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FREEDOM ASSOCIATION SPECIAL BULLETIN
No.6
May 16, 2002
Prosecution In
Trouble All of the examinations of the witnesses to the Prosecution so far have shown that the authors of the Indictment against Slobodan Milosevic are in a big trouble. This was definitely proven after today’s cross-examination of Ratomir Tanic. His written 40-pages long statement, two days of answering to prosecutor’s questions, as well as the issues he is covering, show that he is one of the indictment’s crown witnesses. However, his answers on Milosevic’s questions today have not only cut the reliability of his testimonial, but have also seriously compromited his credibility as a witness. All participants in the trial have become aware of that, so even Judge May himself had often to seriously warn Tanic, something he was not accustomed to do with the witnesses so far. Yesterday,
at the very beginning of examination, Milosevic had proven that Tanic gave his
statement under “control” of the British Intelligence Service with whom he
co-wrote the indictment itself. Today Tanic at one point confessed that he made
his voluminous statement in English, finding that as an excuse why he was not
quite precise during his testimonial today.
There was practically no question where Tanic had not denied himself. So
he said that in 1997 Milosevic and his associates, having plans of ethnic
cleansing on their mind, claimed less than a million Albanians lived in Kosovo
and Metohia. When Milosevic made him admit that at that time preparations
went on for the presidential elections in Serbia and that a positive environment
for negotiations with the Kosovo Albanians was set (their participation in the
election was expected), Tanic could not deny the fact that their number was
discussed within the framework of estimating the election results, as well as
keeping in mind they had always exaggerated their
number.
In his statement Tanic had also claimed that on June 25, 1997 Milosevic
in his Pristina speech had provoked the Albanians and annulled all preparations
for a political settlement achieved till then. However, when Milosevic quoted
that speech whose accent was on the equality of all ethnic minorities and mutual
tolerance, a confused Tanic replied: “As long as I remember, Milosevic had
insisted on Kosovo being an integral part of Serbia”. In some totally private
and intelligence activities Tanic had supported the independence of Kosovo, a
fact visible from a document of a round table on Kosovo held abroad, in which he
took part and practically joined the Albanian participants who advocated
independent Kosovo (that had been the very purpose of the gathering). Tanic
tried in vain to prove that he was there on behalf of the authorities, whose
partner then was his party New Democracy, especially after Milosevic quoted a
document of that party in which Kosovo was considered as integral part of
Serbia.
The unreliability of the witness Tanic was visible on every question.
When Milosevic asked him to clarify the whereabouts of his presidential office
where Tanic claimed having meetings with him, Tanic explained it was left from
the entrance to the building of the Presidency of Serbia. After Milosevic
explained his office was on the next floor, Tanic confusedly replied that he had
seen him walking out from the ground floor hall and believed that was his
office.
Another Tanic’s affirmation, that he had been member of some New
Democracy delegation (Dusan Mihajlovic and him only, according to his written
statement) negotiating with Milosevic, was unmasked after he now had testified
it had been a quite numerous one. After Milosevic reminded him that his former
boss stated last night (in a live broadcast on Belgrade TV) that Tanic had been
involved in those events no more than any other citizen of Serbia, Tanic tried
to give explanations not even clear to himself. A similar thing happened with
his claims that he had meetings with Milosevic during receptions held in JUL
headquarters. Tanic insisted these meetings were taking place in a room of the
JUL building, while Milosevic explained that all JUL receptions were held in
that building’s garden. This was confirmed in a statement of a former JUL
official earlier today in Belgrade. Tanic got caught in quite a lot of discrepancies, related to differences between his written statement and current testimonial, such as his written allegations of being the “main negotiator” (reduced today to “talks engine” by his own words), of starting his collaboration with the British Intelligence Service in l993 “during preparations for Dayton” (Milosevic reminded him that the Dayton negotiations were agreed only two years later), as well as of Milosevic attempting to provoke a civil war in Serbia in late 1996 and after that being put under a “mild control of the Army and Police forces” in order to stop him realizing such intentions (which looked like a Sci-Fi plot to all who lived in Serbia at that time). When asked who did let him start collaborating with the British Intelligence Service, Tanic replied - “Both sides – Serbian and British Services”. Questioned what has been his post within New Democracy, Tanic claimed being empowered by Dusan Mihajlovic to negotiate with the Albanians as “advisor to the party leader”, “Member of its Executive Board” and “Member of the Presidential Cabinet of New Democracy”. Things have become really rough for Tanic when Milosevic proposed examining Tanic’s party application form, from which unequivocally results that he has been just a sympathizer, and not even an outright member of New Democracy. About the nature of Tanic’s testimonial the quote “Albanians should be the Piedmont of Southern Europe” from his written statement speaks for itself, since it can only mean the creation of a Greater Albania by cutting parts of Montenegro, Serbia, Macedonia and Greece. Tanic at first denied having testified that, and after seeing the original, simply explained it as being a print error! After all we have heard from Tanic these last few days, it is more than obvious that we are dealing with a collaborator of foreign secret services who took part in preparing the indictment against President Milosevic, but even more so it is obvious that he is completely disable to play a role of crown witness to the prosecution, as those services had planned. Tanic’s cross-examination by Milosevic and the “Amici Curiae” will be resumed, and most probably over, on next Tuesday.
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