CANADA’S FORMER AMBASSADOR TO YUGOSLAVIA TAKES THE WITNESS STAND
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - February 23, 2006

Written by: Andy Wilcoxson

Prof. Dr. Marko Atlagic, an MP representing Benkovac in the Croatian Sabor from 1990 until 1992, concluded his testimony at the trial of Slobodan Milosevic on Thursday.

Mr. Nice showed Atlagic Milan Babic’s testimony in which he claimed that he received military support from both Milosevic and Borislav Jovic.

Atlagic dismissed Babic’s testimony as pure nonsense. He said that Babic was an opportunist who would say anything to advance his own interests. He pointed out that Babic never said anything like that before he got to The Hague.

Mr. Nice again dredged up the BBC documentary “The Death of Yugoslavia”. Twice Mr. Nice played clips from the movie only to have it turn out that the BBC’s subtitles were wrong.

Nearly every time Mr. Nice plays a clip from that film it blows-up in his face. The subtitles are frequently do not match the words actually being spoken. Judge Bonamy branded the film “tendentious” and asked Mr. Nice if it was a good idea for the prosecution to keep relying on it.

“The Death of Yugoslavia” relies on the fact that most English-speaking people have no knowledge of the Serbo-Croatian language. By attributing false and malicious subtitles to the people interviewed in the film the BBC has created a film that is a gross manipulation of facts and reality. It is disturbing that this film is widely and uncritically shown to students in Western classrooms.

Mr. Nice spent the balance of Atlagic’s cross-examination citing Serbian war actions in Croatia. Atlagic spent an equal amount of time citing the Croatian war actions that provoked the Serbian war actions in the first place.

Atlagic reiterated his testimony that violent Croatian provocations began as early as 1989, whereas Serbian retaliation did not begin until 1991.

After Mr. Nice concluded the cross-examination Atlagic was briefly re-examined by Mr. Kay because Milosevic too ill to continue. Milosevic, who suffers from high blood pressure, complained of intense pressure behind his eyes and ears as well as a loud roaring noise in his head.

Milosevic, in spite of his ill health, spent the last hour of the hearing examining James Bisset, the Canadian ambassador to Yugoslavia from late 1990 until mid-1992.

Bissett described the NATO bombing as an illegal and "appalling act" that precipitated the Kosovo refugee crisis.

The witness testified that the NATO charter prohibits the use of violence to settle international conflicts. "And, yet, in March of 1999, it began to bomb a country that was a sovereign country, that was no threat to its neighbors," he said.

The opening article of the NATO's founding treaty commits the allies "to settle any international dispute in which they may be involved by peaceful means (and) refrain ... from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations."

Bisset told the tribunal that Milosevic had been unfairly painted as the cause of the Yugoslav crisis when in fact he had worked to keep the country together.

Yugoslavia collapsed, Bisset testified, because Germany encouraged Slovenia and Croatia to secede and, later, American interference caused war to erupt in Bosnia and Kosovo.

Speaking of the Kosovo Liberation army, Bisset said Milosevic tried to "suppress an armed rebellion by an organization that had a year before been described by the US state department as a terrorist organization."

The witness challenged the prosecution charge that Milosevic ordered the dismissal of thousands of Kosovo-Albanian doctors, teachers, professors, workers, police officers and civil servants.

"To my knowledge they were not dismissed,” said Bisset. "They simply voluntarily withdrew from their positions (and) continued to do their work, but under a sort of underground, parallel government" in Kosovo.

His testimony was based on conversations at the time with diplomatic staff visiting Kosovo and ethnic Albanian delegations, meetings that he had with Milosevic, as well as intelligence sources within the Canadian government.

Bisset will continue his testimony when the trial continues on Friday.
 

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