FORMER KRAJINA SERB FOREIGN MINISTER TAKES THE STAND
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - February 27, 2006

Written by: Andy Wilcoxson

The trial of Slobodan Milosevic continued on Monday with the testimony of Slobodan Jarcevic. Mr. Jarcevic served in the diplomatic corps of the SFRY and later served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs for Republika Srpska Krajina (RSK).

Jarcevic began his testimony by giving evidence about the historical position of Serbs in Croatia. He explained that during World War II Croatian Ustashas committed genocide against Serbs living in the so-called “Independent State of Croatia.” The Ustasha killed more than 700,000 Serbs during World War II.

He testified that Serbs came under threat in Croatia again during the so-called “Croatian Spring” (AKA “mass national movement”) of the 1970s. During the Croatian Spring fascist ideology was resurrected and Croatian terrorist groups carried out attacks both inside and outside of Yugoslavia.

For example, on August 17, 1978 a Croatian terrorist group attacked the West German consulate in Chicago. Bozo Kelava, and Mike Kodzoman, assaulted the consulate staff and held them hostage for more than six hours.

On September 11, 1976 four Croatian terrorists hijacked a TWA 727 traveling between New York and Chicago. The terrorists held the passengers and crew hostage for more than 30 hours.

Also in September 1976 Croatian terrorists planted a bomb at New York’s Grand Central Station, which killed Brian Murray, a New York City police officer, who was killed while attempting to defuse the bomb.

Major American newspapers, such as the Washington Post and New York Times, reported that the objective of the Croatian terrorists – and the American media certainly used the term “Croatian terrorists” – was Croatia’s secession from Yugoslavia.

As bad as it was in the United States, it was even worse inside Croatia itself. Jarcevic testified that the Croatian terrorists had a fascist ideology and that they routinely killed and threatened the Serbian population.

The Yugoslav authorities arrested Franjo Tudjman in the 1970s because of his involvement with the Croatian terrorist movement, and because he espoused fascist ideology.

The existence of a terrorist-Croatian secessionist movement involving Tudjman during the 1970s refutes the prosecution’s assertion that Croatia seceded from Yugoslavia because Milosevic made life in Yugoslavia intolerable for non-Serbs.

During the 1970s Josip Broz Tito, himself a Croat, was the undisputed ruler of Yugoslavia. Slobodan Milosevic did not even begin his political career until 1984. Nobody with a brain in their head can say that Croatian secessionism was caused by something Milosevic did, because Croatian secessionism came about *BEFORE* anybody even knew who Milosevic was.

Jarcevic testified that radical Croatian nationalism reared its ugly head again in the late 80s and early 90s with the election of Franjo Tudjman as Croatia’s president.

He testified that Tudjman brought terrorists, criminals, and Ustasha émigrés from all over the world to Croatia in order to support the secessionist agenda. To bear this point out he read from documents compiled in 1990 by Yugoslav intelligence.

He also read from documents dated from late 1990 and early 1991, which showed that Croatian paramilitary groups were smuggling large quantities of weapons into Croatia via Hungary. The weapons apparently originated in Germany and Austria, two countries that strongly supported Croatia’s secession from Yugoslavia.

Jarcevic denied that the RSK government entered into any criminal conspiracy with Belgrade to expand Serbian territory. He said that the purpose of the RSK was to safeguard the rights of Serbs living in the Krajina because the Croatian government was fascist and could not be trusted to do so.

He testified that nobody in the RSK leadership undertook any action to expel Croats from the RSK. He showed the court census data from 1990, which showed that 189,000 Croats lived in what would become the RSK. He asked how this could be reconciled with Croatian claims that 250,000 Croats were ethnically cleansed from the RSK. After all, one can’t ethnically cleanse somebody who wasn’t there to begin with.

He testified that the Croatian Government evacuated the majority of the Croatian people who left the RSK. He said that the RSK government did not expel Croats. In fact it even employed Croats. He said that some Croats even joined the RSK Army and police forces.

He said that over the course of the war (1991 to 1995) nearly half a million Serbs were expelled from Croatia. He read out a UN report, which stated that 251,000 Serbs were expelled from Western Slavonia between 1990 and 1992.

Of course the fiercest ethnic cleansing was yet to come, in 1995 Croatia launched Operation Storm and Operation Flash which led to the killing or expulsion of another 250,000 Serbs.

Jarcevic showed the court a Croatian government document, dated 1990, which showed that Croatia was planning to have radioactive waste dumped in parts of Croatia that had a large Serbian population.

As the RSK Foreign Minister, the witness spent a lot of time dealing with international diplomats. He testified that the UN Security Counsel had information about Croatian crimes against Serbs, but suppressed it. He testified Western diplomats who tried to have the information published were fired from their posts.

Jarcevic came to court with several documents detailing the importation of illegal weapons by Croatian paramilitary forces. Unfortunately, just as he was beginning to read out the names of people, governments, and international corporations that were involved in the illegal arms trafficking the video feed from The Hague went dead.

There was no audio or video coming out of The Hague for the last two hours of the hearing – the ICTY webcast was just feeding black. The trial is expected to resume on Tuesday and hopefully the video feed will be back.

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