⁴⁹⁰⁷⁹

Wednesday, 1 March 2006

[Open session]

[The accused entered court]

[The witness entered court]

--- Upon commencing at 9.04 a.m.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, please continue with your re-examination.

WITNESS: SLOBODAN JARCEVIC [Interpretation]

[Witness answered through interpreter] Re-examination by Mr. Milosevic: [Continued]

THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Just a few questions. I'll try not to keep you long. Mrs. Retzlaff said that I dismissed and appointed people such as Milan Babic, whom she used as an example. Do you recall how Babic was replaced and who replaced him?

A. Mr. President, at that time, I was not in the Republic of Serb Krajina, but I know about these events. He was dismissed because he did not want to accept the Vance Plan offered by the Security Council and the other mediators to resolve the issues that had arisen in Yugoslavia; primarily the European Union, OSCE, and so on. The parliament then intervened as the highest legislative body of the Republic of Serb Krajina, as is usual in any state, and the signature question --

Q. All right. You don't have to go into any further details. Was it the Assembly of the Krajina that replaced Babic? ⁴⁹⁰⁸⁰

A. Yes. That's just what I'm saying.

Q. Very well.

A. And if you like, I would like to say that he rose very fast in his career and had you had any influence of that, he would certainly never have been Prime Minister, nor would he have become minister of foreign affairs after I was replaced.

Q. When he became the foreign minister, you described that situation. He was appointed to that post after he won a majority in the Krajina parliament.

Q. Yes.

THE INTERPRETER: Could there be a pause between question and answer, please.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. So did someone --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic and the witness, the interpreter is asking you to observe a pause between question and answer.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I apologise once more.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Very well. Mr. Jarcevic, did anyone from Belgrade exert any influence for him to have the appropriate make-up of the parliament so that he could become a minister of foreign affairs?

A. Well, there's no point in even talking about it. At the parliamentary elections, he won the majority, and so he, of course, was able to take the highest posts in the country, and that's the same in every country in the world. ⁴⁹⁰⁸¹

Q. Throughout the time you were minister of foreign affairs and a member of the cabinet, can you give a single example of Belgrade intervening in the appointment of any official in the Krajina?

A. No. I have no such information, but I could inform the Chamber of a very interesting combination of cadres in the state after the multi-party elections which were under the control of the Security Council. President Martic, who won several percentages more than Mr. Babic at the election, said to me, "Our country needs an economy and --"

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Jarcevic. You did answer the question.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Very well. Mr. Jarcevic, Mrs. Uertz-Retzlaff showed you a letter here which you sent to Republika Srpska. I was not able to see the date in this extract, because you can't see it here, but this was at the time when you were talking about the dangers and calling people to unity. Do you remember that letter?

A. I don't have it before me because I've already packed away my papers. I didn't think I'd need them any more.

Q. Very well. As you don't have it before you and I want to put only one question in connection with it, Mrs. Uertz-Retzlaff quoted -- there's a long passage at the beginning which takes up more than half a page, and towards the end of that passage there's a sentence of yours: "The Serbian knights must be on the Serbian borders," and she asked you what borders these were. ⁴⁹⁰⁸² At the beginning of this passage, where you say, "Dear Mr. Buha," and right after that it says: "The Croatian army has attacked all the points along our border. Its only aim is to kill and expel the Serbs from the Republic of Serb Krajina, just as it has done with the Serbs in Herceg-Bosna and the Republic of Croatia." So it says the Croatian army has attacked all our borders. And at the end of the passage, you say the Serbian knights - meaning the Serbian soldiers - have to be on Serbian borders. What kind of borders? This is all in the same passage. It's all one paragraph. So what kind of borders are these?

A. Well, these are the borders of the Republic of Serbian Krajina or, rather, the UN protected areas, as our country was called in the international organisations and as it was called by all the members of the United Nations.

Q. I won't go into this. Just a moment. You were shown a document here or, rather, a letter that you sent to Stanisic in connection with the arrival of a delegation of the Cossack army of Russia. Do you have this before you?

A. No, but I know what it says, so I don't have to look at it.

Q. All right. Very well. You speak of the arrival of a delegation, as it says here in paragraph 2, four air tickets Moscow-Belgrade-Moscow. What does this indicate?

JUDGE ROBINSON: [Previous translation continues] ... 968. Yes. Go ahead, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. What does this explain when you say four air tickets ⁴⁹⁰⁸³ Moscow-Belgrade-Moscow? Does it mean that they have to arrive from where and where are they going on then?

A. As for air transport, they had to go from Moscow to Belgrade and then go back to Moscow.

Q. So a four-man delegation?

A. I think it was a larger delegation, but some of the tickets were to be paid for by the government of the Republic of Serbian Krajina, and other tickets were to be bought by the Republika Srpska in Bosnia-Herzegovina. However, this letter doesn't show all these details.

Q. And do you say here that talks are to be held and that something is to be signed?

A. Yes. The representatives of the Cossack organisation had many proposals to make to us which are not contained in this letter. For example, economic cooperation, military, and expert cooperation, and so on and so forth.

Q. And does it say here that a contract on cooperation is to be signed of the Republic of Serbian Krajina with this organisation?

A. Yes. That's just what I said.

Q. Does the visit of this delegation and the measures you took to organise their arrival, does all this fall outside the framework of a normal kind of cooperation? Because this is a letter from you to Stanisic, who was the chief of state security.

A. Mr. President, I explained yesterday; it was wartime. It was a time when Yugoslavia was being broken up. Both enemies and friends were travelling through our airports and crossing our borders. Of course we ⁴⁹⁰⁸⁴ had to make sure that this kind of delegation would have a passage open to the airport. We esteemed this organisation highly because the Cossacks used to be the backbone of the Russian army, and they had a decisive influence on the formation of the Russian state. Certainly the security organs of Serbia would have to look after airports, not just the borders. So it's quite normal that I sent a letter to the Ministry of the Interior of Serbia, first of all to inform them, because they couldn't have received such information from the organs of Serbia or Yugoslavia since it was we autonomously as representatives of the Republika Srpska who were having talks with this organisation which was promising us that we would meet with understanding on the part of the executive organs of the Russian Federation, which of course did not happen.

Q. Mrs. Uertz-Retzlaff showed you an intercept of a telephone conversation between me and Perisic. Just briefly. They've crossed out something that would help provide an explanation, but it's not indispensable. Is Akashi mentioned here?

A. Mr. President, yes, Akashi is mentioned.

Q. Who is Akashi?

A. Akashi was one of the prominent representatives of the United Nations. At the time, it was rumoured that he would become a candidate for the post of Secretary-General. If I may say, he was probably unsuccessful because he openly spoke about the massacre perpetrated by the Croatian army in Western Slavonia. He was the first to say that the blood on the pavement was being washed away with hoses.

Q. He was certainly one of the most eminent representatives of the ⁴⁹⁰⁸⁵ United Nations, but in the Yugoslavia of the time, he was the number one representative of the Secretary-General. That was his official post.

A. Yes.

Q. He was therefore representing the United Nations. On page 2 there is mention of the minister of the foreign affairs of Greece, Papuljaz. Have you seen this?

A. Yes.

Q. Is the fact mentioned that he was coordinating with the European Community because Greece was then presiding over the European Community, so there's Akashi, Papuljaz, the United Nations, the European Community. Does this show that there were activities on the way between me and the representatives of the UN and the Greek minister of foreign affairs which was coordinating the European Union at the time?

A. Mr. President, I can present my opinion here. You always cooperated closely with all the representatives of the United Nations and the prominent countries of Europe, including the European organisation the OSCE, as well as the European Union. And here, by asserting this, all that's left for me is to confirm that it was quite wrong that your name or the name of the government of Yugoslavia or Serbia be linked to some military actions against the Republic of Croatia and against the Muslim-Croat Federation, as it says in the indictments of this Prosecution.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Jarcevic, just answer the question. Just a simple answer.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I have answered it. ⁴⁹⁰⁸⁶

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. All right. Let's put aside for a moment our efforts to work through the representatives of the United Nations, EU, and so on. With respect to the Flash Operation, Operation Flash that is commented on in the second intercepted conversation, do you know, Mr. Jarcevic, that I presented a document here provided to me by the other side - that is to say Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff's side, in the course of duty - the stenographic notes of the Council for National Security where we can see, starting from Tudjman and then all the rest, that the Croatian leadership, even without the knowledge of its own government, of their own government, staged an attack on the motorway in order to go ahead with Operation Flash. Do you know about that?

JUDGE ROBINSON: What's the question? The question is whether you know about that.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Well, the question is whether it was -- whether it became known here in this premises that that action was staged by the Croatian leadership as a pretext to force the Serbs out of Western Slavonia.

MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: The witness cannot really tell us here what we have heard in earlier parts of these proceedings. I mean, how could he help us there? It's a leading question, I think.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. I agree. Mr. Milosevic, ask another question.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mr. Jarcevic, later on was it uncovered and found that this ⁴⁹⁰⁸⁷ Operation Flash was launched because of a staged attack which was not perpetrated by the Serbs, but it was staged by the Croatian services as a pretext for an alleged police operation?

A. Even small children in the former Yugoslavia know that to be a fact.

Q. You were shown here a conversation or, rather, this conversation, and it says that I speak of Martic's wilful conduct and the attack on Zagreb, Sisak, Karlovac, and so on. Can we see here that we know about that? Is that something that we know about, or do we take it at face value, information provided at that time at face value? What 15 children dismembered and so on? Is that something that actually happened?

A. I don't think that happened. The Croats would send out information about casualties in different ways. There probably were casualties, but I don't think there were more than six individuals who were wounded or killed. And on our side, there were hundreds of dead.

Q. Can we see from this that at that time we believed the Croatian media or that we didn't believe the Croatian information?

A. Well, we can see that you believed it because you were surprised to hear that shells had fallen on Zagreb or around Zagreb. I don't know where those rockets -- what those rockets reached, but you were surprised, and that indicates that you did not take part --

Q. No. What I'm asking you is this: Did we believe the reports coming in and published by the Croatian information media?

A. Mr. President, you reacted to those reports. Whether you believed them or not, I don't know, I can't say. ⁴⁹⁰⁸⁸

Q. All right. Fine. You were also shown here a document relating to the mobilisation and sending recruits to the army of Srpska Krajina. Do you have that document in front you?

A. No, I don't, but yesterday I confirmed that I wrote the document.

Q. No, no, no. Zivota Panic wrote the document, the Chief of the General Staff, and we're talking about taking in these recruits.

A. That was in response to my letter.

Q. All right, then. Now, in the first paragraph of this document it says --

MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, that's 352, tab 152.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Well, I hope you have it in front of you now.

A. That's not it.

Q. Can you find it?

A. Well, we have it in English here, yes.

Q. Well, you have an attachment in Serbian.

A. Well, Mr. President, you go ahead and read.

Q. All right. Now, it says here in the first paragraph that: "Because of the aggression on the part of the armed forces of the Republic of Croatia on the territory of the Republic of Serbian Krajina, the government of the Republic of Serbian Krajina has declared a state of war and issued a general mobilisation ..."

A. Yes.

Q. So what was the reason for what they did, the pretext? ⁴⁹⁰⁸⁹

A. The Croats attacked three points in the Republika Srpska Krajina in the south.

Q. Was that the zone under the protection of the United Nations?

A. Yes, under full UN protection, and there were about 300 Serbs who were killed.

Q. So the United Nations did not defend them.

A. The United Nations went away and the soldiers of Kenyan Battalion and some other battalion lost their lives, and this was rumoured, but Croatia was never accused nor did they ask that these people be punished.

Q. So the United Nations failed to protect and defend them. Then it goes on to say: " ... on the basis of that they ordered a general mobilisation," and then it says, "on the basis of which all conscripts of the Republic of Serbian Krajina ..." So who are we talking about here? Are we talking about citizens of Krajina who were conscripts of the Republic of Serbian Krajina or anybody else's citizens?

A. Only the citizens of the Republic of Serbian Krajina.

Q. So they were the only ones that could be the conscripts of the Republic of Serbian Krajina; right?

A. Yes. And can I add something, Mr. President? The representatives of the United Nations --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Please don't add anything. Let's move on.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. So it was their duty, these conscripts, to report, and they would be taken in.

Look at point 4 now, please. Who assigns these conscripts? They ⁴⁹⁰⁹⁰ are being allowed to gather somewhere on the territory of Serbia and Montenegro, and what does it say in paragraph 4? Who is sending them? The assignments -- what does it say?

A. "The assignments of the conscript soldiers will be performed by the government office of the Republic of Serbian Krajina in Belgrade, Mosa Pijada Street ..." et cetera, telephone --

Q. All right, you don't have to read that.

A. It's my office.

Q. So it says sending conscripts to the government office of the Republic of Serbian Krajina; is that right?

A. Yes.

Q. Thank you, Mr. Jarcevic.

A. Well, the state functioned. That's what it means.

Q. Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff also showed you another document, a letter, in fact, at that time by the minister of foreign affairs, Milan Martic. It dates to 1993, April, and the letter was sent to the presidents and minister, and it speaks about the difficult financial situation. Do you have that document?

A. Yes, here it is.

Q. All right. Fine. Now, just read out these critical words in the first paragraph. He speaks about the highly unfavourable material and financial situation. So what was this about? What does it mean "unfavourable material and function situation"? Was it about anything else but that?

A. No. ⁴⁹⁰⁹¹

Q. So it's an unfavourable material and financial situation that he is addressing. And what does he say at the end of that paragraph? Within the frameworks of your possibilities ask for your assistance. Is that what it says?

A. Yes, that's what it says.

Q. So it says: "I have an unfavourable material and financial situation. Please give us assistance as far as you can."

A. Yes.

Q. So who else can the -- somebody from the Republic of Serbian Krajina ask aid and assistance from in terms of material and financial aid? What other country? Serbia first and foremost, I assume.

A. Yes, that's right.

Q. Now, take a look at the last paragraph. What does it say there? "Even though we are aware of difficult economic situation of the Republic of Serbia, we believe you will find ways to secure certain funds and send them to this Ministry as assistance." He says "assistance" once again; "as assistance."

So was there any question of Serbia -- or, rather, was it that Serbia, the people, the nation, were asked to send aid and that they did do so?

A. Had Serbia done anything else, it would have been an ally of Croatia.

Q. Well, had it not assisted, we would be scoundrels of the worst kind. Helped out in a difficult situation. Now, we're just commenting on what you published, and you were ⁴⁹⁰⁹² shown this news item by Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff. It was -- it says the Jarcevic -- Foreign Minister Jarcevic says that the Croatian --

THE INTERPRETER: A little slower, please. Could the speaker please read more slowly, thank you.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, please read more slowly.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well, Mr. Robinson.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Do you know -- what efforts were made, both by the international representatives and Krajina - Nikolic was the Prime Minister - along with great support from Belgrade, to endeavour to normalise relations between Knin and Zagreb? The expression "normalise relations between Knin and Zagreb," was that something that was present during that time all the time, in the forefront?

A. Most of the proposals and wishes came from the government of Krajina, Serbia, and Yugoslavia to establish peace with Croatia. Now, as far as normalisation of traffic was concerned and other aspects of life were concerned, from 1992 to 1995 we always offered the Croats passage through the Maslenica bridge. They never wanted to accept that because they kept informing their people that we were preventing this and therefore planned a military settling of accounts with us.

Q. All right. Thank you. I'm not going to show you any more documents, although there were quite a few of them. But you said when Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff quoted something that the then Norwegian Foreign Minister Knut Vollebaek said, you said that he wasn't to be trusted and believed. What do you base that on? ⁴⁹⁰⁹³

A. Mr. President, I said that on the basis of his testimony, which is highly unreliable, not true. And I did say yesterday, and I'll explain this, that he also stole my bag at the airport in Oslo. If the Trial Chamber is interested in hearing more about that --

Q. Well, I'm sure they're interested if the minister steals a bag. That doesn't go to his credit.

A. Well, he wasn't the foreign minister at that time. He was to become foreign minister later on. Well, quite -- it was very simple for him to be angry with the Croats who didn't sign the agreement. He went across the runway with me and was angry because two hours before that, before the official declaration that the Croats refused to sign, I had let the foreign press agencies know about that beforehand. And he said, "You've destroyed my career by doing that because you leaked the news two hours in advance."

