form, of his years in office, ending in December 1991. And that includes an account of the accused's attitude towards the policies then being pursued, which will be of value in the overall context of the case.

He gives an account of the arming of the Bosnian Serbs. You can find that on page 11.

He gives a very brief account of the summary of military activity. On page 14, a reference to paramilitaries.

Then we come to page 17 to 22, which is a passage -- perhaps the most part of the evidence from the point of view of the trial, because the Chamber is not concerned to -- to determine which political policies are wrong or right, I don't suspect, and you see that there are personal contacts with the accused which are significant in what they reveal of him.

And then on page 19, a detailed account of what he was told about Karadjordjevo. That would obviously have to be given live, in any event, as would the meeting in The Hague and the last meeting that he had with the accused.

So that in reality much of -- or everything from 17 onwards will ²⁷⁹⁹⁷ have to be given live and there are quite a lot of references or many references to the accused in the earlier passages which I could touch on or deal with in detail as appropriate.

JUDGE MAY: Would it be a sensible way to go about it so that the evidence could be put into context - and I make this as a suggestion by myself, of course - that you summarise what's in the rest of the document as you go along but those references to the accused you deal with now.

MR. NICE: It sounds evidently sensible, and I can deal with that expeditiously.

JUDGE KWON: And speaking for myself, I'm not happy with the term "summary." If this document is to be admitted into evidence in one way or another, I think you will have to find another term for this document.

MR. NICE: Your Honour may remember that I made the point myself; this document happened to have been signed when we were only able to produce summaries. It was signed because the witness had been here and had then had to go away on account of the accused's ill health. And you never know when you may need a signed document, signed as to its truth. The witness may have to come back in the future. I entirely agree; from now on the word "summary" will not appear and it will be "statement."

JUDGE KWON: Has this witness ever given a prior statement apart from this?

MR. NICE: Given a prior statement indeed, and that's available should you wish to see it.

JUDGE KWON: That being the case, I think that this summary should give specific reference to the paragraphs in the -- of the prior ²⁷⁹⁹⁸ statements, page numbers.

MR. NICE: Generally, it would have done, but --

JUDGE KWON: Yeah, for the preparation of the accused, for his defence or anything else.

MR. NICE: And that's our almost invariable practice. Again, the problem here was we received at the last moment notice that because of the ill health of the accused it wasn't going to be possible for the evidence to be given. The summary had been prepared, and I think my recollection is that the witness only had time to go through it before flying away and we didn't get the annotations done. Normally they are done.

JUDGE KWON: Okay.

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE MAY: Well, we will admit this document on the ground -- on the basis that -- of Rule 89(F), but counsel must summarise, the witness must summarise those -- the rest of the document and those parts which deal with the accused must be given live.

MR. NICE: Thank you.

JUDGE MAY: We will see what the position is about the document, but I think we need to have the practice clear that if an application is to be made under Rule 89(F), the Chamber must have the document before the hearing and -- and not on the same morning of.

MR. NICE: Absolutely. And I'm only sorry that something went wrong somewhere, that you didn't have it at the beginning of the week or last week.

May the witness come in and -- ²⁷⁹⁹⁹

JUDGE MAY: Yes. Before we do --

MR. NICE: Sorry.

JUDGE MAY: -- just a question of timing. We cannot sit beyond 1.45 today. We've got -- there's another case coming in to this court in the afternoon, in any event. Obviously this is an important witness.

MR. NICE: And one who is very anxious about having had to have come back twice already. I'll just have to see how I can do, I think.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. Very well. We'll have the witness, please.

MR. NICE: The exhibits, I think, will come in with this witness in two or three different numberings, because as I've already explained, I'm going to deal with them as swiftly as I possibly can. And although I shan't be touching the extracts from Jovic's diary in any detail or at all, simply to draw to your attention that they're there, you'll find, I think, that they're highlighted as potentially relevant passages should the Chamber have any time to read them outside court.

[The witness entered court]

JUDGE MAY: Yes. If the witness would take the declaration, please. And would you stand to do so.

WITNESS: ANTE MARKOVIC

[Witness answered through interpreter]

JUDGE MAY: Thank you. If you'd like to take a seat. Examined by Mr. Nice:

Q. Your full name, please.

A. Ante Markovic. ²⁸⁰⁰⁰

Q. Mr. Markovic, did you on your last visit to The Hague prepare, in cooperation with the Office of the Prosecutor, a document called a summary but signed by you as to its truth and accuracy?

A. Yes.

Q. A couple of qualifications or corrections identified yesterday; is that a document that is true?

A. Yes. Mr. NICE: Your Honour, may that be given an exhibit number. And for registry purposes, I can announce that there's no problem with distributing the document. Nothing will be redacted.

THE REGISTRAR: It's 569, Your Honours. Mr. NICE: May the witness have a copy in front of him in B/C/S to follow should he wish.

Q. Mr. Markovic, by way of general summary, you were the last effective Prime Minister of the SFRY from the 16th of March of 1989 up until the 20th of December of 1991. And I think the position is you have avoided making any comment publicly on matters with which we are concerned since that date.

A. Yes. This is correct. After almost 12 years, this is the first time I'm speaking in public.

Q. Your -- I'm going to call it a signed statement and a statement, because the word "summary" is inappropriate. Your statement sets out your background; your education as an electrical engineer, your long history in business and industry until you were persuaded in 1982 to enter politics, thereafter having roles as president of the executive council and ²⁸⁰⁰¹ president of the Presidency of the Republic of Croatia until you became the effective Prime Minister, by title president of the Federal Executive Council, on the 16th of March of 1989, being at all times a member of the Communist Party, still working as a businessman.

A. Correct.

Q. Paragraph 5. When given authority to form a government, you were the first person to be able to make your own choice of office-holders, although in doing that, you consulted the republics. Of the various republics you consulted on a voluntary basis, which, if any, made demands for the position of favoured candidates?

A. The condition I put forward for accepting the authority to compose a government was to have the greatest possible freedom possible in such cases to form a government. I visited many institutions and had talks. I went to companies, to the various republics. And wherever I had talks - and this includes the highest bodies - no demands were placed upon me but everyone tried to meet my requests. It was only Mr. Milosevic who asked me for something quite definite. He wanted Serbia to have the minister of the interior.

Q. This is touched upon in an annex of the -- or this topic is touched upon in an excerpt from Jovic's diary. The position, I think, Mr. Markovic, is that in preparation for giving evidence you have reviewed passages from that book that you had already read and that some of those passages are produced as exhibits for the Judges to consider if it's helpful. Is that correct?

A. Yes, that's correct. I can say that I was at least a month late ²⁸⁰⁰² with my proposal for the government before the Federal Assembly because of Mr. Milosevic's request that at any cost he should have the post -- or rather, he should have control of the post of minister of the interior. I had my own candidate, Mr. Zemljaric, who was from Slovenia and who before that was the Prime Minister of Slovenia. Mr. Milosevic went so far as to insist, even after I offered him other solutions - I offered him the post of minister of foreign affairs for Serbia - but he rejected all this and insisted that Serbia should have the post of minister of the interior. He put forward various names, I rejected every one of them because in my opinion none of them was suitable. Finally, he proposed Gracanin. Mr. NICE: Your Honour, can we just deal with the administration of the exhibits. May the file of exhibits for this witness be given a number, presumably 57 --

JUDGE MAY: Let us just check these. These are virtually all and concern --

Mr. NICE: Many, but not all.

JUDGE MAY: -- selections. Mr. NICE: Yes.

JUDGE MAY: There are one or two others, some of which have already been tendered, I see.

Mr. NICE: Yes.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. We'll get a number for it.

THE REGISTRAR: 570, Your Honours. Mr. NICE: So 570 -- I simply alert Your Honours to 570, tab 1, is capable of covering or covers the same general topic. ²⁸⁰⁰³

Q. Gracanin thus became office-holder. Why was it, in your judgement, that the accused particularly wanted the Ministry of the Interior? Paragraph 7.

A. I think it's quite clear. Throughout this time, Milosevic persistently insisted on this, and in this way he showed what it was he wanted. He wanted to put under his control the intelligence services at all levels; although, in the development of Yugoslavia and its structures as a state, this was no longer such an important institution because every republic had its own Ministry of the Interior, which was well developed and they had their own intelligence and counterintelligence services. The army had this as well. In spite of this, at the federal level there was still many functions and a lot of information linked up to the post of minister of the interior, which were not negligible.

Q. The man Gracanin eventually fell out of favour with Milosevic and we can see some reference to this - and I don't need you to expand on this - in tab 2 of the same exhibit, 570. Is that correct?

A. After we, as the federal government, developed our own conception and programme for reforms for democratisation of the country - and we were all working on this concept very correctly - there was no reason to exclude from this Gracanin and to have him function outside this team. And as he worked as part of this team, he accepted more and more the elements of this joint policy, those that pertained to his field of work. And, of course, having done this, he could no longer meet the demands made upon him by Mr. Milosevic.

Q. For about a year and a half after forming your government, you ²⁸⁰⁰⁴ had a stable and well-functioning government, the programme, paragraph 11, that introduced was one of economic reform and democratisation, you taking the view that the measures you took were not themselves reforms but were aimed at creating an environment where reform could happen. I think your programme included changes in politics, economy, society, and citizen rights, and it was a programme of several phases, starting with a stabilisation programme, moving through economic reforms towards privatisation, state reform, and a multi-party system. Is that correct?

A. Yes, this is correct. The first part of what you said, when you said it was not a real reform, it was a programme of stabilisation, to put a stop to inflation and to create the possibility of normal business and also all the other programmes which were to be implemented after this.

Q. In your signed statement, at paragraph 11, by bullet points you identify what you were aiming at, and I needn't run through all of those. The accused's attitude in the Federal Assembly expressed through delegates from Serbia, Vojvodina, Kosovo, and Montenegro was what towards your programme?

A. From the information I received from several deputies from Serbia, talks were held with the deputies, and they were given the task of toppling the programme put forward by the federal government. They said, "If we don't topple Ante Markovic now, we won't be able to do that in the next four years, and he is not favourable to us, so everything has to be done to topple him." However, at that session of the Federal Assembly, both bodies had a joint session, and I reported to them, putting forward all the basic elements of the programme, and I announced that the currency ²⁸⁰⁰⁵ would become convertible and showed them the new convertible currency, which no one knew had been printed -- and that's a special story, how I managed to do this. At that moment, there was such thunderous applause, such ovations in the Assembly, that no one could put forward any objections. However, when bills were tabled in parliament, a sufficient number of deputies were found who did everything to try to impede this process of reforms to make it more difficult and to slow them down. In Serbia, for example, salaries were increased, and this was not supposed to be done in that period of time.

Q. What was it in the programme, in your judgement, in the programme that you were putting forward that was objectionable to the accused and his supporters?

A. First of all, they had a global objection, saying that this programme would enrich the richer parts of the country and would further impoverish the poorer parts. Of course, a programme of reform for society is such that not every part of society is equally able to accept it and to implement it. Some need more time than others. And because there was a difference between the developed areas of Croatia and the underdeveloped areas of Croatia - Slovenia and Croatia were more developed; Serbia was in the middle; Macedonia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina were less developed than the average - and because of this, the government made a decision within the scope of the programme that the foreign obligations of Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Kosovo would be taken over by the government. This, as far as I can recall -- it's been quite a long time, but it amounted to, I think, 988 billion dollars. This was not an ²⁸⁰⁰⁶ ^{BLANK PAGE} ²⁸⁰⁰⁷ inconsiderable amount, which was transferred from the budgets of the republics to the level of the Federation, which was to pay all this. There were some other elements where they were favoured.

Q. I --

A. Do I need to expand further? There were other objections as well. One of these was --

Q. Just if I could interrupt you for one minute, Mr. Markovic. You realise that time is a problem, and I know that your concerns about coming back, so there's a balance between the fullest answer and getting things done in a summary way. If I can move you on just at this extent: What, in your judgement, if any, was the accused's personal objection to your programme? Which of his personal objectives was thwarted by it?

A. There are several elements here that we could discuss, but I'm afraid it would take too long, so I'll try to be very rational with time. Number one, the implementation of the reforms of the state, the state system, then the legal system because ultimately Mr. Milosevic used the street to topple his political opponents. He used a kind of political lynching, and he would no longer be able to do this if democracy developed.

Further, he was to be put on an equal footing with all the others, and he could not usurp the rights he was usurping, because such communication would be established between society, the parliaments, the governments, and all the political elements, because when a reform is implemented, not only an economic but also a political and social reform and society is democratised and the state is reformed and all this was ²⁸⁰⁰⁸ part of the programme in its entirety, then rights could no longer be usurped by one man, who although he had no legal basis was able to control everything.

Q. Thank you. You mentioned how --

MR. NICE: I should say, Your Honours, that through the witness the approach to the witness's democratisation programme and other aspects of the programme of the accused and of Jovic is dealt with in tab 3 of Exhibit 570, or touched on at tab 3.

Q. You've mentioned how salaries were raised. Can you tell us, please, what was or approximately what was the level of inflation when you took over the reins of government?

A. It was several thousand a year, the level of growth. And after the programme, regardless of the fact that because of the demands of the Serbian delegation, talks were prolonged and certain elements were implemented with delays, 10- or 15-day delays, the programme could not be implemented on the same day and this was one of the prerequisites for its success. But by April inflation had been reduced to zero, and in May and June I think it was even below zero, and this was the first time in any socialist country that inflation had been reduced to zero. Besides this, we managed to establish large hard currency reserves. According to the French governor of the central bank, we had larger hard currency reserves than many European countries, and they amounted to almost 11 billion dollars.

Q. Well, against your programme of economic reform, you've mentioned how salaries were raised. I think was there also a one-and-a-half-hour ²⁸⁰⁰⁹ strike staged in Belgrade on the 20th of December of 1989? Just yes or no.

A. Yes. It was organised, and about 600.000 people took part, protesting against the programme.

Q. Did the accused express his views - just yes or no - about the programmes reforms in closed sessions of the Serbian Assembly and the Serbian government?

A. I don't know that for a fact. I know that the Serb government, which met during those days, did give a negative response to the reform, and it also gave a negative answer, and so did the government of Vojvodina. They gave a negative answer, and the government of Montenegro had certain remarks and criticisms to make, which is logical, but in general terms this attitude meant that it was being rejected.

