[Milosevic had no "de jure" control over the Bosnian Serb forces]
Spanish police arrest key witness in Milosevic trial 27 February 2006, AP MADRID — Spanish police arrested the alleged killer of a Yugoslav human rights leader who had papers on him incriminating former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in assassinations when he was gunned down in 1990, authorities said Monday. Veselin Vukotic was arrested over the weekend at Madrid's Barajas airport as he got off a flight from Paris, police said in a statement. Police said he is believed to have been living in Barcelona with his wife and daughters under various aliases. Vukotic could be a key witness in the genocide trial against Milosevic that is currently taking place U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, police said. (Related: World Court asked to decide on genocide) The human rights leader, Enver Hadri, was allegedly shot in the head by Vukotic and two other men while he was stopped at a traffic light in Brussels, in Feburary 1990. All three gunmen were believed to be hitmen working for the Yugoslav secret service, according to the Kosovo Information Ministry of the time. Hadri, an ethnic Albanian from Serbia's Kosovo province, had been advocating severing the ties between Kosovo and Serbia since the late 1960s. He moved to Brussels around that time, and later started a political magazine through which he called for the unification of Albanian speaking areas in a single state in the Balkans. Spanish police said the papers Hadri was carrying tied Milosevic to as many as 34 high-profile murders. They declined to provide any further details. "The detention of Vukotic could be an essential piece in the case against Milosevic," police said in a statement. Vukotic is also wanted for the slaying of one of his alleged accomplices in the Hadri killing in a Belgrade discotheque a month later. The third Hadri shooter was killed in 1995. Two other people were gravely wounded in the Belgrade disco attack. Seven years later, Vukotic allegedly killed another man, this time in a disco in Montenegro. Police say Vukotic managed to avoid capture since 1990 through the use of a number of false identities, evading authorities in Europe and Latin America. He stayed at luxury hotels and was constantly on the move, but it is unclear how he financed the lifestyle. When he was arrested at the Madrid airport, he was carrying a high-quality counterfeit Croatian passport and driver's license in the name of Ludvig Bulic, but police had been tipped to his arrival and were waiting for him. Vukotic, wanted in both Belgium and the former Yugoslavia, was to be brought before Spain's National Court in Madrid. The International War Crimes tribunal trying Milosevic has also "shown great interest" in his detention, the police said. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-02-27-vukotic_x.htm ------------------ http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/smorg022706.htm Slobodan Milosevic Freedom Center News From the Milosevic Trial FORMER KRAJINA SERB FOREIGN MINISTER TAKES THE STAND www.slobodan-milosevic.org February 27, 2006 Written by: Andy Wilcoxson The trial of Slobodan Milosevic continued on Monday with the testimony of Slobodan Jarcevic. Mr. Jarcevic served in the diplomatic corps of the SFRY and later served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs for Republika Srpska Krajina (RSK). Jarcevic began his testimony by giving evidence about the historical position of Serbs in Croatia. He explained that during World War II Croatian Ustashas committed genocide against Serbs living in the so-called "Independent State of Croatia." The Ustasha killed more than 700,000 Serbs during World War II. He testified that Serbs came under threat in Croatia again during the so-called "Croatian Spring" (AKA "mass national movement") of the 1970s. During the Croatian Spring fascist ideology was resurrected and Croatian terrorist groups carried out attacks both inside and outside of Yugoslavia. For example, on August 17, 1978 a Croatian terrorist group attacked the West German consulate in Chicago. Bozo Kelava, and Mike Kodzoman, assaulted the consulate staff and held them hostage for more than six hours. On September 11, 1976 four Croatian terrorists hijacked a TWA 727 traveling between New York and Chicago. The terrorists held the passengers and crew hostage for more than 30 hours. Also in September 1976 Croatian terrorists planted a bomb at New York's Grand Central Station, which killed Brian Murray, a New York City police officer, who was killed while attempting to defuse the bomb. Major American newspapers, such as the Washington Post and New York Times, reported that the objective of the Croatian terrorists – and the American media certainly used the term "Croatian terrorists" – was Croatia's secession from Yugoslavia. As bad as it was in the United States, it was even worse inside Croatia itself. Jarcevic testified that the Croatian terrorists had a fascist ideology and that they routinely killed and threatened the Serbian population. The Yugoslav authorities arrested Franjo Tudjman in the 1970s because of his involvement with the Croatian terrorist movement, and because he espoused fascist