Posted on 11/29/2002 6:45:39 AM PST by vooch
What a ridiculous day in court.
(By the way, was C-061 originally coded as C-036? This number was announced before Milosevic's last bout of ill health, this number was to be accompanied by the lawyer Mueller and judging by the pre-trial note, C-061 is testifying identically. Is it the same person? Why the double protection? Why the protection at all - everybody have already guessed who he is.)
The slip-ups with his name continued: after Milosevic allegedly mentioned his surname the other day, today even May did the same! Luckily, they have half an hour delay in the transmission, so they just erased that part, but Milosevic got punished by another closed session bit imposed on him. No punishment for May, though. To be on the safe side, Milosevic addressed the witness with mock seriousness as "Witness 'Croatia-061", spelling carefully.
Milosevic definitely looks better, refreshed, and he's as ironical as ever: "So, as I understand, by the 'parallel structures' you mean all other Krajina officials, appointed by the Krajina Assembly, with whom you personally didn't get along?"
Because, bearing a year-long grudges for being ousted and marginalized, C-061 started to list the names of those who ruled Krajina "illegally" and "with support from Serbia". The problem was that he lost the count along the way, named some 12 names, practically complete officialdom of Krajina, then launched an endless diatribe about their evil doings (so that May had to instruct him to please stick to the question, after Milosevic tried to interrupt him) and then started to list the names again, but forgot some and added some others, so it all sounded pretty pathetic. He included some names from Serbia as "members of the Krajina parallel structures"; in his first shot there were Milosevic, Frenki, Stanisic; second time around he omitted Stanisic and added Prof Budimir Kosutic (probably the only other name from Serbia he could remember and who had any connection with CRO, being born in Western Slavonia).
Milosevic patiently listened through all that confusion (testimony!) and finally said: "Or, as the Serbs would call it 'Smuti pa prospi!" (The translation couldn't do justice to this, it literally means: 'concoct it, then spill it away', but the meaning is 'your story is like broth with many ingredients, which took you too long to cook but it's disgusting and could be only thrown away'.)
More of such broth came later, when the witness was asked to list 10 members of Serbian SDB (State Security Service) operating in Krajina, after he constantly claimed that dozens of them openly worked there in 'parallel structures'. The witness, of course, was unable to list more than 6 names, and even those were not all members of SDB. Were they in Krajina at that time? Were they active in 'parallel structures'? The witness said so.
But, let's see an example: one of those names is the famous 'Captain Dragan', a person with definite military background, perhaps even from Foreign Legion, but hardly anybody official, who went to Knin in mid 1991 to help training rural, inexperienced Krajina policemen. That he ruled Krajina through 'parallel structures' is pretty farfetched: Krajina people are so headstrong, I'm surprised they even let him train them and obeyed his commands on the range. It seems more likely that he co-operated with Milan Martic instead with our begrudged C-061 and the animosity was born. When 'Captain Dragan' returned to Belgrade, he organized a private fund called "The Captain Dragan's Fund', which financed the families of those killed in the war, those who were wounded, as well as an Internet-center to help spread true info.
C-061 kept talking about "paramilitary formations", so Milosevic finally asked him to please explain who were those. C-061 said they were "Milan Martic's police". Milosevic: "Did I understand you correctly, witness Croatia-061, you're calling regular police headed by officially appointed Minister of Interior 'paramilitary formations'?"
Poor C-061, his spite against Martic so blinded him that he wasn't even able to remember to tell that paramilitaries came from Serbia. But he knew these were too few, so it sounded better to name the whole Krajina police as paramilitary.
Then Milosevic started to tackle the role of C-061 in the vile campaign against his popular predecessor, Dr Jovan Raskovic, which drove the latter away to Belgrade. But, when Milosevic asked why C-061 together with his family fled Krajina for Belgrade three days before the Operation Storm, May closed the session for the next hour!.
The same happened after Milosevic asked was the witness accused by the Tribunal.
Again the huge part of the day was closed for public. This protected witnesses business is becoming absurd: you have to understand this is not the US or Russia we are dealing with, but tiny little territories, where everyone knows everyone, and I'm absolutely positive that those interested know the identity of every single "protected witness".
Recently I spoke to some colleagues, wandering why those are necessary, and someone said this is all part of the show, another enactment of the real legal proceedings that is being played, to render the whole performance more serious and credible by adding a touch of danger. Like those red and black robes are just costumes.
No sessions until Monday (long weekend).
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