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Back to index to Milosevic statement
FAILURE OF THE PROSECUTION TO MAKE ITS CASE These are all the facts that I managed to present over this short period of time. This is only the tip of the iceberg. And now what have you come up with against these undisputable material facts and historical facts? In this false indictment, you mechanically compiled in an unnatural way a series of events - and crimes, no doubt - and you branded it a joint criminal enterprise without a shred of evidence. And you only talk about some kind of plan and intention of the Serbs. However, this so-called Prosecution relies on a unique concept called joint criminal enterprise, and that in itself proves that they cannot establish guilt. There is absence of evidence and of any intent, and that is the only thing that could compel one to resort to such a nebulous construction, joint criminal enterprise. In other words, when there is proof and evidence of something someone did and of intent, then an illegal Prosecution does not have to think up some joint criminal enterprise. Then it uses evidence concerning the actual deeds committed and the intent. When a prosecutor does not have evidence and cannot establish guilt, then they resort to that, and then in this way they dodge the obligation which is called burden of proof, and that is part of any legal judicial system. This was conceived so that without proving guilt innocent people can be charged. And of course that is sheer mutilation of justice, nothing else. What it says there are empty words. You explain in these indictments, in these charges, in these alleged indictments, you speak of crimes that we did not commit. And you explain it by intent that we never had. That is your concept. I don't want to go into the question of Bosnia and Croatia again where Serbia did not have any jurisdiction, but we did assist the Serbs. Of course we did. And we would have been the scum of the earth had we not helped them when their lives were in peril. And our greatest wish was to establish peace and the greatest assistance was that in Serbia over all of those ten years there was no discrimination on ethnic grounds against anyone in any way. When speaking of Kosovo, there is not a single shred of evidence that any crime was committed. Not only on anyone's orders but also with any kind of previous knowledge of the generals in command. And you have indicted four generals. Not a single one of them issued any orders to that effect. Not a single one of them had any knowledge about anything that could have constituted a crime before these crimes actually happened.
RECORD OF THE SERB GOVERNMENT IN PROSECUTING CRIMINALS You have accused the political leadership and the military leadership of Serbia and Yugoslavia, and you have all the evidence showing that whatever happened in Kosovo and Metohija was during the bombing, the day and night bombing, and that the legal authorities brought to justice those who committed crimes. Even your witness here, General Vasiljevic, confirmed the details about a meeting that I had with the top echelons of the military, of the General Staff, and that I personally insisted that all perpetrators should be arrested. And he even quoted me as saying that no one should have it easy and that everyone, including General Ojdanic, who is sitting in this prison, totally innocent, and then further on these four generals who you have indicted, Lazarevic, Pavkovic, Djordjevic, and Lukic, everybody had the same position. And even the leadership, the Supreme Command along the vertical line acted by way of prevention, that is to say forbidding the existence of paramilitary formations. There are written reports and I have tendered them into evidence -- or, rather, I shall tender them into evidence through the testimony of witnesses. There are hundreds of reports of military courts, of military prosecutors' offices regarding the perpetrators of various crimes. The first reports start already at the end of March 1999 and then they move on. What else could the executive government have done and the judiciary in any country as well as the chain of command but to categorically insist on the Prosecution of all perpetrators of crimes and to make sure through the reports it gets that this is being done? This is what we did under the most difficult of circumstances, under conditions of daily bombing. Some trials were completed and the perpetrators convicted even before the bombing ended. In these two years of presentation of evidence, you have not presented a shred of evidence to the contrary. Throughout these two years you have not presented a shred of evidence or a single testimony that might indicate a link between a crime that was committed or a criminal with the troop commanders, the generals you have indicted, or the political leadership of Serbia, or me personally. On the contrary, you have evidence that we did our utmost to prevent crimes, and if crimes were committed - and this is possible even in peacetime let alone during wartime and especially during ethnic conflicts - that they should be prosecuted under the law. In Serbia in the Sabac District Court in 1993, the first of these trials was held, and you have information to that effect. On the other side, you have all the evidence that we were the ones who were the most persistent in achieving peace and who can claim the most credit for achieving peace, that we saved millions of refugees on the