Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Page 34589

1 Thursday, 16 December 2004

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 --- Upon commencing at 9.10 a.m.

5 JUDGE ROBINSON: Let the witness be brought in.

6 MR. NICE: While the witness is coming in, to prepare for his

7 arrival [Albanian on English channel].

8 And I'm not sure what channel we're supposed to be on this

9 morning.

10 JUDGE ROBINSON: There's something wrong technically.

11 MR. NICE: I think the Albanian is coming on the English channel

12 but ... It was a pleasure to explore the depths of our linguistic

13 ignorance.

14 [The witness entered court]

15 WITNESS: CEDOMIR POPOV [Resumed]

16 [Witness answered through interpreter]

17 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Nice.

18 MR. NICE: If the witness could have his exhibits at tab 2, and if

19 he, on the page numbering in the Serbian, could go to page 161 and lay on

20 the overhead projector the translation obtained from the Internet, at page

21 26 of 29, the top right-hand corner.

22 Cross-examined by Mr. Nice: [Continued]

23 Q. Thank you very much. Professor Popov, we were discussing

24 yesterday the Garasanin document Nacertanije, Garasanin having been in

25 office for some decades at a high level but his document having been kept

Page 34590

1 in a safe for some 60 years, and the document being significant because of

2 its reflection in, I suppose, 19th century Serb policy. You spoke to us

3 about it and how it was a non-violent document. You agreed yesterday with

4 one or two points of general principle, and we're now looking -- if you

5 look, please, at the Serbian version where it says, "The third basic

6 principle," on page 161. We have --

7 A. I can see that.

8 Q. And we have here from this document in the English translation the

9 following: "The third basic principle of this policy is that of unity of

10 nationalities, whose diplomatic representative is to be the government of

11 the Principality of Serbia. Whenever the validity of this principle is in

12 question, it is to the government that the Bosnians and other Slavs should

13 turn to for protection and every assistance. Serbia, in this respect,

14 must realise that she is the natural protector of all Slavs living in

15 Turkey, and that other Slavs will only concede her that right when she

16 takes upon herself the duty of doing and saying something in their name."

17 And if you would be good enough, please, then to turn over to, in

18 your page the following page, which is page 162, and in the Russian -- in

19 the Serbian version it's paragraph number 5.

20 If the usher would be good enough to turn over to page 27 of the

21 English version where we'll see similarly a paragraph numbered 5.

22 And after a first sentence in the English and the Serbian we can

23 see this: "Direct trade contact with foreign states through Zemun will

24 always be a distressing affair. Consequently, Serbia must secure a new

25 trade route which will connect her with the sea and provide her with a

Page 34591

1 port. For the present, the only route possible is the one which leads

2 through Skadar to Ulcinj"

3 Now, with those passages in mind and going back to yesterday's

4 questions, it's right, is it not, that the concept from Nacertanije

5 included Serbia having historic borders defined also ethnically, although

6 I suppose you might say linguistically, and that there was always to be

7 access to the sea, and the Serbs were to lead it with their dynasty;

8 correct?

9 A. Serbs would be under the protection and would be assisted by the

10 principality of Serbia. Any national movement of the Serbs and their

11 struggle for equal rights and liberation. That is one thing.

12 The second point is that in addition to this national interest,

13 Serbia has its economic interest, which it intends to fulfil through its

14 territories. That is to say in the direction of Ulcinj, which was

15 predominantly populated by Serbs. Nowadays Montenegrins, but at that time

16 in those days they felt profoundly Serb. So there was no clash of

17 interests between the two. I do not see this brings into question in any

18 way my interpretation from yesterday that Garasanin's Nacertanije is a

19 programme which does not advocate an aggressive policy.

20 Q. We are in agreement on that point.

21 MR. NICE: May the translation be given an exhibit number before I

22 forget about it, there being -- there may, of course, be forthcoming a

23 translation from our own department, I just don't know, but to avoid any

24 problem, may this be provided for the time?

25 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

Page 34592

1 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Nice, if you could help us whether the tab 2

2 contains all of Nacertanije or it's only a part of it?

3 MR. NICE: I think it probably contains pretty nearly all of it,

4 because we got towards the end of both documents in the last extracts. I

5 think it probably does but I haven't checked it paragraph for paragraph.

6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, there is developing in this Chamber a

7 science of exhibit marking which I don't like myself. I think the point

8 that is being made is that we haven't yet given a number to the Defence

9 exhibits.

10 MR. NICE: May I respectfully suggest that we give this a Defence

11 -- a Prosecution exhibit number and return later to the general issue of

12 the Defence exhibits. The witness has spoken about Nacertanije, therefore

13 it would have been open to me to put this document in in cross-examination

14 in any event whether the original was available or not.

15 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Yes, we'll do that.

16 MR. NICE: Thank you very much.

17 Q. Professor --

18 THE REGISTRAR: This will be Prosecution Exhibit number 805.

19 MR. NICE:

20 Q. Whatever Garasanin's intentions were in the 19th century,

21 Professor, things changed at the beginning of the 20th century because

22 Unification or Death, with its paramilitary wing the Black Hand came onto

23 the scene, that organisation being responsible in 1903 for the murder of

24 King Aleksandar Obrenovic, and then most famously in 1914 for the

25 assassination of Ferdinand in Sarajevo; correct?

Page 34593

1 A. Not quite, because it's not the same organisation. In 1903, there

2 was a conspiracy of a group of officers, and they liquidated the Obrenovic

3 dynasty. After that, the group fell apart. However, a large number of

4 the same persons who took part in the conspiracy of 1903 established in

5 1911 a new organisation, the Black Hand, which was indeed involved, as far

6 as present-day historiography knows, in the Sarajevo assassination. That

7 is what known on the basis of the admission of the leader of the Black

8 Hand organisation, Colonel Apis, who, among other things, was sentenced

9 for that at his trial in 1917, and was executed afterwards.

10 Q. Yes. We may come to that detail, maybe not, but the important

11 point is that the unification of Unification or Death, remind us, was

12 unification of Bosnia with Serbia; correct?

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. So that the concept of a Greater Serbia has moved from whatever

15 the peaceful connotations lying within Garasanin's policy and in his

16 hidden document, had moved from peaceful connotations to really

17 unacceptable violence.

18 A. Is that the end of the question?

19 Q. Yes, it is.

20 A. This paramilitary organisation, the Black Hand, did change the

21 methods. However, the objectives did not change. The unification of

22 Serbs from Bosnia and Serbs from Serbia was the foremost objective of the

23 Serb population in Bosnia, which at that part accounted for 44 per cent of

24 the total population, with about 32 per cent of Muslims and 22 per cent of

25 Croats. So the Bosnian Serbs almost unanimously sought unification with

Page 34594

1 Serbia.

2 Since the Serbian government at that point in time did not believe

3 that that could actually be implemented, not even in the near future, the

4 Young Bosnian organisation, which included Serbs, Croats, and Muslims,

5 among others, the Croats included Ivo Andric, who later became

6 Yugoslavia's foremost writer --

7 Q. Excuse me. I'm going to --

8 A. So, they could not get support from the government, they got in

9 touch with this paramilitary organisation which helped them carry out the

10 assassination.

11 Q. I'm asked or I'm reminded that there was, I think, no referendum

12 to support these statistics. Perhaps you'd just like to tell us what your

13 source is. Just identify the source, but I don't want to take time on it.

14 A. There was no referendum, but there was a census of the Habsburg

15 Monarchy from the year 1910.

16 Q. Okay. No time. But let's go back to my question. The concept of

17 Greater Serbia, enlarging Serbia, is now one that has with it violence and

18 death. Unification or Death. And I want you to think of this, please,

19 and I'm going to put the Prosecution's position to you for you to deal

20 with: Greater Serbia remained in some ways an unacceptable concept right

21 the way through to the '90s because it was always recognised as a concept

22 that could be effected only by violence. I'm going to suggest there's a

23 parallel. You as an historian and knowledgeable man will want to have

24 this in mind.

25 The IRA has been around for a long time. Any respectable

Page 34595

1 politician, until very recently supporting it, would have been associating

2 himself or herself with a known violent plan.

3 I come back to Serbia. By the time we come to the '90s, and we've

4 heard from lots of witnesses, Professor Popov, who have used the phrase

5 "Greater Serbia." Witnesses like Marinovic, the admiral in Dubrovnik;

6 witnesses like Stipe Mesic, and so on. We've understood the concept of

7 Greater Serbia from the other side, and we've heard that the accused was

8 careful never to use the phrase "Greater Serbia."

9 My question is this: From the moment Greater Serbia became a

10 known violent scheme if it was ever to be implemented, it became difficult

11 for people to espouse it publicly; is that correct?

12 A. That is not correct, because I do not accept at all the concept of

13 the existence of a plan for a Greater Serbia or the existence of a Greater

14 Serbia in any historical period of time, especially not in the 19th and

15 20th century. What you call a Greater Serbia, and now you are invoking

16 Stipe Mesic, Marinovic, and others, that does not speak of a concept of a

17 Greater Serbia at all. These testimonies and these positions actually

18 equate Yugoslavia to a Greater Serbia, and that is something that cannot

19 be equated. Yugoslavia was the country of all the Southern Slavs, and in

20 all fairness, a Greater Serbia never existed. Greater Serbia is only a

21 myth that I spoke of in the report I submitted here. This myth has its

22 origins and I think that I explained it sufficiently.

23 It would be interesting to hear how small should Serbia be so that

24 it would not be greater greater.

25 Q. Well, that's a concept I may myself raise with you, but let's move

Page 34596

1 sequentially and swiftly. In 1914, you drew to our attention the Nis

2 declaration. It's at tab 3 of your exhibits, if they are to be produced,

3 and it's the one document for which we have an English translation.

4 You read one sentence, or the accused invited you to read one

5 sentence, and I'm just going to turn to that. It's on the second of the

6 two sheets of translations that we have, and it makes an important point,

7 Professor, because it says this: "Assured of the resolve of the entire

8 Serbian nation to endure in this sacred struggle to defend their homes and

9 their liberty, the government of the kingdom considers securing the

10 successful completion of this great war which when it began at once became

11 a struggle to liberate and unite all our shackled brother Serbs, Croats,

12 and Slovenes, to be its main and indeed sole task in these fateful times."

13 It was clear, wasn't it, by this declaration that Serbians or

14 Serbs wanted, and they've always wanted, a unitary state; is that correct?

15 They've always wanted a unitary state.

16 A. That's absolutely correct. All European nations wanted the same

17 thing.

18 Q. And indeed, this has been one of the problems, I must suggest,

19 that Serb -- Serbia, right up until the 1990s, would not tolerate

20 federation but always wanted a unitary state of which it would be the

21 majority controller; isn't that correct?

22 A. No, that's not correct.

23 Q. Can you give me an example of --

24 A. Yes, I will, right away.

25 Q. -- of Serbia's willingness to be a confederate partner or to be

Page 34597

1 part of a body of which it was not the majority controlling partner?

2 A. Serbia never controlled the entire territory. The issue of

3 centralisation or federalism, that was the main problem between the two

4 world wars, and after the war it was accepted by Serbia. That is, the

5 federal solution was. What you're doing now is switching theses, saying

6 it did not accept confederation, but as you know, confederation and

7 federation are not one and the same thing.

8 Q. No, but my question, I think, remains unanswered. Can you please

9 point to an event showing Serbia's willingness to tolerate federation or

10 to be in any way a part of an arrangement where it wasn't the majority or

11 the largest component part?

12 A. Serbia accepted all the constitutions of the second Yugoslavia,

13 from the one of 1946 to the one of 1974. That was three different

14 constitutions and one constitutional law which governed the federal

15 relations within Yugoslavia. Serbia had its own republic. I have the

16 impression that you are now wondering why the Republic of Serbia had the

17 majority in its own republic. In every other republic, the majority

18 nations had their majority and dominated within their own republic.

19 Q. Very well, we'll come from '46 to '74 very shortly, but can we go

20 to the Corfu declaration. I'm afraid there's still no English version of

21 that, but it can be found at tab 5 of your documents, and there's one

22 short passage I'd like you to read on -- it's tab 5. I think it's -- 5

23 tab whatever it is, 3. I can't read it, 5 point something --

24 JUDGE KWON: 5.4 or --

25 MR. NICE:

Page 34598

1 Q. It's hard to read. But on page 36, 20th of July 1917, and if the

2 -- I'm sorry I haven't got --

3 MR. NICE: If the usher has got that, could you lay it on the

4 overhead projector. Bring it to me and I'll find it for you. I'm so

5 sorry. I should have made arrangements a little earlier. And the -- this

6 is a tab that is actually a collection of a whole lot of books, I think.

7 JUDGE KWON: Tab 5.5. Page 36.

8 MR. NICE: Yes.

9 Q. While this is going on the overhead projector, Professor, would

10 you read simply on the right-hand side the numbered 1 paragraph, starting

11 "Drzava Srba ..."

12 A. "The authorised representatives of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes --"

13 is that it? The state of the Serbs -- oh, yes, I see. "The state of

14 Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, also known under the name of Southern Slavs

15 or Yugoslavs, will be the free independent kingdom with a unified and

16 single citizenship. It will be a constitutional, democratic and

17 parliamentary monarchy headed by the Karadjordjevic dynasty which has

18 proved that through its ideas and feelings it is not separate from the

19 people and that it places the freedom and will of the people above

20 everything else."

21 Q. Now, the negotiations that led the Serbian government in exile to

22 be able to make this arrangement are complex and we don't have time to go

23 into them, and of course it involved dealing with Apis and having him

24 tried and executed, but what we see from this part of the agreement that

25 led to the establishment of the first Yugoslavia is that the Serbs had

Page 34599

1 obtained a unitary state with their monarch in charge or their monarch at

2 its head; correct?

3 A. That's correct. Others did not have dynasties.

4 Q. Now, before we move on from 1914, just two points. If academics

5 differ about something, serious academics differ about something, why,

6 then, the point is not beyond question, is it? It remains an open

7 question.

8 A. Of course, but I don't understand what you mean by "serious

9 academics." Do you mean to say there are academics who are not serious?

10 Q. Well, the answer to my next question may provide an answer to

11 yours. There are, are there not, serious Kosovo Albanian academics who

12 will take the view that Serbia did not have the right in 1914 to rule

13 Kosovo?

14 A. That is one of the possible scholarly opinions which may be

15 defended but which has to be set up against a number of other opinions by

16 other historians. This is an interesting issue in scholarship but not

17 relevant for the Court.

18 Q. That's all I need. Would you go to what is in English page 14 of

19 your report, and Ms. Dicklich will probably be able to alert me in -- my

20 mistake, Professor. Ms. Dicklich has been tracking the pages, and I

21 didn't give her warning. At page 14 in the English, you will find ...

22 A. Just tell me what document you're referring to. Oh, my report.

23 Yes, yes.

24 Q. 15 in your report, and it's in the paragraph that begins, "First

25 of all, all the territories that Garasanin considered as Serbia ..."

Page 34600

1 That's the paragraph I want you to look at, and I want you to look at the

2 last sentence of it.

3 A. You said page 15?

4 Q. Yes, I did. The paragraph begins, "First of all, all the

5 territories that Garasanin considered as Serbian ..."

6 A. Yes, yes, I found it.

7 Q. The last sentence of that -- now, of course this may be that

8 there's been a typographical error here, because the last sentence reads:

9 "The Serbs had an unquestionable historical right to Kosovo and

10 Metohija ..."

11 In light of your last answer to me about the approach to differing

12 academic views would lead to the correct position must be that the Serbs

13 had a questionable right to Kosovo and Metohija in 1914, mustn't it?

14 A. No. They had an unquestionable right because this was the centre

15 around which the Serbian medieval state was formed. And at that time --

16 Q. Professor Popov, I tried to deal with matters in order to save us

17 spending too much of our time in this trial in medieval history.

18 Serbs occupied Kosovo for a couple of hundred years up and

19 until --

20 A. Yes, but if you're asking about the historical right, I have to

21 say this.

