Ex-prez Milan Milutinovic is free, but the rest of the former state high officials are gonna do some time. For most of them the jail sentences they got actually mean life. In Serbia, again a lot of contradictory reactions – most were expecting the verdict like this, but are somewhat confused over Milutinovic being released.
As always, the biggest confusions and the hottest debates being raised are the ones concerning the fairness of Den Haag court. There were several examples where the accused from non-Serbian side, particularly Oric and Haradinaj, were released after sitting through trials similar to those that Lazarevic, Pavkovic, Sainovic, Lukic and Ojdanic received.
There’s of course the confusion concerning collective guilt again, we’ve discussed that a lot in the past on this blog, so I won’t go into it now again. I’m still confused about that one myself.
My opinion is that all this confusion concerning the fairness of Den Haag court has its roots in one problem – Serbia lost all the wars in the nineties, but nobody ever officially informed its citizens about it, so we are now the unofficial losers. Of course, in such a situation where one side unofficially lost the wars, you have to have the unofficial winners (those would be all other countries) and their unofficial heroes (for example – Oric and Haradinaj).
It seems that being an unofficial loser is much more confusing than being an official one. When things are official, at least you know what to expect.
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Well said.
http://www.sense-agency.com/en/stream.php?sta=3&pid=14118&kat=3
Sense News Agency
3 March 2009
- ICTY -
FATAL CLOSE LINKS WITH SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC
THE HAGUE, 03.03.2009
The Trial Chamber has taken into consideration the formal authority over the army and the police the six former Serbian officials had in Kosovo. They faced trial for crimes against Kosovo Albanians in 1999. Furthermore, the Trial Chamber in its judgment took into account the closeness of their ties with Slobodan Milosevic. This has left no doubt as to what Slobodan Milosevic’s judgment for Kosovo crimes would have been like, had he lived to see the end of the trial
In the judgment handed down in the Kosovo Six case (Serbian officials charged with crimes against Kosovo Albanians in 1999), the Trial Chamber has concluded that the Serbian president Milan Milutinovic and the deputy federal prime minister Nikola Sainovic did not have any de iure authority, enshrined in laws, to command the army and police. Sainovic was sentenced to 22 years in prison while Milutinovic was acquitted of all charges and released from jail. The Trial Chamber has obviously taken into account the informal, de facto power that the accused had over the army and police, which stemmed from their relationship with the ringleader of the joint criminal enterprise, Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic.
‘From the evidence presented during the trial the Trial Chamber did not get a clear impression that Milutinovic had close personal and professional ties with Milosevic’, the judgment says. The prosecution based its claims about Milutinovic’s close relationship with Milosevic primarily on the evidence by Austrian ambassador Wolfgang Petritsch, who spoke about the negotiations in Rambouillet and in Paris in early 1999. This was not enough for the Trial Chamber; the judges relied on the evidence by a number of defense witnesses and on Milutinovic’s interview to the OTP investigators. Milutinovic told the investigators he had met with Milosevic ‘from time to time’ but they had never discussed the military activities in Kosovo. According to Milutinovic, at that time he and Milosevic ‘had a lot of disagreements’. Milutinovic didn’t say what they had disagreed about. When asked if he had told anybody about the differences in opinion between him and the federal president, Milutinovic said that he had told his wife.
In addition to finding that Milutinovic’s close ties with Milosevic were not established, the Trial Chamber rejected the prosecution’s claim that the Serbian president obstructed the Rambouillet negotiations. The Trial Chamber did not reject everything Ambassador Petritsch said in his evidence – he noted that Milutinovic was ‘very negative and cynical’ during the talks – but they concluded this did not necessarily mean that Milutinovic had wanted the negotiations to fail. The fate of the negotiations, the judgment concluded, was solely in Milosevic’s hands.
Milosevic was also identified as the person who exercised full control over the army and the police in 1998 and 1999. The judges accepted the argument of the prosecution that Milosevic removed those who thought independently and replaced them with people who obeyed him blindly in order to implement the joint criminal enterprise in Kosovo.