principle of non-discrimination, because tens of thousands of Muslim refugees found refuge in Serbia. We freed French pilots and other hostages. You can see what was done to achieve this through materials you yourselves have. And all we could do was insist and beg and exert pressure because we had no other powers. But we succeeded in this. Please look at these interviews, because this is enough for you to understand that all these charges make no sense. On the other side, you can see what evidence you have on the role of the Croatian political leadership in ethnic cleansing and the plan and the achievement of the plan both before and after 1990. You even have stenograms. We received some of these from you, and we were able to see them here, from which you can see the fabrication of excuses for the perpetration of crimes during Operations Flash and Storm. You have evidence of the role of the Clinton administration in all this, and you will receive more evidence. You have written evidence about those who made all these decisions, because in each of the stenograms of the so-called VONS, the Council of Defence and National Security, you can see who was present there. You also have evidence of crimes against the Serbs based on decisions by the Muslim leadership. Kljuc testified here, a former member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and on the basis of the stenogram I asked him about this because you can see that Izetbegovic knew about the camps where people were illegally detained for years on end, and you will be able to hear more testimony about this. You have everything you need about the Croatian and the Muslim leaderships but not about the leadership of Republika Srpska, the Republika Srpska Krajina, and Serbia. You have evidence from the testimony of your own protected witness who was an important political leader that what Milan Martic said to me was correct, that is that in the Krajina, including in Knin itself, the Croats who remained were being treated as equal citizens and that there is absolutely no discrimination whatsoever.
PLEA BARGAINING WITNESSES: ERDEMOVIC AND DERONJIC I think that what I'm going to say now deserves more time, but I will be very brief and simply just touch upon it. And this is the matter of witnesses who reached a plea agreement with this so-called Prosecution, and this is, I dare say, an example of the fabrication of false witnesses. I think that this is an unprecedented event. When one of these witnesses, when I asked him how he could have signed that in Srebrenica 7.000 Muslims were shot, he explained that his defence sent a letter in which it promised not to challenge numbers. So you could have written down 70.000. You could have written down whatever you wanted. Before the Bosnia case, I put forward information my collaborators succeeded in collecting which throws serious doubt on your constructions about Srebrenica. In the meantime, we have heard the testimony of General Morillon who testified here that Srebrenica was a trap for Mladic who confirmed that in his opinion, and he knew Mladic well, Mladic could never have issued such an order. And this is in accordance with what I believe. I do not believe Mladic could have issued such an order. His honour would never have allowed him to do such a dishonourable thing. But there will be witnesses called to testify about all this. And what I want to say is that I think it's in the interests of both Serbs and Muslims that the truth about Srebrenica should come to light rather than a false myth be created. Your fabrication of false witnesses and the pressures of Paddy Ashdown on the leadership of Republika Srpska, which is synchronised with what you are doing, this will not be sufficient to perpetrate this double crime, this double crime which insults both the dead and the living. Everyone should be interested in establishing the truth about Srebrenica so that those who perpetrated crimes might be punished and those who are innocent might be released and set free of any charges or doubts that they committed such a dishonourable thing. You did not make use of Erdemovic to get information from him. You did not make use of any of the things you could have made use of to establish the truth. I hope, I can only hope that some of the witnesses - I am trying, through my collaborators, because I myself cannot do it, of course - I hope they will throw more light on what happened there. But to go back to this witness or two other witnesses whom you have here who made plea agreements. You then had such protected witnesses, because you had the public testimony of Miroslav Deronjic, and his own mother should not speak to him in view of what he said he did, that he killed a whole village after guaranteeing its security. First, he guaranteed its security and then slaughtered the whole village. You forgave him all of that only so that he would lie against Karadzic. And you have Karadzic's order to the troops in Srebrenica in your hands to the effect that they should look after the civilians and adhere to the Geneva Conventions. This was sent in writing to the troops. And then someone like Deronjic comes along to testify that Karadzic allegedly whispered in his ear that they should all be killed. This does not make sense, and it's not even worth discussing. No normal man could comprehend it, especially when someone signs a document about the shooting of 7.000 men because he's obliged not -- obliged not to challenge any figures.