Q. You have explained how on producing as a surprise, and I think actually waiving the currency, you were able to attract wide support. Was the position - paragraph 15 - that by the beginning of 1990 opinion polls put your popularity higher than Kucan's in Slovenia and indeed higher than the accused's in Serbia, so that had you been able to have elections at that time you would have been almost inevitably somebody who couldn't be defeated?

A. Well, yes, that's right. All the opinion polls at the time spoke highly --

Q. Thank you.

A. -- of myself. They assessed me highly. And this, of course, emerged from the overall programme, a comprehensive programme which had ²⁸⁰¹⁰ never been put forward in Yugoslavia until then. And the conditions were ripe for it, and of course this was one of the reasons for which certain people felt envy, and they felt they could be politically jeopardised. Within the frameworks of the programme put forward by my government were necessary changes to be made, new laws to be drafted, and the constitution too for general Yugoslav elections to be held, and we wanted to go to the polls generally, for a general Yugoslav election straight away, but certain points in the constitution had to be changed and the representatives of the two republics came out emphatically against that, that is to say, of Serbia and Slovenia.

Q. I'd like to summarise a few matters from your statement. And I hope if I get them right, you'll be able to acknowledge that by a simple yes or no. You've told us about reducing inflation to zero, paragraph 16, and having foreign currency reserves I think of the order of 11 billion dollars and getting a positive balance of payments. And you also had some 65.000 private companies established during your very first year in office. All correct? Just yes if it is.

A. Correct. And we could even say that this was in -- within the space of a year and a half, because in the first nine months, from the 16th of March, 1989, until the 18th of December, when I came out with the programme, that same year, that is, I was diligent in preparing the programme and devised the preconditions for putting it into practice. And when it started to be implemented, then those were the results that were scored. And let me also add that the country's debts at that time dropped from 21 and a half billion dollars to 12.2 billion dollars. ²⁸⁰¹¹

Q. Paragraph -- thank you. Paragraph 18. One of the problems - and we've heard about this from another witness - was the primary issue of money, that is, the printing of money. You would not support subsidies to the agricultural sector by the primary issue of money, planning for agriculture to be supported from elsewhere and achieving a regime where agricultural product prices did not rise, indeed where you had stockpiles of wheat, corn, and other -- other commodities to intervene in order to control prices.

As part of your anti-inflation approach, you ended a policy whereby goods exported to the USSR were paid automatically by the bank without proof of receipt of the money from the USSR, and this, I think, is one of the various things commented on by Jovic in his book, you trying to stop that practice, you seeking to have proof of payment to the Yugoslav National Bank before providers could themselves be paid. And this, again, led to an improvement in the exchange rate for clearinghouse of the dollar.

And this is all covered, the first parts, I think, at tab 4, and the second passage is at tab 5 of Exhibit 570 in Jovic's book. Just yes or no, if I've summarised the position correctly, please.

A. Yes. You've summarised it very correctly. May I just add the following: It was customary in Yugoslavia before our government, and especially before this particular programme, to make great use of primary emissions for the financing of different areas and for financing the budget deficit, also to finance agriculture and the deficit that was incurred with the exchanges with the Soviet Union. Our firm decision as a ²⁸⁰¹² component part of our programme was that we must not use primary emission, even to finance the budget of the Federation, except in extraordinary cases, which were stipulated. So when it came to agriculture, we provided resources to assist agriculture within the budget, and we allocated these resources through the budget and not by printing money from the National Bank of Yugoslavia.

Now, as far as the Soviet Union is concerned, we had an enormous debt run up there.

Q. An eye to the time, Mr. Markovic, a matter for you, but it's really -- you may think -- if we can just deal with it in summary, it's satisfactory.

Just to get the context right, of course, the 1989 budget was the budget that applied to the calendar year 1990. And then at the end of 1990, you prepared a budget for the calendar year 1991. Correct?

A. Yes, that is correct.

Q. Before we come to the difficulties that you encountered in that second budgetary year - paragraph 20 of the signed statement - was there an incident involving the accused which you describe as "the robbery of the century"? Please just explain it to us in a couple of sentences and your contacts with the accused about it.

A. At the end of 1990, I received information from my friends that the Serbian government or Serbian National Bank had made a break-through, had broken into the monetary system, and that it had transferred to the Central Bank of Serbia, the National Bank of Serbia, 18.2 billion dinars for its purposes without any coverage. That was daylight robbery, pure ²⁸⁰¹³ and simple. And it shook the very foundations of Yugoslavia. Mr. Milosevic, who bragged a lot and said he was fighting for Yugoslavia, showed how much this was true and how much he was actually fighting for his own interests.

When I received that information, I called him up straight away. I got him over the phone, and I talked to him, and I was very sharp with him. Mr. Milosevic said he knew nothing about it, and I told him that there was not a single detail that was going on in Serbia which could have gone on without his knowledge and without him agreeing to it, let alone this kind of daylight robbery, to the tune of 2 and a half billion German marks.

All he said was that he would look into the matter. And I said, "There's nothing to look into. What you must do is take steps immediately and rescind that decision and put the money back." He said he would investigate the matter, and if that were true that that was what he would do. He didn't, of course, do that, but I convened a government meeting straight away and the government ordered the National Bank -- the Central Bank of Yugoslavia to take the most rigorous steps vis-a-vis the National Bank of Serbia and to have the moneys sent back as urgently as possible. And I think that indeed in the space of two or three weeks the money was returned. About 10 billion, I would say, approximately. However, the rest of the money was never returned.

Q. So that 1 billion approximate Deutschmarks shifted from the federal --

A. That's right, yes, 1 -- actually, 2 and a half billion marks were ²⁸⁰¹⁴ returned but 1 and a half billion we never got back.

Q. And the robbery had been achieved by manipulation of the banking system; is that correct?

A. Yes. Yes, through a manipulation of the banking system. It wasn't real money, it was quasi-money, the kind of transactions that banks have amongst themselves.

Mr. NICE: Your Honours, Jovic's account of this can be found at tab 6.

Q. Then we move on to the next year, the budgetary difficulties of 1991. By this time - paragraph 21 - were difficulties arising because Slovenia and Croatia were retaining taxes they would otherwise have paid to the federal budget, and this made balancing the books that much more difficult?

A. At first, when the budget was established for 1991, we still had normal conditions prevailing, regardless of what the National Bank of Serbia had done by breaking into the system of the National Banks of Yugoslavia. And we set up the budget in the same way we had set it up in 1990 and 1989 -- or rather, the 1989-1990 fiscal year. However, within the -- within that year, there was greater tension in relations between individual parts of Yugoslavia, especially Slovenia and Croatia and Serbia, or that portion which was under Milosevic's control, which wasn't only Serbia. And then at one stage, when they proclaimed their independence and secession, that is to say, Slovenia and Croatia, what happened was that they usurped the funds which were direct resources from the budget of the Federation, such as customs, taxation, revenues and so ²⁸⁰¹⁵ on. And in that way, in actual fact, the budget was left without a large portion of the federal resources, federal funds. And Serbia took the decision not to pay into the budget any more, so for a time it was only Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia, which were in fact the poorest regions or amongst the poorest regions at that period of time, and they were not able to cover the needs and requirements stemming from the responsibilities that the budget had to tend to. And so there were calls for emissions of money, financing by this method, but we can only do that up to a certain level, because the regulations did not allow us to do that and to become indebted in that way.

However, as major changes had taken place in the second half of 1991 and as there were major changes in the National Bank as well, because the governors had stepped down from the Council of the National Bank of Yugoslavia, the governors of Croatia and Slovenia, in fact, they had stepped down, so that it was impossible to keep emission and the printing of money under control, because it was the governors' council who would okay that.

And then what happened was what Mr. Milosevic did when he took over 18.2 billion, billions. This was primary emission. Money was emitted, printed, and the insistence was that those moneys should be used to finance various areas. I was not able to prevent any of that, so that I was -- became impotent in various areas and in that as well.

Q. [Microphone not activated] And indeed by the autumn and early winter of --

THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please. ²⁸⁰¹⁶

MR. NICE: Thank you.

Q. By the autumn and early winter of 1991, you found yourself isolated and alone in government - paragraph 22 of this signed statement - with no support and no chance of taking matters forward. And there came a time when you produced a report --

MR. NICE: Your Honour, I'm not intending that we should take the witness through this in detail now. He provided it to us yesterday. We've managed to get a draft translation. It's a document of several sides, but it summarises events. And I would ask that that may be added to the Exhibit 569 and perhaps become -- 570, I beg your pardon, and perhaps become its tab 16, if that would be convenient.

Q. Is it right that you prepared this report, Mr. Markovic? We're not going to go through it at the moment, but it's available for the Judges to read.

A. Yes.

Q. I will, however, ask you to do something with a rather shorter document, which is to read at this stage the statement you made when you finally resigned from office on the 20th of December before you left for Graz via Zagreb.

MR. NICE: And I wonder if this statement could become tab 17. Again, it's the subject of a draft translation and a final translation will have to be provided in due course.

A. "Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity of publishing the statement in its entirety of the president of the Federal Executive Council who has tendered his resignation. Allow me to read it out. It is ²⁸⁰¹⁷ very brief: The political crisis and the war have eliminated the results of the reform and the process of democratisation. Neither the support of the world or the European Community or the United Nations or the United States of America, the Troika, the 14 agreements on a cease-fire from Igalo to Geneva, The Hague Conference, were not able to make for a peaceful solution of the Yugoslav crisis but the flames of war broke out more and more, with thousands of casualties, destroyed towns and villages in Croatia. There's the threat to Bosnia-Herzegovina, the enormous number of refugees, mostly poor people who have been left without anything. The economic catastrophe is therefore becoming deeper with the growth of hyper-inflation, millions of people unemployed, the production reductions, a great deal of poverty for millions of people, the citizens of this country who are not to blame for any of this and which will necessarily lead to a social explosion of unprecedented proportions. For anything to be done to stop this imminent process of disintegration, each individual and all of us together must do everything to stop the war, to establish peace, and to enable the arrival of the Blue Helmets. And on the basis of general European principles and documents that have already been adopted, including The Hague one and the Brussels one, to seek to find a solution to the Yugoslav crisis through peaceful means and agreement. The Federal Executive Council in that process of stopping economic and social crises, as well as war devastation, has been made completely incapable of doing so. It has no competence or authority, nor is it allowed to work, let alone to wage any sort of policy with the budget for the following year, which from the Federal Executive Council is ²⁸⁰¹⁸ being required, should be financed and politically supported, because about 81 per cent of the budget goes towards financing the Yugoslav People's Army, which is quite outside the control of the Federal Executive Council. The revenue for this is found through emissions, which means the printing of money, and this contributes to the growth of hyper-inflation. This means not only a continuation of war and death and destruction but the loss of all economic and social prospects, and I always during my term of office fought to counteract this.

So I see no other possibility than to resign because I was always for democracy and peace and against war, and that is why a war budget for me is quite unacceptable and I cannot put anything like that forward and shall not do so. As the Assembly at the SFRY is no longer functioning as a parliament able to represent all sections of Yugoslavia and as the Rump Presidency is not qualified to bring in valid decisions, there is no organ or institution which would legally be able to give me back my term of office, and in that respect I am ready to involve myself in all activities that will be required of me by the lawful representatives of the country in order to prevent war, mutual killing, and in the quest for a peaceful and democratic solution to the crisis. Thank you."

Q. And then having read that resignation statement, telling journalists about your decision, you flew to Graz.

MR. NICE: Your Honours, I'm going to come back to paragraphs 23 to 50 at the end and deal with them as succinctly as I can. But may we now turn to paragraph 51.

Q. Mr. Markovic, having set the overall political scene in which you ²⁸⁰¹⁹ ^{BLANK PAGE} ²⁸⁰²⁰ encountered the accused, can we deal in a little more detail with your personal contacts with him.

First seeing him, I think, in Zagreb in about 1986 or 1987, in relation to a man Ivan Stambolic, of whom we've heard and who was a friend of yours. Did he organise a visit of Serbian officials to Croatia and was that the first time when you met the accused?

A. Yes.

Q. Thereafter, your first working contact with him concerned Stambolic. In summary, can you explain what happened?

A. One day, after a session of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Serbia at which Milosevic toppled Ivan Stambolic and threw him out of the Central Committee, as well as a number of other people who were together there with Stambolic, he called me up. At that time, I was president of the Presidency of Croatia. But for many years I was also one of the leading people in the Yugoslav Bank for Economic Cooperation. And as the director and president of Rade Koncar, which was one of Yugoslavia's largest companies, which I led for 24 years, I insisted greatly on organising businessmen to set up the JUBMES Bank for economic support to exports from Yugoslavia, and this proved to be an excellent idea.

Milosevic asked me whether I could find a place for Ivan Stambolic in that bank, the Bank for International Economic Cooperation. As I had a high regard for Ivan Stambolic and as I knew that his survival in Serbia would be, to say the least, bitter or practically impossible, I accepted to do this and I helped him come to the post of president of that bank. ²⁸⁰²¹ At the time, Ilija Marijanovic was the bank's president - he's another good friend of mine - and we met and we discussed this matter, and we discussed his tendering his resignation so that the road be open for Ivan Stambolic, and that's how Ivan Stambolic came to be elected general director of JUBMES and Ilija Marijanovic remained as his deputy.

Q. After that business encounter with the accused, you then found yourself having the mandate of forming the government. Was your appointment something of which he ever appeared to approve?

A. Well, there's a difference between courtesy and doing something just in informal terms and in actual substance. Of course, he would congratulate people, but of course everything that was done from the first day was done and geared towards making it impossible for the government to function at whose head I stood. On many occasions, relations were severed, and we could mention an instance in point; with respect to the re-election of Stambolic to the post of president of the Yugoslav Bank for reconstruction and development, for example, which is when --

Q. [Previous translation continues] ...

A. Yes. Which is when Milosevic asked me that the Federal Executive Council should not lend its support to the re-election of Stambolic. In fact, that bank was a bank of a large number of Yugoslav companies, export companies. But also, the federal state had its own interests there, and via the budget it had participation in the proprietary of the bank, but it didn't have the majority vote, and the state always wields great influence in that respect. So he asked me to propose on behalf of the Federal Executive Council that Stambolic should not be re-elected as bank ²⁸⁰²² president.

