NATO BOMBING CAUSED KOSOVO EXODUS
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - October 18, 2005

Written by: Andy Wilcoxson

Slobodan Milosevic completed his re-examination of Col. Bogoljub Janicevic, the former chief of the Urosevac SUP, at the Hague Tribunal on Tuesday.

Milosevic began by questioning Col. Janicevic about satellite photos of Racak that the prosecution had exhibited.

Janicevic pointed out the locations where the KVM observers were located on January 15th 1999, and the location of the infamous Racak gully. From the satellite picture it was clear that the KVM observers had an unobstructed view of the gully. Janicevic said that the KVM observers were so close that they could see the gully with the naked eye.

The witness also refuted the prosecutor’s accusation that prisoners were tortured at the Urosevac SUP building. Mr. Nice’s allegations of torture relied heavily on the OSCE publication “Kosovo/Kosova: As Seen As Told.” That publication is supposed to an account of what the KVM observer mission saw, but Janicevic testified that nobody from the KVM ever came to the Urosevac SUP building to investigate the claims of torture that got published in “As Seen As Told”. It is also worth noting that KVM Observer Roland Keith questioned the truthfulness and objectivity of that publication when he testified.

After Janicevic concluded his testimony, Milosevic called General Milos Djosan to the witness stand. Gen. Djosan served as the commander of the 52nd Artillery Brigade of the Yugoslav Air Defense. He was also the commander of the Djackovica garrison. His area of responsibility was the air space for all of Kosovo from 1998 until June of 1999.

Gen. Djosan testified that the officer corps of his unit was comprised of Slovenes, Macedonians, Croats, Albanians, Hungarians, Muslims, and Serbs. He said that the enlisted men were predominantly Serbs. The fact that the commanding officers were mostly non-Serbs would seem to refute the idea that ethnic cleansing was the objective of the Yugoslav Army.

Gen. Djosan testified that there was no plan to expel Albanians, or anybody else, from Kosovo. He said that if such a plan had existed he would have known about it.

He testified that the KLA increased its activities when the OSCE/KVM came to Kosovo. The witness explained that the KLA was emboldened by the presence of the OSCE observers, and increased their activity.

Gen. Djosan recounted one instance where a KVM observer came to visit his unit and was only interested in inspecting the anti-aircraft missiles. The KVM observer was not interested in artillery that could have been used against people on the ground; he was only interested in missiles that could threaten aircraft.

The obvious conclusion is that this so-called “KVM observer” was a NATO spy on a reconnaissance mission. He wanted to see what sort of artillery the VJ would have at its disposal when NATO started bombing.

Gen. Djosan gave evidence regarding collaboration between the KLA and NATO. He explained that NATO gave the KLA full air support for its combat activities. To make the point even clearer Milosevic replayed the video of Paddy Ashdown chatting with KLA terrorists and inspecting their weapons prior to the war.

As the man responsible for Kosovo’s air defense, Gen. Djosan is intimately familiar with the locations of the NATO bombing raids. As it turns out, all of the locations that the prosecution refers to as “deportation sites” are the areas that NATO bombed heavily during the war.

In other words, the areas that were bombed the most generated the most refugees. Gen. Djosan pointed out that there isn’t a single one of the alleged “deportation sites” that wasn’t bombed by NATO. NATO bombed every last place where the indictment claims that “ethnic cleansing” took place. No forced deportation is alleged in any of the places that NATO didn’t bomb.

Gen. Djosan testified that everybody, Albanians and non-Albanians alike, fled during the NATO bombing. He testified that there was an exodus of the general population, not the mono-ethnic exodus of Albanians that one would expect if there had really been an ethnic cleansing of Kosovo’s Albanian population.

The fact that everybody fled from Kosovo during the NATO bombing is proven. On October 15, 1999 the UNHCR published a report entitled “Numbers of refugees displaced from Kosovo 23 March-9 June 1999”. Their report states that “more than 100,000” Serbs left Kosovo during the NATO bombing. Compare that to the total of 862,979 refugees, and you see that there was a greater preponderance of Serbs among the refugees than there was in Kosovo’s general population.

In other words, a higher percentage of the Serbian population fled from Kosovo than the Albanian population. The ratio of Albanians to Serbs in Kosovo became more favorable for Albanians at the precise time when Milosevic is accused of ethnically cleansing the Albanians.

After testifying about the reasons behind the mass-exodus of refugees from Kosovo, Gen. Djosan focused his attention on specific incidents alleged by the indictment in the area of Djackovica, where he was garrison commander.

He will continue his testimony when the trial resumes on Wednesday.

In general trial news, Milosevic announced that he needs at least another 422 hours (in-chief) to complete his defense case. He wants to call 199 more witnesses: 15 Kosovo witnesses, 74 Croatia witnesses, 106 Bosnia witnesses, and 4 hostile witnesses (Clinton, Blair, Schroeder, and Clark).

The judges, who have been reluctant to grant Milosevic more time in the past, have said that they will hold a status conference to consider the matter.

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