B-H PRESIDENCY MEMBER TIHIC TESTIFIES AGAINST MILOSEVIC

www.slobodan-milosevic.org - December 2, 2003

Two witnesses testified at the so-called “trial” of Slobodan Milosevic today. The first witness was a secret witness codenamed “C-57.” He concluded his testimony after testifying last Thursday.

C-57 was an officer in the JNA. Apparently he or his unit was serving in Borovo Selo, Dalj, and Erdut in Croatia.

C-57 testified that the JNA’s orders were to separate the warring factions in Croatia. C-57 defined the warring factions as the Croatian MUP and the Serbian population and T.O. Units.

According to C-57 members of the JNA swore an oath to defend Yugoslavia’s territorial integrity and its constitutional order from internal and external attack. On Thursday the prosecution made a big deal about the term “internal enemy” appearing in orders issued to the JNA. Today under cross-examination C-57 defined an “internal enemy” as anybody who was attempting to overthrow the constitutional order or damage the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia.  

C-57 said that looting was prohibited by the JNA, but that it occurred in spite of efforts to stop it. C-57 also said that the JNA had orders to respect the Geneva Conventions, and that nobody issued the JNA orders not to respect them.  

C-57 described one incident when a member of the JNA cut the ears off of a Croatian POW. The problem here is that C-57 never reported the incident and so the JNA leadership never had a chance to punish the perpetrator, because quite simply they didn’t know about the incident.

C-57 also said a couple of words about volunteers. C-57 said that the Serbian Radical Party sent volunteers to Croatia and that those volunteers were suborned to the local T.O., and that they had nothing to do with the Government of Serbia.

After C-57 withdrew, B-H Presidency member Sulejman Tihic testified. Tihic claimed that he had been captured and beaten by paramilitaries, after which he was turned over to the JNA and allegedly beaten by them in a JNA prison facility in Serbia.

The drama was high when Mr. Groome played a video tape of President Milosevic shaking hands with a JNA soldier named Jovanovic, since according to Tihic one of the men who beat him was named Jovanovic. Amazing! The man who allegedly beat Tihic and the man on the tape both had one of the most common Serbian surnames that there is. What amazing proof!

Mr. Groome’s next question proved to be rather anti-climactic. Groome asked Tihic if this was the same Jovanovic who had beaten him, and Tihic couldn’t tell if it was him or not.

Tihic has a gift for denying the obvious. For example, Tihic says that he supports the cantonization of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the abolition of the entities, which he says is in accordance with Annex 4 of the Dayton Accords. The only problem is that Annex 4 of the Dayton Accords says “Bosnia and Herzegovina shall consist of the two Entities, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska.” No mention is made of cantonization, and the entities that Tihic wants to abolish are the whole basis behind the Dayton Accords.

Tihic says that that he supports the Dayton Accords, but in reality he wants to do away with them in order to abolish the Republika Srpska. Tihic is not a truthful person. He even denies concrete facts that anybody can verify in order to advance his own agenda, but then again he is a politician.

Tihic claimed that he was forced to make false statements to the media by the JNA. He says that they forced him to say that nobody was beating him, that there was proper food, medical care, that he was allowed to take walks, and that he wanted to stay in Serbia so as to escape the war.

Transcripts of Tihic’s interviews were produced and he made no mention about any of those things. He said nothing about the food, the medical care, the beatings, or wanting to remain in Serbia. On the contrary, in the interview he said that he wanted to go back to Bosnia.

Shortly after the JNA withdrew from Bosnia, Tihic got his wish and was sent back to Bosnia. It should be noted here that previous prosecution witnesses have testified that the JNA was under the command of the SFRY presidency and not under the control of Slobodan Milosevic.

The fact that the JNA had a facility in Serbia is nothing unusual since Serbia, like Bosnia, was part of Yugoslavia. Tihic could just have easily been in a JNA prison in Bosnia as Serbia.

Because of the untruthful nature of Tihic’s testimony President Milosevic expressed doubt that the JNA had beaten Tihic at all.

Tihic was at a loss for proof, he was a lawyer before the war, but when he showed-up in “court” today he had no proof that his ribs were broken or that his teeth were knocked out. He said that X-rays were made and that the OTP might have them, but that he didn’t have them with him, and indeed the prosecutor never produced them. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want this clown for my lawyer.

Tihic was given to making outlandish claims. He claimed that the JNA would bus prisoners through villages in Serbia, and stop the busses in the villages so that the local Serbs could get onto the busses and beat the prisoners. Tihic had the claimed that this was all done in front of UNPROFOR, the Red Cross, and the media. Apparently, nobody made any reports about this therefore the so-called "joint criminal enterprise" must be bigger than we thought.

Before the war Tihic was the president of the SDA in Bosanski Samac. Under cross-examination from President Milosevic Tihic admitted that Muslims there were arming themselves for months before the war ever started, he also admitted that Muslims who joined the JNA were branded as traitors by other Muslims.

Of course the fact that Muslims didn’t join the JNA lest they be branded as traitors by other Muslims didn’t stop Tihic from being critical of the JNA’s ethnic composition.

It turns out that the prosecution had a copy of a diary that Tihic kept. The prosecution claims that it provided this diary to President Milosevic back in March, but that they just didn’t put Tihic’s name on it. At any rate, President Milosevic might recall Tihic tomorrow to cross-examine him on questions that arise from this diary that he just today, during the witness’s testimony, learned had come from the Tihic.

The proceedings ended today with some interesting administrative matters. The U.S. Government wants to know what questions Wesley Clark will be asked before he testifies. It appears as though they are busily primping the perfumed prince for his big debut.

Wesley Clark will testify behind closed doors, the U.S. Government has been given the right to redact the transcripts and edit the video tapes, and now they want to know the questions in advance. This so-called “trial” is a pathetic joke; the ICTY is a travesty of justice. It is a worthless puppet court whose sole objective is to provide retroactive justification for NATO and the U.S. Government’s criminal aggression against Yugoslavia.

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