1 Wednesday, 12 June 2002

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 [The witness entered court]

5 --- Upon commencing at 9.33 a.m.

6 MR. NICE: Before we return to the ambassador's evidence, can I

7 just deal with two things? First can I request that we have half an hour

8 this afternoon, perhaps at half past 3.00, to deal with the Rule 70

9 issue? The representatives concerned are available and the matter has got

10 to be sorted out for the timetabling of the witness. That shouldn't

11 interfere with cross-examination of this witness, either because by then

12 there would have been enough time for cross-examination or because I

13 understand the witness is prepared to stay on tomorrow if that's

14 necessary.

15 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Nice, let us deal with that first. What will be

16 the application in relation to it?

17 MR. NICE: It will be for the government concerned to come and

18 make its position clear in a way that I simply can't make clear.

19 JUDGE MAY: We had notification that there may be such an

20 application, so we've had a chance to consider it, and we are not in

21 favour of it. We don't think it appropriate. If counsel cannot make the

22 matter plain, then we don't think it appropriate for governments to

23 appear.

24 MR. NICE: Well, Your Honour, may I nevertheless have time at the

25 end of the day to deal with it because I will be provided with more

1 information --

2 JUDGE MAY: Very well.

3 MR. NICE: -- and I will have the representative to assist me.

4 And these are difficult matters, and indeed I've taken a course of dealing

5 with them far more openly than they're typically dealt with. Because to

6 date I think they've typically been dealt with in other Chambers on an

7 entirely ex parte basis, and I've avoided doing that.

8 JUDGE MAY: Quite right, too, if I may say. Clearly, matters of

9 this sort should, as far as possible, be dealt with openly. But you've

10 heard our views.

11 MR. NICE: Certainly. I'll convey those to the government

12 concerned. But in any event, if we may provisionally have half past 3.00

13 as the time for dealing with that.

14 Second, I want to be in a position to make a final decision about

15 Vllasi, as well as to have a decision made about the other witness.

16 JUDGE MAY: Yes.

17 MR. NICE: I know you've had a summary. I've provided the fuller

18 document.

19 JUDGE MAY: We have it.

20 MR. NICE: It's not a statement. It's called investigator's

21 notes, but it's effectively a draft summary. And it may be that we can

22 have a few minutes in that half-hour session this afternoon.

23 JUDGE MAY: Yes. We'll read it during the adjournment.

24 MR. NICE: I'm grateful. And I believe you've already had a copy

25 of the statement of the witness to whom the Rule 70 application relates so

1 that you can consider him.

2 And with that, we'll turn, if we may, to the evidence of the

3 ambassador.

4 JUDGE MAY: Yes.

5 WITNESS: WILLIAM WALKER [Resumed]

6 Examined by Mr. Nice: [Continued]

7 Q. Ambassador, I've been given an indication, really by sign

8 language, I think, but I understand it to mean that can you and I leave a

9 gap between question and answer, if we're not to incur the wrath of the

10 interpreters.

11 A. I will try.

12 Q. We reached the stage yesterday where you were about, in your

13 narrative, to leave Racak. You've given us your general conclusions, and

14 you can be asked further questions about those. But one thing I hadn't

15 asked you is this: One of the propositions that has been advanced since

16 the discovery of the bodies at Racak was that the bodies had been in some

17 way redressed, that their clothes had been taken off, and perhaps uniforms

18 had been taken off, and they had been redressed as civilians. Of course,

19 you're a layman, you don't have forensic scientific skills or medical

20 skills, but nevertheless, from what you saw?

21 A. My firm layman's conclusion from what I saw on the ground, the

22 positions of the bodies, the clothes worn, the bullet holes and the blood,

23 the fact that it was in the middle of winter up a very slippery, steep

24 slope, and any changing of clothes and that sort of thing would have to

25 have been done in the darkness of night, in the middle of the night, and I

1 consider that story, that version, that interpretation that somehow these

2 bodies were redressed to be ludicrous.

3 Q. Now, you've dealt in your statements in detail with what precisely

4 happened as you returned from Racak, and I don't need to take you through

5 that in any detail at all, but there is one proposition that's been raised

6 and that has been the subject of evidence and that I'd like your help with

7 and that's this: Telephone calls, if any, made either to OSCE officials,

8 to NATO, or to United States officials between the time of your leaving

9 Racak, or indeed while you were at Racak, and the time that you delivered

10 the press statement in Pristina.

11 What summary can you give us of your recollection of making phone

12 calls and your explanation, if any, for what's been said about them?

13 A. I've been asked many times that question, and I sincerely have no

14 recollection of myself talking to some of the people who have later said

15 they talked to me. This would include people in Vienna with the OSCE and

16 others.

17 I have no doubt that I did tell others to make sure the news of

18 what had happened that morning was conveyed to as many people as we could

19 get it to. I certainly wanted OSCE headquarters, I wanted the capitals of

20 the OSCE Member States to know what had happened. So I'm sure I told

21 people to inform as many people as they wanted to.

22 If people claim I spoke to them either while I was at Racak or on

23 the way back or before the press conference, I have no doubt. I don't

24 question that. I probably did. But there was so much happening at the

25 time, I was so involved in the events that I saw on the ground, trying to

1 figure out what it all meant and then, when I got back to the office,

2 trying to construct what I was going to say at the press conference, I

3 frankly have no memory, no recollection of -- of talking to any of these

4 people. But this does not mean I did not. If they say I did, I'm quite

5 sure they are not lying.

6 Q. Thank you. Back in Pristina, you eventually -- not eventually.

7 You in due course made a press statement.

8 A. That is correct.

9 Q. And first of all, give us of your account of that statement and

10 then we'll look at the printed document itself.

11 A. As I might have mentioned yesterday, when I was at Racak, a number

12 of journalists asked me questions about what I had seen and what I thought

13 of it, and I believe I made comments that I would try to recollect my

14 thoughts and when I got back to Pristina, I promised to hold a press

15 conference.

16 When I got back to Pristina, I told my staff to put together a

17 press conference, and that was done.

18 Between my arrival and when the press conference started, I spent

19 most of the time, if not all of it, in my office with my computer, trying

20 to collect my thoughts and put it into a statement. The statement was

21 essentially a description of what I had seen, a description of how the

22 news came to the KVM the night before from General Loncar's office, and

23 then my conclusions as to whether or not what we had been told by the

24 government and what we had seen coincided, and my conclusion was they did

25 not coincide.

1 I said that on what I had seen -- again, I emphasise that I was

2 not a specialist, I was not a crime scene investigator, but from what I

3 had seen, the stories did not jibe. From what I have seen, it appeared to

4 me to have been a number, perhaps as many as 40 or more, men and boys had

5 been taken away, unarmed, and later turned up dead. I described it as a

6 massacre. I said that I would hope that the government in Belgrade, if it

7 disagreed with my conclusions, would admit trained criminal investigators

8 so that they could go to the scene and determine what had in fact

9 happened. I specifically mentioned investigators from this Tribunal. And

10 I opened it up for questions.

11 I think some of what I'm saying now, as my words that afternoon,

12 came out in the questions and answers rather than in my formal

13 introductory statement.

14 Q. Thank you.

15 MR. NICE: May we now look at the exhibit, please, which is in the

16 bundle before the Judges at page 14, but here comes the exhibit itself to

17 be separately produced. Sorry, not page 14, Your Honours. I gave you the

18 wrong page. It's -- and it will become exhibit -- I think it's going to

19 be Exhibit 229. No?

20 THE REGISTRAR: That should be the Exhibit 230.

21 MR. NICE: 230. Thank you. And if the Chamber's happy to work

22 with the exhibit just produced, this is the -- can we put a copy on the

23 overhead projector, please, so that those viewing may see it?

24 I'm sorry, I don't think it is in the bundle. It should have

25 been. There it is.

1 Q. Headed "Massacre of Civilians in Racak." It reads:

2 "On the 15th of January, the KVM reported a serious deterioration

3 of the situation in the Stimlje area. Racak, Malopoljce, Petrovo and

4 Belince villages (south and west of Stimlje) were all affected. VJ and

5 police forces prevented KVM patrols from entering the area but late in the

6 afternoon the KVM patrol did get to the village of Racak. Verifiers saw

7 one dead Albanian civilian and five injured civilians, including a woman

8 and a boy, suffering from gunshot wounds. The KVM also received

9 unconfirmed reports of other deaths in the area. Residents of Racak

10 claimed that men had been segregated from women and children and that 20

11 males had been arrested and taken away. The verifiers took the details

12 and evacuated the casualties before the onset of darkness."

13 And had casualties been evacuated?

14 A. Yes, they had.

15 Q. The next paragraph, in summary, asserts a wholesale violation of

16 the cease-fire.

17 The next paragraph speaks of verifiers - of teams, including

18 verifiers, going to the village, and KDOM units sending patrols.

19 The next paragraph sets out the accounts of surviving residents

20 speaking of the killings taking place on the 15th of January and giving an

21 account of the VJ and the police and security forces being involved.

22 The next paragraph dealt with the arrival of the first KVM teams

23 on the 16th of January and finding bodies in the houses and then the 23

24 male victims on high ground.

25 The next paragraph touches on initial reports that led to your

1 going to the village and your writing the following:

2 "On arrival, villagers guided me to a site where I saw, much to

3 my horror and shock, the bodies of over 20 men who had obviously been

4 executed where they lay. I do not have the words to describe my personal

5 revulsion, or that of all those who were with me, at the sight of what can

6 only be described as an unspeakable atrocity. Although I only saw the

7 bodies of 20, mostly elderly men, many shot at extremely close range, most

8 shot in the front, back, and top of the head, KVM verifiers moved about

9 and counted an additional number.

10 "In all, 45 bodies were observed, including three women and one

11 child. They were all in civilian clothes. All looked like humble village

12 inhabitants. Although I am not a lawyer, from what I personally saw, I do

13 not hesitate to describe the event as a massacre, a crime against

14 humanity, nor do I hesitate to accuse the government security forces of

15 responsibility.

16 "The FRY government must produce the names of all involved in the

17 police and VJ operations around Stimlje, who gave the orders, who executed

18 those orders. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former

19 Yugoslavia must come in, with visas, at the invitation of the FRY

20 government, or without, to investigate this atrocity, and this must be

21 accomplished in the next 24 hours."

22 And the press release goes on to say further about the facts as

23 verified by the KVM, and how that was violations of international

24 humanitarian law, and how, in the last paragraph, you met with - or the

25 last substantial paragraph - how you met with KLA representatives, who

1 articulated their frustration and anger and indeed expressed their desire

2 for revenge, although orders in the KLA headquarters were for continued

3 restraint.

4 Mentioning there of this Tribunal, what was the position of the

5 then Prosecutor, Justice Louise Arbour, at about that time?

6 A. I believe it was the following day I received a call from Judge

7 Arbour, and we discussed what I had seen briefly and what I had said

8 briefly, and I told her I thought it was very important that either she or

9 people from this Tribunal, investigators, criminal investigators, come to

10 Kosovo and do a thorough investigation. Judge Arbour reminded me that she

11 had not been able to obtain a visa to enter the former Yugoslavia. She

12 asked me if I thought it advisable for her to try to enter. I told her I

13 thought that would be the best thing. I told her that if she was denied

14 entry or her people were denied entry, that that would indicate that the

15 government was not terribly serious about finding out what had happened at

16 Racak. She said that she would personally get on a plane the following

17 day, I believe it was, on the 18th, and try to enter via Skopje,

18 Macedonia, in other words, the southern border.

19 I told her I would send people down. I had something to do the

20 following day. I can't remember what it was. I told her I would send

21 some of my people down to try and facilitate her entry. I sent my French

22 deputy, Mr. Keller. They went down, and I later received word that she

23 had tried to make entry at the border, had been denied entry, and had been

24 told she did not have the proper documentation.

