EX-SLOVENIAN PRESIDENT MILAN KUCAN TESTIFIES AT THE HAGUE
Written By: Vera Martinovic - May 24, 2003

On Wednesday, May 21, 2003 former Slovenian President, Milan Kucan testified at the so-called "trial" of Slobodan Milosevic in The Hague.

Milan Kucan, the former President of Slovenia, made a huge mistake by testifying at the Hague Tribunal. The only excuse for him would be if he was actually summoned, and therefore unable to refuse, but, if he did volunteer, it was the wrong thing to do, because he contributed nothing to the Prosecution's case and only brought the limelight onto the 10-day 'war' in Slovenia.

Equally questionable were the motives of the Prosecution to have Kucan as a witness at all: gaining nothing from him, and addressing by his testimony a time-span and topics never covered by any of the ICTY indictments.

Be that as it may, as Kucan testified, and contributed nothing, he enabled Milosevic to shed light onto Slovenia’s dirty little war with its financial and political motives, and its own war crimes. The role of Slovenia in the breaking up of Yugoslavia, aiding and abetting of other separatisms, breaking the UN arms embargo etc. etc.

Kucan on the other hand did manage to tarnish his own personal reputation of a well-spoken, well-informed politician.

Kucan proved insufficient, in spite of the dedicated work done by his team of advisors, lawyers, and top members of the Slovenian military, who all frantically worked to prepare their ex-president for his day in The Hague. Kucan’s advisers rehearsed all kinds of possible questions with him, but the result was that the not-so-well-spoken ‘Balkan ruffian’, Milosevic, was wittier and far better informed.

All that Kucan managed to do was exude the exaggerated rhetoric of 'democratic community of peoples', 'democratization of life', 'European solutions' and 'different concepts' etc….

It was just as a Slovenian journalist in front of the Tribunal building said when she was interviewed by the TV B92 correspondent the morning before the trial transmission began: 'He's well prepared, he'll explain why Slovenia went its own way, he's a good speaker, very intelligent; if he comes across gentlemanly [gospodski], he'll show that Slovenia has nothing to hide; but, all depends on what kind of questions will Milosevic ask…'

Kucan did indeed behave like a gentleman, unfortunately he was an ill-informed, and at times confused gentleman; surely regretting now that he was involved in this at all.

True to form Milosevic asked the expected unpleasant and to-the-point questions, but more significantly, he had all the possible information and documents, unlike Kucan, who at times made some serious blunders.

Prosecutor Nice tried to press Kucan for the background of the Yugoslav breakdown, and the ‘sinister role’ that Milosevic played in it, but all he managed to get was bits and pieces from two of Milosevic's speeches, taken totally out of context. Some of the excerpts he used were not even whole sentences, but parts of sentences and even individual words that were highlighted with a marker on the overhead projector. Then the prosecutor asked Kucan to comment on those excerpts.

The case in point was the 'non-institutional means', which Kucan interpreted as the 'non-constitutional means for changing things in Yugoslavia’. However, it was obvious from the context that the excerpt actually meant that the institutions in Kosovo in 1989 were not responding to the problems, so the Serbs had to protest peacefully in the streets against the abuses of the local Albanian government, outside the institutions, forcing those the institutions to act, which is the legitimate right of any citizen. It must have been embarrassing for Kucan to be publicly instructed by Milosevic in his cross-examination about the definitions of the words 'institutional' and 'constitutional'.

Would you believe that Prosecutor Nice even pulled out that unfortunate Kosovo Polje speech again, wanting Kucan to 'make a connection', so Kucan joined the club of those who vaguely misquoted and took out of context from that overly-misused speech.

Even May was sick of that threadbare 'trump card', so he quite rudely interrupted Kucan, saying that the Chamber has already heard enough on that speech from others.

Kucan got a bit offended, saying: 'Let me finish my thought' and proceeded with his broad misquote: 'It was said that the Serb people is not yet in armed battles, but that this could not be excluded and that the changes will be made by any means.' (?!) That was NOT said anywhere in this famous speech.

