Bosnian Mujahideen and foreign fighters.

[Magda Hassan]

[FONT=Courier New][size=12] Page 32261
1 Wednesday, 1 September 2004
2 [Defence Opening Statement]
3 [Open session]
4 [The accused entered court]
5 --- Upon commencing at 9.05 a.m.
6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, the concluding part of your
7 opening statement.
8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, I hope you will bear
9 in mind that we started with a delay.
10 During the NATO aggression, poisons were not used directly, but
11 consequences similar to those of a chemical war were caused all the same
12 in other ways. For example, by bombing plants and warehouses containing
13 chemicals, oil refineries, chemical factories in Pancevo, Novi Sad,
14 Lucani, Baric. So that a chemical war was also waged against Serbia.
15 The powers that be do not like the sovereignty of Serbia and
16 Kosovo, although it is guaranteed by the conditions of the cease-fire and
17 contained in Resolution 1244, which is not being respected at all. Their
18 interest is to use the territory of Kosovo and Metohija for their
19 geostrategic and political goals; to use the mineral wealth, water
20 resources and other resources of Kosovo. We bear in mind that Kosovo
21 contains the biggest lignite mines in Europe. Close to 14 billion tonnes.
22 And there are also mines at Sink [phoen] and lead mines of enormous value
23 there. On Kosovo and Metohija there are also reserves of cobalt, nickel,
24 which are also very valuable. And the electricity plants in Kosovo are
25 very significant for the energy balance of Serbia.
Page 32262
1 All this demonstrates the basest motivation of the so-called
2 fighters for human rights of the Kosovo Albanians from the West. It is
3 evident that the source of the overall crisis in Kosovo and Metohija,
4 which has been going on ever since the Turkish occupation of that area
5 until today, is the wish of Albanian nationalists to create a Greater
6 Albania. They do not conceal this aspiration, and they do not refrain
7 from any means. They don't hesitate to use any means to achieve that
8 goal.
9 This so-called Prosecution is impudent enough to include in their
10 indictment against me and the Serbs that in the middle of the state of
11 Serbia, on the territory which is the very heart of the medieval Serbian
12 state, that there we wanted to create a so-called Greater Serbia. How can
13 Serbia, great or small, be created in Serbia itself is something that they
14 themselves are unable to explain or prove. And this is best demonstrated
15 by the first part of this operation which you call a trial, which like the
16 remainder of that operation, thanks to the nature and contents of this
17 false indictment, has turned into a simple and pure farce. However, the
18 amount of money set aside is not insignificant. It is not a cheap farce.
19 The money set aside by Saudi Arabia, George Soros, and other ostensibly
20 impartial donors, the US and so on.
21 Let me add that in 1998 when Holbrooke visited us in Belgrade, we
22 told him the information we had at our disposal, that in Northern Albania
23 the KLA is being aided by Osama bin Laden, that he was arming, training,
24 and preparing the members of this terrorist organisation in Albania.
25 However, they decided to cooperate with the KLA and indirectly, therefore,
Page 32263
1 with bin Laden, although before that he had bombed the embassies in Kenya
2 and Tanzania although he had already declared war.
3 I am convinced that one day all this will have to come to light,
4 these links, and that soon there will be a time when Clinton, Albright,
5 and others will have to be held responsible if not for what happened to
6 the Serbs then at least for what happened to their own people.
7 I will read a quotation and then I will have to move on to other
8 topics. The airstrikes and the unprecedented strikes, terror, sabotage,
9 murders of leading statesmen, the overwhelming attacks on all enemy lines
10 that will take place at a single point in time, this is the war of the
11 future on an unprecedented scale. I assume this reminds you of what the
12 NATO forces did to Yugoslavia in 1999. The aggression that this side
13 whose duty it would be to pay attention to that refuses to do so, but it
14 is not Clinton or Clark who said this, it is Hitler, although it fully
15 describes what they did. This was published in New York in 1940 by Herman
16 Rausching, My Confidential Conversations with Hitler. And this book goes
17 on to say, "No so-called international law or treaties will prevent me
18 from seizing the opportunity that is presenting itself." And then he goes
19 on to speak about how he will enslave France, how he will enter France as
20 their liberator, and how he will convince the middle class that he has
21 come in order to establish social law and order and a just social order.
22 As regards the war in Slovenia and Croatia, to begin with I will
23 only mention briefly that in Warren Zimmerman's book - he was the last US
24 ambassador to the SFRY - on page 173 he makes the following comment on the
25 position of the JNA and the so-called heroic struggle in Slovenia and
Page 32264
1 Croatia against the still common and legal Yugoslav army. I quote: "The
2 JNA was in its own country. Its troops were legitimately deployed in all
3 the Yugoslav republics. Even so, after the declaration of independence by
4 Slovenia and Croatia, the troops were treated as occupying troops even
5 when they did not leave their barracks. The Slovenian tactics and later
6 on --" Very well, I will slow down. "The Slovenian and then the Croatian
7 tactics, which cannot boast of any particular heroism, was based on
8 avoiding open conflict and attempting to bring the soldiers in the
9 barracks to a state of hunger and forcing them to leave. The JNA, which
10 until yesterday was a protector of the country and today has been treated
11 as the occupier, had a strong effect on the soldiers who were torn between
12 the two sides."
13 Further, Zimmerman, bearing in mind all the circumstances,
14 concludes in his book that it is wrong to speak of an attack by the JNA on
15 Slovenia and later on on Croatia. One of the most active anti-Serb
16 activists, Warren Zimmerman, who was then on the spot, is pointing to a
17 well-known fact that it is wrong to speak of an attack by the JNA on
18 Slovenia and Croatia while you here have been given the task of saying
19 that aggression was perpetrated there by the JNA on its own country.
20 Within Yugoslavia the Croatian separatist tendencies did not fully
21 disappear with the defeat and disappearance of the quisling independent
22 state of Croatia in World War II. These tendencies began to be displayed
23 quite openly in the early '70s with the so-called mass movement in Croatia
24 by a part of the republican leadership when demands were put forward for
25 the independence of Croatia and very strong pressure and threats were
Page 32265
1 directed towards the Serbian people. Although in post-war Yugoslavia,
2 among the most prominent state leaders, the Croats were given especially
3 significant posts, and they dominated in absolute numbers. Even so, in
4 Croatia and in some other places, the thesis was constantly fabricated
5 that there was so-called Serb hegemony there. What the Serb domination or
6 hegemony looked like we shall see.