I refused to do that. There was no reason for that, and in fact Milosevic made it be known that he personally did not like to have Stambolic around and that he was interfering in certain affairs in Serbia, which, as he said, wasn't a good thing either for Stambolic or for Serbia, as he put it. I didn't know about all this, and I don't think it could have been proved either. So I refused to do that, and Milosevic then proceeded to write a letter, addressing it to the Federal Executive Council, officially asking the Federal Executive Council of the Yugoslav government not to support Stambolic's election. And I, of course, informed the Federal Executive Council about this and asked them to authorise me to function along those lines. I was given the power to do so, and I went to the bank Assembly meeting and lent my support to the re-election of Stambolic, who won the vast majority of votes.

Q. By this time --

A. Many companies from Serbia even voted for him. And may I just finish, please.

After that, Milosevic cut off all communications with me and the federal government for the next few months, which means that for him it wasn't important that a state system should be allowed to function. And Serbia was the largest republic in Yugoslavia. He didn't like his demands being rejected. And because of that, he blocked work between Serbia and the federal government.

Q. One point, not quite clear from what you said: At this time, was Stambolic also a potential political competitor of the accused? ²⁸⁰²³

A. In formal terms, he was not. And he did his best not to meddle in politics at all. However, by the positions he took, not only in Serbia but in Yugoslavia as well, Stambolic was a highly-respected man. He was a very diligent and honest man. And by his very existence, he presented a danger to Milosevic.

Q. Back to paragraph 53 for some general points. When dealing with the accused, was he straightforward and open in his manner of dealing? And a second point: We've heard some evidence that he dealt with people on a one-to-one basis. What was your experience?

A. Well, it differed. Milosevic very rarely said what he thought, and also he hardly ever did what he thought, so that it was very difficult to assess all this. You would have to take everything with a pinch of salt, some reservations, and look at the global trends and then deduce why he was doing something. So I never gained the impression that he did something along those lines, something that would be constructive for the whole country. I was not able to deduce that from anything, and I also have to say that never in front of me did he speak of a Greater Serbia. He always came out in favour of Yugoslavia. However, at the same time what he was doing was undermining Yugoslavia, in fact.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Markovic, why didn't Mr. Milosevic get his way in having Stambolic removed?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It did not depend on him, so he was not able to do this, because the Yugoslav Bank for Economic Cooperation was an institution at the Yugoslav level. It did not fall within his competence. It was quite independent. And if anyone was competent over ²⁸⁰²⁴ it, it was the federal government. So he was unable to exert any influence on the replacement of Ivan Stambolic, apart from persuading some members of the Assembly of the Yugoslav Bank to vote against him at the annual Assembly. But as I said before, the majority of delegates in the Assembly of JUBMES, this bank, voted in favour of Stambolic, not against him.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE: Thank you very much. The -- I'll just get the tab reference. The tab reference to what we've been dealing with is -- well, I'll find it in a second and come back to that. Is it 8? Sorry. I'll come back to that in a second.

Q. As well as the other things that he did following his unsuccessful attempt to remove Stambolic, were you attacked in the press by him and also by Jovic?

A. Yes. Not only Jovic. In this period of time, after I refused to support Milosevic's demand that Stambolic be replaced, there was a media campaign in Serbia and beyond. I think there was something in Montenegro as well -- against me. It was organised against me personally and not the Federal Executive Council. And there is something I would like to add. I don't know to what extent it's relevant, but when the NATO attack on Serbia occurred because of Kosovo, Ivan Stambolic contacted me. He was in Bulgaria at the time. And, of course, the two of us had socialised quite a lot while I was in Belgrade, and we had the same opinions and world view, so we became very close and were able to talk rather intimately. He told me when he called me from Bulgaria, "Ante, I can see how things are ²⁸⁰²⁵ developing. Although I have refused to do so up to now, I will have to become politically active." And I, of course, supported this. I felt that the time was coming when Serbia would need him. It seems that someone else understood this besides myself, which is why Stambolic disappeared.

JUDGE MAY: Let us make sure that we have for the record the right tab number for Stambolic.

MR. NICE: 14 was the -- I'm sorry not to have been it at my fingertips. Tab 14 was the one that dealt with the previous passage, and we're just moving on now to tab 15, which is paragraph 57.

Q. In the fall of 1990, Mr. Markovic, did the accused approach you in respect of a constitutional change and did he make a proposal to you?

A. This was when, let's say, an unofficial chat about this and that, when we were advocating constitutional reforms, at one point Milosevic said: "It would be best to go for changes of the constitution that would remove the Presidency, which is ineffective and which is in fact impeding work in this country, and that instead of the Presidency there should be a president. I propose, if you agree, that we both work on this, and we are prepared to nominate you for president," I waved this aside; I didn't take it seriously. In order to carry out amendments to the constitution, you needed the approval of all republics, and it was a very complicated and long process, which could not be realised that quickly. But I wasn't at all interested in that. If that's what you were referring to.

Q. Thank you. And this is touched on to the degree it is at tab 15. And can I now move to Karadjordjevo and the March 1991 meeting ²⁸⁰²⁶ between Tudjman and the accused. Following that meeting, did you have meetings with both Tudjman and the accused where they spoke of that meeting?

A. Yes.

Q. There are two ways of dealing with this: You can either, as it's set out in your statement, deal with the way in which their accounts to you had elements in common; or, whichever is most convenient for you, you can tell us item by item -- not item by item -- person by person what the accused and what Tudjman said to you. Can you give us an account of what you were told.

A. As I had received information about the topic discussed in Karadjordjevo, that is, the division of Bosnia and Herzegovina between Serbia and Croatia, and that Milosevic and Tudjman had agreed to carry out this division, and also there was talk of the dismissal of the Prime Minister, Ante Markovic, because he was in the way of both of them in implementing this division of Bosnia and Herzegovina. At my initiative, I had a meeting with Milosevic in Belgrade and with Tudjman in Zagreb. According to my custom, I spoke to both of them very openly. The results of these talks were that both of them confirmed to me that they had agreed to divide up Bosnia and Herzegovina. Milosevic told me this very soon. Tudjman needed much more time to admit this and to say that they had reached an understanding about it. They did not have identical interpretations of this agreement. Milosevic said that Bosnia and Herzegovina was an artificial entity created by Tito, that it could not survive, and that most of the Muslims ²⁸⁰²⁷ were in fact Orthodox who had been forced to change their religion. When I asked him directly or, rather, I asked both of them directly, "Do you think --" that's what I said to Milosevic, "Do you think that this will be so simple? Do you think you will be able to do this without bloodshed, without blood up to the knees?" Milosevic said he didn't believe that. He said that Bosnia and Herzegovina anyway has a majority of Serbs and Croats in the population so that there would be no conflict, and that they had envisioned an enclave for the Muslims, the two of them, and that the Muslims could live in that enclave.

I asked the same question of Tudjman. I said to him, among other things, "Do you think that people who will be born and who will die to the sound of gunfire, that this will not transform Bosnia and Herzegovina into a kind of Palestine? How many victims will there be? How much destruction? How much will be ruined?" Tudjman thought this would not be the way things would happen. He said, "Europe will not allow a Muslim state in its heart. We will gain the support of European. And as for your fears that there will be war there, all I can say is Bosnia fell silently," because in history Bosnia once fell without an armed struggle, so there is this saying in our language that Bosnia fell with a whisper. Tudjman said that the Muslims were anyway Catholics who had been forced to adopt Islam. So each of these men admitted and thought this was something quite normal. Tudjman even asked for my approval and support that Bosnia and Herzegovina should be divided.

With respect to the dismissal of the federal Prime Minister, both of them said this was true but each of them said that this had been ²⁸⁰²⁸ proposed by the other. But, of course, the other had no reason to disagree.

In any case, I parted with both of them totally dissatisfied and said I would fight against this to the end and that I would do whatever was in my power - and this was not much, but there was still something I could do - to prevent such an intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina which could not but end in bloodshed, refugees, ethnic cleansing, and a destroyed economy and society. And this is precisely what happened afterwards.

Q. Perhaps, without inconveniencing the Chamber too much, we can go back, for chronological reasons, to paragraph 35, to give some sequencing of events. Mr. Markovic, in July of 1991 -- no, I beg your pardon. There's something I've forgotten.

Can you just tell us, in respect of your meeting with the accused about Karadjordjevo -- at Karadjordjevo, how did the accused end his explanation of what -- of what had happened? What did he say as to his forecast for the future, arising from what had happened at Karadjordjevo?

A. He told me what I've just said, that nothing would happen, that this would succeed because of the ratio of Serbs, Muslims, and Croats. And when I insisted and said, "What if war does break out?" he said, "Well, then we'll see what we'll do," and he didn't go into it in greater detail.

Q. Did you indicate to either or both of these men whether you would accept what they'd done or whether you would contest it?

A. I have just said that I told them I would contest it with all ²⁸⁰²⁹ means at my disposal, which were not very large but by any means I had at my disposal I would fight against this.

Q. Did you inform Izetbegovic -- the late Izetbegovic about what had happened?

A. Yes. But not right away; a little later.

Q. Let's go back to -- in your signed statement, to paragraph 35. From your relationship with Izetbegovic in July 1991, were you informed of a plan to arm the Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina?

A. At that time, I visited Macedonia and Kiro Gligorov and Alija Izetbegovic in Bosnia often. There was not a month where I didn't go to see them, exchange views with them, exchange information, and thus Izetbegovic informed me that they had intercepts of conversations between Milosevic and Karadzic from which it was evident that Serbian paramilitary units in Bosnia and Herzegovina were being armed. I asked him to give me these intercepts, and he sent them to me by his minister of the interior, who came to see me in Belgrade and who played the tapes for me. There were several tapes. And from these, I recognised Milosevic's voice and Karadzic's voice. They were discussing the organisation of armies, the arrival of helicopters, the arrival of a colonel, an RAM programme which I was not aware of, I don't know what it was, and of ammunitions which were to be taken from certain places and sent to certain places. Alija Delimustafic, the minister, showed me this. When I asked him to give me this because there was a session of the Federal Executive Council taking place, I wanted to play this there, but he disagreed and he deleted the tapes. I gave this information to the cabinet, but in any ²⁸⁰³⁰ case this is the information I received.

I told the government meeting about it --

Q. Carry on. Sorry. The government, having been told about it, what --

A. Admiral Brovet was there at the session, and he denied this. He said it was impossible, he said this was a forgery, that the army had nothing to do with this. But this was absolutely untrue, because I clearly recognised the voices, and it was quite clear that they were discussing the handover of weapons and the places where weapons could be acquired.

I heard a tape like this here in your office, and I didn't hear the ones that Delimustafic played for me, but I did hear similar ones here --

Q. Now, there's --

A. -- where RAM is mentioned.

Q. There was one tape that you listened to. It's tab 30 -- Exhibit 353, tab 31. It's been played already. It's available for listening to again.

MR. NICE: I see the time. I'm in the Chamber's hands as to whether it should be done now or after the break.

JUDGE MAY: It's time for the adjournment now. Mr. Markovic, we're going to adjourn for 20 minutes. Could you remember, as we tell all witnesses, not to speak to anybody about your evidence until it's over, and that does include speaking to the members of the Prosecution about it. ²⁸⁰³¹ We'll adjourn for 20 minutes.

--- Recess taken at 10.32 a.m.

--- On resuming at 10.58 a.m.

JUDGE MAY: We've considered the position, Mr. Nice, about the extracts from the book.

MR. NICE: Yes.

JUDGE MAY: And our practice, which we adopted with the last witness, we propose to adopt with this one, which is at this stage to mark the extracts for identification.

MR. NICE: Certainly, yes.

JUDGE MAY: So they will be marked in that way.

MR. NICE: Thank you very much. Two tiny administrative points: The late provision to Your Honours of the summary now referred to as a statement of the witness was not something in respect of which I was making any complaint or -- on whom I was allocating any responsibility. I always assume I am to blame for anything until anyone tells me otherwise.

JUDGE MAY: With -- I don't know that you were to blame, but there was plainly some misunderstanding.

MR. NICE: Well, I think it's a misunderstanding. Is a reflection a rather good thing. The separation of powers between Bench and bar is overcome to the extent it can by the telephone system. And as the Chamber knows, the telephone system has been in a only partially work-operative form this week and we've all been unable to get in touch with the other. In any case, I think the misunderstanding has been sorted ²⁸⁰³² ^{BLANK PAGE} ²⁸⁰³³ out.

And the second thing is that I do now have, courtesy of Ms. Bauer, an annotated version of the statement identifying from which paragraphs of the original witness statement various items have been drawn. So if anybody wants the references, I have them to hand. We're at the moment in paragraph 35 of the statement, and I'd like the witness now to hear part of an already-produced transcript, which Your Honours may recall, part of Exhibit 353, tab 31. It's on Sanction, and we're going to pick it up where the accused picks up the open line and just take it a little bit on beyond that, but not very far.

[Intercept played]

THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] Radovan, I spoke to the highest place.

Good. Please, you need to understand this, because as they say, I don't have -- I cannot explain everything.

All right. It is of strategic importance for the future RAM. You know what RAM is?

Yes, I know. I know everything. That the Banja Luka group is ready and mobile.

All right. This is why you must, first, make sure that it is able and mobile and that it has no problems. And secondly, call Uzelac in one hour and invite him to an agreement. ²⁸⁰³⁴ All right.

At the highest level. All right.

All the additional people that you can provide. Yes.

That they need to stay and keep their houses and the territory and block those centres of the HDZ, et cetera. They shall be armed. And they shall be provided with everything, we shall fly the helicopters in and all that ...

Excellent. I also ask you to -- Accordingly, I ask you personally regulate numbers one and two. All these other matters, Kupres, this is very important. Good.

And the third thing I told you, the rally, it is very important because of the international community.

Yes, that's underway. But, tell me, can we arrange the same thing, that they give me back the armament of the TO in Sipovo and Mrkonjic.

That's a small matter. All right. Let them arm them there, here I -- we've got 170 ready in Mrkonjic and 150 in Sipovo and they're ready to go to Kupres. Is Uzelac also in charge of that?

