1 Presidency of Yugoslavia, you betrayed Yugoslavia and contributed to its

2 break-up. Then proceeding to betray those with whom you had collaborated

3 to destroy Yugoslavia. I'm referring to the HDZ and Tudjman. I don't

4 know who is next. Is it true that Tudjman wanted that from the very

5 start, when the HDZ was founded, Tudjman linked it up with the right-wing

6 factions in Croatia, which includes those who do not conceal the fact they

7 are Ustasha?

8 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Mesic, before you answer, allegations are made

9 there which you should have a chance to deal with, a series of them.

10 The first is that, as the president of the Presidency of

11 Yugoslavia, you betrayed Yugoslavia and contributed to its break-up. Did

12 you regard yourself as betraying Yugoslavia?

13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] When I was elected to the Presidency

14 of Yugoslavia, I believed that I would help to resolve the Yugoslav crisis

15 by political means, that I could contribute to avoiding the war. My

16 proposal to the Presidency was that we should adopt a fully confederal

17 system and that the confederation should be given a time limit, three to

18 five years, that the republics should be declared independent, that the

19 republics should be internationally recognised, that they should recognise

20 each other, and thereby be recognised by the international community, and

21 that on the day when the Federation ceased to exist, a confederation be

22 established. Why? Because everyone was dissatisfied with Yugoslavia.

23 Serbia claimed that it was being exploited. Serbia claimed that they were

24 the ones who funded others. Croatia was saying that its hard currency was

25 being siphoned off to Belgrade. If everybody was dissatisfied, why not

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1 adopt a new model? My proposal was to have a confederation and to

2 establish what tasks the confederation would perform, how much this would

3 cost, and what the key to the budget would be, to the financing of this.

4 Serbia never expressed its view on this proposal. Instead of this,

5 Milosevic proposed a strong federation. That is what happened to Kosovo

6 and Vojvodina, that this should happen everywhere. We could not agree to

7 this. But I was in favour of negotiations. I thought that it was better

8 to negotiate for ten years rather than to wage war for ten days. Some

9 people were in favour of the war option, and Slobodan Milosevic was

10 certainly one of those.

11 But what could I have done in Belgrade? Who could I have

12 influenced? The generals contacted Milosevic, the army executed what

13 Milosevic's regime wanted, the creation of a greater Serbia, because he

14 was saying that the Serbs should remain in one state. That is the part

15 that was to become Yugoslavia and to be taken from Croatia. That's what

16 General Veljko Kadijevic says in his book, and he was the Secretary for

17 National Defence.

18 Therefore, therefore, the army, when it had been made into a

19 Serbian army, when the Croats, the Slovenians, the Macedonians and others

20 had left, when it had become a Serbian army, it was to perform the job of

21 setting up new borders, and the one who was perpetrating that plan was the

22 one who was destroying the Federation. I wanted to search for a political

23 solution through constitutional means. I had two secretaries, an advisor,

24 and a Chef de Cabinet, and they were the only people I could influence. I

25 have to say they were all Serbs. Who else could I have influenced, and

1 how could I have toppled Yugoslavia? Was it I who did it or was it the

2 person who had the Yugoslav army at his disposal, which had been

3 transformed into a Serbian army?

4 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

5 Q. Mr. Mesic, that all the peoples of Yugoslavia should live in one

6 state pertained to Yugoslavia and that the Serbs in Yugoslavia lived in

7 one state was one of the reasons why Serbia wanted Yugoslavia to be

8 preserved, and that is the only thing that you can quote me on saying, not

9 anybody else. And you're making this up, just like others have along the

10 same lines.

11 I asked you the following: Tudjman wanted a Croatian state at all

12 costs, and from the very inception of the HDZ, he firmly relied on the

13 most radical right-wing, which consisted of the most drastic Ustasha; is

14 that right?

15 A. That's not true. Increasingly radical elements started joining

16 the party and then I left the party.

17 Q. You say in your interview to the AIM and the question was why did

18 Tudjman from the very inception of the HDZ so strongly rely on the radical

19 right wing in which there are some clear-cut Ustasha. You say that you

20 were powerless, that these were forces that were more powerful than you

21 and that Tudjman went along with them and that the forces that you

22 represented were different, and you say that he relied on these extremist

23 forces and he believed that they would be his friends in war, and that

24 after the war he would manage to neutralise them. That was your

25 explanation. Is that right or is that not right, Mr. Mesic?