22 Q. Just one minute. They occupied Kosovo for a couple of hundred

23 years up and until 1389 when they were famously defeated. Thereafter,

24 Kosovo was occupied by different people, the Hungarians and then the

25 Ottoman Empire and so on. You've just told me that there will be serious

Page 34601

1 Kosovo academics who would take a different view and would say that the

2 rights were not with Serbia in 1914, and you told me before that that if

3 academics differ, the question is not resolved unquestionably but it is an

4 open question, and I simply want, so that we can move on and not spend our

5 time in historical analysis, I want to reach the position where you will

6 accept that what happened in 1914 was a reflection of a questionable

7 right.

8 A. In 1914, nothing was happening on Kosovo and Metohija, but we

9 cannot avoid some historical facts, because you have listed a number of

10 erroneous facts, starting from the fact that the Serbs allegedly occupied

11 Kosovo in the 13th century, which is not true because they settled there

12 in the 6th and 7th centuries when the Slavs settled the Balkan Peninsula.

13 They were at the time Slavs, not Serbs. The battle of Kosovo was in 1389,

14 and this was almost exclusively Serb territory on which the Albanian

15 population settled gradually, starting in the 15th and 16th centuries.

16 The connections -- there were connections, of course, between Serbs and

17 Albanians throughout the Middle Ages, and this was for the most part good

18 cooperation.

19 In 1914, nothing happened. The Serbs liberated the cradle of

20 their nation in the year 1912.

21 Q. And Kosovo was annexed to Serbia. That's the term that's used,

22 isn't it?

23 A. Yes. It was taken from Turkey. This was the Turkish Kosovo

24 Vilajet and included in the Serbian state.

25 Q. And to clear the decks, as we say in the vernacular, other

Page 34602

1 academics write of enormous Albanian suffering, the slaughtering of

2 thousands of Albanians by the Serbs in 1913 and thereabouts, don't they?

3 We don't want to resolve the issue, I just want you to confirm that there

4 is plenty of writing to that effect.

5 A. There is testimony in the Vienna press and in the Carnegie

6 Foundation that there were Serb crimes on Kosovo and Metohija, but there

7 are also numerous testimonies, as Mr. Terzic said, that there was armed

8 resistance by Albanian units and revenge attacks against the Serb army,

9 because the Albanians who were by that time the demographic majority did

10 not wish to accept Serbian authority.

11 Q. Professor Popov, I doubt if the Court is going to want to decide

12 the issue, and it's probably enough for us to know that there are

13 competing -- Before we move on from the First World War, we mentioned

14 yesterday the one -- one of the two London conference maps which was the

15 one which showed what was ceded to Italy by way of agreement. We've now

16 managed to track down the other map which can be produced and given an

17 exhibit number. It was the map you were speaking of, I think.

18 MR. NICE: It's come off a website, Your Honours. You can see the

19 Serbian Unity Congress, of which I think we've heard earlier.

20 A. You can find a much better map than this one, much clearer. There

21 is a book that has been published in English and Serbian containing maps

22 of our territories, and there exists a very good map, both of the London

23 treaty and of the proposals and offers made to Serbia as compensation for

24 the territories that the South Slav peoples would lose through the

25 implementation of the London treaty. This is the map before me.

Page 34603

1 Q. If you'd be good enough to indulge me by just looking at the map

2 I've produced at the moment, because we seem to be able to understand that

3 that's authoritative, but if you've got a better map, do. It's now

4 on the overhead projector. It isn't. Perhaps it can be placed -- there

5 it is. Perhaps we can put a copy on the overhead projector as well, if we

6 have a spare copy.

7 A. Of course I have a better one. Do you want to put my map on the

8 ELMO?

9 Q. We'll work with my mine for the time being. And the point is a

10 very simple one.

11 A. Very well.

12 Q. The point is a very simple one: If you look at the territorial

13 limits imposed for Serbia, encompassing all of Bosnia and Montenegro and

14 indeed, although it's not shown, I think Macedonia, it would be a truly

15 enlarged Serbia, isn't it, or would be a truly enlarged Serbia.

16 A. Yes. Yes, but this is a proposal by the allied forces, not a

17 demand made by Serbia. That's what I said.

18 Q. Now, but it's a much enlarged Serbia. If in 1991 any one or two

19 persons were planning the scale of Serbia premised on this map, were that

20 to have happened, they would be thinking very much in Greater Serbian

21 terms, wouldn't they?

22 A. First of all, you say "anyone," but it's important to say who was

23 making these plans. Certainly the Serb government and the Serb people as

24 a whole and their legitimate political bodies were not planning this. The

25 Serbia created at the time would not have been a Greater Serbia.

Page 34604

1 Q. Professor, if you'd be good enough to stick within your area of

2 expertise and what you're here to help us with. I'm going to come back to

3 my question, but I'm going to approach it with a couple of intervening

4 questions.

5 The man on the Belgrade street in 1991, using the concept or

6 thinking about or talking about Greater Serbia, wouldn't have in mind the

7 wealth of historical knowledge that you have, would he?

8 A. I presume not.

9 Q. He would be thinking in very general terms.

10 A. I don't know. Probably.

11 Q. Seselj, who of all did have the candor to speak in Greater Serbian

12 terms and indeed to title his magazine "Greater Serbia," would be

13 attracting supporters who would be thinking in general expansionist terms

14 of a larger Serbian state that would encompass all Serbs; correct?

15 A. There is no doubt that Seselj spoke of this, but in this case, in

16 the proceedings against President Milosevic, I do not see the relevance of

17 this, because President Milosevic was the legitimate leader at the time,

18 not Seselj, who was simply an agitator who was attempting to win over as

19 many voters as possible.

20 JUDGE ROBINSON: Professor, don't comment on the relevance of the

21 evidence. That's a matter for the Chamber. If we find it is irrelevant,

22 we'll say so.

23 MR. NICE:

24 Q. So I come back to my question. Please don't worry about who we're

25 thinking about or who we're going to identify. If anybody in the 1990s,

Page 34605

1 1991, talked of Serb borders as roughly revealed in the London agreement

2 map, he or she would be thinking in essentially Greater Serbia terms.

3 That's correct, isn't it?

4 A. Do you know how many people in Great Britain spoke about colonial

5 conquests? Should the Britons of today be held responsible because they

6 had millions of people agitating for a colonial policy?

7 JUDGE ROBINSON: Professor, if you're not in a position to answer

8 the question, then say so, but what you just provided was a comment, not

9 an answer to the question.

10 Are you in a position to answer the question?

11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The Prosecutor asked me whether

12 there was any support to the ideas of Greater Serbia. Was that the

13 question? Maybe I misunderstood him.

14 JUDGE ROBINSON: From the transcript, the question was, "If

15 anybody in the 1990s, 1991, talked of Serb borders as roughly revealed in

16 the London agreement map, that person would have been thinking in

17 essentially Greater Serbia terms," and you were asked to say whether that

18 was correct.

19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, that person would be thinking

20 in this way.

21 MR. NICE:

22 Q. Let's pick up the history with the end of the First World War and

23 a little detail. We've got the democratic government, the democratic

24 unitary government presided over by King Aleksandar Karadjordjevo until he

25 was to make himself a dictator in 1929. The intervening governments, 26

Page 34606

1 perhaps in all, were all Serb majority governments, weren't they?

2 A. They were mixed. The minister of foreign affairs in the first

3 government was Ante Trulic [phoen], and for a long time the minister of

4 the interior was Anton Korosec. These were two key positions, if I'm not

5 wrong.

6 Q. They were Serb majority governments, and the proposition, I don't

7 want to --

8 A. That's correct.

9 Q. Thank you. And the proposition I want you to deal with is a very

10 simple one. The notion of Greater Serbia doesn't need to bubble up and

11 doesn't need to become vital as long as Serbs were in charge, as long as

12 Serbs were running things, and it only surfaces, as we're going to see,

13 when Serbs start to lose control, and so up and until the dictatorship of

14 the king, we actually -- you had Serb domination. No need for Greater

15 Serbia to arise. Would that be correct?

16 A. I don't know what you imagine when you speak of Serb domination.

17 It is true that Serbs were in a majority in the army. The Serb army

18 immediately accepted 2.500 Austro-Hungarian officers into its ranks, many

19 of them generals. They had been at war with them before. They accepted

20 all the Austro-Hungarian civil servants, the entire education system, and

21 then only gradually brought this into conformity.

22 JUDGE ROBINSON: Again I think you're not directing yourself to

23 the specific question that was asked, and I think what the Prosecutor was

24 suggesting, that the concept of a Greater Serbia only evidenced itself

25 when the Serbs started to lose control. There was no need for reliance on

Page 34607

1 the concept as long as the Serbs were in charge. Do you accept that

2 general proposition? Is that a fair analysis?

3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No, it's not a fair analysis,

4 because in that case, the second Yugoslavia would have been a Greater

5 Croatian state, because most of the leading people in the top stratum were

6 Croats. I would not accept this interpretation.

7 MR. NICE:

8 Q. We're going to come to the second Yugoslavia in a second. Let's

9 move on. The king became a dictator, the Croats became radicalised, and

10 from your very own Vojvodina, some people, I think, think this was the

11 cultural heart of Serbia, would be the position probably you'd take, we

12 have the arrival of the Serb Cultural Club, don't we, and the appearance

13 of people like Cubrilovic and his extraordinary documents proposing ethnic

14 movements and recommending the use of violence.

15 A. What's your question?

16 Q. Well, am I right in thinking that with the radicalisation of the

17 Croats we have the development of arguments in the Serb Cultural Club

18 favouring now again a violent solution to Serbia's perceived problem?

19 A. The radicalisation of the Croatian issue began in 1920, and it was

20 put forward publicly by Stjepan Radic, the most prominent leader of the

21 Croatian people at the time, in 1921, and he had a very radical demands.

22 I have submitted here an interview given by him to the Daily News in which

23 he defines precisely what the Croatian demands were. They were very

24 radical.

25 From that point on until 1941, the Croatian question dominated in

Page 34608

1 the politics of Yugoslavia.

2 Q. Professor Popov, you may not know this, but we looked at the

3 Cubrilovic memorandum of 1937, and we discussed, although we haven't yet

4 looked at the even more violently termed memorandum of 1944. We can make

5 it available if necessary. In the face of difficulties from the Croats,

6 Serb nationalism picks up its violent potential, doesn't it, and that's

7 what happened in the lead-up to the war?

8 JUDGE ROBINSON: Just concentrate on the specific question,

9 Professor, before you answer it.

10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Cubrilovic's memorandum that you

11 mention has nothing to do with Serbo-Croatian relations. Cubrilovic

12 declared himself as a Serbo-Croat, as a member of the Young Bosna

13 organisation. They all felt to be the members of one nation. So

14 Cubrilovic's memorandum referred to Kosovo and Metohija. And unless I'm

15 mistaken, whether it was a memorandum of 1937 about the document dating

16 back to 1944 that you mention, I don't know anything about that, nor did

17 anybody ever speak about that in Yugoslav historiography.

18 MR. NICE:

19 Q. As well as Cubrilovic, we have Moljevic, of whom you have spoken.

20 Let's have a look at the Moljevic map, which comes after the war.

21 MR. NICE: Can we just display that? And can it go on the

22 overhead projector, please, with the -- the second version, which is

23 clearer than the first, and it's got English description on it. Yes.

24 Perhaps, Usher, if you would display the first version in the Serbian

25 language and then turn immediately, having shown it once, then turn to the

Page 34609

1 second page where we can see the better English version.

2 So this is Moljevic's map - there it is - in its original form.

3 And if we turn to the next page we have it in the English form. And it's

4 at tab 7, for Professor Popov, of his own documents if he wants to see it.

5 Q. The English version makes clear thus: That at the end of the war,

6 Moljevic was proposing an extraordinary expansion, wasn't he, of Serb

7 territory, starting at the south, taking in Scuttarisodar [phoen], taking

8 parts of Bulgaria, taking parts of Romania, Hungary, and leaving Croatia

9 with a very small split territory. We can see a part to the east just

10 north-east of Banja Luka, and then the little sort of butterfly shaped bit

11 south of Slovenia. And I'll -- that's what the map shows, doesn't it?

12 A. Yes, that's right.

13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] But please, Your Honour, might I be

14 allowed to say something at this point? The Prosecutor is meddling in

15 things that he has absolutely not got the right information about.

16 Moljevic and Vasa Cubrilovic are like heaven and earth. They have

17 absolutely nothing to do with each other. That's one point.

18 And second, Moljevic's map, and I don't know whether the

19 Prosecutor has followed -- followed what I said, my conversation with

20 President Milosevic yesterday and the day before when we discussed the

21 Moljevic map in the examination-in-chief. It dates to 1941. That is to

22 say the very beginning of the war when the terrible terror against the

23 Serbs was launched. And it was not accepted even in the staff of Draza

24 Mihajlovic in its entirety. In 1944, it was definitely overruled by the

25 Serb people fighting in the national liberation army.

Page 34610

1 Q. Please confirm that the line that we see that would be the

2 south-eastern border of that butterfly-shaped bit left for Croatia runs

3 either precisely or generally along the Karlobag-Virovitica-Karlovac

4 line. It does, doesn't it?

5 A. Yes, but it wasn't accepted by anybody in Serbia.

6 Q. You see, Professor, you're helping us by giving us an account of

7 the overall history of the concept of Greater Serbia, and I'm just -- and

8 we're interested to see --

9 A. That's why I'm here, yes.

10 Q. -- what other ideas were in Serbs minds, and here we have one

11 which sets up this north-western demarcation, Karlobag-Virovitica-Karlobag

12 and there it is in that map. So thank you very much. Let's move on now

13 to the period that you were concerned about a little earlier.

14 After the Second World War, under Tito's Yugoslavia, for a long

15 time there was a tension between the weakened Serbia and the decentralised

16 former Yugoslavia; correct?

17 A. No. No.

18 Q. [Previous translation continues] ...

19 A. Yes, I will correct you. There was no tension between Serbia and

20 the new or, rather, the second Yugoslavia right up until the 1960s of the

21 20th century, that is to say the beginning of the policy that was waged

22 towards decentralisation for Yugoslavia with the aim of breaking it up.

23 It was only then that those tensions began.

24 Q. Very well. I'm not necessarily needing to challenge you too much

25 on that, because we can go to what is page 36 in the English of your

Page 34611

1 report, and it's 39 - thank you - in the Serbian version of your report.

2 Perhaps you'd be good enough. And we will find something else that you

3 and I agree about.

4 A. Yes.

5 Q. And I'm not -- it's sort of halfway through quite a long

6 paragraph, Professor. You make this point -- two lines down, Your

7 Honours: "Campaigns against Serbian nationalism, centralism, and hegemony

8 reached their climax at the time when decisive measures to weaken the

9 Yugoslav Federation were being applied: during the constitutional changes

10 in 1963, the Brijuni Plenary --" which I think was in 1966.

11 A. Yes, that's right, '66.

12 Q. "... the removal from the political scene of the most prominent

13 Serb in the state leadership (Aleksandar Rankovic) in 1966, the

14 constitutional changes between 1971 and 1974, after Tito's death in 1980,

15 the separatist movement in Kosovo and Metohija in 1981 and the appearance

16 of the SANU memorandum in 1986."

17 You see those events as landmark events in thought, politics, and

18 so on, leading up to this conflict, don't you?

19 A. That's right. We now agree, and we agree that it began in the

20 1960s and not immediately after the war.

21 Q. And --

22 A. Twenty years is 20 years, isn't it?

23 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

24 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please. Microphone.

25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I think that it is -- yes, it's on

Page 34612

1 now. I think that the question is improper, because it forgets the first

2 sentence of that paragraph in which Professor Popov says that in a refined

3 form, this irrational theory on the economic and political plane was

4 continued, et cetera, et cetera, and then it goes on to speak about the

5 campaign against Serbian nationalism, centralism, and hegemony. So he's

6 talking about an irrational theory first. And if we forget that and leave

7 that behind and then start the quotation at another point, then we get a

8 completely different picture of what Mr. -- Professor Popov is saying. So

9 this is intellectually improper.

