MILOSEVIC “TRIAL” SYNOPSIS: THE CROSS-EXAMINATION OF BORISLAV JOVIC - PART II

www.slobodan-milosevic.org – November 20, 2003

Written by Andy Wilcoxson

The testimony of former SFRY presidency member Borislav Jovic was concluded today. The majority of the first session was spent discussing various peace initiatives, and everything basically boiled down to this. Serbia and Slobodan Milosevic personally supported practically every peace plan to come down the pike. Serbia and Yugoslavia’s efforts were directed towards stopping the war and finding a just political solution to the conflicts in Croatia and Bosnia that respected the equality of all of the parties.

To highlight Serbia’s position President Milosevic read out a statement that the Government of Serbia issued on August 30, 1991 that said that the Yugoslav crisis should be settled peacefully and democratically. Jovic then confirmed that this was Serbia’s position.

Jovic said that Serbia and Milosevic’s position at the beginning of the crisis was that all nations who wished to leave Yugoslavia should be allowed to do so, while the nations who wished to remain in Yugoslavia should be permitted to stay.

Simply put the right of people to remain in Yugoslavia had to be equal to the right of people to leave Yugoslavia. To accomplish this Serbia and the SFRY presidency endeavored to have a law on succession passed so that succession could be regulated by the law, and conflicts could be avoided. Unfortunately, Croatia blocked such a law from being passed in the Federal Assembly.

Once the fighting started in Bosnia and Croatia Jovic confirmed that Milosevic’s position was that the hostilities should immediately cease and peace negotiations should take place on the principle of equality.

Serbia’s only goal from the outset was to find a solution that was fair to both the Serbs and the Croats in Croatia. Jovic confirmed that everything Serbia did in regard to Croatia was geared towards finding a solution that was fair to both parties.

Jovic testified that neither Serbia nor Yugoslavia had any desire to conquer any Croatian territory. Serbia and Yugoslavia’s acceptance and support for the Vance plan proves this fact. Under the Vance plan the JNA withdrew from Croatia, and the UN soldiers came in. If the aim of Yugoslavia had been to conquer Croatia then certainly it wouldn’t have withdrawn its army.

Jovic considered that the primary cause of the war in Croatia was Croatia’s decision to throw the Serbs out of the constitution, and deny them their status as a constituent people. Croatia banned the Cyrillic alphabet, and Tudjman had plans to ban the Serbian Orthodox Church in Croatia.

Jovic had published in his book (that has been introduced into evidence) minutes of a meeting where Tudjman spoke in Cleveland. The meeting took place before Tudjman came to power. At the meeting Tudjman was laying out the HDZ’s plans for Croatia, and these plans included a ban on the Serbian Orthodox Church and a ban on the term “Serb”. According to Tudjman’s plans Serbs would be called “Orthodox Croats.”

Outlawing being a Serb in Croatia was only one part of Tudjman’s plans. The primary aim of the HDZ, according to the minutes of the meeting was to break Croatia away from Yugoslavia.

Jovic recounted one occasion when Franjo Tudjman accused him of instigating a Serb rebellion in the Krajina. Jovic pointed out that the rebellion only began after Tudjman threw the Serbs out of the constitution and banned the Cyrillic alphabet. Therefore, it was Tudjman’s actions and not Jovic’s that provoked the rebellion.

In response to this Milosevic asked if anybody in the Government of Serbia had ever attempted to incite an armed rebellion by the Krajina Serbs, and Jovic replied that such an attempt had never been made.

When the discussion turned to the Bosnian war, the Cutileiro peace plan was discussed. Milosevic read out a quote from Cutliero where he said in regard to the Muslim decision to withdraw from the plan that “they have obviously opted for war and they must bear a great responsibility.” Jovic then confirmed that this was the reaction that was expressed at the time.

The fact that Izetbegovic renounced the peace plan, and withdrew his signature from it before the war ever started proves that the war in Bosnia can be attributed exclusively to him, and Cutliero’s statement bears that out. The Cutliero plan could have stopped the war before it started, but Izetbegovic opted for war instead of peace.

Jovic confirmed that Serbia and Milosevic personally supported the Cutliero plan. The fact that Serbia led by Milosevic supported a peace plan that called for an independent Bosnia proves that Serbia had no territorial aspirations towards Bosnia whatsoever.