Q. What happened?

A. Well, we received Tudjman's letter before them that the Croatian delegation had to return to Zagreb and was not allowed to sign the draft agreement that had already been agreed upon. We received this earlier on. It was a surprise for the Croatian security detail who led the Croatian delegation to the negotiations, and of course I sent this news to the cabinet in Belgrade and they informed the press agencies that Tudjman's letter would arrive tomorrow, vetoing the Croatian delegation at secret negotiations to sign the agreement that was proposed by the international community.

And instead of being angry at Croatia, Vollebaek was angry at me. ⁴⁹⁰⁹⁴ And I was carrying my bag or suitcase, my bag. I had all my belongings with me, and our delegation boarded one vehicle, the Croatian delegation went into another car, and Mr. Vollebaek said to me, "You know, the Croatian luggage will be stored in one part of the plane and the Serb luggage will be stored in other part of the plane, and Mr. Jarcevic please believe me when I say that these belongings of yours, your luggage, that the state security will be responsible for your luggage, the Norwegian state security, so put your luggage over there, your suitcase over there. So it would have been bad manners had I refused, so I put my bag -- I loaded it up onto the vehicle that was transporting the luggage of the delegation of the Republic of Serbian Krajina. Now, since the Croats went from Budapest on another flight, we stayed on in the same plane, we landed in Belgrade, and my bag was nowhere to be seen. Since I had some photographs of the house I was born in in the bag and my uncle's photographs which the Croats had set fire to and destroyed in Bosnia during those days, I sent a letter to Zagreb and I said, "Mr. Vollebaek, please return my bag to me. I want all my belongings to be inside it, especially the photographs which are very valuable to me because they -- I cannot take other photographs of them because it's been destroyed. Unless you do so, if you fail to do so, I shall sue for damages."

Three days later I was informed by an official in my cabinet, in my offices, that during my absence Vollebaek turned up, handed over the suitcase without a -- uttering a single word, and disappeared. Nothing else. ⁴⁹⁰⁹⁵

Q. Thank you, Mr. Jarcevic. This was very --

JUDGE ROBINSON: I'm sorry. Mr. Jarcevic, you concluded from what happened that Mr. Vollebaek had stolen your bag. It doesn't sound like that to me. It was just a mix-up, which quite often happens, and you're being a little unfair to Mr. Vollebaek in describing him as a thief.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I informed you that he said he would guarantee that nothing would happen to my luggage, and this was an obligation conditioning the agreement.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Well, we're not challenging that he brought the bag back.

A. But how did he happen to have it?

Q. Well, it didn't get lost with him --

JUDGE ROBINSON: You're finished?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes, I have. I thank the witness.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] You're welcome.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Jarcevic, that concludes your testimony. Thank you for coming to the Tribunal to give it, and you may now leave.

THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you, too.

[The witness withdrew]

MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: I would just like to inform in particular Judge Bonomy, who asked about the mass graves in Marino Selo and Pakracka Poljana. We actually have heard evidence on these matters. In particular, Ivan Grujic testified on these issues at page 17376 and 17377, ⁴⁹⁰⁹⁶ speaking about an exhumation in Pakracka Poljana with 19 Serb victims in one mass grave. And also other witnesses such as, for instance, C-037 addressed this issue at page 10854 to 10857. And I have also inquired within the Office of the Prosecutor, and Mr. Bob Reid, who was there in a very early stage of the Tribunal, actually confirmed that an investigator of our office worked on both these locations but as it is -- was something done in 1994, 1995, he was not able to actually come up with the results on whether exhumation had taken place under -- under -- with the participation of the OTP. That's so long ago. It will take more time. If you want to know more on this, then we'll dig further.

JUDGE BONOMY: I'm very grateful for that. Thank you, Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, since I don't have those numbers, page numbers, before me, is Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff speaking about the testimony of their witnesses about the number of Serb victims?

JUDGE ROBINSON: Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff.

MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes, Your Honour. It was Witness Ivan Grujic, from the Croatian office, who --

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right, all right.

MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: -- talked about this exhumation.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. I ask because Jarcevic here in his letter referred to 2.500 Serbs that were killed, and then we heard the figure of 19, and that seems to be a bit of a difference, doesn't it?

JUDGE ROBINSON: Your next witness, Mr. Milosevic. ⁴⁹⁰⁹⁷

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The next witness is Ms. Alice Mahon.

[The witness entered court]

JUDGE ROBINSON: Let the witness make the declaration.

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

JUDGE ROBINSON: You may sit. You may begin, Mr. Milosevic.

WITNESS: ALICE MAHON

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I intend to start, but I'm waiting for them to assist the lady; to give her her headphones, et cetera, because I assume that we won't be able to work without them.

JUDGE ROBINSON: She is now equipped, so you may begin. Examination by Mr. Milosevic:

Q. [Interpretation] Ms. Mahon, could you please introduce yourself briefly.

A. Yes. My name is Alice Mahon. I was the MP, the member of parliament for Halifax in West Yorkshire for 18 years until I stood down at the general election of May 2005. I helped to form and chaired the Committee for Peace in the Balkans. I'm widely travelled in the former Yugoslavia and was elected to the NATO parliamentary Assembly in 1992, and I remained a member of that Assembly until I stood down in 2005. I was a member of the Civilian Affairs Committee, which has now been renamed and called the Civic Dimensions of Security. I chaired the subcommittee on civic governments for four years and travelled during the civil war in Yugoslavia to many parts of that country with the committee, and I also ⁴⁹⁰⁹⁸ chaired the whole committee for four years until October of 2005. The many places I visited in the former Yugoslavia, some I visited two or three times, were Sarajevo, Knin, Vukovar, Belgrade, Macedonia, Slovenia, parts of Croatia, Krajina, Republika Srpska, Kosovo, Banja Luka, Serbia obviously, Novi Sad, Belgrade, Kragujevac. I visited during the civil war with the international women's movement also. I went independently to Sarajevo, to Banja Luka. I was there during a period when the now secretary of state for defence, Dr. John Reid, was there, but I was with an independent group of women from the different ethnic communities.

I never in all my travels met the main leaders of the various groups in Yugoslavia, including Mr. Milosevic, who I met for the first time this week. Others, including the secretary of state for defence, did meet with, for example, Dr. Karadzic and General Mladic.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Ms. Mahon, may I ask you, to what party did you belong when you were a member of parliament?

THE WITNESS: I was a member of the Labour Party, Mr. Robinson.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.

THE WITNESS: So I went against my own government, in effect, with my position on the former Yugoslavia, because I was totally opposed to what I considered to be an illegal bombing by NATO. I made my views very clear, and of course I'm on the record, both in the NATO parliamentary Assembly and in my own parliament, for taking that stance. I did not believe that we had the legal right to bomb a sovereign state, and I did not believe there was an impending catastrophe looming in Kosovo. Thank ⁴⁹⁰⁹⁹ you.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you. Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Ms. Mahon, you mentioned a few moments ago that you were one of the founders of the Committee for Peace in the Balkans. When was this Committee for Peace in the Balkans established, and can you tell us a bit more about its activities?

A. Yes. The Committee for Peace in the Balkans - and I have one of their publications here the Court might be interested perhaps in looking at - was established in '93, 1993, and it opposed military intervention by NATO and others in the Yugoslavian situation. It stood for lifting of sanctions against the whole Yugoslavia, so it was a peaceful union that we set up. We wanted financial assistance to be increased and given in large measure to reconstruct the civilian infrastructure of the whole of Yugoslavia. We were campaigning for urgent humanitarian assistance on a non-discriminatory basis for all the refugees who had been called -- who had been created because of the civil war. Other parties joined the Committee for Peace in the Balkans, so it was a cross-party committee, and we also had big support from the major trade unions in the United Kingdom. The main theme of the committee and the main aim of the committee was that we believed that military intervention would exacerbate tensions rather than bring peace to what was a troubled region. The committee's entirely funded by donations of its supporters, and we got regular contributions in the form of standing orders and people just coming along to meetings. We organised a number of ⁴⁹¹⁰⁰ meetings all around Great Britain. We attended major conferences, trade union conferences, and always put forward the principles on which the committee was formed.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Ms. Mahon. Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Ms. Mahon, on the basis of the information that you have provided just now at the very outset, it is clear that you were a member of parliament at the critical time in 1998 and 1999, and earlier on as well, but now I shall focus first and foremost on that particular period. I'm going to put a question to you. As for the reasons for the bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, a countless number of times the following was mentioned: Preventing a humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo. My question to you is the following: As a member of the British parliament and as, we can see, the chairman of relevant committees, did you get a single shred of information from various agencies, competent agencies of Great Britain that there was a looming humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo?

A. No. On the contrary. I went to Macedonia, to Kumanovo, three weeks before the bombing started in Yugoslavia, with the NATO parliamentary Assembly subcommittee. We stayed in Skopje in the Aleksandar Hotel in Macedonia, and we went to the extraction force base near the border with Kosovo where we were briefed by General Valentin and General David Montgomery. They were there to lift out the OSCE verification monitors should they need to be extracted should firefights or hostilities break out again, but at that time there was relative calm. ⁴⁹¹⁰¹ We did go on to the border with the United Nations troops to watch an incident, and we were a mixed group of members of different NATO parliaments, and we -- the Danish officer in charge explained to us that some people -- and we could see through the field glasses. It was explained to us that some people had left their homes 24 hours earlier, and we saw them going back, some in vehicles and some just coming down a path through the woods. And they said that they had been a firefight between the Yugoslav security forces and members of the KLA or UCK, whatever they're called.

One of my colleagues asked were they Albanians who were returning to their home, and the Danish soldier said no, as a matter of fact, this particular group were Serbs. It's quite common, if a firefight starts, people get out of the way. And that was his explanation. We did not feel, at the conclusion of that visit, that there was going to be a massive exodus of people, although some people were, as the one we witnessed, leaving. But we'd been told over and over again by our Prime Minister Tony Blair --

JUDGE ROBINSON: May I ask --

THE WITNESS: Yes, sorry.

JUDGE ROBINSON: You say you did not feel --

THE WITNESS: No.

JUDGE ROBINSON: -- that there was going to be a massive exodus of people. Why is that?

THE WITNESS: Talking to the soldiers on the ground, Mr. Robinson. It's something I think I always did in all the years I was a member of ⁴⁹¹⁰² NATO, was trying to engage in conversation with soldiers, because servicemen and women by and large don't have a political axe to grind. Quite often you get to know the truth. Sometimes the truth about their officers as well, which doesn't always make for easy telling. But also at home with some of the reports --

JUDGE ROBINSON: So you gathered this from --

THE WITNESS: From mixing with the military personnel and the UN personnel on the border as well, yeah.

JUDGE ROBINSON: I see.

JUDGE BONOMY: Ms. Mahon, I didn't catch the date of this visit.

THE WITNESS: This visit was three weeks before the bombing started in 1999.

JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

THE WITNESS: Actually, to the day almost. The NATO parliamentary Assembly reports are all accessible on the NATO internet, to confirm the committee's visit.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Ms. Mahon, you did not receive any information on a looming humanitarian catastrophe, but how do you explain the fact that your Prime Minister Blair said in public that there was a humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo?

JUDGE ROBINSON: She can't explain that. Next -- another question, please.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] ⁴⁹¹⁰³

Q. Ms. Mahon --

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] But perhaps she can, Mr. Robinson. Perhaps she can.

JUDGE ROBINSON: No. I'm not allowing her. That's not a matter for her.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Ms. Mahon, did you have occasion to talk to your Prime Minister, Mr. Blair, about the attack on Yugoslavia?

THE WITNESS: Oh, yes. With a number of MPs. I saw Mr. Blair and Robin Cook, the foreign secretary, on a number of occasions. I believed and the Committee for Peace in the Balkans and some other members of parliament believed that NATO was looking for a new role. We had many, many discussions in the NATO parliamentary Assembly about the role of NATO with the ending of the Cold War, and we were worried that if NATO took this unilateral action, then it would open Pandora's box and they could do it elsewhere. I think events in Iraq and Afghanistan have proved us right.

I had a lot to do with the Prime Minister during this period because I asked a number of questions. I also saw the foreign secretary, because I'm sure people will be aware - it's certainly on the record in Hansard - that on January the 18th of 1999 Robin Cook told the House of Commons that since the cease-fire agreement and since the agreement to reduce the number of security forces in Kosovo, the biggest number of violations that had been -- had taken place in Kosovo had been perpetrated ⁴⁹¹⁰⁴ by the KLA and not by the security services. And he told us that in the House of Commons on the 18th of January, 1999. So I -- I took it that we were all pleased. We thought this was going to avert NATO going in heavy handed because they see now that the Yugoslavs are sticking to their side of the bargain.

MR. NICE: Your Honours, before the next question, there is obviously a question of relevance about this witness's evidence. I'm unlikely to challenge, of course, the sincerity of her views or anything of that sort, if her evidence is valuable to you, but we're not investigating the reasons for the bombing. We are investigating the underlying facts that are proved by evidence of those facts, and there is either a limit, or almost a limit to the value that opinions of this kind, sincere though they may very well be, can have. But as I say, I don't want to stop the witness or to seem to be shutting out evidence if the Chamber finds it to be helpful.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Kay, do you have anything to say on the general issue of relevance?

MR. KAY: As the Chamber knows, the accused is defending this case on the basis of self-defence and the role and activity of the KLA, as it was known, before the NATO bombing and the events caused by the KLA before the NATO bombing which can be linked to events after the NATO bombing which is the period when most of the charges against this accused rise -- arise in the indictment. There is only one specific incident, Racak, on the 15th of January, before the NATO bombing. In those circumstances, the evidence of this witness may well be of great use to the Tribunal if she ⁴⁹¹⁰⁵ is able to explain what she saw and knew at the time, remembering that the accused's case is that the KLA were acting in a way to cause conflict with the Serb forces, provoking the Serb forces to react. They themselves were instigating acts of violence, were staging, if you like to use that word, or causing people to leave en masse in a walkout or exodus from the region to provoke the international forces of NATO to attack the former Yugoslavia, the FRY as it was.

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE ROBINSON: In our view, at this stage at any rate, the evidence is relevant.

Mr. Milosevic, please continue.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. Robinson.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Ms. Mahon, in view of the office you held - and there is no need for me to repeat all the positions you held - do you know for when the bombing of Yugoslavia by NATO was planned?

A. I only know what probably the Court already knows in that Madeleine Albright's number two, James Rubin, had already said that contingency plans, say August, 1978 [sic] he'd already made it public, and the Court I'm sure has seen the publication that contingency plans were being made, and of course we do know from experience on NATO that to conduct a bombing of this scale takes a certain amount of preparation. It cannot be just gone into overnight. So I'm pretty certain from reports coming to NATO and to the NATO parliamentary Assembly - and we had our annual meeting in the October and I'd been on one or two subcommittees ⁴⁹¹⁰⁶ during that period - that there was widespread discussion amongst NATO parliamentarians about the preparations that were taking place. We were all perhaps lulled into a false sense of security with the October agreement, 1998, that maybe this was a chance to avert bombing. But I do want to emphasise again that, politically, NATO was looking for another role. The expansion of NATO as it took in the Baltic states and some of the countries of the former Soviet Union had occupied it for a number of years, and I think it's important that the Court realise that NATO is controlled by the Americans. I make no apology for being political about that. I am a politician, and I did observe it firsthand, the absolute power that America ran NATO with.

Could I add something else about the parliament?

JUDGE ROBINSON: No. We'll proceed by way of questions and answers.

THE WITNESS: Okay. That's fine.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, next question.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Ms. Mahon. Ms. Mahon, are you aware of the explanation proffered in the West for the attack on Yugoslavia, to prevent some kind of genocide? Are you aware of that?

A. No. That word was certainly not -- not being used then. We were told that the -- the Yugoslav security forces were repressing the Albanians, but we were all aware, even the people who supported the -- the bombing, that the KLA were organised and were a guerilla faction within a sovereign state, and having gone through the Northern Ireland experience ⁴⁹¹⁰⁷ in the United Kingdom, we know that countries have a right to stop terrorists or guerilla activities and also have a right to defend their borders. I think -- I think that's the right of any sovereign state. So I suppose it depends which side of the argument you were on, but I certainly was not -- we were told that there was going to be massive ethnic cleansing and that that was going on. The facts didn't support what we were being told. And certainly my experience in Kumanovo taught me that when a firefight starts or when bombs are going off, civilians, if they have any sense, get out of the way.