By the way, Kucan 'explained' that the speech was given at the 500th anniversary of the Kosovo Polje Battle, missing it by only a 100 years (the battle happened in 1389, the speech in 1989, so simple arithmetic tells you that it was in fact the 600^th anniversary).

Milosevic, of course, took the opportunity to quote whole paragraphs from both speeches later on, demonstrating that the false interpretations and misrepresentations made by the other side simply don't stand.

The other tackle by Nice was to urge Kucan to give his opinions and interpretations on the 'real' meaning of certain events. So, many of his answers boiled to 'it actually means', 'Serbia actually opted for', 'nobody believed that', 'this is how we understood that'. Again, such interpretations were either exaggerated or totally opposite to the true meaning. At times, he even went wild in his assumptions, like when he read the intentions of 'the Serbs', who refused the Slovenian 'concept of dissolution' of Yugoslavia. 'This is how I understood it', Kucan bravely plunged in: Since the Serbs thought the internal borders of the republics to be merely administrative; they 'implied that the borders could be altered by force'.

Quite a broad implication indeed, nobody said that, or wrote that anywhere, yet Kucan knows that they actually meant that. Could it be that they meant the administrative borders should be simply renegotiated? No, those barbarians are incapable of such a gentlemanly concept, so the gentleman assumed they actually implied violence. Still, I don't understand how assumptions can constitute any sort of evidence given by a witness at a trial.

Prosecutor Nice then resorted to his favorite illustration for practically everything - the BBC documentary 'The Death of Yugoslavia.’ This time he played the video of that notorious 14th Congress of the League of Communists from January 1990, when the Slovenian delegation walked out of the meeting after 'almost all' of their amendments were rejected 'because we had been outvoted.’

Kucan explained that had been deliberately done to oust them, and 'the accused (Milosevic) was the first, or among those who first lifted his voting card and the others followed'.

Kucan is aware that he's talking to Westerners here, who know zilch about the Communist Party apparatus and could easily swallow such an explanation. But, Kucan is an old Communist cadre, so he should know better.

In brief: at the full meeting, the plenum, where all the Congress delegates are present (3-4,000 of them), nothing was ever decided, and nothing ever happened that was not previously prepared and agreed upon. So, if the Slovenian delegation started, out of the blue, to put to vote outrageous proposals, which were a surprise to everybody, not discussed and agreed upon previously in the inner Party circles, this could only mean that Slovenia deliberately organized such a coup de theatre to force the unprepared delegates to vote against their proposals and in that manner form a pretext for their walking out of the meeting, thus signifying the beginning of the end for Yugoslavia.

Instead of such a perfectly logical explanation, consistent with the functioning of the Party mechanism, Kucan concocted a Westerner-friendly accusation against the Serbian leaders, who allegedly, deliberately voted against the Slovenian proposals just to force them out of the party and out of Yugoslavia.

But, how could they possibly vote for such proposals? One of the proposals was 'to make the connections among the Federal units different', as Kucan vaguely put it, in other words - confederation.

The other proposal was 'to introduce the political pluralism', or the multiparty system. And all those 'tiny' changes were proposed in the form of innocent little amendments to the Party Congress conclusions, at the plenum, without being previously agreed upon at the top, as is the Party practice.

AS IF the Slovenes needed to be ‘forced’ to leave Yugoslavia! This was their intention, and their plan. They were cunning enough and supported enough to perform it and now they blame others when they did exactly what they wanted to do in the first place!

Prosecutor Nice dwelled on that Party Congress footage with relish, while Kucan interpreted, the BBC’s voice-over commentary - a real testimony indeed.

The remaining 'issues' that Nice raised were even more feeble, or else already chewed up by others. There were the amendments to the Serbian Constitution, allegedly depriving Kosovo and Vojvodina of their autonomy (Milosevic quoted the Constitution, proving that the autonomy in fact was not revoked, and Kucan was forced to admit that).

