Written by: Andy Wilcoxson

A secret witness testifying under the pseudonym of "B-179" testified against President Milosevic today. B-179 allegedly held a certain position in the Association of Emigrant Serbs also known as "Matica" (Matica is the Serbian word for association). The Matica is one of the oldest and most respected Serbian charities, it is financed by the Serbian Government and by private donations. It is well known that the Matica delivered humanitarian aid to war ravaged areas in Bosnia and Croatia.

B-179's alleged position in the Matica was kept secret from the public, but President Milosevic had contacted the Matica, and asked if the position that the witness claimed to hold even exsisted. The Matica responded and said that the position in question had ever existed.

Another secret that was kept from the public was the nature some court proceedings that were taken against the witness. Apparently this witness must be some kind of criminal, maybe he is a drug dealer, or a rapist, or possibly a robber, who knows? All that is known is that there were some kind of proceedings.

What is known about this witness is that he joined the SPO in 1998. The witness claimed that his motivation for joining the SPO was his desire to overthrow Milosevic. So right off the top we can see that here is a witness who has a political motivation for telling lies against President Milosevic.

B-179 claimed that the Matica transported arms from Serbia to the battle front in Bosnia and Croatia. He claimed that arms and munitions would be taken from a military warehouse in Bubanj Potok and shipped to various locations in both the RS and the RSK.

B-179 arrived at the tribunal with a number of documents. Of course none of them proved any of what he was saying.

As far as weapons were concerned, B-179 had receipts issued by the Serbian Ministry of Defense proving that the Matica was issued approximately 15 light weapons (rifles, pistols, etc...). The document was very explicit in saying that these weapons were issued so that the Matica could defend itself while shipping humanitarian supplies throughout the war zone.

The only other document that he had regarding weapons didn't prove anything. The document dealt with an alleged shipment of some 82mm shells. The only signature on the document was the witness's signature. Nobody from either the government of Serbia, or the Government of Yugoslavia signed any part of the document.

The only other documents that the witness had were normal things that anybody delivering humanitarian supplies would have: fuel receipts, vehicle registration papers, Red Cross documents, etc...

The witness explained that he used to have more proof, and that he used to have some other documents, but that some people came to his house and took those things away. He said that the VJ would also have such documents, but that they burned the documents, which is why they don't have any such documents now.

The witness claims to have his knowledge about the scope of the alleged arms shipments and the alleged burning of documents on the basis of what he heard while eavesdropping on other people's conversations.

Not only did this guy claim that Milosevic was arming the Serbs, but he claimed that Milosevic was arming the Croats too!

B-179 professed to know all about Milosevic. In his statement, B-179 said that Milosevic would start his day, everyday, by going to the headquarters of the Serbian state security and planning out where to ship weapons to. However, in his testimony he said that Jovica Stanisic and Milan Prodinic would always talk about "informing 'dad' (meaning Milosevic)" about their arms trafficking activities. Therefore the natural question is, why should they inform "dad" if "dad" was supposed to be taking part in the planning of these same activities on a daily basis? Wouldn't he already know?

B-179 completely failed to prove that he received any weapons from the JNA, the VJ, or the Serbian MUP (except for those 15 light weapons specified for the defense of Matica humanitarian aid shipments). B-179 could not produce a single document to prove that he had received even one weapon. B-179 also could not produce even a single document to prove that he had delivered any weapons. Not only could he not produce any documents, but he couldn't name even one recipient of any of the alleged weapons.

The only useful thing about B-179's testimony was his admission that the Matica gave humanitarian assistance to all of the wars' victims regardless of their ethnicity. That the government of Serbia was actually financing shipments of humanitarian aid to Croats and Muslims as well as Serbs.

After B-179 withdrew, Baron Arnot Van Linden took the witness stand. Van Linden was a reporter for the British Sky news service. The prosecutor readout Van Linden's 92-bis summary, and then the session ended for the day.

Van Linden is apparently going to testify about the so-called "siege of Sarajevo." One interesting admission that was made was the admission that members of the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina would not always wear uniforms. The admission was made in an effort to demonstrate how poor the Muslims must have been since they didn't even always wear uniforms.

For the Muslims to be conducting war operations without uniforms is a violation of the Geneva Conventions. Simply put, by engaging in war operations without uniforms they made it nearly impossible for the army they were fighting against to distinguish between them and the civilians. Therefore, they endangered precisely their own civilians, because they made it hard for the opposing army to tell the difference between a civilian and an enemy soldier.