JUDGE BONOMY: Ms. Mahon, can you tell me, who told you there was to be massive ethnic cleansing?

THE WITNESS: Oh, it was -- in the immediate run-up to the bombing, the foreign secretary and the Prime Minister, in my opinion, made some rather exaggerated claims, and I think the facts speak for themselves. The mass exodus of Albanians from Kosovo started after the bombing, and I think it's natural, as I will repeat, people get out of the way when bombs are dropped. I had a map of --

JUDGE BONOMY: That's not my -- bear in mind the question I asked you.

THE WITNESS: Sorry.

JUDGE BONOMY: It's important to concentrate on the questions, and I think you answered it. You said they exaggerated statements, without any specification, but we may here more of the specification later, thank you.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] ⁴⁹¹⁰⁸

Q. Ms. Mahon, you said that the Prime Minister and the minister were making exaggerated statements. Before that, I asked you about the humanitarian catastrophe that you said did not exist. Tell us, on the basis of your own experience precisely from that time, was your Prime Minister telling you the truth or not?

JUDGE ROBINSON: That's not a matter for her. That's not a matter for her.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Ms. Mahon, is it true that you, together with a few other members of parliament, tried to organise a vote in parliament in relation to the engagement of your country in the aggression against Yugoslavia?

THE WITNESS: Am I allowed to answer that?

JUDGE ROBINSON: What's the relevance of this now, Mr. Milosevic? We are straying, aren't we? What's the relevance of this?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, Mr. Robinson, it is relevant, and how, in view of the fact that there were reactions against attacking Yugoslavia, and positions that were taken later on proved that that reaction was right, or justified. I think it is therefore necessary to know what kind of attempt was made to stop and prevent such crimes. Mr. Robinson, for instance, what I have here is a periodical from Great Britain. "[In English] [Previous translation continues] ... Committee has reported that the NATO air war on Yugoslavia was illegal." [Interpretation] That is what they said at the time.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic. Mr. Milosevic, in my view the ⁴⁹¹⁰⁹ public opinion in the United Kingdom as to the bombing and justification for it is not relevant.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, I'm not talking about public opinion at all. I'm not talking about public opinion at all. What I quoted to you was the opinion of the Foreign Relations Committee of the parliament of the United Kingdom or, rather, their conclusion. It's not public opinion, it is the position taken by an official organ of Great Britain.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Yes.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I think that you should make it possible for Ms. Mahon to give an answer to see what kind of attempts they made at the time to have the truth established or, rather, to make it impossible for their country to take part in this illegal attack on Yugoslavia. I don't know why you're bothered by that.

JUDGE ROBINSON: I say it's not relevant, and that's my ruling. Ask another question.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Ms. Mahon, did the parliament of which you were a member take any kind of position in connection with Kosovo before the beginning of the bombing?

A. No. We were not -- in the British parliament, we're not allowed a vote on whether to go to war. The first time we've been allowed to vote on going to war was on Iraq when, as you are aware, 141 Labour MPs voted against. But we -- the Prime Minister takes us to war under the Royal ⁴⁹¹¹⁰ prerogative. The only thing we could vote on was the adjournment of the House, that the House did not adjourn, and that's what we did. A few of us organised that.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, bring the witness to issues that are relevant to the indictment. And do not try to use her evidence for non-forensic purposes.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Ms. Mahon, what was your standpoint, in view of the office you held, about the NATO campaign against Yugoslavia?

A. I thought it was illegal. I still think it was illegal. I think it opened the way for the invasion of Iraq.

Q. Can you say with certainty what the real reason was for the bombing?

THE WITNESS: Am I allowed to answer this? It's saying "No broadcast" on here, on the screen, and the court is in recess it's saying.

MR. NICE: Can she say what was the real reason for the bombing is the question. I venture to suggest it's not a question that she can answer.

THE WITNESS: It's okay. It's come back on. It had switched off. Okay.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Just a minute.

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE ROBINSON: Well, I think she already said what the reason was, but we will allow her to comment briefly.

THE WITNESS: Sorry. The question was what was the reason -- ⁴⁹¹¹¹

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

THE WITNESS: -- for the bombing. I think it was purely political. I think it was an extension of American influence in the area. And I am a politician, so I do talk in politics. I think it was to do with the break-up of Yugoslavia, and they had to -- they'd already intervened in the Krajina, they'd already intervened by training -- the SAS and the CIA were training the KLA guerrillas. We had notice of that, it was in the press, and we discussed it at some length on the NATO parliamentary Assembly, and I think it was just a matter of time before the bombing started.

We also know that Bill Clinton was in something of a mess domestically. Madeleine Albright was already making plans, as I said, in the summer previous to the bombing, and with hindsight, it seemed to me that they were going to do it just as we saw with the preparations for the Iraq war. I think America now has a base in Kosovo and will remain there, and their bases are now dotted all over what was a former different economic system to theirs.

JUDGE ROBINSON: And there is no need to apologise for being a politician. Politics is a noteworthy profession.

THE WITNESS: The training of the KLA was widely reported. John Simpson, a very eminent journalist in the United Kingdom, reported that the CIA trained the KLA and left them very, very well equipped when the bombing started, and certainly they had some extraordinarily good weapons.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic, next question.

THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please, for Mr. Milosevic. ⁴⁹¹¹²

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. What do you know about the KLA? What did you know at the time, apart from what you've already mentioned, that Robin Cook said that they were the ones violating the cease-fire and so on? What do you know about the KLA?

A. Well, I know that 12 months before they were on America's most wanted list of terrorists and that there was a complete change of mind by the Americans and overnight almost they became their allies. Mr. Cook probably was a convert, a convert to the KLA somewhat later, when he was let in on the act, because on the 18th of January, 1999, he was telling us they were committing most of the violations, and as we know, a couple of months later they were our allies, and our armed forces and our aircraft were used to help bomb Yugoslavia, a sovereign state that had done us no harm or was no threat to us in any way at all.

Q. You mentioned a little while ago that immediately before the bombing you were at the Macedonian border in order to see what the situation was in Kosovo and Metohija. Later, after the war, you visited Kosovo and Metohija again, as far as I know, in 1999. Were you able to meet any KLA leaders or ordinary soldiers or their families?

A. Yes. I went with the NATO parliamentary Assembly in September 1999. We stayed in the camp, in the tents at the -- overlooking Pristina in the old film studio, and we met -- we toured, obviously, the area. We saw a lot of the damage because colleagues were saying - it was a sort of guessing game - who did that, then? And nearly all of the massive damage obviously was done by NATO. ⁴⁹¹¹³ We met Mr. Hashim Thaci, who is a well-known leader of the KLA. He was with Mr. Bernard Kouchner, who was the administrator immediately after the bombings stopped. We had a meeting with other leaders, including one from the minorities, a Serb, and also a gentleman from the Roma community.

Mr. Thaci -- may chair of the committee at that time was an Italian senator at that time, Senator Migoni, and he described Mr. Thaci as somebody you would not like to meet without having some bodyguards. Mr. Thaci denied totally that there was any harassment of the minorities, but we just listened to both the Roma leader and the Serb leader telling us about the killings and the burnings of houses that were going on against the minorities, but Mr. Thaci just very coldly dismissed it, wouldn't discuss it. And knowing something of Mr. Thaci's background, I wasn't surprised.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Did you form the same impression of Mr. Thaci as the Italian, that you would not wish to meet him without bodyguards?

THE WITNESS: Absolutely. He was very cold, quite hostile because he was meeting politicians, so he probably -- probably gathered that we were not totally supportive. And of course we were getting the stories from other people about reprisals on the civilian population, the minority civilian population.

Mr. Kouchner was more diplomatic and did point out that the forces -- the occupying forces were trying to prevent this happening, but of course at that time it was shortly after, just a few months after and the killings and kidnappings, burning of houses, were a regular occurrences. ⁴⁹¹¹⁴ And burning of churches as well, which was very disturbing.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Did you visit the area on any other occasion?

THE WITNESS: Yes. I -- I've been back to Kosovo --

JUDGE ROBINSON: No, no, during the conflict.

THE WITNESS: Yes, I did. I went to -- to Yugoslavia with a reporter from the Daily Mirror and the photographer. The Daily Mirror is a tabloid newspaper.

JUDGE ROBINSON: When?

THE WITNESS: That was during the bombing. I went to -- from Hungary. I was criticised quite heavily by my own party for going, but I wanted to see what was going on.

JUDGE ROBINSON: And where did you go?

THE WITNESS: I went to Novi Sad in Vojvodina first. The Yugoslav security forces insisted on sending a car. The Mirror paid for part of the expenses, I paid for part, but they provided a car for us. They wouldn't let us in, on the basis that they were being bombed and it was dangerous, unless they provided protection, and I think, probably with hindsight -- we wanted our own car and we argued, but with hindsight, it was probably a good thing.

We went to Novi Sad where we were allowed to just get out and mix. We got out onto the last remaining bridge that had not been bombed at that time, the one with the railway across it, and there was a huge demonstration taking place. So we got out and we talked to people. The Mirror talked to whoever they wanted to, took as many photographs as they wanted. I talked to quite a number of people. They were very mixed ⁴⁹¹¹⁵ ethnically because Vojvodina is. I think there are 25 different ethnic groups in Vojvodina.

The guards started to get a bit -- the guards, the car driver, started to get a bit anxious because we were there a couple of hours, and they said we had to get to Belgrade before it became dark because the bombing started at night. So we left and we went to the International Hotel in -- Intercontinental Hotel in Belgrade. During the evening we saw the bombers come and bomb the oil refinery in Pancevo. It was quite frightening, really. It was -- I'm 68 years old, I can just remember the Second World War and the sound of sirens, and I have to say it did have a bit of effect. The following day we got our drivers back. Our cameraman almost got arrested. He wandered off by himself and, as you can imagine, when they heard an English voice they were not too happy and they called the police and the police did accept his explanation, Bill Rowntree. And the following day we went to Pancevo to see if we could talk to some of the workers there. A couple of them agreed to talk to us. The rest were quite hostile to us even though I was saying and Bill was saying that we didn't approve of the bombing. The reporter, Ms. Johnson, did approve of it but she didn't say anything. But we did talk to them and they did say that they were continuously being bombed in that complex. The thing that worried me was the small -- with the houses nearby and the small village, small town, because the stench and the fumes and toxic waste coming from that bombing must have been very bad for the civilian population. ⁴⁹¹¹⁶ We then sent to -- we went to a place called Kragujevac where the huge Zastava car factory had been. That car factory had a small annex that made shooting -- fancy shooting guns. They're quite well known, I understand, in gun circles for these exceptionally good hunting rifles, et cetera. But the car factory itself had been hit by 22 cruise missiles. It was just wrecked.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Did you see anybody fleeing their homes in --

THE WITNESS: No. No. We saw some refugees in Kragujevac, but they were from another conflict in the Krajina. We visited them.

JUDGE ROBINSON: All right. Thank you. Mr. Milosevic.

THE WITNESS: We -- sorry.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I was waiting, Mr. Robinson, for the interpretation to end. The interpretation went on for quite a long time.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Ms. Mahon, on the occasion of your visit to our country during the bombing, you have just described several events. Is that all you saw during that visit; Novi Sad, bridges destroyed, the Pancevo refinery, Kragujevac, Zastava, the car factory? Are these all the places you visited in the course of that visit?

A. No. I went to a small town called Cuprija, and they had been bombed because a couple of miles outside the town there was an old military dormitory, but the bombs had missed and hit the town and 400 dwellings had been damaged. Some had been completely wiped out. Luckily, ⁴⁹¹¹⁷ only one person was killed and seven injured. The mayor of the town, who was not one of your supporters, Mr. Milosevic, had voted against you, and so had the town, that the mayor of the town showed us around. We saw a nurses' home that had been damaged by the bombs. We visited a dentist and his wife whose house had been written off, basically, and she was injured, but they were just thankful they were living. But the damage to Cuprija was extensive. These were civilian targets that were being hit by NATO bombs.

Q. Ms. Mahon, during your visit you saw many places and many events. The places you saw, were they military targets where you saw the effects of the NATO bombing, or were these civilian facilities, or both?

A. I didn't see any military targets at all. Now, we were under war conditions and we -- had we asked to see them we might have -- they might have refused us, but certainly the car factory, the trade unions there - and I met the trade unionists who organised in the factory - had sent the coordinates of the factory to NATO, every country in NATO, including the Pentagon, saying, please, this is a factory that makes cars and tractors - and that's all we saw as we walked around for hours in that factory - please don't bomb us. It's miracle -- and they were having a sit-in every night, and it's a miracle that those workers were not killed. Some of them were injured and rather gruesomely. The photographer took a photograph of where they had been sitting and the blood on chairs. We did talk to the leader of the trade union, the secretary, who said we had pleaded with the world, please don't bomb us. And I have to say these -- these civilian targets, I think they ⁴⁹¹¹⁸ were targeted deliberately. But the tragedy about Zastava car factory is there was a big heating plant there that supplied heating for almost all of the town, and that went. The tragedy about that bridge I stood on - because it was bombed two nights later, there are -- there were no bridges left in Novi Sad over the Danube - it carried water and other supplies across to the other side of the town. So these were targets that hurt ordinary people, and people were dying under those bombs. You know, they're not this pinpoint accuracy. It's just another sort of Hollywood myth. Those bombs do go astray and they do hit civilian targets, and I feel passionately that NATO should be in the dock in this place as well.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic. One more question before the break.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Ms. Mahon, to go back to the Verification Mission in Kosovo late 1998, early 1999, are you aware of the activities of the Verification Mission in Kosovo in that time period?

A. Yes. I -- during the 1980s I took a great interest in what was happening in Central America. It was one of my interests in foreign affairs, and I visited Nicaragua and El Salvador, and so Mr. William Walker, who was in charge of the OSCE mission, was somebody I knew well. His reputation went before him. He presided over, in El Salvador --

Q. Just a moment. Just a moment. From when did you know William Walker? You said you knew him. When did you get to know him?

A. I went to Nicaragua and to El Salvador during the 1980s, when the nuns and priests were killed in El Salvador. Mr. Walker denied the ⁴⁹¹¹⁹ existence of the death squads. He also ran the Contra, the illegal Contras who attacked the democratic government of Nicaragua. He's very, very well known in Central American circles. And so I was dismayed when he headed up the Verification Mission.

I -- my committee went into great detail about the Racak massacre and we stood it, and we had speakers over to talk to us about the forensic evidence, the Committee for Peace in the Balkans. It was also widely discussed on the NATO parliamentary Assembly, and the view was taken that Mr. Walker in many circles - in many circles, not just Committee for Peace in the Balkans - that Mr. Walker had perhaps arranged an incident, tragic as the deaths of those people were. And of course Racak was used to bring in Rambouillet and ultimately to bring in the bombing of Yugoslavia.

I also, with the Verification Mission, when I was in Kumanovo, met some of the OSCE verification monitors in the hotel we were staying in, Aleksandar Hotel. Two or three of them came to have a night off and a rest. They were convinced, those people we spoke to, had the verification monitors been doubled, that they were doing some good work and were trying to bring the communities together, and I do think, a bit like the weapons inspections in Iraq, I think it's a pity they weren't allowed to get on and finish the job.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Ms. Mahon, that's a very serious allegation to make against Mr. Walker, to have concluded that --

THE WITNESS: Yeah --

JUDGE ROBINSON: -- he had arranged the incident at Racak. ⁴⁹¹²⁰

THE WITNESS: Well, I think some of the forensic people and many other observers have made the same observation, Mr. Robinson. Now, I don't know. I'm -- I'm just telling you what people concluded from the talks they were given, from the discussions they had. I certainly don't think we should have destroyed a country based on what Mr. William Walker said.

JUDGE ROBINSON: I gather that you also agreed with that --

THE WITNESS: Yes, I think there is something highly suspicious about what happened at Racak.

