Posted on 12/11/2002 4:01:25 AM PST by vooch
There was another witness, who testified yesterday and today: C-025. This was another protected Serb from CRO, a former policeman, but from a region first time introduced - Baranja.
For those unfamiliar, it's a rich flat triangle between rivers Drava and Danube, almost at the far east of CRO, not far from Vukovar. What is interesting about this particular piece of Serb-inhabited territory, it didn't exactly have too many clashes, actually hardly any.
Thus, any potential witness living there has very little to testify, and C-025 couldn't and didn't meet the Prosecution's needs. Why they called him to the stand anyway, it really beats me. Is he one of those 14 lesser-quality witnesses given up in exchange for the prolongation of Babic? Or do they consider him a higher-quality witness? They're really scraping the bottom of the barrel here.
The man only testified that the Serbian Security Service had been active on the territory of Baranja (imagine that!), that there were some weapons distributed to people by somebody, to which he never witnessed, and that some Croats had been arrested and exchanged later on. He finished his examination-in-chief in couple of hours, although Nice dragged each question endlessly. Would you believe that he even dwelled upon the alleged misappropriation of stolen cars within the local police force (war crime, no doubt!).
However, Milosevic had a field trip with this one: in a dozen short descriptions he managed to sum up the happenings in Baranja in 1991-92, that really showed what the 'war' in CRO was all about. Listen. (Milosevic finished each one of these descriptions with a question 'Would you agree with that?', and C-025 agreed each time.) There were hardly any clashes in Baranja. JNA intervened just once to divide local Serbs and Croat forces, and prevented any battle to happen by its mere presence, by placing few armoured cars between the two sides. The same happened in the nearby Vukovar region, in Borovo Selo, the difference being that there were about one hundred dead before JNA stepped in [this was the famous case that triggered it all, which happened 3 May 1991: the Croatian police first provoked by putting new Fascist flag in the middle of this Serb village, the flag was taken down, the police came back tomorrow in few buses with hundreds of paramilitaries, shooting wantonly around, but the peasants were ready with their hunting guns - Croats were ambushed, about a hundred of them got killed and the others were saved by JNA].
C-025 further confirmed that there were several militant extremist Croat groups organized, openly calling themselves 'Ustasa'. That there were Serb houses and business premises mined, as well as POLITIKA representative office in Osijek (major town of the region). That he personally knew 7-8 prominent Serbs from Osijek, mostly doctors, holding no extremist views whatsoever, who got killed.
That 57 Serbs got killed in the municipality of Beli Manastir (the second major town) in the period 1991-93. That after one of such killings, few villages organized their village patrols. That the local Serbs from Baranja organized their own military unit, complete with mortars, uncertain of the possible JNA help they would receive. That the local Serbs made no attacks upon the Croatian villages or individuals. That JNA, before it was withdrawn from Baranja as well as from the whole of CRO, had fought several battles with the newly established Croatian forces which would always try to penetrate this area through the Hungarian territory (and Hungary let them!); this is a marshy region, with an important border army watchtower Torjanci. The first time the Croats tried to seize it, they came into the mine-field and got all captured.
The second time, they managed to come by a small village of Torjanci, where they killed all its Gypsy population, but the JNA fought them back to Hungary. The third time was interesting: they came via Hungary with heavy weaponry (mortars, artillery); either they were invisible or the Hungarians mistook them for their own forces (?); again they had to retreat with heavy casualties. C-025 confirmed all that and recognized names of the Serbs killed, quoted by Milosevic.
In short, he turned out to be another witness for the Defence, making its case to perfection.
Nice must've been mortified, so when he got another chance to redirect, I expected he would find something strong to pull out this sinking ship. But look what he came up with. He reiterated about the illegal arming of the Serbs; C-025 said that "part of it was legal, which was the arming of the TO (Territorial Defence)"; Nice suggested so subtly that maybe this 'illegal part of the arming was causing the disturbance among the non-Serbs, contributing to their moving out of the region', to which C-025 responded: "Well, I think that part of the arming had been made in secrecy."
So, the non-Serbs could not have been disturbed by it, could they?! Poor Nice, he just abruptly ended: "Er… Thank you. That concludes my redirect."
But, what was really amazing is the more and more obvious expert help (and I mean intelligence data) available to Milosevic. He not only quoted all the events, dates, places, even names of villagers, he also started to quote some seriously fresh info re Croatian current Security Service.
In the part of his cross-examination aimed at undermining the credibility of the witness, he quoted some names of local as well as top Zagreb Counter-Intelligence Service officials, with whom C-025 is allegedly connected and accused him of being their witness, instructed by them. He described dates of their phone calls last month, places of their meeting, organization of the trip to The Hague from Osijek via Zagreb, even the make of the car used, a Zagreb tavern of venue, who said what at the goodbye-meeting with the top brass.
Really scary. Of course, C-025 denied it all, but had to admit he does "go fishing with Pekic quite often" [Pekic being a local top official of the Service in Osijek]. You know what makes me believe there is some truth in it? You remember the witness Mustafa Candic, a Major/Muslim/ex-JNA Security Service officer? Remember how he spoke of the 'secret operations for arming of the Serbs, called Breakthrough 1 and 2' (of which nobody else but him knew the existence!) and how it was subsequently established that, after leaving JNA, he went over to the Croatian Secret Service and sold them his stories, before crossing over to Alija Izetbegovic?
Well, in his testimony concerning weapons, C-025 mentioned 'Operation Breakthrough'. Now, how could a simple local policeman know about such a thing, even if it did exists, and particularly if it didn't?! Obviously, the Croatian Service briefed him and the Prosecution wanted to use him as another source who would independently confirm this bogus story.
But, C-025 simply wasn't up to the task; he did mention that, but somewhat shyly (I hardly managed to notice it) and instead dwelled endlessly upon the re-registration of stolen cars, as any simple cop would do. The truth is always so much more interesting and easier to spin to simple people. You should've heard him while eagerly confirming every bit of the situation-depicting description that Milosevic gave.
Keep these witnesses coming, Prosecutor Nice. Another one of even lower calibre already came - Jeri Laber.
Vera Martinovic
Belgrade
Yugoslavia
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