“TRIAL” SYNOPSIS SEPTEMBER 16, 2003
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - September 16, 2003

Written by: Andy Wilcoxson

Baron Arnot Van Linden, a correspondent for the British “Sky” television network testified against President Milosevic today regarding the so-called “siege of Sarajevo.”

The one thing that should be remembered about the shelling of Sarajevo is the same thing that should be remembered about the war in Bosnia as a whole. The Muslims instigated the fighting – they were the aggressors, not the victims.

On May 27, 1992 the Muslim army (so-called ABiH) attacked JNA soldiers attempting to withdraw from Sarajevo. The Muslims fired on unarmed columns of JNA soldiers as they were withdrawing from the Jusuf Dzonlic barracks and the Marshal Tito barracks in Sarajevo.

It was only after the Muslims launched their barbaric attack on the JNA that retribution was visited upon them. It should also be mentioned in connection with the retaliation that Radovan Karadzic and the VRS repeatedly offered safe passage for any civilians who wished to flee the Sarajevo war zone, but that Izetbegovic decided that he would rather keep the population of Sarajevo as hostages than allow them to leave the war zone.  

Van Linden reluctantly confirmed that not a single shell fell on Sarajevo until after the Muslim's barbaric attack on the barracks of the JNA. Now that the sequence of events is clear we can speak about the rest of Van Linden’s testimony.

The “evidence” that he bought with him to court was nothing but his own edited news stories that he had filed with Sky News. He did not bring any raw footage, only the edited pieces that he produced.

Van Linden testified about an interview that he conducted with General Ratko Mladic. A tape was played of this so-called “interview.” The so-called “interview” consisted of a couple of brief sound-bytes from Gen. Mladic. The rest of the so-called “interview” was Van Linden himself paraphrasing what Gen. Mladic had allegedly told him.

The question here is why did Van Linden have to paraphrase what Mladic told him? A camera crew was filming the interview, so why didn’t Van Linden simply play the unedited videotape of the interview? The answer is simple, what Mladic said was not convenient for the agenda that Van Linden was trying to advance, therefore Van Linden rephrased what Mladic said, in order to advance his anti-Serb propaganda campaign.

Van Linden also did an interview with President Milosevic in 1991. Van Linden didn’t have any tape of this interview either, nor did he have a transcript of it, but he did paraphrase it for the “court.” He said that on the basis of the interview, he concluded that Milosevic wanted to export the war in Croatia out to Bosnia and Kosovo.

Well, even if Van Linden didn’t have it, we have a transcript of the interview, and you can read it at:
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/milosevic080791.htm

Read the interview and judge for yourself whether or not any sane person could conclude from it that President Milosevic wanted to export war anywhere.

Why didn’t Van Linden play a tape of the Milosevic interview? Simple, if he played the tape then it would speak for itself, and he wouldn’t have had any opportunity to tell lies about the contents of it.  

Van Linden claimed to have interviewed Radovan Karadzic too. Again, even though video tapes were allegedly made, none were played. And again we have Baron Van Linden putting words into Dr. Karadzic’s mouth. Van Linden made Karadzic out to be some sort of genocidal bigot. Saying that Karadzic called the Muslims by racial slurs, and that he wanted ethnic purity, and that he even wanted to build a sort of Berlin Wall through Sarajevo.

Van Linden claimed that the embargo that Serbia placed on the Republika Srpska after the rejection of the Vance-Owen Plan was regularly violated. He claimed that he saw trucks crossing the border and violating the embargo a number of times. Again, since he was there with a camera crew, why didn’t he make a video tape of this? And for that matter, how come the international observers that were monitoring the border didn’t see any of this?

Van Linden also claimed to interview Captain Dragan, and again this TV newsman had no tape, but he did paraphrase what he says that Captain Dragan told him. According to Van Linden Captain Dragan said that Milosevic was controlling the Serbs in Croatia. Milosevic asserted that Captain Dragan had never said that and Van Linden stammered that Captain Dragan was not referring to operational control or anything like that, but that he was saying it in a metaphorical sense or something.

An example of Van Linden’s “stellar reporting” came in one of the tapes that he did play. The tape showed a number of graves that were decorated with Orthodox crosses, but Van Linden in his voice-over, called them “Bosnian graves.” The graves were obviously Serb graves, President Milosevic confronted Van Linden with this, and Van Linden admitted that they were Serbs, but since they were Serbs from Bosnia he called them “Bosnians.”

It is common knowledge that the Serbs in Bosnia never call themselves “Bosnians.” Only the Muslims call themselves “Bosnians,” which is nothing more than a cynical effort by them to create the illusion that they have some sort of claim to Bosnia, over that of the Serbs and Croats. Even Van Linden during his testimony was referring to Muslims as “Bosnians” and Serbs as “Serbs.”

Van Linden was clearly trying to mislead his viewers into thinking that they were looking at Muslim graves, and not Serb graves. After all, Serb graves would confuse everything that the Baron was saying. Van Linden says that he never saw the Muslims doing any shooting, obviously these Serb graves would seem to conflict with that. Therefore it was necessary for the lying Baron to conceal the fact that these were Serb graves.

Van Linden’s tapes also showed footage of the unarmed JNA soldiers who were massacred by the Muslims while attempting to withdraw from Sarajevo, but of course Van Linden neglected to mention that the Muslims killed them, or that those JNA soldiers were shot while they were unarmed and withdrawing from the city.

Van Linden’s testimony exposed the nature of television news coverage. In one instance a video was shown. Van Linden was talking about Bosnia in his voice-over commentary, but the video on the tape was from Kosovo and had nothing to do with what Van Linden was saying.

Van Linden, upon seeing that the Albanian writing on the posters on the footage, came up with the excuse that he didn’t edit the video that somebody else did. When he was asked about other video sequences he explained that he was using other people’s footage, and so he wasn’t always sure what exactly was being shown on his video tapes.

TV news is ideal for propaganda. As Van Linden’s testimony demonstrated the video you are looking at doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with what the reporter is saying. At the beginning of the proceedings there were technical problems at the tribunal and the video could not be seen clearly, and as “Judge” May complained, not being able to see the video caused “the evidence lose all of its impact.”

After Van Linden was concluded President Milosevic took sick, and the proceedings were adjourned early.

President Milosevic complained of fatigue, and high blood pressure which he says is brought on by the excessive pace of the so-called “trial.”

Again the so-called “judges” attempted to foist some sort of legal assistance onto President Milosevic and again he rejected it.

It is not yet known whether the so-called “trial” will be conducted tomorrow or not.