MILOSEVIC "TRIAL" SYNOPSIS - FEBRUARY 10, 2004 - VENEZUELAN AMBASSADOR TO UN TESTIFIES AGAINST MILOSEVIC
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - February 11, 2004

Tuesday, February 10, 2004 – Reynauld Theunens finished his testimony. He was cross-examined by Mr. Tapuskovic, and some useful points were raised.

Mr. Tapuskovic began his cross-examination of this witness on January 28^th. On the 28^th Tapuskovic managed to use this witness to prove that the JNA never issued a single order to any paramilitary formation.

On Tuesday Mr. Tapuskovic asked the witness questions raised by the transcript of the July 1, 1991 SFRY Presidency session.

From the transcript it can be seen that Yugoslavia’s former Defense Minister, Veljko Kadijevic, is asking the presidency for permission to disarm all armed formations on the territory of the SFRY except for the JNA.

You can also see from the transcript that the only person who is opposed to the disarming of these illegal armed groups is the President of the Presidency, Mr. Stjepan Mesic.

Mesic explained that he couldn’t go along with the proposal to disarm illegal paramilitary formations because he “couldn’t go back to Croatia as a traitor.” In other words, Croatia was preparing to fight a war. The next month, in August of 1991 the Croatian paramilitaries attacked the JNA and laid siege on them in their barracks.

Mr. Theunens tried to pretend as if he hadn’t seen this document before. It is hard to believe that he could miss a document of this sort. As I said in the last report, Mr. Theunens is an employee of the Office of the Prosecutor, and this document was exhibited on the very first day of the Croatia phase of the “trial,” and has been referred to many times since.

After Theunens withdrew President Milosevic made objections to some recent decisions made by the “tribunal”. First of all the “tribunal” has extended the communications ban on him. He is still cut off from the outside world. President Milosevic objected to this because he rightly pointed out that it will be impossible for him to prepare his defense if he is under a communications ban.

He also objected to the longer sitting days, because the detention unit locks down at 5 PM, and with the “trial” ending at 4:45 PM he has no chance to meet with his associates to plan out his cross-examination for the next day.

After his objections were heard the next witness was brought in. Diego Enrique Arria was Venezuela’s permanent representative to the UN in 1992-93.

Mr. Arria was a regular drama queen. He employed the method of “support and justification masquerading as dissent.” Mr. Arria was critical of the international community because he thought that it wasn’t hard enough on the Serbs.

The man had only been to Yugoslavia once during the war. On April 23-26, 1993 he visited Belgrade, Zagreb, and a handful of places in Bosnia. He claimed that the information he got from the UN was flawed, and so he relied on the media for his information.

Because he was ignorant, and clearly incapable of answering the questions put to him, he spoke in sound bytes that were obviously designed for the media. He used the term “slow motion genocide” countless times to refer to the situation in Srebrenia, and he said that Srebrenica was “a concentration camp policed by the UN.” Of course he failed to mention that Srebrenica’s male inhabitants, led by Nasir Oric, were using the so-called “safe area” as a staging ground to launch attacks on the neighboring Serbian villages.

As I said before, Mr. Arria was a drama queen. He acted all dramatic and emotional, just like a teenage girl. He took his so-called “criticism” of the international community to ridiculous extremes, and in doing so he probably ruined his career. I would imagine that he got more than a few angry phone calls the next day.

In his written statement, Arlie said that Cyrus Vance, David Owen, and Butros Butros Gali were conspiring with Milosevic to create a “greater Serbia” and were conspiring to implement apartheid in Bosnia. He went on to say that Butros Butros Gali was withholding and fabricating information in order to mislead the UN.

In spite of the fact that President Milosevic read all of this out of the witness’s own statement and the witness stood by his statement; the witness denied accusing anybody but Milosevic of anything.

Those sound like accusations to me. In fact, they sound like very serious accusations. Mr. Arria had probably realized by now that he was in over his head, and so he was trying to back off of his accusations, but alas he had already made them.

Slobodan Milosevic asked Mr. Arria if he was aware that Bosnia was a civil war. Of course Arria tried to say that it wasn’t, he said that Milosevic tried to invade and conquer Bosnia. Mr. Arria explained that the VRS “didn’t appear in Bosnia by magic” and so he concluded that Milosevic must have sent them there.

Apparently Mr. Arria was unaware that the members of the VRS lived in Bosnia. They were Bosnian Serbs. Milosevic didn’t send them there. They just lived there. Quite frankly, if the only alternative that Mr. Arria could see besides “Milosevic sending them there” was magic, then I have to wonder about his intelligence.

In order to prove this point, President Milosevic showed Mr. Arria a report of the UN Secretary General dated May 30, 1992. In the report it said quite clearly that JNA soldiers from Serbia and Montenegro were being withdrawn to Serbia and Montenegro, while soldiers who were indigenous to Bosnia stayed in Bosnia, and were no longer under the control of Belgrade. It wasn’t magic at all. The VRS was formed by those JNA soldiers who were native to Bosnia. Nobody sent them there. They just stayed there where they lived. The report said that Croatia, on the other hand, had its regular troops in Bosnia.

When Mr. Arria was first shown the report he tried to say that it was a forgery. Mr. Robinson then said that he was familiar with UN documents and that he wanted to have a look at it. Mr. Robinson looked at the document, and concluded that it was authentic. He then instructed Mr. Arria to answer the questions. Of course Arria didn’t want to answer the questions and so he refused, because he said he had never seen the document before.

Even after seeing the report of the Secretary General. Arria continued to maintain that Bosnia was not a civil war. To prove his point he employed some of the most “magnificent” logic that I’ve ever seen. He asked Milosevic a rhetorical question. He said, “If Bosnia was a civil war then how come we put sanctions on you?” As if his own stupid actions could somehow prove Milosevic’s actions.

Milosevic, who was obviously taken aback by the sheer stupidity of the witness, calmly and politely explained that Peter Hohenfellner, the Austrian Ambassador who was supposed to present the report of the Secretary General to the Security Council withheld the report until after the sanctions were imposed on the FRY.

It is a matter of record. The report is dated May 30, 1992. The sanctions were imposed the same day, and Hohenfeller didn’t present the report until after the decision to impose the sanctions had been passed. In spite of what was right in front of his face, Mr. Arria stated his conviction that the Austrians wouldn’t withhold this information, even though they were Croatia’s ally, and withholding it would help Croatia, because the report incriminated the Croats.

Mr. Arria, ever the drama queen, then presented this “compelling” argument. He said that Belgrade was only masquerading as not having command, and to support this claim he pointed out that Gen. Mladic attended military school in Belgrade.

Way to go Sherlock! Of course Mladic attended military school in Belgrade. Before the war, when Yugoslavia was all one country, Mladic was an officer in the JNA, and like all officers in the JNA he attended military school in Yugoslavia’s capital city, Belgrade. The fact that Mr. Arria would even make this sort of retarded argument demonstrates just how dumb he is.

Mr. Arria clearly hadn’t learned his lesson from earlier in the day, and he persisted in slinging absurd accusations at everybody. He accused the Swiss police of mistreating the Muslim delegates so that they could not attend the Geneva peace conference. Maybe he thinks Milosevic secretly controlled the Swiss police too.

One might think that with less than a week to present their case that the prosecution would like to try bring in a witness who isn’t a complete moron.

Unfortunately, I was unable to see the end of Arria's testimony. I was watching the recorded video of the “trial” from the Bard college website, and they cut off the last two sessions of the day.
 

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