MILOSEVIC'S 1989 SPEECH IN KOSOVO POLJE Not to mention other matters that you made use of here. You made use of my speech, you built it into the very foundation of your indictment when you first opened your mouths in 2002, my speech in Gazimestan where I allegedly fanned the flames of Serb nationalism. I am proud of that speech to this day, because it is everything else, but it is certainly not the awakening of some sort of negative atmosphere. On the contrary. But you are not the only ones to participate in this. This has been repeated by many Western politicians. There is almost no newspaper that has not written about it. The lie has been repeated innumerable times, but not in '89. To put it correctly, then, it's only ten years later that this happened. I have no time to dwell on this, but I will take it as an example of the way manipulations and lies are perpetrated. Robin Cook, on the 28th of June, 1999, ten years later, says: "[In English] ... not to give a message of hope and reform. Instead, he threatened force to deal with Yugoslavia's internal political difficulties, doing so thereby launched his personal agenda of power and ethnic hatred under the cloak of nationalism." I have here any number of quotations dating from 1999, 2000, 2001. Look at The Independent, the 1st of July, 2001: "[In English] ... without his agenda, more than a million Serbs; at the battle of Kosovo, 600, anniversary celebration, as he openly threatens force to hold the six-republic federation together." You have quotations here from Time magazine, even from The Economist. They are all quoting lies. I have now quoted from The Independent, the 1st of July, 2001. Now I will quote The Independent from the 29th of June, 1989. The same newspaper, it says: "[In English] The President made not one aggressive reference to Albanian counter-revolutionaries ..." Counter-revolution is a definition put forward by the party leadership in 1981. "[In English] ... of mutual tolerance, building a rich and democratic society and ending the discord which he said led to Serbia's defeat here by the Turks six centuries ago." And then The Independent quotes my words when they report it: "'[In English] There is no more appropriate place than this field of Kosovo to say that accord and harmony in Serbia are vital to the prosperity of the Serbs and of all other citizens living in Serbia regardless of their nationality or religion,' he said. 'Mutual tolerance and cooperation were also sine qua non for Yugoslavia.'" And then they quote me: "[In English] Relations on the basis of equality among Yugoslav peoples are a precondition for its existence for overcoming the crisis." Therefore, when they received orders that they should lie, they did not even read their own newspapers from the time they first reported. But I have no time to dwell on this now. And the quotations you can find not all that easily, but you have the Lexis Nexis programme on the BBC. You can find my original speech which the BBC translated, and you can find it there even today, where it says, for example, this is taken from the BBC: "[In English] [Previous translation continues] ... only Serbs living in it. Today, more than in the past, members of other peoples and nationalities also live in it. This is not a disadvantage for Serbia. I am truly convinced that this is an advantage. Citizens of different nationalities, religions and race have been living together more and more frequently and more and more successfully. Therefore, all people in Serbia who live from their own work, honestly, respecting other people and other nations, are in their own republic." There is no point in taking up my time, using up my time on this. I just wanted to illustrate the scale to which the abuses go, in particular the abuses in a procedure which pretends or aspires to be a legal procedure, because intellectuals, authors, literary critics, publicists, scientists believe it is immoral to take out of context a few sentences. But you did not only take out of context pieces -- sentences, but you took out of context parts of sentences in order to create your constructs.
POLICY STATEMENT ON KOSOVO, 1998 But we will have time later. In any case, this is -- it seems to me it is not something that is difficult to establish. I am not citing that here for any other reason but to show in which way lies are being put forward unscrupulously. You can look at this policy, and I'm talking about national equality as the only principle on which one can proceed further, and it has continuity over ten years. We have the transcript of a party conference in 1998 here, and it's a transcript where we have all the members sitting together from the ruling party, which, amongst other things, the meeting discussed Kosovo. This was not discussed for the newspaper, this was a discussion with the political leadership, including all the ministers, members of government, members of the parliament from the ruling party. I would just like to read only a brief part, my conclusion. And I say, as far as Kosovo is concerned, I'm saying who submitted the introductory remarks, what the majority was, and then I say: "Our policy to resolve the problem of Kosovo is to do it by political means," so we're talking about 1998 now, the 10th of June, 1998. "Our policy is to resolve the problem of Kosovo by political means. We are approaching that settlement in view of our conviction and our programme which implies the principle of national equality. We do not want to damage or inflict damage on the Albanians, and we do not want Albanians in Kosovo to be citizens of second class." And then I speak about how many think that perhaps the majority of Albanians are in favour, and I say: "It is not true that all of them are for it. Perhaps the majority is depending on the pressure exerted on them, what was explained to them, how this explanation was given about their future perspectives and everything else. We must discuss this and we must take this approach. We must have a political resolution on the principles of national equality. We must keep in mind that those who were manipulated in this way, these are unhappy people who are manipulated with just like any poor people in the world are, by the powerful, by the manipulators throughout the world whose objective is to destabilise South-Eastern Europe where they constantly need to have an alibi in order to keep the military forces of the great powers there." And then at the end I say Dialogue: "The dialogue which was started is not reserved for the state committee and representatives of Albanian political parties," and then I mention them, all those from the state commission, I mention them individually. "The dialogue is not reserved only for them and it is not only the Serb-Albanian dialogue but it is the Serb-Albanian-Roma-Muslim-Bulgarian dialogue. This dialogue should be present at all levels; in the municipality, in the local commune, in the formal and informal sense, a formal and informal dialogue, because people need to be mobilised to live." So ten years of continuity in my commitment for a policy of national equality which preserved half of the former Yugoslavia from entering into any conflict or war throughout those ten years.