No, no, that is -- I think that is him, yes, yes. Tell him that, brother, no problems. We cannot discuss every small detail like this. ²⁸⁰³⁵ All right. All right. These 150 and 170 shall go to Kupres and there we've got 750 people.

Yes. It is also important for us that this battalion, which is mobilised by the army is in Kupres and that everything be as it should be. It shall be, but if they receive this. Those who stay should put themselves under their command because Kupres is terribly -- that's 50/50 and the Serbs suffered horribly there during the war. Let me tell you something, even this crazy Seselj fucked the opposition yesterday.

I saw, I heard. You know what he told hem he said, "Did you decide to attack the JNA now when the JNA needs to defend the Serb people." Yes, yes, that's.

That's the one he says has the tie of Zimmerman's waiter on. Yes, yes.

Fucking hell. Yes, yes.

It is even clear to him. Clear, clear, certainly

And it is not clear to they'd those traitors. I saw it, I saw.

Yesterday in direct contact with Mesic. Have you got a number of Uzelac by any chance?

I don't, but you shall find it. Let these find it for you. Yes, yes, all right. ²⁸⁰³⁶ Let them find it for you, and please, in an hour. All right.

It is now one o'clock. Call him at two.

All right. And please tell him that I wish to secure a maximal political support ...

Is he going to accept more of our boys if he needs them, or just the ones that already ...

He shall receive them if needed. But you give him as many as you judge that should stay there. Everything shall be transported for them in the helicopters, so they've got everything. So that they stay and guard. All right, agreed.

Accordingly, you've got everything. Agreed.

But now it is to be or not to be concerning Krajina because they wish to cut off Krajina.

Yes, yes. They don't want to go to Knin because many of them would get killed, but they do want to come from behind.

Yes, yes. Now we shall ... ... in the JNA, that shan't stop them there. How is it going to stop them with the armour alone, if there's no brigade? All right, agreed. Everything will be all right. When, I mean, now is, as they say, war and this is one of the ²⁸⁰³⁷ sides.

There are no problems whatsoever. Please take care of it.

Only if these numbers work, I think it shall be completed. Everything must work.

I will, I will, all right. Talk to you, do call again.

MR. NICE:

Q. Was this the tape of an intercept you heard when in The Hague a few weeks ago?

A. Yes.

Q. The two voices on the tape, can you recognise either of both of them?

A. Both of them, very distinctly. It was Milosevic and Karadzic talking. This is the same tape that Delimustafic brought to me in Belgrade and that I heard there.

Q. It's one of a series of tapes that covered the topics you spoke about before we adjourned half an hour ago?

A. Yes.

Q. Do these tapes in general reveal to you that what was happening in the territory of which you were Prime Minister?

A. Very clearly.

Q. And what was happening? Just remind us. I know we've covered it, but just remind us, what was happening on the territory?

A. It's very clear: These were preparations for war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. They were discussing the deployment of the army, the arming ²⁸⁰³⁸ of men, the procurement of weapons, Banja Luka, and so on. It's quite clear. Helicopters and so on.

Q. Lest anybody is interested in the detail and you can help us with the explanation, the reference to the one with the tie of Zimmerman's waiter, can you remember who that refers to?

A. I heard that, but I have no idea who it refers to. No.

MR. NICE: This transcript has been produced, I think, earlier for identification, marked for identification. I don't necessarily invite a change in the status of that by reason of this evidence, but this is evidence that says this transcript existed in July of 1991.

Q. Can we in the statement return, please, to paragraph 59, on page 20, paragraph 16 of the witness's original statement for anybody following that.

Were you in The Hague, Mr. Markovic, in October or November of 1991 with presidents of the republic when Vukovar and Dubrovnik were being shelled or had been shelled?

A. Yes.

Q. Did you have short conversations with both the accused and Tudjman about this?

A. Yes.

Q. Please explain. First I talked to Milosevic and asked him whether he could see what was happening in Vukovar and Dubrovnik. I asked him how he could allow Dubrovnik to be shelled, a famous place like that, important for the culture of this country and for world culture. Milosevic replied, "Who would be crazy enough to shell Dubrovnik? ²⁸⁰³⁹ Dubrovnik isn't being shelled." But it was clear, you could see on television that it was being shelled.

I then asked Milosevic to go and see Tudjman, wanting Tudjman to confirm to Milosevic that what I was saying was true and that Dubrovnik was being shelled. I repeated my statement. He replied in the same way, saying that this was impossible, that it couldn't be because were this the case, he would know about it. And Tudjman replied to this quite calmly, "Well, you see what Milosevic says." He didn't say anything in favour of an intervention against the shelling of Dubrovnik.

Q. The inference that you drew from this as a politician on the ground at the time?

A. Well, it imposed itself logically. The conclusion was that Milosevic did wield influence, quite obviously, on what was happening, and Tudjman didn't find it to be in his interest that Dubrovnik should not be shelled, and Vukovar either, or rather, it suited him in the sense of winning over arguments for his emancipation or for his secession and having Croatia recognised.

Q. During that last conversation, the conversation where Tudjman said you'd heard what the accused had said, who else was present, if anyone?

A. Sarinic was. He was the chief of Tudjman's cabinet.

Q. Dealing generally with the accused's ability to control events at this time and to deal with the army, is there something you want to say about the agreement at Igalo not covered in the signed statement? But you can rest assured the Chamber has heard of the Igalo agreement before. ²⁸⁰⁴⁰

A. I think it's quite clear. Three men - Milosevic, Tudjman, and Kadijevic - signed the agreement in Igalo, and later on it was to be transformed into other agreements right up until Geneva, and I think it's quite clear; three men that held political power, that had weapons in their hands, and that had in one way or another their soldiers, who were able to obey them or not obey them, they signed the agreement and thus took responsibility upon themselves for the weapons and for everything that was to follow. They didn't stop it, in actual fact.

Q. Your last meeting with the accused, dealt with at paragraph 60 of your latest statement, paragraph 32 of the original, longer version, was in Belgrade. And although you haven't dealt with this, I could perhaps summarise it to you. In your last few weeks or months in Belgrade, were things becoming potentially dangerous for you? Did you respond to that danger not by surrounding yourself with bodyguards and close protection but by doing no more than sleeping with a pistol under your pillow at night?

A. For me, those last months were not -- it's not enough to say difficult; they were highly risky. I had a driver who came from Zagreb with me and who drove me while I was working for the Rade Koncar company and in the Croatian institutions, he was my chauffeur there. And I had a man from the security service whom I could rely upon 100 per cent. All the rest I eliminated. I didn't ask anybody to safeguard me. In the situation that I was in, the greatest danger could have come from the people actually providing security for me. And in history, that has been proved right many times, that those who allegedly are there to keep ²⁸⁰⁴¹ someone safe end up by killing them.

Of course, symbolically speaking, I slept more peacefully by having my own pistol and keeping it under the pillow; although, that was just a gesture, because what could I do if I was faced with people who were well armed and so on and wanted to eliminate me? However, my talk with Mr. Milosevic took place sometime at the beginning of December, that is to say, just three or four weeks before I left Belgrade. And the main -- or rather, I asked for the meeting, and the meeting was held in Mr. Milosevic's cabinet. We were alone, there was nobody else there, and we mostly analysed the situation. I said I had come to analyse the situation, in fact, which was a terrible one, and which had its ramifications. The crisis was being made more difficult, there was no chance of an agreement being reached, we were faced with imminent war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. And Mr. Milosevic to that said, "What war? Which war?" And I think that was his customary sort of turn of phrase, regardless of the fact that I knew about it. I had listened to the conversation sometime in the middle of that same year, the conversation Mr. Milosevic had with Karadzic, and it was quite obvious that they were arming and preparing themselves, and he said, "Which war? There's no war, nor will there be a war."

Anyway, that conversation, as far as I was concerned, was time-out, if I can put it that way, and I would leave the conviction that I would continue to work in the Federal Executive Council, regardless of having made my decision to leave, and, on the other hand, to try and gain an impression of future plans, Mr. Milosevic's future plans, although he ²⁸⁰⁴² never stated them clearly, but I was able to draw my own conclusions from what he said. And the conversation took the following -- those kinds of lines. And that was all, no other characteristic features.

Q. Did you make any allegation to the accused by -- about what he'd done and what effect he'd had on your political decisions and movement?

A. No. No, we didn't have a conversation along those lines.

Q. In all your conversations with the accused - and I think I've probably come to the end of questions about that topic - were you able to discern whether he was a Serb nationalist, in your judgement?, or not?

A. No. No. Slobodan Milosevic used everything he could to ensure power for himself and power over people. And if that was nationalism, well, then he used nationalism. But in principle, he wasn't a nationalist. He was quite simply somebody who was ready to use everything at his disposal to secure power for himself.

Q. May we return, then, to earlier parts of the statement, which I'll take more briefly, having dealt with the overall history and the involvement of the accused in direct conversations, although he features in other bits of the evidence.

Paragraph 23. Mr. Markovic, I intend to summarise lots of these passages, if I can, and where it's possible simply to say that I've got it right by saying yes, that may save time.

Paragraph 23. The military budget was part of the general budget initially prepared by the Ministry of Defence and adjusted. The Presidency would be informed about it and the Federal Assembly would take the final decision on it, so that in preparations for the 1991 budget that ²⁸⁰⁴³ took place in 1990, the government and you still had control. Correct?

A. Yes.

Q. Paragraph 24 deals with the authority required for the primary emission of money. And I think you've dealt with a large part of that already, including the fact that Milosevic had no influence on decisions of the Council of Governors in 1989 and 1990, although this did change in the second half of 1991. For what reason, please?

A. Well, first of all, the change from these sources of financing to finance the budget and the army, because contributions were not being paid in nor were taxes being paid or customs dues either. And on the other hand, in the years that led up to that time, it was legally made impossible for the National Bank to print money, unless it had certain reserves and grounds for doing so. But -- also, the Council of Governors and its members, who would have to have okayed the primary emission was such that the governor of each republic and autonomous province was a member of the Governor's Council. And already at that time, in the middle of the year, there was nobody from the National Bank of Slovenia or Croatia, so that was -- its positions were weakened, if I can put it that way, the position of the Council of Governors, because Milosevic had complete domination of it and could make the decisions he wanted to.

Q. Thank you.

MR. NICE: Your Honours may want to note that at the end of paragraph 24, on page 9, the second-to-last line should be corrected. Where it says "the republics have left the council," should read "because the governors of the national banks of the Republics of Croatia and ²⁸⁰⁴⁴ Slovenia."

Q. I don't need to take you through the exhibits already produced by Morten Torkildsen.

The Jovic book reference is tab 7, and we can move on to some other miscellaneous topics.

Very briefly, please: The public auditing service, or the SDK, was that the only tool available for carrying out financial transactions between institutions in the federal republic?

A. Generally speaking, money transactions, financial transactions went through the public auditing service, the SDK. There was no other way of communication. And we had already prepared a reform which would move this competency to the banks, but that was not done at the time.

Q. So that it remained possible to move money to the regions outside Serbia --

A. Yes, it was possible.

Q. -- at a time when, if they were in some independent state, they should have been raising their own taxes or something to that effect?

A. Yes. They could have, but they didn't have the necessary organisation nor were capable of actually doing so. They didn't have any great money transactions. So it was logical to expect that part of the financing for such independent islands within a whole was to be financed from outside, and the only way was for them to go via the public auditing service and its channels.

Q. Paragraph 26. Your experience of the Serbian government and the Presidency showed you what as to the accused's control over the government ²⁸⁰⁴⁵ ^{BLANK PAGE} ²⁸⁰⁴⁶ itself and over its individual members?

A. I think that was quite clear: Milosevic was the overall ruler of Serbia, and absolutely nobody could even have dreamt of doing anything otherwise, contrary to him. Everything had to be done as he instructed, according to his instructions and under his control. So in actual fact, this applied not only to the government but also to the parliament, until the multi-party elections took place where he didn't have complete control but nonetheless he had most of it.

Q. And --

JUDGE MAY: Perhaps you can clarify that for us who weren't there at the time, Mr. Markovic. Can you give us an example of the way in which that control demonstrated itself and the ways in which you came to the conclusion that Mr. Milosevic was the overall ruler and had absolute control in -- in Serbia?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, it would be easier to find evidence and proof that that was not so, rather than that was so, because the whole life of Serbia and its communication with others was conceived in such a way and constructed in such a way that it was in fact wholly -- all Serbia's institutions had to behave wholly according to the dictates of Milosevic. He didn't have a legal foundation for that, but that was what it was like in actual fact, in reality. And if he didn't agree with anything, then he would organise popular demonstrations, he would get together hundreds of people, and then would have somebody replaced. So that didn't happen once; it happened umpteen times, and that is quite obvious. He would gather together 100.000 people, and you can see the ²⁸⁰⁴⁷ tapes of that, with the cameras and so on.

JUDGE MAY: Did you have any personal experience of that absolute control being demonstrated?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, because I kept in communication with the government of Serbia, just as I did with the governments of the other republics. That was my duty and task. And everything that Milosevic said was put into practice by his Prime Ministers and his ministers. I never encountered a single instance of anybody saying anything different, or even dared to think differently. So those communications were very intense. And I always knew exactly what his representatives would advocate at the meetings. It couldn't differ in one iota from what Milosevic said. And even if they were given counter-arguments, they would be like parrots, repeating one and the same things. And they weren't always that intelligent either.

JUDGE MAY: Mr. Nice, if you'd care to follow that and we could have some concrete examples, it might be helpful, but it's a matter for you.

MR. NICE: [Microphone not activated] I can first of all approach it in the negative.

Q. Did you ever experience anybody advancing an argument or a position counter to that of the accused and succeeding with his position, succeeding in, as it were, arguing against the accused?

A. Do you mean somebody from Serbia?

Q. Yes.

A. No, never. ²⁸⁰⁴⁸

Q. I think what --

A. A person like that wouldn't have kept his post for 24 hours had he done so.

Q. I think what would assist the Court would be if you can think now or at any stage in your evidence of concrete examples of people in high office or comparatively high office being as controlled by the accused as you have described. We'll come back to it a little later before I sit down, but if you think of any example now or if you think of any as we're looking at any other bits of the evidence, perhaps you'll alert us to us and we can hear from you about it.