25 Q. Before we turn from the press statement: The words used, did

1 anybody else contribute to or cause you to use any of the words, or were

2 they your choice?

3 A. My statement was totally my creation. These were all my words.

4 Q. Then can we move from the statement and the events at Racak to the

5 fallout from it, which the Chamber can find at paragraph 64 and 65 of the

6 second witness statement.

7 What was the effect of your statement in Belgrade and indeed

8 elsewhere?

9 A. It had immediate and, I would describe, dramatic impact. I had

10 not anticipated as much impact as it seemed to have. But the following

11 day we were receiving newspaper accounts and telephone calls from all over

12 Europe, and elsewhere, talking about the events at Racak, asking about the

13 events at Racak. There was a tremendous reaction to it.

14 Q. The effect eventually on you was what, your status in Yugoslavia?

15 A. Given the reaction, I decided to drive to Belgrade and asked to

16 see President Milosevic. Government representatives were already coming

17 out with very critical comments on my statement, and I thought it best

18 that I go and speak to Mr. Milosevic directly. My people asked for an

19 appointment. We were told he's busy, so we sat in the hotel for I think

20 most of the day, maybe longer. And at night, when I was going out to

21 dinner, some journalists, some Serb journalists, came to the hotel and

22 they asked me what I thought of having been declared persona non grata.

23 And that was how I learned that the government had, in fact, issued a

24 statement over the radio, over the media, without informing me that I had

25 been given 48 hours to leave the country, that I was persona non grata.

1 Q. In fact, were you forced out as quickly as that or were you able

2 to stay with what was called frozen status or something?

3 A. The OSCE chairman in office went to President Milosevic. In

4 various conversations, as I understand it, including a face-to-face

5 discussion, at first my 48 hours was extended to, I think, 72 hours, and

6 at the very last minute I was informed that an agreement had been reached

7 that I was in something called a frozen persona non grata status, which I

8 never quite heard defined and had never heard of before.

9 Q. In the event, you didn't see the accused again?

10 A. I'm sorry?

11 Q. You didn't see the accused again?

12 A. No.

13 Q. You did, however, stay in Kosova until the withdrawal of the OSCE

14 generally?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. Perhaps in a sentence or so, just explain that withdrawal and your

17 part in it.

18 A. After Racak, the level of cooperation from government authorities,

19 what little we had before Racak, disappeared. Our verifiers, our people,

20 found themselves in increasingly difficult and dangerous situations when

21 they were out and about patrolling. The chairman in office of the OSCE,

22 after what he said were lengthy discussions with the principal players in

23 the capitals of Europe and North America, called me and said, "Since you

24 are finding it increasingly difficult to fulfil the mandate of the

25 mission, and since things appear to be getting increasingly difficult in

1 terms of security for your people," at first he asked me if I thought it

2 would be wise to withdraw, and later he -- and I agreed that I thought it

3 would be, and later he ordered me to withdraw the mission, in mid-March,

4 late March.

5 Q. And as we've heard from other witnesses, everyone on the mission

6 was got out, and I think that you stayed until the end and were the last

7 person across the line, with General Drewienkiewicz.

8 A. That is essentially correct. We thought we had gotten all 1.400

9 and some people out. A few days later, we discovered that two or three

10 verifiers who had been on vacation or on leave and had not gotten the word

11 that the mission had been withdrawn showed up in Belgrade. But

12 essentially, we got everyone out under our evacuation plan, via Skopje;

13 not only the people, but almost all of our equipment.

14 Q. I think I will ask you to look at a couple of other documents

15 before we turn to a couple of events after your withdrawal. First of all,

16 can we look at what's already been produced as Exhibit 94, tab 33, which

17 is a statement I've just handed in. Then it can go straight on the

18 overhead projector. 94, tab 33.

19 This is a statement for the press issued by Milutinovic, the

20 president. Do you remember that?

21 A. I remember reading it, yes, when it came out.

22 Q. We can follow it on the screen to save time.

23 "In the wake of the statement of Ambassador William Walker, head

24 of the OSCE Verification Mission in Kosovo ... the President of the

25 Republic ... made the following statement:

1 "When yesterday ... police undertook to arrest terrorists who

2 killed a police officer ... in a terrorist attack, in the vicinity of

3 Racak...," and I'm skipping some words, "... terrorists attacked them from

4 automatic weapons, portable launchers and mortars. The police had to

5 respond to such terrorist savagery in line with their powers. The OSCE

6 mission and Ambassador Walker were duly informed of undertaking the

7 arrests. Immediately after the clash, an investigating team arrived at

8 the scene headed by an investigating judge ... Danica Marinkovic and the

9 Deputy District Prosecutor ... the terrorists, who took positions on the

10 neighbouring hills, opened fire and prevented the investigation."

11 Did you yourself see anything of Judge Marinkovic?

12 A. I've never met the lady.

13 Q. Did you hear about her involvement at Racak?

14 A. I subsequently heard that she was the investigative judge in the

15 case.

16 Q. Move on: "... on the 16th of January," in the statement, "the

17 on-site investigation was once again prevented because William Walker

18 demanded the investigating judge to go there without police protection,

19 thereby preventing the competent judicial authorities from carrying out

20 their legal obligations."

21 Any truth in that?

22 A. No.

23 Q. "However, at the same time, Ambassador Walker, accompanied by

24 foreign and journalists of Albanian separatist newspapers whom he

25 personally invited, visited the scene and took advantage of the absence of

1 judicial and other state authorities so as to make the statement

2 containing falsehoods and personal assessments which are totally

3 baseless."

4 Any truth in the particular assertions there about you inviting

5 Albanian separatist newspaper journalists?

6 A. No.

7 Q. It goes on to make the following observations and I'll deal with

8 them in a block to save time so far as we can.

9 "He even went on so far as to personally assess what happened, to

10 pass judgements and even to give orders what should be done next - and all

11 that in a sovereign country.

12 "In this act of deceiving the world opinion, according to

13 well-known recipes attempting to stage some kind of new "Markale,"

14 Ambassador Walker secured the full protection of his proteges from the

15 terrorist so-called "KLA." The series of lies and fabrications he accused

16 our state authorities in an obvious attempt to divert the attention from

17 terrorists, murderers and kidnappers and to once again protect them the

18 way he had been protecting them all along. Ever since he came, he turned

19 a blind eye only to the crimes of the terrorists. Security of citizens,

20 security and responsibility of the police does not interest him, and in

21 his today's statement he has passed judgements on the authorities of

22 Serbia and Yugoslavia, their competent authorities, and accused them of

23 "violating the cease-fire" - for what if not for protection of terrorists

24 to whose crimes has remained silent."

25 There's an assertion of bias and prejudice. What do you say to

1 that, Ambassador?

2 A. I say it's an incorrect interpretation of my actions and words. I

3 tried to be as neutral and evenhanded as possible. I tried to denounce

4 violence, kidnappings, assassinations wherever they occurred from what

5 side they occurred.

6 Q. Just go to the end of last passages -- thank you very much.

7 "The attacks on terrorists, even when launched from mortars and

8 other heavy weapons he does not consider to be illegal. Such an attitude

9 does not come for the first time to the fore in his statement and in his

10 preventing that the investigating judge carry out her duty according to

11 the oaths of her -- the laws of her own country. He probably forgot that

12 he is not Governor or a Prosecutor or a Judge in Serbia or in the FRY but

13 the representative of the organisation of 54 equal states and the head of

14 the mission whose task is not to rule the country of a sovereign country

15 but to observe and report accurately. By his statement of today, he

16 forgot himself because he seems to favour the role of the prosecutor and

17 the judge at the same time."

18 Were you assuming such a role or were you, in your judgement,

19 performing your duties as commissioned to do?

20 A. I was charged with telling the OSCE what was happening in Kosovo,

21 and what I was doing was trying to discharge that responsibility.

22 Q. And then, finally, I'll just deal with the first sentence of the

23 next paragraph.

24 "Even though it is indisputably clear that the police was

25 provoked and compelled to defend itself from terrorist attacks, Mr. Walker

1 ignored that fact and proclaimed the event as a conflict with the civilian

2 population."

3 Remind us again. Had the Serb forces taken any opportunity, in

4 your visit to Racak, to explain the position or to get witnesses to talk

5 to you, to explain the position? Or soldiers or policemen?

6 A. Not to my knowledge. As I mentioned yesterday, we invited

7 General Loncar to accompany us, and he declined. That was the only effort

8 I saw to reach out and find out what the government was saying other than

9 what we had heard from General Loncar the night before, the 16th.

10 Q. And was there any evidence before you, suggested to be

11 indisputably clear, that the police were provoked and compelled to defend

12 themselves?

13 A. Not before me, no.

14 Q. Was there any evidence before you at any time of Serb casualties

15 arising at Racak?

16 A. As I said in my statement, when the purported clash was described

17 to us by General Loncar's office on the evening of the 15th, we had been

18 told there were no government casualties.

19 Q. Thank you very much.

20 MR. NICE: You can take that document off the overhead projector

21 and replace it with 94, Exhibit 94, tab 36, again to save time, and we'll

22 see how your change of status was documented, or we'll look at part of

23 this document. Starting at the top, please.

24 Q. This is a statement from the federal government and it's dated --

25 I haven't got the date. We'll see --

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1 "At today's extraordinary session chaired by the Prime Minister

2 Momir Bulatovic, the Federal Government considered the latest events in

3 Kosovo and Metohija and the pressure put on the Federal Republic of

4 Yugoslavia. The government thinks it is a new campaign of the

5 international community and decisively refused the groundless, false and

6 malevolent assertions on events that took place in the village of Racak.

7 "The federal government considered the activities of William

8 Walker, Director of OSCE ... and concluded they are in flagrant --"

9 THE INTERPRETER: Mr. Nice, please slow down when reading. Thank

10 you.

11 MR. NICE:

12 Q. "-- OSCE mission. Mr. Walker's activities went far beyond his

13 mandate ...."

14 Next paragraph. And move up one paragraph, please. It then

15 says:

16 "... Mr. Walker is to leave the Yugoslav territory within 48

17 hours," and then says this:

18 "Regarding cooperation with The Hague Tribunal, the government --

19 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Nice, you are being asked to slow down.

20 MR. NICE: Sorry.

21 Q. "Regarding cooperation with The Hague Tribunal, the government

22 confirmed Yugoslavia's readiness to fully implement the agreement signed

23 with the Tribunal. However, The Hague Tribunal has no jurisdiction in

24 Kosovo and Metohija whatsoever since the war is -- since the issue is not

25 war but terrorism and our state's legitimacy to fight it.

1 "The representatives of the Tribunal may come into our country --

2 in our country and negotiate on the realisation of the Agreement, but they

3 can't inspect and investigate in Kosovo and Metohija."

4 And you can read the rest. Just one thing, Ambassador, arising

5 from that. It suggests here that there was no recognition of the right of

6 this country to deal with terrorism. What do you say about that?

7 A. My personal opinion would be that a government certainly has a

8 sovereign right to deal with terrorism but in a rational and reasonable

9 fashion, not going in and essentially executing unarmed civilians in a

10 village such as Racak, which is what was done.

11 Q. Thank you. There are just two remaining topics, each of which

12 I'll ask you to deal with succinctly but in your own manner, without my

13 interruption, because I think it will be quicker.