JUDGE ROBINSON: But to say that Mr. Walker arranged it, that's a very serious --

THE WITNESS: Well, would you like me to say that I think Mr. Walker just happened to be there, and people disagreed with him profoundly about that being a massacre.

JUDGE BONOMY: Well, it's already gone further because you've indicated that other people have already expressed a view that he arranged the incident, and you talk about forensic people and many other observers, so I think we need to hear who they are.

THE WITNESS: Yeah. We had speakers come to the Committee for Peace in the Balkans and who expressed the view that Racak was not the massacre that -- I suppose I can get you that information from the archives, if you like. They'd be putting a political joint of view.

JUDGE BONOMY: Sorry, a forensic person involved, you wouldn't expect to be putting a political point of view.

THE WITNESS: No, no. People speaking about the forensic ⁴⁹¹²¹ evidence.

JUDGE BONOMY: Not some --

THE WITNESS: No, no, not --

JUDGE BONOMY: You're not referring to the forensic --

THE WITNESS: Not the forensic scientists themselves, although I have seen the film where -- the BBC showed the film where there were doubts expressed.

JUDGE BONOMY: Well, if this -- that answer had been left that way, it could have been very misleading.

THE WITNESS: Okay.

JUDGE ROBINSON: We will adjourn now for 20 minutes.

--- Recess taken at 10.36 a.m.

--- On resuming at 10.57 a.m.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Kay?

MR. KAY: Before we resume, Your Honour, may I raise an urgent administrative matter, and it concerns the scheduling for next week. The witness Momir Bulatovic has travel difficulties. He would not be arriving until Tuesday. The case is scheduled to resume on Wednesday next week. Bulatovic is a very big witness, requiring a great deal of preparation. At the moment I'm aware of the fact that those acting on behalf of Mr. Milosevic in preparing his witnesses are trying to fill in for next week, which is highly unsatisfactory as I know that it wouldn't be the best use of time, whereas he will need time to deal with this significant witness who will require a great deal of preparation. So I have an application to make, and that is that the case be ⁴⁹¹²² adjourned next week to enable Defence preparations and that we take up the schedule again resuming on the 14th of March. In my view, it would be the best use of court time to enable him to be prepared properly. The Court are aware of the fact that there have been personal reasons which have prevented his earlier attendance in The Hague, and these are matters that simply have not been able to have been got round in the interim period. So in my submission, it would be in the best interests of this case if we adjourned, we did not sit next week, but that we resume the hearings on the 14th of March to enable essential Defence preparation.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice?

MR. NICE: It would be disingenuous of me not to acknowledge that it happens that this would be convenient for me, as a member of the Prosecution team, and I have to make that clear, as it happens. For the Prosecution as a whole, our position has always been as stated, I think, in our filing at Christmas that the accused's responsibility is to have witnesses available on every day and that in the absence of being able to call evidence, then those days should count. But I have to observe that if there was a change of timetable by filling in witnesses whom only I could deal with - certain topics certainly fall in that description - then it might be that I wouldn't be here as a matter of fact. So there's a combination of elements to my answer, and I hope that's helpful.

JUDGE BONOMY: It's also clear, Mr. Nice, from the list that we've been given that there are difficulties associated with a number of other witnesses who are clearly shorter witnesses as well, and having said that, ⁴⁹¹²³ it's been very helpful for us to have got this list, at least to expand the information we had up until now.

MR. KAY: Just to add, because I didn't mention -- there are problems with other witnesses as well. As I said about fitting in, there are safe conduct issues, there are issues of passage, and there are great difficulties I'm aware of that Mr. Tomanovic, who is the associate that Mr. Milosevic has at court with him at the moment, is certainly in great difficulty in trying to make things work for next week.

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Kay, we'll give a decision on your application before the end of the proceedings today.

MR. KAY: Much obliged.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, please continue.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. [No interpretation].

JUDGE ROBINSON: I'm not getting --

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Madam, you said that during your visit that week you met the members of the Verification Mission. What did they tell you about the situation in Kosovo and Metohija?

A. They -- they were hopeful that conflict could be avoided. They felt that they were doing a very good job. They wanted to be allowed to continue to do that job. They said that some areas were difficult because there was some guerrilla activity and there was some security forces activity, but they were convinced they were talking to people -- they were ⁴⁹¹²⁴ getting people to talk to each other. One woman put it to me that she -- she'd arranged to get people to sit down and have a cup of coffee together. They were discussing the wider problems. They all concluded -- we met -- when I've gone back and thought about it, there were four of them altogether who we met, and they all concluded that they needed to double the numbers of verification monitors, that they were thinly stretched on the ground and thought it would be a good way of spending money if they could do that, and certainly I think they were all of the conclusion they would like to have avoided the bombing that was being threatened.

Q. While you were taking an interest in the work of the Verification Mission on that occasion and others, did you learn who the members of the commission were -- of the mission?

A. No. We -- we were just in the same hotel. They'd come out for a rest, were going back in. We just had a cup of coffee, chatted. One woman, I did get her name because it was an absolute coincidence. Her name was -- she was from New York. Her name was Alicia Mahon, and my name is Alice Mahon and we thought that was a real coincidence, so I remember her name, but the other three were young men and they -- if I didn't know the name at the time I can't remember it now. But certainly I remember the woman because of the coincidence about the name.

Q. On the 12th of March, 2000, the Sunday Times reported that this mission, which was supposed to be neutral, had been infiltrated by CIA agents and agents of other agencies who were supporting the KLA. Did you ⁴⁹¹²⁵ know anything about this?

A. As -- as a member of the NATO parliamentary Assembly, I've worked with the OSCE, particularly the election monitors, on numerous occasions. We all accepted that the Americans wielded a huge influence on the OSCE. I recently monitored the elections in the Ukraine, and we thought we'd had a good election until we read the long-term observer reports, when they decided that the election had not been good. So I think at all times when I've been in contact with the OSCE, I have thought there's been huge American influence on -- on those delegations, and I think -- I heard the same rumours, I read the same reports, that the CIA had infiltrated the verification monitors in Kosovo.

Q. In your view, what could the consequences of that have been for the role of the mission in Kosovo?

A. Well, I think I'm of the view, having been a long-time member of the NATO parliamentary Assembly, that American foreign policy usually prevails, and there are various ways of doing it. I observed this during the expansion of NATO. I -- I've also had some difficulties as a chair of the Civic Dimensions of Security Committee when I -- I wouldn't say just the OSCE but perhaps NATO executive as well, the people who run the NATO parliamentary Assembly, they seem to follow a particular agenda. I'll give you an example: When I went to Latvia to -- with a small group of my committee, to follow up complaints that the ethnic Russian speakers in Latvia were not being given fair treatment by the Latvian government and we had a couple of specific things to pursue, points to pursue, I did a report that was not allowed to be published, and ⁴⁹¹²⁶ we couldn't agree the report and so the executive produced a report. And I think that's true with the OSCE as well. I think there's a political agenda and I think you'd be rather naive if you didn't think there was.

Q. You mentioned in one of your replies the assistant of the secretary of state of the USA, James Rubin. Are you aware of his statement of the 3rd of August, 1998, several months before the start of the bombing, in which he said that the plans were ready for action in Kosovo and Metohija so that when a political decision is reached intervention can be carried out very fast? He said that the number of troops and the targets had already been selected and that the preparations were being carried out. Did you know about this? And does what you know confirm that such preparations were taking place?

A. Yes. I -- I read the same report in August 1998 - I have it somewhere with me - from James Rubin, that contingency plans were being drawn up. I actually met, along with some other MPs, Mr. Pejic from the Yugoslav embassy in London, and we had a meeting before my party conference where we tried to persuade him that we thought this was very, very serious. He could not believe and was absolutely incredulous, he did not believe that the United Kingdom would go along with the bombing of Yugoslavia for all kinds of historical reasons, and we really couldn't convince him. But we were convinced, some members of the Committee for Peace in the Balkans, we were convinced that the plans were being drawn up and there was a very realistic possibility that -- that bombing would proceed, that some reason would be given for -- for the bombing, and I think after Racak the Rambouillet peace accord was drawn up to give that ⁴⁹¹²⁷ permission and drawn up in such a way to give that permission.

Q. Tell me, please, do you know what the tasks of the Yugoslav army and security forces were in Kosovo?

A. Yes. I imagine the same as a similar situation that we had in Northern Ireland: They were to seek out any terrorist activity, to -- to try and stop it, to secure the borders, I imagine, and to generally protect the civilian population. I know that in Northern Ireland we -- we had a very difficult period, and as you know 3.000 people died in Northern Ireland.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Ms. Mahon. We are not particularly interested in that.

THE WITNESS: Sorry, sorry. Just a comparison.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. So we have here the fact that preparations were underway at least in mid-1998 for the bombing, and the reasons came in 1999, the pretext came in 1999. Now, in light of that, can you tell us what you know about that. Did your Prime Minister Blair mislead you when it came for the reasons for attacking Yugoslavia or not?

MR. NICE: I really must object. It gets a bit wearying. We have about three presentational errors in that question. We start off with an assumed fact which may simply not be a fact, I don't know, then we use the word "pretext," and then we have Prime Minister Blair misleading. It's not that the accused doesn't know how to ask questions, it's that he chooses to ask them in an improper way. And what he seems forever to ⁴⁹¹²⁸ overlook is that by improper questioning he diminishes or eliminates value in the answer that he gets.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson.

JUDGE ROBINSON: That line of questioning is quite improper, as you well know. It's improper because it is leading and for other reasons given by the Prosecutor. I will allow you to -- to reformulate the question.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, Mr. Robinson, the fact that the witness talked about a moment ago, that is to say the clearly stated position of the State Department in the form of James Rubin on the 3rd of August, 1998, without a doubt speaks of the decision to bomb and preparations that were underway several months before the pretexts that were taken into account --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic --

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] -- cropped up.

JUDGE ROBINSON: -- don't waste time. If you don't wish to formulate the question, I will instruct you to move to another matter. It's as simple as that.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Mrs. Mahon, for you in 1998, did you have information to the effect that the bombing was being prepared?

A. Just the statement by James Rubin. The increased -- I would -- the Judge will tell me if I'm wrong or not on this one, but I would say some of the exaggerated claims that were being made by the KLA and that were being accepted. I think there was a huge propaganda war that went on ⁴⁹¹²⁹ throughout the whole of the civil war and after in the Balkans, and really you had to extract from reams of information what you thought was right and what might happen. And I did actually accept that when somebody as close to Madeleine Albright as James Rubin was, I did accept that when he said that contingency plans - I think were the exact words he said, I have it here somewhere - were being drawn up, I did take that very seriously, which is why we asked -- Jeremy Corbyn, Tam Dalyell, and myself asked to see somebody from the Yugoslav embassy, and we saw Mr. Pejic and we relayed to him our concerns. That was before my party conference in -- at the end of September.

Q. At the end of September 1998, that is; right?

A. Yes, 1998, yes.

Q. A moment ago you mentioned propaganda in the West. What do you know about that propaganda? What are your assessments of that propaganda?

A. I -- on a -- in 1992, this is -- this is the first real alert I got. Before that -- no, I'll go back. I'll go back a step. After the ethnic cleansing of the Serbs from the Krajina, the first ethnic cleansing in the Danubian area, we tried to get that published, as much publicity for it as we could, and we got very little. And I have to say many people better than I and more articulate than I wrote articles and articulated what was going on, but it was almost as if collectively the press did not want to know because Serbs were being ethnically cleansed. And it was one of the biggest ethnic cleansing of the war, as it happens. But in 1992, I went to the United Nations in New York with a parliamentary delegation, and I was struck by the effectiveness of ⁴⁹¹³⁰ Mr. Sacirbey, who was the Bosnian Muslim lobbyist in the UN. He was incredible. He turned up everywhere, and his message was that the international community must intervene and bomb -- bomb the Serbs. And it struck me at that time how little PR was coming out from both the Serb side and, I have to say, from the Croats as well. But this man was almost on every stage whilst we were there. It's -- it's a coincidence we were there when the Islamists tried to blow up the first twin towers and we had to come back by another airline because ours was based there.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Ms. Mahon. Mr. Milosevic, may I inquire, how much longer will you be with this witness in your examination?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, I'll try and get through the examination-in-chief as quickly as possible, but I do think I will need one more session. And that means by about the beginning of the last session. Fifteen minutes, give or take.

JUDGE ROBINSON: If the Chamber were minded to grant the application by Mr. Kay, obviously it would be most convenient to have concluded this witness's testimony by the end of the day. Proceed.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I understand what you've just said, Mr. Robinson. However, with respect to the testimony of this particular witness, I should like to emphasise just how relevant it is in view of everything that went on and everything she knows about the attack on Yugoslavia. If a country was preparing and if the NATO countries were preparing to attack Yugoslavia for a long period of time, then the question arises how can the thesis still stand of some kind of criminal ⁴⁹¹³¹ enterprise on the part of Yugoslavia? And that's the main thesis put forward by the opposite side over there here.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Please proceed.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. To go back to Kosovo, did you have any information, Mrs. Mahon, or any knowledge about where the members of the units of the KLA were coming from, how they were trained and how they were being armed? Did you know anything about that?

A. Earlier on before the -- before 1998, we had had Mr. Rugova and other Albanian leaders to seminars of -- of NATO, and for two or three years in the run-up to 1998 we talked to various leaders of the Albanian groups but not leaders of the KLA, not on my committee. Mr. Rugova very kindly attended twice, and we did question him, first of all about the separate entity that had been set up in -- in Kosovo education-wise, et cetera, and then about links with the KLA. It became quite clear that Mr. Rugova, who was a renowned man of peace, quite clear that he didn't view them very, very favourably, and of course later events showed us that he tried to set up his own opposition to the -- to the KLA. So in that sense, yes, we did talk about them on the committee. And of course they were wanted on a terrorist list then. That, taking them off the terrorist list, only came later when it was convenient for the leaders of NATO to do so.

Q. Mrs. Mahon, do you remember the Rambouillet negotiations?

A. Very well, because we wanted to have a copy of the -- of the document, those of us who were interested, on both sides of the argument, ⁴⁹¹³² those in favour of the war and those against, desperately wanted to see the Rambouillet document. It wasn't placed, unfortunately, in the House of Commons library until the 1st of April, and so we had to go on what ministers had told us. We did have some meetings with ministers, and we -- we just had to put up with that.

I thought, and I -- I concur with what Lord Gilbert said, who had been a former defence minister, that the Rambouillet document -- I think I have his actual quote here somewhere -- could never be accepted and that it was wrong. I also note that the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, who reported on the period the 1st of January, 1999, to the 2nd of March, 1999, among its conclusions were this: "At Rambouillet, negotiations were doomed by the introduction of a demand that no government could ever agree to, that a foreign army be given the right to occupy the whole territory of the federal republic. The military annex of the Rambouillet proposals would never have been acceptable to the Yugoslav side since it was a significant infringement of sovereignty." And I couldn't agree more on that. I think -- I think that's absolutely true. Dr. Kissinger also, I understand, was on record as saying no country anywhere would accept a provocation like it. It was an excuse to start the bombing. I agree with Dr. Kissinger. And we -- as we know when the final agreement came after the bombing, the military annex was dropped. So I think it was Madeleine Albright putting it in so that the Yugoslav government could not accept it. No government would have accepted that, handing over sovereignty to a foreign army. And so I felt very strongly about that. I did raise the issue in parliament and so did ⁴⁹¹³³ many, many other parliamentarians.

