EMBARRASSING HIS WESTERN CAPTORS.

By Jesse Lawrence (Morning Star 2004-08-26)

After two years of presenting evidence against the former Yugoslavia president Slobodan Milosevic, the prosecution’s mammoth case at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia finally ended in February this year. He is due to start his defence on August 31.

After originally indicting Milosevic for war crimes in Kosovo, the prosecution hastily added indictments from the civil wars in Croatia and Bosnia once he had been traded by the pro-US faction of a new and divided Yugoslav government for $1 billion of international loans. The reason for this inclusion of Croatia and Bosnia was that the prosecution wasn’t confident in its ability to make the Kosovo allegations stick.

This was highlighted in September 2001, when a UN-sponsored court referred to the Geneva Convention to conclude that no "genocide" or "ethnic cleansing" had taken place in Kosovo. And so it was that, a month later, Milosevic was charged with committing crimes against humanity in Croatia, swiftly followed by genocide in Bosnia. By blaming Milosevic for every war crime committed under the sun during a decade of civil wars that engulfed and broke up Yugoslavia – and ignoring the roles of Tudjman, Izetbegovic and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) – the prosecution is doing its utmost to ensure that enough dirt will stick for Milosevic to go down for life.

So, 66 indictments, 600,000 pages, hundreds of hours of video and wiretap evidence, 300 witnesses, £140m and one dead judge later, has the prosecution made a convincing case? Not really. There is no "smoking gun" and no hard evidence to prove that Milosevic was directly responsible for countless alleged atrocities.

Representing himself against what he describes as "an ocean of lies", Milosevic has materialised into an effective cross-examiner. Despite a pattern of hidden witnesses, hearsay evidence, edited court transcripts and constant restrictions imposed on his questioning, Milosevic has managed not only to emphasise the role of Western governments and secret services in Yugoslavia’s destruction but has even succeeded in raising serious doubts over whether certain atrocities actually happened.

For example, the "massacre" at the village of Racak was a prosecution trump card during its Kosovo case. This became known as the worst single act of carnage committed by Serb security forces in the Kosovo war and led directly to the NATO bombardment of Yugoslavia.

US diplomat and head of the Kosovo Vertification Mission (KVM) William Walker was to be the star witness and provide irreversible proof that 40-odd civilians had been executed. However, instead of providing such proof, Walker’s memory, by his own admission, proved to be "faulty" and, whenever Milosevic exposed holes in his testimony, Walker would neither deny nor confirm the counter-evidence but simply claim to have "no recollection" of the events.

In the three hours that he was allocated, Milosevic wiped the floor with Walker and he did so using a strategy that has served him successfully for all of his cross examinations. This strategy begins with an attack on the credibility and character of the witness and ends with the presentation of Western – i.e. trustworthy – governmental, institutional and media sources that directly contradict the accusations of the witness.

Exposing Walker’s dirty background was not difficult. Milosevic highlighted his role in supporting both the murderous Salvadorean regime and the fascist Contra mercenaries in neighbouring Nicaragua in his capacity as US ambassador to El Salvador in the late 1980s. Milosevic drew attention to Walker’s close involvement with the CIA, his pivotal role in Contragate, which involved the flow of arms and ammunition to the Contras under the guise of humanitarian assistance and his habit of lying to the media, such as his infamous claim that the Salvadorean government forces responsible for killing six Jesuit priests were actually rebels dressed as soldiers.

All of this was exploited by Milosevic to support his assertion that Walker used the KVM as a spy team and cover for the CIA to train and supply the KLA. The KVM monitors who were actually trying to do their job of verifying the brief ceasefire in Kosovo were at complete odds with their chief and Milosevic quoted these disillusioned monitors in support of his main assertion that the Racak "massacre" was rigged by the CIA and the KLA to create a justification for NATO military intervention.

When an emotional Walker addressed the mass media beside strewn bodies close to the village of Racak – even managing to make a live broadcast to CBS – he was quick to accuse the Serbs of committing a massacre of male civilians. Yet he failed to mention the facts that were issued in a KVM report the same day – that Racak was a KLA stronghold and that the Serbs had actually invited the KVM as well as the media to accompany them and witness a textbook-perfect military operation against the armed separatists barricaded there. The monitors recorded 15 dead KLA fighters and the withdrawal of Serb forces before nightfall. Yet, the following morning, Walker had raced to Racak with CBS in tow, met up with KLA commanders and covered a "massacre".

Milosevic quoted Walker’s own KVM deputy, Frenchman Gabriel Keller, who disagreed profoundly with Walker’s view of Racak, as well as an article in the French newspaper Le Figaro which stated that "the KLA turned a military defeat into a political victory by staging a massacre". Racak bore all the signs of a Salvadoresque, CIA covert operation and, given Washington’s long history of committing dirty deeds in dirty corners of the world, no-one should be surprised.

Milosevic’s demolition of Walker’s testimony is a snapshot of his performances against all the prosecution witnesses, including the likes of US General Wesley Clark, Paddy Ashdown and Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova. Yet no-one is expecting fair judgement in an illegal court established and funded by the same NATO powers that dropped depleted uranium bombs in Yugoslavia for three months when the government refused to agree to the military occupation of the entire country, as demanded by NATO in the Rambouillet "talks".

The 62-year-old former Yugoslav president, who has been battling for two years, seems determined not to go quietly. Milosevic is due to begin his own defence on August 31 and top of his list of witnesses are Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, whom he will charge with responsibility for NATO war crimes.

Characteristically, the nervous tribunal has already attempted an exercise in damage limitation by allowing Milosevic just 90 days to prepare his defence and only 150 days to present it – compared to the prosecution’s three years. Both the tribunal and the prosecution are also trying to exploit Milosevic’s heart ailment and high blood pressure to insist that he accept the imposition of defence lawyers, therefore preventing him for defending himself and exposing more dirty Western secrets.

Milosevic has already shown, through FBI and US congressional reports, that the US sponsored involvement of al-Qaida in supporting Muslim fighters in Bosnia and the KLA. If Milosevic manages to keep his health, he has the potential to embarrass his captors and shed some light on the conspiracies and intentions of what he describes as "the new world order".