Then, there was the grudge of Slovenia that the Slovenian language was not 'used within the Army', as was allegedly promised them at the end of World War II. When cross-examined, Kucan had to admit that it was logical that the Army would need one command language, and it was OK for them, but that they still wanted the Slovenian language to be used in the Army somehow. I failed to understand the ‘well-spoken gentleman,’ I have to admit. What other usage of language is there in any Army, besides to issue commands? You can speak whichever language you prefer while on your R&R, but when an officer speaks, one language has to be accepted for everyone. Or, does Mr. Kucan think that the Army should have hired interpreters?

Then, Nice quoted profusely from the book-journal written by the former President of the Yugoslav Presidency, Borislav Jovic, asking Kucan to comment certain highlighted passages. Again, the relevance and the veracity of the excerpts was dubious, which even Kucan himself couldn’t deny, saying that the description of one meeting where both he and Jovic were present was 'pretty accurate', but 'for the rest, I cannot confirm it'.

Nevertheless, Nice continued to quote from the journal, skimming that way through the tumultuous events in 1990, when the JNA confiscated all of the weapons from the local TO units, the steps towards the secession of Slovenia, their elections, referendum for independence, 6-month suspension of its implementation, negotiations between Presidents of all republics, where Slovenia kept 'seriously' proposing confederative status after they had already opted and voted for independence!

The only piece of real testimony from Kucan was when he spoke of his walk with Milosevic in the lull of one of these futile traveling-circus meetings. According to Kucan, Milosevic told him that if Slovenia wants to leave the Federation that Serbia could not and would not prevent that, but there are some preconditions to be agreed before that. Croatia is a bigger problem; there everything is an open issue, even the borders.

Then, Nice skimmed further on through the declared independence of Slovenia in June 1991 and said: 'We know that a short clash occurred.'

Whereupon Kucan corrected him: 'The aggression occurred, done by the JNA.' He literally applied only 2-3 short sentences speaking of that 'aggression', stating that it happened 'right after the celebration, at 2 or 3 a.m.', that the 'units came out of barracks and headed towards the state border'. He offered a choice of descriptive nouns: 'That clash, aggression, war was ended on 7 July by the talks on the Brioni Islands, with the participation of the Ministerial EC troika, led by Van Den Bruck, who intervened in a certain way in that period between 27 June and 7 July.'

So much about the 'war'. Eloquent and full of detail. Nice glided on through the final retreat of the JNA from Slovenia on 26 October 1991.

The only remaining issue until the end of the examination-in-chief was the book by the former JNA Chief of Staff, General Veljko Kadijevic, again amply but selectively (mis)quoted.

Kucan appeared confused, asked Nice 'What do you mean by that? Yes, I've read it…but which part of it do you have in mind?' Nice was really desperate, trying to make Kucan confirm that Kadijevic meant to divide Yugoslavia along the infamous line Karlobag-Virovitica, the alleged quotation dragged along before with other witnesses and which was simply a misquote, because the General wrote in this particular paragraph about the lines of retreat for the JNA, after it was attacked in Croatia, and after it had decided to pull out.

Kucan clumsily confirmed that 'this coincides with the borders of the diminished Yugoslavia, without Slovenia and Croatia and that 'we had such statements even before'. By whom? When? Which statements? A precise testimony, indeed. And that was all the evidence Kucan gave, believe it or not. But, then came the cross-examination and a lot more was said.

When Milosevic started to cross-examine Kucan, the very first question brought the 'witness' to stumble, loose voice and stamina to directly and openly accuse the Accused according to the indictment. This was how the exchange went. Milosevic mocked Kucan, saying he used three different expressions, one after another, to describe what happened in Slovenia: 'clash, aggression, war. Had Serbia anything to do with that war in Slovenia?'

Instead of promptly repeating the mantra of how Serbia, i.e. Milosevic, actually ruled the Army (as the indictment would have it), Kucan got immediately confused, started to mumble, said that Slovenia 'was confronted with the JNA', and the other things 'will be decided by the Court, there are documents and books…My present conclusion…' And here Kucan completely stopped talking.

Milosevic prompted him: 'What is your present conclusion?'