Q. And did you know the position of the Serb side at the negotiations in Rambouillet?

A. Yes, I did. I received a copy from the embassy of their -- of their position, and it almost mirrored in Hansard and the record as saying -- let me see. Yes. If it's all right to quote the Hansard, which is the official record of the British parliament. On the 25th of March, column 578, I said: "I want to refer to the -- in the debate peace process at Rambouillet because my Right Honourable Friend -" that was the minister - "said Belgrade was a stumbling-block because it refused to negotiate." And I said: "I have a copy of the Serb contribution to the peace process entitled The Basic Elements of Substantial Self-government in Kosovo." And I also have a draft copy of the agreement that NATO tried to impose, because we were leaked this. We didn't get it officially until the 1st of April, but we got -- we got a leak. And there -- I said: "There is little difference between the two documents. There are two sticking points. First, an ambiguous passage in the NATO draft document could lead to a referendum that would take Kosovo away from the Serbs. There is no question that such a referendum could lead to separation and a separate state. The second sticking point is the proposal to put NATO troops on Serbian territory, and the Serbs will not go along with that. That was confirmed when I met the deputy ambassador of Yugoslavia and other Serbs. The Serbs said that they were presented with an ultimatum, not a negotiating ploy, and I think that the Serbs' case should be put before the House. And that's not to condone any of the atrocities that may have ⁴⁹¹³⁴ been committed, but it's only fair that the House hears the Serb case. How would we feel if events -" and I quote Northern Ireland again, I'm sorry if that's getting a bit wearied. "How would we feel if events in Northern Ireland escalated out of control and the rest of the world, some of whom thought that we were not doing too well there, had issued an ultimatum through a military alliance telling us to accept an agreement, that if they didn't accept their terms, then we'd be bombed? We would be outraged and in uproar and we've got to realise how the Serbs think about their country. We must try and get away from the massive propaganda we hear." And then I just went on to say that the Serbs have refused to capitulate to our ultimatum, and as we know, the result is the bombing, which I think is profoundly wrong." So I'm on the record, as many others are.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Well, precisely to carry on from where you left off. That resulted in the bombing, as you said. Now, what, in your assessment, were the consequences of the bombing?

A. Well, here again I'm on record a number of times saying that the consequences of the bombing led to the mass exodus of the Albanian population from the country. I -- I have a map of where the bombs went, and I've been to some of these places since the bombing, and quite frankly, I think the bombing resulted in many people evacuating, and I would have done as well with my family. I would not have stayed there night after night -- ⁴⁹¹³⁵

JUDGE ROBINSON: Ms. Mahon, this is of interest to us. Do you have any -- any empirical evidence to support your view?

THE WITNESS: Yes, I do. Twelve months after the bombing I went into Yugoslavia with a colleague, Bob Marshall-Andrews, Q.C. Our reasons for going was the real problems with refugees in Serbia. We wanted to go into the camps and talk to people ourselves. And the minister for refugees accommodated us. It was quite difficult, sanctions were on at the time, some of the aid agencies had pulled out. And we went into a camp outside Belgrade to talk to a number of people. There was family, an Albanian family, in that camp who had been driven out by the KLA and did not want to go back to Kosovo. I have had in my constituency a number of Albanians who fled the bombing who came to settle in Halifax, and, luckily, we've got the right to remain for one or two of them. One of the women, who had had a nervous breakdown, and I did a lot of work for her as a constituency MP, an Albanian woman, told me that the KLA had told them to leave and to get on a train.

We also have the -- I think it was Jonathan Steel, in the Guardian, on the 30th of June, 1999 --

JUDGE ROBINSON: You're speaking here about the KLA.

THE WITNESS: Yes.

JUDGE ROBINSON: I think the question related to the bombing.

THE WITNESS: Yes. Well, the exodus of people, in my view, were three things: I think the Serb paramilitaries did drive some people out. I think the KLA definitely encouraged the exodus. And I went to the camps - these camps were quite well provided for - I went there a couple of ⁴⁹¹³⁶ times. And I also think people got out of the way of the bombing. So that's my personal view of what happened. And Jonathan Steel, in the Guardian, said a KLA fighter had admitted that he'd instructed Albanians to leave Kosovo. And I think that's been widely reported from other sources as well. I give three examples, but -- that I personally had, but I think it's also been widely reported.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Ms. Mahon, just to be precise about these things, was the bombing the main reason for the exodus or one of the reasons of the exodus on a footing of equality with the other reasons, to the best of your knowledge?

A. Oh, I think --

JUDGE ROBINSON: And when you give your answer, you must provide a basis for your conclusion.

THE WITNESS: I think the bombing was the main reason for the exodus. I think people have said publicly and on the record that they got out of the way of the bombing. I have to say, if we want an updated example, when the military -- the US military in Iraq said they were going to attack Fallujah, three-quarters of that city evacuated. The people don't stay where they think they're going to get bombed. It's just my experience.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. And the conduct and behaviour of the KLA? What causes for the exodus -- what context could you place that in if you look at the exodus ⁴⁹¹³⁷ and the fact that people were leaving?

A. Well, it's -- it -- it confirmed for them -- no, no. They got what they wanted. They -- they got the world's press seeing this massive exit of people, and they termed it ethnic cleansing, and so they were able to -- and the press, of course, carried this widely, the refugees going into -- and it was a miserable time for them as well, and they have all my sympathy.

But I still maintain, and so many other people, that the -- that the exodus of people, the ethnic cleansing, if you like, occurred after the bombing started. I'm not the only one that said that. Very eminent people have said that. I sincerely believe it. Unfortunately, the press have ignored the permanent ethnic cleansing that's gone on before and since. And as we know, there are nearly a million refugees, mainly in Serbia, some in Montenegro. I visited them in the camps with parliamentarians, and the world and the West don't seem to be bothered about that ethnic cleansing. Wrong ethnic group, perhaps.

Q. You said that it might have been the wrong ethnic group to deal with that, for them to deal with it.

A. If you want me to -- sorry. Yes, I think -- I think -- I think the Serbs were demonised, and there was a deliberate propaganda campaign that did demonise. I actually paid a visit to this Tribunal to visit the Prosecutor with Mark Littman, Q.C., the gentleman who has done all the legal documents for us on the legality of the war. And one of the reasons for visiting Ms. Carla Del Ponte was I'd just returned from a visit to the Krajina, from Knin and Serbia, where I had been talking to returnees, ⁴⁹¹³⁸ Serbs who wanted to go back who had been driven out by the Croats and by the bombing of the Western forces. And we took photographs of mass graves outside Knin, and statements from a number of Serbs who were having a terrible time. And it's reported, we had a debate in parliament about it. It's been widely reported. And I asked the Chief Prosecutor -- I was there with two or three; as I said, Mark Littman, Q.C., and a Serb who lives in London who was part of the Committee for Peace in the Balkans, and I asked if this would be investigated, this mass grave that we'd seen, and we were told at the time that resources were limited. I didn't think that was a satisfactory answer and still don't. I also went to Banja Luka with the -- the parliamentary committee, the Civilian Affairs Committee, where we were briefed by a policeman who came from Preston, which is in the north of England, not far from where I live, who told us, told the committee, and we questioned him on it and this will be on the record, that they were only looking for Serbs when it came to -- he was working for the Tribunal, but they were only looking for Serbs. Well, I think there was a civil war. I think atrocities took part on all sides.

And as Mr. Milosevic knows, I've been very critical of him, very critical of Mr. Tudjman, and very critical of Izetbegovic. The reason I've decided to come to the Tribunal is because when it came to keeping Yugoslavia together and looking at all the leaders, I decided, and reading all the Tribunal material - and since I stood down from parliament I've had time to do that, and watch it - I have come to the conclusion that Mr. Milosevic was the one who wanted to keep Yugoslavia together. But I ⁴⁹¹³⁹ have been highly critical of all the leaders in the past because of what happened, but I do think --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.

THE WITNESS: -- Serbs have been demonised.

JUDGE BONOMY: Can I ask you when these two meetings were; that's the meeting with the Prosecutor and the meeting with the north of England police officer.

THE WITNESS: The meeting with the Prosecutor will be on the record, and I came with Mark Littman. I think it was 2003. I can certainly get you the -- it will --

JUDGE BONOMY: 2003 is good enough.

THE WITNESS: I think it was, yes.

JUDGE BONOMY: And the later one?

THE WITNESS: The one with the police officer in Banja Luka I think was 2001, yeah. But it will be on the NATO website. It was an official visit.

JUDGE ROBINSON: You said you have been critical of Mr. Milosevic.

THE WITNESS: Yes I have, yes.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Can you tell us what --

THE WITNESS: Well, I think the propaganda machine should not be underestimated, because it affected us all, and we all believed things of all sides, and I've said, I think on the record, that I hold no truck with Mr. Milosevic. That I'd been to Vukovar, I think was one quote I made, and seen what the Serbs did there. So I was laying blame. And I also said about Mr. Izetbegovic that he knew about what was ⁴⁹¹⁴⁰ happening to the rural Serbs in Bosnia who were being persecuted and killed, and I think I said to some rather unpleasant things about him as well. And similarly about Mr. Tudjman, who -- they're not here now to defend themselves.

But the conclusion I reached after this last three or four years of reading and listening and what -- this Tribunal helped me to come to this decision, is that Mr. Milosevic was the only one trying to keep Yugoslavia together.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Just to go back to a few questions related to Kosovo. Did you have any information to the effect that the Serbs were leaving Kosovo during the NATO bombing?

A. Oh, yes. Yes. We -- shortly after -- well, first of all during the bombing, the NATO parliamentary Assembly met in Warsaw, and I moved nearly 50 amendments to the resolution that was congratulating NATO, and I got some very, very limited support, I must confess. But during that meeting, that Assembly, we were told by speakers - because we invite speakers - that everybody was getting out of the way of the bombing, that they had refugees going into Serbia as well. I also, at a later seminar in Macedonia, at Lake Ohrid, we had Michael Ignatieff, the journalist, and Noel Malcolm, who wrote the book, or the books on Kosovo, and it sticks in my mind what Michael Ignatieff said, but this was when the bombing ceased. He says, "I didn't think I'd gone along with this military action." He'd just been to Kosovo. It had only just finished, the bombing. "So that I could see thousands of Serbs ⁴⁹¹⁴¹ on tractors, walking, and in cars, being driven out of Kosovo. We stopped one --" because he believed the ethnic cleansing was going on on a huge scale. I didn't. But he said, "We've stopped one lot of ethnic cleansing and we're now witnessing another." The difference I would put is that one's been permanent and the other one wasn't.

Q. Ms. Mahon, since you follow the events in Kosovo very intensively, you visited there, you visited Yugoslavia, you were in debates in parliament, you were in the NATO committee, the parliamentary Assembly and your parliament's committees dealing with these things and everything else, I'm just going to ask you a few questions now with respect to this indictment, and I'd like you to tell me whether you had any knowledge about any of this from all your experiences, which are undoubtedly very broad indeed and rich experiences.

Paragraph 53 says that I, together with others, it doesn't matter who else, it says: "... planned, instigated [In English] ordered, committed or otherwise aided and abetted in a deliberate and widespread or systematic campaign of terror and violence directed at Kosovo Albanian civilians living in Kosovo in the FRY."

A. The question is do I have any knowledge or experience --

JUDGE ROBINSON: I'm not allowing that, Mr. Milosevic. She is in no position to comment on that on the basis of the evidence that she has given so far.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, she isn't in a position to comment what they wrote, but she does have the knowledge which can perhaps deny it because she was in contact with people there. So I can ask her ⁴⁹¹⁴² the following:

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Do you have any information and knowledge which refute these kind of allegations, madam?

THE WITNESS: Okay?

JUDGE ROBINSON: Do you have any specific knowledge?

THE WITNESS: Well, when we've been having the meetings of the Committee for Peace in the Balkans, people came along and gave testimonies to how they were treated, and we had some very, very lively meetings, as you can imagine. There was -- during the civil war in particular. But in the run-up to Kosovo as well. And one person would come on, an Albanian, because there's a sizable community in London. I'm very pleased to say they carried on coming to the committee meetings. And one person would say something and then we'd get a Serb who would stand up and say, "You killed my brother who was a policeman," or my cousin. And so from that point of view we had the people viewing their differences, airing their differences.

Similarly on the NATO Assembly, we would get one report supporting -- because we have observers there from the various countries, and we'd get report from -- reports from various groups saying this happened, that happened. There would be a difference of opinion. What -- what I will say, and I think the British delegation were innocent, quite sympathetic to this, was we did know there was a guerrilla organisation operating in Kosovo. We did know that -- because Robin Cook told us and we all got the [inaudible], that they were violating the -- ⁴⁹¹⁴³

JUDGE ROBINSON: Ms. Mahon, I'm going to stop you.

THE WITNESS: Okay, that's fine.

JUDGE ROBINSON: It's clear to me you don't have any specific --

THE WITNESS: No.

JUDGE ROBINSON: -- knowledge of these matters. Mr. Milosevic.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Ms. Mahon, did you have any information about what the Yugoslav organs did, the Yugoslav authorities, including the Yugoslav army and the Yugoslav security organs? Do you have any information as to how they treated refugees?

A. Mainly reports from the press. We did have some reports in parliament from the Defence Minister who talked about 10.000 -- first of all, a hundred thousand people being killed. Then it came down to 10.000. This was during the bombing, and it was about justifying the bombing. And the accusations were that the Yugoslav army had carried out these killings. Consequent -- subsequently we know this is not true and the deaths, desperately tragic as they were, and injuries, were nothing like on the scale that both Robin Cook and George Robertson were telling us.

Q. All right. You were in Kosovo later, that is to say after the war. Could you establish what the situation was like in Kosovo after the war? What is your knowledge about that? Did NATO attacks resolve the problems of Kosovo, help people there? Did they create anything noteworthy? So what are your observations -- ⁴⁹¹⁴⁴

JUDGE ROBINSON: Not relevant. Don't answer that.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Have you heard of at least a single action where NATO forces in Kosovo, after taking over responsibility for protecting the entire population, tried to protect the Serbs, or an Orthodox church, or have you heard of any situation when --

JUDGE ROBINSON: No, don't answer that. No, Mr. Milosevic. Don't abuse the Court's process and time. If you don't have any more questions to ask, then I'll ask Mr. Nice to begin his cross-examination.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I do have other questions.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Well, then put questions that are relevant to the indictment.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. As for the violence against the Serb population, do you know whether that was brought to an end after the bombing stopped?

A. Certainly not. And we -- we -- after the 2004 --

JUDGE ROBINSON: That's outside the indictment period. If you ask one more question like that, I'm going to terminate the examination-in-chief. This is the third question you've asked, and it relates to the period outside the indictment.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well. Then I don't want to be brought into that situation, that is to say not to be able to put some questions that I also believe are very important as far as this witness is concerned. ⁴⁹¹⁴⁵

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Ms. Mahon, in addition to Kosovo, you went to Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia; is that right?

A. Yes. I went to Croatia on a -- two or three occasions, mainly to talk to returnees, and to talk to the -- the Croats who were trying to be helpful, one particular party, about the refugees. I went and saw what happened, the results of Operation Storm, which were quite shocking. And the refugees have been a major concern of the women's committee that I've told you about. We've been trying to get people together, and we've been trying to help to get people to be able to return to their homes. When I was in the Krajina, I actually did a report that went to the OSCE about the plight of the Serbs who had returned and the fact that they were not getting any help from the government. The OSCE on that occasion were very good and did take up the number of cases that we gave them. And I visited recently with John Randall, Conservative MP for Uxbridge, who chairs the Serbian-Montenegrin group in parliament, and the Macedonian group. He was the secretary, I was the chair, and we went to visit Kosovo refugees who were -- had been stuck in camps near the Kosovo border in Serbia for many years. And we complained about that because the administrator in Kosovo was not -- less than 1 per cent had gone back. And the administrator was allowing Albanian families who lived near the right to veto returnees, and so we made some complaints about that. And I understand the position is slightly better now and more refugees are going back.

But they were in a desperate case, and it did seem to me that the ⁴⁹¹⁴⁶ rest of Europe had just turned their back on them. And as we know, there are nearly a million people who have been ethnically cleansed from all over the former Soviet Union, and most of them are in Serbia and in Montenegro, and it's an absolute disgrace, in my view.

JUDGE BONOMY: Did you mean to say the Soviet Union there?

THE WITNESS: No. I said it's an absolute disgrace, in my view. No, I meant to say Yugoslavia, the former Yugoslavia, sorry. I thought I said Yugoslavia.

JUDGE BONOMY: You actually said Soviet Union and it just seemed very strange in the circumstances.

THE WITNESS: Yes. Sorry about that.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. The time that you refer to when you went to Croatia, is that when you came here to have the talks that you refer to?

