Posted on 12/09/2002 5:24:19 AM PST by vooch
To get the idea of the flimsiness of Babic's testimony (or better, the enormity of the Prosecution's despair), see what they consider as valid evidence.
One of the accusations made by Babic (and gladly used and exploited by the Prosecution) was the alleged existence of a sinister plan of Milosevic to use the human material of the Krajina refugees to people Kosmet with the Serbs. A bolder version of this accusation was that he let Krajina perish precisely for that purpose. In order to give meat to that ghost, the Prosecution instructed Babic to dwell endlessly upon the 1995 exodus, of the police forbidding refugees to remain in Belgrade or to leave the motorway, directing them 'further to the south'.
Notice how vague the accusation is: he himself remained in Belgrade, he never saw anybody placed in Kosmet, he never retold any hearsay about refugees placed in Kosmet. But the mere mentioning of the refugees being directed 'further to the south' was regarded as a testimony of that sinister plan. In my humble opinion, some numerical data would be required, some places & people & dates should be named.
But the Prosecution considers as the valid testimony to Milosevic's control of the Army when Babic says 'Milosevic controlled the Army', so who needs any data or proofs.
The moment Milosevic started giving some data, the whole story just crumbled: the previously established existing number of the Serbs from Croatia in Serbia (100,000) were already placed throughout Serbia, and Belgrade was particularly burdened, so this new exodus had to be organized in a way to avoid Belgrade (only those having the closest relatives in Belgrade - parents, siblings - were allowed to stay); others were directed elsewhere, and Kosmet, being 10% of the Serbia's territory, hosted only 1% of the total number of refugees, therefore proportionally so much less than the rest of Serbia). Faced with that, Babic had to admit that he "perhaps mentioned to the investigator once in passing that there might have existed a plan of some administrative body, maybe the Govt. of Serbia, I'm not sure, to populate Kosovo with 100,000 Serbs; but here on the trial I never spoke about this."
You see how creative the Prosecution is: this immediately became 'Milosevic's plan to use Krajina Serbs to people Kosovo' and the number 100,000 was the number of actual Krajina refugees already in the whole Serbia, before the last exodus of 1995.
Milosevic tendered a copy of the 'Official Gazette of SFRY' containing the Programme of the Displaced Person's Return to Kosmet, published years before wars and explaining economic measures to help the Serbs expelled from Kosmet by the then low-level terrorist Albanian activities to return to their homes. This was the programme for the Serbs from Kosmet to return to Kosmet, public and official government-backed economic effort, not some secret plan involving Krajina. And the factual figures of refugees show how small was the number of Krajina Serbs on Kosmet.
But our Prosecution doesn't want to be bothered by the facts. It's easy to realize how superficial, arbitrary and unfounded are the constructions on which the Prosecution based its indictment. It turns out that way if you go from one issue to the next, one by one.
Looking at the imposing display en masse , you are led to believe this is a solid fortress; looking from near, each brick is rotten, crumbling and made of too much straw.
Another written statement was presented, which was faxed to Milosevic by yet another 2 former Krajina officials, denying Babic's allegations and calling him 'former friend'. This time Robinson spoke, instructing Milosevic that he would support his case better if those people would testify in person; Milosevic said all these faxes are handwritten, signed statements sent him as a reaction of those people watching the 'testimony' of Babic and all the senders are willing to testify. As a parting gift, Milosevic gave Babic a detailed list of some 5,000 names and years of birth of the Serbs killed in Krajina; he also gave the judges a book on genocide against the Serbs in Croatia in 1941-45 and 1991-92, saying 'maybe this could be of help to you'.
Embarrassed, May mumbled that 'these two documents will be marked for identification, to be argued later on'.
When Tapuskovic got his one hour, he drily clarified some 20 facts vs. inconsistencies, highlighted inaccurate time frames and tendered 54 documents signed by Babic, proving his wanton behaviour and giving ample reason why he had been removed from his position in Krajina (one of these decisions, also bearing Milan Babic's signature, nominates Milan Babic to the position of the Territorial Defence Commander!).
Note just few of the stupidities that Tapuskovic unearthed. The allegation was that "Milosevic controlled the Army through Lilic since 1992", and the fact is Lilic became President of FRY (and Supreme Commander of the Army) only in 1993; but the darned indictment covers only 1991-92 for CRO (to avoid Medak Pocket, Storm, Hurricane, Thunder, Whirlwind and other political/meteorological moves of Independent State of Croatia), and Lilic is so meek a person, so convenient to be presented as Milosevic's puppet, as a Supreme Commander who let the vile Milosevic actually run the Army during that terrible year of 1992. The only problem is that Lilic just wasn't the Supreme Commander then! But, damn the fact, the allegation sounds so fine, so we'll include it in the 'testimony'.
The other allegation was that "Milosevic controlled the 'rump Presidency' [the representatives of Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Vojvodina, as opposed to the representatives of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Macedonia, who boycotted the Presidency towards the end of 1991] and so prevented the decision to be taken on the action of the Army against all paramilitary units". The fact is that this particular decision was deliberated NOT at the period of 'rump Presidency', but before that, while the Presidency was still complete, and the decisive vote against the decision was from Bosnia & Herzegovina! But, again, who cares about the actual time frame of events, it sounds right to say "Milosevic prevented the decision".
Tapuskovic cornered Babic on numerous similar issues, and each time Babic would try to 'card wool', by pretending confusion, but Tapuskovic just spoke to the judges, requesting the witness to be directed to answer the question; and he got a reluctant confirmation of every fact from Babic.
To direct questions about his alleged embezzlement of diaspora donation and of the subsequent investigation, Babic answered both times 'I do not remember." He didn't deny it. He confirmed he was a rabid anti-Communist, so much so that he personally signed a decree forbidding the activity of all Communist parties in Krajina, only 1 year after he himself ceased to be a member of the League of Communists of Croatia, and he was the member for 20 years!
To a direct question whether he heard anybody giving direct order to any military authority or to anybody else, while listening to those 52 intercepts, Babic had to confirm that he has never heard such a thing. This is important, because those tapes were never played (only few short extracts, totally insignificant) and the impression was given that the others were damning, on account of the story by Uertz-Retzlaff that Babic listened to all those tapes (for 2 full days!) and found them damning.
Yet another example of how the Prosecution makes its case: by hinting they have something.
Finally, Tapuskovic established that Babic almost never saw anything himself, he was only told things subsequently; he was near the battlefield himself only 3 times in total, and that only far in the rear, so he never even saw the battle.
And yet he claimed he knew the pattern of all the battles, who would shoot first, who provoked and who instigated. He was indeed told about that subsequently; probably by the Prosecution.
Milan Babic found a grain of courage to de-mask himself at the end, but not enough courage to refuse being blackmailed by a threat of indictment. No matter how good the interpreters are, they always tend to beautify answers, to bring order into sentences, to avoid those little tell-tale bywords and awkward constructions which can only be noticed by listening to the original and which unerringly indicate the story told is not completely true.
I can remember only few witnesses so far, whose story had such straightforwardness and simplicity of 'the whole truth', but even some of those witnesses spoke that way only in small parts of their testimonies. Everything else was doctored, rehearsed or clumsily invented on the spot.
Vera Martinovic
Belgrade
Yugoslavia
Bingo! All sizzle, no steak.
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