1 Wednesday, 13 February 2002

2 [Prosecution Opening Statement]

3 [Open session]

4 [The accused entered court]

5 --- Upon commencing at 9.30 a.m.

6 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Nice.

7 MR. NICE: Your Honours. Yesterday, in relation to the earlier

8 part of the history generally, the Croatian indictment and part of the

9 Bosnian indictment, I set out the range of links that may be shown

10 connecting this accused to various crimes with which he is charged, and

11 shortly I'm going to return, although I hope in swifter form this morning

12 or in a swifter manner this morning, to those links that exist in relation

13 to the Bosnian indictment. But it may just be useful to pause for a

14 couple of minutes and to take stock of where we are.

15 The Court will remember yesterday in relation to the Croatian

16 indictment - if we could just put that one on the overhead projector again

17 - that I made the point that the declared independent areas that are

18 shown there -- except they're not coming up on my screen at the moment.

19 Are they on Your Honours' screen?

20 JUDGE MAY: Yes.

21 MR. NICE: I can proceed without them. But in relation to the

22 declared areas shown there, they would not have been doing what they did

23 simply to achieve independence unless there was something else to be

24 joined to. We pause to observe that if any area such as any one of these,

25 simply fearful of a state it distrusted chose to seek to protect itself,

1 there could be no complaint of that.

2 For example, I suppose, if we look forward, if the Kosovo

3 Albanians, concerned about a state they found threatening, simply

4 protected themselves without any insurgency which might give rise to

5 inquiries by the Office of the Prosecutor, for example, then there could

6 be no complaint about that.

7 But going back to Croatia, it wasn't a case simply of seeking to

8 establish independence, it was absolutely a case of seeking to be joined

9 to something else; namely, to Serbia. And if we just look and remind

10 ourselves that there is a gap between Western Slavonia and Eastern

11 Slavonia, the evidence will probably reveal to the Chamber that there

12 would have been a desire and effort to take that area as well but that it

13 was impossible. But more significantly, what about Eastern Slavonia? Was

14 this an area of Serb population majority? No, it wasn't. The reverse; it

15 was an area where they were in a minority, and yet it was an area that was

16 cleansed.

17 Can we now turn to the map in relation to Bosnia and look at it in

18 just a little bit more detail. My video -- ah, here it is. It's coming

19 up now.

20 The various marks that Your Honours can see surrounded in red or

21 blue indicate the municipalities as declared. The legend at the bottom

22 tells us that. And the Chamber will see that those declared

23 municipalities do not include all the areas to the east that adjoin

24 Serbia, and yet the Chamber will see that it is those eastern areas that

25 were subject to the most, sometimes the most extreme force of ethnic

1 cleansing and violence.

2 In both the case of the eastern parts of Bosnia and the eastern

3 parts of Croatia, when in due course it's possible to analyse from the

4 evidence the degree to which the crimes -- and in our respectful

5 submission, there is going to be no doubt but that the most serious crimes

6 were committed. When one looks to see to what degree the crimes were

7 committed for - committed by the JNA as opposed to being committed by, in

8 the case of Croatia, those who represented the declared municipalities in

9 relation to Bosnia, the army of Republika Srpska - we will find that there

10 was a heavy preponderance of military crime being committed coming from

11 the east, coming from Serbia, whether in the name of the JNA or the VJ or

12 whatever, coming from the east.

13 These --

14 JUDGE MAY: Let me see if I've got the point. Eastern Slavonia,

15 you make the point there was not a Serb majority.

16 MR. NICE: No.

17 JUDGE MAY: But are you making a similar point in relation to

18 Bosnia or is it a different point?

19 MR. NICE: Certainly. No, it's the same point but it's even more

20 powerful.

21 JUDGE MAY: Which are the areas without the Serb majority?

22 MR. NICE: Can I take it you -- I'll hand it back. My machine

23 isn't working. If you run down -- if you look at the right-hand side of

24 the map, you'll see that areas of Zvornik, Bratunac, Srebrenica, and

25 Visegrad are not included as the Serbian Autonomous Districts or regions

1 defined by proclamation on the 21st of November. But as you -- and let me

2 explain the map a little more.

3 The areas surrounded in blue or red are, as the legend reveals,

4 the proclaimed Serbian Autonomous Districts. The areas shaded in grey are

5 those that feature in the indictment. So that these areas - Zvornik,

6 Bratunac, Srebrenica, and Visegrad - are not declared on the 21st of

7 November, no Serb majorities, subject of ethnic cleansing and other

8 dreadful crimes, as we've already heard; and the evidence will show in

9 both this case and also again in the case of Croatia that the eastern

10 regions were subject of a high percentage of direct military involvement

11 coming from Eastern Serbia.

12 And the point is perhaps obvious, in our respectful submission,

13 powerful. These regions in both states, Croatia and Bosnia, declaring

14 their autonomy or independence, weren't just doing it for themselves.

15 They were doing it in order to be joined to something else.

16 Was it purely fortuitous that they wanted to be joined to

17 something that was going to be headed by this accused, or was he, as we

18 say, for all the reasons already advanced, a party to precisely that plan?

19 The facts I have just summarised, of course, indicate powerfully that of

20 course he was a party to that plan. We heard yesterday of somebody

21 saying that he would become their leader in the event of joinder. Of

22 course he would.

23 Whether, in the room where things were discussed, it was a

24 question of "Do this" or, "Here's a problem," leaving its resolution to

25 the others tacitly agreed, whether it was a question of others bringing a

1 plan and his approving it matters not, for criminal culpability would

2 always follow. But the events and, of course, his failure ever to stop

3 the events show the culpability there was.

4 We've rather assumed, and perhaps unhelpfully to some of those

5 watching, we've rather assumed that everybody knows the map of Yugoslavia

6 from working in this place. We haven't actually put one on the overhead

7 projector, and perhaps at some stage we ought to do so, although the

8 overhead projector isn't the best vehicle really for seeing maps. But --

9 if I can move the microphone.

10 For those who are less familiar, what I'm saying is that the areas

11 here are the areas subject of this particular concern by the accused, we

12 would say, and others. The consequence of success in these areas in

13 joining up Slavonia with Western Slavonia, the consequences of success in

14 Bosnia would be, of course, to create an enormous area joined up and going

15 round under Serb control.

16 Your Honour, with that recap of yesterday's position, can I return

17 to where we were, but as I've indicated, having given the accused an

18 opportunity to know the categories of material, the natures of connections

19 upon which we rely, I will now attempt to move more swiftly.

20 We ended yesterday with the listed connections between the army of

21 the Republika Srpska and Serbia itself. It's necessary to mention one or

22 two other personalities, but very briefly. Some of them will recur

23 elsewhere.

24 Jovica Stanisic was a man who was a close associate of this

25 accused, one of his closest. The man responsible for establishing special

1 operations units which became known as the Red Berets. He's a man whom we

2 must have in mind. He's a man who features not only at this early stage

3 but who features significantly in Kosovo when we find, so far as he is

4 concerned, something of a change of mind.

5 He, Stanisic, founder of the Red Berets, had close, very close

6 contacts with this accused.

7 Another man, Frenki Simatovic, referred to as chief of the unit

8 that was initially known as something else and then came to be known as

9 the Red Berets, a man who would often brag to his men of a direct line of

10 communication that he had with this accused through the

11 previously-mentioned Jovica Stanisic. We've got a picture of somebody

12 wearing a red beret. Next we'll just put on that to show what the Red

13 Berets look like. This isn't anybody in particular - it is to him, of

14 course - but it's a Red Beret uniform.

15 The man Simatovic supplied Arkan with ammunition and supplies and

16 had a close relationship with Arkan until 1994, when Arkan's Tigers were

17 incorporated into the ranks of the Red Berets. Further connections and

18 connections to this accused.

19 Simatovic used the Red Berets to help distribute weapons in both

20 Croatia and Bosnia. And putting the Red Berets and Perisic together very

21 briefly, there was a time when Perisic was Commander in Mostar when he

22 initially may have objected to the Red Berets being there because they

23 took orders directly from Belgrade. He was overruled on that eventually.

24 I'm not going to say more about Arkan. I dealt with him at some

25 length yesterday, save to say that on one occasion when Arkan was engaged

1 in training some trainees, he was overheard by a witness who will be

2 before you, to say this: "Those who will not cut throats, kill, maim, and

3 eliminate all those who dare to stand against the Serb state will be

4 killed." And in light of the general conduct of that man, it will be

5 evidenced, it may be thought a genuine rather than -- a genuine

6 protestation rather than mere bravado.

7 I've already dealt briefly with the Serbian Ministry of Defence.

8 I say very little more about it at the moment save to say this; that the

9 accused was instrumental in passing or having passed a Serbian law on

10 defence on the 18th of July of 1991, which placed the police and the

11 Territorial Defence under his personal control. And, and I think we've

12 now got Article 39 of the order that dealt with that. It reads as

13 follows: "In times of war or an immediate threat of war and emergency

14 situations, the Territorial Defence may be reinforced with volunteers

15 too."

16 The significance of that may become apparent a little later.

17 Arkan had dealings with the Ministry of Defence as established by

18 this accused; further connections. The accused himself had very regular

19 contacts with that ministry and daily contact with the man General

20 Simovic, who was its head for a time.

21 The Bosnian MUP, another body of which you'll become aware in the

22 evidence, established early in 1992 when the authority of the republican

23 MUP was abolished.

24 There's another intercept which you'll hear of in due course, or

25 you'll hear in due course, between Karadzic and this accused where

1 Karadzic told the accused this: "The Muslims were simply heading towards

2 division of Bosnia and Herzegovina. We will carry out the establishment

3 of regions and set up our MUPs wherever we are in power."

4 It will not be possible, in our submission, for this accused to

5 say that silence is anything less than involved participation when these

6 material and important telephone intercepts become evidence in the case

7 for the MUP played a leading role in the takeover of municipalities and in

8 the persecution of the non-Serb population.

9 Another key to the takeover of Bosnia was the arming of local

10 Serbs, something again that we'll find repeated in Kosovo, showing a

11 constancy of behaviour. Thus, then, several more connections beyond those

12 that I referred to yesterday.

13 As to the crime or crime base, as we refer to it in these trials,

14 in Bosnia it wasn't anything other than a takeover of towns. It was not a

15 conflict, it was a takeover of towns and municipalities. How was it done?

16 Well, maybe a good illustration is to be found in what was said by

17 somebody, a party member from Bosanska Krupa regarding the takeover of

18 that town; a speech or contribution to the 16th Assembly of the Bosnian

19 Serb Assembly, where a Mr. Vjestica made these remarks, informing his

20 audience of the situation in the theatre of war in the municipality of

21 Bosanski Krupa. "What have we done," he said, "in this municipality? I

22 must tell you to remind you that all there is, only 24 per cent are Serbs

23 in the Serbian municipality of Bosanska Krupa. That is 14.500 of us, and

24 there are 47.000 Muslims. For a year and a half, we have been preparing

25 for the war in the Serbian municipality of Bosanska Krupa." So indicating

1 preparation back to the beginning of 1991.