Jovic confirmed that Milosevic and the whole Serbian and Yugoslav leadership condemned ethnic cleansing regardless of who was committing it, and demanded that people engaged in such a crime be punished. Jovic also said that Milosevic emphatically, repeatedly, and publicly condemned the shelling of Sarajevo.

Jovic confirmed that tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslim refugees sought shelter, and were given accommodation in Serbia. From this fact alone it is quite obvious that Serbia wasn’t engaged in any sort of genocide against the Muslims.

President Milosevic asked if either he or the Government ever put forward any plan or enacted any plan that sought to deny any ethnic group or minority their equal rights, and President Milosevic specifically mentioned the Kosovo Albanians.

Jovic responded that the policy of the Serbian Government and Slobodan Milosevic in particular was that every citizen had to be equal regardless of their ethnicity.

Ante Markovic was a topic of discussion. According to Jovic, Ante Markovic was the extended arm of the U.S. Government in Yugoslavia. Jovic said that Markovic’s goal was to topple socialism in Yugoslavia, particularly the government of Serbia.

It turns out that Jovic wrote another book that the OTP didn’t know about. The book “The Dismemberment of Yugoslavia” outlined how Ante Markovic almost single-handedly destroyed Yugoslavia’s economy. According to Jovic, no one man did more damage to Yugoslavia than Ante Markovic.

When Ante Markovic testified he represented himself as some sort of economic savior, but Jovic had a different story. Jovic said that Markovic conducted his economic policy on behalf of foreign interests, with an aim to sabotage the Serbian economy in order to topple the Serbian government.

Jovic explained how Markovic introduced a program whereby the Yugoslav dinar was convertible at a ratio of 7 dinars for 1 deutschemark. Jovic explained that on the basis of Markovic’s program citizens went out and converted their savings into deutschemarks.

What happened according to Jovic was that Markovic raided the foreign exchange reserves of the SFRY, and the citizens who had converted their money into deutschemarks were unable to get their money back out of the banks, and had to be issued what amounted to IOU’s by the state.

Jovic explained that Markovic used the money from the SFRY’s foreign exchange reserves to pay Croatia’s debt.  Markovic’s so-called “economic reforms” were a scam that increased the SFRY’s debt many fold.

The Amicus Curiae, Mr. Tapuskovic also brought up Ante Markovic. Tapuskovic had acquired the stenogram of the 12 July 1991 presidency meeting at which Markovic (who was the federal prime minister) was present.

From the stenogram it could be seen quite clearly that Ante Markovic, in violation of the constitution, had in fact ordered the JNA to take over border and customs posts on Slovenia’s external borders. It could also be seen from the stenogram that the SFRY presidency was against this unlawful deployment of the JNA by Markovic.

Markovic had simply taken it upon himself to issue the orders when the SFRY presidency was on a break, and the army had executed his orders in spite of the fact that he didn’t have the authority to issue them. This is an important point because when Markovic testified he denied ever doing this, but it was proven today that he did.

Earlier in the cross-examination Jovic told Milosevic about how Slovenia had irrationally linked itself to Croatia.

Slovenia is a fairly mono-ethnic republic. All of the Slovenes pretty much live in Slovenia, and its population is over 90% Slovene. Slovenia’s succession from Yugoslavia should have been pretty easy. Where as Croatia’s succession was more difficult because two ethnic groups lived there, the Serbs who wanted to stay in Yugoslavia, and the Croats who wanted to leave Yugoslavia.

For some reason, instead of just leaving the Yugoslav federation, as it could have easily done, Slovenia linked itself to Croatia and demanded the disassociation of the SFRY. The question arises why was it any of Slovenia’s business what the rest of Yugoslavia did? Slovenia wanted to leave.

Jovic theorized that Slovenia acted the way it did because it was endeavoring to break-up Yugoslavia on behalf of foreign interests, predominantly German and American interests.

Jovic said that Slovenia launched an unprovoked attack against the JNA. The JNA only had 6,000 troops in Slovenia, and the Slovene paramilitary numbered 55,000. According to Jovic Slovenia wanted to prove to the other Yugoslav republics that it won its independence by violent armed rebellion, and Ante Markovic’s illegal orders to the engage the JNA in Slovenia only helped the Slovenes to more effectively create this scenario.