14 At Rambouillet, the Kosovo Albanian representatives did not sign.

15 There was an adjournment, as it were. You took part or were present. Can

16 you just explain why, in your judgement, they weren't prepared to sign at

17 that first opportunity?

18 A. I only attended the opening session of Rambouillet, having

19 completed what was the KVM's mission, which was to get the Albanian

20 delegation, including the KLA members, to Paris for the talks. I then

21 returned to Pristina.

22 At the conclusion of the first round of the Rambouillet talks, as

23 you said, the Albanian delegation said it was ready to sign but was not

24 going to sign and asked for a two-week break in the talks. When the

25 Albanian delegation returned to Kosovo, I was asked to try to determine

1 what had been on their minds, why they made this, "We are ready to sign

2 but we're not going to sign at this moment. "

3 So I went and talked to a number of the delegates who were in

4 Rambouillet, and I talked to at least three KLA commanders and asked them

5 to tell me why they had asked for the two-week delay. Their answer was

6 something along the lines that while at Rambouillet, the delegation

7 recognised that they were dealing with a historic moment for their people,

8 for their constituents, and that what they signed their names to would be

9 of incredible importance to their people.

10 They also said that this was the first time in their memory that

11 Albanians from Kosovo had been at a negotiating session in person,

12 negotiating for their own future, and in their first encounter in

13 international negotiations, they found they were dealing with Madeleine

14 Albright, Robin Cook, the foreign ministers of Europe and North America,

15 and they were somewhat overwhelmed with their own lack of experience in

16 negotiations.

17 They said that although they read the document they thought they

18 could sign many times, they were worried, they were concerned that there

19 might be some things in there that, with their inexperience, they were not

20 totally grasping, and therefore they wanted to take some time out to go

21 over this document. And they also wanted to touch base with their various

22 constituencies to make sure that the Albanian population that they

23 represented was truly in favour of their signing it. They told me that

24 they had conducted whatever sort of survey they could do and had come to

25 the conclusion that the Albanian population wanted peace, wanted their

1 delegation to sign on their behalf. So they returned to Rambouillet, to

2 France, and indicated their willingness now to sign.

3 Q. The second topic, different: The book or books "As Seen, As

4 Told," prepared by the OSCE, just explain what triggered their

5 preparation, bearing in mind that it may be the Chamber will be hearing in

6 due course from Sandra Mitchell, who will be able to deal with

7 methodology.

8 A. When the mission terminated in Kosovo, we moved into Macedonia.

9 Shortly after our exit, the NATO bombing campaign began, and also began an

10 exodus from Kosovo of tens of thousands of refugees. This exodus

11 overwhelmed the Macedonian government, the Albanian government. The

12 people were put into very hastily constructed camps. Since I had 1.400

13 people who had recently been in Kosovo, who had worked with the Albanian

14 population, we were asked by Mrs. Ogata from UNHCR, we were asked by the

15 Macedonian authorities, by others, to help in the initial days of the

16 camps.

17 I visited, I think, most of the camps in Macedonia, and later

18 visited some of them in Albania. The conditions were horrendous, and

19 everywhere I went, people in the camps, not only in the camps - sometimes

20 I visited villages where the people were living outside the camps, the

21 refugees - people approached me and I heard story after story after story

22 about what had happened in their villages while they were being driven

23 out, et cetera.

24 Sandra Mitchell was an officer on my staff in Kosovo who I had

25 come to respect. I had given her the task of dealing with the human

1 rights situation in Kosovo, and in our Macedonian exile, I asked her to

2 put together a team to go to the camps and to collect as many of these

3 stories of what had happened to these refugees. I told her that we wanted

4 only first-person accounts. We didn't want hearsay; we didn't want people

5 talking about things they had heard about, but only things that they had

6 witnessed.

7 Sandra put together a team of five or six people. I think some of

8 them were lawyers. I remember specifically there was a Danish lady, a

9 German lawyer, several other people from various nationalities. And they

10 spent the remaining time that we were there as a mission in the camps

11 compiling depositions, sworn depositions, as I say, of these tales of

12 abuse, and that was eventually compiled into -- I'm sorry. I didn't know

13 the title of the document, but what we call the OSCE Human Rights Report.

14 Q. Thank you, Ambassador. You will be asked further questions.

15 MR. NICE: My further apologies for going too fast in the reading,

16 to the interpreters.

17 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

18 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please, Mr. Milosevic. Microphone,

19 please.

20 JUDGE MAY: Microphone.

21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The microphone is on. The light is

22 on. My question was: How long are you going to limit my

23 cross-examination to?

24 JUDGE MAY: Three hours, no more. If you refrain from arguing

25 with the witness, if you refrain from repeating the questions, if you ask

1 short questions, you will be able for get much more done. So you follow

2 that line.

3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, I don't know that I've argued

4 with witnesses. But let me say before I start that I expected that you

5 would shorten the time for my cross-examination, in view of yesterday's

6 proclamations with respect to Rule 92 bis, because Drewienkiewicz

7 testified for two days, Maisonneuve also took two days, and their chief,

8 according to you, should be exposed to cross-examination for three hours

9 only, and I think that that is --

10 JUDGE MAY: [Previous translation continues]... further time,

11 which is taken off your time for cross-examination. Now, move on.

12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. Very well, Mr. May. I

13 just said this for it to come out in the record, and not to waste time.

14 The opposite side began its examination-in-chief yesterday with

15 the diplomatic career of the witness, as a career diplomat.

16 Cross-examined by Mr. Milosevic:

17 Q. [Interpretation] Is it true that, by Clinton, in June 1993, you

18 were nominated and appointed ambassador to Panama, and that it was on the

19 basis of the position of the senate, and on that grounds, that he

20 refrained from actually sending you there?

21 JUDGE MAY: Do you understand the question?

22 THE WITNESS: Yes.

23 A. My "nomination" is a bit overstating it. The Clinton White House

24 was thinking about nominating me to go to Panama, but one senator

25 objected. And in our system, one senator has the ability to impede a

1 nomination and confirmation, so I did not go to Panama.

2 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

3 Q. And was the reason for this, for impeding this, as you termed it,

4 amongst other things, your false testimony with respect to the deaths in

5 Salvador, where you were ambassador?

6 A. The senator's reasons for opposing my nomination have never been

7 made clear, either to me, nor to the State Department.

8 Q. Let me remind you of "It's Official." That is the title of the

9 Washington Post of the 16th of June, 1993, where it says:

10 [In English] "[Previous translation continues]... officer William

11 Walker, former ambassador to El Salvador and before that a diplomat in

12 Bolivia, Honduras, Brazil and Peru, to replace Deane Hinton in Panama."

13 [Interpretation] And then, two days later, also in the Washington

14 Post, on the 18th of June, we have the following correction:

15 [In English] "[Previous translation continues]... on the

16 nomination of career diplomat William Walker to be ambassador to Panama,

17 as was reported here on Wednesday. There are hints of some Senate

18 unhappiness with Walker, formerly ambassador to El Salvador..."

19 [Interpretation] Did that have anything to do with the reactions

20 of the Panama public and church?

21 A. I have no idea why the Washington Post said that, nor what the

22 reaction of the Panamanian people and church might have been.

23 Q. All right, then. Let me remind you of this, in connection with

24 the fact that this challenging was linked to your previous work in El

25 Salvador and the writings of the New York Times, for instance, on the 24th

1 of April, 1990. Only the portions which make reference to you, so I'm not

2 going to quote the entire newspaper article:

3 [In English] "[Previous translation continues]... Walker said

4 there was no evidence the military was involved in the Jesuits' murder;

5 rebels dressed in Government uniforms might have done it, he suggested.

6 Those preposterous propositions were exploded five days later by President

7 Cristiani's statement."

8 JUDGE MAY: What's the question?

9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The question is -- may I just finish

10 my quotation from this New York Times article, which I was quoting,

11 because it talks about the Roman Catholic archbishop:

12 [In English] "Four church women from the United States were

13 murdered. Two US labour representatives were shot in the Sheraton Hotel

14 as they met a land reform leader ... The murder of six Jesuit priests last

15 November has brought the issue forward again. There is no doubt that the

16 killers were in the armed forces; President Alfredo Cristiani said so on

17 January 7... What is at stake is not just a minimum level of decency in

18 El Salvador. It is our own honour."

19 Q. [Interpretation] Is it true that you made a false representation

20 of the events in El Salvador?

21 A. No. Your Honour, might I explain the --

22 JUDGE MAY: Certainly.

23 A. I was ambassador in El Salvador from 1988 until 1992. The murder

24 of the nuns, the killing of the two labour leaders, both of whom were my

25 friends, occurred well before I got there. During my period as

1 ambassador, the guerrillas launched a final offensive in November of 1989,

2 in which, as you say, and as the Washington Post and New York Times

3 describe, six Jesuit priests were killed.

4 When I made the statement that we did not know who had killed

5 them, that men in uniforms with ski masks could have been either from the

6 government military or from the guerrillas, this was before it was

7 discovered who had actually done the killings. You say President

8 Cristiani announced and took responsibility for his military in killing

9 the Jesuits on the 6th or 7th of January. The embassy had already stated

10 that on the -- I believe the 2nd of January.

11 I have with me a letter, if you're interested, from the Congress

12 of the United States, indicating what I did, what my embassy did, to

13 investigate, determine who had killed the Jesuits, and then insist that

14 those responsible - a colonel, several lieutenants, and soldiers - be

15 brought to justice, and they were brought to justice and they were

16 convicted. And as I say, it was with the full cooperation of Bill Walker,

17 the ambassador, as well as his staff, as well as the US government, that

18 that was the end of the Jesuit case.

19 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

20 Q. Well, that's precisely where I wanted to continue. Again I'm

21 going to quote the Washington Post on the 21st of March, 1993, the Sunday

22 edition. It carried a long article:

23 [In English] " ... Walker told a news conference after the

24 murders. 'And it's not a management control problem that would lend

25 itself to a Harvard Business School analysis.' On January 2nd, 1990,

1 Walker told representative Joseph Moakley, Democrat Massachusetts in

2 Washington that 'anyone can get uniforms... The fact that they [the

3 killers] were dressed in military uniforms was not proof that they were

4 military.' The same day that he met with Moakley, US Army Major Eric

5 Buckland, a military advisor in San Salvador, told his superiors that a

6 Salvadoran army officer had named Military Academy chief Colonel Guillermo

7 Alfredo Benavides Moreno as the ringleader in the Jesuits' killing."

8 [Interpretation] Therefore, this confirms that you gave an

9 inaccurate statement, and later Cristiani dealt with it too. But what is

10 of particular significance to me is --

11 JUDGE MAY: Before we go any further, let's find out who wrote

12 this article that you've been quoting.

13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] This article was carried by the

14 Washington Post.

15 JUDGE MAY: You've told us that. Who was it who wrote it so we

16 may know who makes these allegations.

17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I can hand it over to you as an

18 exhibit. The length, 2.976 words. "Twelve Years of Torture..." is the

19 headline.

20 JUDGE MAY: I'm asking for the reporter's name.

21 THE ACCUSED: [In English] Byline: Guy Gugliotta, Douglas Farah,

22 Washington Post Foreign Service Body.

23 JUDGE MAY: Do you know who he is?

24 THE WITNESS: I know Douglas Farah very well. He's a friend of

25 mine, yes.

1 JUDGE MAY: Very well. Comment, if you can, on what is suggested

2 here. It is said you made an inaccurate statement.

3 THE WITNESS: I made an inaccurate statement, in hindsight. At

4 the time I made it, it was what we knew, which was uniformed men had

5 killed the priest. We did not know from whence they came; that on the 2nd

6 of January I was in Washington speaking to Congressman Joe Moakley, also a

7 friend, who was in charge of a committee of the Congress of the United

8 States trying to get to the bottom of the Jesuit case. He asked me if we

9 had uncovered the culprits. I told him we had not, that it could have

10 been one side or the other.