7 From World War II throughout the existence of Yugoslavia, it is
8 very well known that from the end of World War II until his death in 1980,
9 the undisputable leader was Tito, who was a Croat. During the existence
10 of socialist Yugoslavia from 1945 to 1992, over a period of 47 years at
11 the head of the Yugoslav government, 30 years, were Croats. And during
12 the remaining 17 years, it was all the others. Only one of them was a
13 Serb, from 1963 to 1967, and that was Petar Stambolic.
14 When all this is borne in mind, how can we say that it was the
15 Serbs who dominated in the political leadership of the country? As for
16 the army, your own witness described the composition of the top leadership
17 at the time of the break-up of Yugoslavia. There was one Yugoslav and
18 that was the minister of defence, Veljko Kadijevic, from Croatia, from a
19 mixed marriage between a Serb and a Croat woman; two Serbs, one from
20 Serbia, one from Bosnia; eight Croats; two Slovenians; two Macedonians;
21 and one Muslim.
22 We should add to this that Tito's closest collaborator and the
23 creator of the constitutional system in all its stages was a Slovene,
24 Edvard Kardelja. All this shows quite clearly that the story of some kind
25 of Serbian domination in Yugoslavia is a pure and simple lie as well as
Page 32266
1 the statement that the Croats and Slovenians had cause to complain of
2 inequality and insufficient representation. The story of Serb hegemony
3 was only a propaganda tool which went against the truth and which was used
4 to justify secessionist aspirations.
5 In post-war Yugoslavia, the Ustasha genocide over the Serbs was a
6 topic that was not much talked about. The remaining Serbs on the
7 territory of the former Independent State of Croatia, especially those in
8 the Krajina which the well-known Serbian poet Matija Beckovic described as
9 the remnants of a slaughtered people, tacitly agreed not to talk about the
10 sufferings of their relatives, even not to bury them in a proper way. The
11 mass graves, Jadovnov [phoen], Pribilovci, Golubnjaca were simply covered
12 over with concrete and left to be forgotten, whereas here the thesis has
13 been put forward that the Serbs reburied their dead later on, although
14 these people had never been given a proper burial.
15 Bearing in mind this terrible mass crime from the not so distant
16 past, what could the Serbs in Croatia feel when at in February 1990, at
17 the rally of the HDZ in Zagreb, the president of that party, Tudjman,
18 said, among other things, the Independent State of Croatia was not only a
19 quisling creation and a fascist crime, it was also an expression of the
20 historical aspirations of the Croatian people. What was more natural than
21 for them to respond and to raise their voices before "the Croatian
22 people," in quotation marks, because this was not referring to all Croats
23 but to extremists aided from abroad, before they set out anew to realise
24 their so-called historical aspirations.
25 All this is information that you have and that you are
Page 32267
1 overlooking. This illegal Prosecution was not hindered from speaking in
2 paragraph 94 of its illegal indictment about the HDZ without any
3 qualification, although this was a party which revived the practices and
4 symbols from Ustasha times. While in paragraph 95 of this same false
5 indictment, the pro-Yugoslav Serb Democratic Party is called a nationalist
6 party. This is a manipulation which they permitted themselves in this
7 kind of presentation because they know everything about the chauvinist
8 activities of the HDZ, but they are not allowing a word to be said about
9 it. Everything about the HDZ had to be suppressed, and the SDS had to be
10 blackened.
11 This shows quite clearly that these activities of the Serbian
12 people -- what they fail to say is that the activities of the Serbian
13 people were activities aimed at defence.
14 Warren Zimmerman, in his book The Source of a Catastrophe speaks
15 about how in Tudjman's Croatia, in quotes, "The rights of Serbs were
16 seriously violated. They were dismissed from work, asked to sign
17 statements of loyalty." The irony is greater because here they tried to
18 impute that I requested some type of statement of loyalty. Well, they
19 couldn't find then a single person who had to sign this statement of
20 loyalty to me. This is absurd. Their homes and property were attacked,
21 Zimmerman continues, says that Tudjman's ministers called the Serbs by
22 derogatory names.
23 On page 215 of that book he says that Tudjman played a major role
24 in the violent death of Yugoslavia and the violence in Bosnia and
25 Herzegovina and Croatia. He said that he was said to have a Nazi attitude
Page 32268
1 towards the Serbs due to which Croatia turned into an undemocratic and
2 explosive republic, and these are his words.
3 The anti-Serb path of the new Croatian government is linked to the
4 Nerval Group. Nerval is a place in Canada where the Franciscan monks and
5 Ustashas were situated. These neo-Ustasha groups were assessed by the
6 Canadian government as more extreme than the actual pro-Nazi-Ustasha
7 organisation during Hitler's Independent State of Croatia.
8 In spite of that, the Croatian press is writing about these things
9 but due to a shortage of time I cannot present this to you now. But the
10 gist is in the following: At the time already in 1987, in 1987, as early
11 as that, an approach was made to the future Independent State of Croatia
12 containing this programme containing four main points taken over from
13 information coming from Croatia, from the Croatian magazine Globus.
14 Number one: At any cost Croatia must be an independent state. We must
15 work on having Croatia become ethnically clear and homogenous. In other
16 words, the Serb national community should be reduced to a minimal minority
17 so that they would not be a disruptive factor. The struggling Croatia
18 should be led on one front, and the main opponent are the Serbs. In order
19 to defeat the Serbs, we need to join together with the Communists and the
20 Partisans and in union with them we will win our finer victory. And
21 four: As far as Bosnia and Herzegovina is concerned, such a policy should
22 be conducted which would sooner or later lead to the joining of Western
23 Bosnia to Croatia to have a pure Croatian territory.
24 Martin Spegelj, his defence minister during the time of these
25 events in the Dnevnik on the 28th of October, 2001, said publicly, "If a
Page 32269
1 house of a Serb is burned down, he will not have anywhere to return." He
2 said that Gojko Susak said this. Again in Novi List, Spegelj said on the
3 29th of October 2001 that Tudjman and Susak essentially made a concept of
4 a pure nationalist state after the model of Croatia from World War II.