2 "I ask a question now," he went on, "which I have the right to

3 ask: How could it happen that two-thirds of the town were taken in two

4 days of operation? On the right bank of the Una River, there are no more

5 Muslims. In the Serbian municipality of Bosanska Krupa, all the enclaves

6 that were Rapusa --" and he lists them -- "we have evacuated them so there

7 will be none there for the duration of war operations. Will they have a

8 place to return to? I think it's unlikely after our President told us the

9 happy news that the right bank of the Una River was the border."

10 Well, how was it possible to take over a municipality when they

11 were outnumbered three to one? Because arms had been distributed to the

12 Serb population; because there had been extensive party leadership in the

13 planning; and of course because of the military action supported from

14 elsewhere that was available to them.

15 Let's turn to Bijeljina. We've seen where it is in the northeast

16 of Bosnia. Sixty per cent Serb, 31 per cent Muslim prior to the conflict,

17 although 70 per cent of Bijeljina town was itself Muslim. So this is in

18 the autonomous region, as declared, of Semberija.

19 One of the first targets, it would appear, of those masterminding

20 this operation, and it was Arkan who made, perhaps, his reputation there.

21 He'd been seen in the town frequently enough, familiarising himself with

22 the streets before the attack, an attack which involved the JNA as well as

23 Arkan's men. The JNA which had helped distribute arms in advance to local

24 Serbs. The JNA which provided no protection for the town when Arkan

25 attacked. It did free some of Arkan's men when they were trapped by

1 Muslims. And when Arkan had finished, the JNA moved in to secure the

2 town.

3 A former policeman from this town will describe seeing Arkan there

4 as well as seeing others, including Mrs. Plavsic and a man called Fikret

5 Abdic. Plavsic and Arkan met on plainly familiar terms, and the witness

6 was given the responsibility of collect bodies. As a former policeman, he

7 had some experience the investigation of crimes, and the corpses scattered

8 around the town had, for the most part, died from gunshot wounds in the

9 mouth, temple, or the back of the head, none of them wearing uniforms, and

10 their number including women and children.

11 Coming down the Drina River and now to one of those places that I

12 referred to earlier, Zvornik. Attacked without any provocation by the

13 JNA, as well as paramilitaries. Shelled from positions within Serbia

14 proper. The subject of the attentions of Arkan as well.

15 Kozluk I don't think we have marked. An entire community of

16 Muslims from there, 1.800 in all, gathered up in the Kozluk settlement of

17 Visegrad, and of course the Court will remember how I described one part

18 of this event as my opening passage to Your Honours' Court. But what was

19 interesting is perhaps the ending of Visegrad shown in part on the

20 photograph on the ELMO. Those moved were forced to sign over their

21 property to local Serb leaders and then board buses for Serbia. What

22 happened to them in Serbia? Well, they were kept in a train yard for

23 several days while they were given Serbian passports. With the Serbian

24 passports, they were then transported over the Serbian border into Hungary

25 and Austria. Whose involvement and what level of authority does that

1 reveal?

2 Bratunac. Again to the east, again not within one of the declared

3 autonomous districts. Sixty-four per cent Muslim, 34 per cent Serb.

4 Again the local Serbs had been armed in advance by the JNA. Indeed, the

5 JNA went further, as they did elsewhere; armed the Serbs and disarmed the

6 others.

7 In late 1991, the JNA started installing artillery weapons and

8 mortars into positions facing the town. I go back to my earlier

9 observations this morning: Is this the justified protection by a

10 community of itself or is it entirely the reverse, as this accused well

11 knows?

12 In April, tanks were deployed on the Serbian side of the river

13 with their cannons facing the town, and the takeover began when the JNA

14 Novi Sad Corps moved in on the 16th of April, together with Arkan's Tigers

15 and two of the other groups to which we've referred, White Eagles and

16 Seselj's men, most of them wearing balaclavas.

17 Well, as I said yesterday, we keep ourselves detached, but it is

18 perhaps worth thinking what it must feel like to be in a town, to face

19 that sort of occupation, with consequences that can have been only too

20 easily forecast by the victims-to-be.

21 On the 9th of May, in the Glogova area of Bratunac, south of

22 Zvornik and along the Drina River, 65 Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat

23 civilians were killed by members of that 1st Novi Sad Corps acting with

24 paramilitaries. Eight thousand people were expelled from the

25 municipality, and in January of 1993, six months after the JNA allegedly

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and

13 English transcripts.

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

1 withdrew from Bratunac, they returned to assist Bosnian Serbs when they

2 were in danger of losing the municipality again. And when they got

3 involved on this occasion, it was with tanks and rocket launchers,

4 companies of specialised troops.

5 General Mandic, of the Yugoslavian army, stated in an interview in

6 Belgrade's daily Politika that the presence was pursuant to a decree of

7 the Republic and the Supreme Council. The Chamber will recall that, of

8 course, the accused was a member of that Council.

9 Visegrad, again as referred to earlier: In the course of that

10 takeover, Muslims gathered from the town and surrounding settlements,

11 systematically searched, told what was coming their way by White Eagles

12 who were controlling the town. Then the awful incident I referred to

13 yesterday where women and children were burned to death. I needn't go

14 into that.

15 In June of the same year, in the same area, execution of

16 non-Serbs, including women and children, who were executed and thrown into

17 the Drina River. Summary executions followed.

18 A witness will be before you at about -- covering this period of

19 time, who overheard Radmila -- Radmilo Bogdanovic, a sometime Serbian

20 Minister of the Interior, arguing with the man Seselj in a hotel in

21 Bratunac about the takeover in Visegrad. This is what was overheard: "We

22 gave you money. We gave you men. We gave you weapons. We gave you

23 freedom to do whatever you want. What else do you want from us?" Seselj

24 replied to that former Serbian Minister that in the coming days the work

25 would be done in all the municipalities along the Drina River.

1 Being given freedom to do whatever you want, should that ever turn

2 out to be some form of excuse, is no excuse at all. It is the clearest

3 revelation of criminal complicity.

4 Prijedor. So well-known that -- to the Chamber, I expect, that I

5 need not mention much about it. Can we just look at the picture, please.

6 In the municipality of Prijedor, hundreds of non-Serb civilians

7 systematically killed in various places. A large number of killings

8 continued in various camps, including Omarska and Keraterm, throughout

9 1992.

10 Karadzic had given a forewarning of the brutality that was going

11 to characterise the campaign. In an order issued on the 22nd of

12 September, 1991, he said this of his own aspirations and of those whom he

13 led: "Should these just and aspirations of the Serbian people be opposed,

14 have no mercy; an eye for an eye."

15 Is the accused detached from that approach if it's an approach

16 that will be established in evidence? It may be thought not thus far by

17 the things that he's said in the hearings here.

18 Yes, we have a video of Prijedor camp. Just have a look at that,

19 please. It's the Trnopolje camp. Sorry.

20 [Videotape played]

21 "INTERVIEWER: It was the second camp, Trnopolje, where 2.000

22 refugees were living. We were not prepared for what we saw and heard

23 there. How long has he been here? Several hundred said that they'd

24 arrived from Omarska that morning or from another detention camp, released

25 to this refugee centre after days, sometimes months, of interrogation. We

1 asked if the allegations of beating in the detention centres were true.

2 "INTERVIEWEE: Can't say much about that. See people are hungry,

3 it's true. I'm not sure if I'm allowed about that. Can you understand

4 me?

5 "INTERVIEWER: Tell us the truth.

6 "INTERVIEWEE: I'm afraid. 250.

7 "INTERVIEWER: Killed? What happened?"

8 MR. NICE: A pattern repeated elsewhere frequently, in far worse

9 circumstances and with many deaths, as we shall hear, resulting.

10 Sanski Most. Adjacent to Prijedor and Banja Luka. During the

11 takeover in 1992, a hundred non-Serb men brought to Sanski Most from the

12 Keraterm and Omarska camps in Prijedor and killed, detention centres

13 established, and a place to which Arkan returned as late as 1995, when he

14 had been incorporated into the Red Berets, taking the opportunity to kill

15 many Muslims in different locations.

16 Back to Northern Bosnia and the town of Brcko, critical for its

17 position as part of the corridor along the north, adjacent to Bijeljina.

18 It may not be shown on the map -- yes, there it is. Again, not actually

19 originally declared and, of course, a municipality that's had special

20 status since. A place where there was an execution of Bosnian Muslim

21 males at the Hotel Posavina on the 4th of May. And, of course, where

22 there was a Luka camp presided over, at one stage -- or not presided over,

23 the scene of the killings by a man called Jelisic who gave himself the

24 name of Serbian Adolph.

25 Interestingly enough, in that area and on the 20th of May, 1992,

1 the body of a man called Branislav Filipovic was found, apparently a

2 senior member of a paramilitary group. From his body, a number of

3 documents -- or not from his body but from the clothes he was wearing, a

4 number of documents were recovered. They included written authorisation

5 addressed to the JNA headquarters in Belgrade, authorising him to collect

6 weapons; a document stamped the 13th of May, 1992, with a JNA military

7 postcode from Belgrade; documentation that weapons had been delivered --

8 documenting that weapons had been delivered to the Brcko garrison; travel

9 records from a JNA vehicle; and also passes from Brcko and also from

10 Semberija, the declared municipality to the east, allowing him freedom of

11 movement. Well, what was he doing there with all those documents in the

12 absence of active involvement by Serbia in what was going on at this area

13 of Brcko?

14 A short reference to what was going on down in the south in

15 Herzegovina and near the Montenegro border: Significant loss of life

16 there in Foca and Djidevo and so on; the notorious KP Dom prison; in

17 Nevesinje, many Muslims killed.

18 Finally, I suppose, in reference to Bosanski Samac and Doboj, two

19 municipalities in the Northern Bosnia semi-autonomous district, names

20 well-known here. In the Crkvina camp in Bosanski Samac, 17 non-Serb

21 detainees killed on the 6th of May, the camp not being closed until 1992;

22 seventeen hundred people expelled; and a number of prisoners from Bosanski

23 Samac flown by helicopter into Serbia to a JNA military base of Batajnica,

24 just outside of Belgrade.

25 Well, a report of the VRS in 1993 discussed the results of the

1 takeover, said this: "It could hardly be simpler. Corridors were secured

2 to link Serbian territories with mother Serbia."

3 Your Honours, our case is, I hope, clear. Can I detach us from

4 the events on the ground to something slightly different? Because it

5 comes at the end of 1992 and can fit before I deal, as I must briefly,

6 with Sarajevo and Srebrenica.

7 It's a document that reflects the view of the Secretary of State

8 Eagleburger of the United States, and it may provide an interesting view

9 -- I'm sorry, it's not within your papers. My mistake. I'll get a copy

10 printed and provide it. I'll read it from the overhead projector to make

11 sure that it's legible.

12 "Secretary of State Eagleburger, on Wednesday -" this is December

13 the 16th, 1992, is the press release - "said that Serbian President

14 Slobodan Milosevic and the leader of Bosnian Serbs must answer 'in a court

15 of law, I would hope,' for atrocities committed by military and detention

16 camp commanders in shattered Yugoslavia."

17 It went on to dealing with the question of lifting of the embargo

18 and later said this: "The fact of the matter is that we know that crimes

19 against humanity have occurred, we know when and where they occurred. We

20 know, moreover, which forces committed those crimes, and under whose

21 command they operated."

22 Then later: "In short, Eagleburger said, Milosevic and Radovan

23 Karadzic, leader of the Bosnian Serbs, 'have systematically flouted

24 agreements to which they had solemnly, and yet cynically, given their

25 assent.'"