Nikola Sainovic was among those, according to the judges, who described him as one of Milosevic’s ‘closest and most trusted men’. The Trial Chamber reached that conclusion on the basis of ‘copious evidence’ about frequent meetings between Sainovic and Milosevic, testimony of a number of both prosecution and defense witnesses who testified about their relationship and Sainovic’s interview with OTP investigators. The judges established that his ‘leading role’ as a political coordinator of civilian and military activities in the province stemmed from his close relationship with Milosevic.
Unlike Milutinovic and Sainovic, General Nebojsa Pavkovic, who commanded the Third Army, and Vladimir Lazarevic, who commanded the Pristina Corps, had the legal authority to exercise command over the army in Kosovo. Although they were part of the same chain of command, Pavkovic was identified as a member of the joint criminal enterprise and was sentenced to 22 years, while Lazarevic got only 15 years for his contribution to the criminal enterprise – the judges did not find that he was a participant. Lazarevic’s and Pavkovic’s superior, chief of the VJ General Staff Dragoljub Ojdanic was also sentenced to 15 years for contributing to the joint criminal enterprise.
Based on the evidence called in the two-year trial, the judges concluded that of the three generals, Pavkovic was the closest to Milosevic during the NATO campaign. Their closeness, the judgment maintained, was corroborated by numerous formal and informal meetings in the spring of 1999. The judges accepted the evidence given by the deputy chief of the military intelligence service Aleksandar Vaslijevic who said that Pavkovic often skipped over the chain of command and went directly to Milosevic without Ojdanic’s knowledge and permission.
Explaining why they found that Lazarevic merely ‘aided’ the joint criminal enterprise and did not participate in it, the judges stated that, unlike Pavkovic, Lazarevic didn’t take part in the decision-making about future actions in Kosovo at meetings with Milosevic and other high-ranking officials before and during the NATO campaign. The sixth accused general, Sreten Lukic attended a number of such meetings, the judges found. This, together with his de jure authority as the head of the MUP Staff over the police on Kosovo qualified him as ‘a full member’ of the joint criminal enterprise. Like Sainovic and Pavkovic, Lukic was sentenced to 22 years.
There is now no doubt left as to what judgment Slobodan Milosevic would have received for the Kosovo indictment, had the former president of Serbia and the FRY lived to see the end of the trial.
Viktor, thanks for the link to the Orli Fridman article. It’s interesting not just because it’s about Serbia but because through the perspective of her own experience she opens the situation out to include all of us.
Here’s some of what Andy Wilcoxson says:
…Although the trial lasted for more than three years and the judgement was four volumes and nearly 2000 pages long [b]it doesn’t hold up to even the most basic scrutiny[/b].
I’ll start with the issue of command responsibility. [b]The crimes charged in the indictment are all alleged to have happened during the NATO bombing[/b], which ended upon the withdrawal of Serb and Yugoslav forces from Kosovo. Investigating allegations against your own troops at a time when your country is fighting a ground war with the KLA and being bombed by a 19-nation NATO military alliance wouldn’t have been at the top of any competent commander’s list.
[b]Carrying out a proper criminal investigation while the country is being attacked by the largest military alliance on Earth would be difficult if not impossible. No rational person could blame the Yugoslav authorities if they had other priorities during the NATO bombing[/b].
What is remarkable, and [b]the Tribunal noted this in its judgement, is the fact that orders were issued to the police and military to respect human rights and Yugoslav military courts were set-up to prosecute soldiers who committed crimes. Although the judges don’t consider those measures to have been adequate, most countries wouldn’t have done near as much under the same circumstances[/b].
While “command responsibility” pertains solely to crimes of omission in this judgement, the far more serious finding is that of a “joint criminal enterprise” or conspiracy.
With this judgement, the Tribunal has found that the government of Slobodan Milosevic undertook a massive conspiracy “to modify the ethnic balance in Kosovo” by means of “a widespread or systematic campaign of terror or violence against the Kosovo Albanian population” for the purpose of “ensuring continued control by Yugoslav and Serbian authorities over the province.”
That conspiracy theory is the keystone of the entire judgement and the foundation of the whole trial. That conspiracy theory is the only thing linking the military, political, and police leadership to the crimes alleged in the indictment. Debunking that conspiracy theory blows the whole premise of the trial out of the water.