5 In December, on 8th of December, 1993, the New York Times speaks
6 about 10.000 homes which were blown up with dynamite. I'm not going to
7 quote from that in order not to waste time.
8 In spite of the pressures, harassment, physical attacks and an
9 overall degradation on the individual and collective level, the Serbian
10 people in Croatia were also discriminated against in a legal way. The
11 Christmas Constitution is well known, which deprived the Serbs of all the
12 rights that they enjoyed prior to that. In The Balkan Odyssey, Lord Owen
13 says on page 61 that they resisted joining the settlements populated by
14 Serbs which generally together formed the military border between the
15 Habsburg and the Ottoman Empires, which was defended from Vienna and not
16 from Zagreb. The sense grew after 1945 because this population was
17 exposed to genocide during World War II by the Croatian Ustashas. A very
18 small number of commentators in 1995 realised or recognised that the
19 Croatian government in attacking Krajina did not liberate this land since
20 the Serbs had inhabited it for over three centuries. This is something
21 that is written by Lord Owen.
22 Already in mid-1990, there was a series of actions, attacks, and
23 killings, and because of the Serb reaction by placing barricades to the
24 entrances to their settlements, this revolt was called the log revolution.
25 The Croatian authorities interpreted these reactions of Serbs who were
Page 32270
1 afraid to remain without any means of collective defence in relation to
2 the recurring Ustasha terror and ideology, considered that to be an
3 attack, an aggression against the Croatian state. Well, I don't know how
4 one can make an attack by placing logs in front of the approaches to their
5 houses.
6 Spegelj, who said what I quoted before, said the following:
7 "Knin, we will resolve in such a way that we will massacre them. We will
8 massacre them." This is what we have international recognition for.
9 There are numerous proofs of this, that these are not just empty words but
10 that we are talking about dead people here.
11 In his book The Invasion of Serbian Krajina, Gregory Elich speaks
12 of the following: "In 1990 Tudjman said, 'I'm glad my wife is neither a
13 Serb or a Jew.' [In English] and wrote that accounts of the Holocaust were
14 exaggerated and one-sided."
15 [Interpretation] I will skip over many of his quotes but mention
16 just some of them. "[In English] During its violent secession from
17 Yugoslavia in 1991, Croatia expelled more than 300.000 Serbs, and Serbs
18 were eliminated from ten towns and 183 villages." [Interpretation] There
19 was a mistake. Yes, that's correct; and 183 villages.
20 And then: "[In English] Tomislav Mercep, until recently the
21 advisor to the Interior Minister and a member of parliament, is a
22 death-squad leader. Mercep's death squad murdered 2.500 Serbs in Western
23 Slavonia in 1991 and 1992, actions Mercep defends as 'heroic deeds.'"
24 [Interpretation] You have here the testimony of Miro Bajramovic, a
25 member of that death squad. I have it on tape, but I don't have time to
Page 32271
1 show it to you.
2 Gregory Elich goes on to say: "[In English] Sadly, the Clinton
3 administration's embrace of Croatia follows a history of support for
4 fascists when it suits American geopolitical interests."
5 [Interpretation] Susan Woodward of the Brookings Institution, in
6 the book The Balkan Tragedy 1995, says: "[In English] The Croatian
7 government did little to protect its citizens from vicious outbursts of
8 anti-Serb terrorism saw mixed communities of Dalmatia and interior during
9 the summer months of 1989 when Croat zealots smashed store fronts,
10 fire-bombed homes, and harassed and arrested potential Serbs leader. In
11 many parts of Croatia, Serbs were expelled from jobs because of their
12 nationality. Discrimination was not limited to this early flare-up but
13 increased over the following years."
14 [Interpretation] How long before this log revolution when this was
15 going on in 1989 and that criminal activity that you are ascribing to the
16 Serbs when they were actually just defending themselves?
17 Chris Hedges, in The New York Times on the 16th of June, 1997,
18 says: "[In English] [Previous translation continues]... 500.000 of
19 600.000 ethnic Serbs from the country and carried out de facto annexation
20 of largely Catholic region of Herzegovina," et cetera.
21 [Interpretation] I don't have time. They are talking about the
22 Kristallnacht in Zadar, talking about expulsion of tens of thousands of
23 people from their apartments. They're talking about in the Croat papers
24 in Feral, in the Tjednik, new proof about the -- of the crimes in Vukovar,
25 and I'm quoting them, "when the corpses of dead bodies floated down the
Page 32272
1 Danube, then in Gospic in the Croatian coastal area," and so on.
2 The magazine Identitet, a Croatian magazine, says that the least
3 work was done to shed light on the crimes in Osijek in 1991 and 1992 when
4 several Serb civilians were killed, and they explain how they were taken
5 away and how they were killed.
6 When we're talking about Gospic, three officers of the Croatian
7 army applied to testify here about the crimes. They were not given any
8 protection, so the witness Milan Levar, who was supposed to testify
9 against those who committed the Gospic massacre was liquidated.
10 Erdemovic, who admitted that he had killed 100 people in Srebrenica, whom
11 we arrested, who came here because he asked to be brought here, he asked
12 to be extradited to The Hague, and he was not our citizen so he was
13 extradited at his own request, you provided protection for him although he
14 admitted killing 100 people. He admitted that to our investigative
15 organs, and you released him after four years to -- to live unpunished.
16 But you did not protect these other witnesses, but you did extend
17 protection to him so that he can go back to -- I see that I will have to
18 skip some things. The time flies, unfortunately.
19 On one page 182 of his book, David Owen touches upon the following
20 topic and he says: "Mostly the Serbs who remained there didn't have any
21 freedom at all. Many JNA barracks were surrounded by the Croatian army,
22 which was the reason why the JNA reacted so strongly in places like
23 Vukovar." He says "places like Vukovar," but that is actually the only
24 place where the JNA reacted forcefully. But he does explain why this
25 happened.
Page 32273
1 The explanation is also what is being written in the Croatian
2 press now about how many corpses were floating down the river much
3 earlier, before the events in Vukovar.
4 Vukovar was the only exception and the only place where the JNA
5 responded to being surrounded, to its members being attacked, to civilians
6 being attacked, responded forcefully. So it is without doubt that the war
7 in Croatia was caused and initiated by the Croatian authorities in order
8 to effect a violent and illegal secession, and, as the years that will
9 come would show, to achieve an ethnically clean Croatian state.