1 And over the page: "Milosevic, Karadzic, General Ratko Mladic,

2 commander of Bosnian Serb military forces, 'must eventually explain

3 whether and how they sought to ensure, as they must under international

4 law, that their forces complied with international law.'"

5 Well, no doubt the accused will make further reference, as he had,

6 to what was to happen later. Dayton and so on. Well, this Tribunal is

7 only concerned, perhaps tangentially, with the workings of politics. Let

8 there be no doubt, first, this accused was already being identified,

9 well-identified for complicity; but second, and the point of irresistible

10 importance in this case, he was on notice from the highest authority of

11 his duty to comply with international law. It will be for the Chamber to

12 decide in due course whether he took any notice of that warning and others

13 like it at all.

14 Sarajevo. We've already seen, of course, what Karadzic said in

15 his six points about what should happen in Sarajevo. And in response to

16 what was happening in Northern Bosnia, the Bosnian President, Alija

17 Izetbegovic, issued a mobilisation call for the Bosnian Territorial

18 Defence. The Bosnian Serb leadership said they regarded this as an act of

19 war. And I have one picture here of a victim of what was to follow in the

20 awful events of Sarajevo. That declaration of war led to some changes in

21 the joint Presidency, particularly insofar as Plavsic was concerned.

22 The day after that declaration, the 5th of April, 1992, Serb

23 paramilitaries laid siege to their police academy in the southern part of

24 the city. Forces moved down from Vraca hill. And this town or city, a

25 clear and long standing example of integration of ethnic groups and

1 tolerance, a place where Muslims, Serbs, Croats, Yugoslavs, and Jews had

2 co-existed, indeed their places of worship cheek by jowl together in the

3 Old Town were subject to the following, as it may be described: The siege

4 of Sarajevo - for that's what it was popularly known as - was an episode,

5 it may be decided, of such notoriety in the conflict of the former

6 Yugoslavia that we must go back to World War II to find a parallel in

7 European history. Not since then had a professional army conducted a

8 campaign of unrelenting violence against the civilians of a European city

9 so to reduce them to a state of medieval deprivation in which they were in

10 constant fear of death. In the time period of this indictment, nowhere

11 safe for a Sarajevan, not at home, at school, in hospital to be free of

12 indiscriminate attack.

13 The civilians who chose to remain in Sarajevo, about 350.000 of

14 them, deliberately targeted by those forces of the VRS that encircled

15 Sarajevo. Through the actions of snipers, civilians were shot in their

16 homes as they watched television, drank coffee or prayed, shot outside

17 their homes as they crossed the street, cleared rubbish, collected wood

18 for heat, or fetched water, as they rode in buses or on trams.

19 In addition, shelling by the VRS, particularly through the use of

20 mortars specifically designed to kill and maim, targeted civilians that

21 queued to collect water at some of the wells, targeted groups of children

22 playing near residences, schools, hospitals, targeted funeral processions,

23 and, of course most notoriously it may be, crowded marketplaces.

24 We accept that our proof against this accused, certainly at this

25 stage, for complicity in these awful events is via his support for the

1 Republika Srpska and via his support for its army. We do not, of course,

2 exclude the possibility of being able to go further in due course.

3 Srebrenica, the safe area so declared until, on the 11th of July,

4 1995, troops of the Republika Srpska's VRS army and MUP troops under the

5 command of Mladic and others executed over 6.500 Bosnian Muslim men and

6 boys from the Srebrenica enclave. A picture of a mass grave. And that

7 was carried out over a five-day period by firing squads in the area south

8 of Zvornik that we've been looking at.

9 Bratunac. Fifteen hundred men and boys murdered in Bratunac

10 during this period of time in various villages, 5.000 men and boys

11 murdered in Zvornik. The largest single massacre in Europe since World

12 War II. The one distressing photograph we show, the important point

13 perhaps being what can be found around the man's head.

14 In addition to these matters, we expect -- we intend to lead

15 evidence in support of the indictment of extensive systematic plunder and

16 destruction of private property of those expelled, the intentional

17 destruction of mosques, historical and cultural institutions, churches and

18 other buildings; destruction carefully calculated to ensure that when the

19 conflict ended, those expelled had little, if anything, to which to

20 return.

21 Again, as in the previous indictment, I do not need to relate that

22 which is publicly available in the listing of charges against this

23 accused.

24 As a post script and a further link back to Croatia, this small

25 detail: A witness before you will testify that as a member of the

1 military intelligence, he was aware in 1995 of the accused's intention to

2 stop supporting the Krajina and to allow it to fall back into the control

3 of Croatia. Well, whether his measure of control is exactly as

4 substantial as that, something the Prosecution assert, is, of course, for

5 the Tribunal to establish on all the evidence. But the witness can help

6 us further. He and thousands of other Serb refugees crossed into Serbia.

7 We looked, in 1993, at how this accused was prepared to treat his

8 own people when they did things he didn't like. How was he prepared to

9 treat these people? Did he welcome them back or did he use them for his

10 own purposes? They were prevented from leaving the highway by police

11 officers who funneled the fleeing Serbs down to Croatia where they could

12 affect the Serb populations in areas in a minority; all part of an overall

13 plan.

14 I turn to Kosovo. Can we have the Yugoslavian map up, please.

15 Kosovo's rather a small area, really, and it's being marked by Ms.

16 Graham on the map for us.

17 Under the ICTY Statute -- sorry. If I said they were funneled to

18 Croatia in relation to the previous witness, I should have said to Kosovo.

19 And I'm grateful for that.

20 Under the ICTY Statute covered in this indictment, offences

21 charged include crimes against humanity, deportations, transfers, murders,

22 persecution, and violations of the laws and customs of war, such as

23 murder.

24 I dealt yesterday with the overall statistics for Kosovo. A word

25 about its historical context, and we'll put on another map. Shows Kosovo

1 itself, bordered by Montenegro, Serbia, Albania, and so on, rather better.

2 It was one of the two autonomous provinces of the socialist

3 republic, as I explained yesterday, had its own Constitution, local

4 government, and police under that 1994 Constitution, and right up until

5 1989. It's been tested territory for much of its history, various claims

6 made about people's ancestors and so on.

7 It remained Ottoman or Turkish by rule until 1912 when it was

8 taken by Serbian and Montenegrin forces in the Balkan wars, then to be

9 occupied by the Austro-Hungarians in 1915. Serb troops returned in 1918

10 and Kosovo became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. In

11 the Second World War, it was again occupied by Bulgaria, Germany and

12 Italy, and at the end of the Second World War it was formally annexed to

13 Serbia. It's an area that's always been ethnically mixed, containing, of

14 course, Kosovo Albanians and Serbs but also many other groups, including

15 Turks, Roma, and some Croats, and some Bosniaks, and so on.

16 I played yesterday the -- or had played yesterday the Kosovo Polje

17 "No one should dare to beat you" video clip and also the 28th of June,

18 1989 speech.

19 Between 1989 and 1992, with its autonomy dismantled by Serbia and

20 with its provincial institutions being dissolved, it was effectively being

21 taken over by the Republic of Serbia, and Kosovo Albanians found

22 themselves dismissed from their institutions and jobs and businesses, the

23 majority of them state or socially owned. Discriminatory measures were

24 put in place, it may be thought clearly aimed at altering the ethnic

25 balance in Kosovo; the Serbs were able to come and take jobs, even when

1 they were not particularly qualified for them, getting housing and

2 benefits to lure them there. And indeed, there were the Serb refugees

3 sent there, as I eventually when correctly -- when corrected, reminded

4 you.

5 I think we last picked up the history, and I'm going to deal with

6 the history as briefly as I can, but I must deal with Kosovo in some

7 detail. We picked up the history, I think, with the 7th of September 1990

8 declaration by the Assembly, the Kosovo Assembly of the Republic of

9 Kosovo. There was then, in 1991, an unofficial referendum where they

10 voted overwhelmingly for independence from Serbia. And in May 1992, they

11 held unofficial elections for an Assembly and a President of what they

12 called the Republic of Kosovo, a parallel government whose dominant

13 political attitude was non-violent resistance.

14 You heard yesterday, of course, of how not so very many years

15 earlier and following the death of Tito, there'd been the cry of Republika

16 Kosovo. That was something that had actually been heard before but we're

17 concerned with its occurrence here and in the relevant part of the history

18 that will drive conclusions in this case.

19 In the face of this legal, social, and economic Serbianisation of

20 Kosovo, the Serbian Assembly denounced its Albanianisation of Kosovo and

21 denounced that as the greatest ethnic cleansing in Europe, carried out, it

22 was said, with the goal of cutting Kosovo off from Serbia and Yugoslavia,

23 arguing at that time, in 1992, that there were many illegal immigrants

24 from Albania inhabiting Kosovo. How detached was it to take this view?

25 How detached from reality was it to take this view when ethnic cleansing

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and

13 English transcripts.

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

1 by Serbs was going on in Eastern Bosnia?

2 Well, we pass through those awful conflicts and come, of course,

3 to Dayton in 1995. The effectively non-violent Kosovo Albanians were

4 disappointed in Dayton. Some -- and I said how detached we must be in

5 this Tribunal from the world of politics. Some may have thought that, by

6 Dayton, some aspects of ethnic cleansing had been rewarded. That may have

7 affected the view that those Kosovo Albanians would hold as to the future

8 utility of a non-violent approach.

9 As we look at what was to come and the Dayton peace negotiations,

10 of which no doubt the accused will speak, it's worth reminding ourselves -

11 I needn't list them - that although President of Serbia and not until

12 much later President of Yugoslavia, it was this accused who the

13 politicians turned to between 1991 and 1995. The reason, it may be, as I

14 suggested yesterday, because he did have the power and it was hoped that

15 he was the person who was going to be able to deliver. It may be that he

16 was the person who impressed international negotiators with charm or even

17 seeming reasonableness and moderation, even if appearances were different

18 from what was revealed on the ground.

19 I think he told Your Honours at his initial appearance he should

20 be given credit for peace in Bosnia and not for war. Well, it may be that

21 by the time of Dayton he didn't want war any more, at least not at that

22 time, because peace meant securing for Bosnian Serbs about half of the

23 country that they had devastated. It would mean an end to sanctions that

24 were then in place and it would, of course, end the massive drain of the

25 Bosnian war machine.

1 The Chamber may remember my suggestion yesterday that the first

2 two battles are battles he could afford to win, at least afford for a time

3 until he could go no further. The last one was one he could not afford to

4 lose. But of course, whatever decisions the accused made in 1995 have no

5 effect on his involvement in what was done before if the evidence reveals

6 those to have been crimes. I've already made the point about Secretary of

7 State Eagleburger's view some years earlier.

8 I move on from Dayton because I'm concerned with its effect on the

9 Kosovo Albanians and on the history of what was happening in Kosovo, save

10 of course simply to say this: It would always have been possible, after

11 Dayton, for this accused to have reflected the position he's already

12 represented as being his to this Chamber and to bring to justice men such

13 as Sljivancanin, Mrksic, Mladic, and Arkan if he was sincere. You judge a

14 man, of course, sometimes for his sincerity not by what he says but by

15 what he does. Those men he gave a home and refuge in Serbia, rewarding

16 some of them with promotions and the access to great wealth.