11 That same day, unbeknownst to me, in El Salvador, the case broke

12 open when a major on my staff came forward and recounted a conversation he

13 had with an El Salvadoran colonel, his counterpart, and it was revealed in

14 that conversation that a unit of the Salvadoran army had killed the

15 Jesuits.

16 So what I am saying is that my statements throughout this were as

17 accurate as I could make them at the time, but later, when it was

18 discovered who had killed the Jesuits, as I say, I was then in the

19 forefront of those trying to bring justice in the case, to bring military

20 officers to justice, which was unprecedented in El Salvador. But the

21 colonel, the two lieutenants, and some soldiers were in fact convicted

22 after the United States government put incredible pressure on the

23 Salvadoran government to bring these officers before a tribunal.

24 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, we've now spent the best part of

25 quarter of an hour to 20 minutes on events in another continent a decade

1 before. If it was an attempt to attack in some way the witness's

2 credibility, you've had the opportunity of putting your case and the

3 witness has dealt with it. Now, move on to some other topic more related

4 to the indictment.

5 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, since you have limited my

6 time, please allow me to use it the way I consider best. This is a

7 witness who was obviously in charge of carrying out - how should I put

8 this? - some sort of covert operations.

9 JUDGE MAY: Yes, when we come to that, you can put all that. But

10 you're not wasting the time of the Court with events so long ago and of

11 such little relevance. Now, let's move on.

12 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

13 Q. On the 11th of December, 1989, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, in a long

14 article -- I'm going to quote only a short excerpt: [In English]

15 "[Previous translation continues]... Jesuit colleges in the United

16 States, accused the US Ambassador in El Salvador of trying to discredit

17 the witness. In --"

18 JUDGE MAY: No. Your attempt to discredit this witness with

19 events so long ago the Trial Chamber has ruled as irrelevant. Now, move

20 on from El Salvador. You've been given your clear instructions. If you

21 want to continue with the cross-examination, you must follow them, because

22 the time of the Court is limited, and it cannot be taken up with

23 irrelevant matters such as this.

24 Now, move on to events closer to the indictment.

25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] This is directly related to the

1 continuity of the witness's activities.

2 I'm going to move on from El Salvador. I'm just going to refer to

3 yet another case which points to continuity in terms of such activities of

4 the witness. It relates to Nicaragua. [In English] "[Previous

5 translation continues]... filed in US district court by independent

6 counsel Lawrence Walsh. Walker was responsible for setting up a phony

7 humanitarian operation at an air base in Ilopango, El Salvador. That

8 'humanitarian' air base was used to run guns, ammunitions, and supplies

9 to the fascist Contra mercenaries attacking the Nicaraguan Revolution.

10 Walker was also the US ambassador to El Salvador from 1988 to -- from 1988

11 to 1992," and so on.

12 JUDGE MAY: Let the witness deal with the allegation.

13 Mr. Walker, have you followed what the allegation is?

14 THE WITNESS: I believe so, Your Honour. During my 40-year career

15 as an American diplomat but especially during my -- the later years of my

16 career as ambassador to El Salvador, as Deputy Assistant Secretary of

17 State for Central America and Panama during the 1980s, you know, I, as

18 well as the policy -- policies that I was implementing, have come in for a

19 great amount of criticism in the free press of the United States and the

20 press of the world, as a matter of fact. It is not surprising to me that

21 you can bring articles up that make allegations like that. All I can say

22 is this is, you know, water off my back, press criticism of US policies

23 and the person who was implementing them, Bill Walker.

24 JUDGE MAY: The allegation appears to be that in Nicaragua or in

25 El Salvador, it's not clear, a humanitarian base was used to run guns,

1 ammunition, and supplies, et cetera. Is it a matter on which you could

2 comment?

3 THE WITNESS: Yes, it is, Your Honour. The -- as Deputy Assistant

4 Secretary of State for Central America during the late 1980s, this was

5 later condensed into the word "Contragate," I was responsible for bringing

6 humanitarian assistance to the Contras, which was a policy that had been

7 confirmed by the US Congress several times.

8 Unbeknownst to me, unbeknownst to the State Department,

9 unbeknownst essentially to the world, a colonel, Oliver North, in the

10 National Security Council was doing things that were eventually determined

11 by Judge Walsh and his commission to be illegal, and that had to do with

12 the supply of armaments to the Contras.

13 The base, the air base that was mentioned, Ilopango, is in El

14 Salvador. That is where we were bringing in humanitarian supplies, as I

15 said, that I was responsible for, and sending them on to the Contras.

16 Oliver North and some other people were using that same air base to bring

17 in illegal supplies, i.e., armaments. The Walsh report noted this, that

18 the same air base had been used for both types of supplies, legal and

19 illegal.

20 The Walsh report, as I said, did not in any way imply that the

21 supply of humanitarian material to the Contras was either illegal or, you

22 know, should not have taken place. That was, as I said, a policy that had

23 been approved by the Congress several times.

24 Does that explain it, Your Honour?

25 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Let's go on to the next topic.

1 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

2 Q. So the policy was humanitarian assistance. Please comment on

3 this: It relates to you. [In English] "[Previous translation

4 continues]... "in Kosovo. This time his actions give backing to different

5 Contra army, the Contra Kosovo Liberation Army."

6 [Interpretation] Is that right?

7 JUDGE MAY: Who again? What are you quoting from, Mr. Milosevic?

8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, I put a question. So I'll

9 tell you what I've quoted. Never mind. That's no problem.

10 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

11 Q. Is that right or is that not right? The question is -- I'm

12 quoting myself. Let's put it that way. Is that right or is that not

13 right? I'm quoting Gary Wilson. I'm quoting an article by Gary Wilson.

14 Is this right or is this not right?

15 A. I'm not sure I understood the question. If the question is was

16 either I or were the people of the KVM supplying the KLA, the Albanian

17 population, with assistance during my tenure as head of the KVM, the

18 answer is no, we were not.

19 THE WITNESS: Was that the question, Your Honour?

20 JUDGE MAY: The question was: Did you -- you were giving your

21 backing to a different Contra army, the KLA. I think you've answered the

22 point. Would you -- I suppose, put it this way: Did you back the KLA

23 during your time?

24 THE WITNESS: No, we did not. We often condemned the KLA for acts

25 of violence.

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1 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

2 Q. We'll get precisely to that. And now in relation to this, this

3 linkage in respect of such activities, in relation to Racak, it says: [In

4 English] "[Previous translation continues]... the site of the alleged

5 massacre and declared that he knew all the facts. He was the judge, jury,

6 and executioner all in one. Not even a district attorney in any United

7 States city could so boldly make such a declaration: Guilty first,

8 evidence later."

9 And then --

10 JUDGE MAY: Let the witness deal with that allegation.

11 THE WITNESS: Again, I'm not sure what the quotation is from or

12 what I'm dealing with. If the question is did I consider myself judge,

13 jury, and executioner all in one, my answer is no, I did not.

14 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

15 Q. Well, tell me, Mr. Walker, since it is claimed: [In English]

16 "[Previous translation continues]... Walker? Is he the Richard Butler of

17 Kosovo, as many in the Balkans now believe?"

18 [No translation] [In English]... "[Previous translation

19 continues]... Kosovo team was a spy team like the UNSCOM group in Iraq,

20 Walker replied, `I hope everyone on my mission is trying to gather as much

21 intelligence as they possibly can.' Questioned again, 'Are you reporting

22 it back to Washington?' Walker reported -- Walker replied, 'A lot of it

23 comes back to Washington, but it goes to all capitals" and so on.

24 JUDGE MAY: Let us hear -- let us hear where this quotation is

25 from.

1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] This is a quotation from Gary

2 Wilson's article too. But I assume that he is not challenging --

3 JUDGE MAY: When and where did Gary Wilson write this article?

4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Unfortunately, I haven't got that

5 here now, but you can take it from a website that I'm going to give you.

6 This is the website: [In English] US-Kosovo Policy -- [Interpretation]

7 Here's the website so you can check it exactly, the date and everything

8 else. Unfortunately, I do not have everything I need here so that I could

9 know all that.

10 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

11 Q. Now, were you really involved in these activities, Mr. Walker?

12 Was this the main thrust of your activities, parallel to the official

13 mission that you were conducting?

14 A. I was pursuing my official mission, which was to try to tell the

15 OSCE and the capitals of the member states of the OSCE as much as we could

16 possibly gather in terms of the reality of what was happening in Kosovo.

17 That was our job. We were verifiers, which implies gathering information

18 and telling people about it.

19 Q. Only that?

20 A. No. As the mission progressed from the beginning, we took on

21 other tasks, a number of which were at your direction. You might recall

22 when you told me that two journalists had been kidnapped by, as you call

23 them, the so-called KLA, and you told me that you expected my mission to

24 get them released. So that started a process in which we tried to do that

25 several times, including the release later of some VJ soldiers who were

1 captured by the KLA as well as some people from the KLA that your forces

2 had taken prisoner. So we -- we got involved in that sort of activity.

3 I was also asked by the Serb community in Kosovo to try and

4 determine what had happened to members of their families who had

5 disappeared.

6 So what I am saying is that, over time, the mission took on other

7 tasks besides the collection of information and the dissemination of that

8 information to the OSCE and beyond.

9 Q. I put a question not only in relation to the information that you

10 have been speaking about but also in relation to intelligence

11 information. I'm going to quote the Sunday Times for you, London, the

12 12th of March, 2000: [In English] "[Previous translation continues]...

13 "Kosovo guerrilla army. American intelligence agents have admitted they

14 helped to train the Kosovo Liberation Army before NATO's bombing of

15 Yugoslavia. ... Central Intelligence Agency officers were cease-fire

16 monitors in Kosovo in 1998 and 1999, developing ties with the KLA and

17 giving American military training manuals and field advice," et cetera, et

18 cetera. "Many of its satellite telephones and global positioning systems

19 were secretly handed to KLA... Several KLA leaders had the mobile phone

20 number of General Wesley Clark, the NATO Commander. ... The American

21 agenda consisted of their --"

22 JUDGE MAY: Let the witness deal with these allegations, series of

23 allegations here being made and quoted by you.

24 The first suggestion is that, Ambassador --

25 Let the witness deal with these allegations.

1 What's suggested is there were cease-fire monitors who were CIA

2 officers developing ties with the KLA and giving American military

3 training, et cetera.

4 First of all, is there any truth in that suggestion?

5 THE WITNESS: If there is, it's not to my knowledge. I knew of no

6 personnel on KVM staff who were either with the CIA nor who were giving

7 training to the KLA.

8 JUDGE MAY: And it's said that many telephone and global

9 positioning systems were handed to the KLA and the leaders had the

10 telephone number of General Clark. Do you know anything about that?

11 THE WITNESS: No, I do not. I know that the KLA did do most of

12 its communications via cell phones and that sort of thing. Where they got

13 them, how they acquired them, who they communicated with, I have no

14 personal knowledge of that.

15 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

16 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

17 Q. In that same article, precisely in relation to what you have been

18 saying now, that you know nothing about this, it says -- this is the

19 Sunday Times that I have been quoting: [In English] "[Previous

20 translation continues]... dismissed suggestions that he had wanted war in

21 Kosovo, but admitted the CIA was almost certainly involved in the

22 countdown to airstrikes."