A. I came here afterwards, after one of the visits, yes, but I've been two or three times.

Q. After one of these visits. All right. How many times did you visit Croatia?

A. Three times altogether, once with the women's international and twice with NATO.

Q. In the briefest possible terms, what was your impression after these visits to Croatia?

A. The visit to --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic --

THE WITNESS: -- with -- ⁴⁹¹⁴⁷

JUDGE ROBINSON: -- you must be a little more specific and get the witness to focus on something relevant. That's an invitation for the witness to give a very long and general answer. What is the precise piece of evidence that you're seeking to elicit from her?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Specifically I wish to hear in the briefest possible terms, and that is what I emphasised, what Ms. Mahon's impressions were of her visit of Croatia. In view of what she saw there, in view of the talks she had there, what did she establish? What did she learn?

THE WITNESS: We --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Ms. Mahon.

THE WITNESS: As -- as a member of the NATO delegation, we did place great emphasis on getting people to return, the returnees, because in Bosnia a lot of work has been done to get people back to their homes. It seems to me that the big area of neglect is the Krajina, where the biggest ethnic cleansing took place, and very few have returned. I think it is getting better now, but I really do think it should be a priority for the West to get these people back, because the conditions they're living in - and children are being born in these camps in the heart of Europe - and so I always came back feeling very, very saddened. But we did emphasise to the -- to the Croats that we thought they had a duty to cooperate with the West and get these refugees back. Unfortunately, not as much pressure has been placed on the Croatian government as has been placed on the Serbian government, and I think politically that's just unacceptable. ⁴⁹¹⁴⁸

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Ms. Mahon, you mentioned that you went to Bosnia-Herzegovina. When was it that you went to Bosnia-Herzegovina, and on what occasion, and who did you meet?

A. I went on two or three occasions. The first time was during the civil war when I went with -- I've already mentioned that to the Tribunal, when I went with women's committee. I went with NATO, I think in 2000; and I went in 1999 with the -- no. I went with NATO in 2000, then I think I went again in 2004. I have the exact dates somewhere. I can give you them.

Q. What did you establish then?

A. Well, when we went with NATO, we were very anxious to resolve the question of returnees and get the refugees back in their own homes. We were also interested in some of the reforms that the Croatian government were introducing. They were obviously --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, none of this is really helpful to the case.

THE WITNESS: Okay.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well. Then just a few more questions that have to do with Kosovo.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. In view of the position you had and in view of the questions that you were interested in, did you establish whether the KLA continued to be active even after the war, and with what consequences?

JUDGE ROBINSON: No, Mr. Milosevic. That question is not to be ⁴⁹¹⁴⁹ answered.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] You don't want to hear an answer? All right, Mr. Robinson.

MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Q. Ms. Mahon, were you ever in possession of some facts or information that have to do with the links between the KLA and drug trafficking, white slave trading, and similar crimes over a longer period of time?

A. Yes.

JUDGE ROBINSON: What period of time?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] In the period of time during the war, before the war, after the war. The involvement of the KLA with drug smuggling, white slave trading, and all other types of criminal activity.

JUDGE ROBINSON: How does that affect any of the issues in the indictment, assuming that that was established?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Oh, it does affect it, and how. Ms. Mahon explained in one of her answers that everybody treated the KLA as a terrorist organisation. But it's not only a terrorist organisation, it's also an organisation through which most of the drugs going to Europe go. This is an organisation that is involved in white slave trading too. This is a monster organisation that became an ally of --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, that's your last question. Mr. Nice, please.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Why can she not answer that if she knows about it, Mr. Robinson? ⁴⁹¹⁵⁰

JUDGE ROBINSON: It's not relevant. Cross-examination by Mr. Nice:

Q. Ms. Mahon I'm not going to, of course, as I've indicated, challenge the sincerity of your views in any way, and I'll probably be very brief.

Dealing with one of the -- I have to deal with this in order not to disturb the sound system. Right.

Just to start with, remember the answer you gave about Racak?

A. Yes.

Q. Your help, please, so that we can understand your -- the general process by which you give answers. So far as Racak is concerned, is it your evidence to this Court that Ambassador Walker actually set up the whole incident, set up the conflict in Racak so that there was fighting and deaths?

A. There was huge discussion about Racak across the whole of the European Community. My committee, the Committee for Peace in the Balkans, had speakers who had gone into great detail. There was a German television crew that reported that there'd been a firefight in the area -- French or German, I've forgotten now --

Q. Forgive my interrupting, I'd like to come back to the detail in a second, but a question I hope was capable of an easier answer: Is it your evidence that Ambassador Walker set up the whole incident, set up that conflict in Racak so there was fighting and deaths? And the reason I ask you that is because, as you will recall, your initial answer was Walker had arranged an incident. So -- ⁴⁹¹⁵¹

A. Well, that was the view of many of the people. So --

Q. Right.

A. -- could I rephrase that, then. That was the view of many of the people who came along to the Committee for Peace in the Balkans to talk about Racak, to talk about the television which we saw -- we saw the television documentary with an interpreter -- and that was, I would have said, the overwhelming opinion of the people who came to talk to us.

Q. That's fine, that's your opinion. Now, can you point us, please, to not all of the evidence but the best piece of evidence that shows that Mr. Walker actually set up the whole event.

A. No. I can point you to the film and to various commentators.

Q. And the film, is that the film where they show Mr. Walker walking up the ravine and finding the bodies?

A. Yes.

Q. Right.

A. And they also show the angle of the bullets and the fact that -- there were all kinds of forensic disputes about it. As you know, there was a big debate went on about it.

Q. Before we move from this, can you tell us, please, how it is from that film -- because we've seen that film several times. Can you tell us, please, how it is from that film that it's possible to deduce or infer that Mr. Walker actually set the whole thing up --

A. Well, people did deduce that.

Q. No, can you tell us -- because we've seen the film, and therefore, if it's a deduction we can make, we'd like to know how to make it. Can ⁴⁹¹⁵² you tell us, please, how to make that deduction from that film.

A. No. I -- I can't. I can tell you, Mr. Nice, that my experience in the past of Mr. Walker as a diplomat in a very difficult area was appalling, and so I suppose I start with an in-built prejudice about Mr. Walker's partiality in this case.

Q. Yes. Now that's your view, that he set the whole thing up.

A. Well, I think I withdrew that he set the whole thing up, so if you can just stop repeating. I think I actually withdrew and said that people came along to the committee and told us.

Q. All right. But, you see, one alternative view of Racak might be not that Mr. Walker set the whole thing up but that, an event having occurred, he was a bit swift off the mark to attribute blame. Now that's -- that's a different, much softer view of Mr. Walker.

A. Certainly is, yes.

Q. But that's not your conclusion, I take it.

A. I'm somewhere in the middle, I think, Mr. Nice, on that one.

Q. You say you followed the evidence in this court. Have you in fact followed in order to be able to review for us the evidence on Racak?

A. No.

Q. Thank you. And you would accept, wouldn't you, that as against your distillation of opinions of others, the judgement of Judges dealing with the raw evidence is the preferable route to the truth?

A. Well, I think that's up to the Court to decide. They've looked at the evidence and the Court will decide its own view on this. I don't think, as a politician, I always necessarily -- or as a player with NATO, ⁴⁹¹⁵³ et cetera, always necessarily have to agree with everything that a court might decide.

Q. Now, I want you to deal with another little matter of detail, and it's about this policeman from your neck of the woods called -- you've described him as Ken Collet --

A. Yes.

Q. -- but in fact -- and indeed you named him as Ken Collet in the House of Commons.

A. Yes.

Q. In fact, I'm sure you accept this: His name is actually Ken Corlett, C-o-r-l-e-t-t.

A. That's okay. I had his card at the time, so I'm sorry I misspelt that.

Q. And it was -- was it in the Banja Luka -- Banja Luka metal factory that you met him, with other politicians?

A. Uh-huh. I'm not sure about metal factory. I know we met in a venue.

Q. Right.

A. I wouldn't swear it was in a metal factory.

Q. This of course is in Republika Srpska, isn't it?

A. Yes.

Q. I beg your pardon?

A. Yes.

Q. And how long was Mr. Corlett's presentation to you?

A. I think we were there about an hour, maybe longer. ⁴⁹¹⁵⁴

Q. You see, we've approached him this morning, knowing that you were coming and finding this passage in the parliamentary records of what you'd said. He no longer works here, he works elsewhere, but he's been able to reply with an explanation and I want to put his explanation to you to see if you accept it. Starting at your end, that is, the only people they were looking for were Serbs, the area in which you were and he was working at that time was populated by what ethnic group?

A. Serbs.

Q. And there were no Croats or Muslims living there.

A. I must dispute that because some of the staff who were showing us round were Muslims.

Q. Uh-huh. But the people living in the area --

A. They were living there. They were not -- not in a camp, they were living there.

Q. But generally speaking, Serbs living in Republika Srpska.

A. Yeah, yeah.

Q. And it may well be that Mr. Corlett explained to you that in the area where he was the search for potential war criminals was of Serb war criminals because that's where they were likely to be found. Now, thinking back, did he explain that to you?

A. No, he did not. We asked about the search for war criminals and he said, "I'm only looking for Serbs." He did not explain that to us.

Q. You see --

A. And one or two of us questioned him on it.

Q. I beg your pardon? ⁴⁹¹⁵⁵

A. One or two of us questioned him on it. We asked questions and said but other people committed crimes, other ethnic groups committed crimes. He said, "My instruction is to look for Serbs."

Q. Was this in the context of executing -- or beginning the process of executing warrants of arrests for people named as possible perpetrators?

A. Well, you must ask him that.

Q. Well, I'm asking you --

A. I'm pretty sure he'll give you an answer. I'm sure he had a list of people. He was very confident when he replied to us. Now, I checked this with a colleague who was with us on that --

Q. You see --

A. -- just a few months ago, and his knowledge was exactly the same as mine.

Q. Part of Mr. Corlett's presentation to you was on the work of the ICTY generally.

A. That's right, yes, yes.

Q. And in that part of his presentation he made it plain to you that the purpose of the ICTY was to investigate crimes regardless of ethnicity.

A. No. He actually said he was only looking for Serbs.

Q. Well, I respectfully suggest, madam, that you're wrong.

A. I'm sorry if you think that, Mr. Nice, but I'm telling you I was there. I would not have repeated that in the House, and I take copious notes about things, and --

Q. Are you got them with you now? ⁴⁹¹⁵⁶

A. I'm sure I can get it to you because I don't throw anything away.

Q. Because you're reading from notes today and I wondered if you have the note of this conversation.

A. No, but I will have a look for it, Mr. Nice.

Q. So we can put it to Mr. Corlett and get his further comment.

A. I think the important point is I was there, Mr. Nice, and you were not.

Q. I want you to think a little more carefully about whether your understandable and sincerely held bias in certain directions may have affected your overall memory of, and indeed maybe your record of, what Mr. Corlett told you about the function of the ICTY and you focussed simply on the bit where he said, well, here we're trying to get Serb perpetrators?

A. If you don't mind me saying, I think that's rather insulting and I think I'll just wish you'd not said that.

Q. You've explained about the OSCE being infiltrated by the CIA, haven't you?

A. I said I thought they had a huge influence in them, and I certainly think they have, yes.

Q. I think you used the word "infiltration."

A. Well, infiltrate, okay.

Q. If I was wrong about that --

A. It's okay.

JUDGE BONOMY: Well, my recollection is that the question was had the KLA been infiltrated by the CIA, but I don't think that was the ⁴⁹¹⁵⁷ answer.

THE WITNESS: Not the KLA, the OSCE.

JUDGE BONOMY: I'm sorry.

MR. NICE:

Q. Well, you say that the CIA had an influence over the OSCE. I'm not necessarily challenging it, I would like you, however, to help us with, again, the best bit of evidence, the best fact you can point us to to support that proposition.

A. And you want this specifically to Kosovo.

Q. Yes.

A. Specifically to Kosovo.

Q. Yes.

A. Talking to people who were on the ground, just generally talking to soldiers afterwards, chatting to people who worked in an NGO capacity in Kosovo, and talking to people in Kosovo themselves who lived there. So it was a general view I got about Kosovo. I could be more specific if I was talking about the elections that I monitored with the OSCE but you're not interested in that in court.

Q. Now, chatting to people generally --

A. Uh-huh.

Q. -- doesn't give us very much to work on.

A. No, no.

Q. But --

A. I was talking generally when I said there was a general view held that the Americans have huge sway over what the OSCE does. ⁴⁹¹⁵⁸

Q. I'd like you to please look at with me just a couple of pages of an exhibit, and while we come to it, it's -- it's page 6, I think, of the first of the "As Seen, As Told" books. Presumably you're acquainted with the "As Seen, As Told" books, are you?

A. Yes. I don't have a copy.

Q. We're just getting you a copy. Are you aware that there are two volumes of this work?

A. Yes.

Q. I'm sorry?

A. Yes.

Q. And that the first volume deals with events up until June and the second volume deals with events after?

A. Yeah.

Q. So if we look at page 6 - and perhaps Mr. Nort might display it on the overhead projector for us, and if the booth would be so good. I'm not going to deal with much of this book. In fact, only one entry, I think, at the moment probably. If we look at page 6 on the left-hand side. That's fine.

We see a paragraph that's headed with "Limited international sanctions," and further down the page, it says: "Substantial additional Serbian military reinforcements were sent into Kosovo in May --"

A. Where is this? Where is this?

Q. -- in 1998."

A. Sorry, I've lost --

Q. It's just on the left-hand side there, halfway down the screen. ⁴⁹¹⁵⁹

A. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Q. "Ignoring a final warning from European governments in June, Serb forces began concentrating their actions in the Drenica area and along the south-western border, using artillery to force villagers out of their homes and then going in to loot and burn them. Aid agencies estimated that some 2 to 300.000 Albanians were driven from their homes between April and September of 1998."

Now, do you have any reason to doubt the accuracy of that as just part of the pre-1999 story?

A. I do know that that figure has been widely disputed, both at the time and since, that there were so many. At the same time, there was a very notorious claim that there were rape camps being set up as well which later proved not to be the case, so --

Q. We're looking at what's in this book.

A. Yeah. I know we're looking at what's in this book, and it says "aid agencies estimated," but that figure has been disputed. I am not doubting that some of this went on, Mr. Nice.

Q. Yes.

A. I do not doubt that, I've been very open, and you'll know that if you've read the stuff I've said.

Q. Can you help me with this from your knowledge: Accepting then that there was a very large number or a large number, whatever we like --

A. Yeah.

Q. -- of Kosovo Albanians displaced from their homes by Serb forces in the middle of 1998, from your wide knowledge can you tell us, please, ⁴⁹¹⁶⁰ what efforts the government made to re-house them?

A. I have no idea. I do know that some villages were burnt -- I know that some Serb villages were burnt out. I think the rebuilding programme's gone on since --

Q. Yes?

A. -- an in some places good and in some places not good.

Q. You see --

A. Why would I have any idea about that, Mr. Nice?

Q. Ms. Mahon, you come here with very wide knowledge, it's said, and you've been allowed by the Court to give very wide and sometimes general answers, and you've given your conclusions from answers, and I'd just like you to help us one more time because of your extensive knowledge. Is there any reason that you know to believe that the Serb government made any effort at all --

A. I don't.

Q. -- to re-house the Kosovo Albanians kicked out of their homes in the middle of --

A. I have no idea whether they did or didn't.

Q. Very well.

A. We had seminars about this on the NATO parliamentary Assembly, we got reports from all sides. Some people said one thing, some said another. And I have never denied that some of these things took place, as you well know if you've read my contributions in the House of Commons.

Q. And we've, of course, heard for this period Lord -- from Lord Ashdown, of tanks firing into houses. You have no reason to doubt the ⁴⁹¹⁶¹ accuracy of evidence like that --

A. I --

Q. -- do you?

A. I've read all of Lord Ashdown's commentary. Lord Ashdown came to NATO and briefed us, right up to the time I left. Some of it people argued with him about, others didn't. Others were accepted. So this is, you know, a statement from somebody. I make statements, he makes statements.

Q. The first exhibit we were looking at was Exhibit 106 -- 10 -- sorry, 106. Can we now just look very briefly at the second part of 106, which is the second part of the account, and at VI -- no, perhaps III to begin with. Lay that on the overhead projector. Because -- have you looked at and used this become very much yourself, Ms. Mahon?

