Written by: Andy Wilcoxson

Ante Markovic, the former Prime Minister of the SFRY, testified at against Slobodan Milosevic at the Hague "Tribunal" on Thursday.

While he was being examined by Mr. Nice, Markovic was perfectly content to hurl lies and accusations at Slobodan Milosevic; while making himself sound like the most courageous man who ever lived. He told a story about how he refused to have bodyguards and only protected himself by sleeping with a pistol under his pillow.

But when cross-examination started the tables were quickly turned on Markovic. President Milosevic had the transcripts from the August 21, 1991 SFRY presidency session, and in those transcripts it was shown that it was Markovic who exercised control of the JNA.

The transcript showed Markovic himself talking about how * he * sent JNA into Slovenia to take back the border posts that had been taken over by the Slovenian T.O. The transcript also showed Slobodan Milosevic and the Slovene President Milan Kucan taking about how Prime Minister Markovic had engaged the JNA in Slovenia.

It was clear from the transcripts that it was Markovic who was issuing orders to the JNA, and it is precisely Markovic who was in charge when the Yugoslav Federation began to collapse and the events took place in Dubrovnik and Vukovar.

Markovic couldn't even last 5 minutes under cross-examination before he was begging "judge" May for protection. He said "I'm not the one on trial here, I'm the witness!" and "The accused is trying to turn the indictment against him into an indictment against me, and I ask you to protect me." Mr. Markovic's courage quickly evaporated and he came off looking like a little girl hiding behind mommy's skirts.

Markovic was instantly on the defensive - he was trying to say that he didn't have any power that he was impotent that the JNA wasn't under his command. So here we have the federal prime minister, the president of the Federal Executive Council of Yugoslavia saying that he didn't have any control over the Yugoslav People's Army that it was really the president of one of the republics who controlled the army through some friendship that he had with the Federal Defense Minister.

Markovic was quickly exposed as a liar. He testified about a meeting that he had with Slobodan Milosevic in December of 1991, but what he didn't know was that President Milosevic had acquired his daily agenda book that was kept by his cabinet. This agenda book had all of Markovic's meetings listed in it, who he spoke with on the phone, who he had lunch with, etc...

The agenda book proved that the meeting that he had testified about never happened - he was making it up. Even though Markovic was clearly caught in a lie, he tried to say that it was some sort of a secret meeting - that he as the Federal Prime Minister sneaked away from his cabinet and met with the President of Serbia without telling anybody.

His daily agenda also proves that he was not as unimportant as he professed to be. He frequently met with high level officials both from inside and outside of Yugoslavia.

Ante Markovic could dish it out, but he couldn't take it. Actually - he couldn't even dish it out very well. He accused Slobodan Milosevic of being a dictator. He said that Milosevic had complete and total control over everything. After he made his speech "judge" May asked Markovic to give a specific example demonstrating that Milosevic had this sort of control. Markovic couldn't think of even one example, so Mr. Nice arranged it so that they could come back to the question after Markovic had a chance to think for a while.

Mr. Nice did in deed ask the question again, and even after a 20 minute recess had taken place and he had had lots of time to think about it, Markovic still couldn't think of even one example he could use to prove his baseless charge that Milosevic was a dictator. That fool couldn't even think of a good lie.

Mr. Markovic will be back to finish his cross-examination at a later date at which time Slobo can humiliate him some more.