10 And arising without doubt from everything is that the Serbs were
11 forced to defend themselves. They had to fight for their survival. So
12 nobody is doubting the existence of individual crimes which were the
13 result of the chaos that had occurred and which this so-called indictment
14 is trying to present as the result of some kind of joint criminal
15 endeavour, although all the facts, the historical, military, and legal
16 facts, speak to the contrary. And they base this on testimonies such as
17 the testimony of Milan Babic, who was in conflict with his very own
18 leadership precisely because of his own extremism and similar witnesses.
19 It is well known that primarily thanks to the efforts of Cyrus
20 Vance but also thanks to the efforts of the Republic of Serbia and my own
21 efforts, the Vance Plan was adopted. The protected zones were created
22 which the Croat army never respected, because it is well known how many
23 attacks there were: Miljevacka, Klatno [phoen], Peruca, Medak pocket,
24 Zemunik, Western Slavonia, Flash, Storm, and so on. How many hundreds of
25 Serbs were killed in each one of those attacks and all that happened.
Page 32274
1 Weapons were under a double lock. The Serbs had handed it over, but they
2 took it back when they were attacked in order to defend their very lives
3 and to prevent a massacre.
4 In view of all the above, Lord Owen in his book says:
5 "The Croatian army equipped itself quickly with planes, heavy
6 artillery. All this came from neighbouring European countries and was
7 bought in the former eastern Germany. When this happened, it was not
8 difficult, as far as the Serbs were concerned, why they resisted
9 demilitarisation and demobilisation. The Serb factor was a consolidating
10 factor, and the Croatian side was a destabilising factor."
11 I am finishing my quote from the Owen book. And he said that the
12 biggest ethnic cleansing in the Yugoslav crisis was the ethnic cleansing
13 in front of which this institution remains unmoved, and that is the
14 expulsion of thousands of Serbs and hundreds killed. When something like
15 this happens to the Serbs, it does not appear to be a crime.
16 I will just say a few words about Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is
17 well known that peace lasted as long as the former Yugoslavia lasted, with
18 a small delay. We had this peace. It was there because the absence of
19 tutors and occupiers finally turned the citizens of this multi-cultural
20 state towards one another.
21 In the changes of the constitution on the 31st of July, 1991, in
22 Article 1, the drafters wrote that Bosnia and Herzegovina is a democratic,
23 sovereign state, an equal community of all of its citizens - Muslims,
24 Serbs, and Croats of members of other nationalities that live there; and
25 that the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina is within the
Page 32275
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Page 32276
1 composition of Yugoslavia. This was written in the new constitution.
2 However, even during this peaceful life among the population in this
3 republic, you can still see -- see on the site of the Bosnian organisation
4 Mladi Muslimani, Young Muslims, organised in 1939, find the oath which
5 they created in the second half of 1947 in which they talk about an
6 uncompromising struggle against everything that is not Islamic, that they
7 will sacrifice everything on the path, including their own lives, if this
8 is in the interests of Islam.
9 How can you fight in a multi-ethnic community like Bosnia and
10 Herzegovina and Yugoslavia against everything that is not Islamic? And if
11 we keep in mind that the vast majority of the population there is not
12 Islamic. And it happened that precisely these young Muslims had the way
13 open to them and the means placed in their hands in order to conduct a
14 holy war.
15 The first national political party that was created was the Party
16 of Democratic Action of Izetbegovic. It is characteristic that the
17 founder of the station and Izetbegovic's sponsor, Izet Adil Zulfikarpasic,
18 speaks in his book about Novi Pazar the following:
19 "When we came to Novi Pazar, we were welcomed by a large mass of
20 people. The authorities were quite fair, the police also. Patrol cars
21 made sure that everything passed without any conflict. In the town
22 itself, when we arrived, the police officers withdrew from the streets and
23 we could see only SDA guards everywhere."
24 But then something happened at this rally that surprised me
25 considerably. There was a rally and this rally was conducted in a sort of
Page 32277
1 pro-fascist way. There were hundreds of religious flags on the stadium.
2 And then he continues to speak in his book:
3 "Whenever we went in a large number, then the imams would
4 appear. They were our hosts. They organised everything. Religious
5 officials joined the party. At some point I requested that the flags be
6 removed, but then people appeared in caftans and dzelabija, which nobody
7 actually ever wore in Bosnia before then."
8 I'm going to admit some things. Anyway, Zulfikarpasic left the
9 party because he didn't want any part of that.
10 It is a well-known thing that Izetbegovic, as far back as the
11 spring of 1943, led the Muslim youth of Sarajevo, and in that capacity he
12 was the host of Amin al Huseini, the great mufti from Jerusalem, Hitler's
13 friend who had fled to Germany. And in his book he advocates jihad, a
14 holy war against Christians and Jews. All of this within the Independent
15 State of Croatia of Pavelic. And at Himmler's initiative, and through the
16 mediation of this same Huseini, a Muslim Wafe SS division was established.
17 Not one, as a matter of fact; a Handzar Division, a Kama division, and
18 also a Skenderbeg division consisting of Muslims from Kosovo and Metohija.
19 Unfortunately I have to be very quick and move through this very
20 quickly.
21 Izetbegovic in 1990 again published his Islamic declaration, and I
22 quote from it:
23 "The creation of a single Islamic Community from Morocco to
24 Indonesia. Also the fact that non-Islamic institutions cannot co-exist
25 with Islamic institutions. We do not herald an era of piece. We herald
Page 32278
1 an era of unrest. People who are asleep can be awakened only by blows.
2 First of all, we have to be preachers and only then soldiers. The Islamic
3 movement can and shall take over power as soon as its numbers rise to the
4 extent that it cannot only topple the existing non-Islamic government but
5 build an Islamic government. Members of the Islamic faith should learn,
6 using the example of Pakistan, what should be done and what should not be
7 done. Nowadays, the aspiration for all the Islamic communities and all
8 Islam believers in the world should be brought together. This is all
9 aimed at an Islamic Community from Morocco to Indonesia, from Europe to
10 Africa."
11 So you can imagine how people who were not the Islamic faith felt
12 in Bosnia and Herzegovina in view of these promises that they were
13 supposed to live in some kind of European Pakistan. You can imagine what
14 their reaction could have been.
