GEN. GOJOVIC TESTIFIES THAT KOSOVO WAR CRIMES WERE SEVERELY PUNISHED BY THE YUGOSLAV ARMY
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - March 16, 2005

Written by: Andy Wilcoxson

General Radomir Gojovic continued his testimony at the trial of Slobodan Milosevic on Wednesday. Gen. Gojovic was the head of the Legal Directorate at the Yugoslav Defense Ministry during the 1999 Kosovo war.

Gen. Gojovic’s testimony goes to show that Yugoslav authorities took adequate steps to prevent and punish crimes in Kosovo during the war. His evidence demonstrates that the Yugoslav Army did not tolerate criminal activity in its ranks, and that soldiers who committed crimes were severely punished.

On Tuesday Slobodan Milosevic exhibited numerous pamphlets containing codes of conduct that were distributed to the personnel of the Yugoslav Army. All personnel were ordered to respect civilians, treat enemy prisoners humanely and observe the laws of war. Gojovic testified that military officers were given strict orders to enforce the principles of international humanitarian law. The witness provided orders from the Supreme Command, including one order that he drafted and which was signed by General Ojdanic that instructed soldiers to abide by the Geneva Conventions.

 

In spite of the very clear orders that the army was given, some VJ soldiers committed serious crimes in Kosovo including murder, rape, robbery, crimes against property, and war crimes. Gen. Gojovic, as a senior official in the military justice system, was tasked with prosecuting soldiers who committed such crimes.

As of May 12, 1999 Yugoslav military prosecutors had received 18,541 reports of criminal activity in Kosovo. Indictments were raised against 6,708 soldiers and 2,185 were convicted. Some soldiers even received the death penalty for their crimes.

The above figures only reflect the work of the military courts as of May 12, 1999. When the state of war ended on June 10, 1999, most of the cases pending before the military courts were handed over to the civilian courts. Gen. Gojovic explained that reservists committed most of the crimes. When the state of war ended the reservists ceased being members of the armed forces, and therefore it fell to the civilian courts to prosecute them. The work of civilian courts is out of this witness’s competence. But it is clear that an even greater number of soldiers were prosecuted for crimes that they committed in Kosovo.

Gen. Gojovic exhibited a large file of documents laying out the work of the Yugoslav military’s justice system. These documents identify the soldiers who committed crimes, the crimes they committed, and the status of the court proceedings against them as of 2001, which is when the documents were prepared.

The documents contain information about some of the crimes alleged in the indictment, such as the killing of 140 ethnic-Albanians in Izbica. Some of the crimes alleged by the indictment were not included in the documents, and other crimes, which are not listed in the indictment, are included.

The witness testified that NATO bombing dispersed army units because concentrations of soldiers would have been bombed. He said that the NATO bombing cut lines of communication and made it impossible for commanders to keep track of everything their subordinates were doing. Those sorts of war conditions made it impossible for every crime to be discovered and prosecuted. Furthermore, there were cases when investigators were fired on by the KLA, and investigations could not be conducted at all.

Gen. Gojovic said that every crime that could be prosecuted was prosecuted. He said that there was never a case when evidence of a crime came to light and proceedings were not launched.

Following Gen. Gojovic’s examination-in-chief, Mr. Nice began his cross-examination. Mr. Nice chastised the witness because a great many of the crimes that were prosecuted were not specifically prosecuted as “war crimes.”

Gen. Gojovic explained that many of the crimes were not prosecuted as “war crimes” because war crimes carry a lighter punishment under Yugoslav law. For example, if a soldier kills a civilian and the act is deemed a “war crime,” the minimum prison sentence is 5 years. But, if the soldier is convicted of a regular murder, then the minimum prison term is 10 years. That is why many Yugoslav prosecutors elected to prosecute soldiers as regular criminals and not necessarily as “war criminals.”

General Gojovic testified that the work of the military prosecutors and courts would have been far more effective had NATO not expelled Yugoslav forces from Kosovo. For example, in a case where an underage Albanian girl was raped a Yugoslav soldier, UNMIK has been unwilling to help Serbian authorities contact the victim to gather evidence against the perpetrator.

The General Gojovic’s testimony will continue when the trial sits again next Tuesday.
 

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