May stepped in nervously: 'Please, do not enter into quarrels. His conclusions are unimportant.' And this was the first sign of how things would go: Milosevic aggressive and direct, while Kucan was timid and evasive. But, it got worse.

Milosevic read out two sentences from the minutes of the meeting in the Federal Government Building in August 1991, after the 10-day war: Kucan talking to the Federal Prime Minister, arrogantly and triumphantly, refusing to discuss the possibility that two Slovenian representatives return to the Federal Government 'because that Federal Government had attacked Slovenia' and 'there is nothing for me to talk about with the Federal Prime Minister, who lost the war'.

Kucan had to confirm that he had said that.

Milosevic then turned to the reasons for the war that Slovenia fought against the Federal Government: the revenues from customs duties.

Kucan denied it, saying that Slovenia was only reacting to being attacked.

Milosevic then quoted Warren Zimmerman, the former US Ambassador to Yugoslavia, from his lengthy article in a foreign affairs journal where it was plainly and brutally written that 'contrary to the beliefs, the Slovenes had started the war. There were no efforts to negotiate.' Zimmerman proceeded to explain why: the customs duties revenue generated from the only border crossings towards the Western European countries, Italy and Austria, which were in Slovenia, gained up to 75% of the overall federal budget. The Slovenes simply took over the customs offices by force, changed the insignia, and started to collect, depriving the rest of the country of that revenue without negotiating first. The Federal Government had to react by sending few light JNA columns to retake the customs offices and re-establish the status quo ante. Then the JNA was attacked.

Kucan tried to minimize that by saying it is the opinion of the former US Ambassador.

But, Robinson got interested and asked Kucan to comment on this piece of information that 'one of the consequences of your declaration of independence was the take-over of customs offices', so Kucan got mixed up in a lengthy explanation of money flow, which came to saying that Slovenia negotiated it at Brioni, but only after the fait accompli.

Milosevic then jumped in by asking: 'Brioni happened after the war. Why have you opted for violence? Why did you not act like Slovakia did? [in the peaceful dissolution of Czechoslovakia] Why didn't you take the issue to the federal bodies?'

Kucan tried to convince everybody that it was impossible, that 'as a member of a small nation we would have been outvoted'.

Milosevic reminded him that one of the Parliament Chambers voted by consensus, so there was no outvoting, and that Slovenia actually prevented the Law on Secession from being enacted, 'and you could have left peacefully'. He also reminded him that the federal Government intervened not at the internal borders of republics, but at the external border.

Kucan got very nervous, and started to answer not to Milosevic, but to 'Your Honours', pleading with them to understand how he 'had discussions with the Accused over many years' and that 'there were no reasons to defend the border', but Milosevic cut him short: 'We are obviously switching the meanings here. I've quoted Zimmerman to you and the reasons why you did what you did.'

Then, Milosevic pulled out the case of a live TV show in Slovenia a few years into their independence, with illustrious guests from Croatia (Mesic, General Spegelj, Tomac), where Kucan also participated and they answered direct phone questions. Kucan tried to wiggle out, saying his memory is not that good anymore, but confirmed he was there. Milosevic proceeded to describe what happened in that show and how in a celebrative mood Mesic got too relaxed and babbled about Genscher [the then German Chancellor] and the Pope who crucially contributed to the independence of Slovenia and Croatia.

Kucan confirmed that was said, but he added: 'My experience with these people was different.'

Milosevic: 'Which people - Genscher and the Pope?'

Kucan tried to play dumb, saying: 'I don't understand what do you want from me.'

Milosevic then patiently explained: 'Mr. Kucan, for more than a half of your testimony you have been talking about that book by Mr Jovic. I'm asking you whether Mesic said that.'

May jumped in: 'He has agreed to that.'

Milosevic: 'Very good.' Then he proceeded to quote Mesic, who said that 'Genscher and the Pope have given us a strong support in demolishing Yugoslavia’. Kucan reluctantly confirmed this was said.

May wanted to know whether these questions were put to Mesic during his testimony, and Milosevic answered that he only got this information recently, and so he's asking Kucan, who was there, to confirm it.