15 However, as for the allegiance of the -- of Alija Izetbegovic to
16 the Islamic fundamentalist cause, nobody can testify better to that than
17 Islamic fundamentalists themselves. On the 11th of April, 1993, Reuters
18 reports from Dubai that Alija Izetbegovic received an Islamic award in
19 Riyadh in great festivities, and I quote, "for his contribution to jihad,
20 the holy war against non-believers."
21 So this reward confirmed that Alija Izetbegovic persevered along
22 the road that he had opted for when he was a young man, and in accordance
23 with the oath of allegiance he took in 1947, it meant an uncompromising
24 struggle against everything, especially everything non-Islamic. But it
25 was not only the Islamic fundamentalist circles that knew of this kind of
Page 32279
1 nature of the Bosnian-Herzegovnian regime; it is also clearly stated in
2 the republican report in the Senate of the United States of America. This
3 is a document dated the 16th of January, 1997.
4 I'm going to go through it very, very quickly. It refers to three
5 questions.
6 First of all, I am going to omit the rest, how it all went.
7 The last sentence in one is:
8 [In English] "And the departments of state and defence were kept
9 in the dark until after the decision was made."
10 The second point speaks of:
11 [In English] "The military Islamic network, along with the weapons
12 Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Vivac Intelligence Operatives, entered
13 Bosnia in large numbers along with thousands of Mujahedin, holy warriors,
14 from across the Muslim world. Also engaged in the effort were several
15 other Muslim countries, including Brunei, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi
16 Arabia, Sudan, and Turkey, and a number of radical Muslim organisations.
17 For example, the role of one Sudan-based humanitarian organisation..."
18 [Interpretation] This is under quotation:
19 [In English] "... one relief agency has been well documented."
20 [Interpretation] Point number 3:
21 [In English] "Islamic character of the Sarajevo regime. This
22 Islamist orientation is illustrated by profiles of important officials,
23 including President Izetbegovic himself. The progressive Islamisation of
24 the Bosnian army, including the creation of native Bosnian Mujahedin
25 units, credible claim that major atrocities against civilians in Sarajevo
Page 32280
1 were staged for propaganda purposes by operatives of the Izetbegovic
2 government in suppression of enemies, both non-Muslim and Muslim."
3 [Interpretation] In this document, it is corroborated that they
4 themselves staged attacks against their own citizens.
5 I'm going to skip over some other things.
6 [In English] The report concluded, page 2:
7 "The Administration's Iranian green light policy gave Iran an
8 unprecedented foothold in Europe and has recklessly endangered American
9 lives and US strategic interests."
10 [Interpretation] Then there is reference to the presence of Divak,
11 also sleeping agents; then the AID, Izetbegovic's intelligence service
12 that you brought here, rather, you brought their members here to testify
13 against me. "[In English] [Previous translation continues]... point of
14 jointly planning terrorist activities."
15 [Interpretation] And then it says: "[In English] Clinton gave a
16 green light that would lead to this degree of Iranian influence."
17 [Interpretation] Then they give explanations as to what this is all about
18 and you will have an opportunity to see this document. "[In English]
19 [Previous translation continues]... Islamic revolution in Europe."
20 [Interpretation] And then there is reference to this phoney
21 humanitarian agency. "[In English] [Previous translation continues]... is
22 believed to be connected with such fixtures of the Islamic terror network
23 of Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, the convicted mastermind behind the 1993
24 World Trade Centre bombing, and Osama bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi immigrant
25 believed to bankroll numerous militant groups."
Page 32281
1 [Interpretation] And then it says: "[In English] [Previous
2 translation continues] "'... into Bosnia was of great assistance in
3 allowing the Iranian to dig in and create good relations with Bosnian
4 government,' a senior CIA officer told Congress in a classified
5 deposition. And it is a thing we will live to regret because when they
6 blow up some Americans, as they no doubt will before this thing is over,
7 it will be in part because Iranians were able to have the time and
8 contacts to establish themselves well in Bosnia."
9 [Interpretation] Later on they blew them up, the Kenyans, the
10 Tanzanians, and also these crimes that were committed in the Balkans, but
11 I don't have time to speak of that now. I really have to move on very
12 quickly because you've been so stingy with time.
13 I just wish to note that the 31st of March, 1991, in
14 Bosnia-Herzegovina today, or rather in this federation, is an official
15 holiday. It is the Day of the Patriotic League, the military formation
16 that was established by the SDA. The 31st of March, 1991.
17 They organised their party along military lines as well a year
18 before the conflict broke out. And in this year, 1991, when conflicts
19 broke out, half of the Serbs were killed then out of the total number of
20 Serb victims. Analyses show, experts have proven, that Serbs were not
21 prepared for the war at all, whereas these people were preparing for
22 themselves for an entire year.
23 Owen says in his book the picture of the Bosnian Muslims of being
24 unarmed is not a true one. Even Alija Izetbegovic himself admitted on
25 television that they were armed through secret channels. And he speaks of
Page 32282
1 millions of bullets and tens of thousands of bombs, grenades, shells,
2 hundreds of thousands of uniforms, and so on and so forth. And according
3 to the statement made by Sefer Halilovic, the Chief of the Main Staff of
4 the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina, in an interview he gave to Nasi Dani on
5 the 25th of September, 1992 - 1992, gentlemen - the Patriotic League, when
6 the war started, had 103 municipal staffs and 98.000 fighters. 103
7 municipal staffs. And Bosnia-Herzegovina had a total of 109
8 municipalities altogether. Everything is clear as far as war preparations
9 are concerned. It is clear to all but you.
10 The Serb side had three objectives. That can be seen when the
11 entire political situation is analysed. The first one was to preserve the
12 Yugoslav federation. And then, if it is impossible to obtain that
13 objective, to attain their own right to self-determination like the right
14 enjoyed by other peoples in Yugoslavia. So in case that objective is
15 impossible too, then finding ways and means through negotiations to ensure
16 an equitable position for Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
17 The Serb side advocated the preservation of Yugoslavia, and it was
18 not only the fact that this was in line with domestic and international
19 law but everything else worked in favour of that. Unfortunately, there is
20 no time to discuss all of this now.