17 Following Dayton, in September 1996, there was an agreement signed

18 by the accused and Ibrahim Rugova, the leader of the Kosovo Albanians, an

19 agreement that should have provided some of the educational rights that

20 had been taken away from the Albanians. Some hoped, actually, that the

21 agreement would be implemented, but it wasn't. But Rugova pursued the

22 non-violence strategy, even though he may have been having little success

23 and getting little for it.

24 So it was in the mid-1990s that a faction of Kosovo Albanians

25 organised a group that we know as the KLA, Kosovo Liberation Army, or UCK

1 in the language of the Kosovo Albanians. And this group advocated a

2 campaign of armed insurgency and violent resistance to the Serbian

3 authorities, and indeed in 1996, mid-1996, started launching attacks

4 primarily on Serbian police forces to which the Serbian police responded

5 forcefully against suspected KLA bases and against suspected supporters of

6 the KLA in Kosovo.

7 In 1996, back in Serbia, or in Serbia generally, the accused may

8 have felt himself under some pressure when local elections did not go his

9 way. This probably followed economic pressures or may have reflected some

10 entente between opposition parties. In any event, it led to the accused

11 having some difficulties between November 1996 and January 1997 with

12 demonstrations against him and so on.

13 The Serbian MUP was pressed to use force against demonstrators.

14 The man Stanisic, to whom I've already referred, resisted. Perisic also

15 signalled he was against the use of the army, and it may be that it's at

16 this time that we will see the beginnings of a rift between these two men

17 and the accused. If so, was he beginning to feel vulnerable? If so, does

18 that perhaps explain some of his subsequent conduct?

19 Although the Chamber will be concerned to establish particular

20 events and particular states of mind by hard evidence, it will inevitably

21 from time to time hear or become acquainted with views about the

22 motivation and driving forces of this accused, and it may be that at some

23 stage it will need to consider as a possibility that this was an accused,

24 a man who, when things were difficult, could find an advantage in, for

25 example, the chaos of war from which he would be subsequently, he hoped,

1 able to rebuild something and move on.

2 Well, if he was facing difficulties at home of one kind or another

3 and even the beginnings of dissent from those upon whom he had to rely,

4 was he reaching the stage where, as I suggested yesterday, the forecast

5 that Kosovo's turn would come was becoming an inevitability?

6 In June of 1997, in speech in Kosovo, the accused made it quite

7 plain that there was to be no international mediation for Kosovo, that it

8 was forever an integral part of Serbia.

9 Milosevic was elected as President of what was called the Federal

10 Republic of Yugoslavia on the 15th of July of 1997, taking up office on

11 the 23rd of July. And we have another wiring diagram.

12 Now, this is slightly different from --

13 JUDGE MAY: Have you got this? We should have it, if not.

14 MR. NICE: I hope so, yes.

15 JUDGE MAY: It's the new bundle that you're going on to, is that

16 right?

17 MR. NICE: It's the new bundle that was given yesterday, and I

18 hope it's towards of middle of that, I think. Oh, the third item. Thank

19 you.

20 This is headed differently from the other two because, of course,

21 everything that happens in Kosovo definitely happens within Serbia. It's

22 headed, "De jure command, Yugoslav army, Serbian Ministry of Internal

23 Affairs." The top right-hand dotted line box represents the Supreme

24 Defence Council. We've heard of that before. I'm so sorry if people

25 haven't had these.

1 The accused, along with the presidents Djukanovic and Milutinovic,

2 respectively of Montenegro and Serbia, constituted the Supreme Defence

3 Council, and the precise functioning of this council will be a matter of

4 evidence but what it may come to is this; that the President, commanding

5 the army both in war and peace, acted pursuant to decisions made by the

6 council. How that took effect, of course, will depend on the individuals

7 and their true independence or otherwise of the accused, but in any event,

8 he remains - and he told us about this himself - Commander-in-Chief. And

9 we can see that, therefore, he had command of the General Staff, Colonel

10 General Ojdanic, the 3rd Army Colonel General Pavkovic, and then down

11 through them we come to the Pristina Corps and the Pristina military

12 district.

13 Underneath the Supreme Defence Council but not connected to it on

14 this diagram is the President of Serbia, Milutinovic, with a connection,

15 and again a matter for evidence how direct, to the Ministry of Internal

16 Affairs, Stojiljkovic, and the MUP. From there, a number of divisions,

17 some of them simply fighting units. And if we come down on the left-hand

18 side through the State Security Division under Markovic, the Special

19 Operations Unit, JSO, under Simatovic was a fighting unit. If we come

20 down on the right-hand side under the Public Security Division of the RDB,

21 Djordjevic, the secretariats of internal affairs, the special police units

22 and the special anti-terrorist units, SUP, PJP, and SAJ, all fighting

23 units.

24 The Prosecution's case is that whatever the technical division

25 under law may have been, in fact the accused had influence on all these

1 bodies, and it may well be effective control. But in any event, under the

2 law on defence, as commander of the army, he had the advantage of control

3 over all units in time of imminent threat of war or a state of war because

4 there was then subordination of the MUP to the VJ.

5 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, you concede that your diagram shows his

6 authority as being confined to specific units.

7 MR. NICE: I'm not conceding that his practical authority was

8 confined in any way. This is what the de jure position was in time of

9 peace. In time of war, the subordination of the MUP to the VJ, in any

10 event, so that he would have complete control at that time, and the

11 evidence may well reveal that he had effective control at all times of all

12 units in any event, but this is a diagram to take us forward in looking at

13 the legal position when we have it before us.

14 JUDGE ROBINSON: So we'll await the evidence.

15 MR. NICE: Yes. Certainly. This is the legal position. And it's

16 in very short form. I hope, really, a useful way for the Chamber to start

17 its approach to matters of fact and law that it will have to analyse or

18 may have to analyse.

19 So in his position as President, thus in part his powers.

20 In 1987, August, student demonstrations at Pristina. In September

21 1987 --

22 JUDGE MAY: 1987?

23 MR. NICE: 1997. I'm sorry, Your Honour. Yes, of course, 1997.

24 September, the position didn't improve and there was further armed

25 activity by Kosovo Albanians.

1 In October 1997, the police breaking up non-violent student

2 demonstrations in Pristina. In October of 1997, we have the following

3 apparently sincere dialogue being opened up by the DB with representatives

4 of Kosovo Albanians. But further student demonstrations.

5 And in November, as we will hear from the very first witness in

6 this case, an approach made to leaders of the Kosovo Albanians by those on

7 behalf of the Serbian government where the possibility of Kosovo attaining

8 republic status within the federal Yugoslavia was raised.

9 The Belgrade side of this discussion, if we can so characterise

10 it, rejected that possibility out of hand, saying that if the Albanians

11 insisted on such a demand it meant war.

12 It was also explained at that meeting, as we will hear from the

13 witness, that there was a plan, a "scorched earth" plan that could be

14 implemented within 24 hours to destroy Albanian villages. And the witness

15 was told that the accused and the man Jovica Stanisic knew about the

16 meeting that was being conducted at that time, that it was a meeting with

17 authority.

18 A second such meeting occurred in December of 1997. On this

19 occasion, the witness, from whom we will hear, and Stanisic spoke

20 privately, Stanisic saying that there was a nationalist circle around

21 this accused that would go to war before accepting as a possibility a

22 Kosovo republic.

23 January 1998. The Chamber will, of course, remember that the

24 indictment for Kosovo doesn't start until 1999, but nevertheless, a little

25 of the background of 1998 must be sketched in.

1 In February, the conflict intensified between the KLA and the

2 forces of the Republic of Serbia. A number of Kosovo Albanians and Kosovo

3 Serbs were killed and wounded during this time. The forces of the

4 republic engaged sometimes in shelling Albanian towns and villages,

5 destroying property and expelling populations from areas in which the KLA

6 was or was thought to be active. And indeed the United Nations estimate

7 was that by mid-October of 1998, over 298.000 persons, about 15 per cent

8 of the population, had been internally displaced within Kosovo or had been

9 forced out of the province by what was happening.

10 As early as March of 1998, the Security Council, in its Resolution

11 1160, condemned the use of excessive force by Serbian police forces

12 against civilians and peaceful demonstrators in Kosovo and imposed an arms

13 embargo on the republic. Six months later, a further Resolution, 1119,

14 was passed, which said that the deterioration of the situation in Kosovo

15 constituted a threat to peace and security in the region and demanded

16 that all parties cease hostility and that the security forces used for

17 civilian repression be withdrawn.

18 It's pretty clear that as a result of what was happening the armed

19 insurgency was enjoying wider sympathy that had formerly been the case and

20 demonstrations supportive of an independent Kosovo, frequently large

21 demonstrations, took place.

22 A mention of a man we've heard before, Vojislav Seselj. In March

23 of this year, 1998, he became the Deputy Prime Minister of Yugoslavia.

24 He, the Chamber will remember, President of the Serbian Radical Party,

25 founder of the Serbian Chetnik Movement, and a Deputy Prime Minister of

1 Serbia from this date until 2000 throughout the period of the war in

2 Kosovo. An outspoken advocate, I remind the Chamber, of the Greater

3 Serbia plan and an express approver of the notion of the ethnic cleansing

4 of the Kosovo.

5 Within Kosovo in 1998, there was one particular attack on the

6 family of Ahmeti in a compound in Likosan [phoen] or Likosane. Sixteen

7 people killed. Ten more killed on the following day.

8 I use the word "compound." There's one feature of Kosovo Albanian

9 life that distinguishes them from others. They live in, for the most

10 part, I think, multi-generational homes, many families or families,

11 extended families, in the same location, and their properties are

12 surrounded by substantial walls that make, quite genuinely and simply,

13 compounds. So when we use the word "compound," it's that we'll be

14 describing. I don't think we have a picture of a typical Kosovo Albanian

15 residence. We will probably find one during the course of the trial.

16 It's a singular feature of the place.

17 Between February 1998 and March of 1998, Perisic and Stanisic

18 suggested to this accused that he should conclude a deal with the leader

19 Rugova, but at the same time special MUP and anti-terrorist units were

20 being sent into Kosovo to deal with the KLA.

21 It was at about this time that the accused was heard to say or

22 said that the actual number of Kosovo Albanians was around 800.000. Does

23 the Chamber remember yesterday how I explained that because of a boycott

24 of the 1991 census estimates only are available of the true population of

25 Kosovo by groups at the material time? Because of that, you will have

1 evidence of demographers and so on to help you. But it may be that there

2 will be little doubt, in due course, but that the figures are radically

3 different from what was being suggested by the accused, this low figure of

4 800.000.

5 Why did he say things like that? Why did he seek to persuade, if

6 that's what he was doing, that the population was as small, so far as the

7 Albanians were concerned, as he said? Was it because that's what he was

8 hoping would come about or was it in order to make less terrible the

9 presumption he was to take of trying to move the enormous population that

10 in due course he did try to move?

11 The point that he made to the witness I've referred to already was

12 something he made to others. And the Court may wonder whether there was

13 emerging in his mind an exit strategy, as it were, for Kosovo along the

14 lines of the exit strategy that had worked, in a sense, for Bosnia. By

15 the Dayton Agreement, the Serb part of Bosnia, as it had been, was still

16 almost wholly monoethnic in favour of the Serbs. He may have thought,

17 this accused, that blame had been forgotten. He may have thought that

18 whereas the decade of enticing Serbs to Kosovo, luring them there, had not

19 achieved the objective he had in mind that he could do again what he'd

20 done before and not be blamed for it.

