MILOSEVIC “TRIAL” SYNOPSIS: OCTOBER 14, 2003
www.slobodan-milosevic.org – October 14, 2003

Written by: Andy Wilcoxson

The prosecution finished its abbreviated examination-in-chief of Milan Milanovic today. Milanovic served as the Deputy Defense Minister for the Republika Srpska Krajina, and he was the leader of the Serb negotiating team when the Erdut agreement was signed.

The Erdut Agreement was signed on November 12, 1995. It guarantees Serbs living in Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Srem the right to form a joint council of municipalities, it provides for the return of refugees, and for the restoration of refugee’s property. Unfortunately, the Croatian side has to this day failed to implement its end of the agreement. The refugees have not returned and some even left after the signing of the agreement, and no joint council of municipalities exists.

Mr. Milanovic claimed that President Milosevic’s associates would harass him because he signed the Erdut Agreement. However, Mr. Milanovic said that when he met with Milosevic that he was supportive of him for signing the agreement. Milanovic says that Milosevic even asked him if any of his associates were giving him a hard time, and Milanovic told him that they weren’t.

Another allegation raised by the prosecution was that the VJ was active in Krajina. Under cross-examination this turned out not to be true. According to Milanovic the VJ was only active on the territory of the FRY. There were times when the VJ was on the border of the FRY, but it never crossed into Krajina.

The witness admitted that Belgrade had no direct command over the VRS or the Serbian Army of Krajina.

This witness was frequently confused by names. He would refer to the JNA as the “Yugoslav Army”, in stead of by its proper name which is of course the Yugoslav People’s Army. The Yugoslav Army on the other hand is the VJ, but that isn’t what the witness meant. The witness was also confused and repeatedly referred to the Vance Plan as the “Vance-Owen Plan.” The Vance Plan was of course for Croatia, and the Vance-Owen Plan was for Bosnia. But like I said, the witness was confused.

The prosecution exploited the new practice of Rule 89(F). The prosecution submitted various exhibits which had no relevance at all. It is obvious that the prosecution is only trying to waste time. President Milosevic and his associates have to go through all of this so-called “evidence” and for the prosecutor to be dumping all of these piles of pointless exhibits into the evidence pool only wastes time, because the documents have to be read and the witness has to be questioned about them.

The strategy of the prosecution is clear. They want to drown the defense in a sea of irrelevant documents that it will have to deal with, and then the prosecutor hopes that time will expire on the defense before it can ask the witness about everything. They want to bog down the defense in pointless documents in the hopes that they won’t have time to refute some important point.

For example documents were produced about a Krajina Government office that was in Belgrade. This office would arrange accommodation for Serbian citizens who wished to volunteer to assist the Krajina Serbs. This was totally the endeavor of the Krajina Government, nobody in Serbia was forced to volunteer, but these documents were none the less presented as “evidence” against Milosevic. Evidence of what you ask; well as far as Milosevic is concerned nothing. I only regard this sort of “evidence” as evidence of the prosecution’s plan that I outlined above.

A point raised by the prosecution was the presence of Radovan Stojicic “Badza” in Krajina. Badza was a commander in the Serbian MUP, and he came to Krajina with 15 other members of the MUP of Serbia. They were integrated into the T.O. and were suborned to the JNA. Badza was promoted to the T.O. command by Goran Hadzic, and not by anybody from Serbia.

These men, by virtue of the fact that they were suborned to the JNA, were obviously volunteers, but the witness tried to deny that and say that they were something else. None the less, the witness said that neither Badza, nor any of the men who came with him committed any crimes.

Badza came to Krajina to help the JNA liberate Vukovar. In Vukovar the ZNG (Croatian National Guard) attacked JNA columns. The ZNG blockaded and laid siege on the JNA barracks in Vukovar, killing and wounding several JNA soldiers.

It was only after the ZNG’s barbaric attacks that the JNA engaged in operations to rid Vukovar of the ZNG. The JNA was defending itself on its own territory. Vukovar, whether the Croats liked it or not, was at that time, part of the SFRY and the JNA was the national army of the SFRY.

Badza and the men who accompanied him may have been from the republic of Serbia, but Serbia and Vukovar were both part of the SFR Yugoslavia. Badza was only volunteering to help his country’s army at a time when it was being attacked inside of its own territory. Quite honestly, I can’t imagine what could be wrong with that. I don’t see what the prosecution is trying to prove here. What kind of patriot could just stand by and watch his country’s army being attacked on its own territory?

The witness did give some useful evidence about the origins of the war in Croatia. According to the witness tensions started in 1990 and 1991, when elections were held and the HDZ and Tudjman were coming to power.

The Serbian people in Croatia voted for the League of Communists, because that party was against war and favored the preservation of Yugoslavia. The Croats, on the other hand, voted for the HDZ and for the destruction of Yugoslavia.

Once the HDZ attained power in 1991 they removed the Serbian people as a constituent people from the Croatian constitution. The Croats began illegally importing arms, formed paramilitary formations, and fired Serbs from their jobs en masse. The Croats resurrected the symbols used by the Ustasha (Croatia’s Nazi puppet regime) during the 2^nd World War, such as the checkerboard emblem that appears to this day on the Croatian flag.

All of these actions by the Croats caused discomfort and fear among the Serbs who were living in Croatia. The fears of the Serbs were proven to be justified when on May 2, 1991 Croatian policemen entered Borovo Selo, the largest Serbian settlement in the Vukovar municipality. When the Croatian police rolled into Borovo Selo they opened fire on Serbian houses in the center of Borovo Selo, killing several civilians.

The witness spoke about the Vance Plan and how the Serbs abided by the agreement, but that the Croats violated the agreement when they stormed UN Protected Areas such as the Miljevac Plateau and the Medak Pocket. These attacks were completely unprovoked. The Serbs did not launch a single attack after the UNPAs were set-up, but the Croats attacked them anyway.

The witness went all through the war. He confirmed that the Croats had formed camps for Serbs, and that the war ultimately culminated in the Croat operations Storm and Flash, in which many Serbs were killed, and hundreds of thousands were expelled from Croatia.

The witness also spoke of a time when a ZDF news crew from Germany came to his village of Polaca. When the ZDF crew was there they filmed as Croats from Laslovo came and attacked the Serbs living in Polaca, but when ZDF aired the tape they said that it was Serbs from Polaca who were attacking the Croats in Laslovo.

This is only one of many examples where the international media lied. ZDF reported the exact opposite of the truth. ZDF turned the victim into the aggressor, and the aggressor into the victim.

This witness will conclude his testimony tomorrow. The troika has granted Slobodan Milosevic 50 more minutes to conclude his cross-examination.

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