After Slovenia left, Croatia announced its succession. Croatia pursued a fait accompli policy. Croatian paramilitaries attacked the JNA and blocked it in its barracks. The Croatian idea was to achieve international recognition first, and then deal with the Serbs later. Unfortunately, Croatia got its wish.

At the same time as Slovenia and Croatia were engaged in violent succession Germany was putting pressure on the EC to grant recognition to the secessionist republics. Initially Germany was the only country in the EC that wanted to recognize Croatia and Slovenia, but the Germans threatened to withdraw from the EC if Slovenia and Croatia were not recognized and so the EC acquiesced to German demands and granted recognition to Croatia and Slovenia.

According to Jovic’s book there is evidence that the Germans were endeavoring to break-up and provoke civil-war in Yugoslavia. According to Jovic’s testimony a video tape exists where the former Slovene assembly speaker France Bucar can be seen discussing various ways to start a civil war in Yugoslavia with a German spy.

Jovic said that there was also intelligence data that suggested Croatian paramilitaries were receiving training in Germany.

According to Jovic the United States originally opposed the break-up of Yugoslavia. However, Jovic believed that the United States was so Hell-bent on getting rid of communism that the Americans elected to get rid of communism in Yugoslavia by breaking-up the country, and then dealing with the individual pieces.

Simply put, in Jovic’s estimation, the USA’s objective was to get rid of the communists in Yugoslavia, and the method that America ultimately used to achieve its goal was the destruction of Yugoslavia itself.

Then the cross-examination turned to personal issues regarding Milosevic, and issues internal to the SPS, although one other important point was raised. Jovic and Milosevic both agreed there were hundreds of newspapers, TV stations, and radio stations operating in Serbia that were not controlled by the government. Only the state-owned media was influenced by the state.

After President Milosevic concluded his cross-examination; the Amicus Curiae Mr. Tapuskovic cross-examined Jovic.

As I mentioned earlier Tapuskovic had acquired the stenogram of the 12 July 1991 SFRY presidency session, when Ante Markovic is caught issuing illegal orders to the JNA.

There were some other interesting things taking place at that same presidency session. For example the Yugoslav Defense Minister, Veljko Kadijevic was reporting that paramilitary formations on SFRY territory numbered approximately 200,000 men, whereas the JNA only numbered 140,000 men.

In view of this shocking information Kadijevic is asking for the JNA to disarm these paramilitaries before what had happened in Slovenia repeats itself elsewhere in the country.

In this stenogram it can be seen quite clearly that Stjepan Mesic opposed the disarming of paramilitary formations. Mesic considered that the JNA should go to its barracks, but by that time Croatian paramilitaries were already blocking and laying siege on JNA barracks in Croatia. Mesic essentially wanted the JNA to be prisoners.

Jovic opposed the election of Mesic to the presidency in the first place. However, he explained that the EC prevailed upon the presidency and insisted that they accept Mesic, even though Mesic had already stated quite clearly that he wanted to destroy Yugoslavia.

After Mr. Tapuskovic’s cross-examination was cut off, Mr. Robinson brought up the fact that the prosecution was seeking tender the BBC documentary “The Death of Yugoslavia” as an exhibit. Robinson observed that Jovic had appeared in the documentary and asked if it was an accurate documentary, and if it accurately represented him.

Mr. Jovic gave a critique of the BBC documentary that the BBC probably won’t use in any of its advertising. Jovic denounced the BBC program as being “contrived and incorrect,” and he said that the BBC took his interview out of its proper context.

Mr. Jovic was then re-examined by Mr. Nice. Nice was obviously on a fishing expedition. He was trying to get Jovic to say something in order to incriminate himself. Nice was trying to lay the foundation for an indictment against Jovic. Nice didn’t succeed, although I don’t think that will stop The Hague “tribunal” from issuing an indictment anyway. Since when has The Hague “tribunal” been afraid to issue unfounded indictments against Serbs?

On the bright side Nice’s failed fishing expedition did give Jovic the chance to bring up one other additional point; Croatia and Slovenia did not separate from Yugoslavia in accordance with the laws of Yugoslavia. Jovic pointed out that the Constitutional Court of Yugoslavia had made its ruling and found their succession to be in violation of the SFRY constitution.

After Nice finished the so-called “tribunal” adjourned. It will reconvene again on Monday.

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