21 Your Honour, I don't know if that's a convenient moment or if

22 that's too early.

23 JUDGE MAY: You'll finish before the next adjournment, I take it.

24 MR. NICE: I certainly hope so.

25 JUDGE MAY: And then we'll hear from Mr. Ryneveld.

1 MR. NICE: Mr. Ryneveld will help us a little bit about the crime

2 scenes and will save me that burden.

3 JUDGE MAY: Yes. We'll adjourn now until half past eleven.

4 --- Recess taken at 10.58 a.m.

5 --- On resuming at 11.31 a.m.

6 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Nice.

7 MR. NICE: Your Honour, in 1998, ahead of the indictment period,

8 of course, you will hear of a heavy attack on a compound of the Jashari

9 family where 54 people were killed. It's probably quite clear that there

10 were KLA members or a member or even criminals involved in that compound.

11 The excessive use of force, however, the death of women and children,

12 couldn't be justified or excused. We have a picture of the building. It

13 doesn't actually show the compound nature of the building very well. And

14 then, after that, we have a picture of those people who were killed there,

15 some of them, after they'd been laid out.

16 Next we have, or we will have, a letter or reference to a letter

17 sent by Perisic to the accused from a witness who was protected but whose

18 name has now been revealed to the accused, so he knows where it comes

19 from, explaining that his strategy in Kosovo was to produce casualties,

20 destroy villages and would lead to rebellion. It will be for the Chamber

21 to decide whether the account of this letter is accurate.

22 In April of 1998, the MUP and the VJ were bombarding buildings in

23 the location of Decani. The suggestion is they were ordered from the top,

24 despite the recommendation of the local commander for a surgical

25 intervention, to behave in the way they did.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and

13 English transcripts.

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

1 The first witness to be called before us in a day or so's time met

2 the accused again in April of 1998. The accused spoke of terrorists he

3 was willing to annihilate. There was some negotiation about the position

4 of the Kosovo Albanians. The witness told the accused that what was

5 happening in this fight against terrorism involved attacks on innocent

6 civilians, women and children. So he was on notice, if he had no earlier

7 notice - we say of course he did - of what was being involved.

8 In May of 1998, a group of five Kosovo Albanians met with the

9 accused and his chef de cabinet. They discussed that attack on the

10 Jashari compound, saying it was a case of police brutality. Interestingly

11 enough, the accused - and this may make further relevance to this incident

12 - seemed very well-infomed as to that particular incident. He said it

13 was under investigation, said he had many problems. "I have many

14 nationalists around me," he said, "but we'll solve those problems," and

15 claimed to have full control of Kosovo.

16 We have evidence that there was the arming of the Serbian

17 population of Kosovo in preparation of what was to come. And there's a

18 document - I don't think we're going to produce it at the moment, unless

19 I'm mistaken - going to show quite clearly that weapons were to be

20 distributed to Serbians and the Montenegrin population.

21 In the spring or summer of 1998, there were heavy-handed

22 offensives against the KLA with the shelling of villages, paramilitary

23 shock troops being used, and there was, in June of 1998, the beginning of

24 some attacks on the village of Racak which features, of course, in the

25 history of Kosovo. It may be that there were KLA present there and that

1 that explained why Racak in particular was targeted.

2 In June of 1998, I have some exhibits. I have a document, an

3 order of the 125th Motorised Brigade, a ban on operations without the

4 knowledge and approval of the joint command. We can see that. The joint

5 command thus identified, and the document is dated the 7th of July, comes

6 into existence. Pursuant to the order of the joint command, strictly

7 confidential, number so-and-so, is the aim of increasing effectiveness in

8 performing assignments and so on.

9 Incidentally, I'm sorry that it's always impossible to go into all

10 these documents at length in an opening. To do that, the opening would

11 become far too long. But both was to documents and as to things like

12 speeches, what will matter in due course is the context in which

13 particular passages are placed by the Chamber when it has the document or

14 the exhibit as a whole.

15 But back to the joint command or the joint headquarters,

16 including, as we will discover, apart from the accused, Milutinovic and

17 others, including Pavkovic, Lukic, Sainovic, Stanisic and others. Was

18 this creation of the joint command a turning point and was it something

19 that was going to lead to the events of 1999? Was it a means, the joint

20 command, involving all these people, of circumventing any resistance to

21 the will of this accused or to smooth the way to what was to be unlawful

22 use of the army? Witnesses will speak of that before you.

23 One witness told the accused that the MUP was engaged in

24 operations - this is in the summer of 1998 - against the civilian

25 population. The accused denied it, said the only target was the KLA. But

1 -- and indeed he would continue to insist on that as his explanation.

2 Several witnesses will deal with that in due course and I needn't go into

3 that in any more detail.

4 On the 28th of July of 1998, Peter Ilic, head of the Pristina

5 Defence Administration, issued to all Kosovo municipalities, the joint

6 command for Kosovo, regulations for the defence of inhabited areas

7 including the separation of populations and the use of force by the army,

8 including artillery, support for the MUP, and so on. So plans were in

9 hand at that stage, including separation of the population, including use

10 of the army, to deal with points to come under the joint command for

11 Kosovo.

12 And I move on, trying to save time. On the 24th of June of 1998,

13 still, of course, before the indictment period, a captain Srdjan Perovic

14 from the Pec MUP secretariat reported that during an operation called

15 Thunder, conducted in May and June, platoons of the 24th detachment of a

16 special police unit called the PJP had been subordinated to a body called

17 the JSO which was the body of Frenki's Boys, Frenki being a person we've

18 heard of before. Further recurring connections.

19 The same Captain Perovic also reports flatly that, during the

20 operation, no one "demolished, torched or looted facilities." Why, one

21 might ask, was it necessary to put such a thing in a report?

22 In July of 1998, heavy army and MUP assault on Dulje, Blace,

23 near Junik or in Junik, 30.000 Albanians fled. At the same time, at

24 widely spaced out places in the province of Kosovo, similar things were

25 happening. Suggestive, it may be, even at that stage of coordinated

1 action.

2 Meanwhile, the arming of Serb civilians continued. We'll hear a

3 great deal of detail about that. And there was distribution of weapons in

4 Mitrovica. Some 7.400 weapons distributed to reserve police members in

5 Kosovska Mitrovica SUP area, which was several municipalities.

6 I'm going too fast. Thank you, and I apologise.

7 In August of 1998, the Kosovo Diplomatic Observer Mission and

8 other diplomats found themselves involved. The army and the MUP often

9 denied freedom of movement to these international monitors and observers,

10 saying that they were denying them movement for their own safety.

11 Therefore, those observers were only ever able to verify shellings or

12 excesses after the event and/or from a distance. Nevertheless, the

13 Chamber may be left in no doubt from them that there were joint army and

14 MUP operations and the use of heavy artillery and tanks against villages

15 at this early stage, or comparatively early stage.

16 Paramilitaries presence was also confirmed, for example, in

17 Dubrava Prison and in a place called Istok. Dubrava Prison, a very large

18 prison in the north-west or thereabouts, north-west centre of the

19 province, is going to feature in the crime base evidence that you'll hear

20 in due course.

21 There was looting and burning going on, again attributed to the

22 MUP and to their special forces, the PJP, in the summer.

23 The accused, when told of these things, denied that there were any

24 such activities, denied that there was fleeing of the police. And when

25 told that there were Albanians crossing the border, he said that they were

1 just fabricating a story for some reason.

2 By the summer of 1998, 200.000 Kosovo Albanians had been expelled.

3 They were astray within Kosovo. They found refugee status, as it were, in

4 the towns and villages that were still under government control, huge

5 numbers staying in the open without shelter, for example, in areas held by

6 the KLA and so on. You'll hear about these displacements and dispersions

7 of individuals.

8 Where there was looting, and there was looting from time to time

9 in excesses against Kosovo Albanians, no intervention by the -- or no

10 satisfactory intervention by the MUP on their behalf.

11 In September of 1998, in Golubovac, some 14 Kosovo Albanians lined

12 up and shot, it may be that the Chamber will be satisfied by MUP special

13 forces.

14 In September of 1998, on the 28th of September, the Serbian Prime

15 Minister, Mirko Marjanovic, publicly stated that government forces had

16 regained unchallenged control of most of Kosovo and that the rebellion of

17 the KLA had largely failed. Peace had returned to Kosovo, he said.

18 However, of course, contemporaneous documents and other evidence reveals

19 to the contrary. And it reveals that the army, the territorial army, was

20 mobilising, that the MUP was calling up reserves, that there was a

21 vigorous effort that was creating tensions with the army reserve

22 mechanisms as both bodies were calling up the same people.

23 The Serbs were being armed, training was being provided, and peace

24 had not returned to Kosovo.

25 On the 29th of September of 1998, Paddy Ashdown told this accused

1 that his troops were violating the Geneva Conventions, and his exchange

2 will be of value to you, that witness having particular experience of his

3 own of relevance.

4 This led to the negotiations between US Ambassador Holbrooke and

5 the accused, involving NATO Generals Naumann and Clark. It's well known,

6 of course, that General Clark has detailed these events in his book, and

7 we'll be hearing from General Naumann, I trust.

8 But statements about Albanians by Milosevic it may be could be

9 characterised of dehumanisation of another group. Straight incitement to

10 ethnic cleansing. And General Naumann will further testify as to the

11 conduct of these negotiations, including that the accused's control

12 appeared to be not only of the VJ, of the army, but of the MUP as

13 well, for whom he appeared to speak. He will also speak of the role of

14 that Deputy Prime Minister Sainovic over both the army and the MUP.

15 In October of 1998, Stanisic was replaced by Markovic as head of

16 the state security of the Serbian MUP, one of several replacements of key

17 positions of the army and the MUP that the Chamber may be satisfied were

18 driven by the accused's need to remove voices of dissent to his policies

19 in Kosovo. A more forceful role for the army with the MUP in Kosovo may

20 have been required than that which the previous office-holders would have

21 approved of.

22 In the area of international politics, the accused was going

23 through the motions of political settlement. Domestically, he was

24 gathering around him persons who, as one witness will explain, were

25 prepared for a brutal resolution of the Kosovo question. Still the

1 documents tell the same story; ethnic division, ethnic mobilisation of one

2 part of society, disarming another.

3 We will hear further how the accused spoke at one stage of knowing

4 how to deal with the Albanians, that in a way that they'd been dealt with

5 in 1946. Albanians who he described as murderers and bandits, saying that

6 they could be killed although it would take -- how they had been handled

7 in 1946. "It had taken several years to kill them but we killed them

8 all." Some such quotation. Not quite clear what it refers to, but in

9 1946, there was a counter-insurgency in Kosovo, it appears, where there

10 was much destruction of Kosovo Albanian communities and villages.

11 And agree -- a component of the agreement between Holbrooke and

12 Milosevic was the agreement on the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission,

13 signed on the 16th of October by chairman of the OSCE Geremek and the

14 Foreign Affairs Minister Jovanovic for the Republic. This agreement,

15 together with an agreement between General Clark and General Naumann

16 signed by Sainovic and the MUP general, Djordjevic, together with a

17 further agreement between KDOM and MUP, provided for the partial

18 withdrawal of forces of the FRY and Serbia from Kosovo, and also provided

19 that there should be a limitation on additional forces and equipment into

20 the area with the deployment of unarmed OSCE verifiers.

