ARIS, Dec. 18 � The former Yugoslav president,
Slobodan Milosevic, had advance knowledge of the plan to massacre Muslims
in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica in 1995, Gen. Wesley K. Clark testified
before the international tribunal in The Hague, according to a transcript
released Thursday.
In his testimony, General Clark, the former NATO supreme commander who
is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, also called Mr.
Milosevic "the motivating force and the guiding force in most if not all"
of the events in the four Balkan wars in the 1990's.
General Clark's testimony, delivered Monday and Tuesday, was crucial
for the prosecution case against Mr. Milosevic because it provided fresh
evidence that he was aware of Serbian wartime atrocities and failed to
prevent them or punish those responsible.
It brought together two men who talked and argued in more than 100
hours of meetings in the 1990's before General Clark led the NATO bombing
campaign that drove Serbian forces from Kosovo and eventually led to Mr.
Milosevic's arrest.
Mr. Milosevic now faces life imprisonment in what is considered the
most important war crimes trial since those of the Nazis at Nuremberg
after World War II.
In a courtroom confrontation full of drama and rage, Mr. Milosevic
branded the retired four-star general a liar who was ignorant of history
and guilty of waging an illegal war against him. And he described himself
as an advocate for peace, condemning the tribunal prosecuting him as "an
instrument of war."
Mr. Milosevic, who studied law but is not a lawyer, is defending
himself in his native Serbian. That allowed him the opportunity during the
10 hours of testimony to both cross-examine General Clark and play to the
audience back home.
When Judge Richard May, the British judge who is presiding over the
court, told Mr. Milosevic he was out of order in asking questions about
the NATO-led war in Kosovo, Mr. Milosevic said the judge's statements
proved that the trial was "nothing more than a farce."
The dialogue stretched from the political, including General Clark's
relating of conversations with the Balkan dictator, to the personal, such
as whether General Clark ever said he went hunting for wild geese with
President Bill Clinton.
In the most chilling testimony, General Clark said that Mr. Milosevic
knew of the plans for Srebrenica killings, which became the deadliest
civilian wartime incident in Europe since World War II.
General Clark cited a conversation with Mr. Milosevic in Belgrade in
August 1995, in the period before the Dayton talks that ended the Bosnia
war. General Clark was part of a negotiating team led by Richard C.
Holbrooke. He said that Mr. Milosevic told him that the Bosnian Serb
military leader, Ratko Mladic, was planning the massacre of more than
7,500 civilians in the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica. Mr. Milosevic said
that he had warned General Mladic against it, General Clark testified.
"I was still wrestling with the idea as to how it is that Milosevic
could maintain that he had the authority and the power to deliver the Serb
compliance with the agreement," he said.
"And so I simply asked him. I said, `Mr. President, you say you have so
much influence over the Bosnian Serbs, but how is it then, if you have
such influence, that you allowed General Mladic to kill all those people
in Srebrenica?' And Milosevic looked at me and he paused for a moment. He
then said, `Well, General Clark,' he said, `I warned Mladic not to do
this, but he didn't listen to me.' "
Mr. Milosevic shot back: "General Clark, this is a blatant
lie. First and foremost because we did not talk about
Srebrenica at all and secondly because I, throughout this time, through
all those years, never issued a single order to General Mladic or was I in
a position to issue him an order." Mr. Milosevic said he believed
Srebrenica was "done" by mercenaries.
At another point, in an effort to prove General Clark's cordial
relationship with General Mladic, who has also been indicted as a war
criminal, Mr. Milosevic brought up an incident in 1994 in which General
Clark posed for photos and swapped caps with him. General Clark, who has
since apologized, said: "This was a difficult meeting. I did my best in
terms of military diplomacy to take something constructive from it."
Under an agreement with the Bush administration, General Clark's
testimony was delivered behind closed doors. The court released a 235-page
transcript, which it said was reviewed but not edited by the
administration to ensure that it did not compromise national security.
Mr. Milosevic also attacked General Clark's character, citing a
statement from Gen. Hugh Shelton, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, that he had been forced to resign his NATO post because of
"integrity and character issues."
General Clark produced a series of testimonials about his character,
including one from Mr. Clinton.
But in a particularly painful moment for General Clark, Mr. Milosevic
asked, "So General Clark, since you say that what Shelton said here is not
correct, that it's totally wrong, then why were you removed from your post
in Europe prematurely?"
In his most explicit statement on the issue, General Clark suggested
that General Shelton did not share his belief that Belgrade's crackdown on
Albanian separatists in Kosovo had to be stopped with whatever force was
necessary.
"In all candor, there was a policy difference between General Shelton
and myself," General Clark said. "I believed that the United States and
NATO could not prevent, could not � sorry, could not permit another round
of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans led by the accused, and I worked hard
to warn the United States government of what was going to happen, and I
provided policy recommendations, and my recommendations were accepted."
Bosnian Serb Gets 23 Years
THE HAGUE, Dec. 18 (AP) � A Bosnian Serb prison camp commander who
allowed his troops to rape, torture and murder his Muslim prisoners was
sentenced Thursday to 23 years in jail at the United Nations war crimes
tribunal.
The commander, Dragan Nikolic, 46, showed no emotion as he was
sentenced.
The presiding judge, Wolfgang Schomburg, said Mr. Nikolic deserved a
life term but was shown clemency because he admitted guilt and expressed
remorse.
