COL. VUKOVIC'S CROSS-EXAMINATION: CLEANSING OR ETHNIC CLEANSING
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - November 1, 2005

Written by: Andy Wilcoxson

Prosecutor Geoffrey Nice continued his cross-examination Col. Vlatko Vukovic at the Hague Tribunal on Tuesday.

Mr. Nice continued to display his ignorance of Serbian and English grammar. Mr. Nice continued to insist that the Serbian word "ciscenje" can only mean one thing: ethnic cleansing. When the witness tried to set him straight the prosecutor resorted to childish name-calling accusing Vukovic of being "biased" and a "liar".

The Serbian term for ethnic cleansing is "etnicko ciscenje." The term "ciscenje" just means cleansing or to clean-up. It does not mean ethnic cleansing.

Mr. Nice had this same exact debate with Gen. Djosan on Monday, and Gen. Djosan gave almost exactly the same answer as Col. Vukovic. Both men roughly described cleansing as the process of removing the bad from the good. Their definition closely mirrors Webster's dictionary which defines the term "cleansing" as meaning: "to rid of impurities."

Mr. Nice put it to the witness that the term "ciscenje" actually means "expelling the people from their land." The prosecutor then proceeded to accuse the witness of "lying to conceal that". Vukovic responded in-kind by calling the prosecutor a liar, but was interrupted by Judge Robinson, who explained that the tribunal employs a double standard where the prosecutor is permitted to insult witnesses, but witnesses are not allowed to respond in-kind.

The fact that both Vukovic and Djosan used the same definition aroused suspicion in the prosecutor that maybe Vukovic and Djosan had conspired with one another to concoct a common definition. Although the more likely scenario is that Vukovic and Djosan actually know what the word means, and Mr. Nice doesn't.

The term "ciscenje" was a big deal because it appears in the log books and combat reports of Col. Vukovic's unit. The term "etnicko ciscenje" (ethnic cleansing) never appears, not even once.

Col. Vukovic explained that the term "ciscenje" applied exclusively to enemy forces. If an area was cleansed, then that meant that it had been cleansed of KLA terrorist forces, not cleansed of an ethnic group.

If Kosovo had been ethnically cleansed, then Mr. Nice might have had something here. But the fact of the matter is that in addition to the ethnic Albanian refugees, more than 100,000 Serbian refugees also fled from Kosovo during the time period covered by the indictment. Everybody was leaving Kosovo regardless of their ethnicity. The ratio of Albanians against Serbs never changed in Kosovo during the war. There was an exodus of the general population, not ethnic cleansing. Undoubtedly it was a humanitarian catastrophe; a catastrophe caused by NATO bombing and Albanian terrorism.

Ethnic cleansing occurred after UNMIK occupied Kosovo. When UNMIK occupied Kosovo, hordes of rampaging Albanian terrorists were permitted ethnically cleanse Kosovo of practically its entire non-Albanian population. This is real verifiable ethnic cleansing, the ratio of Albanians against non-Albanians has been radically altered in favor of Albanians. Unfortunately, the Hague Tribunal isn't interested in prosecuting real ethnic cleansing. The Hague Tribunal would rather accuse Milosevic for the humanitarian disaster that NATO and the Albanian terrorists caused in Kosovo. 

Mr. Nice continued cross-examining the witness regarding the events in Bela Crkva on March 25, 1999. Col. Vukovic claims that his unit only passed through Bela Crkva. They had been ordered to carry out an "energetic attack" against KLA forces there, but when they arrived in Bela Crkva there was no KLA present, so they had no need to carry out an attack. Col. Vukovic said that his men never even got out of their vehicles. He did report seeing a special police unit, but insists that he didn't see any combat or other violent activity.

Col. Vukovic's recollections are confirmed by his unit's war diary and log books. These are contemporaneous documents which were written before the indictment was issued. These documents reported no combat activity and no casualties. They reported that the mission was accomplished and that Bela Crkva was cleansed of KLA forces.

Unfortunately, there were problems and limitations with his unit's war diary. Vukovic explained that parts of the document were written by people who did not have a firm understanding of what was happening in the field. Several passages of the diary were based on a very short radio communications that were radioed back to the unit's command post. These radio communications never lasted more than 15 or 20 seconds, because longer communications would have given away the unit's position to NATO aircraft.

Col. Vukovic's cross-examination will continue tomorrow.

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