Before we part from this very general issue, the issue of the accused's approach --

A. All the Prime Ministers of Serbia behaved that way. For example, when communicating with me, at all times Radmilovic and other Prime Ministers - I can give you their names - Bozovic, another instance.

Q. What about those who were expressing views counter to your economic reforms and democratisation programme? Were they, in your judgement, people expressing views of free will, or were they acting or instructions, or can't you say?

A. Well, there were both, of course. It was enough for a general negative position to prevail, and then of course everybody would have the right to add to it and embroider based on their own thinking.

Q. One other topic about the accused's general performance: As people sustained injuries and losses and bereavements, did he ever, to you, show or was he ever seen to show understanding or sympathy of the ²⁸⁰⁴⁹ losses that people were suffering as a result of these wars?

A. In what way do you mean?

Q. Well, sometimes rulers -- leaders go and see the injured in hospitals or go and show their sympathy to individuals. Did he ever do that sort of thing?

A. No.

Q. We'll come back to the other more particular point a little later. Paragraph 27 of the latest statement emerging from proofing and not from the earlier statement. The Brioni declaration July in 1991, was it an initiation of whom, yours?

A. The Brioni declaration emerged from the various discussions held at the Brioni Islands with the representatives of the republics and provinces taking part. However, in preparing that meeting, I myself inaugurated at our government meeting that our government should prepare a proposal on the so-called three-month moratorium. I, first of all, wanted this to be six months, thought about six months, because we had very profound problems, so in my opinion, we should have had six months to be able to deal with the situation and bring it up to the level of being able, on a legal basis, logically, without any bloodshed, to implement all the decisions that were made. If we were supposed to scatter and go our separate ways, that that should be done without any bloodshed. But we thought that nobody would accept this, so we suggested a three-month moratorium. And that moratorium found its place in the Brioni declaration, and as the federal government, we took it upon ourselves to prepare all the elements that would enable, within that three-month ²⁸⁰⁵⁰ moratorium period, to create a situation which would enable the functioning of our society, at least at a minimum level, minimum conditions. And then after that, that decisions could be taken which would not mean leading to war or further conflict. And I must say, that we waited over a month for a Presidency meeting to be convened and to have a debate pursuant to our proposal. And when the proposal was actually made, then the same tendencies became evident; one side considered that the proposal was insufficient and that it should be -- that the functions of the Federation should be strengthened of this joint state, joint country. That was the group led by Milosevic. And the other stream that thought things should be left more loosely, and that stream was led by Kucan. But anyway, that three-month moratorium, which was designed to assist matters and to help us allow society to function at a minimum level, to prevent further erosion and a complete disintegration of everything, which would mean anarchy and the struggle of everybody against everybody else, this general uprising, unfortunately it wasn't able to form its function. The war followed, first with Croatia and then with Bosnia-Herzegovina, and so on and so forth.

Q. Very well. You set out as well how you gave advice to Vance after the declaration in which you expected by way of bloodshed and how many troops would be required to stop that. And I needn't take you through that in any more detail.

The Chamber will know that the Brioni declaration has already been exhibited, Exhibit 330, tab 35. I don't ask to look at it for the time being. ²⁸⁰⁵¹ In paragraph 29, originally from the proofing session, I think in that second half of 1991 and as a matter of detail you actually suggested 13 new laws. So you were still actively pursuing the job of government. But only three of them, and you think the least important or significant three, were adopted, the rest being blocked by the accused and his representatives; correct?

A. Within the frameworks of that three-month moratorium, for us to be able to implement the basic proposals of the Federal Executive Council or, rather, their ideas as to how the state could function, these laws were proposed and only three sporadic ones were adopted, the rest weren't, of the 13.

Q. Let's deal with another incident: In October 1991 at, I think, apart -- for private family reasons you went to Zagreb, you were called by Tudjman to a meeting, he asked you to talk to Mesic, and the result was that the three of you, prime minister and two presidents, found yourselves in the presidential palace when the palace was bombed.

A. Yes. I --

Q. [Previous translation continues] ... I just want to ask you a question. The bomb, as was subsequently discovered, was sent from a very high-flying aircraft. And did it come to a position very close to where the three of you had been having lunch?

A. No. I had talks which lasted roughly four and a half hours in the so-called Banski Dvori, the palace in Zagreb. And there was a cabinet there, a set of offices of Franjo Tudjman. And in a more -- in another section of the building, Mesic had his office there too. I was in ²⁸⁰⁵² communication with both of them, and Tudjman organised a joint lunch. After that luncheon, Mesic, Tudjman, and myself went to his office - Tudjman's office, I mean - and we started discussing how we could use the elements of the Brioni delegation and the moratorium in general to solve the situation in the most peaceful way. When we started talking -- we'd just got through a few sentences, I think. We were having a conversation and speaking about Mesic going back to Belgrade. He hadn't been to Belgrade for a long time and that the ministers from Croatia should also go back to Belgrade. At one point, Tudjman even phoned Kucan to have a -- talk to him about that. And when they started their conversation, there was an explosion. Several missiles exploded that were shot, and two or three planes were flying at a height of 14 to 15 kilometres and one of them fell quite near the dining room in which we were having lunch a few minutes before.

Q. Had you been gathered together, the three of you, long enough for information to be sent back outside Croatia to another state and for an aircraft to be activated to send this plane to Zagreb?

A. Yes, that's correct. And it is interesting to note that Tudjman had his office, his cabinet, he had had it there for months. Mesic had had his offices there for months, and they hadn't been shelled, bombed. The bombing took place when I was there, and I was there for about four and a half hours, which yes, was sufficient time to send information from Zagreb to Belgrade and to send planes out. They were the fastest type of aircraft. The assumption is that they were the MiG-29 type aircraft that can fly at very high altitudes. General Tus, who used to be the commander ²⁸⁰⁵³ of the air force, said that there were only three pilots capable of flying at such high altitudes and targeting targets with such precision. And had we remained in the dining room, I wouldn't be sitting here with you today most probably.

Q. Paragraph 33. Towards the end of 1991, just so we can have a picture of your life and position, were you being threatened from both Serbia and Croatia? From the Serbian perspective, you were being said to be an Ustasha; from the Croatian perspective, you were being seen to be pro-Serb in orientation. Just yes if I've got that right.

A. Yes. I was demonised by both sides.

Q. A word about Kosovo, paragraph 34, from proofing. Your relationship with persons in Kosovo was -- was good during your time as Prime Minister?

A. Yes. I advocated autonomy for Kosovo such as it had had during Tito's time. For this reason, I was attacked by both Jovic and Milosevic. I was on good terms with the president of the executive board of Kosovo, Jusuf Zegnullahi, who was threatened with liquidation and had to flee abroad.

Q. Do you know how he was threatened or who threatened him?

A. Well, threats are not made by someone threatening in public. This is done by creating a network of threats around a person which prevents him from functioning normally.

Q. So that we have the picture of Kosovo at this early stage, was it safe for you to travel to Kosovo at that stage or not? That's 1991.

A. I did go to Kosovo in 1989 and in 1990 on several occasions, but ²⁸⁰⁵⁴ in 1991 I didn't go any more.

Q. [Previous translation continues] ...

A. It was too risky.

Q. What was the level of police presence in Kosovo at that stage?

A. There were large numbers of policemen, primarily from Serbia but also from other parts of Yugoslavia, because there was a Presidency conclusion, with which I disagreed, that a police unit should be sent from the federal reserve police force, so to say, to keep law and order there.

Q. Paragraphs 37 and following deal with military activity until the end of 1991 but, very briefly, can you just confirm, please, that as to events in Slovenia the first you knew of these was when you were telephoned on the 26th of June at 4.00 in the morning by Kucan. You asked him why he called you and not the Presidency since the JNA was not under your jurisdiction. He said he was unable to reach the Presidency; you called Kadijevic, who was at the Main Staff, and he confirmed that the army in Slovenia had been brought out of their barracks. Correct?

A. Correct.

Q. And at a government meeting with Kadijevic present, you explaining that you would have objected to military intervention, although you couldn't have prevented it, he replying that that was the reason why you hadn't been reformed, he then saying that you would never return to the government cabinet again. Correct?

A. Yes. I intervened and asked why use had been made of my name, although no one had talked to me and I had not given approval to anyone to do this. Kadijevic answered, "Well, because we knew you wouldn't agree, ²⁸⁰⁵⁵ we didn't even ask."

Q. In fact, it was your understanding of the constitution that the army was not allowed to make decisions without decisions of the Presidency, a political decision being taken and for which a majority was required.

A. Correct. Correct. The Presidency never made this decision, nor was the Presidency ever asked about this. I had a long talk about this with Jovic, who claimed that it was the army's duty to do that, but the use of the army was exclusively within the competence of the Presidency, and it was insisted on the fact that the Presidency should proclaim a state of emergency that would allow the army to intervene, but the Presidency was split. Milosevic's group was in favour; the others were against. It was four against four. So the army could not be used. In this case, it was done without the approval of the Presidency. Of course, they tried to use this against the Federal Executive Council, as if it could have given such approval at all.

Q. We've heard a little about the use of the air force over Ljubljana some days after this. Paragraph 39 and paragraph 25 of the original. Did you invite Kadijevic to your cabinet on learning of this and say that if he was going to bomb Ljubljana he was going to bomb you, since you were going to go there to stop what you described as a ridiculous war? Were you advised by your own Ministry of Interior or, rather, Croatia's Ministry of Interior not to go because of the risk of your being liquidated, and were you advised further by Stjepan Mesic not to go, but despite all that, did you go to Ljubljana -- ²⁸⁰⁵⁶

A. Yes.

Q. -- having talks with some of his "young Turks," as he described them, and without whom he seemed decision inclined to talk?

A. No. It wasn't he who called them that; I did.

Q. Very well. My mistake. Sorry.

A. I learned that the army was preparing to send all its air force against Ljubljana, which would certainly have destroyed Ljubljana. The people in Ljubljana discovered that the entire leadership was in shelters, so I set out for Ljubljana and I told Kadijevic, "If you bomb Ljubljana, you'll be bombing me." A team spent the night with me and this reads like a thriller. We travelled from Belgrade to Zagreb and then from Zagreb to Ljubljana by car. In Ljubljana, we were met with machine-guns pointed at us at the ready, but we did manage to stop the further escalation of the war.

Q. The withdrawal of the JNA from Slovenia - paragraph 41, 26 in the original - the withdrawal of the JNA from Slovenia by the Presidency was something over which you had no right to vote, and I think you say that was under the influence of the accused?

A. Yes.

Q. What position did Mesic and Tupurkovski take?

A. Mesic and Tupurkovski were against this. And after this session we met in my office to analyse the consequences of such a decision, especially as it was clear that the army was to withdraw from Slovenia to Bosnia and Herzegovina, which meant that there was going to be an enormous concentration of army in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and we already knew that ²⁸⁰⁵⁷ part of the future war on this territory was to take place there. Mesic, to be sure, was afraid that part of the army would remain in Croatia, but this did not happen.

Q. Paragraphs 42 and 43, paragraph 27 in the original. A word or so about the accused's relationship with Jovic, having in mind the time. What was the relationship between the two of them like?

A. They worked as a team.

Q. An example; the demonstrations of the opposition on the 9th of March of 1991, was Milosevic at risk of losing power then? And if so, what did Jovic do?

A. There is a lot of evidence as to the way in which the two of them worked as a team. What you are referring to now are events that happened in March of 1991, when the citizens of Belgrade went out into the streets and demonstrated against Milosevic. The army went out into the streets then with tanks. I was in Zagreb at the time, not in Belgrade, because this happened during the weekend, and I knew nothing about it. Later, at the session we had in Belgrade, Jovic said that he had received approval by telephone from the other members of the Presidency. As for me, I then held my well-known speech in the Presidency, saying that the tanks should be withdrawn to the barracks. This was published in the press, and for this reason I came under attack in the Presidency of Yugoslavia. Jovic then resigned because attempts were underway to declare a state of emergency. And when this did not succeed after several attempts, Jovic resigned. And then Milosevic gave a dramatic speech on television in which he said, among other things, that he did not recognise the federal ²⁸⁰⁵⁸ ^{BLANK PAGE} ²⁸⁰⁵⁹ units for this reason and because a situation had now arisen in which there was no Presidency, because the president had resigned. The other members of the Presidency who were under Milosevic's control were also resigned. And to avoid a hiatus of power and to prevent the possibility of the army being used against everybody else, Tupurkovski, who was the Vice-President of the Presidency of Yugoslavia, and I agreed in my cabinet to call the remainder of the Presidency, Drnovsek, Bogicevic, Mesic, and of course Tupurkovski. I also attended and we declared that there was not a hiatus, that there was an institution that was still functioning. After this Jovic and the other members of the Presidency who had resigned came back.

Q. Moving now to a different topic, paramilitaries, very briefly. Paragraph 46, which emerges from proofing, not from the earlier statement. Were you when you were here a few weeks ago asked to review a statement of the accused reported in a newspaper to be found at tab 11 of Exhibit 570, headed "I ordered mobilisation"?

A. Yes.

Q. Would you be good enough to go to the English version, and rather than read all of it, the third page in the second complete paragraph we find a passage that reads: "I deem that despite the new circumstances in Yugoslavia there is no need to introduce emergency measures in the Republic of Serbia. All institutions of the system and the entire life in the republic ought to follow the normal course. The citizens can rest assured that the Republic of Serbia is in a position to provide the protection of interests of the republic of all its citizens and the ²⁸⁰⁶⁰ Serbian people."

Now, having -- that's one passage. On the previous page perhaps was the passage I should have taken you to first. Towards the bottom of the page, the last complete paragraph: "In the present circumstances of attempting to incite disorder in Sandzak and in Kosovo and Metohija, I ordered mobilisation of the reserve task force of the Serbian Ministry of Defence security forces and the urgent forming of the supplementary forces of the Republic of Serbia police."

Having read that article, which I've just read a couple of passages, what comments do you make about the accused's actions at that time and his ability to control armed forces?

A. I remember well that at the time I wrote an open letter to Slobodan Milosevic in which I demanded that he withdraw this decision and in which I listed all the dangers ensuing from such a decision. I haven't got the text with me, but as far as I remember I concluded that unfortunately we are living in a time where it is far easier and safer to advocate war than to advocate peace.

JUDGE MAY: Which year again, Mr. Nice, please, the 16th of March I see is the date. Which year?

