THE YUGOSLAV ARMY COULD NOT EVEN SEE RACAK FROM ITS POSITION
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - December 1, 2005

Written by: Andy Wilcoxson

Lt. Col. Janos Sel did not continue his testimony at the Hague Tribunal on Wednesday, because the prosecution will not have time to review work notebook until next week.

In the mean time Milosevic called Gen. Krsman Jelic to the witness stand. Jelic was stationed in Kosovo from 1994 until the Yugoslav Army (VJ) withdrew in 1999. He was the commander of the Urosevac garrison, and the commander of the 243rd Armored Brigade.

Gen. Jelic began his testimony with testimony about the KLA. He said that the KLA began carrying out organized attacks in February 1998. He said that these early attacks were usually perpetrated by small groups of two or three terrorists. As the war went on, the KLA strengthened, their attacks became more severe and their numbers grew. The most radical growth of the KLA occurred during the deployment of the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission (OSCE/KVM).

Gen. Jelic testified about the orders VJ personnel were given. These orders called for the rational use of weapons. The orders stipulated that care should be taken not to damage civilian facilities, and that soldiers should only fire if fired upon. The orders also prohibited looting or any other act that would harm civilians.

The witness presented a number of daily reports that detailed KLA activity in his area of responsibility. According to these reports, the KLA forcibly mobilized Albanian men into service, and forced civilians from their homes in order to use them as human shields during combat.

The indictment, and prosecution witness Joseph Maisonneuve, claim that VJ troops - led by Gen. Jelic - opened fire on Racak on January 15, 1999.

Gen. Jelic testified that his unit was the only unit in the area and that it did not fire on Racak. Nor could it have fired on Racak even if it had wanted to. The unit was deployed 1 kilometer away from Racak behind Canovica hill. From this position, behind the hill, the army could not even see Racak.

Gen. Jelic explained that the only combat his unit saw on January 15th was when a group of terrorists opened fire on his men from the direction of Belince. His unit returned fire in self-defense. Other than that his unit didn't do anything that day. It never fired on Racak or entered Racak. The only thing his unit did that even remotely related to Racak was provide security on the road leading to Racak.

Gen. Jelic testified that Racak had been a base to some 120 KLA terrorists who constantly launched attacks against the army and police. He did not have any information to corroborate accusations that the police had carried out a massacre against civilians there.

After testifying about Racak, Gen. Jelic turned his attention to events in the Kacanik municipality.

The indictment alleges that between March and May 1999, Serbian forces attacked villages in the Kacanik municipality as well as the town of Kacanik itself. These attacks allegedly resulted in the destruction of the mosques of Kotlina and Ivaja. The indictment claims that Serb troops harassed, detained, beat, and shot Kosovo Albanian residents of Kacanik, and forced them to go to Macedonia.

The Kacanik municipality fell within Gen. Jelic's area of responsibility. Contrary to the indictment, Jelic testified that the town of Kacanik was never attacked. He said that the authorities controlled Kacanik the whole time, and so there was never any need to attack it.

He explained that several people fled Kacanik because a huge NATO ground force was directly across the border in Macedonia. If NATO had decided to launch a ground invasion, Kacanik would have been the first place they hit, and the combat would have been very intense. In such a scenario Kacanik would not be a good place to be.

Gen. Jelic said that the allegation that the Kotlina and Ivaja mosques were destroyed was false. He said that those mosques were still intact when the army withdrew from Kosovo.

Even though the army controlled the town of Kacanik itself, it did not fully control the outlying areas. Villages such as Kotlina and Slatina were home to the 162nd and 163rd brigades of the KLA. According to Gen. Jelic, these outlying areas were the site of fighting between the KLA and the VJ.

Schedule L of the Kosovo indictment lists the names of those allegedly killed by Serbian troops in the Kacanik municipality. Gen. Jelic looked at the list of names and noted that, with few exceptions, the dead were men of fighting age. Obviously the indictment had taken the names of the KLA's combat casualties and listed them as the victims of war crimes.

Gen. Jelic reiterated his testimony that the army did not attack civilians. He said that all of the operations undertaken in the areas surrounding Kacanik were directed exclusively against KLA terrorists - not against the civilian population.

The trial will resume next Tuesday with the continuation of Lt. Col. Janos Sel's cross-examination. After Lt. Col. Sel finishes his testimony, Gen. Delic will continue giving evidence.

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