10 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Milosevic. That's precisely the

11 kind of matter that you could raise in re-examination if you think the

12 Prosecutor has omitted something.

13 MR. NICE: I'm grateful to Professor Popov for accepting

14 absolutely that my question to him was one he could accept.

15 Q. Now, I come back to my original question -- not my original

16 question, my earlier question. The problem here in 1966 and onwards was

17 simply that Serbia wasn't or didn't see itself as being in charge. It was

18 a -- a less important partner in what was a non-central state. That was

19 its problem.

20 A. Its problem was that after the constitutional amendments, it says

21 here that they started from 1971, but it started in 1967 and 1971 was the

22 day -- was the year of the important amendments, was that it was unequal

23 within the composition of the Yugoslav federation, and its struggles

24 starting in those days, which was discrete in intellectual circles to

25 begin with and in the 1980s in political circles, too, was to strike a

Page 34613

1 balance to return its equal and equitable status within the Yugoslav

2 federation, because the balance was upset by the provinces, among others,

3 who were able to control its policy. And in its own provinces and its own

4 territory, it had no competencies.

5 Q. One of my earlier questions was this. Perhaps you'd deal with it

6 again. It's in exact -- differently cast. It's in exactly this type of

7 political environment that you have yourself described that the concept of

8 Greater Serbia was likely to arise again as a beacon for politicians and

9 indeed probably did arise again; correct?

10 A. No. That is your combination of facts. I have not seen that

11 anywhere, nor have I read it anywhere.

12 Q. But because it was starting in the lead-up to the First World War

13 a concept that everybody recognised involved criminal violence, it

14 couldn't be spoken about very openly.

15 A. Which concept? I don't think I followed you.

16 Q. Greater Serbia couldn't be spoken about openly because everybody

17 knew it could only be achieved through violence. Which is exactly what

18 happened.

19 A. That's not true. Throughout my testimony here and everything else

20 I said here was to show you and prove that a concept of Greater Serbia did

21 not exist and that the unification of Serb lands around Serbia was not a

22 Greater Serbia.

23 Q. We now look at this exhibit, which is Exhibit 786.

24 JUDGE ROBINSON: Professor. Professor, in relation to that last

25 answer, you say that unification of Serb lands around Serbia was not a

Page 34614

1 Greater Serbia. What would you describe that as?

2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Serbia.

3 JUDGE ROBINSON: Serbia. I see. Thank you.

4 MR. NICE:

5 Q. And of course -- I'm going to come to this quite soon with a

6 couple of maps, but to pick up from His Honour Judge Robinson's question,

7 unifying those Serbs around Serbia with Serbia makes for a Serbia that is

8 a bit bigger, doesn't it?

9 A. That's right, yes. Somewhat bigger, yes.

10 Q. Very well. Can we just look at this exhibit, please, which is

11 Exhibit 786. It comes again from this magazine Epoha. Now -- I'm glad

12 you find the magazine entertaining. I just want to remind you of

13 something that I think probably your friend and colleague - you must tell

14 me if I'm wrong about that - Mihailo Markovic said about it when he was

15 asked questions about it here in court.

16 He was asked, "You're aware of a magazine called Epoha, I think?"

17 He said, "Epoha?" And I asked him, "Yes."

18 [Trial Chamber confers]

19 MR. NICE:

20 Q. And he said, "If that is the same magazine that was published for

21 a while by the Socialist Party of Serbia, I do." So he seemed to be

22 acknowledging that this was the Serbian party's magazine. And you'll

23 remember that we looked at that one revealing, if it is, imprint detail in

24 June of 2002, showing that the magazine was founded by the SPS party.

25 Now, I'd like you to look at this magazine and look first of all

Page 34615

1 at the map that I hope will be displayed --

2 A. I looked at it yesterday.

3 Q. Very well. Look at it again for me.

4 A. Yes. And for the Tribunal ten more times if need be.

5 Q. That's very cooperative of you. Thank you.

6 I think perhaps -- can I have the copy and then I'll find it for

7 you. Yes. That's fine. Thank you very much.

8 Now, the map that will be on your screen or on the overhead

9 projector to your left has a legend, and we know what the legend says, I

10 think, but just look at the map. It says -- the line on the top left-hand

11 side which is said to be the preferred line, the optimum line, the best

12 line, runs along, of course, Karlobag-Virovitica-Karlobag, doesn't it?

13 MR. NICE: And Your Honours can find this in the English

14 translation on the first page after the title page where this line is

15 marked as the Optimal Western Border of Serbian Countries.

16 Q. Now, the title of the article, we haven't time to go through the

17 whole article, it's a long one, but it says, "How are we --" I emphasise

18 the word "we" "-- going to draw new borders?" And here are the proposals

19 put out in the SPS founded magazine. Isn't this, in effect, a proposal

20 for a Greater Serbia? It came after the failure of The Hague conference.

21 A. If you recall, and if you were following what I said yesterday, I

22 said this: First of all, that I had no idea about the Epoha magazine at

23 all. I received it before leaving for The Hague and read it here for the

24 first time.

25 Secondly, it was not a magazine of the Socialist Party.

Page 34616

1 And thirdly, the interpretation of the title of that article is

2 not how we are going to divide up our borders but how we and the Croats

3 are going to do so. And that is something that you would understand on

4 the basis of the text, the article itself. But that is one of the

5 possible combinations that were offered up in the critical period of 1990

6 and 1991, 1992, and 1993, in those years, so that I do not consider this

7 to be any particularly serious proposal which anybody put forward, that is

8 to say any of the organs in Serbia. Otherwise, I would have known about

9 it.

10 JUDGE ROBINSON: I allowed you those introductory remarks,

11 Professor, but you should still answer the question whether that in effect

12 is not a proposal for a Greater Serbia. I allowed you the introductory

13 explanatory remarks, but you should still answer that question.

14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Had it been realised, it would have

15 been a Greater Serbia, but nobody moved towards implementing it.

16 MR. NICE:

17 Q. You see, Professor, just so that you can understand the ground

18 rules, I think the question of who -- whose magazine this was is something

19 for the Judges, of course, ultimately, and your answer now very

20 helpfully --

21 A. That's right, yes.

22 Q. Thank you. Your answer now matches your answer that you gave when

23 I asked you whether anybody talking about the London agreement map in 1990

24 would be thinking about a Greater Serbia. These maps are all very

25 similar, aren't they, in their north-western boundary, along with the

Page 34617

1 Moljevic map, and anybody thinking in these terms in the 1990s, as you

2 already explained, would be thinking in Greater Serbian terms. That's

3 correct, isn't it?

4 A. Well, I can't say what other people's thinking was like. I know

5 that there were dozens of topics that were discussed of this kind. Now, I

6 can't enter into other people's minds and know what other people thought.

7 JUDGE ROBINSON: That's a very good legalistic answer.

8 MR. NICE:

9 Q. Can we look at one more exhibit of the Epoha magazines, which

10 comes from the 7th of January, 1992. But before we come to that, which is

11 a new exhibit, do you know of the Belgrade initiative?

12 A. Which one do you mean? I know the one dating back to the Second

13 World War.

14 Q. The one in 1992.

15 A. I don't know about that one.

16 Q. Late 1991.

17 A. I don't know about that.

18 Q. Well, could you have a look at this map even so for us. Because

19 you've been giving us answers about the political developments in the

20 1990s, and here's a copy of Epoha for the 7th of January, 1992. The

21 article in Serbian, and we can see it in English, is Yugoslavia For The

22 Third Time. And the map which we can see, and I'd ask the usher to

23 display, records areas in Bosnia having a Serb majority at that time, so

24 it was believed.

25 We come to the text, and I'd ask you, please, in the Serb text to

Page 34618

1 go to about the second page where the map is shown. You'll find a

2 paragraph which begins: "All debatable territories should be put under UN

3 protectorate." Have you found that paragraph?

4 A. I've found the map but not the paragraph. Is that on page 1 or

5 page 2?

6 Q. It should be further. Sorry. My mistake for not marking it in

7 advance. I think it's probably -- yes. It's on page -- if you look at

8 the top right-hand corner, it's the page numbered 9967 and it's on the

9 left-hand column and it's the first paragraph, "Sves Ulja" [phoen].

10 A. This is a poor copy. Yes. "All debatable territories should

11 be --" et cetera. I found it.

12 Q. And it reads roughly as follows: "All debatable territories --"

13 sorry, it's on English page bottom right-hand corner 3 of 10. "All

14 debatable territories should be put under UN protectorate and UN Blue

15 Helmets. In this way may be provided a better protection for Serbian

16 people in Croatia against Croatian Army aggression and in the same time in

17 the possibility to speak out about their new state would be created for

18 inhabitants (in five or more years)." Translation could probably be

19 improved, Your Honours.

20 But then this sentence: "In 90 per cent of cases the territories

21 that had been under UN protection sooner or later got the right for

22 independence."

23 Now, if we look again at the map, the questioned areas, and His

24 Honour Judge Robinson's question to you earlier about Serb areas in

25 Bosnia, wasn't this following the failure of The Hague conference and

Page 34619

1 indeed the non-success of the Belgrade initiative, but you're not aware of

2 that, I accept that, wasn't this aimed to get these territories, possibly

3 on the back of UN protection, simply Greater Serbia by another name?

4 A. After this lengthy question of yours, I'm not sure I was able to

5 follow you throughout, but never mind. Do you want my comment to the text

6 or some other answer?

7 Q. I want your comment on the proposition that this plan to take

8 these identified territories, if necessary on the backs of UN protection,

9 if this wasn't Greater Serbia by another name.

10 A. I said that I didn't know about this text, but from what I'm

11 seeing now for the first time, I don't think that there can be any

12 question of any covert creation of a Greater Serbia, and I don't

13 understand why the United Nations organisation and the Blue Helmets would

14 create their protectorate if they were going to form a Greater Serbia.

15 They fought for that justifiably and unjustifiably to begin with.

16 Q. Would you please look at another document which was shown in

17 opening but has not been exhibited, but nevertheless I'd like it to be

18 displayed with the last map of January 1992 in the SPS in mind.

19 This map, I'm going to suggest, reflects pictorially the position

20 as of December 1992 for Serb-controlled areas, and the Serb-controlled

21 areas are the light blue. So if we put it on the overhead projector, we

22 see on the -- I think the other way around. Thanks. If we look at the

23 left hand part, we see something not dissimilar from the map in Epoha.

24 And if we look towards the boundaries with Montenegro, Serbia to the east,

25 we see something slightly different, because we see light blue reflecting

Page 34620

1 the capture of areas by the Drina River subject to the protected areas of

2 Srebrenica, Gorazde, and Zepa.

3 Now, assuming if you will, Professor, that this is an accurate map

4 showing the front lines of Serb-controlled areas at the end of December

5 1992, and again with your answer to His Honour Judge Robinson in mind,

6 isn't what happened simply the realisation of Greater Serbia, at least so

7 far as possible?

8 A. No. This map shows, if it is a true and proper map, and I assume

9 it is, I accept it as being such, shows which territories were controlled

10 by the Bosnian Serbs since they had resisted the decisions taken by the

11 Bosnia-Herzegovina Assembly by which Bosnia should have seceded from

12 Yugoslavia. And then we saw the conflict that came about in April 1992,

13 which in my profound conviction was caused by the Bosnian Muslims. These

14 were territories controlled by the armed forces of today's Republika

15 Srpska or, rather, the Republic of the Bosnian Serbs and not Serbia

16 proper.

17 MR. NICE: Will Your Honour give me one minute? I have an eye on

18 the time, but I know we started a few minutes late. Just give me one

19 minute.

20 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

21 [Prosecution counsel confer]

22 MR. NICE: Your Honour, my concern is to try and -- you will

23 understand that with the scale of evidence given by this witness, I could

24 have spent a great deal of time asking him questions on matters of detail,

25 but I'm trying to finish, if at all possible, in the next few minutes. If

Page 34621

1 you give me just five minutes, I think I probably can.

2 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Yes. Go ahead.

3 MR. NICE: It's more convenient to the Court, I would think.

4 Q. There is one matter that I just wanted to touch with you. It's

5 out of order. It's the Cutileiro Plan, about which you gave evidence

6 yesterday.

7 Can I display -- it may not be copied. I'll have it copied over

8 the break. Can I display in English and B/C/S a document, and it's an

9 entirely discrete topic on the Cutileiro Plan.

10 What we see and -- thank you. If you have a look at the top of

11 it. It's a new document and it's my mistake for not having alerted

12 Ms. Dicklich to getting it copied and dealt with. It comes from the

13 Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the 9th of August, 1994, and it's

14 brief information on the so-called Cutileiro Plan for the former

15 Bosnia-Herzegovina.

16 If the usher would be good enough to take us to the next page as

17 we don't have time to read it in detail. That's fine.

18 These two paragraphs: "From the current point of view it is

19 obvious that it made a fatal mistake." Sorry.

20 "Cutileiro's plan was firstly accepted by all three involved

21 parties in Bosnia-Herzegovina. But soon after it Muslim side rejected

22 that plan, thus additionally inciting the break-out of the war in this

23 former Yugoslavia republic.

24 "From the current point of view, it is obvious that it made a

25 fatal mistake. Apart from the bloody civil war, later plans of the

Page 34622

1 international community (save for Vance-Owen plan), including the last

2 plan of the Contact Group, proved to be more favourable for the Serbian

3 side.

4 "But the value of the Cutileiro Plan rested with that the

5 international community already at that time showed its readiness to

6 legalise and verify internationally and legally the borders of Serbian

7 territories in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Unfortunately, even after the two-year

8 war in this former Yugoslav republic, these borders have not been formally

9 recognised."

10 Now I wanted you to consider that document which you may not have

11 had a chance to consider before because it shows that the reason there was

12 favouring of the Cutileiro Plan --

13 A. No.

14 Q. -- was -- we see the origin of the document, because there was

15 readiness, it was perceived, by the international community to legalise

16 and verify the borders of the Serbian territories in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

17 That's the reason this plan was favoured. Correct?

18 A. That's right, because this is about the borders of the Serb people

19 in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and we must be precise in differentiating between

20 the borders of the Serbian people in Bosnia-Herzegovina from the borders

21 of the Republic of Serbia. So it is not the legalisation of the borders

22 of the Republic of Serbia but the Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina who were

23 calling for protection.

24 Q. And if -- this is, of course, a matter for the Judges, but if

25 there was to be in the minds of those planning these things ultimate

Page 34623

1 joining up of the territories of Bosnia with the Serb -- with Serbia

2 itself, that amounts to the desire for a Greater Serbia, doesn't it?

3 A. No, that would not mean that, because today there are separate

4 ties between Serbia and Republika Srpska economic, social, cultural,

5 political, and it doesn't mean the creation of a Greater Serbia.

6 Q. If the plan had been to join up those territories, then in the

7 minds of those planning that connection, there was the concept of a

8 Greater Serbia, just as with the London agreement map, just as with the

9 map in Epoha?

10 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, in light of the last answer to a

11 question like that, perhaps you should omit the reference to the minds of

12 those planning that connection and just simply ask whether the joining up

13 of those territories would be consistent with the concept of a Greater

14 Serbia.

15 MR. NICE: Certainly, yes. I'm grateful for the formulation.

16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I'm also grateful to Mr. Robinson

17 for having made it impossible to put questions in the conditional.

18 I do not believe that this could be identified with efforts to

19 make a Greater Serbia.

20 MR. NICE:

21 Q. And my last question is this: You're a member of the SPS and have

22 been for a long time. It's right, isn't it, that the SPS cooperated with

23 Seselj's party in 1991 and 1992? And indeed at one stage, the accused

24 referred to Seselj as the best politician he knew. Are both those

25 propositions correct? 1992, 1993, I'm reminded. I'm grateful.

Page 34624

1 A. I don't know about that cooperation. I know that they established

2 a national unity government in 1998, if I'm not mistaken. If I am

3 mistaken, Mr. Milosevic can correct me.

4 Q. Very well. Thank you very much.

5 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, have you dealt with your exhibits?