23 So that's inaccurate. Is that right, Mr. Walker?

24 A. If I -- let me reread your quote here. I do dismiss --

25 MR. NICE: While he's doing it, might we know the author of this

1 document and if this is allegation against the witness directly but the

2 text --

3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] By all means. Sunday Times, 12th of

4 March, 2000, Tom Walker, [In English] Aidan Laverty. A-i-d-a-n, Aidan

5 Laverty. Tom Walker and Aidan Laverty, from Sunday Times, London, 12th of

6 March, 2000. "CIA aided Kosovo guerrilla army."

7 [Interpretation] All right. Can we proceed?

8 JUDGE MAY: No. Let the witness just deal with that.

9 THE WITNESS: I do dismiss suggestions that I wanted war in

10 Kosovo. I have probably said numerous times that I'm sure the CIA was

11 interested in what was happening in Kosovo, as I'm sure the intelligence

12 services of a number of countries, including your own, were interested in

13 what was happening in Kosovo.

14 I am not with the CIA. I have never been with the CIA. I have

15 worked with members of the CIA, but as I said, not in connection with

16 Kosovo.

17 So I -- as I say, I'm sure the CIA was interested in knowing what

18 was going on. I'm sure they read our reports, OSCE reports. What Tom

19 Walker of the London Times derived from this, I know not.

20 THE ACCUSED [Interpretation] All right. Before I move on to my

21 next question, I would like to -- I've been trying to communicate with

22 that lady by sign language but apparently she can't see me. I have a

23 video cassette here, and I would like to have it played, please. The

24 footage is very short. Very short video clips. And I kindly ask the

25 technical service to play the video clips one by one and that is what I

1 shall request. I don't know whether the technical people can actually

2 hear me as I say this. So it's a series of different video clips.

3 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

4 Q. While they arrange this, Mr. Walker, do you know a Canadian

5 officer, historian, Roly Keith? He has several diplomas. He has served

6 with the Canadian military for 30 years, also with NATO, an historian. He

7 was head of your office in Kosovo Polje, of the Verification Mission in

8 Kosovo Polje. Do you remember him?

9 A. I have no recollection of that name whatsoever.

10 Q. All right. You'll probably remember him. Mr. Walker, in your

11 statement, you say on page -- well, let me not quote it now. I'll quote

12 it if you think it's not that way.

13 You talk about the NATO aggression. Is it correct that NATO

14 bombed Yugoslavia because America and its Secretary of State, Madeleine

15 Albright, wanted war?

16 A. That is not my understanding of why NATO began the bombing.

17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. Please, could you play

18 the first video clip. I hope that you will recognise -- well, could we

19 also have the sound track, please.

20 [Videotape played]

21 THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] America, headed by Madeleine

22 Albright, Secretary of State, judging by various sources like Time

23 Magazine, wanted war, and Yugoslavia was a sacrificed lamb or a target.

24 And this was a way of rallying Europe together in the twenty-first

25 century. It is clear that President Milosevic - I have no intention of

1 defending him or attacking him - was elected president three times.

2 Yugoslavia has been a democratic country for quite some time now, and it's

3 quite irrelevant whether you like him or not. And that cannot be a

4 justification or an excuse."

5 JUDGE MAY: Now, Mr. Milosevic, who was that?

6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] That is a member of the Verification

7 Mission, head of the office of the Verification Mission in Kosovo Polje,

8 an officer of the Canadian army.

9 JUDGE MAY: We will ask the witness whether he recognises the

10 gentleman or not.

11 THE WITNESS: No, I do not, Your Honour.

12 JUDGE MAY: Yes. The gentleman's views are quite irrelevant. If

13 you want to call him as a witness, you can, but you're not going to

14 examine this witness about him. It's merely his views.

15 Now, do you want to play any more of your tape?

16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] By all means. You'll see more.

17 JUDGE MAY: Very well.

18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] But I think --

19 JUDGE MAY: We'll do it after the adjournment. And you're not to

20 ask any questions about that. That was merely the views of that man, and

21 he can give evidence in due course if he wants.

22 Mr. Walker, could you be back, please, in half an hour.

23 --- Recess taken at 11.00 a.m.

24 --- On resuming at 11.33 a.m.

25 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, I don't understand how you

2 can limit my right to ask the witness to comment on the statements made by

3 an officer who was a member of his mission and upon whose findings his

4 report was in fact based. I don't understand that at all.

5 JUDGE MAY: He does not know the man who was on the television.

6 The comments relate to the very issues which we're going to have to

7 decide, and it's not a matter for the man on the television or for this

8 witness; it's a matter for this Trial Chamber, which is going to have to

9 decide these issues.

10 Yes. Now, continue, please.

11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. Very well. I shall

12 endeavour to get an answer. But does that mean that we have noted that

13 Mr. Walker claims that this particular officer was not a member of the

14 mission and was not an authentic person?

15 JUDGE MAY: No. He said -- what the witness said was that he

16 didn't recognise the man.

17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] What does that mean, that he didn't

18 recognise him? It means that he cannot comment on his positions, if it is

19 an officer who was head of a department in the mission.

20 JUDGE KWON: You can put the question to the witness.

21 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

22 Q. Is it true that during your stay at the head of the KVM, the

23 police was a professional police force and that cooperation with the

24 police force was good?

25 A. If you're asking me about the Serb police, there was a certain

1 amount of cooperation; however, there were a number of incidents,

2 including one that I was personally involved in, where I would have to say

3 it was as unprofessional, as uncooperative as anything I've seen in my

4 career with a purportedly professional police force.

5 Q. Well, your member - precisely, the one that they won't let me

6 quote here - says that they got on very well and that they performed their

7 duties professionally, and he was in the field, and not you. Is that so

8 or not?

9 A. As I said, Mr. Milosevic, I do not recognise the person that was

10 on the screen. We had over 1.400 members of the mission. I certainly

11 knew only a small portion of that. I did not know this gentleman. He

12 might have had very good relations with the police. As I said, I had at

13 least one incident involving me personally in which a policeman came at me

14 with a hand grenade, and I would hardly consider that to be professional

15 police behaviour.

16 Q. Mr. Walker, in your statement, you devote two whole pages to the

17 fact that a drunken policeman had an argument with the members of your

18 security detail and that he apologised to you, in fact, and that you never

19 saw the hand grenade yourself. And I don't see that this incident

20 deserves this kind of attention that you are attributing to it. Is that

21 right or not?

22 A. I personally thought it was a very serious incident. My security

23 and the security of a number of people from the mission were involved. As

24 you say, he was drunk, he was armed, and members of my security detail saw

25 the grenade and whisked me away from his presence. When I returned, in

1 very broken and drunken English, I believe he was trying to apologise. I

2 thought the incident was serious enough to ask for an investigation by

3 General Loncar. He promised to do so. He came back within a few hours

4 and told me essentially that we had imagined the whole thing, that it was

5 the fault of my unarmed security detail and that they had provoked this

6 drunken, armed, grenade-carrying policeman; in other words, just the exact

7 opposite of what had occurred.

8 Q. All right. Not to dwell on that point, you yourself said that it

9 was established that he wasn't on duty and no weapons were used, as it

10 says in your statement. That's right, isn't it?

11 A. General Loncar told me that he was an off-duty policeman from

12 Belgrade. He said that the man was not drunk. He said the man was not

13 armed. I personally saw a Kalashnikov rifle in his car, which the police

14 put in the police car when they took him away, wearing a ski mask, shortly

15 after the incident had occurred. I thought that was also fairly

16 unprofessional police behaviour, to put a man who was supposedly in

17 detention in the back seat of a police car, with a weapon at his side, and

18 allowing him to go away with a mask over his face. But I am not a

19 professional policeman myself. Maybe this is professional behaviour.

20 Q. All right. Let's not waste time, because I have many more

21 important topics to cover.

22 You talk about ethnic cleansing in your statement. Do you

23 know -- or rather, could you comment on, for example, a statement made by

24 the member of your mission, who says:

25 "I can testify to the fact that in February and March 1999 there

1 was no genocide. When it comes to ethnic cleansing, I was not present nor

2 did I see events which could be characterised as ethnic cleansing. In

3 connection to my previous answer, I wish to state that I was witness to a

4 series of incidents, and most of them were caused by the KLA, for which

5 the security forces, aided by the army, reacted."

6 Is that correct or not?

7 JUDGE MAY: Before the witness answers, we need to know who has

8 made this statement and when he made it.

9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] This same officer made this

10 statement, and I have this on the tape too, which you won't allow me to

11 play.

12 JUDGE MAY: Very well.

13 Yes. The officer, whose name was given, the Canadian, apparently

14 said at some stage that he didn't see any ethnic cleansing. You can see,

15 Mr. Walker, on the screen what it is alleged. Perhaps you can then

16 comment on it.

17 THE WITNESS: I can't comment on what he saw or didn't see. Any

18 comments I've made about evidence of ethnic cleansing was based on my own

19 observations and those of other members of my staff. Who this gentleman

20 was and why he made those statements, I have absolutely no idea.

21 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

22 Q. You speak about refugees. Could you comment on the following

23 statement, made by this officer of yours:

24 "In the past weeks or ten days in Kosovo, we continued receiving

25 reports on hundreds and sometimes thousands of refugees from our area of

1 responsibility. However, when my observers and I went to these locations,

2 we would come across just several tens of refugees. This does not mean

3 that there were not a hundred people on the move, but they were taken in

4 very quickly by their relatives from Pristina or they took to the hills or

5 somewhere else. And it was not ethnic cleansing - at least, that is not

6 what I imply by that term - and even less was it a genocide. I was not

7 witness to mass human rights violations. What I did see, and the things I

8 did attend, were events which turned into a civil war very quickly, a

9 burgeoning one, between the rebels, terrorists, as they were called by the

10 security forces, and the security forces themselves, who were trying to

11 protect and defend the communication devices throughout Kosovo."

12 Was that so or not? Is that correct or not?

13 A. I again have no idea what this man was referring to, whether he's

14 referring to refugees before the bombing, during the bombing. I certainly

15 saw tens of thousands of refugees in the refugee camps that I referred to

16 earlier, in Macedonia and Albania. They were all Albanians. Again, this

17 gentleman, I have no idea where he was, what he was doing, who he was

18 talking to, so I can hardly comment on his words.

19 Q. Well, I informed you a moment ago that he was the head of your

20 office, the head of your bureau in Kosovo Polje.

21 JUDGE MAY: The witness has responded that he cannot comment on

22 what the man claims to have seen. As I've said, if you want to call him

23 as a witness, it's open to you to do so.

24 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

25 Q. Is it true --

1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] My question wasn't whether he knew

2 him. He said he didn't know him, but I asked him to comment what the man

3 had stated. But we can move on.

4 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

5 Q. Is it correct that the army and MUP recognised the agreement and

6 abided by the agreement and that the KLA did not, the one that was

7 achieved between Holbrooke and myself?

8 A. As I've said, in our meeting in November, I reported to you that

9 there was non-compliance on both sides; i.e., the MUP, the VJ, and the KLA

10 were all doing things that were specifically prohibited by the agreements.

11 Q. And can you comment on this: It is the statement where the

12 officer claims that he was in villages in Kosovo, and, as you know, the

13 KLA controlled for one year 50 per cent of the territory, a year before

14 that. The security forces did not enter those areas, in keeping with the

15 Holbrooke-Milosevic agreement, but the KLA did not stop at its own

16 territory. They would keep effective skirmishes and moving into that

17 territory, and so on and so forth.

18 Now, asked whether they supported the KLA, the answers were

19 unclear, when the population was asked, in fact. Can I have your comments

20 to that, please.

