Ground-Breaking Srebrenica Guilty Plea

Still can't answer the question of the soil testing, ehh? Whose leg was that, a muslim or Serb leg? Is there a way to tell by looking at it if it were a muslim leg or Serb leg? Are the muslim legs more brown, bigger, thinner than the Serbs? You must know, the vast majority of the Bosnian muslims were former Serbs that converted over to Islam in order to gain favors/better treatment. So, you can match those two groups to equate to being the North v. South i.e US Civil War.

The Serb who cut a deal is out for his own skin and will say anything to spare himself hard time, his family/mom/dad etc... from any agony or increased pension or wages.

a coward refusing to answer the question as you can't.

wake up, its rise and shine in Western US/California. Finish your breakfast and answer my question as I will then answer yours...Fair is fair.

Nikolic should have denied it to his dying breath

That's human nature, Shirlock. That's why the burden of proof is on the prosecution -- in real courts, that is. Which is also the reason forced or bought confessions, secret witnesses, and all the other Hague garbage is not allowed.

I am still waiting on your take on Nikolich's motives for spilling his beans this time around (remember he denied everythign earlier), and Gruban's whereabouts would be helpful too, since you know so much.

The evidence in the matter of the removal of Srebrenica victims to secondary gravesites, whether the glass from Kozluk in the graves at Cincari or the limestone and red clay from Petkovci dam winding up at the secondary grave in Liplje, has allowed the prosecution to meet the burden of proof in that matter.

So yes, your only recourse here is to attack the venue, which begs the response, however, that if the Serbs had retained one iota of integrity or respect for the law, their own laws, rather than eating up all Slobo's BS and asking for seconds, there wouldn't be an ICTY.

Not really where you were hoping to go, but there you are.

As to Nikolic's motives, the evidence against him made pleading innocent a pointless exercise. He committed the crimes he was accused of, so he stepped up to the plate and took repsonsibility for his actions.

As to Gruban, he was released conditionally, so as long as he appears at the start of his trial, who cares where he is?

if the Serbs had retained one iota of integrity or respect for the law

That presuposes that Serbs had integrity or respect for the law. I beg to differ. But they are not alone in the Balkans when it comes to lack of integrity or respect for the law. Please don't tell me that Croatians, Bosnian Muslims or Kosovo Albanians have integrity or respect for the law! Of course, there are individual exceptions to the rule.

The people of the Balkans are simply obsessed with self-imposed barriers to reason. I don't really want to change the subject of this thread, but there was a glaring example of what I have in mind in today's B92 Internet edition. Serbia's deputy prime minister (one of many), Chedomir Yovanovich, "Cheda," stated “Our society has certain political interests which cannot be defined within one party."

Have they ever thought of looking into how an ethnically complex and diversified society such as in the US can have its interests defined within one party (or the other), and Serbia can't? You know why? Because they don't see the world the same way as people in America do. To them, ethnicity and race is a completely different concept, not just to the Serbs -- to the entire Balkan population.

So, in the context of that mindset, the Hague tribunal, which is perceived as biased by the Serbs, is not going to convince anyone albeit it may convict many, that all this is for everyone to learn from, but is simply setting a stage for another war down the line, when it becomes opportune to do so.

To get back to Nikolich. If the prosecutors had plenty of evidence to convict him, they had plenty of evidence on those Nikolich is ready to name. So, what are the prosecutors gaining from letting Nikolich vomit all over himself? Perhaps some satisfaction of seeing him humiliated (not sure an opportunist like him can even feel humility).

So, what was hoping to gain by "fessing up," and reducing his sentence? You don't really think he can come out of jail in 15-20 years and go back to RS or whatever that place will be called? In his case, after spilling the beans, he would have only wished to get life, rayher than reduce it. At least in a Swedish resort jail he will be comfortable and safe.

In other words, your explanation doesn't add up, Hoplite. On the other hand, if the porsecutors really depend on his "ground-breaking" admission to nab the rest of the suspects, they know nothing, or not enough, so they are posturing and hanging on signed confessions as "proof."

As for Gruban, I wasn't asking for Momchilo. It was the "other" Gruban. We used to sit and look at various characters and ask "Y'a think that one might be Gruban?" "Nah, too much personality." I wasn't following up on this guy. Was he eventually "married up" with Momochilo's identity? I must have missed that. Or was his "indictment" by Judge Goldstone too embarrassing to keep alive?