6 MR. NICE: Oh, no, I haven't. May the second Epoha magazine,

7 please, be exhibited?

8 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

9 JUDGE KWON: Why don't you start from the Serbian Unity Congress.

10 London Treaty, second map.

11 MR. NICE: Indeed, yes. I should have started with that. Thank

12 you very much.

13 THE REGISTRAR: That will be Prosecution Exhibit 806.

14 MR. NICE: Then --

15 JUDGE KWON: Moljevic's map.

16 MR. NICE: The Moljevic map would come next, I think --

17 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please. Microphone for Mr. Nice.

18 MR. NICE: It's been in before in part, but maybe the best thing

19 is simply to put it in as a separate exhibit and be done with it. It's

20 only two sheets.

21 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

22 MR. NICE: Thank you very much.

23 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit number 807.

24 MR. NICE: Then the 7th of January, 1992, edition of Epoha.

25 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit 808.

Page 34625

1 MR. NICE: Your Honour, the map which is, as I acknowledge

2 something that was shown in opening, has not been produced. May it be

3 produced as a -- the word I'm looking for I've forgotten. A demonstrative

4 guide really, because it's not produced by anyone. The witness is good

5 enough to say that he accepts it as accurate for what it is, but I accept,

6 of course, that it doesn't at the moment have a witness producing it, but

7 it may serve as a demonstrative guide of what our position is.

8 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, it can be exhibited, in the Chamber's view.

9 MR. NICE: Thank you very much.

10 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit number 809.

11 MR. NICE: And then finally the Foreign Ministry -- the Federal

12 Ministry of Foreign Affairs letter on the Cutileiro Plan of the 9th of

13 August, 1994.

14 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit number 810.

15 MR. NICE: And I'm grateful for that. So far as the Defence

16 exhibits are concerned, I don't believe any further English translations

17 have found their way to us since the evidence started yesterday.

18 JUDGE ROBINSON: At the end of the re-examination, the Chamber

19 will give a ruling on the exhibits in the -- produced in

20 examination-in-chief.

21 Mr. Milosevic, do you have -- do you plan to re-examine?

22 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I was just saying that my

24 re-examination will be very, very brief, because I'm in a great hurry on

25 account of Professor Mihailovic, who is supposed to finish before you

Page 34626

1 adjourn tomorrow. So I hope that I will manage.

2 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Thank you.

3 We will adjourn now for 20 minutes. The legal officer is to

4 report to Chambers.

5 --- Recess taken at 10.42 a.m.

6 --- On resuming at 11.10 a.m.

7 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, you may begin.

8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. Robinson.

9 Re-examined by Mr. Milosevic:

10 Q. [Interpretation] Professor Popov, Mr. Nice quoted part of a

11 passage from your expert paper, on page 39, it is the one but last page in

12 your report, and he said that that is what led to the conflict

13 subsequently. I would like to read out the entire passage to you now and

14 then you can give me an answer whether that kind of assertion can be made

15 on the basis of what you wrote here or is the assertion completely

16 different? And I'm going to read the entire paragraph now.

17 "Following a short period of the so-called partisan Yugoslavdom

18 (actually, Yugoslav patriotism), this irrational theory --" underlined

19 that -- "was adopted in a refined and reduced form as an economic and

20 political plan in the socialist Yugoslavia in the 1960s (as a kind of

21 testament of the most prominent Croatian national-communist Andrija

22 Hebrang) by Croatia's leading politicians ..." and then they are

23 mentioned.

24 And then: "They enjoyed strong support from the separatists of

25 other nations (Slovene Edvard Kardelj and other Yugoslav politicians) and

Page 34627

1 set off to 'disassemble' Yugoslavia gradually to the accompaniment of the

2 increasingly deafening cries about the threat of Greater Serbian

3 centralism and nationalism which jeopardised the development and

4 democratisation of the state. Most Serbian communists who were unable to

5 challenge this strident and organised group of assailants at Greater

6 Serbian nationalism joined them in an attempt to safeguard their position

7 in society and the government. Campaigns against Serbian nationalism,

8 centralism, and hegemony reached their climax at the time when decisive

9 measures to weaken the Yugoslav Federation were being applied ..."

10 I'm asking you now, Professor, whether there was any kind of

11 Serbian nationalism, centralism, and hegemonism at the time, because

12 you're talking about these campaigns?

13 A. The aim of these campaigns were to mask the disassembling of the

14 Federation. That's what I called it. So there was no Serbian

15 nationalism, centralism, and hegemonism at the time, but what they were

16 bringing out of the darks of history was this in order to create

17 independent states of their own and to mask their own tendencies.

18 You read this about the Serbian communists, and most of the

19 Serbian communists didn't do anything else but from the 1960s, from 1966

20 until Tito's death in 1980, they simply went around saying that there was

21 no Serbian nationalism and that they would suppress it wherever it might

22 crop up. And they kept asking others for their understanding, saying that

23 they should be trusted and they would thwart this nationalism wherever it

24 may appear.

25 Q. Professor, the question is whether what Mr. Nice said, that Serbia

Page 34628

1 was losing its dominant position, as he put it, and that led to conflicts

2 later on. Those were his words. Is that what led to the conflict?

3 A. It did not have a dominant position. Of course it did not have a

4 dominant position. What led to the conflict was the tendency to break

5 Yugoslavia up into national republic states.

6 Q. Towards the end of your paragraph -- this is the same paragraph,

7 by the way. This is no accident that this entire passage should be read

8 out because this completes a thought. "But in 1987-1988, when Serbia

9 decided to fight vigorously for the defence of Yugoslavia and its equal

10 position in the federation by disabling centrifugal trends within its own

11 republic, the separatists launched a counter-attack with a fierce campaign

12 against the creation of a 'Greater Serbia.' Whole-heartedly supported by

13 powerful foreign factors, these forces managed to provoke a bloody

14 inter-ethnical and inter-confessional war and break up Yugoslavia."

15 So this text of this one single paragraph gives an answer as to

16 how the war was started. Mr. Nice asked whether what the Serbs did

17 ultimately led to a conflict or not. So please answer what Mr. Nice asked

18 you in view of what I quoted to you just now.

19 A. Of course it's not correct. I stand by what I say in this text.

20 There is no point in my explaining this through a multitude of new facts.

21 Q. All right, Professor. Later on, up to the end of the text, you

22 say as following: "... the centuries' long myth and stereotype of

23 'Greater Serbia' and of 'the Serbs inclination' allegedly, towards

24 aggression and hegemony has been nourished..."

25 "What is the most tragic for the Serbian people of our times is

Page 34629

1 the fact that it has been nourished, fostered, and spread with

2 incomparable force for almost a decade and a half now."

3 What is this that has been nourished, fostered, and spread for a

4 decade and a half?

5 A. Well, the stereotype of Serbia as a hegemonist entity and a state

6 that wants to conquer someone all the time, and in that way, by conquering

7 other peoples, it will create its big and powerful state in the Balkans.

8 This is a stereotype that was written about in many of the books I

9 referred to here. I'm just going to quote Noel Malcolm now and two of his

10 books. And this was a hocus-pocus thing, if I can put it that way. He

11 wrote both books within the span of one year, and our historiography tore

12 it into pieces but he didn't want to come to the debate that was organised

13 about his books.

14 Q. And you say that there are many tendentious --

15 THE INTERPRETER: Could the interpreters please have a reference

16 to the part of the text that is being read out at extreme speed?

17 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, I know you have in mind your next

18 witness, but the interpreters are asking you to read the text more slowly

19 and identify the passage.

20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] It's at the very end of the paper.

21 It is the last paragraph, towards the end of the last paragraph, where

22 reference is made to what Mr. Nice quoted yesterday.

23 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

24 Q. "The 'mutljag'" - translated as "dregs" in the text, interpreter's

25 note - and then you mention Audrey Budding and Malcolm and other authors,

Page 34630

1 and so many others and their "lackeys have one task only, and that is to

2 denounce 'Greater-Serbian hegemony' in order to clear the path to the new

3 world order and globalism in this part of Europe. This propaganda,

4 supported by much more drastic political, economic and military means, has

5 its already discernible aim: To split the Serbian people into several

6 parts in which they will become more likely to lose their national

7 identity, to reduce Serbia to its borders of the time before the Kumanovo

8 agreement and make it totally incapable of independent life, the least

9 'equal' among 'equals' in the contemporary 'democratic' world."

10 So then you speak of the sources that you had in mind.

11 Professor, I think it was a group of academicians that drafted

12 this response to Noel Malcolm's book.

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. Is it true that at that time you assessed it as a mere forgery?

15 A. Yes, and that is why I used this word "mutljag" which is

16 merchanist, and it's a harsh term but there is anything in there except

17 for science.

18 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, before you go on, let me just

19 clarify this with the interpreters. The word "dregs," which is in the

20 English text, you say should be translated as "merchanist."

21 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters note that, yes, that would be a

22 more correct translation of the word "mutljag."

23 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, because that -- Mr. Nice, that gives a

24 slightly different connotation.

25 MR. NICE: It gives a slightly different connotation although the

Page 34631

1 paragraph read -- the sentence and the paragraph read as a whole remains

2 extraordinarily critical of a fellow professional.

3 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, it does. Continue, Mr. Milosevic.

4 Did you want to say something, Professor?

5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Can I just say that "dregs" is not

6 the right word for this word in English.

7 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

8 Q. Professor, this was held against you, that you used some kind of

9 harsh language. Of course I do not find the language to be harsh, but I

10 think that you focussed on what you call the pseudo-scientific character

11 of these books that you refer to.

12 A. Yes, that's the point.

13 Q. It doesn't matter what the words used are. What matters is that a

14 group of Serb academicians who worked on the review of Noel Malcolm's book

15 was that this is a pseudo-scientific book. I have not checked this, but

16 do you know that Noel Malcolm's book was being distributed to members of

17 KFOR in Kosovo and --

18 MR. NICE: This is another series of tendentious or leading

19 questions. The first one about Noel Malcolm's book was leading but I

20 couldn't find it in me to object at the time, but really there must be a

21 limit.

22 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic. You know the rule. Don't

23 put the answers in the mouth of the witness from your questions. You have

24 to reformulate them.

25 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Page 34632

1 Q. All right. Tell us, Professor, how did you assess this book in

2 the Academy of Sciences and Arts and on the part of competent scholars

3 dealing in these matters?

4 A. It would require a lengthy explanation but I will try to give you

5 an answer in a single sentence. It was assessed to be an improvisation,

6 and can I say this was a pell-mell, if I can use that word in English.

7 There are untrue facts and true facts there and it is very hard to

8 establish the truth through all of this.

9 Q. Just one more question. Mr. Nice said that there are serious

10 academics who -- or academicians who do not share your views, trying to

11 strike a balance between what historiography established undeniably and,

12 on the other hand, some Albanian academic that he referred to, I don't

13 think he was very clear on that, at least not to me, can you really strike

14 a balance that way?

15 A. It is difficult to strike a balance because Ali Hadri was the

16 leading historian in Kosovo. He advocated this thesis in historiography

17 that the Serbs occupied Kosovo in the 12th or 13th centuries, and that

18 that is why these are Albanian territories, territories that belong to the

19 Albanian people for centuries. However, when the -- before the Serbs

20 came, there were many barbaric attacks on the area, and I can refer to all

21 of them but it will take up too much time.

22 Q. Just to be very brief, we've just seen a text from the Ministry of

23 Foreign Affairs here, which says brief information about the Cutileiro

24 Plan. It is a document that you looked at a few moments ago. The date is

25 the 9th of August, 1994. That is to say, two and a half years after the

Page 34633

1 Cutileiro Plan, somebody from the Foreign Ministry is giving information

2 about the substance of the plan; is that right?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. This is reference to the Cutileiro Plan from March 1992. In the

5 first paragraph he says: "The first plan that the international community

6 presented as an official solution to the crisis in Bosnia-Herzegovina was

7 the European Community that was the author of the plan and it was dealing

8 most seriously with the resolution to the crisis at the time." That is

9 what the document says.

10 So is this undeniable, then, that all peace plans that were

11 offered by the international community, as far as the Vance-Owen Plan is

12 concerned, as far as the later plans are concerned of Owen-Stoltenberg,

13 the Contact Group, and the ultimately adopted and achieved plan embodied

14 in the Dayton agreement, all these plans that the international community

15 prepared actually wanted to establish a Serb, Croat, and Muslim entity in

16 Bosnia-Herzegovina, were those proposals made by the international

17 community all the time?

18 A. Well, that's what it was all about. I cannot say now that I know

19 exactly what each and every one of these plans said but what the Cutileiro

20 Plan says and what the Vance-Owen Plan says is something I know for sure.

21 And probably in the Dayton agreement as well. I know that this meant that

22 the Serbs from Bosnia, the Bosnian Serbs, should have a entity of their

23 own which would protect them from manipulations or from being outvoted by

24 the Muslim population.

25 Q. Is it clear that the Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina asked for no more

Page 34634

1 but equal treatment, to be treated equally to other peoples because they

2 constituted a constituent people of Bosnia-Herzegovina? Is there any

3 doubt about that?

4 A. I've already said that equality of rights is a word that was used

5 the most in Serbian political terminology both in the 19th and the 20th

6 century, and even now at threshold of the 21st century, and that includes

7 Bosnia as well.

8 Q. All right, Professor. Could you please look at this map. Could

9 we please have it placed on the overhead projector. This dark blue and

10 light blue map, the one that Mr. Nice presented a few moments ago. I got

11 it when you did.

12 I would like to draw your attention to the borders of the Republic

13 of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the then-Bosnia-Herzegovina and the present-day

14 Bosnia-Herzegovina.

15 Is it noticeable that this map could be entitled in a different

16 way? Because what it says here is "Regions under Serb control." That's

17 what it says. Could this map also be entitled "Areas in which the Serbs

18 constitute the majority population" if we were to approach the matter from

19 that angle?

20 A. What I see here is that this is some kind of an ethnic map of the

21 Serb people in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

22 Q. All right. Tell me, did the Serbs come and occupy these

23 territories or have they lived there for centuries?

24 A. These are their territories since the Slavs first came to the

25 Balkans.

Page 34635

1 Q. All right. But doesn't it seem to you that there is a glaring

2 similarity between these light blue territories within the borders of

3 Bosnia-Herzegovina and the territory of the present-day Serb entity, that

4 is to say, Republika Srpska which was established and legalised in Dayton?

5 Do you see this glaring similarity between the two?

6 A. I don't know whether I can call it glaring, but there is an

7 obvious similarity.

8 Q. Thank you, Professor. Now let us move on to a few other things.

9 Mr. Nice asked you something about the Belgrade initiative. Professor

10 Rakic has found for me an article from Herceg-Bosna. It's a Croatian

11 article which is very anti-Serbian. I will quote only one passage from it

12 to refresh your memory, just a brief passage which says the following:

13 "The attempt of Belgrade to reach an agreement with the Muslims in Bosnia

14 and Herzegovina in 1991 collapsed. The so-called Belgrade initiative

15 named after negotiations between S. Milosevic and Mr. Zulfikarpasic,

16 leader of the Bosniak Party, fell through. The leading Muslim party,

17 headed by Alija Izetbegovic, did not accept Serbia's initiative that

18 Bosnia-Herzegovina should remain within Yugoslavia." End of quote.

19 I hope that you will remember that negotiations were held and that

20 these negotiations were termed the Serbian initiative, that

21 Bosnia-Herzegovina should remain within Yugoslavia. Do you remember this?

22 MR. NICE: The witness was quite clear that although he had

23 knowledge and memory of an initiative at the beginning of the century, he

24 had no knowledge of this particular one. Now, of course, if he can have

25 his memory properly revived without a leading question and can then

Page 34636

1 assist, so much the better, but he was very clear that he didn't remember

2 this initiative. The next witness may be one more capable of dealing with

3 this topic, I suspect.

4 JUDGE ROBINSON: Professor, in cross-examination, you said you had

5 no recollection of this negotiation, the Belgrade initiative.

