1 Tuesday, 6 September 2005

2 [Open session]

3 [The witness entered court]

4 [The accused entered court]

5 --- Upon commencing at 9.01 a.m.

6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, let us begin by seeking a

7 clarification from you as to your submission late yesterday afternoon. Is

8 it that the submissions made by this witness in his case should be

9 admitted into evidence or that the newspaper articles that were shown to

10 him as being written by Dulovic be admitted into evidence, or both?

11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, as you may recall, I

12 presented here the submission of Mr. Seselj which he submitted to the

13 other side in connection with Dulovic and his testimony in which he

14 challenges the truth of his statements. In this submission, he relied on

15 the fact that in 1991, at the time of those events, Dulovic wrote a number

16 of very positive articles about the events in Vukovar and then testified

17 quite differently here.

18 JUDGE ROBINSON: Well, if it's the submission, we have already

19 ruled that we are not admitting that.

20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.

21 JUDGE ROBINSON: And we're not prepared to reconsider that. But I

22 thought you might also have been submitting that the articles, the

23 newspaper articles, be admitted. That's another matter.

24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] You interrupted me before I finished

25 what I was going to say. I certainly do tender those newspaper articles.

1 They are a public document. They were published. But I asked you,

2 Mr. Robinson, whether the tendering of those articles, which confirm what

3 Mr. Seselj said in his submission, apart from being admitted into

4 evidence, can also be a basis on which Mr. Seselj's submission could be

5 admitted because he relied on those articles when compiling his

6 submission. That's why I wanted you to reconsider admitting that

7 submission.

8 I therefore tender both the newspaper articles and at the same

9 time ask you to reconsider whether the admission of those articles can be

10 a basis for admitting the submission in which Mr. Seselj relies on those

11 articles when presenting his claims about Dulovic in his submission to the

12 opposite side.

13 I think I've been sufficiently clear.

14 JUDGE ROBINSON: I see you have been influenced by Mr. Nice's

15 practice of applying for reconsideration. The Trial Chamber is not

16 prepared to reconsider the admission of the submissions which we said was

17 predominantly a matter of argument presented by Mr. Seselj to the other

18 Trial Chamber.

19 As to the other matter, the admission of the newspaper articles,

20 we'll hear from Mr. Nice.

21 MR. NICE: Your Honour, these newspaper articles were not, I

22 think, put to the witness, we don't know what if anything he would say

23 about them or their attribution to him. In those circumstances, it would

24 not be appropriate, in our submission, for them to become exhibits in the

25 case.

1 JUDGE KWON: Were they not put to the witness?

2 MR. NICE: I don't think so. If they were -- if they were --

3 JUDGE ROBINSON: You mean to whom?

4 MR. NICE: To Dulovic. I'm so sorry, yes. To Dulovic. If they

5 were put, then I'm in error, but our recollection is not. He gave some

6 summary evidence about what happened to his newspaper articles, but I

7 don't think they were put to him.

8 JUDGE BONOMY: One of the things you were going to check was

9 whether you had been aware of these articles.

10 MR. NICE: If I was going to check that, I'm sorry I haven't done

11 that.

12 I think the position is this: The submission to which the witness

13 and the accused have both referred was itself, I think, in Serbian, and

14 the newspaper articles were, of course, in Serbian. In those

15 circumstances, a decision was made to translate the article but not -- I

16 beg your pardon, the submission but not the articles, and it hasn't been

17 possible in -- it hasn't been done in the time since yesterday and today

18 to see whether these were the particular articles we had or not. But even

19 if we had had them, they haven't been translated.

20 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Kay.

21 MR. KAY: I don't know if the Dulovic articles were ever disclosed

22 under Rule 68 as potentially exculpatory material or material that

23 undermined the credibility of the witness. Maybe that is something the

24 Prosecution should consider, if they did have a record of those articles,

25 whether they were disclosed.

1 The articles could become exhibits in the case and produced

2 through a witness if they've been discovered later on as being

3 contradictory to his testimony and published in a newspaper written by

4 him and if he's given contradictory testimony here and there is a means of

5 putting that into evidence, that is plainly so and it's a matter of weight

6 and maybe the witness could be recalled to deal with such inconsistent

7 statement. So this isn't evidence that is capable of being shut out for

8 all time, in our submission, but maybe it should be considered whether

9 they were ever disclosed under Rule 68.