21 How justified the requests of the Serb people were, their calls
22 for an equality of rights, that is deeply rooted because the Serb people
23 have lived in the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina for over a millennium.
24 So there are deep roots in history.
25 I have to speed things up.
Page 32283
1 If one looks at the chronology of all events, and we will have the
2 opportunity to deal with this through witnesses, indicates the following:
3 First that what the Serbs did were reactions to what the Muslim side did,
4 that is to say violations of the constitutional rights of the Serbs. And
5 this, what the Serbs did, was only making up for what the other two, the
6 Muslims and the Croats, took away from them. It can be seen that the
7 other side gradually moved away, and finally the Serbs were cornered and
8 agreed to a minimum of their demands. Finally the Dayton Agreement
9 sanctioned their minimal rights, but unfortunately, later on in a fully --
10 this happened only after a great deal of blood was shed unnecessarily.
11 The last chance of preserving peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina before
12 the war was the Cutileiro plan. Everybody signed the plan, and when
13 Zimmerman talked him into it, Izetbegovic withdrew his signature from the
14 plan. I believe that we are going to have ample documents about this that
15 we will present later.
16 All of this shows very clearly that the Serb side was not the one
17 that wanted war. It did its best to prevent a war.
18 After the international recognition and after the break-out of the
19 war, and it is no accident that the two coincided, the JNA started
20 withdrawing from Bosnia-Herzegovina in accordance with the previously
21 signed agreement. That is stated in the report of the Secretary-General
22 of the United Nations, Boutros-Ghali, dated the 30th of May, 1992,
23 addressed to the Security Council, in which it is also stated that the
24 army of Republika Srpska, established on the 15th of May, was not under
25 the control of Belgrade. And it also states that a considerable part of
Page 32284
1 the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina was under the occupation of the
2 official forces of the Republic of Croatia. However, the then president
3 of the Security Council, the Austrian Petar van Felner [phoen], concealed
4 or, rather, withheld part of that report of Boutros-Ghali until sanctions
5 were voted for by the Security Council against Yugoslavia. And it is only
6 Croatia that should have had sanctions imposed on it on the basis of the
7 report, by no means the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
8 These are all the facts that I managed to present over this short
9 period of time. This is only the tip of the iceberg. And now what have
10 you come up with against these undisputable material facts and historical
11 facts?
12 In this false indictment, you mechanically compiled in an
13 unnatural way a series of events - and crimes, no doubt - and you branded
14 it a joint criminal enterprise without a shred of evidence. And you only
15 talk about some kind of plan and intention of the Serbs. However, this
16 so-called Prosecution relies on a unique concept called joint criminal
17 enterprise, and that in itself proves that they cannot establish guilt.
18 There is absence of evidence and of any intent, and that is the only thing
19 that could compel one to resort to such a nebulous construction, joint
20 criminal enterprise. In other words, when there is proof and evidence of
21 something someone did and of intent, then an illegal Prosecution does not
22 have to think up some joint criminal enterprise. Then it uses evidence
23 concerning the actual deeds committed and the intent.
24 When a prosecutor does not have evidence and cannot establish
25 guilt, then they resort to that, and then in this way they dodge the
Page 32285
1 obligation which is called burden of proof, and that is part of any legal
2 judicial system.
3 This was conceived so that without proving guilt innocent people
4 can be charged. And of course that is sheer mutilation of justice,
5 nothing else. What it says there are empty words.
6 You explain in these indictments, in these charges, in these
7 alleged indictments, you speak of crimes that we did not commit. And you
8 explain it by intent that we never had. That is your concept.
9 I don't want to go into the question of Bosnia and Croatia again
10 where Serbia did not have any jurisdiction, but we did assist the Serbs.
11 Of course we did. And we would have been the scum of the earth had we not
12 helped them when their lives were in peril. And our greatest wish was to
13 establish peace and the greatest assistance was that in Serbia over all of
14 those ten years there was no discrimination on ethnic grounds against
15 anyone in any way.
16 When speaking of Kosovo, there is not a single shred of evidence
17 that any crime was committed. Not only on anyone's orders but also with
18 any kind of previous knowledge of the generals in command. And you have
19 indicted four generals. Not a single one of them issued any orders to
20 that effect. Not a single one of them had any knowledge about anything
21 that could have constituted a crime before these crimes actually happened.
22 You have accused the political leadership and the military leadership of
23 Serbia and Yugoslavia, and you have all the evidence showing that whatever
24 happened in Kosovo and Metohija was during the bombing, the day and night
25 bombing, and that the legal authorities brought to justice those who
Page 32286
1 committed crimes.
2 Even your witness here, General Vasiljevic, confirmed the details
3 about a meeting that I had with the top echelons of the military, of the
4 General Staff, and that I personally insisted that all perpetrators should
5 be arrested. And he even quoted me as saying that no one should have it
6 easy and that everyone, including General Ojdanic, who is sitting in this
7 prison, totally innocent, and then further on these four generals who you
8 have indicted, Lazarevic, Pavkovic, Djordjevic, and Lukic, everybody had
9 the same position. And even the leadership, the Supreme Command along the
10 vertical line acted by way of prevention, that is to say forbidding the
11 existence of paramilitary formations.
12 There are written reports and I have tendered them into evidence
13 -- or, rather, I shall tender them into evidence through the testimony of
14 witnesses. There are hundreds of reports of military courts, of military
15 prosecutors' offices regarding the perpetrators of various crimes. The
16 first reports start already at the end of March 1999 and then they move
17 on.
18 What else could the executive government have done and the
19 judiciary in any country as well as the chain of command but to
20 categorically insist on the Prosecution of all perpetrators of crimes and
21 to make sure through the reports it gets that this is being done? This is
22 what we did under the most difficult of circumstances, under conditions of
23 daily bombing. Some trials were completed and the perpetrators convicted
24 even before the bombing ended.