This particular conspiracy theory faces two insurmountable problems (1) [b]all of the crimes charged in the indictment are alleged to have happened during the NATO bombing — not before it[/b], and (2) [b]no military, political, or police official is on record in any of the transcripts, documents, or trail exhibits discussing or referring to any kind of a plan, policy, or conspiracy to terrorize, kill, or expel the Kosovo Albanians[/b].
[b]The judgement attempts to overcome the timing of the alleged crimes[/b] — the glaring problem that each and every crime charged in the indictment happened during the NATO bombing — [b]by claiming that Serbia wanted the NATO bombing[/b].
[b]According to the judgement, Serbia sabotaged the 1999 Rambouillet talks[/b]. Serbia’s motive in doing so, the Tribunal would have you believe, was that Serbia wanted to be attacked by NATO. Serbia wanted to be attacked by the biggest military alliance on the planet for two reasons [b]we are told: (1) NATO bombing would “gain time” for Serbia to carryout its dastardly conspiracy against the Kosovo Albanians, and (2) NATO bombing would give the evil Serbian conspirators “plausible deniability”[/b].
The judgement says: “The international negotiations of 1999 sought to bring about a resolution of the crisis. The FRY/Serbian delegation, along with the other interlocutors, all contributed to the failure of these negotiations, the decision of the NATO Council to use force was put into effect, and the NATO bombing began. The partial responsibility of the FRY delegation in causing the talks to fail, when viewed in light of the movement of additional forces to Kosovo, gives rise to the inference that this was being done to gain time.”
The judgement goes on to explain that “The NATO bombing provided an opportunity to the members of the joint criminal enterprise — an opportunity for which they had been waiting and for which they had prepared by moving additional forces to Kosovo and by the arming and disarming process described above—to deal a heavy blow to the KLA and to displace, both within and without Kosovo, enough Kosovo Albanians to change the ethnic balance in Kosovo and maintain control over the province. And now this could all be done with plausible deniability because it could be blamed not only upon the KLA, but upon NATO as well. While some orders may have been issued directing the police to prevent the departure of civilians from Kosovo after the mass exodus was underway, these orders do not create doubt as to the existence of the common purpose and its execution by VJ and MUP forces.”
[b]The Tribunal did not even attempt to overcome lack of any reference to a conspiracy in the trial record. The judgement simply announced that it was going to ignore that inconvenient problem[/b].
Here’s how the judgement tries to gloss over the lack of evidence: “The Chamber places little stock in the witnesses who testified that there was no common plan, design, or purpose to displace the population or in the lack of any reference to such a common purpose in official meetings of entities such as the VJ Collegium. The Chamber largely accepts the Prosecution’s arguments on this point, namely that witnesses who testified that there was no plan (a) had a motive to lie about it to protect themselves, their colleagues, their friends, and the institutions of which they were members; (b) were not told or were not in a position to know about it; or (c) were merely speculating based upon inadequate information.”
[b]This is the dumbest conspiracy theory that has ever been imagined. How could such a massive conspiracy have been undertaken out without any record being made? Without any plans being drawn-up, and without any orders being given to the troops on the ground? Are we supposed to believe that the Serbs did this through some kind of mental telepathy? A person would have to be stupid to believe that the conspiracy being alleged here actually happened[/b].
[b]The Judgement lists several hundred Kosovo Albanians (mostly military aged men)[/b] that it claims were victims of Serbian war crimes. [b]The trial record contains evidence going to show that a great many of these “victims” were members of the KLA[/b], but even if they were civilians, it doesn’t take much imagination to see how NATO bombing Serbia on behalf of the Albanians could have provoked some Serbian servicemen to carry out reprisals against the Kosovo Albanians. Not because of any conspiracy, but because they were angry that their country was being attacked because of the Albanians.
It also isn’t hard to imagine that the military and police leadership would have been more concerned with defending the country from NATO and KLA attacks than they were with investigating allegations against their own men. Especially given that the crimes charged in the indictment are without exception alleged by the Prosecution to have happened during the 78-day NATO bombing campaign.