Without the slightest pause and without a warning, Milosevic asked: 'Why did you attack the JNA, killing 44 and seriously wounding 184 soldiers?' Kucan tried to give slightly smaller figures 'according to our data' and miserably concluded that 'these are the sad consequences of war'.

Milosevic couldn't be stopped: he proceeded to describe war crimes perpetrated by the Territorial Defence and the Police of Slovenia against the JNA and their families (killings, maltreatments, unlawful arrests, intimidations, expulsions, refusal of medical assistance causing death, cutting of supplies etc. etc.), quoting from the White Book made by the JNA, from which he submitted precise lists with names, dates and descriptions. The Trial Chamber at first admitted one list into evidence (for identification, as they call it, until translated and decided upon), but when things became more and more terrible, they refused to admit the lists anymore.

[For those who want to know a bit about these colorful events, I managed to locate 2 Reports by the Federal Government submitted to the UN Commission of Experts in pursuance of the UN Council Resolution No. 780. There were 7 such Reports covering the war crimes perpetrated on the territory of the whole ex-YU, but these 2 from November 1992 and May 1994 mention also the Slovenian pretty little war. Here are the links:

http://www.balkanpeace.org/wcs/wct/wcts/wcts02.shtml

and

http://balkanpeace.org/wcs/wct/wcts/wcts04.shtml

These are lengthy reports, containing crimes also from other parts of ex-YU, so my advice is to use [CTRL + F], and then type 'Slovenia', so that you can search through these huge documents for the crimes related to Slovenia. And they are ugly, believe me, and comprise everything: inhumane treatment of civilians, killing and inhumane treatment of wounded and sick persons, ethnic cleansing, willful killing of civilians, willful killing of POWs, inhumane treatment of POWs … complete with: names, dates, places, the works. And all that in just 10 days; not bad for ‘civilized gentlemen’ who refuse to be denominated as a Balkan country. Just imagine what they could have accomplished if the war had lasted longer.

For those with even stronger stomach and thirst for info, visit the site http://www.balkanpeace.org, then go to the top left under “WAR CRIMES SECTION”, and click on “WITNESS TESTIMONIES”. There you will find all those Reports and plenty of other stuff.]

Kucan was bombarded with questions about these atrocities perpetrated by his forces, under his command responsibility, for which questions he had been specially prepared, and what did he do? He failed miserably. He first tried to deny: 'Ne, tega nismo storili. = No, we didn't do that.' Then he admitted that 'perhaps it happened' that the private trucks in transit had been taken, that 'some civilians had been hurt'. Then he claimed 'I do not know about that', 'I have no data about that'.

Milosevic retorted: "I have all the data about that.' When the atrocities mentioned became more gruesome (killing of wounded and sick, preventing medical help)

Kucan lost his composure and called the JNA report-book 'a propaganda brochure' and started to rant: 'I claim that this did not happen. And even if something like that did happen, it was in some extreme situations. What happened later on, in Vukovar, Srebrenica, Dubrovnik… it was a systematic thing…'

Milosevic paid no attention to Kucan anymore, simply leaving him to let off steam, and spoke to May: 'Very well, Mr May, you do not want to accept this last list. I have here also the list of 17violations of the proper treatment of POWs, I presume that you won’t accept this either'

Then, Milosevic turned to Kucan again, embarking upon the case of execution of 3 POWs on 28 June 1991 at the Holmec border crossing.

Kucan said: 'If you're asking whether they have been captured and shot, the answer is no.'

Milosevic then produced a thick swath of documents from the Slovenian courts and some international NGOs pertaining to that case.

Kucan boldly stated that 'all this only goes to prove that Slovenia behaved as the lawful state'. May ordered the documents to be given to Kucan to read them, he briefly skimmed through some of it and timidly said: 'I've claimed that these soldiers and civilians were not executed as POWs, but it seems that they were.' Wow! His advisors must have done a poor job preparing Mr. Kucan for this. May then admitted the documents into evidence.