1 A. I think that I answered that question at the very outset. The HDZ

2 was a democratic party and now the question is what this journalist meant

3 by the very outset. Which outset?

4 Q. All right. You explained that this was from March 1991 after the

5 meeting in Karadjordjevo. That is your interpretation of the situation,

6 and we are not going to dwell on that. However, you did remain in that

7 same HDZ for another three years and now you're attacking it.

8 A. 1991 until the end of 1992 cannot be three by any kind of

9 arithmetic. So there seems to be some kind of erroneous arithmetic

10 involved.

11 Q. Is it true that it was Tudjman's view that Bosnia was a mistake,

12 that it was a mistake to make it as a republic after the Second World War

13 and that it should be annexed to Croatia? Is that right or is that not

14 right?

15 A. Those were his ideas, that Bosnia was supposed to belong to

16 Croatia on the basis of a decision that should have been adopted by Avnoj.

17 That's what we discussed, because we were both in opposition, both Tudjman

18 and I were MPs in the Croatian parliament in 1965.

19 Q. All right. Is it true that it is precisely in Zagreb that

20 deportations of the population of Bosnia were discussed? Or as you had

21 put it, the humane resettlement of the population and basically this was

22 ethnic cleansing. Is this right or is this not right?

23 A. As for humane resettlement, that is something that you talked

24 about and all of those who thought that it was necessary to transport

25 Croats from Slankamen into Croatia and Serbs into Serbia. I certainly

1 took no part in that.

2 Q. All right, Mr. Mesic. Let's not dwell on this much longer. I

3 asked you whether you had your own views on this, because in the

4 transcript that I refer to, your opinion is quite obvious. You say that

5 any person with common sense would realise that this is ethnic cleansing.

6 A. Well, humanitarian resettlement is actually ethnic cleansing.

7 That is why your detachments came, Dusan Silni, Arkan's guard. All of

8 them came in order to carry out ethnic cleansing. That is not even

9 humanitarian resettlement.

10 Q. Mr. Mesic, I am referring to your policy, the policy of Croatia.

11 I am not talking about whether anybody from Serbia did any such thing.

12 Because as you know full well, it is only Serbia that kept its ethnic

13 composition over the past ten years, and nobody was expelled from Serbia,

14 not a single house was torched, and nobody was mistreated because of their

15 ethnic affiliation.

16 A. Except for the fact that in Serbia there were 18 camps where there

17 were Croatian citizens and they were fleeing from Seselj, the Croats from

18 Vojvodina were, and they were settling Croat settlements and they were

19 exchanging their houses for Serb houses. That is the so-called

20 humanitarian resettlement.

21 Q. Mr. Mesic, do you know that there was not a single camp in

22 Yugoslavia, or rather, in Serbia, not for Croats, not for anyone, not for

23 Croats, not for Muslims, not for anyone.

24 A. Croatia is still looking for over 3.300 of its citizens. Many of

25 them, after Vukovar and after other places where massacres were committed,

1 were taken to Serbia. We have to know that the Yugoslav army, with

2 paramilitary organisations, which, with the approval of the Serb

3 leadership came to Croatia, destroyed Croatian towns. Why was Vukovar

4 destroyed? Why were the citizens of Croatia taken to Serbia from Vukovar?

5 Why were they taken to camps in Serbia? If the president of Serbia does

6 not know that there were camps in Serbia, then that is the problem of

7 Serbia.

8 Q. Mr. Mesic, do you know, for example, that when this propaganda

9 started about the existence of camps in Serbia, that various foreign

10 delegations spoke to me about this, people who came on other business, and

11 they asked me about these camps? And I answered to each and every one of

12 them: Please feel free to take a helicopter that I have here and that is

13 ready. Put your finger anywhere on a map and that's where the helicopter

14 will take you, and you will see that there is nothing of the sort in

15 Serbia. After a few answers that I gave of this kind, one delegation, it

16 was a German delegation, asked to go, then pinpointed the mine in

17 Aleksinac on a map. They went there and the only thing they found was --

18 JUDGE MAY: You're not giving evidence. You can give evidence to

19 us in due course.

20 Mr. Mesic, do you know anything about Mr. Milosevic's dealings

21 with foreign delegations? Have you seen any reports or heard anything

22 about that?