6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I don't remember that it was called

7 the Belgrade initiative, but I do remember that these negotiations were

8 held. Of course I remember that, because we were always thinking about

9 this. It was always on our mind. However, I truly do not remember these

10 negotiations being called the Belgrade initiative.

11 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

12 Q. Very well, but the essence is important, which you do recall.

13 A. Yes, I do.

14 Q. Do you remember that the offer was then made to Izetbegovic to be

15 the president of Yugoslavia?

16 A. I have to admit I don't remember that. It's probably so, but I

17 can't recall it right now.

18 Q. Does it seem to you that an idea of a Greater Serbia might be

19 realised with Izetbegovic at its head, as its president?

20 A. That would be a ridiculous initiative had it existed.

21 Q. You mean a Greater Serbia with Izetbegovic at its head?

22 A. It's unimaginable, unthought of.

23 Q. Very well, Professor. Thank you. Let us now come back to Epoha,

24 the magazine Epoha, and let's pass over who the publisher is. But what is

25 more important is what the magazine actually says. As you have the

Page 34637

1 Epoha --

2 A. I should have but I thought we had done with it.

3 Q. Well, so had I.

4 A. Well, if I haven't mislaid it. It's here. I'll try to find it.

5 JUDGE ROBINSON: Show it to the witness.

6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Unfortunately, I don't have it any

7 more.

8 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

9 Q. This is not the copy of the Epoha we were looking at.

10 A. No, it's not.

11 Q. Do you remember, Professor -- I really wasn't expecting it to turn

12 up again so I didn't bring a copy with me, but do you remember that the

13 map shown by Mr. Nice was commented upon by the author of the text,

14 Mr. Ilic, who said that --

15 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please, for Mr. Milosevic.

16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. He says I remember well that a

17 further million five hundred thousand Croats would then become part of

18 Greater Serbia, and we do not need such a Serbia.

19 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

20 Q. Therefore, the article says that what can be seen on the map is

21 not a good solution. It doesn't propagate this map. These are various

22 polemical viewpoints on this topic. Is this in dispute?

23 A. No. You have to read the text, because if you just look at the

24 map, you don't understand very well what it's about. The author gives

25 various possibility and challenges this so-called optimal border, if I

Page 34638

1 remember correctly, and this is what I wanted to stress.

2 Q. That's right. So what is important here is not who the publisher

3 is but what is actually said about these issues. And the text says this

4 is not a good solution.

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. And if you remember, it says that people, especially young people,

7 should be educated in the spirit of tolerance, equality, development of

8 international relations, and so on and so forth, and that it has a

9 positive attitude, that it doesn't advocate nationalist hatred and so on

10 and so forth.

11 A. Yes, that's what we read about yesterday.

12 Q. So a map is presented here which is criticised in the text, yet

13 here it has been presented as a map advocated by the text, and I think

14 this is truly manipulation.

15 JUDGE ROBINSON: No, Mr. Milosevic.

16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] What do you mean no?

17 JUDGE ROBINSON: Absolutely unacceptable to say it was presented

18 as manipulation. The language is unforensic, there is no basis for it,

19 and I told you before that we will not accept language of that kind.

20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] When you read the text, if you have

21 it translated, you will see that I'm right, Mr. Robinson.

22 JUDGE ROBINSON: It is for the Chamber to determine what weight to

23 attach to it.

24 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

25 Q. You have this copy of Epoha which was offered to you just a minute

Page 34639

1 ago by the usher, which contains a report from a large rally. It says,

2 "After a long time, a crowd in the Assembly, representatives of the

3 parties --" "Yugoslavia For the Third Time," it says, and then there is a

4 subtitle. Please take a look at this. It was offered to you by the

5 usher.

6 A. Yes, but he took it away again.

7 Q. Could we have this copy, please. "Yugoslavia For the Third Time."

8 This is a subtitle. And then it says: "Like 70 years ago, Yugoslavia is

9 the best ... choice for the Serbs. Can the gloomy skies over Yugoslavia

10 clear up without a big storm - or with it?"

11 This is an article by a journalist who is now without doubt

12 holding a post in the Socialist Party. Is it clear from this that this is

13 in fact a report which begins with a quotation from Ivo Andric, our only

14 Nobel prize winner Ivo Andric, who wrote once that every war, including

15 the longest one, only goes over the issues that were the reason for the

16 war but the solutions are always left over for the times after the war,

17 the aftermath of the war, when peace is negotiated. The first week in

18 January led to two events, the first steps towards establishing peace, the

19 agreement of Cyrus Vance, the UN Blue Helmets arriving. So this is the

20 agreement between the Yugoslav and Croatian authorities concerning the

21 arrival of the UN forces in areas that had previously been inhabited by

22 Serbs in a vast majority. Is this correct?

23 A. Yes. We had peace initiatives coming up very often, and we

24 accepted each one that was made in good faith.

25 Q. This is page with their ERN number 03609966. This entire report

Page 34640

1 contains a list of parties, associations, movements taking part in the

2 convention for a new Yugoslavia. It is a list that has taken up an entire

3 page, and there is a photograph here, Dzevad Galijasevic, a former

4 displaced person from Mosevici. His name is Dzevad, so he must be a

5 Muslim.

6 A. Yes, probably.

7 Q. So, Professor, can we see from this page the last two digits of

8 the ERN are 66 and it's page 11 of the magazine, and a whole page is taken

9 up by the list of parties, societies, movements and organisations that

10 participated in the convention for the new Yugoslavia. Have you seen this

11 page?

12 A. Yes. There was widespread support for the preservation of

13 Yugoslavia. People said that Bosnia was the fortress of Yugoslavia

14 because its ethnic make-up was similar to that of the former Yugoslavia.

15 So it was seen as a factor of cohesion. As far as I can see, there are a

16 lot of organisations here from Bosnia, and I'm not surprised to see this,

17 because the movement to defend Yugoslavia in early 1992 was still very

18 strong.

19 Q. Well, there are very many different parties here; from Tuzla, from

20 Sarajevo, Sekovici, and so on and so forth. In order to understand this

21 convention, do you think it would be logical to bear in mind who the

22 participants were and that this is a list of the representatives of the

23 movements and parties taking part in it?

24 Professor, was this convention dedicated to the achievement of

25 peace and the preservation of Yugoslavia?

Page 34641

1 A. There is no doubt of that.

2 Q. There is a photograph somewhere here of the then president of the

3 Presidency, Branko Kostic, from Montenegro, who welcomed the participants

4 in the convention.

5 Just a few more questions, Professor. The question was constantly

6 put here when Serbia is not dominant it produces problems. First of all,

7 did Serbia dominate Yugoslavia ever from its inception? I'm referring to

8 both the first Yugoslavia between the two world wars and the second

9 Yugoslavia after World War II. You were asked, for example, who was in

10 the majority in the government between the two wars. However, what I'm

11 asking you is did Serbia dominate between the two wars?

12 A. The foundation of dominance is economic superiority. In this

13 respect, Serbia not only did not dominate but lagged behind the others.

14 The second issue is that of finances, and again it was Slovenia and

15 Croatia who were dominant. If Serbia was dominant in any way, it was in

16 that the Serbian population, especially from the Krajinas, dominated in

17 the police forces because these were people who were used to uniforms and

18 weapons because of their historical traditions. There were somewhat more

19 Serbs in the state bureaucracy, in the lower echelons, and in the military

20 academies, with the exception of naval and air force academies which were

21 dominated by Croats and Slovenes, the greatest number of cadets were

22 Serbs. That's where Serbia predominated.

23 Q. Very well. Who dominated in Yugoslavia all this time from the end

24 of World War II until 1992?

25 A. It seems to me that up to the 1960s, there was a very good balance

Page 34642

1 in the federation which was disrupted in the mid-1960s when Edvard Kardelj

2 asked Tito, and this is well known the Croatian historian Bilandzic wrote

3 about it. He asked him, What will happen, old man, when we disappear from

4 the scene? The Serbs will rule. Let's do something about it. That was

5 in 1962. He asked him that at a closed meeting at which Dusan Bilandzic,

6 the Croatian political leader, was present or at least he saw the

7 documents, and that was when they started thinking about disassembling

8 Yugoslavia so as to make it impossible for the Serbs to become

9 predominant.

10 Q. As a potential danger?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. So who dominated in Yugoslavia?

13 A. Up to the 1960s, there was a balance. After the 1960s, it was the

14 Croats and the Slovenes.

15 Q. Throughout this time?

16 A. Yes, throughout this time.

17 Q. Thank you, Professor. I have no further questions. I wish you a

18 pleasant journey.

19 A. Thank you very much, Mr. President.

20 JUDGE ROBINSON: I'm going to deal with the exhibits now. The

21 expert report, with the footnotes, to be admitted, and the following tabs,

22 tab 1 a book not translated, marked for identification; tab 2, the

23 Nacertanije, not translated, marked for identification; tab 3, Nis

24 declaration, translated, admitted; tab 5.1, the letter of Frano Supilo to

25 Sir Edward Grey, not translated, marked for identification; the letter of

Page 34643

1 Supilo to Pasic, not translated, marked for identification.

2 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Milosevic, could you indicate the tab number of

3 that letter?

4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Just a moment, please. I'll tell

5 you right away. I've laid it aside now. I think it's also tab 5.

6 JUDGE ROBINSON: The letter of Supilo to Pasic, also 5.1.

7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] It's all in tab 5, the collection of

8 documents, in tab 5, but I don't have the entire binder here because I

9 thought I wouldn't need it.

10 JUDGE ROBINSON: The Corfu declaration, not translated, marked for

11 identification; tab 5.7, the statement of Nikola Pasic, not translated,

12 marked for identification; similarly the letter to Pasic, not translated,

13 marked for identification; similarly the letter by Stjepan Radic for the

14 English government, not translated, marked for identification; the

15 interview of Radic, not translated, marked for identification; tab 6, a

16 map Homogenous Serbia, titled Dr. Stevan Moljevic, admitted; tab 13,

17 another map, admitted; tab 15, another map, admitted; tab 16, another map,

18 admitted. And those are the exhibits to be either admitted or admitted

19 marked for identification.

20 Professor Popov, that concludes your testimony. Before I dismiss

21 you, I should say, Mr. Milosevic, I'm reminded that there are three other

22 items not included in the list that I just mentioned: The colour map of

23 the London agreement, the second map; the Cutileiro map; and the

24 Vance-Owen map.

25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] It should be included.

Page 34644

1 JUDGE ROBINSON: It should be included.

2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes.

3 JUDGE ROBINSON: These are to be admitted. So the report has been

4 given a number, and the -- what number?

5 THE REGISTRAR: The report is Exhibit D263, and the binder with

6 the tabs Exhibit 264.

7 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.

8 Professor Popov, that concludes your testimony. Thank you for

9 testifying at the International Tribunal. You may now leave.

10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you. Good-bye.

11 [The witness withdrew]

12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson.

13 [Trial Chamber confers]

14 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, yes.

15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, I wish to make use of

16 the time until the next witness arrives to put forward a motion. During

17 this weekend, I received your order that I was to give you the list of the

18 next 50 witnesses. Of course I will do this. However, according to the

19 plan, it is very important for me that the witnesses to appear now be

20 those I have already asked to be subpoenaed. This is only a part of this

21 list of witnesses.

22 I'm aware that the Christmas and New Year recess is ahead of us

23 and that you will not be working for a full three weeks. That's why I'm

24 asking you to issue this order which I asked for in February. I asked for

25 Clinton, Albright, Clark, Blair, Schroeder and Scharping to be called.

Page 34645

1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, haven't we been through this two

2 or three times before? Have you presented a written motion asking for

3 subpoenas to be issued?

4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I have given everything to the

5 liaison officer, and I put forward my motion orally. It's in the

6 transcript, so it has the same weight as a motion in writing. As my

7 collaborators have informed me that they are unable to contact these

8 witnesses and as it's quite clear that these witnesses are important, and

9 as in my plan for the sequence of witnesses it is their turn now to

10 appear, I ask that you issue a subpoena. It's in the transcript, so now

11 you have it in writing.

12 JUDGE ROBINSON: Not at all. You must make a written submission

13 setting out the reasons why you want them, the evidence that they are to

14 give, the efforts that you have made to contact them. A subpoena is not

15 issued lightly.

16 If you insist that this is an application that you're making, then

17 the Chamber will refuse it without prejudice to your right to make another

18 application in the proper form, Mr. Milosevic. So that's the short

19 answer. The application that you have just made is refused without

20 prejudice to your right to make a written application complying with the

21 procedural requirements. So that's -- I've dealt --

22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson. Are you saying that

23 the reasons why Clinton, Albright, and Clark, who has already testified

24 here but could not be cross-examined about relevant issues, why they

25 should testify here are not clear to you, that you doubt them, or are you

Page 34646

1 using the procedure to make it impossible for them to appear here?

2 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, we are dealing with a matter of

3 substance which has -- which must have as its antecedent certain

4 procedures. It's a very important matter. A subpoena is not lightly

5 issued. And I want to see from you the same kind of document that the

6 Prosecution tendered on several occasions when they made requests for

7 subpoenas. The same rule which we now insist on is the rule which was

8 applied to the Prosecutor. It's absolutely no different. You can learn

9 from them. Let Mr. Nice make available to you the precedents that he used

10 and you follow them.

11 Mr. Kay is there. He can assist you.

12 MR. KAY: Just on this issue, Your Honour. I had a meeting in

13 October with the foreign department of the American embassy in relation to

14 this category of witnesses. They requested that if a letter was submitted

15 which contained the details of the subject matter for questioning of the

16 witness so that they were aware what it was about, what topics would be

17 covered, then they would be able to submit that through their diplomatic

18 channels and hopefully ensure the attendance of witnesses, or at least put

19 to the witness that there could be a voluntary attendance to give evidence

20 in this trial as part of the Defence case, but they needed the information

21 first of all, which I obviously didn't have, so I was unable to take that

22 any further.

23 I was informed, I think it was a Mr. Kay, actually, who works for

24 the American embassy, that from the date of the submission of such a

25 request to an end product of a witness being available, having progressed

Page 34647

1 through the various diplomatic channels, would take some two months or six

2 weeks. He said six weeks to me, but it may be two months. So it was that

3 kind of lead time to produce a witness. But they were looking to deal

4 with it on a cooperative basis with the Defence. It was expressed to me

5 that they had cooperated with the Prosecution, they did not wish to

6 discriminate against the Defence, they wished to provide the same level of

7 cooperation through diplomatic channels to both sides in this trial. And

8 so I'm sure that if Mr. Milosevic instructed someone - Professor Rakic is

9 here at the moment - to write a detailed account ... I know letters have

10 been submitted, but they do not contain the details of the subject matter

11 of the questions to be asked.

12 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Kay.

13 Mr. Milosevic, you have heard that, and we have been through this

14 before. You must get off first base. You must get off first base.

15 You're still on first base.

16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, Professor Rakic wrote

17 all that down more than two months ago, and that is precisely why I'm

18 asking for a subpoena order from you, because that was written over two

19 months ago and submitted to them.

20 JUDGE ROBINSON: The Chamber will not act unless it has before it

21 a written application of the kind that the Prosecution produced on several

22 occasions, several occasions. Once we have that application,

23 Mr. Milosevic, we will consider it, and if requirements are met, we will

24 issue the subpoena, no matter who the person is.

25 JUDGE BONOMY: It's also important to note what Mr. Kay has just

Page 34648

1 said. He's just told us that the information requested by the embassy

2 hasn't been passed to them. So no matter what's been written, it doesn't

3 satisfy that requirement.

4 JUDGE KWON: Moreover, he told us on the previous occasion.

5 Didn't you?

6 MR. KAY: I think we've been here before, yes. I remember dealing

7 with this issue, I think in October. Your Honour Judge Kwon is quite

8 right.

9 JUDGE ROBINSON: So that's why I said, Mr. Milosevic, that the

10 answer I'm giving is that the application which you just made orally is

11 dismissed without prejudice to your right to resubmit an application in

12 the proper written form.

13 If you raise it again, I will be forced to conclude that you're

14 making mischief.