Whatever the case may be, his empty picture frame, no name, no address, made a heck of a poster conversation piece. Last time I saw reference to him was in ISB Taszar. Somone wrote on a messhall table "Gruban was here" and a date. Cute.

....if the Serbs had retained one iota of integrity or respect for the law

That presuposes that Serbs had integrity or respect for the law. I beg to differ....

In my judgement, you're both out to lunch. The Serbs, near as I can tell by doing my own investigations on the net, appear to be the closest thing there is to normal people in the Balkans. Basically, it sounds like the Serbs aided us at great cost to themselves in WW-II while every other Balkan nation sided with Hitler. It also sounds like if somebody were to do a good enough job of bombing Albania, he could eliminate 90% of European crime.

You have yet to answer my questions and show "internet" proof from the fabled UN/OSCE/Haugue-sponsored websites that show "evidence"... c'mon big boy, big betty is tired of salivating for your peppered reply.

Serbs, near as I can tell by doing my own investigations on the net, appear to be the closest thing there is to normal people in the Balkans

I wish I could agree with you. Present day Serbs have no idea who they are. Their memory has been drained. Their identity has been changed, perverted, aldultarated. Most of them think it's enough to be baptized to be a Serb. Many of them think history started in 1945.

There is nothing decent about the current government there, nor of those who were in government before them. Serbia's regimes have been characterized by lack of respect for the law. Since 1804, Serbia has been a relatively civilized country only between 1903 and 1914, 11 years. In 1903, the Serbs killed the king and his wife, and a few other people, then proclaimed a new king. Rulers before 1903 or after 1914 have either been deposed, assassinated or exiled. Every one of them. Excluding the communist period up to 1988, Serbia was a hard-line communist dictatoriship with no repect for law or much integrity. In 1988, a communist turned pretend nationalist Slobodan Miloshevich -- rightfully so -- staged a coupe de grace and removed Ivan Stambolich, Serbia's communist party boss, only to have him apprantly killed ten years later, by all accounts. Miloshevich himself was essentially deposed by the "children of communism," on the surface non communists but with the same mentality, in what was essentially a coup that looked like an election, but the winning ticket was carried by the same thugs without an iota of integrity or respect for the law -- the (in)famous Red Berets. And the current government has shown conptept for the law, the constitution and so on, and not much integrity. Lest you have forgotten, Serbia's prime minister was assassinated in February of this year in the grand style of Serbian political tradition. His successors used that as an excsue to arrest 11,000 people and get rid of the mafia as well as some political opponents.

And what is the opposition talking about today? They are saying that the new consitution the DOS is making will last as long as DOS. So, as soon as one group leaves, so does all respect for their law. And the opposition is right! Because Serbs make laws that fit their agenda, and not laws that reflect immutable principles and universal truths. The current regime is making an anti-Serb constitution, one that relegates the Serb people of Serbia to "partners" with minorities.

I don't know about you, but I am a Serb by birth and there is nothing I would wish more for the Serbian people than to embrace integrity and the respost for the law. Slim chance.

That being said, others in the Balkans are no better, but rather worse. Just for the record.

I can't definitively speak for Nilolic(h), but from the prosecution's side, any guilty pleas free up court time and resources to concentrate on active cases - not really different from any orther court system in the world in that respect.

As to Gruban, I believe the individual's full name was Goran Gruban, and he is not the only individual to have an indictment withdrawn against him.

Back to Nikolic(h) - the Crni Vrh gravesite came into the news after he and Obrenovic began cooperating with the prosecution.

Correlation, as of right now, but I wouldn't be surprised if causation was disclosed in the near future - and that would point to an individual finally valuing his conscience higher than the tawdry flavors of nationalism bandied about in the Balkans.

I can only hope for more of the same, and that it takes place before more triggers are pulled.

Basically what I gather is that there were something like 24 - 26 ethnic groups in the Yugoslav confederation, of which maybe two or three ever had any sort of a major problem dealing with Serbs, and those two or three were the ones most serious about supporting Hitler in WW-II. Albanians in particular, again from what I can come up with on the net, appear to be a total bunch of animals. They seem to average ten or twelve kids per family in a tight little part of the world in which land is always going to be a zero-sum game, and their game seems to be to ensconce themselves in some little corner of the other guy's country, do their breeding thing for fifteen or twenty years until they represent a "majority" in the corner, and then try to break that corner of the other guy's country off into "greater albania". People of surrounding countries call that "rabbit-breeding their way to power".