21 At that stage, what was the presence of police in Kosovo? Very

22 considerable. And I will have a look at a picture of the police in due

23 course quite shortly.

24 In October of 1998, 14.500 uniformed police in Kosovo, plus

25 additional 2.000 on leave, some 4.500 of these police were from outside

1 Kosovo already. The numbers included special anti-terrorist units.

2 Ambassador -- the KVM mission included meetings where Milosevic

3 was told that -- I beg your pardon, where Milosevic explained that

4 Albanians were indeed less than 50 per cent of the population. I've dealt

5 with the potential significance of this type of observation before.

6 In October 1998, Perisic stated privately that the situation in

7 Kosovo was the result of one man's action. At a meeting in October 1998,

8 that same General Peresic, normally of a hard tone, was softened when he

9 was able to have a private conversation and able to explain that it was

10 obvious that NATO, if they wanted to, could destroy the army which he

11 wanted to save, saying it was the only democratic institution left in

12 Yugoslavia. He was not prepared for the army to be used for the type of

13 operation that may have been in mind for it. He made it clear that it was

14 the accused who had the authority to decide on agreement and no one else.

15 Tanks and artillery continued, however, to be used or to -- I beg

16 your pardon. At further meetings it was made quite clear to the Serbian

17 leadership that tanks and artillery in use against civilians and villages

18 was not acceptable and that if that wasn't accepted so far as the Serbians

19 were concerned, then NATO would act. The accused rejected all allegations

20 made, claiming that Serb forces were acting in accordance with the law.

21 On one view, it may be - and I've referred already to theories

22 that the Chamber may have to countenance and weigh - the accused was

23 getting exactly what he wanted; a war from which he could pick up the

24 pieces and move on. If this was his recurring strategy, then - and this

25 was a meeting that we'll hear was characterised by his nerves, by

1 nervousness rather than by his nerves - if he was nervous, then perhaps it

2 was because he knew he was about to take a risk, a risk with the lives of

3 other people, which he may not have regarded as highly as the risk that he

4 was taking in his own -- in respect of his own career. But in any event,

5 he rejected the suggestions made, rejected the reality of NATO

6 intervention.

7 That joint command we referred to earlier features again in a

8 report on the 16th of October where it was said that there was a danger of

9 extremist Albanians importing cameras through the offices of the OSCE in

10 order, it said, to provide documentary evidence of alleged crimes and the

11 excess use of violence and repression by state organs against Albanian

12 civilians. Those writing that report were more concerned with the

13 reporting of excesses than the fact that excesses had occurred.

14 We then come to a meeting on the 24th and 25th of October

15 involving Naumann, the accused, and others where he was told that the

16 hammer was cocked and he was told of the shelling of villages by

17 artillery. The accused asked Perisic, who was still there, who denied it,

18 although that same Perisic privately appealed to others to try and settle

19 with the accused. The accused appeared to agree in principle, saying that

20 he had to negotiate further with others, but he then changed any

21 indication of agreement and never signed the agreement that it was open to

22 him at that stage to sign.

23 So that by October, the accused had control of the army, the

24 Federal Ministry of Defence, he had de facto control of the MUP. He

25 designated Sainovic, the federal Deputy Prime Minister and a long-time

1 ally as his representative in Kosovo, and he'd strengthened that position

2 by coordinating the MUP or having coordinated the MUP, the VJ, local

3 defence, Civil Defence, and other institutions on the ground by order of

4 the joint command headed by Sainovic.

5 Serbs and Montenegrins were being armed. Operations of the MUP

6 and the VJ were continuing.

7 A senior official of this very time was still able to see one of

8 the villages, a village called Makrmal, on fire immediately after an

9 attack by the MUP. The question in relation to such events always

10 arises: If this was just an attack on the KLA, why destroy a whole

11 village?

12 The process of disarming the Kosovo Albanians continued, and we

13 have evidence of how they were forced to surrender their weapons.

14 In November, General Dimitrijevic told a witness called Crossland,

15 a military attache, that Perisic was visiting the army in Kosovo, telling

16 them not to react to provocations but that a man called Pavkovic might act

17 outside of the army command, and if he did so, it would be on the orders

18 of this accused via Sainovic. He admitted, indeed, that the army had

19 overstepped the mark that summer.

20 In November it was that the accused finally made the critical

21 replacements of key senior staff. Chief of Staff Perisic was replaced by

22 General Ojdanic. Closely linked was the replacement of General Samardzic

23 by General Pavkovic as the commander of the 3rd Army, and the subsequent

24 elevation of General Lazarevic to fill the post of commander of

25 the Pristina Corps left vacant by Pavkovic's promotion. And what we're

1 looking at is a picture of General Ojdanic.

2 Compliant commanders in Ojdanic and Pavkovic would be needed if

3 this accused was to -- was fully to engage the army and the MUP from the

4 attacks in Kosovo. Ojdanic had been seen, interestingly, at rallies of

5 that party that was associated with the accused's wife. Pavkovic was

6 present at SPS functions, the party of this accused both before and after

7 the war of 1999.

8 In November, the KVM deployed monitors in implementation of the

9 agreement between Holbrooke and the accused but violence continued.

10 As to the man Sainovic, he took an active role in negotiations

11 involving the OSCE, he participated in numerous other meetings, he acted

12 as the accused's liaison to Kosovo Albanians, he exercised control over

13 numerous individuals. He is a man of importance in the story that will

14 unfold.

15 A snapshot: Late 1998 or early 1999, when told that a MUP officer

16 had been seen driving away with a trailer full of looted goods and that

17 other MUP officers were burning a village with gasoline, the accused

18 became agitated. He said this was unacceptable. He took responsibility.

19 He ordered somebody to have the unit that was said to have committed these

20 offences moved. An interesting reaction, but it may not be an uncommon

21 one. Much worse things were to come in Kosovo. Did he take

22 responsibility then? More significant, why just move the unit? Why not,

23 consistent with his duties, investigate, punish, and prevent recurrence?

24 January 1999: Scores of OSCE verifiers throughout Kosovo observe

25 the continuation of hostilities. During this period, verifiers documented

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and

13 English transcripts.

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

1 a number of killings of Kosovo Albanians, the most famous or notorious

2 being Racak. Small, a very small community, quite remote from the village

3 or town to which it is connected. One road in or one small road in,

4 possibly one small road out, a further road out.

5 What happened there in Racak in the municipality of Stimlje was

6 that it was shelled and the fleeing villagers were shot. Twenty-five men

7 found in a building were moved to a nearby hill and shot. Forty, in

8 total, were killed.

9 I said already it was clear that the KLA had been present in

10 Racak. It is also clear that there had been a killing of a policeman,

11 perhaps arguably by the KLA, for which this may have been a revenge

12 attack. The attack doesn't feature in the allegations reflected in the

13 indictment, nevertheless, it will be investigated, perhaps in the

14 evidence, for it had an important effect on what was to follow, and it may

15 be the Chamber will be quite satisfied this was a wholly unjustified

16 attack of the worst kind.

17 Yes. This is an acknowledgement in a document of the 15th of

18 January, 1999, from the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of

19 Serbia. It says this: "Overview of occurrences and developments and

20 activities: Starting at 0300 hours on the 15th of January, measures were

21 taken to seal off the village of Racak with a view to capturing and

22 destroying a terrorist group which, according to our information, had

23 committed several terrorist attacks with lethal consequences in the

24 territory of Urosevac SUP. At 0630 the village was completely encircled."

25 You've cut out the light.

1 "About --" and then a number is illegible -- "members of the

2 Albanian terrorists were liquidated." And it goes on, materially, "No

3 civilians were hurt during the execution of the operation."

4 Inaccurate and untrue. Intentionally so? A matter for the

5 Chamber to decide. Here are some of the pictures that reflect what was in

6 due course found.

7 A member of the MUP secretariat told a witness that he had indeed

8 been responsible for the attack on Racak, as that document, in a sense

9 we've looked at, would confirm.

10 Shortly after Racak, the accused told a senior policy witness that

11 investigations would show that, "Our people didn't do this." He seemed to

12 have a knowledge of the outcome before any investigation had done to the

13 same -- had been done. He said to the same witness, "Kosovo is more

14 important than my head."

15 General Naumann will explain how, on the 18th of January of 1999,

16 the accused was confident he could solve the Kosovo problem by military

17 means and in a short period of time. Milosevic had been told by now by

18 countless people and through many channels that the means he was using in

19 Kosovo were criminal, were resulting in widespread suffering amongst the

20 civilian population. His own staff were telling him he was generating

21 recruits for the KLA and weakening the moderate voices among Kosovo

22 Albanians.

23 He spoke of using military means. Did he have any other approach

24 in mind or was he simply anticipating the final resolution that was to

25 come?

1 There was a third meeting between Naumann and others and this

2 accused on the 19th of January concerning Racak in particular. He was

3 given a list of incidents in which disproportionate force had been used.

4 He said he'd look into it.

5 On the 29th of January, 12 people were killed in the area of

6 Rugova Djakovica.

7 And we move on to February. Sainovic, along with the President of

8 Serbia, Milutinovic, were involved in the negotiations at Rambouillet.

9 Putting it very shortly, evidence may satisfy the Chamber that while the

10 world was holding its breath, there was a lack of sincerity in these

11 negotiations and that, in any event, those in Rambouillet didn't

12 have the authority without reference back to negotiate.

13 Some witnesses believe that some of those present on the Serb side

14 were trying conscientiously and that will all have to be taken into

15 account, as will the fact that Albanians were perhaps hesitant to sign.

16 The chamber will, if it decides this is an important matter to

17 investigate, will have to see things from all sides. The Prosecution's

18 invitation will be that there was a lack of sincerity.

19 While the peace negotiations were going on, the violence continued

20 and Serbia launched a series of offensives against many or several Kosovo

21 Albanian villages and towns.

22 Coming forward and on the 10th of March, the accused stated he

23 knew that if he hadn't signed in October, he could have cleared up the

24 problem in a week, meaning, no doubt, the KLA problem. He rejected

25 comparisons he was invited to make at that stage with Vietnam or

1 Afghanistan, saying of himself he knew how things should be done, he knew

2 how to do it.

3 On the 20th of March, the party majority on the Serb Assembly

4 rejected what was described as the Paris accord. The situation in Kosovo

5 was unchanged and that throughout the Rambouillet and Paris processes,

6 forces of the FRY and Serbia were massing on the borders. No one will

7 contest that Yugoslavia had a legitimate interest to defend itself against

8 an impending NATO air campaign. No one would contest that of course it

9 had a legitimate interest in preparing for combat against any armed

10 insurgency on its territory. But the accused had been told all that he

11 had been told and had said in reply that he had the intention to provide a

12 definitive resolution. And this was a resolution to use his military. He

13 couldn't help perhaps revealing his obsession with the demographic

14 balance. The Serbian population in Kosovo had been mobilised, as it were,

15 on his behalf and the majority Albanians disarmed.

16 May it be that the NATO campaign he brought upon himself provided

17 him with the opportunity to accomplish those goals while purporting to

18 defend his country.