25 In these two years of presentation of evidence, you have not
Page 32287
1 presented a shred of evidence to the contrary. Throughout these two years
2 you have not presented a shred of evidence or a single testimony that
3 might indicate a link between a crime that was committed or a criminal
4 with the troop commanders, the generals you have indicted, or the
5 political leadership of Serbia, or me personally. On the contrary, you
6 have evidence that we did our utmost to prevent crimes, and if crimes were
7 committed - and this is possible even in peacetime let alone during
8 wartime and especially during ethnic conflicts - that they should be
9 prosecuted under the law. In Serbia in the Sabac District Court in 1993,
10 the first of these trials was held, and you have information to that
11 effect.
12 On the other side, you have all the evidence that we were the ones
13 who were the most persistent in achieving peace and who can claim the most
14 credit for achieving peace, that we saved millions of refugees on the
15 principle of non-discrimination, because tens of thousands of Muslim
16 refugees found refuge in Serbia. We freed French pilots and other
17 hostages. You can see what was done to achieve this through materials you
18 yourselves have. And all we could do was insist and beg and exert
19 pressure because we had no other powers. But we succeeded in this.
20 Please look at these interviews, because this is enough for you to
21 understand that all these charges make no sense.
22 On the other side, you can see what evidence you have on the role
23 of the Croatian political leadership in ethnic cleansing and the plan and
24 the achievement of the plan both before and after 1990. You even have
25 stenograms. We received some of these from you, and we were able to see
Page 32288
1 them here, from which you can see the fabrication of excuses for the
2 perpetration of crimes during Operations Flash and Storm. You have
3 evidence of the role of the Clinton administration in all this, and you
4 will receive more evidence. You have written evidence about those who
5 made all these decisions, because in each of the stenograms of the
6 so-called VONS, the Council of Defence and National Security, you can see
7 who was present there.
8 You also have evidence of crimes against the Serbs based on
9 decisions by the Muslim leadership. Kljuc testified here, a former member
10 of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and on the basis of the
11 stenogram I asked him about this because you can see that Izetbegovic knew
12 about the camps where people were illegally detained for years on end, and
13 you will be able to hear more testimony about this. You have everything
14 you need about the Croatian and the Muslim leaderships but not about the
15 leadership of Republika Srpska, the Republika Srpska Krajina, and Serbia.
16 You have evidence from the testimony of your own protected witness
17 who was an important political leader that what Milan Martic said to me
18 was correct, that is that in the Krajina, including in Knin itself, the
19 Croats who remained were being treated as equal citizens and that there is
20 absolutely no discrimination whatsoever.
21 I think that what I'm going to say now deserves more time, but I
22 will be very brief and simply just touch upon it. And this is the matter
23 of witnesses who reached a plea agreement with this so-called Prosecution,
24 and this is, I dare say, an example of the fabrication of false witnesses.
25 I think that this is an unprecedented event. When one of these
Page 32289
1 witnesses, when I asked him how he could have signed that in Srebrenica
2 7.000 Muslims were shot, he explained that his defence sent a letter in
3 which it promised not to challenge numbers. So you could have written
4 down 70.000. You could have written down whatever you wanted.
5 Before the Bosnia case, I put forward information my collaborators
6 succeeded in collecting which throws serious doubt on your constructions
7 about Srebrenica. In the meantime, we have heard the testimony of General
8 Morillon who testified here that Srebrenica was a trap for Mladic who
9 confirmed that in his opinion, and he knew Mladic well, Mladic could never
10 have issued such an order. And this is in accordance with what I believe.
11 I do not believe Mladic could have issued such an order. His honour would
12 never have allowed him to do such a dishonourable thing. But there will
13 be witnesses called to testify about all this.
14 And what I want to say is that I think it's in the interests of
15 both Serbs and Muslims that the truth about Srebrenica should come to
16 light rather than a false myth be created. Your fabrication of false
17 witnesses and the pressures of Paddy Ashdown on the leadership of
18 Republika Srpska, which is synchronised with what you are doing, this will
19 not be sufficient to perpetrate this double crime, this double crime which
20 insults both the dead and the living.
21 Everyone should be interested in establishing the truth about
22 Srebrenica so that those who perpetrated crimes might be punished and
23 those who are innocent might be released and set free of any charges or
24 doubts that they committed such a dishonourable thing.
25 You did not make use of Erdemovic to get information from him.
Page 32290
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Page 32291
1 You did not make use of any of the things you could have made use of to
2 establish the truth. I hope, I can only hope that some of the witnesses -
3 I am trying, through my collaborators, because I myself cannot do it, of
4 course - I hope they will throw more light on what happened there.
5 But to go back to this witness or two other witnesses whom you
6 have here who made plea agreements. You then had such protected
7 witnesses, because you had the public testimony of Miroslav Deronjic, and
8 his own mother should not speak to him in view of what he said he did,
9 that he killed a whole village after guaranteeing its security. First, he
10 guaranteed its security and then slaughtered the whole village. You
11 forgave him all of that only so that he would lie against Karadzic. And
12 you have Karadzic's order to the troops in Srebrenica in your hands to the
13 effect that they should look after the civilians and adhere to the Geneva
14 Conventions. This was sent in writing to the troops. And then someone
15 like Deronjic comes along to testify that Karadzic allegedly whispered in
16 his ear that they should all be killed. This does not make sense, and
17 it's not even worth discussing. No normal man could comprehend it,
18 especially when someone signs a document about the shooting of 7.000 men
19 because he's obliged not -- obliged not to challenge any figures.
20 Not to mention other matters that you made use of here. You made
21 use of my speech, you built it into the very foundation of your indictment
22 when you first opened your mouths in 2002, my speech in Gazimestan where I
23 allegedly fanned the flames of Serb nationalism. I am proud of that
24 speech to this day, because it is everything else, but it is certainly not
25 the awakening of some sort of negative atmosphere. On the contrary. But
Page 32292
1 you are not the only ones to participate in this. This has been repeated
2 by many Western politicians. There is almost no newspaper that has not
3 written about it. The lie has been repeated innumerable times, but not in
4 '89. To put it correctly, then, it's only ten years later that this
5 happened. I have no time to dwell on this, but I will take it as an
6 example of the way manipulations and lies are perpetrated.
7 Robin Cook, on the 28th of June, 1999, ten years later, says:
8 [In English] ... not to give a message of hope and reform.
9 Instead, he threatened force to deal with Yugoslavia's internal political
10 difficulties, doing so thereby launched his personal agenda of power and
11 ethnic hatred under the cloak of nationalism."
