RYZHKOV DEFENDS MILOSEVIC
www.slobodan-milosevic.org – November 22, 2004

Written by: Andy Wilcoxson

Former Soviet Prime Minister, Nikolai Ryzhkov testified as a defense witness at the Hague Tribunal’s trial of Slobodan Milosevic on Monday.

Ryzhkov, who is currently a member of the Russian Senate, blasted the NATO aggression against Yugoslavia. He read from a declaration of the Russian Duma, which said, “The NATO attack on Yugoslavia was aggression, which undermined the standards of international rights and the regulations of the United Nations Charter.”

Previously, Ryzkhov chaired a commission for Yugoslavia in the Russian Duma. It was in this capacity that he visited Yugoslavia both during and after NATO's 1999 aggression.

Addressing the Hague Tribunal, the Russian Senator said that while visiting Yugoslavia, he had seen numerous civilian facilities destroyed by NATO air strikes, but not a single military site in ruins. He also said he did not believe that NATO's aggression had anything to do with the protection of Kosovo Albanians.

Senator Ryzkhov said that the Russian government had already obtained information, as early as October of 1998, that NATO was planning to attack Yugoslavia.

Ryzkhov testified that the KLA was a terrorist organization. He said that the Russian Government had information confirming that the KLA financed itself though the sale of drugs. He said that 80% of the drugs coming out of Afghanistan are trafficked by these Kosovo-Albanian terrorists.

Mr. Ryzkhov also testified that the KLA contained 800 to 1,000 mercenaries from the Middle East in its ranks, and that the KLA received a large number of its weapons from German sources.

Ryzkhov said that the civilian population, regardless of their ethnicity, fled Kosovo in 1999 because of NATO’s bombing.

The witness testified that real ethnic cleansing did not begin in Kosovo until the UN peacekeepers occupied the province following the NATO bombing.

Senator Ryzkhov, who traveled to Kosovo as part of a Russian parliamentary delegation in August of 1999, testified that he personally witnessed ethnic Albanians burning non-Albanian houses and destroying Christian churches in an orgy of ethnic cleansing conducted against Serbs and other non-Albanians. He noted that the UN peacekeepers did nothing to stop any of this.

Mr. Ryzkhov submitted evidence of NATO and KLA war crimes to Carla Del Ponte on behalf of the Russian Government. He said that Ms. Del Ponte initially claimed to have jurisdiction to investigate these crimes, but that she later changed her position and refused to investigate the evidence.

Ryzkhov, as a leading Russian parliamentarian, frequently met with President Milosevic and other senior Serbian and Yugoslav leaders throughout the 1990s. 

Senator Ryzhkov personally saw the orders that had been issued to the Yugoslav Army regarding Kosovo. He said that these orders strictly prohibited looting, and that they stipulated the absolute protection of the civilian population. He said that those orders were strictly enforced, adding that the Serbian Interior Ministry arrested 172 Yugoslav servicemen for allegedly violating those orders.

Ryzhkov, speaking of the numerous meetings that he had with President Milosevic, said that Milosevic always strove for a peaceful solution to the Yugoslav crisis.

He also testified that neither Milosevic nor the leadership of Serbia or Yugoslavia ever expressed any intentions to create any kind of “Greater Serbia.”

Mr. Nice began his cross-examination by making a feeble attempt to challenge the credibility of the witness. In the past, Mr. Ryzhkov made a public statement about the unreliable nature of the witnesses that the prosecution was calling against Milosevic at The Hague. Mr. Nice challenged Ryzhkov to name just one false witness.   

Ryzhkov easily fulfilled Nice’s request and cited the example of Mustafa Draga, a Kosovo Albanian who told a far-fetched tale about surviving execution by Serbian police. Draga, who brought his “bullet-riddled” shirt to the tribunal as proof of the alleged execution attempt, cited divine providence as the reason why he was not hit by any of the bullets that supposedly tore holes all over the shirt that he was wearing.

Having failed to damage the credibility of the witness through any of his public statements, Nice turned his attention to the ethnicity of the witness.

Nice observed that Ryzhkov is a Russian-Slav, and that Serbs are Slavs. Apparently, by Mr. Nice’s logic, the ethnicity of the witness somehow damages his credibility.

Senator Ryzhkov was clearly surprised by the bigoted nature of Mr. Nice’s cross-examination. At one point he observed that the racist conduct that Nice was exhibiting would never be tolerated in a Russian court.

Mr. Nice’s conduct is disgraceful. This is not the first time that he has relied on bigotry to conduct his cross-examination of defense witnesses. When James Jatras testified, Mr. Nice exhibited a similar prejudice towards Greek Orthodox Christians.

Allowing a racist and a bigot, such as Mr. Nice, to prosecute Milosevic is like allowing the Ku Klux Klan to prosecute a Black man. It is truly revolting that the United Nations condones such despicable conduct, and allows it to occur in its name.

Senator Ryzhkov is set to conclude his testimony on Tuesday morning. General Leonid Ivashov, is rumored to be the next witness, followed by Yevgeny Primakov, who is expected to begin his evidence next Monday.

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