15 Mr. Kay, yes.

16 MR. KAY: Your Honours, there's a matter that concerns the

17 assigned counsel. A filing was made ex parte confidential yesterday, and

18 we believe that it's imperative that the Trial Chamber be able to give

19 some time to this issue today ex parte.

20 JUDGE ROBINSON: I think we'll deal with it at 8.15, 8.15 tomorrow

21 morning.

22 MR. KAY: 8.15 tomorrow morning. In this courtroom.

23 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

24 Mr. Nice.

25 MR. NICE: One point about applications by the accused for

Page 34649

1 subpoenas: Such applications can be made, I suspect, both ex parte and

2 inter partes. We have, of course, no objection to applications being made

3 ex parte. However, if there's any question of applications being made for

4 witnesses to be called simply to be cross-examined by the accused, we

5 would seek that part of the application to be on notice because that's a

6 legal issue that has been argued before the Court, as the Court will

7 remember, the Court having given a ruling against - by 2 to 1 decision -

8 against the cross-examination of witnesses whom it was wanted to call to

9 give evidence for the Prosecution in part at least. So that in the event

10 that there are any ex parte applications, we would ask -- with that

11 component to them, we'd ask that they be opened up for the purposes of

12 that argument to be addressed.

13 JUDGE ROBINSON: We'll bear that in mind, Mr. Nice.

14 Mr. Milosevic, your next witness.

15 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I call academician, Mr. Kosta

17 Mihailovic.

18 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please, for the accused.

19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I should like to note that you have

20 been supplied with his report in English. It wasn't even translated here,

21 so you have a copy of the report in English.

22 [The witness entered court]

23 JUDGE ROBINSON: Let the witness make the declaration.

24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will speak

25 the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Page 34650

1 JUDGE ROBINSON: You may sit.

2 WITNESS: KOSTA MIHAILOVIC

3 [Witness answered through interpreter]

4 JUDGE ROBINSON: You may begin, Mr. Milosevic.

5 Examined by Mr. Milosevic:

6 Q. [Interpretation] Good afternoon, Professor.

7 A. Good afternoon, Mr. Milosevic.

8 Q. Will you give us your full name and surname.

9 A. My name is Kosta Mihailovic.

10 Q. We have supplied the Court with a brief CV of yours, but could you

11 now please just indicate the major points in your biography.

12 A. I graduated from the faculty of law and have a Ph.D. in economics.

13 Immediately after the war, I worked, that is to say from 1949, in the

14 Ministry of Commerce of Serbia, and later on in the Alliance of Serbia and

15 Yugoslavia. From 1949 up until the time I retired in 1984, I worked at

16 the Institute for Economics in Belgrade. I was director of the institute

17 to begin with and later on continued working there as an advisor. I was

18 elected full professor of the faculty of economics in 1965, and I became a

19 member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, as a corresponding

20 member, in fact, in 1983, and I became a full member of the academy in

21 1988.

22 I have focused my attention on economics, general and regional

23 development in particular, focusing on the economic development and

24 economic system that prevailed in Yugoslavia, and as such, I also delved

25 in theoretical issues and looked at the subject matter broader afield, at

Page 34651

1 regional development in Europe as well. I have works written by me in

2 that area. It was pioneer work on the regional development of Eastern

3 Europe, published by Mouton here in The Hague, and that was a requirement

4 or, rather, a request made of me by the United Nations.

5 Of course I attended specialist courses and took part in many

6 international conferences, so I had broad contacts on the international

7 level as well.

8 Q. Thank you, Professor.

9 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, could you just clarify for me: He

10 graduated from the faculty of law, and he has a Ph.D. in economics. Does

11 he also have qualifications in law?

12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] We would have to ask Professor

13 Mihailovic that. I don't think he dealt with law, but he worked in the

14 sphere of economics throughout his life, professional life.

15 And Professor Mihailovic, let me inform you, is a leading world

16 expert for regional development. A moment ago you heard that it was on

17 assignment for the United Nations that he compiled a study on regional

18 development.

19 JUDGE ROBINSON: Just clarify something, Professor.

20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. For a brief period of time I

21 was -- I worked in a lawyer -- in a law firm office as a trainee, but when

22 I studied in Belgrade, there was no faculty of economics. It was the

23 faculty of law that included economics and subjects in the sphere of

24 economics. So I studied at the faculty of law, enrolled in the stream for

25 economics. And later on, as I worked in the economic field, applied

Page 34652

1 economics and focusing on analytical work in particular, I probably showed

2 some aptitude for economic analyses, so I was transferred to the Institute

3 for Economics, where I spent my entire professional and scientific career.

4 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Professor.

5 Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

6 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

7 Q. Professor, what you've just told us, in fact, means that from 1949

8 until 1965, you were the director of the Institute for Economics in

9 Belgrade; is that right?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. And in 1965, you had differing views from official economic policy

12 and were asked to resign; is that right?

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. And then you became a member of the academy and full professor of

15 the faculty for economics. Is that right, Professor?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. I'm not going to quote any more passages from your curriculum

18 vitae - we have attached it to your report - but I'm going to ask you

19 this: Professor, your -- and let me say first of all that I'm trying to

20 use my time as rationally as possible. So I have some basic questions to

21 ask you first, and my first question is this: You have submitted your

22 report and your views in report form. In the 19th and 20th century, could

23 you please tell us whether any Greater Serbian policy existed? Because

24 you begin with Garasanin's Nacertanije, or plan, the only official

25 programme that Serbia ever had. Now, could you tell us, and this is my

Page 34653

1 question in actual fact, how do you explain the fact that Serbia was in a

2 position to articulate a programme of this kind under conditions of

3 material poverty, if I can put it that way, when it did not have the

4 necessary level of information, the necessary level of development, and

5 especially the necessary level of autonomy? It was under the wings of a

6 military feudalism but not independence, too, because Serbia did have

7 autonomy within the Ottoman Empire, although it was not independent, it

8 did not enjoy independence.

9 So how was it able to articulate a programme of this kind that was

10 the Nacertanije with all these other handicaps that I mentioned?

11 A. Well, first of all, it was not a ramified programme. It was a

12 rather narrow programme relating to Serbia's foreign policy in the most

13 part. And that foreign policy waged by Serbia in itself, this was implied

14 -- the circumstances implied Serbia's goal. Serbia was not a free

15 country. It enjoyed broad autonomy but within the Ottoman Empire. So

16 that the basic goal was complete liberation. And bearing in mind the fact

17 that it was -- that the big power politics of Austria and Russia were

18 evident to it, it was worried as to how -- what its international position

19 would be like once it was free, once it had been liberated, because it did

20 not want to come under occupation again, under one of the big powers again

21 and become divided up between Russia and Austria. So that even if the

22 Nacertanije as a programme had never been written, this would have imposed

23 itself as a normal natural goal to aspire to.

24 Of course, Serbia did not have the intellectual force or a broader

25 view of the world in order to be able to articulate a programme such as

Page 34654

1 the Nacertanije programme itself. However, as luck would have it, Western

2 Europe, led by England and France, were very interested, not in liberating

3 Serbia so much as they were in what the situation would look like in that

4 part of the world once it had been liberated. And on the other hand,

5 Poland was interested in all this because it had a highly influential

6 emigres population living in Paris and working in Paris, led by Count

7 Chartoriski who otherwise had previously been the foreign minister of

8 Russia.

9 So here we have a meeting point of interests, and in fact the

10 Nacertanije plan came about through the initiative of England and France,

11 and what Academician Ekmecic says in its research, based in England, his

12 research into the sources, he writes about that and he talks about it very

13 exhaustively.

14 England already in 1831, for example, sent an envoy, Urquhart,

15 David Urquhart, to Prince Milos Obrenovic 13 years before the appearance

16 the Nacertanije plan, and he proposed a certain foreign policy to Serbia

17 linked -- which was to have been linked to the interests of France and

18 Russia. And he came again, he paid a second visit in 1833, and

19 Bois-le-cont came on behalf of France in 1834. France sent her envoy.

20 What I want to say is this: The Nacertanije plan had a broad

21 European international component or background, much broader than the

22 initiative of Serbia itself, and the text that was written down, the text

23 of the Nacertanije itself emanated from one of the plans or, rather, an

24 advisory document written by Frans Zach, who was a Polish emigre, and the

25 text itself -- I have that text here with me, that original text.

Page 34655

1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Professor, I'm sorry to stop you. We're

2 operating under time constraints here. You have given a very long answer

3 already and I think Mr. Milosevic should put another question to you, and

4 we would appreciate it if you would try to make your answers as concise as

5 possible.

6 Mr. Milosevic, yes.

7 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

8 Q. Professor, you mentioned the text by Frantisek Zach.

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. Is the text very similar to the text of the Nacertanije?

11 A. It's almost identical. Out of the seven chapters that exist,

12 Nacertanije represents four chapters. And I counted them. What was left

13 out or, rather, a comparative analysis of the texts shows that three

14 chapters are lacking in the Nacertanije. Garasanin omitted 90 lines but

15 added 64 of his own. So of the 800 lines that the Nacertanije plan

16 numbers, this would make it more than 85 per cent of the Frantisek Zach

17 text.

18 Q. They probably -- the court reporter probably didn't hear it

19 properly, but it is Frantisek Zach.

20 These texts were published at the same time. Zach's text and the

21 text of the Nacertanije. They were published at the same time, and you

22 said that you actually have Zach's text or, rather, both texts.

23 A. Yes, I do. Although the text is in Serbian, it hasn't been

24 translated, but I have marked the passages that were taken over from

25 Zach's text into the Nacertanije and the passages that were left out, so

Page 34656

1 that the Court can see that this is in fact Zach's text and that the

2 discussions and debates were held even before the war. Some people

3 questioned the authenticity of Garasanin's text, and they quoted the fact

4 that it was -- he had in fact taken over the bulk of Zach's text.

5 Q. Thank you, Professor. Let's move on. I think that in order for

6 us to understand the Nacertanije, it is very valuable to have both texts

7 so that we can compare the two; Zach's text and the Nacertanije text.

8 It's an important historical fact.

9 But tell me this now, please: On the basis of your explanation

10 and understanding, how would you characterise the Nacertanije in broad

11 terms?

12 A. I would say that it was a programme for the liberation of Serbia,

13 political and economic.

14 Q. Thank you, Professor. Now, you go on to note that the Nacertanije

15 dwells on just one economic question, and you speak about that on page 2.

16 So it's at page 2 of the English text and the Serbian text, on the adverse

17 conditions in trade with Austro-Hungary, which was exacerbated by the

18 establishment of the monopoly on its foreign trade in trading with Serbia.

19 A. Yes, the Nacertanije was not actually a programme. It was a

20 programme of Serbia's foreign policy. And of course it encompassed

21 economic issues focusing on the problem of trade, which was a very

22 sensitive subject for Serbia, painful subject for Serbia, which had not --

23 which was still under Ottoman rule, Ottoman occupation, whereas Austria

24 had established a complete monopoly over its foreign trade. And of

25 course, just as usually happens between industrialised, developed

Page 34657

1 countries and a totally agricultural country as was Serbia, these trading

2 conditions were unfavourable for Serbia, and Serbia felt this on its own

3 skin. And the terms of trade were all the more difficult for Serbia

4 because there was this imbalance in trade, unfavourable terms, and a

5 monopoly which imposed further restrictions on Serbia, so that its goal

6 was to rid itself or find a way out of this situation, to open the way to

7 a trade route via the Adriatic and the Mediterranean Sea in order to be

8 able to trade with Europe.

9 Q. Professor, as far as I can see --

10 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, we are beyond -- past the time for

11 the break, so we're going to break now.

12 Professor, we are going to break for 20 minutes.

13 --- Recess taken at 12.22 p.m.

14 --- On resuming at 12.50 p.m.

15 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, continue.

16 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

17 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

18 Q. Can you hear me now?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. You mentioned terms of trade or, rather, you mentioned

21 unfavourable terms of trade. Unfavourable terms of trade from that period

22 of time, did they actually remain proportionately in the time of the first

23 and second Yugoslavia?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. And now tell me, if I understood you correctly, these unfavourable

Page 34658

1 terms of trade both internationally and on the national level within

2 Yugoslavia itself, did they have a broader significance and are they proof

3 that the structure of its economy did not allow Serbia to carry out any

4 kind of hegemonistic policy?

5 A. That goes without saying. If it was politically unliberated and

6 under occupation, and if it was dominated economically, it could not have

7 pursued an expansionist policy or a policy of domination itself. This

8 entire period in the 19th century went on and elementary preconditions for

9 industrialisation were created.

10 Q. And what about the objectives of the foreign policy of Serbia, as

11 defined in Nacertanije? Did they remain unchanged in the second half of

12 the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century?

13 A. The objectives had to remain the same. That was liberation, and

14 the idea of what would happen after the liberation. That was certainly

15 the main concern of the policy pursued. However, there was a change in

16 the actual assets. Urquhart suggests that Serbia make an arrangement with

17 the Subline Port, with the Turkish government, and that they resolve their

18 problems in that way. However, obviously Turkey never wanted on its part

19 to agree to a full liberation of Serbia. So this had to be carried out by

20 arms.

21 And then in 1862, when Garasanin was Prime Minister under Prince

22 Mihailo Obrenovic, the first loan was taken from England with Russian

23 guarantees. Somehow the great powers that were otherwise not very kind to

24 Serbia, they had to see what would happen. So these three wars that were

25 waged by Serbia from 19 -- from 1878 onwards, these were liberation wars,

Page 34659

1 all three of them.

2 Q. The loan was practically for the arming of Serbia, the loan that

3 was taken in England; right?

4 A. Yes.

5 Q. The one that you say that was taken with Russian guarantees. And

6 what about the nature of the wars waged by Serbia in the second half of

7 the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century?

8 A. Well, you see --

9 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice.

10 MR. NICE: Your Honour, I hate to interrupt. This witness's

11 evidence was allowed in the face of our opposition, as you'll remember,

12 and on the grounds of dealing with Greater Serbia. The position on

13 Greater Serbia has been clarified to the extent of both sides setting

14 their cases out with the last witness, and I respectfully wonder how much

15 real value there is going over 19th century material in any detail, but

16 it's a matter for the Court, but it's becoming a repeat of the last

17 witness.

18 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, if the evidence is going to be

19 cumulative, if it's going to be repetitive of evidence that we have

20 already had on the issue of Greater Serbia, the Chamber will have to

21 consider whether to hear it. I thought this witness as an economist was

22 going to concentrate on specific economic issues. But I, for one, do not

23 want to hear anything more about the history of this matter. We have

24 heard enough.

25 So let us hear from you what this witness will testify about.

Page 34660

1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] He will testify precisely about what

2 his report contains. And in the second part, since this witness is one of

3 the authors of the memorandum, I'm going to put a few questions that have

4 to do with the memorandum, because these questions were raised by Mr. Nice

5 with one of the authors of the memorandum, that is to say Academician

6 Markovic. This happened during the examination of Academician Markovic.

7 [Trial Chamber confers]

8 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic, we can hear from him evidence

9 about the memorandum since there was cross-examination on that, but we

10 don't want to hear anything more about the history. We have had enough

11 evidence on that. So unless it is something in relation to which he has

12 peculiar knowledge by reason of his training, but generally we have had

13 enough of the history of this matter.

14 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I do not intend to question

15 Academician Mihailovic about history. Academician Popov spoke about that.

16 But I would like to draw your attention to another thing: During

17 the cross-examination of Professor Markovic, a book was used written

18 precisely by Professor Mihailovic and Professor Krestic. It's about the

19 memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts answers to

20 criticism. That was D250.

21 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, you can refer to that.

22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The Professor, together with

23 Academician Krestic, is the author of that book, and that is what Mr. Nice

24 used.

25 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

Page 34661

1 Q. Professor, before I put a question to you, I'm going to quote very

2 briefly from your report on page 19.

3 And for you, it is page 15 of the English translation.

4 You say that: "... Serb politicians did not think about the

5 economic consequences that unification would have in terms of the

6 development of Serbia. It is possible that they did not have any such

7 knowledge."