From everything I can read, Kosovo was majority Serb prior to WW-II. Many Serbs living in Kosovo were killed by nazis and by the nazi-supporters in surrounding states, many in death camps worse than those with the famous names which the Croats and Bosnians were all too happy to provide Hitler with, and many more were removed from Kosovo by Tito after the war. On top of that, large numbers of Albanians fled from what amounted to one of the most messed-up commie regimes into Kosovo in the intervening time until Albanians amounted to a majority in Kosovo in the 80s.

The genesis of the modern troubles in Kosovo was Milosevic rescinding the autonomy of the region in 89 and, from what I read, he had to; every other ethnic group in Kosovo was being terrorized and brutalized by the Albanians: poisoning wells, systematic rapes and murders under the direction of tribal leaders, and every sort of terrorism against the remaining indigenous Serbs.

I may be leaving things out, but you get the picture. Whatever problems Serbs might have in life, I still see them as the victims in this picture. Moreover, during the eight years of the Clinton regime, only two groups of people that I know of ever tried to stand up to the beast and face it down, and that was the mormons in Utah and Milosevic and his Serbs. You have to respect that.

Basically what I gather is that there were something like 24 - 26 ethnic groups in the Yugoslav confederation, of which maybe two or three ever had any sort of a major problem dealing with Serbs

Individually they are of no consequence. But when Croats, Bosnian Muslims and Kosovo Albanians (about 7-8 million) gang up on Serbs (10 million) it's a major problem, especially if the trio gets help from outside.

Albanians in particular, again from what I can come up with on the net, appear to be a total bunch of animals

Correction: racist animals.

From everything I can read, Kosovo was majority Serb prior to WW-II

Not true. Serbs were probably not a majority in Kosovo since thier exodus in the 18th century (the so-called Great Exodus of Serbs), following Austro-Turkish war, and the Ottoman reprisal against the Serbs who sided with, and were later betrayed by Austria.

The population statistics of 1920 in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (SHS), before it was renamed Yugoslavia, indicate that the country had 400,000 Albanians, and that they constituted just over 60% of the population in Kosovo and Metohia (aka Kosmet). During WWII, expulsion and fleeing of Serbs contributed to a decrease. Following WWII, Communist (Croat) Tito's government prohibited exiled Serbs from returning to Kosovo for reasons too complex to indluge in here.

The proportion of Alabanians in Kosovo remained stable, however, into the 1960's, when they constituted about 67%. This was changed to 74% at the end of the 1970's following the 1974 (last Tito's) Constitution which turned Kosovo into an almost sovereign republic, only nominally part of Serbia. In the 1980's, Albanian "pressure" caused Serbs to flee Kosovo, and this was well documented in the New York Times. At that time, Serb intellectuals appealed to the UN for help, pleading for the internaitonal community to stop "ethnic cleansing" of Serbs, a new word they coined which was to come back to haunt them. By the end of 1980's, Albanians approach 90% of Kosovo's population -- with a large number of them being illegal aliens.

The genesis of the modern troubles in Kosovo was Milosevic rescinding the autonomy

Double correction: (1) It was the Yugoslav collective presidency, incluidng the Kosovo member, who unanimously voted for it. It was not just Miloshevich. (2) The autonomy was not "rescinded" (i.e. voided, canceled) but returned to the 1963 Constitution, and in line with other autonomies world over and with the UN Charter. In doing so, the presidency violated the 1974 Constitution under which the country still nominally functioned. So, while the decision do scale back autonomy was much overdue, the method was illegal, quite in line with the lack of integrity and disrespect for the law issue we are talking about. That's why there is nothing more misleading than to try to understand or solve Balkan problems using legality as a starting point -- because the whole damn place is illegitimate!

Whatever problems Serbs might have in life, I still see them as the victims in this picture

The Serbs are one of the dominant nations in the Balkans. They also have, or had -- to be more eaxact, a rich culture and a strong sense of statehood and a tradition of willingness to fight for what is theirs. If they are indeed the victims, it is their own doing. Its like the biggest guy on the block getting beat up and outsmarted by kids half his size. Pretty embarrassing I would say.

Moreover, during the eight years of the Clinton regime, only two groups of people that I know of ever tried to stand up to the beast and face it down, and that was the mormons in Utah and Milosevic and his Serbs. You have to respect that.