ideology. The existence of a terrorist-Croatian secessionist movement involving Tudjman during the 1970s refutes the prosecution's assertion that Croatia seceded from Yugoslavia because Milosevic made life in Yugoslavia intolerable for non-Serbs. During the 1970s Josip Broz Tito, himself a Croat, was the undisputed ruler of Yugoslavia. Slobodan Milosevic did not even begin his political career until 1984. Nobody with a brain in their head can say that Croatian secessionism was caused by something Milosevic did, because Croatian secessionism came about *BEFORE* anybody even knew who Milosevic was. Jarcevic testified that radical Croatian nationalism reared its ugly head again in the late 80s and early 90s with the election of Franjo Tudjman as Croatia's president. He testified that Tudjman brought terrorists, criminals, and Ustasha émigrés from all over the world to Croatia in order to support the secessionist agenda. To bear this point out he read from documents compiled in 1990 by Yugoslav intelligence. He also read from documents dated from late 1990 and early 1991, which showed that Croatian paramilitary groups were smuggling large quantities of weapons into Croatia via Hungary. The weapons apparently originated in Germany and Austria, two countries that strongly supported Croatia's secession from Yugoslavia. Jarcevic denied that the RSK government entered into any criminal conspiracy with Belgrade to expand Serbian territory. He said that the purpose of the RSK was to safeguard the rights of Serbs living in the Krajina because the Croatian government was fascist and could not be trusted to do so. He testified that nobody in the RSK leadership undertook any action to expel Croats from the RSK. He showed the court census data from 1990, which showed that 189,000 Croats lived in what would become the RSK. He asked how this could be reconciled with Croatian claims that 250,000 Croats were ethnically cleansed from the RSK. After all, one can't ethnically cleanse somebody who wasn't there to begin with. He testified that the Croatian Government evacuated the majority of the Croatian people who left the RSK. He said that the RSK government did not expel Croats. In fact it even employed Croats. He said that some Croats even joined the RSK Army and police forces. He said that over the course of the war (1991 to 1995) nearly half a million Serbs were expelled from Croatia. He read out a UN report, which stated that 251,000 Serbs were expelled from Western Slavonia between 1990 and 1992. Of course the fiercest ethnic cleansing was yet to come, in 1995 Croatia launched Operation Storm and Operation Flash which led to the killing or expulsion of another 250,000 Serbs. Jarcevic showed the court a Croatian government document, dated 1990, which showed that Croatia was planning to have radioactive waste dumped in parts of Croatia that had a large Serbian population. As the RSK Foreign Minister, the witness spent a lot of time dealing with international diplomats. He testified that the UN Security Counsel had information about Croatian crimes against Serbs, but suppressed it. He testified Western diplomats who tried to have the information published were fired from their posts. Jarcevic came to court with several documents detailing the importation of illegal weapons by Croatian paramilitary forces. Unfortunately, just as he was beginning to read out the names of people, governments, and international corporations that were involved in the illegal arms trafficking the video feed from The Hague went dead. There was no audio or video coming out of The Hague for the last two hours of the hearing – the ICTY webcast was just feeding black. The trial is expected to resume on Tuesday and hopefully the video feed will be back. -----------------Milosevic trial criticised Irish Times 27 Feb., 2006 MILOSEVIC TRIAL: Criticising the judicial approach at the trial of Slobodan Milosevic currently taking place in The Hague, a Dutch historian told a conference at Trinity College Dublin there was "no concrete evidence" linking the former Yugoslav president with the July 1995 massacre at Srebrenica in which an estimated 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were killed. Prof Bob de Graaff, who co-authored a report on Srebrenica which brought down the Dutch government in 2002, was addressing a conference on crimes against humanitarian law. Analysing the role of Mr Milosevic in the events leading up to Srebrenica, Prof de Graaff, who is attached to the University of Utrecht, compared the former leader to "the sorcerer's apprentice who had started a process that he could not stop". Mr Milosevic, he argued, had no "de jure" control over the Bosnian Serb forces which carried out the massacre. He was familiar with their intent, but the professor questioned whether he shared it. (c) The Irish Times http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/world/2006/0227/3912551404FR27DDBMILOSEVIC.html =============== Group Moderator: [EMAIL PROTECTED] page at http://magazine.sorabia.net for more informations about current situation in Serbia http://www.sorabia.net Slusajte GLAS SORABIJE nas talk internet-radio (Serbian Only) http://radio.sorabia.net Yahoo! 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