Written by: Andy Wilcoxson
“In April 1987, Slobodan Milosevic, who had been elected Chairman of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Serbia in 1986, travelled to Kosovo. In meetings with local Serb leaders and in a speech before a crowd of Serbs, Slobodan Milosevic endorsed a Serbian nationalist agenda…” or so says The Hague’s indictment against him.
According to the Prosecution case, Western intelligentsia, and the mainstream Western media this is the moment when Slobodan Milosevic rose to power on a wave of Serbian nationalism. Mitar Balevic’s testimony at The Hague Tribunal's trial of Slobodan Milosevic, put this Western myth to bed once and for all today.
Mr. Balevic, was an official in the Kosovo Polje branch of the League of Communists, and he chaired the meeting that Milosevic attended on April 24, 1987.
It was at this meeting that Milosevic uttered the famous sentence: “Nobody should beat you.” This sentence has since been branded as a sort of battle cry, but Balevic, who was standing right next to Milosevic when he said it, explained why it could not have been a battle cry.
The Kosovo Police had begun beating people in the crowd with clubs, and the crowd defended itself by throwing rocks at the police. Milosevic and Balevic went outside to see what the commotion was about, as they were coming out the door, some people came up to Milosevic and told him that the police were beating them. Milosevic responded to those people by saying, “nobody should beat you.”
Milosevic did not address this remark to the entire crowd; he did not have a loudspeaker to address the crowd. He was only speaking to the people who were talking to him.
When he saw what the situation was, he had a loudspeaker set up and he addressed the crowd. He asked the crowd to calm down, and the situation calmed down. There was no battle cry, all Milosevic did was appeal for calm.
A joint investigation conducted by provincial, republican, and federal authorities determined that the police had provoked the incident, by beating-up people in the crowd who hadn’t done anything wrong.
At the meeting, Milosevic and other LCY officials, listened to for 13 hours to 76 citizens who addressed their concerns to them. These citizens spoke of the desperate situation they were facing in Kosovo. They complained that their rights were being denied, that they were being forced from their land, and that they were the victims of violent crimes.
After listening to the concerns of the citizens, Milosevic gave a speech. It was in this speech that the indictment claims he “endorsed a Serbian nationalist agenda.” In fact, Milosevic did the exact opposite of what the indictment says. Milosevic condemned nationalism on more than one occasion in that speech. Milosevic said that brotherhood and unity were and equality among peoples was the only solution for Kosovo.
All of these facts were very easy for President Milosevic and Mr. Balovic to prove. They had the transcripts from all 13 hours of the meeting, and they had videotape of the meeting. The videotape included footage of the disturbance outside of the hall, when Milosevic appealed for calm, and when he told those people “nobody should beat you.” The tape included some of the speakers who addressed the party officials, and the tape included Milosevic’s entire speech.
This tape was not some secret tape that was buried in somebody’s attic. The tape was the Belgrade TV newscast, and it exists in the archives of the TV station. Milosevic played the entire tape at the trial on Tuesday. There is no question about what happened. Milosevic did not promote a Serb nationalist agenda, he did the exact opposite. Slobodan Milosevic vehemently condemned nationalism and cautioned, especially the Serbs, against nationalism.
All of these so-called “intellectuals” and the so-called “journalists” who told the Western public that Milosevic gave a nationalist speech, and exploited nationalism to come to power are lying through their teeth. The remarkable fact is that they all lie with such unanimity when the truth is so easy to ascertain.
The text of the speech is very easy to ascertain. It was broadcast on TV, and it was published in Milosevic’s book. In fact, I have the Serbian transcript of the speech posted right here on this web site.
(See: http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/milosevic-1987-3.pdf )
In addition to clearing-up the massive misinformation surrounding Milosevic’s activities in Kosovo Polje in 1987, Mr. Balevic gave factual eyewitness testimony regarding life in Kosovo from WWII until the present day.
Mr. Balevic, was born in Montenegro, but he grew-up in Kosovo. The first persecution he could remember against Kosovo’s non-Albanian population occurred during World War II. According to his testimony, Axis forces that had allied with the Kosovo-Albanians forced 200,000 Serbs and Montenegrins to leave Kosovo during the war.
To add insult to injury, when the war ended, the Yugoslav Government would not allow Serb and Montenegrin refugees return to their homes in Kosovo. Thousands of Albanians who had infiltrated Kosovo from Albania during the war were allowed to continue squatting on the land they had stolen, while the rightful owners were banned from ever returning.
Mr. Balevic said that he became aware of an Albanian-nationalist plan to create an ethnically pure greater-Albania on Kosovo’s territory in the 1950s.
Mr. Balevic testified that the 1968 demonstrations, which occurred on Albanian Flag Day, were aimed at the establishment of Greater Albania.
Mr. Balevic gave numerous examples of suffering that Kosovo’s non-Albanian population had to endure throughout the 60s, 70s, and 1980s. Examples included murders, expulsions, rapes, the desiccation of holy sites, and medical discrimination at the Pristina Hospital’s maternity ward.
The defense witness testified about the 1981 riots in Kosovo. He said that the riots were aimed at Kosovo’s secession from Serbia, and that violence against non-Albanians in Kosovo increased with those riots. According to his testimony, 20,000 Serbs and Montenegrins fled from persecution in Kosovo between 1981 and 1989.
The witness testified that it was difficult for a Serb to find work in Kosovo. He said that the employment ratio used in Kosovo was done by the system: 7 Albanians hired for every 1 Serb, adding that Serbs were generally poorer than Albanians were.
Another witness has to testify tomorrow
morning for medical reasons. After that witness testifies, Balevic will resume
his testimony. It is expected that his testimony will last into next week.
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