23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I don't know about that. I do know

24 that the Yugoslav army, together with paramilitary organisations, took out

25 of the Vukovar hospital almost 300 persons and that they were all

1 liquidated in Ovcara, near Vukovar. I also know that citizens who were

2 taken prisoner in that massacre of Vukovar were transported to Serbia.

3 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

4 Q. First of all, that is not correct. Secondly, please take a look

5 at this map.

6 JUDGE MAY: What are you suggesting happened at Vukovar,

7 Mr. Milosevic, if it's not correct?

8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] It is not correct that anyone from

9 Serbia took citizens from Vukovar to Serbia. It is not correct that any

10 policy of Serbia's influenced the intensification of the conflict in the

11 region of Vukovar. What is correct is that it is precisely the armed

12 detachments of the HDZ that barged into people's homes, into villages

13 around Vukovar and took Serbs away, arrested them, and so on. They

14 attacked Vukovar --

15 JUDGE MAY: Is it disputed that 300 persons were taken from the

16 hospital to Ovcara and there liquidated? Is that disputed?

17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I don't have these figures, Mr. May,

18 and I'm not discussing them now. But I shall try to find these facts and

19 figures and see what kind of facts and figures are available. I can

20 claim, though, that no Serbian authorities had absolutely anything to do

21 with this, nor did the Serb authorities cause any kind of ethnic conflicts

22 in Vukovar. Ethnic conflicts in Vukovar were caused by the same people I

23 quoted a minute ago, those who took people out of their homes in Zagreb.

24 JUDGE MAY: I've asked you some questions about that. Now, let's

25 move on to matters which the witness can deal with, in particular, his

1 evidence. Time, as you know, is limited, Mr. Milosevic. We must allow

2 some time for the amicus to ask any questions that they want this

3 afternoon. And any re-examination, Mr. Nice?

4 MR. NICE: There's likely to be some, yes.

5 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Kay, could you help about the amicus?

6 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Yes, there will be questions.

7 JUDGE MAY: How long do you ask for, Mr. Tapuskovic? Can you give

8 us an idea, please?

9 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] It is hard for me to say. I will

10 honour any decision you make, but it seems to me that half an hour would

11 be absolutely indispensable.

12 JUDGE MAY: We may not be able to give you half an hour, I'm

13 afraid, because time is short. We can extend the sitting this afternoon

14 until 2.00, unless the Registry have any difficulty about that. There's

15 another hearing this afternoon, but I anticipate we can sit until 2.00,

16 and we will extend the hearing until then to accommodate as much

17 questioning as we can.

18 But Mr. Milosevic, your time is limited, as you know. So let's

19 move on. If you've got any matters that you want to challenge on what the

20 witness said in his evidence, you should do so.

21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, of course I am challenging

22 almost everything that the witness said during his testimony. But I

23 assume that it is clear to you that limiting time for the

24 cross-examination of this witness is quite contrary to the need to

25 ascertain the truth. After all, the other party announced that they would

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1 examine him for ten hours and then they decreased the number by two and a

2 half times in order to diminish my ability to cross-examine him. However,

3 I am going to use the time that is given to me, and you will have to deal

4 with the fact that you haven't given me enough time.

5 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

6 Q. Mr. Mesic, do you know that there were 221 camps for Serbs in the

7 period between 1991 and 1996 in Croatia? The five that you refer to in

8 Serbia never existed. And here you have a list of all the 221 camps for

9 Serbs in Croatia, and also a map that shows where they were and how many

10 were in different towns and so on. Are you aware of this?

11 A. Regardless of the fact that I have been highly critical in terms

12 of the functioning of rule of law in the state of Croatia until the year

13 2000, the truth is that there were no camps in Croatia. There were

14 abuses, there were crimes. That is certain. However, unfortunately, I

15 did not answer the question that had to do with Vukovar. Do I have to

16 give an answer? I do. Those who carried out liquidations were given

17 decorations and were promoted to the rank of general and other such ranks.

18 They still live in Belgrade and they are wanted by this Tribunal. So I'm

19 not the one who is inventing things. The only persons who were not taken

20 out of Vukovar were those who were liquidated in Ovcara.

21 Q. According to the information I have, no army could have executed

22 or liquidated anyone. You know full well as a citizen of Yugoslavia until

23 it was broken up and you have --

24 JUDGE MAY: This is a matter which the Trial Chamber, I suspect,

25 is going to have to determine in due course, and it sounds as though these

* Continued at: http://www.icdsm.org/more/mesic-7.htm