10 MR. NICE: We can check that, but of course the first answer would

11 be that this is open-source material and probably wouldn't be an

12 obligation on us to disclose it in any event. But Mr. Saxon, who, as you

13 know, has been dealing with Rule 68 disclosure, will check his records in

14 the course of the morning, I hope.

15 [Trial Chamber confers]

16 JUDGE ROBINSON: For the moment, we'll mark the document for

17 identification pending translation and information as to whether it had

18 been disclosed. That's a matter that we will take into consideration, not

19 that it is conclusive or decisive by itself.

20 THE REGISTRAR: That will be D305, marked for identification.

21 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

22 WITNESS: VOJISLAV SESELJ [Resumed]

23 [Witness answered through interpreter]

24 Examined by Mr. Milosevic: [Continued]

25 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, I assume you recall that a few days

1 ago we tendered into evidence reports about the communiques issued by

2 Goran Matic in the beginning of 2000 concerning the Spider group and their

3 participation in Srebrenica. Do you recall that?

4 A. Yes.

5 Q. I think the time has come to put this back on the ELMO and -- we

6 have no time to put it on the ELMO, so did the spokesman of the government

7 say that it was our duty towards the truth to establish what happened

8 during the crimes in Srebrenica, and he said what the results were of the

9 investigation carried out after the arrest of the Spider group. And in

10 the investigation against the commander --

11 MR. NICE: [Previous translation continues] ... accused giving

12 evidence, and is there a question coming out of all this?

13 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, let's have a question.

14 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

15 Q. Mr. Seselj, do you recall that the government spokesman, on behalf

16 of the government, says that the perpetrators of the crime in Srebrenica

17 had been arrested? They were the commanders of the 10th Sabotage

18 Detachment which shot prisoners of war in Srebrenica?

19 A. Yes. This was announced to the public, that Jugoslav Petrusic,

20 Milorad Pelemis, and several other members of the so-called 10th Sabotage

21 Detachment had been arrested. They had formed a new group called Pauk,

22 Spider. Their aim was to organise an assassination of you, and they took

23 a direct part in the shooting of Muslim prisoners of war near Srebrenica.

24 This was stated to the public pursuant to investigations carried out by

25 the courts and the police.

1 Q. Thank you, Mr. Seselj. Do you recall reading here the criminal

2 report against Erdemovic, who has been tried here, in which it says that

3 the shooting was carried out under orders of Milorad Pelemis, the

4 commander of the 10th Sabotage Detachment, and the enumerated members of

5 this detachment?

6 A. Yes. Erdemovic was also a member of the 10th Sabotage Detachment,

7 and as such he took part in the shootings. And we also have information

8 that members of the 10th Sabotage Detachments were not just Serbs. They

9 were also Croats, Muslims, and Slovenians, and there were quite a few

10 foreigners among them.

11 JUDGE ROBINSON: My recollection is that this is ground that we

12 have already covered. You have already dealt with this. I'm hearing this

13 for the second time.

14 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well. Very well.

15 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

16 Q. I put this in order for us to establish whether the public on

17 behalf of the government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was told

18 who the perpetrators were and that they were in prison.

19 A. Yes. The public was told that the perpetrators of the crimes in

20 Srebrenica had been found, they had been arrested, and that their guilt

21 was proved.

22 Q. And did this communique include the information that they received

23 2 million German marks for what they did because they were mercenaries of

24 foreign intelligence agencies?

25 A. Yes. They were paid by the French intelligence agencies, and they

1 organised the sending of mercenaries from Republika Srpska to Congo to

2 fight for French interests.

3 Q. Let us put on the ELMO the decision I received in the meantime of

4 the district court in Belgrade terminating the detention of Jugoslav

5 Petrusic, Pelemis, and the others, those who ten months briefly had been

6 named by the government as the perpetrators of the crime in Srebrenica,

7 that is, the execution of prisoners of war.