CYNICISM OF THE COURT I'm speaking about how much this -- this whole thing has been turned upside down. And that is why I said that this indictment represents a sum of unscrupulous manipulations, lies, crippling of the law and an unjust presentation of the history. The individual acts of generals, officials, my own, by way of command responsibility through which you could convict any innocent person because they held a certain post, and now you're trying to bring these generals here. These individual acts I cannot discuss because of a lack of time, and first of all, they've already been challenged in the testimony of your own witnesses and much more, in the biographies and memoirs of participants, and also in scientific studies which were written based on Western sources, documents, and so on. We will leave it up to the witnesses to have the final word when they appear before you here. I would just like to point out a paradoxical situation in which you have brought yourself into by bowing down to the daily merciless policy of the Clinton administration. Reality was falsified in the name of a pragmatic political programme. All three indictments were issued after 19 NATO countries carried out an open aggression against the remaining part of Yugoslavia, Serbia and Montenegro, with banned weapons implementing new forms of tyranny through high technology. Is there any greater cynicism? The indictment for Croatia cites ethnic cleansing of Croats, and this was conceived before the 1st of August, 1991, and lasted until 1992. I must say that one has to be extremely arrogant to place such a lie on paper. As is well known, this was a period of mass crimes against Serbs, and the first major exodus of Serbs from Croatia. A hundred and fifty thousand of them, precisely in this time period. The Kosovo indictment was issued, and I am quoting, "because of the expulsion of a substantial number of Albanian citizens from Kosovo." Well, you saw what it says in Clark's book, but you will see many other also more interesting things. You cannot cite one single village from which someone was expelled while Kosovo was under the control of the Serb state organs [.....] You're not even monitoring official statements by US and NATO representatives who openly state today they needed these games around Kosovo so that NATO could extend its activities beyond its borders. The indictment against Bosnia and Herzegovina was issued for genocide. Please, genocide against Croats and Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which is also highly insolent when we know that the Belgrade precisely -- Belgrade was the political centre in these evil times. The only centre in Yugoslavia during the Yugoslav crisis from which the policy of peace was consistently conducted, the policy of national equality, thanks to which there were no occurrences of discrimination and no occurrences of crimes, and thanks to which throughout the entire decade an unchanged national ethnic structure in Serbia was preserved. I am aware, gentlemen, that it is illusory to look for logic in a staged process. There were such cases before, the Dreyfuss case or the Dimitrov case regarding the burning of the Reichstag. This process exceeds those because of the depth of the tragic consequences that it entails. I do not even wish to say anything on a personal note in this, but I would like to mention the depth of the tragic consequences where the universal legal order was thoroughly destroyed. Thanks to our past, there were honourable authors who have carved the truth into history so that mistakes would not be repeated and that the generations that come would know what happened. In the true history of this era, this ad hoc justice of yours will be placed or used as an illustration of monstrous events at the changing from one century to another. Gentlemen, you cannot imagine what a privilege it is, even in these conditions that you have imposed on me, to have truth and justice as my allies. I am sure you cannot even conceive this. Thank you, Mr. Robinson. Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to present everything that I wished to, but I believe that I will be given this opportunity perhaps by other means. Thank you very much. |