21 A. I'm not again entirely sure what the question is, Mr. Milosevic.

22 I will repeat: The KVM, neither I nor any person on the mission who was

23 doing what they were supposed to be doing, was in any way helping one side

24 or the other. We were there to determine what the sides were doing and

25 whether or not they were in compliance with the agreements that your

1 government signed.

2 I would have to comment on your bringing up the question of

3 whether or not the KLA controlled territory. I specifically remember you

4 telling me when I asked you about what we thought was our need to bring in

5 a helicopter ambulance capability, with a Swiss helicopter, and I

6 explained that we would need this if any of our people were injured,

7 either deliberately or accidentally, while in territory controlled by the

8 KLA, and you were offering a government helicopter to do that extraction,

9 and you told me quite categorically that the KLA controlled no territory

10 in Kosovo.

11 Q. The point was that the KLA was attacking, and not that it was

12 controlling the territory. He mentioned one year previously, that they

13 were in control one year previously, but it was the attacking that I was

14 asking about. But let's move on.

15 Your cooperation, did it have to do with helping separatism? Is

16 that true? How can you comment, for example, on this assertion:

17 "On the basis of everything we know, I think that we in fact

18 assisted the separatist movement and that the idea of a multicultural

19 Kosovo was disappearing, just like the Serbs, the Romas, and Jews which

20 were killed and forced to flee to save their own skins."

21 Is that observation correct or not?

22 A. The observation that the KVM somehow was trying to promote

23 separatism is ludicrous. It is not true. If there were individuals,

24 again, who felt one way or the other about separatism, that I cannot

25 comment on, but the mission, as I was instructed, had nothing to do with

1 encouraging, promoting, advocating separatism.

2 Q. Very well. Now, you claim that all the people you talked to said

3 that they had fled from Kosovo because of the threats that were being made

4 to them by the police and not NATO. Could you comment on that statement

5 made by your officer? And it was the following:

6 "A justification for war which can also be brought into question

7 was the alleged ethnic cleansing and jeopardising of human rights which

8 were allegedly committed when my colleagues and I were in Kosovo. This

9 did not happen. The refugees were not fleeing Kosovo in the spring, while

10 we were there, up until the time that NATO started the war on the 24th of

11 March. According to my information, the UN Refugee Committee informed us

12 that the first wave of refugees crossed the border only on the 27th of

13 March, in large numbers. As you mentioned, hundreds of thousands of

14 refugees and displaced persons are the results of the civil war, but first

15 and foremost are the results of the NATO bombing."

16 That is what your officer claims. Is that true or is it not?

17 A. Again, Mr. Milosevic, you are asking me to comment on statements

18 made by a member of the KVM, for whatever reason he made those, and on the

19 basis of what evidence he made those, I have no information. If you're

20 asking me, you know, what provoked the exodus of refugees, massive exodus

21 of refugees during the NATO bombing campaign, I spoke to hundreds and

22 hundreds of refugees in the camps. I did not find a single one who said

23 they had fled the bombing; on the contrary, some of them said they wished

24 there had been more bombing. They all said they had fled the horrors, the

25 mistreatment, the killings they saw, at the hands of your security forces.

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1 Q. Yes. That's quite clear to me. But this man is not speaking on

2 the basis of I don't know what facts which he read somewhere, but on the

3 basis of his immediate involvement and work in Kosovo and Metohija, and

4 that's why I asked for your comments.

5 My next question is the following: Is it correct that the KLA was

6 the armed road to realising the idea of a Greater Albania?

7 A. I have no basis for answering that question. I do not know what

8 the agenda of the KLA was at any point during the conflict, other than to

9 protect the Albanian population, that they thought were their

10 constituents, from harm.

11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I should now like to ask that we

12 take a look at Exhibit 11 from this tape. It is not the officer, Mr. May;

13 it is a clip from Albanian television. And I'd like to ask the technical

14 booth to pinpoint that particular section. It is number 11. You have got

15 one over. You have 9, and then we come to 11, and it is a speech by KLA

16 officers talking about what I have just been referring to. So it is

17 number 11 on the tape. The tape has 20 clips and it takes no more than 20

18 minutes, Mr. May. But it doesn't matter. We skipped the one you didn't

19 want to hear, and may we go on with this next one, then?

20 He is speaking here about the goals of realising a Greater

21 Albania, goals that were determined in 1912.

22 I don't think that's the footage. It is Exhibit number 11. It is

23 footage that has been marked number 11. The speaker is wearing a uniform

24 of the KLA, with all the insignia, the cap. There are quite a number of

25 other KLA members standing round about.

1 All right. While we're finding that number 11 exhibit, could you

2 answer me this: Is it true that KLA was a terrorist group or terrorist

3 organisation?

4 A. I am certainly aware that members of the KLA committed acts that I

5 condemned that were violent acts, that were what I would have considered

6 criminal acts; kidnappings, assassinations, that sort of thing. Whether

7 you define this, you know, as a terrorist organisation, I never called

8 them that, but I certainly denounced them any time they committed a

9 criminal act such as I've just described.

10 Q. All right. You are well-informed of the 1160 and 1169 UN Security

11 Resolutions, and 1203, all those Security Council Resolutions which were

12 adopted, as you well know, in 1998.

13 A. I am aware of the Security Council Resolutions, and I was once

14 very familiar with them. I have, you know, a relatively meager memory of

15 them except in their -- in the broadest sense, as we sit here today.

16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. I think we can see the

17 clip. May we have the sound track with it as well, please.

18 [Videotape played]

19 THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] "The fate of Kosovo was decided at

20 the conference of ambassadors in London. More than half of Albanian lands

21 and more than half of the Albanian people were severed from independent

22 Albania, and ever since onwards, the Albanian people of Kosovo have

23 conducted and keep conducting a war of liberation. And the Kosovo

24 Liberation Army in itself constitutes all the tradition of liberation war

25 ever since."

1 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

2 Q. So my question was: Was the KLA an armed part to realising a

3 Greater Albania, whose goals were set --

4 JUDGE MAY: I'm going to stop this. All you'll be asking,

5 Mr. Milosevic, is this witness to comment on something an unidentified man

6 is saying on television. Now, it's pointless asking him about it. You

7 can play it to us in due course as part of your case and ask us to draw

8 conclusions from it, but it's a waste of time to ask the witness about it.

9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right, all right, Mr. May.

10 Let's not waste time.

11 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

12 Q. As you vaguely remember the Resolutions, let me remind you that in

13 1160, it says that all acts of terrorism should be condemned by the KLA,

14 committed by the KLA, and that all elements of the Albanian community

15 should realise their goals through political means alone and that weapons

16 and armament must be prevented with an aim to terrorist activities in

17 Kosovo and Metohija.

18 And in 1199, this Resolution repeats the condemnation of terrorism

19 for the realisation of any political goals on the part of individuals and

20 groups. It condemns every outside support to activities of this kind in

21 Kosovo, including weapons supplies, and insists upon the fact that the

22 leadership of the Kosovo Albanians condemn all terrorist actions, and so

23 on and so forth and calls for the member states to prevent the collection

24 of money contributions on their territory which are used for the violation

25 of Resolution 1160 and 1203. Terrorism is condemned again, and so on and

1 so forth. And insistence is made upon the fact that the leadership of the

2 Kosovo Albanians should condemn all terrorist activities and demand that

3 such activities cease immediately.

4 Therefore, I am repeating my question of a moment ago. Are they a

5 terrorist organisation or not, in your opinion, Mr. Walker?

6 JUDGE MAY: The witness has dealt with that. This is what I mean

7 about your arguing with witnesses. Again, this is a point you can make to

8 us, but it is pointless to continually ask the same question of a

9 witness.

10 Now, ask some other questions. Get on to something else.

11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right.

12 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

13 Q. Now, in view of the fact that in this courtroom we very often

14 heard mention of some kind of Serb paramilitary formations and units and

15 the so-called Tigers, some so-called Tigers, and it was claimed that Serb

16 forces wore black caps and that they had some units that were called the

17 Tigers. Now, please, could you answer me this question: During your stay

18 in Kosovo, were you informed of -- did you know of any Black Tigers within

19 the frameworks of the KLA terrorist organisation?

20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] And may we see the next bit of

21 footage, please, the next clip.

22 [Videotape played]

23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] As you can see, black caps, black

24 uniforms.

25 THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] "... of the KLA, the Black Tigers.

1 We are specialised for guerrilla warfare and lightning strikes. On my

2 left you can see the snipers. Eagle is a scout. He works close into the

3 Serbs. The sniper's name is "Grape." He reckons he's sweet. Here they

4 are. We also have this man who prefers to use an anti-tank bazooka. The

5 others have Kalashnikovs in their hands."

6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. Let's save time. Let's

7 move on to the next video clip, please.

8 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] Tell me, did you meet with the

9 commanders of the KLA? For example, Hill did. And did Hill report to you

10 about your [sic] meetings with the KLA?

11 THE ACCUSED: Could we please see the next clip?

12 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Well, while we're waiting --

13 [Videotape played]

14 THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] "They had the right to involve

15 representatives of the international community. The meeting with American

16 diplomats as well as -- and representatives of the KLA during this

17 meeting, important elements and important points in national history were

18 remembered."

19 [Audio quality poor] "UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: This is commander --

20 which one. The officer standing in the door. He's the military

21 commander. Okay."

22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thaci and Hill.

23 [Audio quality poor] "UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS: Did she ask you

24 difficult questions?" "No."

25 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

1 Q. All right. My question is: Did Hill inform you about these

2 meetings and about their contents? As head of the Verification Mission,

3 what kind of information did you receive in this regard?

4 A. Ambassador Hill and his colleague the ambassador -- the Austrian

5 ambassador to, I believe, Belgrade, was he? They both came often to

6 Kosovo while I was there. They did have meetings with the KLA as well as

7 with your people. They told me occasionally what had happened, and I'm

8 sure there were meetings when they didn't tell me much about it. It

9 depended on when we got together.

10 That particular meeting, I have no idea whether I was told about

11 what had happened at it. As I say, they had any number of meetings with

12 the KLA.

13 Q. All right. But, Mr. Walker, you were not elected by the OSCE.

14 You were chosen by Albright to that particular position; is that right?

15 A. That is incorrect. I'm sure that Secretary Albright was asked to

16 put someone forward for the position. I don't know who asked her. My

17 name was put before the leadership of the OSCE at a conference in -- at a

18 meeting in Oslo, and then I assume it was confirmed by the full

19 membership. As you probably know, Mr. Milosevic, the OSCE works by full

20 consensus. That means full consensus among the 54 member states. So my

21 nomination was put forward by this -- by the State Department, but it was

22 accepted by and passed on by the full membership of the OSCE.

23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. Please could you have

24 the next video clip played.

25 [Videotape played]

1 "NARRATOR: And made the choice herself."

2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I hope you heard this.

3 [Videotape played]

4 "NARRATOR: Was working for the OSCE. He was part of the

5 American --"

6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] No. This is different. No.

7 [Videotape played]

8 "NARRATOR: Which vilified Slobodan Milosevic, demonised the

9 Serbian administration, and generally was providing diplomatic support to

10 the UCK or the KLA leadership."

11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. There were two clips

12 that were played.

13 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

14 Q. You saw Holbrooke who made an assertion that was contrary to what

15 you said, that you were directly and personally appointed by Madeleine

16 Albright. In the second video clip, we heard Roland --

17 JUDGE MAY: Let the witness deal with that. Is there anything you

18 can usefully add to that, Ambassador?