Although their conclusions about so-called “joint criminal enterprise” and the criminal liability of the Accused are obscene and an anathema to justice, the judges do concede some interesting points in this judgement — points that refute their conclusions.
[b]Especially interesting are the passages related to Rambouillet. According to the judgement, “The Chamber is of the view that the FRY/Serbian delegation went to Rambouillet genuinely in search of a solution.” but “the international negotiators did not take an entirely even-handed approach to the respective positions of the parties and tended to favour the Kosovo Albanians.”[/b]
That is an interesting concession for the judges to have made, since [b]it undermines a key pillar of their conspiracy theory. If the Serbs “went to Rambouillet genuinely in search of a solution” that obviously contradicts the thesis that the Serbs went to Rambouillet to sabotage the negotiations so that NATO would bomb them and create an opportunity for them to persecute the Albanians[/b].
Another interesting passage in the judgement relates to Bill Clinton and the reasons he gives for the NATO bombing campaign. [b]According to the judgement, “President Clinton stated that the provision for allowing a referendum for the Albanians in Kosovo went too far and that, if he were in the shoes of Milošević, he probably would not have signed the [Rambouillet] draft agreement either[/b]. Although President Clinton initially referred to the intervention of NATO in terms of responding to a humanitarian crisis, he also said that the issues that led to the bombing no longer mattered and that [b]the main issues, which ensured the bombing would continue indefinitely, were that the credibility of the U.S. was at stake, the credibility of NATO was at stake, and his personal credibility as President of the United States was at stake[/b].”
If anybody deserves to be prosecuted for war crimes its Bill Clinton. Here’s a guy that comes right out in the open and says that he’s bombing a country because its leader refuses to sign an agreement that he wouldn’t sign himself, and the reason he’s doing it is for the sake of his own vanity — to preserve his “personal credibility as President of the United States”. It’s more than a little bit ironic that this judgement contains better evidence against him than it does against the men it convicts.
I’d like to point out that Serbian war veterans have recognized Albanian “witnesses” at the Hague repeating things that war veterans mentioned at counseling centers about what they saw the KLA doing to Serbian families.
One guy says it was only himself and another soldier who witnessed it and he was very traumatized, but a “witness” at the Hague is using his exact traumatized wording and feelings in the “testimony”.
The Hague uses LIES and PHONY WITNESSES to make its case.
Hague Tribunal Uses Suffering of Kosovo Serbs to Prepare False Witnesses
http://de-construct.net/e-zine/?p=5196
The Hague Uses Serbian Suffering to Hang the Serbs
Another one of your highly-flavoured sources, Ida?
De[construct].net, by appointment publishers to the fantasy world of Milivoje Ivanisevic? Purveyors of the Karganovic/Ivanisevic/Marco van Hees Dutchbat stunt? Publicisers of Ljiljana Bulatovic-Medic’s account of the martyrdom and bloodcurdling sufferings of the Serbs in the Srebrenica death camps, “to this day entirely ignored by the Western officials and the mainstream media”?
And to crown it all a nice 66th birthday card to Ratko Mladic in the sidebar.
Nice quote under the Blog identity: “in a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act” – George Orwell. So why not take a look at the list of links “Based on Facts”
http://de-construct.net/e-zine/?page_id=59
I didn’t take you for such a post-modernist, Ida.
I’ve seen how the “witnesses” are scripted and the scripts written with earlier testimony from the Serbs.
I read, for instance, back in 1999, some Serb reports which were sent to the UN Security Council. One report was of a Serb from Mostar who was abused in July 1992. Among his abuses, he mentioned that he was forced to eat grass. His statement went something like: “I was forced to eat grass. It was very hot.”
Well, years later an Albanian “witness” made the same two blunt statements. Only the incident allegedly happened in the mountains between Kosovo and Albania and happened in April.
However, it is not hot in April, but chilly and cold – and the mountains are chilly and cold. So his description didn’t match. But Mostar in July IS very hot.
I’ve noticed other things like that from Hague “witnesses”. Many have made blunders and gotten confused when they forgot the script.