A. Oh, yes.

Q. Good.

A. In the past, yes; not recently.

Q. And you have no reason to doubt its methodology, do you?

A. I don't think I'm on record as doubting its methodology.

Q. I know you identify on the record but you must feel free to add to what's on the parliamentary record because here we're looking at things afresh. Now, if you go to III.

Mr. Nort, if you'd like to help me, that's III at the bottom, as it were. That's it, that page there. That's fine. Now, just that bottom paragraph. This is the way the book dealing with the suffering of others summarises some events. It says, right at ⁴⁹¹⁶² the bottom there: "In many of the cases documented by the OSCE in this report, there are serious indications that the perpetrators of human rights violations are either members of the former UCK, people passing themselves off as members of the former UCK, or members of other armed Albanian groups. In other cases, the alleged perpetrators are members of Serb armed groups. In many cases it has been so far impossible to operate -- to identify exactly those responsible. Whatever their identity, these armed groups seem to operate in an organised fashion and have some form of hierarchy, command and control."

Now, this is the period after June. From your knowledge and experience - and I think you tell us you were on the territory some of that time - does this seem to you about right?

A. What do you mean, the conclusions that the OSCE reach?

Q. In this paragraph.

A. In this particular paragraph. I have no way of knowing, have I, Mr. Nice?

Q. Well, you've given very, very broad answers about bombs being the most important thing for this, and who did that. You see, if we turn over, Mr. Nort, a couple of pages to VII, you'll see that this is an introduction signed by Dr. Kouchner, with whom you went on your mission. Any reason to doubt his general integrity in --

A. No.

Q. Thank you. Staying on that same page, Mr. Nort, but now the left-hand side, VI --

A. Mr. Kouchner was very helpful -- ⁴⁹¹⁶³

Q. Thank you.

A. -- to the committee.

Q. So if we look at the left-hand side, there we are, that's the paragraph, and just to remind ourselves of how these books of research material have been prepared, it says: "Things are changing. It is not fair to make comparisons with the situation before or during the war. At that time, and for at least a decade, there was a systematic policy of apartheid, sub-human status, or at least a sub-community status for Albanians in Kosovo. This is no longer the case today." But then this sentence, which is why I refer you to: "Perhaps it may seem just as bad today for the Serbs or Roma who live in fear, who cannot move about freely or have to find a way to protect their children, but it is no longer a matter of a policy. All the parties in Kosovo, all leaders ... have stated their positions in favour of multi-ethnic society." So here, you see, this is part of the Prosecution evidence, one of the tools available to the Court, we see a reflection of the history but then the present concern for Serbs and Romas. You'd agree with that, would you, that Serbs and Romas might be living in fear?

A. Yes.

Q. Thank you.

JUDGE ROBINSON: We will adjourn now for 20 minutes.

--- Recess taken at 12.21 p.m.

--- On resuming at 12.45 p.m.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE: ⁴⁹¹⁶⁴

Q. Ms. Mahon, you've told us how you followed these proceedings, and you've told us how, in your view, the accused was the only one trying to hold Yugoslavia together. Are you aware of evidence going to show that he assented to the departure of both Slovenia and Croatia?

A. I think once it was a fait accompli, yes.

Q. Can you tell us what the evidence is? Do you actually know?

A. Sorry, I didn't hear you.

Q. Can you tell us what that evidence is, because I'd like to know what you've factored into your conclusion that this accused was the only one trying to keep Yugoslavia together.

A. I think -- I think when Slovenia seceded and the Yugoslav army went in, and we went -- I went to Slovenia and talked to people about this with the committee, the Yugoslav army were made to look the villains for simply trying to hold together what was a legitimate country, Yugoslavia, or a federation of states that made up a country. I saw the -- the video - well, it's been widely shown - about when -- when the young conscripts of the Yugoslav army were killed by the militia that formed themselves in Slovenia. Only when the powerful -- in Croatia -- powerful West; i.e., the Germans, gave full recognition to these countries, I think did the defendant then -- I don't have all the documents --

Q. You see --

A. -- but I certainly have an awful lot of --

Q. -- Ms. Mahon, when you make very broad assertions and you tell us on the basis of what material you've relied, I just want to test what your knowledge is. Are you aware, for example, of intercepts of telephone ⁴⁹¹⁶⁵ calls between this accused and Karadzic before the separation of these states, indicating his agreement to what would happen?

A. Karadzic, the Bosnian --

Q. Yes.

A. -- Serb?

Q. Yes.

A. I thought we were talking about Slovenia, sorry.

Q. Conversations, are you aware of those conversations between --

A. No, I'm not.

Q. No. Then I shan't trouble you further with that topic. The Contact Group is something that you may be able to help us with because, of course, it is an essentially political activity. And if we can look at just a few of these from admitted exhibits and see if they accord with your recollection of events. First of all, it will be 791, tab 1.

What do you know about the Contact Group?

A. Can you -- can I see the --

Q. It's coming. The document's coming your way. What do you know about the Contact Group that's important for us?

A. I think the -- the Contact Group are working, I think, to conciliate and bring people together. They're an organisation that --

Q. Who was on it?

A. Pardon?

Q. Who was on it?

A. The Contact Group? ⁴⁹¹⁶⁶

Q. Yes.

A. Now.

Q. At the time.

A. I'm not sure without looking.

Q. You see, if you look at the documents you've got there - maybe you didn't know this, but just have a look at it - the document shows that the foreign ministers of the Contact Group countries involved, France, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom, United States, and the Russian Federation. Did you -- did you know that?

A. Yes, I did.

Q. Ah. Well, now this one, you see, we start off for these purposes in the 24th of September, 1997, and it's against your assertion that there was really at some stage a falsity, a phoniness about the negotiations because there was a plan to bomb or do whatever in any event. Here we see the Contact Group, if you just look at the bottom of the page, and it's September 1997, to help you: "Regarding the dispute over Kosovo's status, the position of the Contact Group countries is clear: We do not support independence and we do not support maintenance of the status quo. We support an enhanced status for Kosovo within the FRY." Do you remember that being the constructive approach of the Contact Group at that time?

A. Mr. Nice, this is 1997. Yes, I do remember that was the view.

Q. Is there any --

A. But if I'm going to be questioned on documents going back to 1997, do you think I could have a couple of minutes to have a look at them ⁴⁹¹⁶⁷ first?

Q. Of course.

A. I was on the Russian NATO group. I do have many colleagues in the Russian delegation. And I think this view about Kosovo was probably nearly everybody's view at that time.

Q. And there's no reason, is there, for us to think that there's anything false or phoney about this expression of intent?

A. No.

Q. Right. Let's look at the next one, please, which is, in this series 791, tab 8. We're just going to do a few of them because we don't have so much time. And this one is the 8th of July of 1998. And again Russia signs up to this, Russian Federation signs up. And if we lay it on the overhead projector. Next page, please, Mr. Nort. That's just the introduction. Thank you very much. Right. "The Contact Group met in Bonn on 8 July." Took stock. Then we took to paragraph 2: "The overall situation in Kosovo remains tense. The Contact Group noted with deep concern that, despite vigorous efforts undertaken by members of the Contact Group, the prospects of a peaceful settlement have deteriorated since the Contact Group's meeting in London on the 12th of June. Although the primary responsibility for the situation in Kosovo rests with Belgrade, the Contact Group acknowledges that armed Kosovo Albanian groups also have a responsibility to avoid violence and all armed activities." It repeats that: "Violence is inadmissible and will not solve the problem." Now, I realise you're looking at this document maybe for the first ⁴⁹¹⁶⁸ time, and it's only part of the document, of course, but is there any reason to doubt that that's a broadly accurate statement of the political position as of the middle of July -- middle of 1998?

A. No.

Q. Thank you very much. Now, at about this time, there was the statement that you've referred to by Mr. Rubin, and I think we've managed to track that down so we'll fit that in now, please, if we can. This would be a new exhibit. August 3, 1998. Does that appear to be the right date?

A. Yes.

Q. We won't go through all of the report of his press conference but just enough to check that we're on the right one. Briefer James Rubin, US State Department. Does this appear at first sight to be the one you were concerned about?

A. It was reported in the press, it's a press report I have.

Q. Right. If we go over, now, to the second page, Mr. -- I'll wait until Mr. Nort comes back. We haven't got time to do all of it, but if we go over to the second page, you'll see that Mr. Rubin is asked a question in the middle of the page where -- he's asked a question that there will be a mediator, essentially, or a new Prime Minister, various accounts, that Minister Hajriozi doesn't care to live in Yugoslavia. Then Mr. Rubin answers in the first paragraph, and in the next paragraph he says: There are difficulties in working -- we'll have to move it up the screen a bit, please, Mr. Nort. There are difficult -- next paragraph it is. Thank you very much. ⁴⁹¹⁶⁹ "There are difficulties in working out these arrangements, but that's what Ambassador Hill is doing right now. We believe that one of the difficulties- and the primary difficulty - is a direct result of the Serb offensive. It's very hard for the Albanian side to want to organise itself in a negotiating context at the very time that the Serb side is conducting these offensives that are displacing tens of thousands of people."

Now, that's -- may be a summary but it has to be. Over the page, please, Mr. Nort, to help the witness and the accused and anybody else, we can see at the top of the page a reference to humanitarian catastrophe, but I'm not personally interested in that. I want to look at something further down the page but I just draw that to the Court's attention if they want to find it. Further down the page, please, Mr. Nort. That's fine.

Mr. Rubin answers: "With respect to NATO, let me say this, and I hope President Milosevic understands this: NATO has now approved a range of contingency plans for the use of military force in this regard. The Secretary-General has requested further refinement of those initially approved plans that were approved in the recent days, and that effort is continuing apace; and we would expect further -- we would expect that work to further refine the options to be done very quickly." And then the next paragraph -- first paragraph of the next answer: "Question: NATO has approved a number of things they might be willing to do militarily. Can you tell us - give us an idea of what the range of things are?" ⁴⁹¹⁷⁰ He says: "I don't care to get into the job of detailing military planning - that is not for us here at the State Department. I think it's important to note that a set of contingency plans has now been approved by NATO, and that is an important development." Now, is this the press conference that you were referring to?

A. I think it must be, but mine was a press report, not the actual document.

Q. So that it would appear, wouldn't it, that what Mr. Rubin was publicly explaining was that there were contingency plans.

A. Yes.

Q. Now, as you understand, it's not for us, we're not concerned -- well, I just better check this. In the past you have accused certainly the Prosecution part of this organisation of being creatures of NATO. Now, is that something to which you still subscribe, or on reflection, was that perhaps a --

A. No. No. It's something I do subscribe to.

Q. I see. In which case if I were to suggest to you that the Prosecution here, or indeed the Court, is not concerned particularly with the mechanism whereby things developed, we're not concerned with the rights and wrongs of that, we're simply concerned whether crimes were committed once things developed the way they did. Do you accept that that's the position of this Prosecution?

A. I accept that the people concerning the Prosecution. I refer to the court and the setting up of the court when I talk about it being NATO's court. ⁴⁹¹⁷¹

Q. Very well. In those circumstances I go back to my -- contingency plans in light of the assessments being made --

A. Where are we now?

Q. The document we've just looked at. In August, 1998, Contingency plans in light of the circumstances as assessed at that time would be an entirely appropriate thing for NATO to do, wouldn't it? It's not for me to argue NATO's cause, and I don't, but nevertheless I put it to you as a proposition for you to deal with. Make contingency plans, perfectly acceptable?

A. Well, it does if you accept that NATO is acting legally doing any of this, and I don't.

Q. Well, the legality or otherwise comes with the decision to move later, but to make contingency plans, armies make contingency plans all the time. There's nothing wrong, is there --

A. That goes against NATO's constitution, and it went against its own rules when it made contingency plans --

Q. I see.

A. -- to bomb another country that had done it no harm.

Q. Even if a --

A. The constitution is very clear of NATO.

Q. Very well. If necessary, we'll get the constitution and confirm that position, because Mr. Rubin made this observation publicly. Quite right.

MR. NICE: Your Honours, can this be produced? The witness seems to be acknowledging it, although she says she saw it in a press conference ⁴⁹¹⁷² -- in a press report, I beg your pardon.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, it's admitted.

THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit 969.

MR. NICE:

Q. Can we now go back to the documents from the Contact Group and look at 791, tab 9. Again this comes from -- well, you can confirm from your position within parliament that where a document comes with the authority of six foreign ministers, included in the material available to the document creators will be material available to governments and not just to parliamentarians; would that be correct?

A. Uh-huh, yeah.

Q. Therefore, they will have access to intelligence that may not be available at the time, or indeed ever, to parliamentarians and the public.

A. Yes. And I think given recent events we should be fairly careful about taking that as 100 per cent certain. Intelligence by its nature can be difficult.

Q. Ms. Mahon, I'm sure we all know exactly what you're referring to and --

A. Yes.

Q. -- follow your argument, but nevertheless the point is they have access to more materials. And this one, we see, on the 22nd of January: "Members of the Contact Group met in London on the 22nd of January to discuss the grave situation in Kosovo. It reaffirmed its united commitment to achieve an early political solution to the present crisis, ⁴⁹¹⁷³ and its determination to intensify its efforts to that end. "Contact Group unreservedly condemns the massacre of Kosovo Albanians in Racak on the 15th of January. All members expressed their revulsion at this act of mass murder." And so on. They also condemn the decision of the authorities to refuse entry to Kosovo by Judge Arbour. Now, this was an assessment made at the time by all those six governments. Any reason to doubt the bona fides - not the accuracy - the bona fides of the opinion that was being expressed by this group?

A. No. They accepted this, and you know, I don't question their integrity on accepting it. I say that I was quite -- listening to the people who came to speak to us, presenting what they said was evidence, I was quite skeptical about that particular -- and it could be, Mr. Nice, it's because I have this view of Mr. Walker because of previous activities. It could be that. You could be right.

Q. Well, let's look at the last one of this series, February -- which is 791, tab 11. The last one was 791, tab 9. Let's look at 791, tab 11, for the 23rd of February.

Paragraph 2: "Ministers noted the historic nature of the Rambouillet conference, which launched a process on the basis of the principles and basic elements adopted by the Contact Group in London on 29 January, bringing together those long divided by deep and bitter differences.

"These have been complex and difficult negotiations, as we expected. The important efforts of the parties and the unstinting commitment of our negotiators ... Hill, Petritsch, and Mayorski, have led ⁴⁹¹⁷⁴ to a consensus on substantial autonomy for Kosovo, including on mechanisms for free and fair elections to democratic institutions, for the governance of Kosovo, for the protection of human rights and the rights of members of national communities ... establishment of a fair judicial system." So that as of the 23rd of February, that's an expression of intention. Any reason to doubt that this was a sincere expression of how they were hoping --

A. No.

Q. Thank you.

A. No.

Q. And then if we look at paragraph 6 at the bottom, Mr. Nort. Paragraph 6: "We pledge ourselves to work together to achieve a settlement meeting the legitimate aspirations of all the people of Kosovo. Only such a settlement can create the conditions in which a humanitarian catastrophe can be avoided."

Now, that contains this assessment of humanitarian catastrophe. There's no reason, is there, to doubt, even if it was an assessment that you think's wrong, that it was genuine?

A. I don't agree with it.

Q. You don't agree with it?

A. I don't agree there was going to be a humanitarian catastrophe. I've said on a number of occasions I thought the verification monitors should have been doubled in number. I agree with what they said who spoke to me on the ground, and that was just three weeks before the hostilities started, the aggression started against Yugoslavia. So I mean, I don't ⁴⁹¹⁷⁵ have to agree that humanitarian catastrophe was on the way, do I?

Q. In --

JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Nice, help me with the factual position here. Is this after the failure of Rambouillet?

MR. NICE: I think it's in the break between --

JUDGE BONOMY: This is in the middle.

MR. NICE: Yes, I think so, between Rambouillet and Paris.

JUDGE BONOMY: Yes, okay.

MR. NICE:

Q. You see -- you -- you're familiar with the evidence in this court, and one of those three ambassadors, Petritsch, has told us that there was a change in the representation once we get to Paris. There was a change because the constructive Ratko Markovic was replaced by Milan Milutinovic, who appeared to be saying no to everything on the instructions of this accused.

Now, have you reviewed that evidence of the Ambassador Petritsch?