Miloshevich gets a partial grade for trying, but he went about it the wrong way. It's a "bull in a china store" type of a thing. He was your average Serb who lacked any finnesse to put it mildly.

Key Srebrenica Witness Admits Lying

Momir Nikolic's fictional account of massacre raises questions about plea-bargain system.

By Chris Stephen in The Hague (TU 327, 29 September 2003)

The Hague prosecution's star witness in the Srebrenica case has admitted in court that he lied in testimony when he said he ordered one of the biggest single massacres of Bosnian Muslims.

Former Bosnian Serb army captain Momir Nikolic's admission in a courtroom appearance this week will undermine confidence in other details he has supplied about the Srebrenica killings in July 1995, and raises questions about how plea-bargain agreements are negotiated with those accused of war crimes.

Nikolic, an army intelligence officer who was present during the massacres and was indicted by The Hague for playing a major role in them, made history as the first Serb officer to give evidence against his colleagues.

But now doubts about his reliability as a witness have arisen after he admitted that a statement he gave to prosecutors earlier this year contained a lie.

In a courtroom appearance on September 29, he admitted he did not give the orders to gun down more than 1,000 Bosnian Muslims inside a warehouse at Kravica. He was not even present when it happened, on July 13, 1995. Kravica was one of the single biggest massacres carried out by Serb forces around Srebrenica.

In recent days, Nikolic has been in court as part of a plea-bargain deal with prosecutors, giving evidence against Vidoje Blagojevic and Dragan Jokic, Bosnian Serb officers indicted for war crimes alongside him. In May, prosecutors agreed to drop a genocide charge against him and seek a lesser sentence of 15 to 20 years, and in return he changed his not guilty plea to an admission that he committed crimes against humanity. But now, Nikolic has renounced his original statement that he had personally supervised the Kravica killings.

"You needed to give him [the prosecutor] something he did not have, right?" said Michael Karnavas, defending. "You wanted to limit your time of imprisonment to 20 years, that was part of the arrangement, yes? Quid pro quo?" Nikolic admitted he had lied, "I did not tell the truth when I said that. Afterwards I said I had made a mistake, I had lied. "I apologise. All I can do is confess and say that discussing the crime is a very difficult situation to be in."

"I think we should call it for what it is, a bald faced lie," said Karnavas. "I'm still a little bit confused," the American lawyer continued. "How is it that you thought by admitting to one of the most horrendous executions in this area, that this would help you in getting the kind of sentence that you are hoping and praying for?" "I wanted the agreement to succeed," responded Nikolic. His original statement to prosecutors included testimony that while at Kravica, he had observed the involvement of another war crimes suspect, former army officer Ljubomir Borovcanin, in the killing. He has now told the court that although he was not present, he was certain that Borovcanin had been there. "You implicated Borovcanin in your falsehood in order to make your story more convincing, so that the prosecutor would buy it?" said Karnavas. "You needed to give him [the prosecutor] some more facts to sweeten the deal - that's why you provided false information about Kravica?" He went on to ask Nikolic whether he had lied so as to make his story impressive enough for prosecutors to offer him a plea-bargain deal. "Your lawyers had a laundry list of factors that the prosecutor was expected to agree to," said Karnavas. "The prosecution did not exert any influence on me," responded Nikolic. "What I did is my own mistake." Karnavas continued to press him, saying, "Did you think that by falsely admitting to having ordered this execution that you were solving a question-mark in the prosecutor's case as to who had ordered that murder?" Nikolic's admission could have serious implications for the prosecution strategy of using plea bargains. In recent weeks, prosecutors have persuaded several former Bosnian Serb commanders to give evidence against their former comrades by offering to cut their sentences. Nikolic's plea-bargain negotiations took six months, starting last November. It now seems he was so desperate to get a deal with prosecutors that he was willing to lie to them. The prosecutors are in a difficult position. They will only offer plea-bargain arrangements to people who can give high-quality evidence. But this case suggests that some defendants could be tempted to embroider the facts to make their crimes more "worthy" of a deal. Chris Stephen is IWPR's tribunal project manager.

Great post DTA. Nikolich's readiness to spill the beans smacked of Plavshich's skin-saving maneuver. Bilyana Plavshich knew she could never return to RS for her treason, so she opted to give Serb enemies all she could give them. Such people are in every nation, and such is human nature.