8 And the quotation ends with the following words: "It should not

9 be surprising that the Serb politicians were not aware of this in 1918 and

10 did not draw the right conclusions. The trouble was that scant regional

11 statistics did not show how each and every region of Yugoslavia

12 developed."

13 My question is: On what basis do you claim that Serbia did not

14 know what kind of economic relations it was entering with the creation of

15 Yugoslavia?

16 A. The macroeconomic theory and the empirical analyses in the field

17 of macroeconomics are of a recent date. This was on the early economy, so

18 they did not know. And even far more developed countries did not know

19 about things like that.

20 I'm going to refer to something I mentioned in the footnotes. For

21 example, in Italy, at a meeting of the International Economic Association,

22 two of their most prominent economists who dealt with regional development

23 expounded on the thesis that the unification of Italy was economically

24 fatal for the south of Italy. This was a very bold thesis with an

25 embarrassing political connotation, but they gave a very rational economic

Page 34662

1 explanation. I don't think such knowledge existed among the Serbian

2 politicians who were making decisions. Even if they did have this kind of

3 knowledge, I think that the priority task was for Serbia to unite with the

4 other peoples. That is say that this was a political priority, and there

5 was no doubt about that.

6 Even if it did entertain some doubts as to what kind of entity it

7 was getting into, it would have opted in favour of a Yugoslavia

8 nevertheless.

9 Q. Let us now move on to the period between the two world wars. The

10 economic level of development of Serbia - this has to do with your

11 knowledge of the economic conditions between the two world wars - so the

12 level of Serbia's economic development and its structure, in that stage

13 could they have been a basis for Serbia's economic domination in

14 Yugoslavia, or domination in Yugoslavia in general?

15 A. There is no way this could have happened. In the Economic

16 Institute, we studied this period between the two world wars because there

17 were a lot of economic speculations that were being bandied about, and we

18 analysed this thoroughly and we explained first of all by reconstructing

19 the growth rate between the two world wars and also the per capita

20 investment between the two world wars in the individual republics.

21 Statistics, regional statistics, were underdeveloped and adapted

22 to a different administrative division. The division of the country into

23 banovinas, I mean. The only reliable information on investment was the

24 statistics of the industry from 1938, and these statistics were adopted to

25 the new administrative division after the Second World War, and then it

Page 34663

1 became possible to reconstruct the per capita investment in individual

2 republics. Then it became evident that Slovenia and Croatia had

3 investments that were considerably above average, notably Slovenia, and

4 Serbia had not even reached the average level. So that is one of the

5 aspects involved.

6 Secondly, Serbia was exposed to unfavourable terms of trade within

7 the country itself, because Serbia delivered raw materials to the other

8 areas, as well as agricultural produce. Their prices had been depressed

9 and exposed to the influence of world prices while the areas that had an

10 industry, especially a processing industry, manufacturing industry, that

11 was again Slovenia and Croatia, they enjoyed the advantages of tariff

12 protection. So there were these considerable spillovers.

13 I would also like to note that our research showed that the rate

14 of growth between 1923 and 1938 in Yugoslavia was at zero level. However,

15 it was not a positive zero, because in the meantime social conditions

16 worsened. However, we could not look at individual republics and their

17 development, but it was obvious on the basis of these figures related to

18 investment that it is only these two republics that registered proper

19 development between the two world wars, which is only natural, you see,

20 because that is the nature of the market. Gojko Grdjic and many other

21 economists wrote about this.

22 At this level of development of the country, the differences

23 between underdeveloped and developed regions become increasingly deeper.

24 Q. Professor, the economic system that existed between the two world

25 wars in Yugoslavia, did it permit direct influence in terms of the

Page 34664

1 development of individual areas or was it possible to have an economic

2 development policy which would favour Serbia and make possible its

3 economic domination?

4 A. That was impossible because of the economic system itself. The

5 state did not have any measures in its hands which could change the actual

6 allocations in the market itself. The market functioned as it did and

7 only deepened the differences involved. Those who were developed and who

8 had an initial advantage simply increased the advantage.

9 Yugoslavia, in its history, was under two different types of

10 occupation. There was a considerable difference between the northern

11 parts that were under Austro-Hungary and the other parts, the southern

12 parts, that were under Turkish occupation.

13 Q. Professor, in your written report, you gave a great deal of space

14 to Rudolf Bicanic's book, The Economic Basis of the Croatian Question, and

15 the reaction of Serb economists to that book. Why did you devote this

16 much space to this polemic? Was that the only polemic that was taking

17 place during those years?

18 A. Well, not only those years, you see. This is linked to your

19 previous question. How much knowledge was there, generally speaking, when

20 Yugoslavia was being established? What kind of economic relations would

21 prevail?

22 So there were no debates at macro level. And in 1938 a book

23 appeared, Bicanic's book. Of course this is an ideological political book

24 with a thesis. The head of the Serbian Peasant -- of the Croatian Peasant

25 Party showed clearly in his preface what he expected Bicanic to do. His

Page 34665

1 primary thesis was there to begin with, that Croatia was exploited in

2 Yugoslavia, and he asked Bicanic to corroborate that. Therefore, he made

3 such an attempt, but since reality was different from what Macek said, he

4 had to make a great deal of constructs and adjustments in order to try to

5 substantiate the thesis.

6 Q. I would like to say that this is from page 22 onwards in your

7 report, and in the English text it is from page 18 onwards. From the

8 beginning or, rather, from the middle of the first paragraph, it is

9 explained that two decades after the unification, that was the political

10 task that he was given, to do this kind of thing.

11 A. By your leave, Mr. President, may I add something? The reaction

12 on the Serb side was very competent and well qualified. This was done by

13 several people who were familiar with the subject matter. These were

14 university professors and people working in the administration, dealing

15 with facts. Therefore, we have a collision between political reasoning on

16 the one hand, and on the other, a purely scholarly and scientific

17 response.

18 Q. Thank you, Professor. What was the ideological platform

19 concerning inter-ethnic relations of the Communist Party after World War

20 II? I wish to draw your attention to the fact that you speak of this on

21 page 40, which in English is page 32-33.

22 A. The Communist Party had already developed its viewpoint on this

23 between the two world wars. This viewpoint was formed under the influence

24 of the Comintern and the relations between Yugoslavia and the Soviet

25 Union. It is well known that Yugoslavia accepted Russian emigres on a

Page 34666

1 large scale, causing disaffection in the Soviet Union, and that this had a

2 great influence on the attitude of the Communist Party to Yugoslavia. Of

3 course, this attitude toward Russia was linked primarily to the court of

4 the Karadjordjevics, which had links with the Russian court. And this is

5 what gave rise to the disaffection towards Serbia and Serbian cadres.

6 On the other hand, the working class between the two world wars in

7 Yugoslavia was relatively small, and for this reason it was unable to

8 serve as a class mainstay of the Communist Party. The Communist Party,

9 therefore, used inter-ethnic tensions to a large extent, putting forward

10 the thesis on Greater Serbian policies. This led to the Communist Party

11 considering Yugoslavia to be an artificial construct, and this was

12 asserted even by the right-wing parties in Croatia. However, the

13 Communist Party was not influential between the two world wars in

14 Yugoslavia. However, it entered the new Yugoslavia with the same ideology

15 and same prejudices. Thus the myth of some sort of Greater Serbia

16 hegemony, both political and economic, was prevalent and was in fact the

17 ideological platform for inter-ethnic relations.

18 Q. Professor, on page 40, which is 32 and 33 English, you say the

19 proposed five year -- that Andrija Hebrang, the then head of the federal

20 planning commission, which was then the centre of decision-making, said

21 that: "The proposed five-year plan is the concretisation in the economic

22 field of the federal government's correct policy on the question.

23 Brotherhood and unity of our peoples would be a hollow phrase if the plan

24 did not provide for measures to abolish large economic and cultural

25 differences in the levels of development of various republics."

Page 34667

1 He goes on to say: "In the old Yugoslavia, it was different. In

2 it the tempo of development of industrial production in the various

3 countries was in accordance with the policy of national oppression which

4 was conducted by the great Serbian bourgeoisie."

5 Was this based on facts and the economic and analysis that you

6 have made?

7 A. No, I have spoken of this. Between the two wars those whose

8 development was above average were the two most highly developed

9 republics, as they later became, and those were Croatia and Slovenia.

10 This has been proved beyond any doubt on the basis of the territorial

11 allocation of investments. Therefore, the thesis put forward by the

12 Communist Party were in fact taken over because it had been the

13 opposition, and in some sort of coalition with the Croatian Peasant Party,

14 they actually took over the thesis advocated by Bicanic. And it was with

15 these prejudices that they came onto the scene.

16 This is not an isolated piece of evidence for some sort of

17 revanchist policy, but there was no actual reason for this revanchism.

18 Q. Professor, in tab 6 of these exhibits, there is a meeting between

19 the Slovenian delegation and Tito on the 1st of December, 1943, during the

20 war. What does this document show?

21 A. This document shows that a coalition was created between Slovenia

22 and Croatia.

23 Q. Let me draw your attention on page 254 of the document, the second

24 paragraph, omitting the continuing paragraph. It mentions the cooperation

25 between Slovenians and Croats, and then Comrade Sasa suggests that the

Page 34668

1 Slovenians have a permanent delegate with the Croats and vice versa.

2 Comrade Tito greeted to this proposal, and so on and so forth.

3 A. Yes. This was Marijan Breze [phoen], a member of the Slovenian

4 Liberation Front, who drew up the minutes and gave them to this historian,

5 Mestrovic, and he included this in the book as he received it. Tito was

6 speaking of the necessity for the closest possible cooperation between

7 Slovenia and Croatia, and their well known man of letters, Vidun, said

8 that the proposal should be made specific, made concrete, by having a

9 representative of each nation with the other one. And Tito said that this

10 should be implemented as soon as possible.

11 I think that this was the beginning of a coalition which was not

12 only to last but which was to become the nucleus of a broader coalition

13 which was later created in Yugoslavia.

14 Q. Professor, tell me, this idea of the political domination of

15 Slovenia and Croatia, did it have its protagonists abroad?

16 A. Well, you know what? This is an interesting question. I have

17 just spoken about the involvement of the Comintern, and in the personnel

18 policy this was seen, for example, when Simo Markovic was replaced. He

19 was a mathematician, a university professor, a Serb, and instead, Josip

20 Broz was appointed general secretary of the party, and he was a Croat.

21 And we know what it means for the orientation of an organisation who the

22 general secretary is. He was able to create the policy and to channel it

23 in whatever direction he wished.

24 However, it's interesting to note that during World War I, in

25 England, Seton-Watson, who was a journalist and was considered to be very

Page 34669

1 familiar with Balkan conditions and who was used by the British government

2 as an expert on these issues, at this scholarly gathering that we had a

3 few years ago, in his paper -- or, rather, in the paper by Mr. Stenton, it

4 is stated that he drew up a memorandum to the British government in 1915

5 advocating the creation of Yugoslavia under the leadership of Slovenia and

6 Croatia.

7 And if one follows the situation, what happened between the two

8 world wars, then it was fairly indicative. And if one reads Bicanic, then

9 one can see the concept that prevailed and that was present.

10 Q. Professor, I apologise for interrupting, but gentlemen, we're at

11 tab 19, and the Professor has brought in a translation of the scientific

12 gathering in the academy of science which was copied, photocopied today.

13 He took the first copy from the -- as it was printed, in English. It is a

14 Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences publication, held in October 2002,

15 the meeting was, and the article by Michael Stenton, which is entitled

16 "Greater Serbia in Great Britain 1875-1991," is on page 107. And in view

17 of the fact that that international meeting, and its report was printed in

18 English, I should like to tender it in its entirety as an exhibit, because

19 we have some highly prominent men of letters writing in it.

20 MR. NICE: I think this creates some problem and raises a new

21 issue if the entire working documents of a symposium or gathering of this

22 kind should go in without the witnesses being cross-examined. I see from

23 the index that some of the names are somewhat familiar to us. We have

24 Mr. Popov at page 257, and we have Mr. Terzic at page 181. We have

25 Mr. Ekmecic, to come, at page 11.

Page 34670

1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Is it clear that he's seeking to tender the

2 entire document or just certain articles by certain authors?

3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I consider that the entire document

4 should be tendered because this is the first opportunity we've had that

5 through the good offices of Professor Mihailovic that we are being able to

6 have in our hands the English translation of the fruits of that

7 international gathering, which I think is very important for an

8 understanding of the case, and it was held in the year 2002 in the Academy

9 of Sciences.

10 JUDGE ROBINSON: Let us see what use you make of it before we

11 decide that issue.

12 MR. NICE: Your Honour, I will reserve our position on that, but I

13 will respectfully -- well, I'll just reserve our position on that.

14 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] As far as Professor Mihailovic is

15 concerned, since he is an economist, he just quoted the article by Michael

16 Stenton -- Stenton. I don't wish to use him as a witness for the reports

17 written by historians and people from other areas of expertise, but I do

18 think it's useful, for purposes of understanding, in view of the fact that

19 this is a very important international meeting, to have this entire

20 document, as it has been translated, admitted into evidence.

21 JUDGE ROBINSON: Make use of it, as I said, Mr. Milosevic. Use

22 the document and at the end we'll decide. Practice is the best teacher.

23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.

24 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

25 Q. You have just indicated Michael Stenton's article in which he

Page 34671

1 speaks of the endeavours that Seton-Watson in his day expressed as well

2 with respect to the domination of the West over the East, et cetera,

3 Professor; is that right?

4 A. Yes.

5 Q. Do you consider it necessary to highlight any other points that

6 have to deal with the economic aspects of the matter in hand? Do you want

7 to emphasise any of those on the basis of this document and use it in

8 broad terms?

9 A. Well, the entire subject matter is very broad and is broadly dealt

10 with here, so I don't want to give my critique about the historians. That

11 is not my field of expertise, but I nonetheless think that they are people

12 prominent in their professions, very competent in their professional

13 knowledge, and I think that their standpoints and views do deserve our

14 attention.

15 Q. Now, the position mentioned and commented on a moment ago in the

16 Greater Serbia policy and linked to the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, did

17 it have an important influence, great influence, small influence? Tell us

18 what kind of influence it had in the options for an economic development

19 for Serbia.

20 A. I think it was decisive, the decisive factor, because we had an

21 ideology formed which enabled domination, domination over Serbia, both

22 political and economic domination, which was quite evident. And I think

23 that the entire development of Yugoslavia after the Second World War was

24 under the signs of the political and economic domination of Slovenia and

25 Croatia, because it was thanks to their positions in the centres of

Page 34672

1 political power that this was possible. I think there was a lot of talk

2 about centralism, and centralism was always linked to Serbia, whereas in

3 actual fact that centralism in Yugoslavia just had a name and surname.

4 That is to say in a country, in a state where we had a one-party system,

5 single-party system, where one party dominated, which was hierarchically

6 very strictly organised with a political centre which was very strong, and

7 in that centre we also had a hierarchical structure, a hierarchy in the

8 person of Tito and in the person of Kardelj who were revolutionaries, who

9 had come from Russia, and who were in a way in a privileged position with

10 respect to the home-grown cadres, if I can put it that way. And they were

11 the initiators of the entire policy waged in Yugoslavia, and they were the

12 absolute arbiters on all matters.

13 Q. Professor, we see from your CV for many years you were a director

14 at the Institute for Economics and therefore you were a participant in all

15 these events, in everything that took place in the country, and you were a

16 professional in the field of economics. Tell me, please, how was it

17 possible from the standpoint of you as the director of the Institute of

18 Economics, how was it possible for the politicians of Serbia to accept a

19 slower development for Serbia, that concept, when its economy was at the

20 level of development which was below the Yugoslav average, which you noted

21 a moment ago? So that's a material fact: Serbia's economy was below the

22 Yugoslav average, and yet a policy for Serbia's slower development was

23 being waged, and this was not clandestine in any way, it was contained in

24 documents. So how was that possible? How could the politicians of Serbia

25 accept to have a go-slow development policy for Serbia, for instance?