And my source quotes Serbian soldiers who recognize what they told “counselors” at WESTERN-FUNDED counseling sites, but which only took notes and never actually gave them any genuine counseling. Those “counseling centers” don’t even exist anymore – they just collected a lot of information and they used in perversely to script “testimony” for “witnesses”.
Plus I’ve seen pictures of FULLY NAMED AND IDENTIFIED KOSOVO SERBS who were mutilated by the KLA.
The KLA started the violence and now they are rewarded with their almost “Serb-free” NATO occupied mafia statelet.
According to De-construct.net the counselling centre where these statements are supposed to have been “laundered” was at Vranje. Wasn’t Vranje supposed to have been the staging post for the bodies shipped out of Kosova and dumped in the Danube or buried at Batajnica or disposed of in Mackatica? You notice an awful lot of things Ida but nothing ever seems to tell you what happened to to the Kosovars you hold in such contempt. Nothing ever seems to tell you and you just don’t want to know.
I see you repeat a bunch of propaganda lies cooked up by western agents.
As for the ethnic Albanians – their population in Kosovo is just as great after the war as before – plus their population grew under Serbian rule. Meanwhile over half the Serbian population of Kosovo is permanently gone.
As well, the ethnic Albanians are living in Serb homes or renting them out to the “international community” while the Serb families remain homeless for 10 YEARS!
That’s what “human righters” support – they make up lies for the “politically correct” peoples and exaggerate their victimhood, meanwhile they down play all the murders and permanent ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Serbs and Roma.
And back to the political kangaroo court – they have used liars/perjurers and some of them have been caught perjuring and have admitted it. And at least one of those has been a Serb “star witness” used repeatedly to accuse other Serbs and get them convicted. I believe his name was Momir Nikolic. He was found out not to be with the person he claimed he was with, nor at the site, nor did he have a conversation he had made up. This was used to frame and implicate another Serb. He was caught in his lies and admitted he was not their at all – it was all fabricated. Obviously he was performing a script for the Hague to get their convictions (not based on real truth) but on lies!
But before he was finally caught – he had been used to testify against several others – leading to their convictions.
And by the way, there have been Serbian homes burned in Kosovo within the last week. But the human rightster organizations and mainstream media will keep ignoring these – like the 2 burned churches in the Muslim-Croat Federation in Bosnia last month in a village were a fraction of Serbs are very slowly returning (Serbs were like 98% of the population there before the war.)
Ida, I can’t chase all the hares you start but I did follow up the story of Fr Zivkovic. I found no substance to your insinuations. I asked you to provide some follow-up information. You refused to. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the cases you report, you are not a serious champion of your cause.
I see you like to dredge up old conversations. Well, I found some new news from your country on the theme of Albanians posing as Kosovan refugees and getting asylum in Britain when not being from Kosovo, but Albania or Macedonia, etc.
Says here that a former intelligence official of Albania, who is wanted for the kidnapping and torture of other Albanians in Albania and one in Macedonia, escaped to Britain in 1996, told the Brits he was being persecuted by the Serbs and has lived off benefits there for 13 years by saying he was depressed. (Probably told a depressing tale of evil Serbs and Brits buy every propaganda story by an ethnic Albanian against Serbs.) He was only found out when he accidentally used his real name several months ago when reapplying/renewing for his benefits.
I am sure you will enjoy reading this and the news is also on BBC, but you never seem to find these stories on your own:
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/uk/news/article_1466643.php/Albanian_ex-intelligence_chief_arrested_in_London_
Albanian ex-intelligence chief arrested in London
London – Albania’s former intelligence chief, who was wanted worldwide on torture and kidnapping charges, has been arrested in London, the BBC reported Tuesday.
Ilir Kumbaro, 55, had lived in Britain for 13 years under a false identity while receiving government assistance. He had convinced immigration authorities in 1996 that he was a refugee from Kosovo fleeing Serbian persecution.
He is accused of kidnapping and torturing at least three Albanians.
A British court on Tuesday cleared the way for his extradition, which must be approved by Foreign Secretary David Miliband.