12 [Interpretation] I have here any number of quotations dating from
13 1999, 2000, 2001. Look at The Independent, the 1st of July, 2001:
14 "[In English] ... without his agenda, more than a million Serbs;
15 at the battle of Kosovo, 600, anniversary celebration, as he openly
16 threatens force to hold the six-republic federation together."
17 [Interpretation] You have quotations here from Time magazine, even
18 from The Economist. They are all quoting lies. I have now quoted from
19 The Independent, the 1st of July, 2001. Now I will quote The
20 Independent from the 29th of June, 1989. The same newspaper, it says:
21 "[In English] The President made not one aggressive reference to
22 Albanian counter-revolutionaries ..."
23 [Interpretation] Counter-revolution is a definition put forward by
24 the party leadership in 1981.
25 "[In English] ... of mutual tolerance, building a rich and
Page 32293
1 democratic society and ending the discord which he said led to Serbia's
2 defeat here by the Turks six centuries ago."
3 [Interpretation] And then The Independent quotes my words when
4 they report it:
5 "'[In English] There is no more appropriate place than this field
6 of Kosovo to say that accord and harmony in Serbia are vital to the
7 prosperity of the Serbs and of all other citizens living in Serbia
8 regardless of their nationality or religion,' he said. 'Mutual tolerance
9 and cooperation were also sine qua non for Yugoslavia.'"
10 [Interpretation] And then they quote me:
11 "[In English] Relations on the basis of equality among Yugoslav
12 peoples are a precondition for its existence for overcoming the crisis."
13 [Interpretation] Therefore, when they received orders that they
14 should lie, they did not even read their own newspapers from the time they
15 first reported. But I have no time to dwell on this now.
16 And the quotations you can find not all that easily, but you have
17 the Lexis Nexis programme on the BBC. You can find my original speech
18 which the BBC translated, and you can find it there even today, where it
19 says, for example, this is taken from the BBC:
20 "[In English] [Previous translation continues] ... only Serbs
21 living in it. Today, more than in the past, members of other peoples and
22 nationalities also live in it. This is not a disadvantage for Serbia. I
23 am truly convinced that this is an advantage. Citizens of different
24 nationalities, religions and race have been living together more and more
25 frequently and more and more successfully. Therefore, all people in
Page 32294
1 Serbia who live from their own work, honestly, respecting other people and
2 other nations, are in their own republic."
3 [Interpretation] There is no point in taking up my time, using up
4 my time on this. I just wanted to illustrate the scale to which the
5 abuses go, in particular the abuses in a procedure which pretends or
6 aspires to be a legal procedure, because intellectuals, authors, literary
7 critics, publicists, scientists believe it is immoral to take out of
8 context a few sentences. But you did not only take out of context pieces
9 -- sentences, but you took out of context parts of sentences in order to
10 create your constructs. But we will have time later. In any case, this
11 is -- it seems to me it is not something that is difficult to establish.
12 I am not citing that here for any other reason but to show in
13 which way lies are being put forward unscrupulously. You can look at this
14 policy, and I'm talking about national equality as the only principle on
15 which one can proceed further, and it has continuity over ten years. We
16 have the transcript of a party conference in 1998 here, and it's a
17 transcript where we have all the members sitting together from the ruling
18 party, which, amongst other things, the meeting discussed Kosovo. This
19 was not discussed for the newspaper, this was a discussion with the
20 political leadership, including all the ministers, members of government,
21 members of the parliament from the ruling party.
22 I would just like to read only a brief part, my conclusion. And I
23 say, as far as Kosovo is concerned, I'm saying who submitted the
24 introductory remarks, what the majority was, and then I say:
25 "Our policy to resolve the problem of Kosovo is to do it by
Page 32295
1 political means," so we're talking about 1998 now, the 10th of June, 1998.
2 "Our policy is to resolve the problem of Kosovo by political
3 means. We are approaching that settlement in view of our conviction and
4 our programme which implies the principle of national equality. We do not
5 want to damage or inflict damage on the Albanians, and we do not want
6 Albanians in Kosovo to be citizens of second class."
7 And then I speak about how many think that perhaps the majority of
8 Albanians are in favour, and I say:
9 "It is not true that all of them are for it. Perhaps the majority
10 is depending on the pressure exerted on them, what was explained to them,
11 how this explanation was given about their future perspectives and
12 everything else. We must discuss this and we must take this approach. We
13 must have a political resolution on the principles of national equality.
14 We must keep in mind that those who were manipulated in this way, these
15 are unhappy people who are manipulated with just like any poor people in
16 the world are, by the powerful, by the manipulators throughout the world
17 whose objective is to destabilise South-Eastern Europe where they
18 constantly need to have an alibi in order to keep the military forces of
19 the great powers there."
20 And then at the end I say Dialogue: "The dialogue which was
21 started is not reserved for the state committee and representatives of
22 Albanian political parties," and then I mention them, all those from the
23 state commission, I mention them individually. "The dialogue is not
24 reserved only for them and it is not only the Serb-Albanian dialogue but
25 it is the Serb-Albanian-Roma-Muslim-Bulgarian dialogue. This dialogue
Page 32296
1 should be present at all levels; in the municipality, in the local
2 commune, in the formal and informal sense, a formal and informal dialogue,
3 because people need to be mobilised to live."
4 So ten years of continuity in my commitment for a policy of
5 national equality which preserved half of the former Yugoslavia from
6 entering into any conflict or war throughout those ten years.
7 I'm speaking about how much this -- this whole thing has been
8 turned upside down. And that is why I said that this indictment
9 represents a sum of unscrupulous manipulations, lies, crippling of the law
10 and an unjust presentation of the history.
11 The individual acts of generals, officials, my own, by way of
12 command responsibility through which you could convict any innocent person
13 because they held a certain post, and now you're trying to bring these
14 generals here. These individual acts I cannot discuss because of a lack
15 of time, and first of all, they've already been challenged in the
16 testimony of your own witnesses and much more, in the biographies and
17 memoirs of participants, and also in scientific studies which were written
18 based on Western sources, documents, and so on. We will leave it up to
19 the witnesses to have the final word when they appear before you here.
20 I would just like to point out a paradoxical situation in which
21 you have brought yourself into by bowing down to the daily merciless
22 policy of the Clinton...