[Prosecution counsel confer]

MR. NICE: It's 1991 for the article.

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

MR. NICE: The letter, I think, comes later and is in September, September the 30th. I'm grateful to Ms. Tromp.

Q. Were you in any position - paragraph 47 - to do anything about ²⁸⁰⁶¹ paramilitaries insofar as you were aware of them, or was that outside your competence?

A. It was completely outside the competence of the Federal Executive Council because everything that had to do with the army and the paramilitary units was directly within the competence of the Presidency of Yugoslavia.

Q. Thank you very much. I should have asked you, what was the accused's and Kadijevic's personal relationship like? Did they get on well together or not? Paragraph 48, and I think also in earlier paragraph 44.

A. It was not always the same. Before I took up my post in Belgrade, Milosevic and Kadijevic communicated well. They went on vacation together in a place near Dubrovnik, and I have to admit I learnt a lot later, that Kadijevic had suggested to the then-president of the Presidency of Yugoslavia, Mr. Dizdarevic, that Milosevic should be given the mandate of forming the new government. At the time I formed the government and in the first period, communication with Kadijevic was relatively good, and Kadijevic tried to prove that he was adhering to the reform programme, especially the part that related to stabilisation. But as things went on and as the programme never ended in stabilisation but in political changes, changes in government, changes in private property and so on, our ways diverged, and then there were problems in the relations between the republics in Yugoslavia and relations between Kadijevic and me cooled more and more, until they finally declined completely. And as relations between Kadijevic and me cooled, so they got better and better ²⁸⁰⁶² between Kadijevic and Milosevic, and in the end they got on together very well. But they cooperated throughout this time. In some periods, however, communication between Kadijevic and me overcame or was better at times than the communication between Kadijevic and Milosevic. And this can be seen from our communication. We would agree about something with Kadijevic, and later on he would change his mind. Kadijevic and I would sometimes talk for hours and exchange views, analyse the situation, make comparisons. And when I managed to convince him that drastic measures should not be taken and that things should not be done that would only deepen the crisis and so on.

Q. Just to conclude this passage, paragraph 49. In the same way as you'd received an offer from the accused to become president of a re-formed structure in the fall of 1990, in the beginning of 1991, did Kadijevic raise with you a possibility which would have put you at the head of government? And head of state, actually?

A. In contrast to Milosevic's earlier proposal, which I didn't take at all seriously, because there was no basis for such a plan to be implemented, after the first sessions that were held about declaring a state of emergency in Yugoslavia and giving the army certain powers to act, when this fell through, there was a period I think in early January 1991 when Kadijevic came to see me with a proposal that had been developed, as he said, in the General Staff. They suggested carrying out a campaign because at the time there were units of the JNA all over Yugoslavia, so they developed a project according to which the leadership of Croatia, headed by Tudjman, and the leadership of Slovenia, headed by ²⁸⁰⁶³ Kucan, should all be arrested. And if they resisted, one knew what would happen to them.

As Kadijevic was unable to obtain approval in the Presidency, he tried another route; he asked me whether I would agree for them to do this. And as they would be doing it without the approval of the Presidency and bypassing the Presidency and they would in fact be replacing the Presidency, if I supported this plan, because I was the prime minister and the senior executive official at the level of the Federation, I would be made president. He pulled out a bundle of papers to show me this plan, and I asked him not to show it to me. I said, "You seem to think you're going to solve the Yugoslav crisis in this way." He said, "Yes." I said, "You have named Kucan, you have named Tudjman, what about Milosevic?" And he said to me -- he jumped up and said, "Milosevic is the only one fighting for Yugoslavia and who would back this up if it wasn't for him?"

Q. Mr. Markovic, just a gentle reminder on time, if you can bring this passage to a conclusion with how it ended, please.

A. Well, of course, I declined this. That's clear.

Q. Thank you. I think that you -- in March, Kadijevic travelled to the Soviet Union- paragraph 50 - without informing you. Matters between you got worse in June. You asked for his resignation at one session of the government, but he could only be dismissed by the Assembly, which didn't meet, and he had further support from the Presidency. And he sent his deputy, Admiral Brovet, or one of his assistants. And we can see reference to your seeking the resignation of both Kadijevic and Brovet in ²⁸⁰⁶⁴ tab 12. I'm not going to go through it in detail -- at tab 12, which is a Vreme article of the September the 23rd of 1991. And you've reviewed that and can answer questions about it if anyone wants to ask you. Correct?

A. Yes. Yes.

Q. Referring to a letter of protest to Milosevic about partial mobilisation, is that to be found in our tab 13? And it's in fact the letter of the 30th of September of 1991. It's here again simply reported in a newspaper. You were under the impression we had a copy of the letter itself, and it may be we have, and if so we've mislaid it, but at the moment we're dependent upon this newspaper report of your letter of protest to the accused. Correct?

A. Yes. I wrote an open letter to Mr. Milosevic, asking him not to do what he was doing.

Q. Indeed, mobilisation at that stage was, so far as you were concerned, unlawful.

A. Completely.

Q. Before I come to the last couple of questions, which are going to be about intercepts, can we go back to the question that His Honour Judge May asked you earlier, examples of the accused exercising complete control over other individuals. Have you been able - I know it's difficult when you're answering questions to think of something else - but have you been stimulated to think of any other examples or any particular examples of how he exercised such complete control?

A. In fact, formally it was the Assembly who elected Prime Ministers, but it was he who designated them, and they did exactly what he ²⁸⁰⁶⁵ asked. There was no difference, not even in nuances.

Q. Very well. Finally, did you review a number of recordings of telephone intercepts when you were last here in The Hague a few weeks ago and did you sign a document to the effect that you'd listened to those intercepted telephone conversations, identifying voices of participants as revealed on the table that accompanies the documents?

MR. NICE: Perhaps he can have this before him, just to look at it.

A. I did listen to them, and apart from one voice, I recognised all the voices, and I have signed all this.

Q. You're referred to, I think, on only one of the intercepts yourself.

MR. NICE: If the Chamber will be good enough to give an exhibit number to the certificate producing the transcripts and to the transcripts themselves. The witness is himself referred to only in tab 3 of these.

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

MR. NICE: And in tab 3, on the first page, at the foot of the first page --

JUDGE MAY: Just one moment.

[Trial Chamber and registrar confer]

JUDGE MAY: Now, you're producing a number of tapes here, are you, intercepts, as well as the certificate?

MR. NICE: I am in the Court's hands. I'm afraid I've actually forgotten the precise routine we've been pursuing. I know that whatever happens, the intercepts are produced for identification only at this ²⁸⁰⁶⁶ stage, because they all have to be produced in order to show their provenance later. The important evidence, of course, is the evidence of the identification of voices, so far as this witness is concerned. That could conveniently be done by production of this entire exhibit, which has the transcripts of the intercepts attached to it or, alternatively, just by the certificate and the accompanying table.

JUDGE MAY: The certificate obviously can be produced. But these, I suspect, are tapes which have already been produced, haven't they, and marked for identification? Or are they new tapes?

MR. NICE: No. I think these are new ones. These are new ones, because they haven't --

JUDGE MAY: These are new ones.

MR. NICE: I think so. But they haven't yet been -- His Honour Judge Kwon --

JUDGE KWON: They have an exhibit number here. 35.28. Some are and some are not.

JUDGE MAY: Well, could you during the adjournment sort that out?

MR. NICE: Yes, I will.

JUDGE MAY: Because I think there will be difficulty in due course with these tapes if we don't get them in one place and organised.

MR. NICE: There's a consolidation exercise under way at the moment for putting all the tapes together and having them tabulated in a uniform way, so that the important point is the certificate and the table from the witness.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. Well, I suggest that the simplest way to deal ²⁸⁰⁶⁷ with this would be to have -- to give the certificate an exhibit number, the attached transcripts will be marked for identification, and when we come back, perhaps you can tell us which of these have been produced and which haven't.

MR. NICE: Yes, certainly.

JUDGE MAY: So we have it on the record. We'll have a number now for the exhibit.

THE REGISTRAR: The certificate, Your Honour, is 571.

MR. NICE:

Q. And just looking at tab 3, which is a conversation on the 4th of September of 1991 between Karadzic and the accused, and at the foot of the page when the accused's spoken of speaking to Alija, who he alleges was behaving badly and would not come over to talk, Karadzic says here his ideas. "He is expecting the Berlin Congress. I told him openly that the Berlin Congress is not possible any more." And he goes on a bit. And then in the middle of this block of text: "Fine. I will probably be more clever after The Hague. But his opinion is that Europe will force Croatia and Slovenia to stay in Yugoslavia. He thinks he has some information that such pressure is already being made and that they will first put pressure on them to stay in the Federation. If not, they will try to leave. Keep Yugoslavia the way it is. In some -- some boundaries, but in loose connections. That is the line of thinking of Ante Markovic. He is hoping for that. However, we -- in that case, we don't accept -- we want to have strong ties with the federal state." Mr. Markovic, was this a true and accurate reflection of your ²⁸⁰⁶⁸ opinions at that time or not; some boundaries but in a loose connection?

A. Well, it's like this: If we're talking about boundaries within the country, then yes. But frontiers or borders towards the outside, no. What I understand this to be is boundaries within Yugoslavia. So yes, loose connections. I thought it was better for us to have any kind of connection rather than none at all, and so that is my thinking fairly accurately interpreted.

MR. NICE: Ms. Dicklich informs me, and I'm sorry not to have understood this earlier, when the documents were so well prepared for me by Ms. Dicklich, that the intercepts already tendered are not in the bundle but are in the spreadsheet and so therefore the ones in the bundle are the new ones.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. In that case, we'd better have them marked for identification with a separate exhibit number. Two of them have been, I notice, exhibited before. But I think let's at this stage simply give the next -- to give them all a separate exhibit number marked for identification.

THE REGISTRAR: Yes, Your Honour. 572, marked for identification.

MR. NICE:

Q. Finally, Mr. Markovic, just to return to something that we've touched on already and that is dealt with but in a summary way at paragraph 61 of your latest signed statement. The pressure of the accused's -- of the things the accused said being consistent with or inconsistent with what he was doing or subsequently to do. Can you just ²⁸⁰⁶⁹ help us a little bit more with that. You said something about it, but to what extent -- what was it, a trait, that his actions belie his words?

A. It depended on who he was talking to. As you can see, when he's talking to Karadzic, he's saying exactly what he's thinking, because he's trying to arrange things with him. Whereas, what he discussed with me, there was a certain amount of reservation in this regard, always had to think what was behind it all, what he was actually thinking. So it was always a fact of him thinking one thing and saying another. So you would have to give the whole thing a lot of thought if you were to know what his true intentions really were.

[Prosecution counsel confer]

MR. NICE:

Q. Well, I'm reminded that you haven't in a sense answered the whole question. Thinking and saying is another thing. What was he doing? How did that fit with what he had said?

A. Well, no. He would say one thing and do another. And his acts were different. He would say that he was fighting for Yugoslavia; whereas, in actual fact he was fighting for something different.

Q. What do you say he was fighting for?

A. He never actually told me, but it was quite obvious that he was fighting for a Greater Serbia.

Q. Yes. Thank you very much. You'll be asked some further questions.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. We'll adjourn now before cross-examination. Twenty minutes, please. ²⁸⁰⁷⁰

--- Recess taken at 12.17 p.m.

--- On resuming at 12.45 p.m.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, before I begin with my cross-examination, I just wish to say that a moment ago I was given a new plan, a new schedule for the witnesses, or list of witnesses, as of the beginning of next week, and it is radically different from what we were given a few days ago. I really would like to protest because by constantly changing the order of witnesses leads to confusion, and quite simply makes it impossible for me to work normally. I don't see that with all the machinery the other side has at its disposal that they can't stick to a schedule. You can compare the two and you'll see for yourself.

JUDGE MAY: [Previous translation continues] ... a change of order between 1345 and 1780, I see that, and there's one additional witness, it seems, 1448 to -- yes. Mr. Milosevic, we bear that in mind. One advantage of our abbreviated sittings, though, is that you will have more time for preparation and won't be under the pressure which you were when we were sitting for such long hours. And we invite the Prosecution, of course, to keep these changes to an absolute minimum that's necessary. Mr. Nice, I'm sure you have that in mind.

MR. NICE: We have it in mind at all times. It's, of course, difficult for witnesses to schedule themselves into the three-day week. We're all doing our best.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. Cross-examined by Mr. Milosevic: ²⁸⁰⁷¹ ^{BLANK PAGE} ²⁸⁰⁷²

Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Markovic, I shall do my best to use my time as rationally as possible; however, let me begin with some questions which you dealt with at the end of your testimony and for which we even have documents here which shows that the situation has been portrayed quite incorrectly. Is it at issue, Mr. Markovic, that you were the man who made the decision to involve the army, engage the army, at the beginning of the Yugoslav conflicts and clashes or, rather, the man who caused the war in Slovenia?

A. That is not correct. And in the decision of the Federal Executive Council, which relates to infringement of the boundaries by Slovenia and taken over the borders, it says that the Federal Secretary for the Interior is duty-bound to coordinate with Slovenia and, if the needs arises, that he can utilise that part which was on the so-called green line; that is to say, the people in the army protecting the borders. So never anywhere in any of the documents does it refer to the deployment of the army. And I spoke about this at a number of meetings, including the fact that as was common knowledge, at a meeting of the Federal Executive Council or Yugoslav government - I've already said that and there are documents to back this up - I dealt with this issue and discussed it with Veljko Kadijevic and there was absolutely no permission given for him to deploy the army. And I couldn't have given him permission to do so anyway, because permission for the deployment of the army is something that the Presidency alone could give.

Q. Well, that's the point, that the Presidency did not give permission for the deployment of the army and because the president of the ²⁸⁰⁷³ then-Presidency, Mr. Borisav Jovic, knew absolutely nothing about the deployment of the army, and you knew that full well.