Milosevic then summed up: 'I have given only a few examples, but it's obvious that in this so-called “attack by the JNA,” many times more JNA soldiers were killed than Slovenes. [44 as opposed to 8] Jovic told you that if you want your independence, go on, but do not kill our sons. Why was this war necessary to you?'

Kucan denied that Slovenia wanted the war.

Milosevic. insisted: 'Isn't it true that you could have left Yugoslavia without a war and that you started it only to facilitate the complete destruction of Yugoslavia?'

May tried to protect the hapless witness by saying he already answered that.

Milosevic continued by reminding Kucan that Slovenia, while talking about ‘legality and democracy’ was actually making decisions contrary to the Yugoslav Constitution. He said that they have promised to proceed into independence legally, and the Constitutional Court would be ultimately consulted, but then they acted against its rulings. Milosevic submitted 27 such rulings of the Federal Constitutional Court, pronouncing as unconstitutional various resolutions, laws and Amendments to the Slovenian Constitution that had been passed by the Slovenian legislature.

May woke up and wanted to know Kucan's opinion on this, and Kucan tried to persuade him that these rulings were indeed stating these acts of Slovenia to be incompatible with the Yugoslav Constitution, but 'there were different opinions by the 2 judges who represented Slovenia in that Court', and 'the same method of voting was applied'. May inquired: 'When you say the same method, what do you mean by that?'

Kucan answered: 'Well, as at the 14th Party Congress.'

May: 'It means, the Slovenes were in the minority?'

Kucan: 'Yes.'

May: 'Were they joined also by some other judges?'

Kucan couldn't confirm that, but he said that he would 'look it up'. What that man does know? He was the President then, these were the crucial issues and decisions, and he was supposedly well prepared for his testimony.

Milosevic ridiculed that comparison of voting at the Party Congress and at the Court and pointed out this is the common practice in all courts in the world. He asked: 'Are you claiming that the Constitutional Court made his rulings in violation of its regulations?'

Kucan kept on with his lengthy whining of how Slovenia was always in the minority, how the principle of 'one man, one vote' in the Parliament could have been amended, but Milosevic insisted the question being about the legal rulings of the Constitutional Court, and that the Slovenes expressly said their changes will be done according to the law and Constitution, offering the Constitutional Court as a guarantee for that, and 'then you complain about your rights being violated because the Constitutional Court made his rulings'.

May admitted these 27 rulings into evidence.

If it was some real judge here, and not ‘Dick’ May, I would be certain that this legal exchange had reminded him of the recent ruling of the Trial Chamber in which those 6 coded witnesses, whose trial transcripts were admitted into the Milosevic trial evidence without cross-examination, and the voting was 2 to 1, leaving poor Robinson in the minority just like the poor Slovenes. He could have then cried foul, taken the ball and gone home, just like the Slovenes did.

The next issue was illegal arms trade between Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. When first generally asked about that by Milosevic, Kucan denied it existed at all: 'No, as far as I'm aware.'

When Milosevic then produced documents, from Croatia, proving the opposite Kucan changed his tune, saying that he couldn't see anything contentious here, these were 'legal channels, with competent authorities and you spoke of illegal trade.'  To that, Milosevic gently reminded him that at that time the UN arms embargo was in effect.

Kucan then claimed that this was before the international recognition of Slovenia, 'therefore it did not apply to us.' But then, he realized the mistake, saying: 'Excuse me, it was in the period when both states were recognized; therefore, we took necessary measures to protect ourselves.' [Wow! So, the new statelets have the right to violate the UN embargo, just because they need to be able to protect themselves. That is a creative interpretation.]

When asked whether the embargo applied to Bosnia, Kucan said it only applied to the arms sale. Milosevic then produced a second document, this one being from Izetbegovic, proving exactly that.

Both documents were admitted. Milosevic concluded that Slovenia took part in the arming of the Bosnian Muslims, to which Kucan said that it is hard for him to accept such a claim and that it has to be seen first whether the Bosnian Muslims were first capable of defending themselves on their own. He said: 'My answer is, why was it necessary?' [Great reasoning: you do something illegal, and when asked why are you doing it, you answer: Well, ask yourselves why it was necessary for me to do that?] Even Milosevic was amused by that, smiling and muttering: 'Good, very good.'