A. I saw some of this, yes.

Q. Again, is there any reason known to you to doubt his assessment of the change --

A. Well.

Q. -- of the change in negotiating position by Serbia at that time in Paris?

A. No. No. And neither is there any reason for me to accept his assessment.

Q. He was there, wasn't he? ⁴⁹¹⁷⁶

A. Yes. I wasn't involved.

Q. You weren't involved.

A. No.

Q. And you --

A. But you doubted me earlier on, Mr. Nice, when you weren't there and I was, so ...

Q. Just a couple of other things. One minute.

[Prosecution confer]

MR. NICE:

Q. I'm just going to give you an opportunity to look at one or two other documents but before -- and I shall be very brief, but you were never in -- you were in Macedonia three weeks before the bombing?

A. Yes.

Q. But you weren't in a Macedonia camp or an Albanian camp or, I think, a Montenegrin camp in the period March to June of 1999.

A. Yes. We went to a camp in Macedonia that was almost empty.

Q. Uh-huh.

A. And we talked to a number of people. Not surprisingly, the people who were left were the people who had difficulty with transport, the elderly, people who were disabled, one or two large families.

Q. What month was this?

A. That was -- well, they got people back very quickly after the bombing stopped.

Q. This is after the bombing stopped?

A. Yes. ⁴⁹¹⁷⁷

Q. That's fine.

A. Yeah.

Q. I'm just interested in -- so you didn't interview any of the people coming through the borders in the way that the various preparers of reports --

A. No.

Q. -- "Under Orders" --

A. No, no, no.

Q. Incidentally, I should have checked, for completeness. Are you familiar with this book, "Under Orders"?

A. No.

Q. No. It's a book prepared by Human Rights Watch. And it's another book compiling the evidence of victims and eyewitnesses, and you haven't seen it?

A. No, but we have had Human Rights Watch at the committee on a number of occasion.

Q. Uh-huh.

A. Both before, during, and after --

Q. Thank you.

A. -- the bombing. So I might have seen it but I just don't recall.

Q. Can we just go back then to one document, 791.16, if we've got that. I just want your comments on I think probably one other, possibly two other documents of another source, to check whether you've got any reason to advise us with your experience as a politician that we should doubt these documents, you see. ⁴⁹¹⁷⁸ This is a document which is -- the date's the 3rd of October, 1998. It's slightly cut off, but if you take my word for that, there it is. It's a report of the Secretary-General pursuant to Resolution 1160, and if we could turn over, Mr. Nort, to the next page where the Secretary-General gives his report on the situation in Kosovo, and he says as to hostilities this: "During the reporting period, fighting in Kosovo continued unabated."

A. Where am I looking?

Q. Sorry, there we are.

A. Oh, yes.

Q. "Government security forces conducted themselves in the various parts of Kosovo, including the areas of Likovac, Glogovac --"

A. I have seen this document--

Q. You have.

A. Yes. I think I have a copy of this document.

Q. In the week following the adoption the forces in fact intensified their operations reportedly resulted in the displacement of 20.000 people. Smaller operations by the Serbian security forces in the Prizren area. Fighting continued on the 28th and 29th of September, contrary to the statement of the Serbian Prime Minister Marjanovic that anti-insurgency operations had been completed. Any reason we should be having in mind, with all your experience, to doubt paragraph 5 of the Secretary-General's report prepared with all the solemnity of such a report?

A. No. ⁴⁹¹⁷⁹

Q. Thank you. And then in paragraph 6: "On the 29th of September, federal minister for foreign affairs, Zivadin Jovanovic, assured me that troops were returning to the place of their permanent location. According to the most recent reports, military forces withdrew from Drenica and Prizren areas on the 1st of October and observers indicated a decrease in activities of the security forces. However, the secretariat is still receiving information that the government's armed presence remains significant, that the operations of the special police continue." Any reason for us to doubt the accuracy of that, from what you know?

A. None whatsoever.

Q. Thank you. Page -- paragraph 7, and one more paragraph and I shall be done this document, just for your opinion -- or your help, rather. Because in paragraph 7 he reports: "I am particularly concerned --" second sentence -- "that civilians increasingly have become the main target of the conflict. Fighting in Kosovo has resulted in a mass displacement of civilian populations, the extensive destruction of villages and means of livelihood and the deep trauma and despair of displaced populations. Many villages have been destroyed by shelling and burning following operations conducted by federal and Serbian government forces. There are concerns that the disproportionate use of force and actions of the security forces are designed to terrorise and subjugate the population, a collective punishment to teach them that the price of supporting the Kosovo Albanian paramilitary units is too high ..." Now, just pausing there a minute. This is quite a carefully qualified statement. It says civilians are suffering. They're suffering ⁴⁹¹⁸⁰ because, in a sense, they're supporting the KLA. Does that accord with your understanding?

A. Well, yes. And we went through a similar experience, as you know, Mr. Nice, in Northern Ireland.

Q. So it goes on: "The Serbian security forces have demanded the surrender of weapons and have been reported to use terror and violence against civilians to force people to flee their homes or the places where they have sought refuge, under the guise of separating them from fighters of the Kosovo Albanian paramilitary units. And the tactics include shelling, detentions, threats to life, and finally, short-notice demands to leave or face the consequences."

Now, this, you see, is in October 1998. May I take it that there's no reason to doubt this?

A. No, I never have.

Q. Thank you. And you've of course been dealing with this material for many years. So that -- well, Your Honours, I think the witness's answers are going to be about the same. I would have looked at paragraph 16, if Mr. Nort can just turn us to that, a couple of pages on, deals with the government claim that refugees have returned to their homes and has pledged to facilitate the process, opening centres around Kosovo.

A. Yeah.

Q. You -- do you know -- I think you knew nothing of that because I asked you about that before, didn't I?

A. What, about the rebuilding of the houses?

Q. Yes. ⁴⁹¹⁸¹

A. Yes.

Q. Very well.

A. But I do have this document. I have read this document.

Q. Very well.

JUDGE KWON: Could I see the exhibit number on the front page.

MR. NICE: 795.16.

JUDGE KWON: Transcript said 791, so that's why I asked.

MR. NICE:

Q. Perhaps we can, I think usefully just look at one other document for your comment, of the same series, which is 795, point -- tab 22. And then I think probably I've got nothing further to ask you, or one detail question perhaps. This is another report, you see, Security Council report 12th of November, 1998.

A. Is this after they made an agreement to -- yes, it is, yes.

Q. Yes. And if we go, Mr. Nort, straight over to the annex, which is page 14 but it's -- page 14, top left-hand corner. That's it -- no, no there. Absolutely right.

And this explains how -- at the top it says: "The period since the previous report ... has been characterised by relative calm, with sporadic fighting throughout Kosovo ..." Then at the bottom it deals with the situation of the civilian population: "According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the continued crackdown by Serbian police and military --" over the page, please -- "against the KLA strongholds has forced an estimated 300.000 people to flee their homes. 200.000 displaced within Kosovo and an estimated 50.000 internally displaced persons still ⁴⁹¹⁸² remaining in the open. Fear is still a major factor inhibiting their return ..."

Well, now, you were emphatic --

A. That these figures were exaggerated.

Q. I beg your pardon?

A. I said there weren't so many, the figures were exaggerated.

Q. I'm concerned more with your very firm assertion, and I'm not challenging the genuineness of your opinion, that to characterise the forthcoming problem as a humanitarian catastrophe was inappropriate. If the Secretary-General is right and we've got, in winter, 200.000 displaced, 50.000 in the open air, do you not think perhaps your emphatic rejection of the tag "humanitarian catastrophe" should be reviewed?

A. No.

Q. How many people would have to be --

A. I think one is too many, but I certainly think the figure is exaggerated.

Q. Well --

A. There's been a lot of dispute and discussion with other people about this since.

Q. But just be so good as to help me, Ms. Mahon: On the basis that these figures are right - and you may not agree with the figures, but on the basis that they're right - do you think 200.000 displaced and 50.000 in the open air would, in those circumstances, be sufficient to warrant fear of humanitarian catastrophe?

A. If those figures were right, they would. ⁴⁹¹⁸³

Q. Thank you.

A. I dispute that they are right. I also think that that kind of numbers living out in the open air would have resulted immediately with a human catastrophe, that you would have had thousands injured or dying, particularly given the winters that occur in that part of the world.

Q. And just looking at the influx of refugees, it says: "As at the 13th of October, UNHCR was reporting a total of 20.500 refugees in Albania, out of which 7.000 remain in the Tropljan district. During the reporting period, the major flow of refugees entering Albania came from Montenegro.

Do you know anything about any of these things?

A. Only that I visited some of these people since, in the camps, but they were the people who were displaced who didn't go back to Kosovo.

Q. And at no time have you spoken to or been given explanations by any of the military leaders - I don't mean necessarily top level leaders but mid-level leaders - who were in charge of the Serb force operations that led to these people being expelled?

A. No.

Q. So you never -- your committees have never got their hands on the documents that explain what the plan was, have they?

A. Which plan?

Q. Well, when military act, as you know, of course, the generals, the colonels, the brigadiers will have plans, they'll have orders as to what to do --

A. From governments. ⁴⁹¹⁸⁴

Q. One would think so. Maybe sometimes one can only trace it up the chain to an uncertain body, the next military man up, sometimes you can't find it. But you've never seen any of those planning orders, have you?

A. From the Yugoslav army? No.

Q. Or -- never mind. Yes. One matter of detail, by the way. Kragujevac, where you went --

A. Where the Zastava factory.

Q. That's right.

A. Yeah.

Q. You're aware it also has a very -- I'm not particularly concerned about this part of the evidence but I just want to check. Are you aware that it has a very large military component in its manufacturing plants?

A. It has. We went into the gun factory where they have a -- they're very proud of it, they have these hunting rifles, et cetera, and they're very well known worldwide. I don't know much about guns but I accept their word for it that they're much sought after, et cetera. But ironically, that wasn't bombed.

Q. But you accept, I mean, nobody likes war, it remains one of those things that people -- well, it doesn't matter, we won't go into all that, but -- never mind. I needn't bother further. Finally, then, you say that -- you have said, and we looked at some of the negotiating documents or the pre-negotiation documents, but you have said that the Americans' objective was to their forces on this territory, is that right?

A. Uh-huh. ⁴⁹¹⁸⁵

Q. Which territory?

A. I think the former Yugoslavia, anywhere they could get a base. And I think that ambition has been repeated throughout the former Soviet Union and indeed now in the Middle East.

Q. And do you know what Serbia's present international intentions are?

A. Serbia's?

Q. Hmm.

A. No.

Q. To join --

A. To join the EU.

Q. Sorry?

A. To join the EU. They've sent observers to NATO as well.

Q. Of course there are various obstacles in the way of that, to do with, for example, arrests of people wanted here. But if they do that, is that going to constitute the same objective as having Americans on their soil or is that rather a different objective?

A. I'm sorry, can you repeat that?

Q. Yes. If they do that, if they --

A. I'm not sure -- the screen's gone often as well, for some reason.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Would you have that attended to, please.

THE WITNESS: Sorry?

JUDGE ROBINSON: No, no. I'm asking Mr. Nort to attend to that.

THE WITNESS: Okay.

MR. NICE: ⁴⁹¹⁸⁶

Q. So I mean if they're going to eventually join Europe and become members of NATO, this doesn't seem to be the objective that you were describing, the objective of the Americans having their forces on their soil.

A. Well, we'll have to wait and see if Camp Bond-steel closes, Mr. Nice. I think that's something for the future. I don't think I can speculate on that. But I do think America intends to have bases all over the former Soviet Union, including the former Yugoslavia.

Q. Thank you, Ms. Mahon.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, any re-examination?

THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

JUDGE KWON: Microphone.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] What I said was just a few questions, Ms. Mahon.

Re-examination by Mr. Milosevic:

Q. [Interpretation] You were shown some document here of the Contact Group of the 8th of July, 1998. At the end of paragraph 2 there is a sentence that I'm going to read out in its entirety because it's only two lines: "[In English] The Contact group stressed its condemnation of violence and acts of terrorism in pursuit of political goals from whatever quarter."

[Interpretation] Who were the terrorist forces regardless of or from whatever quarter, as they say here, in Kosovo? Who were the protagonists of this terrorism with political objectives?

A. The KLA. ⁴⁹¹⁸⁷

Q. Thank you. Mr. Nice said that the Contact Group was united in its views, and I am just going to look at an excerpt of the stenographic notes in terms of what Rubin said. That was shown to you as well. Very briefly. He talked about military plans and so on, and at the very end, since he was asked: "[In English] I don't think it will be as any surprise to you that we have long known that Russians have not supported that option." [Interpretation] Meaning the military option. So do you know about that? Do you know that the Russians were opposed to any military option?

A. Yes, of course, and they made their views very well known on the committees of NATO.

Q. Well, can it be asserted then that the Contact Group was united in terms of its stand in view of what was going on or what was supposed to happen?

A. I think the Contact Group were at that time seeking perhaps to be evenhanded about the protagonists, although I find it difficult, when you've got a terrorist group, to be evenhanded, although I do deplore all the violence.

Q. Mr. Nice explained to you here that Milan Milutinovic went to Paris to take part in the negotiations. May I remind you that at that time Milan Milutinovic was president of the Republic of Serbia. As a politician, do you think that there is anything wrong or abnormal with the president of Serbia coming to take part in talks that have to do with Kosovo and Metohija, Kosovo and Metohija being a part of Serbia?

A. None whatsoever. ⁴⁹¹⁸⁸

Q. Thank you. Mr. Nice said that the talks you had and that you mentioned here illustrated the views that you took and that they were chats. Can you characterise your talks as chats, or were these serious in-depth talks with your interlocutors?

A. Today, this morning. Today.

Q. Well, during the cross-examination, Mr. Nice said, since you were talking about the talks you had in Kosovo and in other places, that chatting like that did not help much. Did you consider that to be chatting when you had these talks, when you went on the business you had? Did you consider that to be serious business?

A. [Previous translation continues] ...

Q. And finally, one more thing. Mr. Nice said that you are partial. Are you partial?

A. No, I'm not. I'm a seeking after peaceful solutions rather than bombing and war. And I'm also very anxious that when we have a civil war, that not just one side is blamed for that civil war, and so I suppose I've been on a -- seeking the truth during all these visits I've made and all these people I've talked to and all the meetings I've had. On the question of chats, well, talks, well, how do you get evidence about what's happening? You talk to people, and you take various views on all these things, and you reach conclusions, and that's what the Court is doing, and that's what politicians do. They don't necessarily all reach the same conclusions.

MR. NICE: Your Honours, just this -- if that's the last question. Just this: If you thought that I'd I mischaracterised what ⁴⁹¹⁸⁹ Ms. Mahon said when I used the work "chatting," it was picking up on the word she used at page 78, line 6, along with other descriptions of her conversations.

JUDGE ROBINSON: And the transcript should show that she answered "No" to the question asked by Mr. Milosevic, "Did you consider that to be chatting when you had these talks, when you went on the business you had? Did you consider that to be serious business?"

THE WITNESS: Yes.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Never mind. You did say "No," but the transcript should --

THE WITNESS: Yes, thank you, Mr. Robinson, yes.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Ms. Mahon. I have no further questions, Mr. Robinson.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Ms. Mahon, that concludes your evidence. Thank you for coming to the Tribunal to give it, and you may now leave.

THE WITNESS: Thank you.

[The witness withdrew]

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Kay, the Chamber will grant the application that you made not to sit next week. In doing so, we take note of the points that you made. Mr. Bulatovic will only be arriving in The Hague on Tuesday. Mr. Bulatovic is a witness of very great importance to Mr. Milosevic's case, and it is only due to his ill health -- or to health or to health matters relating to his family that he will only be able to attend on Tuesday. We also take note of the fact that there are other problems relating to -- to witnesses and their attendance. But I am to ⁴⁹¹⁹⁰ say that the situation is exceptional, and it is not to be taken as a -- as a precedent. The Chamber expects in the future that Mr. Milosevic will have his witnesses ready to testify at the dates and times that he has specified.

MR. KAY: I'm much obliged, Your Honour.

JUDGE ROBINSON: That being the case, we are adjourned until -- until Tuesday, March the 14th, at 9.00.

--- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.32. p.m., to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 14th day of March, 2006, at 9.00 a.m.