COL. PAPONJAK TESTIFIES ABOUT THE SITUATION IN PEC
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - May 4, 2005

Written by: Andy Wilcoxson

The trial of Slobodan Milosevic resumed on Wednesday with the testimony of Col. Radovan Paponjak, the former head of the Interior Ministry secretariat in Pec.

The indictment alleges that ethnic Albanian police were fired from their jobs during the 1990s. Col. Paponjak denied that this was the case. According to his testimony, Albanians were not fired from their jobs in law enforcement. He went on to enumerate the names of several Albanians who held prominent positions in the interior ministry after the indictment claims they were fired.

Most of Col. Paponjak’s testimony dealt with the activities of the KLA in the mid-to-late 1990s. He said that the KLA’s early attacks were mostly directed against police, and refugees from Bosnia and the R.S. Krajina.

He said that the KLA targeted the refugees because they were Serbs. The Albanian terrorists did not want the Serbs who lived in Kosovo to be there, let alone Serb refugees coming in from Bosnia and Krajina.

The witness came to court with 175 police reports from the Pec interior ministry detailing the activities of the KLA in the area.

According to the documents, the KLA received training from foreign mercenaries, and mujahedeens from the Middle East. They procured most of their weapons when the Albanian government collapsed in 1997, and bands of looters robbed Albania’s army depots.

The documents detailed the terrorist activity of the KLA against Serbian and Albanian civilians. One example was the case of an Albanian man named Sali Berisha. Mr. Berisha owned a gas station near Pec, and being a good businessman he sold gasoline to anybody that wanted to buy it.

The KLA did not want him to sell gasoline to non-Albanians; they only wanted him to sell to Albanians. Mr. Berisha did not listen to the KLA and continued to sell gas to everybody. The KLA retaliated by killing Mr. Berisha and all of his employees who worked at the gas station. This was in 1998.

The case of Mr. Berisha was one of many examples that were read out in court today. In some cases the KLA required Albanians to kill members of their own family to prove their loyalty. In one of the cases that was read out a man killed his own son because he refused to join the KLA.

In addition to his extensive testimony about the activities of the KLA, Col. Paponjak testified about the activities of the Serbian police in Pec.

The indictment claims that “on or about 27 and 28 March 1999, in the city of Pec, forces of the FRY and Serbia went from house to house forcing Kosovo Albanians to leave. Some houses were set on fire and a number of people were shot.”

Paponjak, who was a police official precisely in Pec, denied that the authorities forced Albanians out. He also denied that the authorities shot anybody at the times alleged by the indictment. He had all of the police documents detailing cases where people were shot, and nobody was shot at the time the indictment alleges.

The witness denied the allegation that the authorities burned down the homes of Albanian civilians. He said that there were fires, but the fire department could not respond because the KLA targeted all state employees, including firemen.

He denied that Albanians left Pec because of pressure from the army and police. According to the witness, everybody fled Pec regardless of his or her ethnicity. He said that the police even sent their own families out of Kosovo.

Col. Paponjak testified that most of the refugees from Pec, including the Albanians, went to Montenegro because the NATO bombing was not as heavy there. It is worth noting that the Yugoslav Army, which is accused of brutalizing the Albanians, was deployed in Montenegro too – so obviously these people were not running away from the Yugoslav Army.

It is true that approximately 800,000 Kosovo-Albanians fled Kosovo during the NATO bombing, but this is not proof of ethnic cleansing. An equal proportion of Serbs and other non-Albanians fled Kosovo at the same time. According to UNHCR statistics, approximately 100,000 Serbs fled Kosovo during the NATO bombing. Serbs were just over 10% of the Kosovo’s general population, and they comprised more than 10% of the refugees.

If the Serbs had ethnically cleansed the Albanians, then the Serbs would have stayed and only the Albanians would have left. The fact that the Serbs fled too refutes claims that Albanians were being ethnically cleansed. The Albanians were not ethnically cleansed – the ratio of Albanians to Serbs stayed the same during the period of the indictment.

In short, everybody was fleeing from Kosovo, not just the Albanians. There was a general exodus of the population -- not an ethnic cleansing campaign. That is how Col. Paponjak said things were in Pec, and that is how the statistics indicate things were throughout Kosovo, during the period covered by the indictment.

The main trial will be interrupted on Friday due to the contempt trial against Kosta Bulatovic. The hearing was originally scheduled for Thursday, but it was postponed a day. Mr. Bulatovic was charged with contempt because he refused to participate in the trial after the tribunal attempted to conduct it in the absence of Milosevic.

Article 21.4(D) of the tribunal’s statute gives Milosevic the right “to be tried in his presence, and to defend himself in person.” Forcing a witness to testify in the absence of an accused is a clear violation of the tribunal’s statute. It will be interesting to see how the trial chamber deals with this, since the basis for the contempt charges arise from the trial chamber’s own failure to adhere to the statute of the tribunal.

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