A. I had no idea either.

Q. Well, whether you had an idea or not is another matter. I'm going to ask you a few questions, and I have grounds for asking them. In the stenograms from the session of the 21st of August 1991, the session commenced at 11.00 of the Presidency of the SFRY. And you attended that Presidency meeting, as did I myself, and the president of Slovenia, Milan Kucan too, and of course all the other members. I don't have time to enumerate all their names.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] So that is the stenogram that I'm referring to, Mr. May. Part of it exists in the big binder that I was provided with, but there's no tab number. All I have here is a portion of those. R0006543 is the number. And I'm going to quote from that. Could this document be shown to the witness, please.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. Do you have the document? Have you got a copy of it or you only have one copy there?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I have my own copy; however, it is a document from Mr. Nice -- or rather, it is a transcript of the Presidency session, and I was disclosed it by the other side.

JUDGE MAY: I suppose they could put their hands on it immediately. No doubt searches can be made.

MR. NICE: We'll get it.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. Yes. You'll have to get on for the moment without it, Mr. Milosevic, because there's only one copy, which you have. ²⁸⁰⁷⁴ What is it that you want to put to the witness?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, I'm going to quote certain portions from that shorthand transcript. Just let me see it in the binder. I've been given a binder here with respect to the witness which contains part of that shorthand transcript.

[Trial Chamber and registrar confer]

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I'll try and extract it from the binder to give the witness a copy. I have another copy for myself. I don't know whether this is the entire document, but I'll begin from here and the witness can follow. The pages have been marked.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Markovic, this is on page 239 of the stenographic notes. It is a Presidency session of the 21st of August, 1991. And in the middle of that page, it says: "Ante Markovic --" this is how you begin: "I nevertheless think that we have to say something with respect to the functioning of the borders, regardless of the fact that it is not a purely economic matter but it is also an economic category." And Gligorov goes on to ask something and your answer is "absolutely so." And then we come to Slobodan Milosevic speaking, yes. And on page 4, it says, it quotes the lack of respect for this decision of the Federal Executive Council with respect to the payment of customs revenues. And I end the quotation there. And I say to you --

JUDGE MAY: You may have got -- we may have got the copy.

MR. NICE: We can help. 427, tab 6 -- the English page. But if it starts on page 239 of -- of the B/C/S, it should be about three pages ²⁸⁰⁷⁵ in from the back of the English, which will be roughly at the foot, page 7 or thereabouts, I should suspect, but perhaps if we hear the text read out we'll be able to find it.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. Go on, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. I was quoting your document, the one on the table, and I say, and I'm quoting from the stenographic notes now: "On the basis of this approach, you began the war in Slovenia. About customs, dues, and borders, customs mostly." So that was common knowledge at that time, wasn't it, Mr. Markovic?

A. Are you asking me?

Q. Yes.

A. I never said that. Quite the contrary. I do remember this meeting, and you said two or three times that I had started the war against Slovenia, and Kucan said something along those lines as well. But at that same meeting I pulled out a document and read from it. It was a government decision. Nowhere does it say there that the army can be used. That does not exist anywhere. And there is no evidence at all that the Prime Minister of the federal government gave any instructions along those lines because he couldn't have given it. But documents do exist, however, which testify to the fact that there was a sharp clash between the minister of the army, or national defence, whichever you like to call it, and the Prime Minister about that question, and the Prime Minister went to Slovenia to stop that completely useless war.

Q. That it was completely useless is quite clear. Now, that it was ²⁸⁰⁷⁶ highly detrimental, that is very clear too. But let me remind you what the then-president of Slovenia, Milan Kucan says. And you can turn the page, it is page 243 of these stenographic notes, and it begins with Kucan. It says, Milan Kucan speaking, "I don't want to be held responsible before the Prime Minister and answer to him who quite obviously wants, now that he has lost the war, to win all that." And then he goes on to discuss other matters. I'll skip over those to save time, but that is not only what I claim in the quotation that I read out, which is a quotation by me, but that is what Milan Kucan, president of Slovenia also says.

On the next page, on page 244, when he refers to your explanations and your request to have two members from the Slovenian government returned to the government, in that middle paragraph on page 244, he says the following -- I'm beginning with the beginning of the sentence, not the beginning of the paragraph, to save time: "I don't have to convince you that you're not going to find a single man in Slovenia, including these two here, who would go back to the Federal Executive Council, the SIV, or rather, the government, Yugoslav government, and to work in the government. It is a Federal Executive Council which we all know about in Slovenia and we know that it began the war in Slovenia." And that is what Kucan says. Is that being contested, Mr. Markovic?

A. You mean is it being contested what Kucan said or what the facts are or were? What Kucan said is one thing, and the facts are something else again. Nowhere do you speak when I reacted and said, "I've had enough of those accusations. I'm going to read out what the government ²⁸⁰⁷⁷ decision says with respect to customs dues, and it will emerge that nobody had the right to deploy the army."

Q. Well, I'll help you.

A. Well, yes, you can, but I can't find that here. Now, as to what Kucan said, those were political games that suited him at the time. It suited him to say that at that time. But nowhere did he say that he called me up in the morning and asked me to help him stop the army to march forward, although I couldn't do anything because it didn't come under my power and authority. And did the army ever act pursuant to anybody else's orders except those of the Presidency of Yugoslavia? Nobody's.

Q. Well, in this case here, it acted according to yours. On page 246, it begins and says, "Ante Markovic." So that is where you refute what Kucan is saying. Now, how you refute him can be seen from the actual quotation. You are quoting your decision, and this is what you say.

A. I don't have that here.

Q. On page 247. You haven't got page 247? I gave you everything that I received in the binder, but it's the same stenographic notes.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The page has the ERN number, Mr. May, 00526240. So I'm now quoting --

JUDGE MAY: Let's see if we can find it. I don't seem able to find the passage. Just read it out for the moment while we look for it. Just read it out slowly to the witness so he can follow it.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Page 247. ²⁸⁰⁷⁸

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] May I ask the Court something in the meantime, please?

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. Presiding Judge, am I the accused here or am I a witness?

JUDGE MAY: No, don't -- don't be offended, Mr. Markovic, if you're asked questions by the accused. There's no --

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No, I'm not.

JUDGE MAY: There's no question of you being offended or anything like that. He is entitled to ask questions. And if he asks things which are improper or unfair or prejudicial, he'll be stopped. But he's entitled to put his case to the witnesses, and that is what he's doing. If you don't agree with him, just simply say no. Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. So I'm quoting you, Mr. Markovic, because you are responding to Kucan and explaining the decision. You say, "The decision brought in by the Federal Executive Council in which members of the Federal Executive Council from Slovenia took part. And they have now written out their resignations, so the decision that was made after Slovenia took over by a single act the borders and by a single act it took over the customs as well and a single act control of flights. All this was done by their own one-sided acts, without acquiescence from anybody. The Federal Executive Council has made the decision on the immediate implementation of federal rules and regulations with respect to borders and taking over borders in ²⁸⁰⁷⁹ the Republic of Slovenia." I'm going to read it out because there are just two paragraphs. And to be fair towards you, I'm reading your decision, the decision of the Federal Executive Council as quoted by you from these stenographic notes, quotation marks placed here and you read the decision, which reads as follows: "In order to ensure that federal regulations are being adhered to with respect to our outside borders and the movement of the populace, the Federal Secretariat --" I keep losing the interpretation, so I don't know if I'm speaking too quickly for the interpreters. But anyway, "The Federal Secretariat for Internal Affairs will directly ensure the control of border crossings." And then you go on to comment and say, "So the Federal Secretariat for Internal Affairs has been given that assignment. And then you go on to quote, secondly: "In order to provide for the implementation of federal rules and regulations --"

Yes, I do understand that the interpreters don't have the documents. I'm being cautioned to speak more slowly. I shall do my best to do so to help the interpreters interpret.

But you're quoting the decision: "In order to implement federal rules with respect to border crossings, the Federal Secretariat of Internal Affairs will realise direct cooperation with the Federal Secretariat of National Defence in order to engage border units of the JNA, in order to provide security for the state borders at border crossings and in built-up areas in the border belt." So you are saying there that the decision that you made does not involve the deployment of the army and that you didn't do; whereas, here it says that they will ²⁸⁰⁸⁰ cooperate with the army and engage frontier units of the JNA to provide security for the border and border belt. That is what you yourself state. Is that right?

A. That's what I said myself a moment ago. The border units, frontier units, are there to secure the frontiers, the borders, and nothing more than that. So tell me, please, where you can find a single document which states that the army in Slovenia should leave the barracks with tanks and to move around with the different units and to take control of certain regions of Slovenia. You will not find that stated anywhere.

Q. Well, you didn't enter into the details of the federal government decision; that is to say, whether they would deploy tanks and leave the barracks with tanks or arms or without arms. All you say is that the units should be deployed and the units are deployed according to their establishment.

JUDGE MAY: You are not paying attention, I suggest, to the words. The words said "To engage border units in order to provide security for the state borders or border crossings." Now, if you're going to quote documents, you must quote them accurately.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I did quote it accurately, Mr. May, word for word.

JUDGE MAY: What you're putting -- are you putting -- so that the witness can understand it, are you suggesting that this was an order for the JNA to go beyond the borders, to attack other parts of Slovenia? Is that what you're suggesting?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] No, that's not what I'm suggesting. ²⁸⁰⁸¹ I'm saying that this is an order to have the army activated in Slovenia, that the army that was stationed in Slovenia, anyway, should be activated.

JUDGE MAY: Very well. Let us -- wait a moment. We -- now we understand the suggestion. We'll put it to the witness. Mr. Markovic, what the accused is suggesting is that this was an order to activate the army in Slovenia. Is that the case or not?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. It cannot be correct. The Federal Executive Council has no jurisdiction over the armed forces. The Federal Executive Council did have jurisdiction over certain police units, and those that had to do with border patrols and border crossings and customs duties. The Federal Executive Council concluded that in order to protect the borders of Yugoslavia, the police should be activated and - which is quite logical - that it should cooperate. This is not an order to the armed forces. It cannot be an order to the armed forces. It's order to the police, that they should cooperate with the border units inside the green belt, nothing further than that, nothing beyond that.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Well, you have just quoted the decision which reads, literally, that "They will cooperate with the Federal Secretariat for National Defence, that is, the armed forces, in order to activate the border units of the JNA" and so on and so forth. So activating JNA units. Look at page 249.

JUDGE MAY: [Previous translation continues] ... the document and I think it's futile to go on arguing about it. We can read it and we will draw our own conclusions from that. You've heard what the witness has ²⁸⁰⁸² said about it.

[Trial Chamber and registrar confer]

JUDGE MAY: Yes. The registry have confirmed that the exhibit is 427, tab 6, but there's no other copy in court at the moment. Yes.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Markovic, would you then, please, comment what Milan Kucan, the President of Slovenia said on that occasion in connection with your quoting this decision. He says: "Milan Kucan:" -- I'll read everything he said, because it's very brief. "Secondly, as for the conclusion you have read --" that's the one I quoted -- "there was a debate while Zivko Pregl," who was a member from Slovenia, "protested against using this conclusion for the purposes for which it was used. If you didn't know to what this conclusion would lead, that's your problem. Objectively this is what it led to. Look, we have at our disposal and the comrades from the Secretariat for National Defence can show you how this was implemented in particular commands and orders." They were referring to your conclusions, so how can you say it's none of your business?

And then Ante Markovic says, "I'm sorry, but that has nothing to do with it."

Milan Kucan: How do you mean it has nothing to do with it? You are the president of the Federal Executive Council who signed this and this was the occasion for the resignation of --"

THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters didn't catch the name of the ²⁸⁰⁸³ official.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. This conclusion led to the intervention of the armed forces in Slovenia, and Milan Kucan and Zivko Pregl, the member from Slovenia of the federal government, who resigned for this reason, also said this. And you, Mr. Markovic, are saying that you had nothing to do with your order -- your conclusion being implemented and nobody else knew about this in the Presidency. Is this in dispute, Mr. Markovic?

A. Absolutely is it in dispute. Not only is it in dispute, it is incorrect. Zivko Pregl handed me his written resignation in which he said that he was asked in Slovenia to resign. Unfortunately, I don't have all these documents. I am doing everything based on my recollection. And this has nothing to do with what we are talking about. Whether Zivko Pregl resigned because he disagreed or because he was forced in Slovenia to do this, that's the question. In his resignation to me, in his letter of resignation, all it says is that he was asked in Slovenia to resign, and that actually is not anything that proves something in this respect. And if Mr. Milosevic has no better arguments than these, don't let him use them.

Q. Mr. Markovic, what you said is about something I quoted that Milan Kucan said, that you created the war in Slovenia.

JUDGE MAY: He has already dealt with that, so let's move on to something else.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] ²⁸⁰⁸⁴ ^{BLANK PAGE} ²⁸⁰⁸⁵

Q. Mr. Markovic, you were at the head of the federal government at the time Slovenia declared independence and at the time Croatia declared independence and when this war that you caused in Slovenia began and when conflicts broke out in Slovenia -- in Croatia and Bosnia.

JUDGE MAY: You are not to put matters which are in dispute. He's dealt with the war in Slovenia. He's denied completely that he had anything to do with it. So for you to put it tendentiously as though he were responsible is wrong. Now, what you can do is put questions, not argument.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, I quite tendentiously and correctly quoted Mr. Markovic, who was quoting his own decision activating the JNA. Yes, tendentiously, with a tendention towards establishing the truth.

JUDGE MAY: We are not concerned directly with Slovenia in this case. We've now spent about half an hour on it. So let's move on to something which is more relevant and involves your case. The witness gave quite a lot of evidence involving you, and you may want to ask him about that, if you challenge it.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Of course I will put all the questions I consider relevant, Mr. May. The witness is testifying to events up to December 1991, and that's the period I'm asking him about, not beyond that.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. So you were at the head of the federal government when the break-up of Yugoslavia began, up to the end of 1991; is this correct, ²⁸⁰⁸⁶ Mr. Markovic?

A. Yes.

Q. And in paragraph 16 of your statement, you say that I had de facto control over the government of Serbia. There's no need to go into that now, but is it in dispute that you had both de jure and de facto control over the federal government, both at the time of these large-scale exoduses of the Serbs and the events that led to the break-up of Yugoslavia?

A. No. I had control over the government up to the end of 1960. After that, the competencies of the government were reduced and little by little its scope of activity was reduced. And ultimately, the members of the government who started working together as a single team on a programme of reform and democratisation and change in our society, that was a single team at the time, as the nationalisms grew, whether they were separatist or nationalist with a tendency to expansion, they all started working more and more under instructions from their own republics and less and less as members of the government.