Read more: “Albanian ex-intelligence chief arrested in London” – http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/uk/news/article_1466643.php/Albanian_ex-intelligence_chief_arrested_in_London_#ixzz0Aja8VcTJ
“Ida, I can’t chase all the hares you start but I did follow up the story of Fr Zivkovic.”
And did you find out that he died?
We need Viktor to translate, but if he doesn’t here after a while, then I’ll repost it on the currently newest entry to this blog “Marble Heads” because it is somewhat related being about the Serbian Orthodox Church. I can make out that they seem to be talking about his surviving relatives at the end.
http://www.slobodnadalmacija.hr/Novosti/Crnakronika/Crnakronika/tabid/70/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/40744/Default.aspx
04.02.2009.
Umro arhimandrit Amfilohije Živković, ozlijeđen u eksploziji kuće
U Traumatološkoj klinici u Zagrebu u utorak je oko 17 sati preminuo arhimandrit Amfilohije Živković (38) koji je 23. siječnja 2009. teško stradao u eksploziji plina u stambenoj kući vlasništvo SPS u Pakracu.
Ova vijest potresla je Pakrac, posebno stanovnike Tomislavove ulice jer je, kako su rekli, smrtno stradao njihov susjed i sugrađanin, a takva se nesreća mogla dogoditi bilo kome od njih.
Amfilohije Živković je rođen 1971.godine, bio je arhimandrit manastira Jasenovac, odnosno najviši u hijerarhiji kaluđera, a bogosloviju je završio pri manastiru Krka.
Kako nam je rekao Slobodan Lalić, protojerej pravoslavne crkve u Pakracu, još se ne zna kada će i gdje biti pokopan Amfilohije Živković kojemu otac, majka i sestra s obitelji žive u Slavonskom Brodu, a brat u Nizozemskoj.
Ida, you made a specific allusion to the explosion in which Fr Zivkovic was so badly burned implying that an explosion causing severe injuries to an Orthodox priest in Pakrac was suspicious, without giving any grounds. I wasn’t digging up old conversations, I was simply asking you to deal with an issue you left hanging in the air. I hope Viktor will be kind enough to help us out but as far as I can see the article confirms that the the cause of Fr Zivkovic’s injuries was a gas explosion. Anyhow, thanks for finally assiting us to a conclusion, and in any case, one way or another it was a pretty awful experience for the priest.
I’m afraid random pickings from the British media aren’t old conversations, I think they come closer to keeping oneself company in the dark. I’m quite prepared to accept that the ranks of organised crime in the UK include Albanian immigrants, lawful and unlawful, perhaps alongside senior Scottish banking executives [allegedly, for Viktor's libel lawyer's benefit]. I’m not sure why you feel this need to persuade me that they exist. I presume you’re puzzled by my unwillingness to tar all Kosovars with the same brush of criminality.
What puzzles me is my country’s strange flaunting of what appear to official links with criminality, purportedly enhancing our capability to “increase the risk” to criminals who choose to commit organised crime in Serbia, the UK and beyond.
http://blogs.fco.gov.uk/roller/wordsworth/entry/crime_busters
[Viktor, feel free to delete the entire last paragraph if you consider it inappropriate content]
Viktor, please also feel free to leave Ida and myself alone to carry on our dialogue of the deaf behind the closed door of this unfortunate post.
“as I can see the article confirms that the the cause of Fr Zivkovic’s injuries was a gas explosion”
But gas explosions can occur due to sabotage or purposely made to happen. Yes, there are accidents but the odds are about 1 in a few million per year in Croatia at the very most. Croatia has like 5 million people and probably averages only 1 or 2 per year.
I don’t think a proper investigation will be carried out and I don’t think we will have access to the details in any event. But I know there’s been a lot of deliberate sabotage by the Croats on Serbs – and that includes sabotage of investigations and autopsies as well.
A UN officer (American) who worked there from 1991-1998 told of things like how the Croats purposely messed up the body of a murdered Serb woman, during the war, so it couldn’t be found how she died.
Have you been following the stories of the tourists in Croatia who’ve been found dead? The latest was an Australian girl Brit Lapthorne (sp?) and her family believes the Croat police is hiding things regarding circumstances of her death.
Occam’s razor?