Milosevic further proved how well informed he is when he asked how come the Parliamentary commission for investigating UN embargo violations had been dissolved before reaching any conclusions.

Kucan confirmed they had done this, but claimed that 'this procedure is still unfinished'. How many years passed - 10, 11, 12 years? Indeed, a State of law and order.

[The arms trading affairs, with all its dirty political games and enormous gains by various Slovenian politicians were all over the Slovenian press at that time. If you want to check one example, here's the link:

http://www.aimpress.org/dyn/trae/archive/data/199805/80503-004-trae-lju.htm

This is the article called 'War Diplomacy - Controversial Armament Trade' from 1998.

Also check what Kucan stated on the subject in 1996 at:

http://www.hri.org/news/Balkans/yds/96-07-03-yds.html#08

'Slovenian President Says European Union Played Big Role in Breaking Former Yugoslavia'.

You'll be better able to assess how the politicians of Slovenia were not at all squeamish to grab big bucks peddling arms, while at the same time preaching to be so much more ‘civilized and democratic’ than those Balkan ‘barbarians’ to whom they were selling the arms.]

The rest of the cross-examination went on debunking the games of Nice, with misquoted speeches, which I already mentioned in the earlier. There were a couple of highly amusing moments when Milosevic found in the written summary of the talks that Kucan had with the OTP investigators some incredible and preposterous constructions.

Kucan vehemently denied ever saying something like that. The thing is, the investigators didn't give his full verbatim answers, but instead prepared themselves a freely ad-libbed summary, which was at places so free that after Milosevic quoted from it, Kucan had to say: 'This claim is incredible, however, I never stated that.'

The first time, it was some minor stupidity, like 'the Serbs needed Yugoslavia to be able to all live in one state, and the non-Serb nations saw in Yugoslavia a country protecting its groups (?!).

Milosevic started to lead Kucan through questions about the control of the Army in 1989, making him to confirm that the Federal Presidency was in charge, and not Milosevic who was then merely a Party chief, not even the President of Serbia yet.

Then Milosevic read the second incredible construction from the Prosecution's summary, which was more sinister: the investigators wrote that Kucan told them, speaking about the pre-war events in Kosovo, when the miners went on strike that this was 'connected with the use of the Army by Milosevic in the events around Stari Trg Mine'.

Kucan denied saying this, and again explicitly confirmed that the Presidency commanded the Army, and that he 'never claimed otherwise or that you (Milosevic) were the one to issue orders'.

Milosevic said he was happy that Kucan had said that 'just because of the manipulations of this Other Side.'

Amicus Curiae, Tapuskovic practically gave up his questions, after being allotted only 20 min. and warned by interpreters to slow down, so May recommended that he put his questions in writing.

Kucan had to leave, he came only for one day. But, Tapuskovic nevertheless managed to establish one important thing by asking Kucan, and then warned the Chamber that among the following witnesses will be one Ivan Kristan, who will pose as an expert on constitutional issues, and this is no other than one of those two Slovenian judges from the former Federal Constitutional Court who were outvoted regarding the constitutionality of those 27 secession documents of Slovenia. That should be one impartial ‘expert witness,’ no doubt.

Thus ended the ordeal of Milan Kucan. The only his attempt at repartee was when he referred to the famous sentence given by Slobodan Milosevic in front of the angry and frightened Serb peasants in Kosovo, who had just been clubbed by the Albanian police, where Milosevic told them that 'Nobody may beat you'.

Kucan said that Milosevic should have said instead: 'Nobody may beat anyone in Kosovo'. Interesting … sounds a bit like something the UN might say: 'The violence from both sides must stop.' And what if there was no violence from both sides at that time, as it actually was the case? So, the attempt at repartee by Kucan failed miserably, as did his information management and his usefulness as a witness.

Vera Martinovic is an independent writer based in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.