PRIMAKOV TAKES THE STAND AT THE MILOSEVIC TRIAL
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - November 30, 2004

Written by: Andy Wilcoxson

On Tuesday Yevgeny Primakov, chairman of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry appeared at the trial of Slobodan Milosevic as a witness for the defense.

Primakov is a well-known Russian politician and statesman. He headed Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service and Foreign Ministry. He also served as Russia’s Prime Minister during 1998 and 1999.

Primakov said that Milosevic had no plans for creating Greater Serbia. During a meeting on January 8, 1993, Primakov said he specifically asked Milosevic whether he had plans for a "Greater Serbia."

"He said this could only be achieved in theory and at the price of great bloodshed and 'I'm not prepared to do that,"' Primakov said of Milosevic's reply. "He had no plans and conducted no actions to achieve a Greater Serbia."

Milosevic supported the Vance-Owen plan for Bosnia, Primakov said.

Primakov testified that "Milosevic supported a solution based on two principles, equal rights and equality of all nations in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and decision making by a consensus. That proves that he had no plans for setting up 'greater Serbia'. Serbia even imposed sanctions against Republika Srpska when the Bosnian-Serb parliament rejected the Vance-Owen plan in the spring of 1993."

Primakov described the war in Bosnia as a civil war fuelled by foreign intervention, not as any sort of aggression by Serbia.

Primakov spoke of meetings that he had with Western diplomats such as Al Gore, James Woolsey, and Gerhard Schroder. He said that Madeline Albright told him that it was because of Milosevic’s initiative that the Dayton Peace Accords were reached, and the war in Bosnia was ended.

Primakov said the Western media had wrongly portrayed the Serbs as "aggressors" and after Bill Clinton was elected U.S. president in 1992, Washington became increasingly anti-Serb.

"It became ever more apparent that their course was to weaken Serbia, to not allow it to gain strength and possibly even to complete the process of Yugoslavia's complete disintegration," he told the tribunal.

Speaking about the talks in Rambouillet at the beginning of 1999 he said that Yugoslavia was faced with an ultimatum to either accept the so-called “Rombouillet Agreement” or be bombed by NATO.

Primakov is remembered for his decision, when NATO began bombing Yugoslavia in 1999, to abandon a visit to the US, ordering his aircraft to turn around over the Atlantic and return to Moscow.

Primakov said that Kosovo set the precedent for military action without a UN mandate. Saying that "This undermines undoubtedly the international order."

He told the tribunal that Helmut Kohl later expressed regret over the NATO bombing, admitting to him that it was “a historic mistake.”

Primakov said Milosevic tried to stop violence in Kosovo and told him on a visit to Belgrade at the beginning of the NATO bombing that he was prepared to pull forces out of Kosovo if NATO withdrew from the border with Macedonia.

Primakov said that the meeting "occurred after French president Jacques Chirac asked me to try to get sufficient signals for stopping the air strikes from Milosevic. We believed that we got such signals. We agreed about the return of refugees, a cease-fire, the beginning of negotiations, and the presence of international observers."

Primakov said that this should have been enough for Belgrade to secure an end to the bombing. However, Germany and the United States decided to carry on with the attack anyway. Primakov said that Western diplomats would not even hear him out.

"We never had the chance to tell what we had achieved," Primakov said. "Barely had our plane taken off then the bombing of the airport started."

Primakov stressed that the political options had not been exhausted when NATO began bombing Yugoslavia.

Mr. Primakov blamed the West, in particular Germany, for fueling violence in Kosovo. He said that the Western diplomats in the Contact Group promoted positions aimed at breaking Kosovo away from Serbia. Primakov said that the West supported the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) despite earlier labeling them as terrorists.

He attributed this changed attitude largely to German pressure, as Germany wanted to be rid of its Albanian refugees, who threatened to become a serious problem.

Primakov testified that terrorist attacks perpetrated by the KLA in 1998 derailed peace negotiations between Serbia’s President Milan Milutinovic, and the Kosovo-Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugovia.

"The initiators and provocateurs of so many events in Kosovo was the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army," he said, adding that the mass exodus of refugees from the region started only after NATO launched air strikes.

Asked by Milosevic whether the bombing had contributed to resolving the problems in Kosovo, Primakov said the Kosovo problem was by no means resolved. The Serbs have practically all left, and the bombing did not contribute to a solution.

Last week two other Russian witnesses appeared at the trial. They were Russian Senator Nikolai Ryzhkov, and the former Chief of Staff of the Russian Army Gen. Leonid Ivashov.

Primakov corroborated Gen. Ivashov’s testimony that NATO had planned and prepared the bombing of Yugoslavia long before any of the political pretexts put forward by NATO as justification for the bombing even existed.

The Milosevic trial will resume again on Wednesday.
 

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