Page 34673

1 A. Well, what we had was the party line, the party course to follow,

2 and it wasn't simple to oppose that party course waged by somebody who had

3 done so much. One had to deal with the consequences of that.

4 There were attempts on the Serb side at the very beginning, at the

5 very outset, to do something about it, and I have provided a document to

6 that effect.

7 Q. We are dealing with tab 4, Blagoje Neskovic, who was the head of

8 the party in Serbia of the day, he was greatly criticised and later

9 replaced, and we have that in tab 4, in the set of documents contained in

10 tab 4 ranging from 1943 to 1986, ideas in reality --

11 A. Milovan Djilas kept the records. And we can see from that

12 document quite plainly that it was with respect to this five-year

13 development plan when this kind of fate was designed for Serbia, that

14 before that there had been a meeting and a conflict, in fact, between a --

15 a clash between Blagoje Neskovic and Boris Kidric, and Blagoje Neskovic,

16 as Kardelj announced at that meeting, said that that wasn't our plan in

17 the sense of it not being Serbia's plan, that is to say that Serbia did

18 not take part in devising and compiling that five-year development plan at

19 all. So that was the subject of criticism.

20 And the other point is that they accused Serbia for the compulsory

21 buy-up purchase that was in force when Yugoslavia was under great pressure

22 from the compulsory crop purchase. Neskovic was replaced several years

23 later, and that's what happened. And this repeated itself in some other

24 cases.

25 Now, an explanation to this is that Tito and Kardelj had the

Page 34674

1 possibility in each republic to have leaders who suited them and who would

2 implement their policies.

3 Q. Professor, on page 49 of your own report - which is page 40 and 41

4 of the English text, gentlemen, for your benefit - this is what you say,

5 and I quote from the top of the page, top of page 49, that: "Serbia was

6 in a subordinate economic position and that Lazar Kolisevski, the leader

7 of the Communist Party of Macedonia, uncovered this when he pronounced the

8 syntagm 'a weak Serbia means a strong Yugoslavia,' which was the guiding

9 idea of the anti-Serbian policy and anti-Serbian coalition headed by

10 Slovenia and Croatia."

11 And then you go on to say that Stane Kavcic, a Slovenian

12 politician who was a dissident, in his diary wrote in 1986 the following,

13 that the policy of a weak Serbia and a strong Yugoslavia met its downfall,

14 and you go on to quote him: "The times have passed when Slovenian

15 politicians led by Kardelj with Tito's help did away with certain

16 politicians as they saw fit, and that the doors were closing." Stane

17 Kavcic, the Slovene politician, wrote those words.

18 How do you explain the existence of this syntagma? Just to avoid

19 any misunderstanding, Lazar Kolisevski criticised the syntagma "a weak

20 Serbia, a strong Yugoslavia," but he brought it to light. He brought it

21 to the surface as a policy being waged. Now, how do you explain the

22 existence of this syntagma which reads "a weak Serbia, a strong

23 Yugoslavia," and how far does it reflect realistic political and economic

24 relations in Yugoslavia?

25 A. I would like to say that this is very cynical. It was a cynical

Page 34675

1 guiding idea, the policy waged towards Serbia and in Yugoslavia after

2 World War II, and all -- it could only have one meaning and that is that

3 you must hold Serbia under political and economic control to make it weak

4 and to incapacitate it for action so that others could dominate and

5 achieve domination. There is no other way of interpreting that syntagma.

6 There cannot be any other way.

7 Q. Thank you, Professor. Now you're a well known expert for regional

8 development. That was your pet subject, if I can put it that way. What

9 were the goals and results of the policies of regional development in the

10 briefest terms?

11 A. The goals were very noble: It was the idea to have equal

12 opportunities and to bridge the development gap, the great development gap

13 between the republics. And the Slovene politician and leader whose name

14 was Kidric, Boris Kidric, and he defined that even before the five-year

15 plan in 1946 was adopted, when he said that all the republics would become

16 industrialised and achieve a high level of development. However, the

17 lesser developed republics would have a higher rate of development and

18 that they would keep up and surpass the already developed republics, take

19 them over.

20 However, what happened was quite the reverse, and this policy was

21 defined not only in the first five-year development plan but was repeated

22 as a refrain in all future development plans, independent of the obvious

23 tendencies that existed to make the differences even greater, the gulf

24 between the developed and developing even greater. So we see in practice

25 something being done that was quite contrary to the goals. While the

Page 34676

1 goals were to bridge the gap, what was actually being done was to widen

2 the gap. And this led to the largest differences. We had Slovenia and

3 Croatia on the one hand, the developed republics and the other lesser

4 developed republics on the other. Slovenia under Yugoslavia, within

5 Yugoslavia, gained a level of development of a per capita income of over

6 $9.000, which it hasn't been able to achieve since it seceded. That is

7 something that it achieved while it was in Yugoslavia.

8 Q. All right, Professor. Now, were there attempts to determine the

9 positions of all the nations in the former Yugoslavia regardless of the

10 republics those nations lived in or ethnic groups lived? And by the by

11 I'd like to draw your attention to tab 2 in which you have a table of the

12 gross national investments of the republics and provinces in the SFRY.

13 And although the table has not been translated, it is self-evident. It

14 speaks for itself.

15 I'll help you find your way around it, gentlemen. They are all

16 figures. Figures don't need to be translated, just the headings, and I

17 read out the heading: "Gross Public Investments and the Population of the

18 Republics and Provinces in the SFRY," and in that table we can see that in

19 1959 alone, for example, and in 1968, in columns and we're constantly

20 comparing two columns, social investment and the population. In those two

21 years alone, '59 and '68, investment, social investment in Serbia are just

22 marginally greater than the participation with respect to the number of

23 inhabitants. In all the other years the investments are lower than the

24 population's participation share because it is 4120 as a constant ranging

25 marginally, whereas social investments were always far below that level,

Page 34677

1 which is not evident and did not exist in the other republics, especially

2 the two you highlighted. It is different for them.

3 Now, were there attempts to establish the positions independently

4 of the republics in which the ethnic groups lived?

5 A. Yes. Let me answer that question with the Court's permission,

6 Mr. President, by your leave. If I might just be allowed to make a

7 comment, a brief comment in response to what Mr. Milosevic was just

8 saying. If you look at the first five-year plan, development plan, the

9 slowest development was to have been Slovenia since it was the most highly

10 developed republic. Then it should have the smallest growth rate. But if

11 you look at the first year, the first year of that plan, 1947, the

12 population was -- ranged at around 9 per cent of the overall Yugoslav

13 population. The smallest share was about 12 per cent in social

14 investment. So that there were 50, 60, 70 per cent more investment there

15 than the rest.

16 So what I'm trying to say is that there was a complete

17 disproportion between the plan, which seemed to be rather an irresponsible

18 document, in actual fact, and the resources and measures that were

19 realistically taken and invested and created different goals altogether.

20 So it wasn't the goals that created the resources, it was the resources

21 that set the goals and created the goals.

22 Now, as to your question, this is my attempt, an attempt on my

23 part to establish how the nations or ethnic groups -- well, every ten

24 years in Yugoslavia, at the beginning of each decade, the statistics would

25 be compiled and recorded, and the gross national income per municipality

Page 34678

1 was calculated, the revenue per municipality was calculated. And

2 following upon the logics of economic control, I arrived at fairly

3 satisfactory results, and they were these: I started out from the

4 assumption that at the level of the municipality, you cannot -- there

5 won't be great differences between the individual national groups or

6 ethnic groups. Then I looked at each ethnic group and divided it -- and

7 multiplied it per municipality and arrived at a table which you have

8 before you on page 79. It is just one table which will illustrate how

9 individual ethnic groups lived, the standard of living in the different

10 groups. It is on page 69 of the English text, that table.

11 And there we see that the Serbs were -- that the Serb national

12 income was at 95. That is to say that they had a 5 per cent lower income

13 than the Yugoslav average. And for example, in Vojvodina province, some

14 minorities, such as the Hungarians, they had higher per capita income than

15 did the Serbs, and so on and so forth.

16 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Professor. Mr. Milosevic, yes.

17 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

18 Q. Professor, you quoted Fred Singleton. That's in tab 7, I

19 believe. Let me just check that out. Tab 7. This is just the title page

20 in German, but otherwise it's in English. So if you turn the title page,

21 you will see Fred B. Singleton, "The Economic Background to Tensions

22 Between the Nationalities in Yugoslavia." And you're quoting the article

23 or, rather, this report of his. I should like to ask you, what was the

24 influence of economic differences in the break-up of Yugoslavia based on

25 that? Because you say on page 51 or 63 -- or 43 of the English version,

Page 34679

1 on page 43 in the English of your report, you say the following: You say

2 "Figures indicate that Slovenia and Croatia in the last 25 years improved

3 their absolute per capita income and their relative position in comparison

4 to the lesser developed republics." And to this assessment we should add

5 that the same trend continued to the end of the joint state, that is to

6 say of a period of 25 years.

7 So what was the influence on economic differences on Yugoslavia's

8 break-up?

9 A. Well, I think that there were different factors that led to

10 Yugoslavia's dissolution, but certainly the great differences in

11 development wielded their influence, too, precisely because some republics

12 set themselves apart, and it was the republics that were the most

13 developed that had separatist ideas. And that was not intrinsic to

14 Yugoslavia. If you look at the world today, we have a phenomenon whereby

15 the highly developed regions want to link themselves up to other highly

16 developed economies, and they tend to forget about the development of the

17 network of economic relations within each republic. So that was the case

18 not only of Yugoslavia.

19 Look at Italy, the Lombardi district, for example.

20 Q. Thank you, Professor.

21 A. Well --

22 JUDGE ROBINSON: Professor, would you stop a minute for me,

23 please.

24 Mr. Milosevic, what is the relevance of this to the issues before

25 the Court, the influence of economic differences on Yugoslavia's break-up?

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Page 34681

1 This is not a university tutorial. It's not the issue that we're

2 considering here.

3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] No, no, no. The basic question that

4 can be established here on the basis of facts indeed is whether Serbia was

5 dominant or not between the two world wars and after the Second World War

6 until the break-up of Yugoslavia. It is material facts here that prove

7 what the situation was. It's not only that Serbia was not dominant. It

8 was dominated all the time. This is a very precise analysis corroborated

9 by figures, something that no one could have invented or twisted in any

10 way. The figures speak for themselves.

11 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

12 Q. Professor, since you're quoting Singleton --

13 JUDGE ROBINSON: Not yet. You have to wait for us to consider.

14 You have to wait for the Chamber to consider. I have questioned the

15 relevance. I will now consult my colleagues on the issue.

16 [Trial Chamber confers]

17 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, we'll allow you to ask the

18 question, but we will be vigilant to ensure that the matters being raised

19 are relevant to the issues. It's a very narrow issue that you are

20 contending here, and we want to make sure that you're on point.

21 MR. NICE: With an eye on the clock, can I simply observe that I

22 have a short, very short, procedural matter to raise with you which would

23 be convenient to raise before we rise today.

24 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. And, Mr. Milosevic, you are aware, of

25 course, that the Chamber will be concluding its work tomorrow at 12.00.

Page 34682

1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I was informed only yesterday. I

2 was not aware of that beforehand. I don't know whether you planned it

3 beforehand, but I received this information only yesterday. I was not

4 aware of it until yesterday.

5 JUDGE ROBINSON: The legal officer.

6 [Trial Chamber and legal officer confer]

7 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, I am told that that notification

8 has been in the schedule for some time, at least a week now, at least a

9 week. I think other parties had notice of it, so I don't know why you

10 were only informed yesterday.

11 In any event, I make the point because you have -- you have --

12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I don't know.

13 JUDGE ROBINSON: -- the Professor has to leave tomorrow and there

14 has to be cross-examination. So you will take that into account.

15 Mr. Nice, so far we have not been limiting your cross-examination

16 to any particular time, as was done with Mr. Milosevic when he

17 cross-examined during the Prosecution case, and maybe tomorrow we'll have

18 to do that.

19 MR. NICE: Well, I'm very anxious to conclude this witness

20 tomorrow and it will help me to know how long the accused intends to be

21 with him and I can tailor my questions accordingly.

22 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, how much longer are you going to

23 be?

24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] At least one more session, I think.

25 JUDGE ROBINSON: Well, Judge Kwon has worked it out, and if you

Page 34683

1 take one more session -- no, one hour, one hour. If you take one hour

2 more, you will have then had 138 minutes. The Prosecutor would be

3 entitled to two-thirds of that time, 92 minutes, and that would take us to

4 12.00 with a 20-minute break. So you should try to tailor your

5 examination-in-chief to conclude in an hour.

6 As you know, I'm not given to these time-fixing devices, and I

7 only enter into it because of the particular difficulties faced by this

8 witness and the Court schedule.

9 MR. NICE: Your Honour, the matter I was going to raise related to

10 witnesses who might have come tomorrow had we had time for more witnesses

11 but in fact is perhaps properly raised now because immediately after

12 tomorrow we'll all separate and the next series of witnesses will come up

13 fresh in January. The next two witnesses currently notified, Eve Crepin,

14 and Patrick Barriot, according to the 65 ter summary served, would appear

15 to be --

16 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, it occurs to me that we're probably not

17 being courteous to the witness.

18 MR. NICE: Absolutely. It has nothing to do with the witness, and

19 I apologise.

20 JUDGE ROBINSON: It has nothing to do with him. Mr. Milosevic,

21 maybe we should excuse the witness now and let him return tomorrow.

22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, I have no other choice. I

23 don't know whether I can conclude the examination-in-chief within one

24 hour, but I will try to make the most rational use of time possible. At

25 any rate, the professor is going to travel on the following day because

Page 34684

1 you do not work from tomorrow afternoon onwards, as far as I know.

2 JUDGE ROBINSON: We can't sit beyond 12.00 because the Appeals

3 Chamber is going to make use of this Chamber to issue an important

4 decision. And the other courtrooms are not available because there is no

5 Albanian interpretation, I think.

6 But we will, again, make an inquiry through the Registrar to see

7 whether it is possible to sit beyond 12.00 in another courtroom. We will

8 not be able to continue in this courtroom because the Appeals Chamber will

9 require it.

10 Professor Popov -- sorry. Professor Mihailovic, you may leave now

11 and return at 9.00 tomorrow morning.

12 [The witness stands down]

13 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, yes.

14 MR. NICE: Your Honour, the witnesses currently next on the

15 witness schedule, Eve Crepin and Patrick Barriot, appear from their 65 ter

16 summaries to cover really exactly the same topic. They were together and

17 they wrote a book together and matters of that sort. Of course, how the

18 accused spends the fixed amount of time that is available to him is a

19 matter for him, which is why we don't interrupt too often on questions of

20 relevance. Because he has a fixed amount of time, it's his choice. But

21 if these witnesses are duplicative or repetitive, then the Chamber might

22 want to limit him to calling only one of them. And rather than

23 inconvenience such a witness or one of the two of them by having him or

24 her come here and then be excluded, might it be sensible to establish with

25 the accused, perhaps tomorrow before we break, whether there is a good

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Page 34693

1 reason for having two witnesses covering the same evidential territory.

2 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Nice. We'll consider that matter

3 tomorrow.

4 Do you want to say anything about it now, Mr. Milosevic?

5 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I assume that it's clear to you that

7 I'm not going to put the same questions to them. They have the same

8 experience but from different aspects. Of course I'm not going to put the

9 same questions to them. I thought that their testimony should be

10 abbreviated, both of them, so that they would not overstep the time given

11 to one witness usually.

12 JUDGE ROBINSON: That would be helpful for a start, yes.

13 [Trial Chamber confers]

14 JUDGE ROBINSON: There is a courtroom available from 10 to 3.00

15 tomorrow, but the contingencies are so many that it doesn't seem to be

16 practicable; staffing, for one, and -- yes. I think we have to work on

17 the basis that we'll conclude at 12.00 tomorrow.

18 Well, we're adjourned until tomorrow morning at 9.00.

19 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.58 p.m.,

20 to be reconvened on Friday, the 17th day of

21 December, 2004, at 9.00 a.m.

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