19 THE WITNESS: As I stated, Ambassador Holbrooke was correct in

20 saying I was chosen by the Secretary of State, meaning I was chosen among

21 State Department people to put forward as a nominee to head the OSCE

22 mission. So she chose me among her people to put forward. That choice

23 was accepted and confirmed by the OSCE leadership, the Chairman in Office,

24 the Polish Foreign Minister, Mr. Geremek, as well as by the permanent

25 council of the OSCE in unanimous consensus.

1 JUDGE MAY: Yes. As to the gentleman on the tape who I think

2 we've seen before, and I think he's the man whose views we've heard a

3 great deal of, is there anything you want to say about this particular

4 assertion?

5 THE WITNESS: Nothing other than these are his views. I don't

6 know who he is or where he acquired his information, so I really can't

7 comment on it.

8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] It's not the same person. You saw

9 that this was a completely different person.

10 JUDGE MAY: It's another one, is it? It's another KVM man, is

11 it? I thought it was Roland Keith.

12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Roland Keith from the KVM, that

13 Walker gave diplomatic support to the KLA.

14 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

15 Q. My next question is the following: Neither you nor Drewienkiewicz

16 registered all violations of the agreement that were committed by the KLA;

17 is that right?

18 A. Anything that came to our attention that appeared to be a

19 violation of the agreement were duly reported to Vienna, to the OSCE in

20 Vienna. I'm sure we missed some, but all those that came to our attention

21 we tried very methodically to put in our reports that went forward to the

22 OSCE in Vienna.

23 Q. And you personally, did you believe that it was the KLA that

24 committed most of the violations of the agreement?

25 A. I would say in terms of numbers, the KLA probably committed a

1 greater number of violations. But in terms of the scale of the

2 violations, my personal opinion would be that the government forces

3 burning down villages and, in the case of Racak, executing 45 civilians,

4 that the -- the response by the government to whatever the provocation by

5 the KLA was, was excessive. So in terms of numbers, if you're talking of

6 numbers, I would say probably the KLA committed more. If you're talking

7 about the scale, I think you're talking about the government far exceeding

8 the KLA in terms of the violence.

9 Q. Well, when I say most violations of the agreement, this is a

10 synthetic definition. You cannot distinguish between numbers on the one

11 hand and the scale involved on the other hand.

12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Could I please have the next video

13 clip played.

14 [Videotape played]

15 "NARRATOR: William Walker's deputy was a British general. He

16 and his colleagues could see what the KLA was doing but had no means of

17 stopping or even discouraging it."

18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] And the next one. The next one,

19 please.

20 [Videotape played]

21 "MR. NAUMANN: This is how William Walker himself reported the

22 situation then in private."

23 "MR. NAUMANN: Ambassador Walker stated that the majority of

24 violations was caused by the KLA."

25 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

1 Q. That was Klaus Naumann, president of the council of NATO, the one

2 who said that you had discussed this mutually.

3 Mr. Walker, you're a member --

4 JUDGE MAY: Just a moment. You're not going to move over these

5 things.

6 Can you remember saying anything to Mr. Naumann, Ambassador?

7 THE WITNESS: General Naumann was not the president of the council

8 of NATO. He was the head of the military commission of NATO. He worked

9 very closely with General Wesley Clark. As I say, I could have referred

10 to the numbers of violations being on the side of the KLA, but I'm sure I

11 also told him that the more massive violations were committed by the

12 government forces.

13 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

14 Q. You're a member of the organisation called Hands of Hope, the

15 National American Albanian Council; is that right?

16 A. I was asked if I would be an honourary member of the board of

17 directors not of Hands of Hope, which is a subsidiary organisation that

18 brings scholarship students to the United States, but I'm -- if you're

19 talking about the National Albanian American Council, yes. In the

20 aftermath of my experience in Kosovo, I accepted to be an honourary member

21 of their board of directors.

22 Q. All right. Do you remember the events that took place on the 10th

23 of June, 2002? No. No. No. The 10th of June, 2002, the world today in

24 Albanian, the Albanian American National Council conferred a decoration on

25 the former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, Hands of Hope.

1 In your speech, you said:

2 "It was my honour and pleasure to work under the umbrella and

3 directives of Mrs. Albright, who is one of the most deserving persons for

4 the entrance of NATO in Kosovo," et cetera, et cetera. "You have the

5 greatest merit for getting Kosovo out of the grasp of the Milosevic

6 regime," et cetera, et cetera.

7 Do you remember that, Mr. Walker?

8 A. I remember it very well. It's about a week ago, yes. I

9 introduced Madeleine Albright, and in the speech I expressed my respect

10 for her, and I did express that she was one of the key players in bringing

11 about the eventual outcome in Kosovo.

12 Q. Who brought about NATO's entry into Kosovo. That's what you

13 said. One of the most deserving persons in that regard. Is that right?

14 A. That is correct.

15 Q. You also gave information in connection with which you were not

16 quite sure; is that right or is that not right?

17 A. I'm not sure I understand.

18 JUDGE MAY: Yes. What is the question?

19 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

20 Q. All right. Well, the question was very clear: Did you provide

21 information for which you were not sure -- about which you were not sure;

22 you were not sure whether this information was accurate or not?

23 JUDGE MAY: In connection with what?

24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, look at this BBC clip, or

25 rather, Mr. Walker's statement for the BBC. Could you please have the

1 next video clip played.

2 [Videotape played]

3 "WILLIAM WALKER: Good afternoon. Thank you very much for

4 coming. I know --

5 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Walker condemned both the ambush on the

6 border and the killings in the bar in equal measure.

7 WILLIAM WALKER: I would certainly call upon --"

8 "WILLIAM WALKER: It really looked like it was a tit for tat,

9 again, KLA hearing about their people being killed up on the border had

10 done this in Pec.

11 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: There is a huge difference, isn't there,

12 between people killed in a legitimate military exchange and a bunch of

13 hooded unknowns walking into a bar and killing some teenagers.

14 WILLIAM WALKER: I think the point is: One, we really didn't

15 know what had happened in Pec. Yes, the government was saying it was KLA

16 gangsters who had come in and sprayed this bar. When you don't know what

17 has happened, it's a lot more difficult to sort of pronounce yourself."

18 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

19 Q. So in relation to my question, what is your comment with regard to

20 this statement of yours, Mr. Walker: legitimate defence of the border, and

21 you equate that to killing a young man, and your explanation is that you

22 don't know and that you cannot exactly ascertain what this is all about.

23 And the question was: Did you provide information that you were not sure

24 of; you weren't sure whether it was accurate or inaccurate?

25 A. If the question is do I stand by what I said in that clip, I

1 certainly do. I condemned both events, both the ambush and killing of KLA

2 forces that were bringing weapons across the border from Albania into

3 Kosovo. That was something that your government took immediate credit

4 for, so I knew what had happened there. I knew who had done the killing.

5 I condemned that as an act of violence. Not that I denied that a

6 government had a right to protect its borders, but I said it was tragic

7 that this had occurred. And it was certainly tragic that in the immediate

8 aftermath there had been an incident in Peje, in Pec, in which some young

9 male Serbs had been killed in a bar. I condemned that also as violence.

10 What I said was I was going to condemn violence from whatever source. In

11 the case of the bar incident in Peje, in Pec, no one took credit for that,

12 and to this day we do not know who committed that act. You assumed, and I

13 guess many people assumed, and maybe even I assumed that it was the KLA,

14 but we did not know for a fact. Did I equate the two incidents? No, I

15 did not. I was just saying they were both violent acts, and I expressed

16 sorrow that they had occurred and condemned violence from whatever

17 quarter.

18 Q. Please. The defence of a border, where a number of KLA numbers

19 were killed, who were armed, and a number of them were taken prisoner as

20 well, the OSCE, or rather, your mission, qualified this as legitimate

21 action taken on the part of the Yugoslav authorities. So what was there

22 to be condemned?

23 A. I was saying that I was against violence. I was hoping things

24 like this would not happen again. One act of violence, one act of killing

25 on one side usually provoked a reciprocal act from the other side. My

1 quotation about tit-for-tat violence in another circumstance has already

2 been mentioned. This is what the problem was when I was addressing the

3 press conference in the immediate aftermath of both these incidents. I

4 was trying to get people to calm down and not provoke further violence.

5 Q. All right. So the clash at the border with an armed column of KLA

6 members and the operation of the Yugoslav forces is something that you

7 qualify as killing, murder?

8 A. I think you've already said that the KVM mission conceded that a

9 nation had a right to defend its borders against armed intruders. At the

10 same time, I was saying it was a shame that people had been killed, that

11 there had been a loss of life, and that there had also been the loss of

12 life in the bar in Peje, and this was what I was trying to get across as a

13 call for less violence. Certainly, as I've said, violence by one side

14 seemed to provoke violence from the other.

15 Q. Well, that is the problem, this symmetry. But please, your

16 reports about the KLA, in relation to the KLA, and the relations between

17 the KLA and the peasants themselves, are a result of insufficient

18 information; is that right or is that not right?

19 A. Our reports about the KLA, in relation to their relations with the

20 peasants themselves, you know, we did not have total information ever. We

21 had the information that came to us, that we were able to see with our own

22 eyes. That is what we reported. Was this the total amount of

23 information? No, it wasn't, but it was the best we could do.

24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. Could we have the next

25 video clip, please. It's very short.

1 [Videotape played]

2 "UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: We encountered many villages where the

3 villagers themselves told us, in very clear terms, that they would prefer

4 to be left completely alone. Often times they felt that if a KLA group

5 were to come into their village, that would actually put them under

6 greater threat."

7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] So it says that people were leaving

8 villages because they were afraid of the KLA.

9 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

10 Q. In connection with Rogovo, just one question --

11 JUDGE MAY: It didn't say that. It's merely somebody who has come

12 along and said that the villagers occasionally wanted to be left alone.

13 That's all. Now, can we have another question, or another piece of tape.

14 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Of course. Of course. Left alone,

15 not dragged into --

16 JUDGE MAY: You should not misrepresent what's said.

17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. All right, Mr. May.

18 Let's move on.

19 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

20 Q. In connection with Rogovo, just one more question. Is it true

21 that you found out that on the 29th of January, 1999, in Rogovo, more than

22 29 Albanians had been killed and that most of them were KLA fighters who

23 had previously tried to evade an army ambush and they were killed in the

24 clash? Is that correct?

25 A. That is correct.

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1 Q. Thank God something is correct. Now that we are talking about

2 Racak, in your statement, you say the following:

3 "As I was watching these bodies, I noticed a few things. First of

4 all, judging by the wounds and the blood around them, and also the pools

5 of dried blood on the land around the bodies, it was obvious that these

6 were the clothes that the people wore when they were killed. There was no

7 doubt in my mind that they died where they were lying. The quantity and

8 the location of the blood on the soil in front of them, each and every one

9 of them, was a clear indication of that."

10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] In order to save time, could the

11 usher please show these photographs in the proper order. They come from

12 the documentation of the other side. They come from Mr. Nice. So could

13 they please be shown on the overhead projector. I have questions in

14 relation to all these photographs: Where is this blood by the bodies or

15 by individual bodies? These photographs come from Mr. Nice's

16 documentation, not mine.

17 JUDGE MAY: Let's do this now. Put the photographs one by one, if

18 you would, please, on the ELMO. Let the witness see them. They are, I

19 take it, the photographs that were shown of the various bodies.

20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes. Yes. Please put them on

21 the --

22 JUDGE MAY: [Previous translation continues]... so we can see

23 them.

24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] One by one, in the proper order, the

25 way I gave them to you.

1 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

2 Q. Where did you see traces of blood there?

3 A. On that picture?

4 JUDGE MAY: Go on to the next one.

5 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

6 Q. Are there any traces of blood here anywhere?

7 A. I assume that's blood.

8 Q. You're talking about pools of blood on the soil, and on the soil

9 there is no blood at all.