19 One participant at Rambouillet, a member of the Serbian

20 delegation, was heard to say that if NATO falls, there will be a massacre

21 in Kosovo. Will be. They weren't, of course, the accused's words nor

22 were they true, in a sense, for the massacre effectively came before.

23 Even if there was no devious plan of the kind I summarise, as many

24 think, to lure external violence on Kosovo to justify pushing the

25 Albanians out, the doing of it when it happened is without excuse or

1 justification of any kind and would remain offences as described in this

2 indictment.

3 Agreement was impossible, and in consequence and as a result, the

4 orange vehicles, the KVM monitors, pulled out of Kosovo; the NATO bombs,

5 as we know, began to fall. As they did so and even before, the forces of

6 FRY and Serbia began their systematic attacks against the Albanian

7 population of which we will hear in sufficient detail to equip the Chamber

8 by Mr. Ryneveld in due course.

9 At that stage, there was other evidence of the accused being

10 uninterested, apparently, in further discussion. And on the very eve of

11 the war, he made further personnel changes, replacing the head of the army

12 counter-intelligence, Dimitrijevic, General Farkas. And so it was on the

13 23rd of March he declared an imminent threat of war which had in law as

14 we've already seen the effect of subordinating the VJ -- the MUP to the

15 VJ. And on the 24th of March, the FRY Prime Minister who had made the

16 earlier declaration - not the President - declared a state of war.

17 The Prosecution's submission is that by this time, the decision

18 had been made pursuant to whatever earlier intentions or plan that the KLA

19 would be annihilated and that as promised, there would be substantial

20 depopulation of large parts of Kosovo of its Albanian population.

21 On the eve of the heightened conflict, of what were the forces

22 available to the accused comprised? Elements of the VJ's 3rd Army, the

23 52nd Corps, known as the Pristina Corps, several brigades, and also --

24 these are VJ soldiers that we're looking at. In addition, there were the

25 police forces taking part. I said earlier we'd just show you what police

1 forces looked like. This is just one picture of many. They were, of

2 course, armed units that to the uninitiated would look probably like an

3 army. And we'll see more pictures, then, in the course of the trial.

4 They're equipped with APCs, mortars, heavy machine-guns, having special

5 units with yet more powerful weaponry.

6 The totality of units, I think, includes military terrorist

7 units, civil defence units, reserve MUP units, as well as the armed Serb

8 civilians, all organised at the municipality level where necessary falling

9 within official chains of command.

10 Can we look, please, at Exhibits 19 and 20. Yes.

11 Your Honour, there is one very simple point that I desire to make

12 in relation to the matters that are going to be dealt with by

13 Mr. Ryneveld. And it can be dealt with by this map. I've got a larger

14 version of it. I don't know if it shows up on the screen or if you've got

15 a copy of it at hand. We have a larger version, but I'll have to try

16 and --

17 JUDGE MAY: We have a copy of it.

18 MR. NICE: I'm concerned really. I don't know whether if we look

19 at the -- if -- see if the camera can focus on this and if it's any better

20 than the small version on the ELMO. I don't know if that can be done.

21 See if it's preferable. It may be. Perhaps I can try it, and we'll see.

22 And if it doesn't work, the AV unit tell me. Thanks very much. And I'll

23 go back to the small version, which is a little bit too condensed.

24 A couple of things. The indictment in this case breaks the events

25 that were to follow down into deportation matters and killing matters.

1 That's really a breakdown that's for the purposes of the indictment rather

2 than necessarily reflecting any distinction of activities on the ground.

3 So when we see references to deportation sites and reference to killing

4 sites, it's not to say that they are entirely separable events. They're

5 obviously integrated. But that's the way it's been done.

6 As the -- as the Court will know, the Prosecution's case is that

7 so far as Kosovo is concerned, the principal objective may have been or

8 was deportation, removal of the population, to be achieved by whatever

9 means were necessary, and killing was, of course, one of them. Killing

10 people, you frighten the others into going.

11 The map that you have before you deals with the sites where

12 deportation is the principal apparent objective of those committing

13 offences, and the sites that appear as deportation sites thus in the

14 indictment. As I say, there's always an overlap and in nearly all

15 deportation sites there were killings.

16 However, we see here the sites with the dates on them of when the

17 deportation activity started. Starting at the top, 25th of March, 29th of

18 March; going around to Pristina, 24th of March; going down little

19 further, 24th of March; coming across, 25th of March, 27th of March; going

20 down, 24th, 25th of March; and then further down, 25th of March

21 again.

22 Can there be any doubt from that simple coincidence of dates but

23 that what was happening was an overall and planned deportation and nothing

24 else? That's assuming the Chamber finds the evidence supports deportation

25 starting at those sites on those days.

1 This map also shows, with the little red marks at the borders, the

2 places through which people were deported.

3 The killing sites map, which is the other document you have - and

4 I'll put that up as well - shows a similar story. 26th of March at the

5 top, with other -- 24th of March at the bottom, 26th of March here, 25th

6 of March at Prizren, 25th of March further up at Djakovica, 26th of

7 March just above that.

8 And as I say, there is, in any event, a greater integration of

9 killing sites and deportation sites than the indictment itself might

10 suggest, the indictment, of course, also being constrained by the

11 inability to put everything in and having to be selective.

12 JUDGE MAY: So as far as the sites are concerned, presumably we

13 can look at both types of site under the same heading.

14 MR. NICE: Yes, indeed.

15 JUDGE MAY: And we need to be looking at the sites, rather than

16 the particular categories which they pertain to.

17 MR. NICE: Yes. And indeed -- absolutely so, Your Honour. Indeed

18 in most deportation sites there will be killings as well, the significance

19 of which it may be all too obvious that the killing itself was part of the

20 pre-plan. The question arises: Was it just a natural incident of forces

21 sent to deport people that they will kill, or is it something that they do

22 because it was required of them?

23 And then one other part and one other point only -- because the

24 case can in a sense be dealt with in the most elementary way quite

25 properly in looking for the underlying intent of what was being -- what

1 was being done. The significance of the fact that everybody had their

2 identification papers taken away at the border, is that accidental or

3 intentional? If it was being done intentionally, was it a plan? What had

4 that plan got to do with NATO, as the accused would ask you to believe.

5 So with those merely prefatory remarks, I'll turn from the

6 crime base which -- I may make one or two observations in the course of

7 what's left of my address, but I'll leave the rest of that to

8 Mr. Ryneveld.

9 But the case is extremely simple. Of course the accused got away

10 with so much in the past maybe, but he thought he could get away with

11 this.

12 We say, looking at it as it were from the top still, when you see

13 all the connections that can be established both in law and in fact, what

14 was being done was a coordinated effort by leaders of the republic and of

15 Serbia with their forces acting in concert. These were actions similar in

16 nature to what had happened in Croatia and in Bosnia-Herzegovina where

17 Serbian military and paramilitary forces had forcibly expelled and

18 deported non-Serbs from areas under Serbian control.

19 The evidence and an expert analysis of it in due course will show

20 that the army and the MUP operations correlate strongly with -- as

21 between deportations and killings. I've dealt with that already and why

22 it isn't just a coincidence. It's part of a plan.

23 The operations by the republic and by Serbian armed forces

24 happened in responsibility -- in the areas of responsibility of different

25 army brigades, different MUP stations, different zones of local

1 administration in a coordinated way. And such an operation involving

2 several different organisations under the threat of NATO bombing required

3 a high level of planning. Because in the midst of actions against the KLA

4 and against NATO, the narrow roads of Kosovo ended up being clogged with

5 the refugees that the accused wanted to exclude from their homeland.

6 We say that this is not a case of renegade local groups or

7 anything like that. The scale of the operations and the consistency

8 exclude that as a possibility. And you'll hear evidence directly of

9 coordination of the army and the MUP paramilitaries and other units, all

10 of which answered to this accused.

11 Again, I don't want to trespass on the area that's going to be

12 covered by Mr. Ryneveld, but you will hear area -- you will hear evidence

13 in short that reveals an atmosphere of impunity for crimes being created,

14 however brutal they may have been.

15 As to the suggestion that Albanians moved out of areas of likely

16 combat for their own good, we say the lie will be shown to that when you

17 hear the detail of what in fact happened and of how it was that these

18 people were driven out. And of course, being moved out for your own good

19 is hardly consistent with having all the documents of identification or

20 identification papers or your cards, documents taken away from you so that

21 you have no identity once you've left.

22 On the 24th of March, there was a discussion with Milosevic who

23 said there was no problem with Kosovo. We'll hear a little more from

24 Mr. Ryneveld about the significance of that conversation in due course.

25 The ruthlessness of the accused's project emerges too from his

1 callous attitude towards Serb victims during the NATO campaign. He said

2 to one person enough -- that they needed enough civilian victims to turn

3 the opinion of NATO countries against the bombing.

4 So in our suggestion to the Chamber, this is a simple, in a sense,

5 case to prove, and the Chamber should not in due course -- although it

6 will explore all matters of importance with great care, we know, it

7 shouldn't allow itself to be misled by the fog that may be created arising

8 from the international negotiations, their twists and turns in which the

9 accused took part, showed resistance, or handed matters over to others.

10 That fog shouldn't be allowed to hide the reality that what happened on

11 this occasion was the intentional, planned, criminal expulsion of his own

12 people because of the attitude they took to him.

13 Your Honour, just give me one minute.

14 Matters ended this way: By June 1999, about 800.000 Kosovo

15 Albanians, one third of the entire Kosovo Albanian population, had been

16 expelled. Thousands more were believed to be internally displaced, and an

17 unknown number had been killed.

18 On the 3rd of June, the FRY and the Federal Republic of Serbia

19 accepted a document of principles towards of resolution of the crisis

20 which was presented to their representatives by Martti Ahtisaari on behalf

21 of the European community and by Viktor Chernomyrdin for the President the

22 Russian federation. That was followed by a Security Council resolution

23 providing for a political solution to the Kosovo crisis, including an

24 immediate end to violence and a rapid withdrawal of the republic's and

25 Serbian's military police and paramilitary forces. There followed a

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and

13 English transcripts.

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

1 military technical agreement. And what by way of post script to these

2 particular events? Well, just this: Ojdanic, Pavkovic, Lazarevic,

3 Vasiljevic were decorated, promoted by this accused.

4 I have a few other supplementary points to make. I just want to

5 check one thing with Mr. Ryneveld.

6 [Prosecution counsel confer]

7 MR. NICE: Your Honour, it's been, of necessity, a rapid and

8 abridged account of the accused's involvement over many years in three

9 areas of conflict. Abridged though it has had to be, I hope we have

10 revealed how there are going to be before you many lines of connection.

11 Some connections in law under Constitutions and proper authority, many

12 otherwise, that link him unavoidably to the events with which he is

13 charged. There will be many strands of evidence, starting in Kosovo,

14 ending in Kosovo, passing through the failures of, so far as he's

15 concerned, of Croatia and Bosnia, all of which reveal a single continuing

16 state of mind of his, transaction of his executed though it might have

17 been, indeed was, through a small but changing and changeable cast of

18 characters, and at the end of the day, what can be said to summarise the

19 awful tragedies into which we must now shortly start to inquire?

20 Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo shared in common that Serbia was

21 either their neighbour indeed more than their neighbour, so far as Kosovo

22 was concerned, and that the accused had a hand, a controlling hand, in

23 their recent destinies.

