CAPTURED KLA DOCUMENTS SHOW THAT NATO AIRLIFTED WEAPONS TO THE KLA DURING THE WAR
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - October 3, 2005

Written by: Andy Wilcoxson

The trial of Slobodan Milosevic resumed on Monday with the continued testimony of Col. Bogoljub Janicevic, the former chief of the Urosevac SUP.

Today the witness gave evidence about events alleged by the indictment. The indictment alleges that Serbian troops massacred civilian men in Kotlina and that they threw the bodies of 17 men into wells.

Janicevic testified that the police and army never attacked Kotlina. He said that Kotlina was under Serbian control the entire time, so there was no reason to attack it. He said that there was fighting in Kotlina. He said that the KLA frequently attacked the police and the army and that fire was returned.

He also denied that anybody was thrown into wells by Serb troops. He showed the court pictures of these so-called “wells” where the men’s bodies were found.

It turns out that the so-called “wells” were really KLA bunkers that were disguised to look like wells. These “wells” were all decked out; there were ladders so that the terrorists could climb in and out of them, and furnaces that the KLA installed provided heating.

The men found in the so-called “wells” were KLA members killed during battle that they themselves provoked. They were not innocent civilians as alleged by the indictment.

The indictment accuses Serbian troops of destroying the mosques in Kotlina and Ivaja. For his part, Janicevic denied that anybody destroyed those mosques. He said they are still standing to this day.

The indictment also claims that Albanians were forced out of Kacanik by Serb troops. Janicevic said that the KLA forced Albanians out of Kacanik and threatened to kill anybody who remained.

He said that the Serbian police never expelled anybody from Kosovo. He denied that the police destroyed the identity papers of the Albanians who left Kosovo. He said such an exercise would have been a pointless because the documents could be easily replaced if the Albanians applied to the relevant authority for replacement documents.

Janicevic testified that criminal activity was not tolerated in the ranks of the police. He said that any police officer that engaged in criminal conduct would be prosecuted.

He briefly testified about the NATO bombing. The gist of his testimony was that NATO bombing targeted civilians, and therefore provoked fear, which caused people to flee from Kosovo. The fact that the Kosovo refugees were ethnically mixed to the same degree as the Kosovo population corroborates the thesis that the NATO bombing, not some alleged “Serbian campaign of ethnic cleansing,” caused the mass exodus of Kosovo’s population during the NATO bombing.

Janicevic also exhibited documents that showed a clear link between the KLA and NATO. The documents, seized from the 161st brigade of the KLA during the war, contain orders for the KLA to position its troops on a hilltop where they were to receive a NATO airlift of weapons and various other provisions. The documents also make several references to American mercenaries fighting in the ranks of the KLA.

This evidence clearly shows that Wesley Clark perjured himself when he testified as a witness for the prosecution. Clark, who was the secretary general of NATO at the time, lied when he testified that NATO didn’t assist the KLA – airlifting weapons to the KLA is about as clear and direct of assistance as you can get. Add the fact that American citizens were fighting in the ranks of the KLA and the picture becomes clear.

Col. Janicevic briefly testified about the situation in Kosovo after the arrival of KFOR, but was cut short by the Judges who did not want to hear any evidence that killings and violent crime increased radically after the withdrawal of Serbian police and the occupation by NATO.

Mr. Nice took up the last part of the day with his cross-examination. Nice asked the witness several questions about Racak and the sources that the witness relied on to formulate the chronological report that he submitted to the tribunal.

Janicevic explained that he compiled the report on the basis of documents and interviews he had made with police officers who directly participated in the operation.

He said that he had to generate this report after the fact because most of the contemporaneous material was destroyed when NATO bombed the Interior Ministry building in Pristina.

Mr. Nice will continue his cross-examination of Col. Bogoljub Janicevic on Tuesday.

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