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WSWS : News & Analysis : Europe : The Balkans
The Milosevic Trial: Key prosecution witness discredited
By Paul Mitchell
3 July 2002
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The testimony of a key prosecution witness claiming intimate knowledge of
Slobodan Milosevic�s inner circle was thoroughly discredited last month. Milosevic is
on trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in
The Hague, accused of crimes against humanity.
Radomir Tanic, a 46-year-old businessman is one of a handful of Serbs to give
evidence at the ICTY. He appeared before the court with his face shielded and is
now living under a witness relocation programme.
Tanic co-founded the Civic Alliance of Serbia in 1992 on a programme �to
overcome nationalist and class collectivism� and introduce capitalist market
reforms. At about the same time he established contacts with British, Italian and
Russian intelligence services. He insisted in court he was not an agent, but was
involved in �co-operation on analytical affairs� and later acted as an intermediary
between the intelligence services and the Yugoslav government.
Two years later Tanic, along with a number of influential businessmen, is said to
have joined the Novo Demokracija party (New Democracy or ND) shortly after it
ensured Milosevic�s political survival by entering into a coalition government with
him. They justified their defection from the opposition DEPOS coalition by saying it
was necessary to work for change from within the ND. Their six assembly
representatives were richly rewarded with four ministerial posts. At the time, Tanic
praised their pragmatism.
Tanic told the court that soon after he joined ND he became a member of its
executive board and special advisor on international affairs to ND president and
current minister of the interior, Dusan Mihajlovic.
Tanic claimed he was authorised by Mihajlovic, Milosevic and Jovica Stanisic, chief
of the Serbian intelligence service (SDB), to be the principal negotiator with the
Kosovar Albanian leaders such as current Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova. In the
course of his work, Tanic said he had 20 meetings with Milosevic and up to three
meetings a week with the SDB. He also said he had a close relationship to Serbian
TV chief Dusan Mijatovic�who he described as one of Milosevic�s �most trusted
associates��and Momcilo Perisic, commander of the Yugoslav Army, who provided
a lot of his information.
According to Tanic, all concerned including Milosevic and the Western powers
agreed to his plan to negotiate a settlement for the Kosovo crisis but then Milosevic
started to back off. When Tanic met Ratko Markovic, former vice president of
Serbia, he claimed Markovic told him that Milosevic had �ordered that he would not
negotiate seriously with the Kosovo Albanians� but instead welcomed the Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA) murder of Serbs in order to raise tensions and provide a
reason for ethnically cleansing the Kosovar Albanians. Milosevic, Tanic continued,
became �intent on conflict� and �had nothing against a small-scale bombing
operation� by NATO.
During Tanic�s appearance at the trial, some of those he named disputed his
version of events. The ND issued a press release saying, �The content of the
testimony of Radomir Tanic testifies to his attempt to construct a story in which ND
did not take part in the way in which he has presented this, nor did he have the
importance that he wishes to attach to himself. According to our knowledge, Tanic
least of all could have been a partner to Milosevic in carrying out some kind of plan
in order to restore Kosovo its autonomy.�
The press release added that no one was aware of his contacts with intelligence
agencies at home or abroad. It alluded to the possibility of Tanic being bought and
paid for, concluding, �Imagination does all sorts of things and sometimes necessity
even more than that ... whether anybody else instrumentalised Mr Tanic we cannot
know.�
The ND vice president Nebojsa Seleskovic was more explicit as to why he thought
Tanic was appearing at the tribunal: �Tanic in Belgrade ran up a lot of debts and in
the autumn of 1999 he just disappeared from Belgrade and then he agreed to testify
in The Hague for a sum of money.�
Ratko Markovic issued a statement saying he did not meet Tanic and that the
position of the Yugoslav government had not changed from 1998 until the start of
NATO bombing.
Of course these former associates of Milosevic could be denying Tanic�s role in
order to protect their skins and prevent their own prosecution. But during Tanic�s
cross-examination, it became obvious that much of his testimony was second-hand
and at the very least inconsistent. On several occasions he tried to change his
testimony or blame inconsistencies on bad translation.
This led Judge Richard May to tell the prosecution that the evidence was �important
but based on sources which either are not given or are said to be given in private
session. The question is the value of that evidence and whether it should be
admitted at all.� Judge Kwon also remarked, �Now your version of the story is a little
bit different� after Tanic changed his role in the Kosovo talks from principal
negotiator to the �driving force� behind them. That he had no role whatsoever was
suggested when another prosecution witness, Adnan Merovci, appeared at the ICTY
a few days later. Merovci, who was Ibrahim Rugova�s secretary during the 1990s,
told the court he met Tanic once at a conference in 1992 but, �I personally never
knew Mr Tanic and I don�t think someone from us met him.� There were never any
negotiations with him, he added.
Tanic acted as if the Yugoslav leadership gave him personal authorisation, but it
emerged later that there were �no personal instructions� but only �general principles�
passed down through subordinates. He never met SDB chief Stanisic and the 20
meetings with Milosevic turned out to be a handful of encounters at receptions
where there were thousands of guests. As Tanic explained, �Mr Milosevic was a
gracious host, he tried to talk at least a bit to each and every guest.� Finally he
admitted, �I think we met each other once, but it wasn�t in secret. It wasn�t
clandestinely, I think, but I don�t know.�
In his cross examination Milosevic, who is mounting his own defence, pointed out
that Dusan Mijatovic was replaced as TV chief in 1991 and became head of the
election campaign for Milosevic�s opponent, Milan Panic, in 1993. It was therefore
impossible for Tanic to say Mijatovic was one of Milosevic�s �most trusted
associates� during the Kosovo negotiations after 1996. Milosevic also drew attention
to the arrest of Momcilo Perisic by the Serbian authorities last year, on charges of
being an American spy, so questioning the value of his information.
Tanic also backtracked on his statement that he had heard Milosevic himself talk
about ethnic cleansing. He changed his testimony to say it was individuals around
Milosevic who spoke of throwing the Albanians out of Kosovo and that �the accused
never said this, I want this to be understood.� He then admitted he had not actually
heard Milosevic�s associates say the words �ethnic cleansing�, but it was his own
conclusion from the way they spoke.
Tanic�s explanation for his early life was also shrouded in mystery. When Milosevic
produced a 1977 Serbian court document saying Tanic had been sentenced for
robbery, Tanic at first claimed it was a forgery and refused to discuss it. After
lengthy questioning by the judges, Tanic admitted he was sentenced in 1977 but
claimed that he couldn�t remember what offence he was charged with. Tanic also
refused to answer questions about his educational qualifications, after it emerged
that he did not have the university degree his admission card to the ND stated.
The unreliable evidence produced by Tanic has been yet another setback for the
prosecution, which has received mounting criticism in the world�s media. The right
wing British Daily Telegraph for example has called the proceedings a badly
prepared and poorly executed �opera�.
It has also been a setback for the British intelligence service, which cultivated Tanic
as a tool of imperialist intrigue in the Balkans. It emerged during the trial that the
British security services paid Tanic 5,000 euros in �cash with no records� in 1999 to
research a book on Serb victims in Kosovo to send to the ICTY. As a result of his
research Tanic was kidnapped, drugged and tortured for two days. This was the
reason he cited for his disappearance from Belgrade. In a twist to this story, Tanic
explained that �these individuals said that they were the people who wanted to
overthrow Milosevic, in fact, and that everything I went through was a test on their
part to see how fit I was to survive and that they wanted me to link them up to the
people from the British intelligence service so that we could co-operate in toppling
Mr Milosevic.�
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