24 From the beginning, this accused has attempted to persuade those

25 who would listen to him that what happened was inevitable. His powers of

1 persuasion are considerable. I think I referred yesterday to the power

2 and quality of that speech of his where he made a reference to the use of

3 armed conflict in a speech that was otherwise apparently full of some good

4 things. He was a man capable of persuading. He was a man capable of

5 having others follow him. But as we look at what happened in the former

6 Yugoslavia, things that happened weren't inevitable. They were not the

7 acts of God but they were the acts of men. They were the results of

8 decisions of men and significantly of this one, taken with no regard to

9 the interests or even to the lives of others in a way that this Chamber

10 may in due course find hard or impossible to comprehend. And in truth, it

11 was having this accused, so far as Croatia and Bosnia was concerned, as a

12 neighbour, and indeed so far as Kosovo was concern, having him as a

13 neighbour that sealed so many fates.

14 In a career spanning 13 years, and we will say a career -- a

15 criminal career spanning at least eight years, it may be hard to express

16 briefly those elements which were constant, but throughout that period, as

17 the learned Prosecutor said in her opening remarks in perhaps slightly

18 different words, he sought two things; to maximise his power and control,

19 including territorial control by and of Serbs, to maximise control over

20 Serbs. He did this by denying basic fundamental rights to those who

21 disagreed with him. And, of course, in the brevity of my address, I've

22 understated the wider elements of persecution that the Chamber will be

23 familiar with from other cases and with which we will have to deal here,

24 but he denied all sorts of rights, some that initially looked minor,

25 progressing as they did ultimately to the denial of the right of non-Serbs

1 to live among their neighbours or, indeed, to live at all.

2 While he led his country, he always sought to assure them that

3 they were not at war. Serbia was not at war. That the wars he caused

4 were happening elsewhere, in other countries, not our own affair. Does

5 the Chamber recall what I suggested was one of his mechanisms of control,

6 of having things done by others over whom he had influence so that he

7 could absolve himself of moral responsibility and thus explain why, for

8 him, never regret, never shame. Well, he did the same thing with his

9 people. "Nothing to do with us." But of course, the distinction upon

10 which he relied for this part of his presentation in the world, the

11 distinction of state from state, mattered not at all to him as indeed --

12 as was said at an early part of my address yesterday, attributable to him,

13 he wasn't interested in borders but in only what was described, I think,

14 as nations. The only border ultimately that he was interested in and that

15 he did much to create, or to cement, was the border between Serb and

16 non-Serb.

17 He made a point of bringing conflict to the point where the army

18 had to be used, but still Serbia wasn't at war but he was. He tells us

19 that he was defending his people. They have not asked for his protection.

20 They were not under attack. And Serbia today is again at peace, after

21 many years, rebuilding many years of war, or wars of a kind, rebuilding

22 its ties with its neighbours.

23 I remind the Chamber of what the Prosecutor said about the need to

24 look for individual and not for any kind of overall guilt. It's just the

25 individual guilt of this person with whom we are concerned. And of

1 course, what he did or tried to do was to make his people his unwitting

2 accomplices who, once drawn into his plans, despite never voting on them,

3 I dare venture to say could have no escape or no escape for a long time

4 from

5 the consequences of what he did.

6 What he did at the time in laying plans for the future was, I dare

7 say, that which often happens in crime. And war crimes are crimes. They

8 are things people do, knowing that they are acting contrary to law and

9 against the interests of humanity. What they do and what this accused did

10 was to try and dissolve himself away from the picture of events that was

11 developing.

12 The trouble with all that is, that dissolve yourself away from the

13 centre of events may leave a gap. There may be nobody else left to fill

14 that gap, nobody else to whom you can point as being responsible for the

15 events that are actually yours.

16 All the events into which this Chamber will now have to inquire

17 will, we submit, point towards a central personality, the existence of a

18 controlling human force. It's a personality the accused seeks to say is

19 not his, but there is no other. And we say when you've examined all the

20 evidence, that the silhouette of that personality, indeed the full-face

21 view of that personality at the centre of these events is unmistakably

22 that of this accused.

23 As with the other indictments, I don't need to review in detail

24 the allegations that are contained in the public indictments. And now, if

25 it's convenient to the Chamber, Mr. Ryneveld will deal with the crime base

1 matters and the evidence relating to that, unless I can assist you

2 further.

3 JUDGE MAY: No. Thank you, Mr. Nice.

4 Mr. Ryneveld.

5 MR. RYNEVELD: I note the time, Your Honours. I would anticipate

6 that I will be easily done before the end of the next session. I wonder

7 whether you want me to start now and break it or would you rather take an

8 early break and have me start then?

9 JUDGE MAY: No, I think if you start now.

10 MR. RYNEVELD: Thank you.

11 If it please Your Honours, over a half a century ago, Mr. Justice

12 Jackson, the Chief Prosecutor before the International Military Tribunal,

13 opened the Nuremberg trial with these words: "The wrongs which we seek to

14 condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant and so

15 devastating that civilisation cannot tolerate their being ignored because

16 it cannot survive their being repeated."

17 He reflected on the grave responsibility imposed by opening the

18 first trial in history for crimes against the peace of the world. At that

19 time, the world hoped that the verdicts in that case would act as a

20 deterrent to future war leaders by having sent a clear message that war

21 crimes and crimes against humanity would be prosecuted according to the

22 rule of law. They hoped that trials of that nature would never be

23 necessary again.

24 Unfortunately, that hope appears to be in vain. History appears

25 to have repeated itself. The lessons, if learned at all, were either

1 ignored or forgotten. The reign of terror perpetrated by Serb forces

2 during the Milosevic regime in Kosovo has sadly necessitated that today

3 will mark another historic legal first. With this trial, we start the

4 first prosecution of a former sitting head of state of any nation for

5 crimes committed while in office. And it is, accordingly, an equally

6 grave responsibility to be involved in a trial holding Mr. Milosevic

7 accountable according to the rule of law for the allegations of

8 deportations, forcible transfer, murders and persecution with which he

9 stands charged in the indictment now before you.

10 The Prosecutor of the ICTY, Carla Del Ponte, has given her

11 introductory remarks, and my colleague Mr. Nice has already outlined for

12 you an overview of the Prosecution's case with respect to all three

13 indictments which have now been joined as one trial. He has also outlined

14 how we intend to prove that Mr. Milosevic is legally responsible and

15 criminally accountable for the acts and omissions of the Serb forces who

16 committed these atrocities.

17 As the senior trial attorney responsible for the Kosovo component

18 of this trial, it is now my duty to outline for you on the balance of the

19 Prosecution's opening statement the nature and scope of what we will refer

20 to as the crime base evidence for Kosovo.

21 In so doing, I hope to give you a thumbnail sketch of what

22 happened during roughly the first six months of 1999. This overview is

23 intended to provide the Trial Chamber with a framework of the Kosovo

24 case.

25 Your Honours, it is the Prosecution's submission that the trial

1 before you today is primarily a deportation case. You will hear from

2 witnesses and read in reports and statements that by June of 1999, over

3 800.000 Kosovo Albanian civilians had been forced from their homes by Serb

4 forces and had to flee to neighbouring states.

5 Now, when I say "Serb forces," I'm talking about the forces of the

6 FRY; Yugoslavia, the republic; and of course the MUP; the police; and

7 certain paramilitary groups.

8 For ease of reference, we'll refer to them as Serb forces.

9 You will see before you on the screen again a map of the Balkans

10 that my learned colleague Mr. Nice also showed.

11 In the process of the 800.000 or so Serbs being forced from their

12 homes, thousands of civilians were murdered. Many of the victims included

13 the elderly as well as women and children.

14 Now, before I go any further, it must be said that there was an

15 armed conflict ongoing in Kosovo between the FRY and Serb forces, on the

16 one hand, and the Kosovo liberation army, or KLA, on the other hand.

17 Further, it must be said that in terms of armed conflict, it is an

18 unfortunate, disturbing, but inescapable fact that people are killed.

19 Undoubtedly, during this particular armed conflict, certain armed

20 combatants from both sides of the conflict were killed as legitimate

21 casualties of war. The fact that people die during times of war does not

22 necessarily signify that a war crime has been committed.

23 That having been said, it must be stressed that is not what this

24 case is about. This case is about persecution in many forms, of civilians

25 on a widespread and systematic scale. These acts, when perpetrated

1 against civilian non-combatants, become war crimes and shall be prosecuted

2 pursuant to the jurisdiction of this Honourable Tribunal.

3 Although the indictment covers the period of the 1st of January,

4 1999, until the 20th of June, 1999, it must be remembered that the

5 discriminatory campaign of persecution and expulsion directed at Kosovo

6 Albanians started much earlier. In our pre-trial brief, we point to the

7 fact that during certain periods of 1998, similar campaigns had already

8 resulted in the internal displacement of thousands of refugees. According

9 to UNHCR data which will be introduced at trial, by the end of October

10 1998, some 285.000 Kosovars had already been internally displaced. This

11 campaign of persecution and expulsion increased in intensity and ferocity

12 towards the end of March 1999, at about the same time that the

13 international monitors were withdrawing from Kosovo. UNHCR staff

14 nevertheless continued to monitor the number of refugees crossing at

15 border points throughout Kosovo.

16 Now, their data reflects that by the 30th of March, about 94.000

17 Kosovars, most of whom were women, children, and older people, had fled

18 Kosovo since the 24th of March, 1999. So we're talking about a one-week

19 period. Many reported deliberate expulsions and destruction of their

20 homes, and many of them didn't know the whereabouts of their men, having

21 been separated from them at the time of the expulsion. You will hear

22 about cumulative daily totals of refugees counted by UNHCR officials.

23 Those reports will show not only the daily tallies of refugees but will

24 also show that these people reported being forced to leave their homes in

25 freezing temperatures, at night, on foot, some barefoot. Thousands

1 arrived by bus and train, having been gathered together by Serb

2 authorities, awaiting expulsion.

3 The report goes on to describe that tens of thousands were on the

4 move inside Kosovo during weather described as freezing and rainy winter

5 conditions and that several children were reported to have died of

6 dehydration.

7 Finally, this report will indicate that, according to UNHCR

8 figures, an estimated 860.000 Kosovars left Kosovo between the 24th of

9 March, 1999, and the 10th of June, 1999. Now, that is what we mean when

10 we say that this case is primarily a deportation case.

11 Undoubtedly, at some time during the course of this trial the

12 suggestion will be made by Mr. Milosevic, or others on his behalf, that

13 the reason these people fled Kosovo was because of the NATO bombing and

14 not because of Serb forces attacks. I want to address that matter right

15 up front during this opening. It is the Prosecution's submission that the

16 witnesses will tell you that the vast majority of refugees fled their

17 homes because of the attacks by Serb forces and not because of NATO

18 bombing.

19 You will also have the benefit of expert report prepared by

20 Dr. Patrick Ball. This report analyses the data obtained from sources,

21 including the UNHCR, about refugee movements during the relevant period.

22 In essence, the independent assessment in this report, if accepted by the

23 Tribunal, will corroborate the other evidence. Significantly, the analysis

24 suggests that the effects of KLA and NATO activity are inconsistent with

25 the observed patterns of refugee flow and kil