10 A. Not in this picture.

11 Q. Not on the previous picture either.

12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Please go on.

13 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

14 Q. Is there any blood, any traces of blood, any pools of blood here

15 on the soil either?

16 A. Not on that picture, no.

17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Please go on.

18 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

19 Q. Where is blood here?

20 A. I see none.

21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Let us go on.

22 JUDGE MAY: Yes. The next one, please.

23 Yes, the next one.

24 Yes, the next one.

25 And the next one. Yes.

1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Not even here, there is no trace of

2 blood anywhere on the ground, and we see that there are rocks all around.

3 Let's go on.

4 Could you now please show this photograph.

5 JUDGE MAY: Yes. If the usher would hand back the photographs to

6 the accused and collect the new one.

7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you. The whole photograph,

8 please.

9 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

10 Q. Please take a careful look at it.

11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Could you please keep the photograph

12 there, and could you please come, Mr. Usher, so I can give you yet another

13 photograph which you can show after this one. But keep this one on the

14 ELMO.

15 As you can see, there are no traces of blood here.

16 And now, could you please show this photograph on the overhead

17 projector. Bear in mind that it is the same person. There's no doubt

18 about that. There are no traces of blood whatsoever.

19 And now please take a look at the other photograph. Please show

20 the other photograph now.

21 As you can see, the same person, and now all of a sudden by this

22 person there are traces of blood. Now the cap is moved --

23 JUDGE MAY: Pause there. Can you assist, Mr. Ambassador, as to

24 those photographs at all? Does it look anything like what you saw?

25 THE WITNESS: It looks very much like what I saw, but these are

1 only a few photographs out of the thousands of photographs that were taken

2 that day. And I can assure the Court that in many of the photographs

3 there is blood, as I described it, on the ground, around the wounds. And

4 I think this latest photograph does attest to the fact that it's an

5 elderly gentleman with the peasant skullcap in the vicinity of his head.

6 All of the bodies, I would note, were in civilian clothes, as earlier

7 described by me.

8 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

9 Q. Please. This particular photograph, just like you have a big door

10 revolving on a small hinge, this photograph shows that the whole scene has

11 been rigged, although there were a lot of photographs, so a selection

12 wasn't made. On one photograph you see the same individual, without any

13 traces of blood, lying there, lying down; on the second photograph you see

14 the same individual with traces of blood on the stone next to him. Take a

15 look for yourselves. We can see blood here, whereas --

16 JUDGE MAY: You'll have to call the photographer about this. The

17 witness has said what he saw. He can't assist any further. If you make

18 allegations of that sort, you'll have to provide some substance for them.

19 Now, have you got any other questions you want to ask?

20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Of course. I have many more

21 questions.

22 And as on the overhead projector -- you can't see this very well,

23 but be so kind as to give Mr. Robinson, Mr. May, and Mr. Kwon a chance of

24 seeing the photographs live on the paper in front of them so that they can

25 see the difference. And can we clearly see that this scene has been

1 staged or rigged.

2 JUDGE MAY: Oh, yes. Hand up -- sorry. Can you hand up the

3 photographs, please.

4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Take a look at that man in the two

5 variations, where there is blood and where there isn't blood, as

6 Mr. Walker had occasion to see them.

7 [Trial Chamber confers]

8 JUDGE MAY: Yes, we've seen the photographs. I don't think the

9 witness can help any further. He's described what he saw. No doubt you

10 can call your own evidence about it in due course.

11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] It's about, Mr. May --

12 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

13 Q. My question is: Is this an obvious rigging of this scene,

14 Mr. Walker?

15 JUDGE MAY: We have dealt with this. Those are simply your

16 allegations, and if you make allegations of that sort, you must support

17 them with evidence.

18 MR. NICE: Can I just inform the Court, so we don't lose track of

19 it, these were photographs taken by Ian Hendrie. He's, of course, now

20 finished his evidence. I don't think these allegations were put to him.

21 JUDGE MAY: I don't recollect that.

22 MR. NICE: I'm sure they weren't put to him.

23 JUDGE MAY: It can be dealt with in due course.

24 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

25 Q. Mr. Walker, were the bodies brought into that location or not, or

1 do you consider that that spot is where the killing took place?

2 A. My own opinion is that I am absolutely convinced that those people

3 died where I saw them. My own opinion is that - and this was shared by

4 everyone who was with me on the hill that day, with whom I discussed

5 it - that none of these bodies were brought from elsewhere, and, as I say,

6 they had died at that spot.

7 Q. So even this photograph, which quite obviously shows the rigging

8 of this scene, you don't consider that these scenes have in fact been

9 rigged, even with these photographs?

10 A. As I've said, I do not consider, from everything I saw, nor from

11 those photographs, that any rigging had been done of the scene.

12 Q. All right, Mr. Walker. You said during your examination-in-chief

13 that the Yugoslav authorities did not take the necessary steps to conduct

14 an investigation and that you know that an official investigation did take

15 place, led by Judge Danica Marinkovic. You also know that the forensic

16 experts conducted an investigation, and you are well aware of the findings

17 of the Prosecution, so all the findings of the official Yugoslav

18 authorities and organs. Now, did the Yugoslav side conduct an

19 investigation or did it not?

20 A. My understanding is the Yugoslav authorities, with the judge that

21 you just named, did conduct an official investigation. Excuse me. I'm

22 also aware that there was an official government forensic team that came

23 to Kosovo, to Pristina, and conducted autopsies on the bodies from Racak.

24 Q. All right. And in view of the fact that the ground was as you

25 described it, to an experienced man, didn't you find it suspicious that in

1 addition to these serious injuries and wounds, and all the rest of it,

2 that there should be so little trace of blood on the ground, on the soil?

3 A. As I've already answered and as I think I said in my statement, I

4 did observe blood on the ground in the vicinity of a number of the

5 bodies. Did I see it in terms of every body or could photographs be taken

6 from an angle that showed no blood? That I cannot question. But I saw

7 blood on the ground. I saw blood near the wounds. Yes, these were

8 horrific sites to look at, and there was a lot of blood present.

9 Q. In your statement, you say the following: "I did not receive any

10 warning or information that an attack was being prepared on Racak." Is

11 that correct?

12 A. That is correct.

13 Q. And is it also correct that exhaustive information about Racak was

14 received by you already on the afternoon of the 15th of January, 1999?

15 A. That is incorrect. I was in -- in Montenegro for most of that

16 day, trying -- well, not trying to but talking to the president of

17 Montenegro. I returned late in the afternoon to Pristina, at which point

18 General DZ came to me and told me what had been communicated to him by

19 Loncar's office, that is, that a clash had occurred with the KLA, that 15

20 had been killed, with no casualties on the government side. That was the

21 first time that I remember that I believe the word "Racak" came to my

22 notice.

23 Q. Well, all right. Do you know, Mr. Walker, that your verifiers

24 were present from the very morning and observed Racak and the hill above

25 Racak?

1 A. I was told that -- by General DZ that when we heard about a

2 problem in the vicinity of Racak, that our Regional Centre in Prizren,

3 which was commanded by General Maisonneuve - who I believe has been a

4 witness here - he dispatched several vehicles, several of our verifier

5 vehicles, to the Racak area to try and see what was going on. They were

6 told that for their safety's sake they should not go forward by -- at some

7 roadblocks of your security forces, so they were compelled to stand off

8 and, through binoculars, I assume, try to determine what was happening to

9 the village of Racak.

10 Q. Well, I'm not going to waste time here. We saw a videotape on

11 which we saw your verifiers observing Racak, and all I want to do is

12 remind you at this point that General Drewienkiewicz, towards the end or

13 perhaps at the very end of his testimony here during the

14 cross-examination, even indicated the hill on the map where the observers

15 were located, exactly above Racak and from which vantage point they were

16 looking down at Racak and seeing what was going on. Are you aware of

17 that? This was during all those events on the 15th.

18 JUDGE MAY: The witness will not be aware of what other witnesses

19 said.

20 As for the evidence about the verifiers, as I recollect it, the

21 video showed them during the course of that afternoon on the hill,

22 observing.

23 Ambassador, I think the point is to suggest that you were better

24 informed than you've said. When was the first time that you really got

25 any firm information as to Racak? Can you help us as to that?

1 THE WITNESS: When I returned from Montenegro late in the

2 afternoon of the 15th, General DZ came and told me that he had been

3 informed by Loncar or Loncar's office that this -- that a clash had

4 occurred, an armed clash between the security forces of the government and

5 the KLA, that 15 KLA had been killed, that no one had been killed on the

6 side -- no one had been injured on the side of the government forces.

7 General DZ told me that we had gotten some of our people close

8 in. In fact, late in the afternoon, at least one of our vehicles, maybe

9 more, had gotten into the village, had seen the results of the artillery

10 bombardment of the village, had found at least, I think -- my memory was

11 of three. I think maybe there was more wounded. Their first thought was

12 to get the wounded out of Racak and to medical attention. I was also told

13 that this had all happened in the -- as daylight was disappearing. We had

14 a standing operating procedure within the mission which was that our

15 patrols should not be out after dark, that it was very dangerous to be out

16 after dark, that either side could see our vehicles as being from the

17 opposite side and taking a shot at them.

18 So because they had people to get to hospitals, to medical

19 attention, because they had daylight disappearing, they gathered up the

20 wounded and took them away. That was what I heard the night of the

21 incident.

22 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

23 Q. All right. Mr. Walker, are you acquainted with the fact that the

24 verifiers were there from the very morning, that they were by Racak from

25 early morning and that they observed Racak from the morning?

1 A. I am not sure what time they got there. I just know that our

2 office in Prizren would have gotten there as fast as they possibly could

3 have. They wanted to go into the village but were stopped from going into

4 the village and did have to observe from a distance. And everything I was

5 told subsequent to -- to my going to the village and my press conference,

6 everything I was told by the people who were observing was that the

7 interpretation I had been given of the incident by the villagers of Racak

8 was essentially correct, that is, bombardment by artillery and then

9 entering into the village by special police forces who took the men away.

10 Q. I'm going to quote just one sentence from the statement by

11 General Maisonneuve, who testified in this courtroom. It is to be found

12 on page 9 of Maisonneuve's statement, the penultimate paragraph, one

13 sentence.

14 "The verifiers saw smoke coming out of the chimneys in the

15 village, which spoke of the fact that the civilian population, or at least

16 those who had remained, were going about their usual morning daily

17 duties."

18 JUDGE MAY: Now, what is the question for the witness? He can

19 only repeat what he was told, and he's given his evidence about it.

20 Quotations from statements of other witnesses isn't going to assist. Now,

21 can we move on?

22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, we clarified this point

23 with General Maisonneuve, that as his verifiers saw the villagers going

24 about their regular morning duties and that the regular morning duties

25 were something that they were able to see in the morning and not in the

1 afternoon, because your daily morning routines are done in the morning and

2 not in the afternoon. And allow me to assume that the Head of Mission was

3 quite certainly informed with what the verifiers had seen. Like my

4 assumption --

5 JUDGE MAY: No assumptions. We will are dealing with the

6 witness's evidence, and he's given it as to what he knew and when.

7 Now, rather than continuing this argument, you would be sensible

8 to move on. Your time is limited. What is your question for the

9 witness?

10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, my question to the witness is

11 whether he was informed about that or not.

12 JUDGE MAY: No. He's given his evidence as to what he was

13 informed of.

14 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.

15 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

16 Q. You say in your statement that you received information from the

17 office of General Loncar, a member of the Yugoslav army, that early on

18 that day there was an armed conflict and so on and so forth. That is all

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