Q. Very well. Is it in dispute that you had both de jure and de facto control over the time I am charged with the shelling of Dubrovnik, the events in Vukovar? Throughout this time, you were the Prime Minister.

A. But the Prime Minister had no competency and no power over the armed forces, none whatsoever. So nothing that concerned the activities of the armed forces was something I could affect. But what you had with Kadijevic, that did affect the armed forces.

Q. As you were the Prime Minister and had the de facto and de jure ²⁸⁰⁸⁷ control over the federal government, why when you say that meetings with Kadijevic and members of the Presidency took place in your office and, as you say, you even heard some intercepts, doesn't that mean that you had all the strings of power in your hands?

A. This was not at the time when Slovenia and Croatia seceded. That was before. But under the constitution, the Yugoslav government had very modest competencies. The things that happened, including your breaking into the monetary system of Yugoslavia and the other things that you did, such as blocking goods from Slovenia and so on, by these actions you brought into question even these modest competencies of the federal government. You mounted an attack on these competencies. But I did whatever I could, however futile. I went to the Assembly of Slovenia to get agreement from them and not to take any radical measures. I also gave a speech in the Croatian parliament. I won't say how I was greeted there. I asked you to let me speak in the parliament of Serbia but was never given permission to do this. Look at the speech I held in the Croatian parliament, where among other things I said, "This is the first and last time I am speaking as a Croat. I am not the same kind of Croat that you are because you hate Serbs and others because you are Croats. That's not the case with me." I told Tudjman a long time ago, and I repeated that before the parliament, "Don't talk to the Serbs in Croatia through Belgrade, through Milosevic, because that will end in war. Talk to them directly. Sit down with them and talk." I also said to him, and repeated this before the Croatian parliament - and there are documents to prove this - I said, "Keep your hands off Bosnia ²⁸⁰⁸⁸ and Herzegovina."

My competencies were so modest and my personal activity and involvement was -- well, I won't go into that. That was a long time ago. But I did my best to prevent the worst from happening, and I failed, thanks in large part to you.

Q. Mr. Markovic, you are explaining what you said, but as to what I said, you keep saying that I acted otherwise. Just a while ago you said that in 1991 you didn't perform activities that might be termed control of the government of which you were the head, and you were at the head of the government until the end of 1991.

A. In formal terms, yes. But in fact - and I said this in my letter of resignation - the scope of activity for the government, which was small anyway under the constitution, was restricted more and more, to such an extent that in the end there was nothing for the government to do. And I stated this publicly in my letter of resignation.

Q. We'll come to what you said in your letter of resignation later on, but this is not relevant for what I'm asking you now. Is it in dispute that throughout 1991 you exercised full activity, meetings with the armed forces, the police, their relevant political factors throughout this time when the sides were arming themselves and there were clashes?

A. I didn't have any talks with the army. I don't understand why you're asking me this. What does Mr. Milosevic want?

Q. Mr. Milosevic wants to say that you had both de facto and de jure authority, that you controlled the federal government up to the end of 1991, while all these events were taking place leading to the break-up of ²⁸⁰⁸⁹ Yugoslavia, and that this can be seen, for example, from your review of the obligations of the president of the Federal Executive Council for 1991, 1990, 1999 [as interpreted], and you can see that there is no difference here. There are no discrepancies. This was all written down in your cabinet.

JUDGE MAY: Let the witness answer. And then if you're going to put a document to him, you can do so.

Now, Mr. Markovic, is there anything you want to add to your previous answer in relation to what the accused is putting to you?

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] There is no need to add anything, because the course of events were such that, as I've already said, the Federal Executive Council had very little control or competency or none over the armed forces, and their competencies were restricted more and more. And starting around June 1991, there was hardly any possibility to do anything. We attempted to establish a moratorium, to set up some kind of system for the country to function during the moratorium until the final decision on the fate of Yugoslavia was made. But for this Tribunal, it is not important what the government and its Prime Minister were doing. This is about President Milosevic. And I repeat, he wants to transform the indictment against him into an indictment against me. I ask to be protected.

JUDGE MAY: [Previous translation continues] ... Mr. Markovic, let me explain the process. You have come here to give evidence on very serious offences [Realtime transcript read in error "various areas"] against the accused. Now, he's entitled to defend himself against those ²⁸⁰⁹⁰ charges. And the same with any witness, he's entitled to put his case. Now, you may disagree with it. It may be completely untrue. That doesn't matter. He's entitled to put it. And I would ask you, if you would, please, to deal with him as courteously as I hope you should be dealt with here. This is a trial, and we have to decide ultimately on the guilt or innocence of the accused. So if you would just answer his questions, and if you could do it briefly, so much the better.

Yes, Mr. Milosevic. Yes. I wish the transcript would be more accurate. What I said to the witness was not that he had come here to give evidence on various areas. I said he had come to give evidence on serious offences.

Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. As we were saying, I have here -- I'm not going to provide it all, but, for example, a review of the obligations of the president of the Federal Executive Council of the Yugoslav government dating back to 1991. This is the original from your cabinet. And we can see the overall activities or, rather, those which were recorded of your activities. And they go on continuously, ending with the 12th of December, 1991 -- 20th of December, 1991, where it says "leave" or "vacation." So this includes your numerous meetings with the army and the police and the Presidency and various political figures, both domestic and foreign, and so on and so forth. So throughout that year of 1991, while Yugoslavia was being broken up, you have a lot of activities, and from all this we cannot conclude that your competencies were limited and restricted in any way. So take a ²⁸⁰⁹¹ look at this review.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] And I should like to tender it into evidence as an exhibit.

JUDGE MAY: Yes. Let the witness see the document.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] But before that, I should like to ask you to tell me when it was that you had this meeting with me in December. When was that?

JUDGE MAY: Let us deal with one thing at a time. We're dealing with this --

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, I'd just like to look for it, because I don't seem to be able to find it, any trace of a meeting where it says "Milosevic." It just doesn't seem to be here.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. So do you remember when it was that you allegedly had a meeting with me in December?

A. It was the beginning of December.

Q. Well, I have the beginning of December here. From the beginning of December - and I'm looking through the pages - your agenda, programme of work and the meetings recorded. And there's no record of that meeting with me throughout December 1991.

JUDGE MAY: Wait a moment. What are you looking at, Mr. Milosevic? What are these documents?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, this is a review of the obligations of the president of the Federal Executive Council in 1991. It was his own cabinet that kept these records, and I got them from the ²⁸⁰⁹² archives of his own cabinet, that is to say, from the federal government. It records each of his meetings. For example, it says, "The 18th of June, 1991, luncheon with S. Milosevic at 1400 hours, Slobodan Milosevic; at 1500 hours, lunch with Milosevic." That was the 18th of June, 1991, for example. So it's that whole day of the 18th. "Telephone, Warren Zimmerman, US ambassador; at 11.00 a.m., Vukotic; 11.45, Murat Galic," and so on and so forth, the agenda. "11.50, agreement with respect to the Slovenian laws, Mitrovic, Maksic, Gracanin, Borovec, Zlokan, Santonaz [phoen], Medjovanovic [phoen], Vajovic, Pecar," and so on.

JUDGE MAY: Very well.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] And at 1400 hours, Milosevic --

JUDGE MAY: We have the idea. Now, let the witness see the document.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. So all your contacts and meetings --

JUDGE MAY: Yes. Mr. Markovic, if you'd care to look at that. And first of all, tell us if it seems to be an authentic document when you've had a chance to look at it, and then you can also look through December.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] December is at the very end, and it is rather short.

MR. NICE: While the witness is reviewing the document, the Chamber will perhaps have in mind that this is not a document we were able to provide, because archives, of course, have been, in general, completely unavailable to us. But if documents of this kind exist for other organs ²⁸⁰⁹³ of the government, in particular for the organs of the accused, we'll be very interested in seeing them.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. It is a document -- well, yes, I'll wait.

[Trial Chamber confers]

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The paper has gone all yellow in the 12 years since. It's the document. Mr. Nice asked about it. It's the document from Mr. Markovic's cabinet.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] May I say something? I wasn't able to read through this whole document. It would require much more time. According to what it says, one could say that the document was authentic and that that is what my -- the notes that my cabinet kept with respect to my activities. But we can also see that from July onwards there -- or thereabouts, all the topics of my activities from people who know what all this was about, we can see that this was just within the frameworks of the government. For example, "Friday, the 6th, Tasic, Aco Mitrovic, preparations for The Hague Conference, the flight to The Hague, the meeting in The Hague, internal consultations, interview for Radio B-92, monitoring and so on." All this was internal consultations. There weren't any activities which would speak about the functioning of -- functioning outside the building, if I can put it that way, of the Federal Executive Council or Yugoslav government. And let me just add, although it's not important in this context, that I asked to be given from the Federal Executive Council material relating to my work there and a whole library of materials and documents that I worked on during those three ²⁸⁰⁹⁴ years. I was not able to get anything from them.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. All right. Now, as you say -- you yourself say that the government is authentic, would you please find this meeting with me in December.

A. Perhaps it doesn't -- it's not recorded, but that doesn't mean that the meeting didn't take place. Most probably I didn't verify this, so I didn't check it out.

Q. So your cabinet didn't know where you had gone. You went secretly. You left the cabinet secretly.

A. Well, you can put it that way if you want to.

Q. In 1991, the prime minister of the federal government goes to see the president of the Republic of Serbia in the centre of Belgrade secretly, not recorded anywhere.

JUDGE MAY: No. No, Mr. Milosevic, you've made your point. You've heard the answer. No point going over it again.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well. Would you exhibit this, please? And I should like to have the document returned to me once it has been photocopied.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] May I be allowed to add something, please? I informed Loncar about that conversation. Loncar at the time was the foreign minister. And I mentioned that in a conversation that I had in Trieste with de Michelis also sometime at the beginning of 1992.

JUDGE MAY: Very well. Yes, Mr. Nice. ²⁸⁰⁹⁵

MR. NICE: The document is being spoken of by the accused as if it's an original. If it's an original, then in accordance with your usual policy you should retain the original and he should have the copy. And it will be interesting to know in due course how the yellowed pages of the original come to be in the accused's hands, when, as I say -- whatever it is. But the original we'd like to see as well.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, of course you shall.

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE MAY: The registry will keep the original. You can have a photocopy back. The Registry will keep it. The Prosecution can have a look now.

We will give it the next D number, please.

THE REGISTRAR: D207, Your Honour.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well, Mr. May. I don't have anything against having a photocopy myself.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. I should now like to ask you, Mr. Markovic, to take a look at this document from the cabinet of the then-Foreign Affairs Minister Loncar about the conversation with the US Secretary of State, James Baker, in 1991, in which it is also clearly set out that the army, under the control -- is under the control of the Presidency and the government, as it states. This, then, otherwise is a document, Mr. May, which the opposite side possesses. It is 064611, the ERN number. And it is titled "The Federal Secretariat for Foreign Affairs, the Cabinet of the Foreign Secretary." It has a confidential number, et cetera, et cetera. I don't ²⁸⁰⁹⁶ ^{BLANK PAGE} ²⁸⁰⁹⁷ want to read it out. The date is the 11th of May, 1991. It is a note on the telephone conversation between the federal secretary for foreign affairs, Loncar, with the US Secretary of State, J. Baker. And the note was sent out to the president of the SFRY, the Presidency and the President Jovic; to the president of the Federal Assembly, Gligorijevic; to the president of the Federal Executive Council, Ante Markovic; to the vice-minister of the Federal Defence Secretary, Kadijevic and Gracanin; and then also to certain key figures in the Federal Secretary for Foreign Affairs. It wasn't sent out to anybody in Serbia, just sent out at federal level.

And let us take a look at what the third paragraph of the document states. I assume that you provided that to the opposite side over there, because you are mentioned -- or perhaps you didn't provide them with that. Anyway, paragraph 3 says: "In response to Baker's question whether there was the danger of the army acting autonomously or that this should be done by some of its parts, in the area of Croatia, the Federal Secretary Loncar said that the army was under the full control of the Federal Secretary of National Defence and that he was responsible to the Presidency and the government."

And then a few lines further on - and you can read that for yourselves, you can read it all, but to save time - it says: "The actions of the army were calculated basically on guaranteeing security to the population and saving them from unrest and conflict, protecting them from unrest and conflict." So that, then, is the government's position and Loncar is discussing this with Baker. Loncar also comes from Croatia -- ²⁸⁰⁹⁸ or rather, he's a Croat from Croatia. He was the foreign minister at the time --

JUDGE MAY: Let's move on. Let the witness see the document, and then we must adjourn.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. When you come to look at the document, would you take a look and see that it says quite precisely that the JNA was to be deployed to protect and safeguard the safety of the population, which is what your minister, the minister of foreign affairs, is saying.

A. This was a telephone conversation in fact, if I understand it correctly, between Mr. Baker and Mr. Loncar. Now, what Baker and Loncar discussed and who drew up these minutes, I really can't enter into that. At any rate, this is not a document of mine.

JUDGE MAY: Very well. We'll give it the next D number.

THE REGISTRAR: D208, Your Honour.

JUDGE MAY: We must adjourn now. Mr. Markovic, I'm sorry that we haven't been able to conclude your evidence today, particularly as I understand you've already been here once and have been inconvenienced in that way. But as you will appreciate, your evidence is important in this case, and we must deal with the matter thoroughly, and we must, therefore, ask you to come back at a date convenient to yourself to continue your examination, which we will endeavour to make as expeditious as possible and certainly finish within the day.

Mr. Nice, if you'd like to arrange with the witness a suitable ²⁸⁰⁹⁹ time for him to come back.

MR. NICE: We will, and obviously we'll restrict our conversations with him to that topic.

JUDGE MAY: Yes, of course. You certainly have permission from that point of view to talk to him.

We'll adjourn now. Tuesday morning.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] May I know today, Mr. May, whether Mr. Markovic will be continuing on Tuesday?

JUDGE MAY: Not on Tuesday. It won't be on Tuesday. Unless there's a sudden change of plan. If there is, you will be informed promptly; but probably not on Tuesday.

We'll adjourn.

--- Whereupon the proceedings adjourned at 1.49 p.m., to be reconvened on Tuesday,

the 28th day of October, 2003, at 9.00 a.m.