8 Could this please be put on the ELMO.

9 Mr. Seselj, here in this decision, in line 5 already, after where

10 it says "Decision," does it say that they were arrested pursuant to a

11 decision of the investigating judge of the district court on the 14th of

12 November, 1999?

13 A. Yes. However, they were arrested on the 11th of November, and so

14 their detention is counted as of the 11th of November, and you can see

15 that in the statement of reasons, in 1999.

16 Q. Very well. Thank you. Now, can we see here that for the acts for

17 which the authorities had established that they had been committed by the

18 10th Sabotage Detachment for Srebrenica, which can be seen from

19 Erdemovic's criminal report and from the statement made by Matic ten

20 months prior to that, because Erdemovic was April 1996, from this can we

21 see that they were not tried for that at all, nor is any mention made of

22 the crime they committed in Srebrenica?

23 A. Yes, that's right. After the putsch of the 5th of October, 2000,

24 the criminal proceedings against this group made up of Jugoslav Petrusic,

25 Milorad Pelemis, Slobodan Orasanin, Branko Vlaco and Rade Petrovic, the

1 proceedings were narrowed down to focus on crime and extortion, and they

2 were all given sentences of one year in prison to cover the time they

3 spent in detention. So what was done was to select the most lenient form

4 of sentence and crime, and for that crime they received just one year

5 imprisonment, all of them, and that was for extortion, which provides a

6 sentence of up to ten years in prison, so they were given a minimum

7 sentence of one year and then they were released, they were placed at

8 liberty. And there was a complete cover-up of their participation in the

9 execution of Muslim prisoners of war in Srebrenica which was established

10 without any doubt.

11 Q. Mr. Seselj, since you yourself were a participant in all the

12 events, an active political participant in the events during those years

13 and especially at the end of the year 2000, can you tell us how legality

14 looked after the putsch on the 5th of October, in the year 2000.

15 A. The principle of legality and lawfulness in Serbia after the 5th

16 of October, 2000, was completely abolished. It didn't exist. In Serbia

17 in the years to come there was arbitrariness on the part of the Mafia and

18 general tyranny. Political adversaries of the regime began to be

19 persecuted. The authorities --

20 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, this is 2000 --

21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, this is highly relevant,

22 Mr. Robinson. The court could not even consider the most grievous crimes

23 perpetrated by these perpetrators, and it was the public that informed the

24 authorities ten months previously by the government spokesman for this

25 scandal to go ahead and for them to release these people merely 40 days

1 after the putsch.

2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The newly established regime of

3 Zoran Djindjic systematically covered up the massacre in Srebrenica and

4 saved the main perpetrators involved in the massacre. All the courts were

5 instrumentalised by the executive powers that be and adhered to their

6 orders. The constitutional order was to all intents and purposes toppled,

7 and the government and authorities even enacted retroactively tax laws and

8 other laws to settle accounts with their adversaries. And they acted

9 against anybody that was not like-minded, and had the support of the

10 Western powers in doing that, to boot.

11 Q. Now, to the best of your knowledge, what was the motive for

12 covering up this -- for the cover-up of the crimes of the perpetrators,

13 the direct perpetrators, the commanders and members of the 10th Sabotage

14 Detachment who, without any doubt as it was established, had carried out

15 the execution of the prisoners of war in Srebrenica?

16 A. As for the motives, I learnt about those motives at the time when

17 I was vice-president or vice-premier of the government of the Republic of

18 Serbia.

19 MR. NICE: [Previous translation continues] ... I'm quite happy to

20 remind the Court of the impropriety of what this witness is being asked.

21 It's a matter for the Court.

22 [Trial Chamber confers]

23 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, I understand the gist of the

24 evidence is that some of the crimes in Srebrenica were committed by these

25 people, and that may be relevant. The motives, however, for a cover-up we

1 don't consider to be relevant. So please move on.

2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, I have in mind that

3 Drazen Erdemovic was tried here, a member of the 10th Sabotage Detachment,

4 and that Mr. Nice and his office are well aware of who perpetrated the

5 crime in Srebrenica and that this is proof and evidence that Mr. Nice

6 consciously and intentionally is avoiding --

7 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, do not attribute motives to the --

8 ill-motives to the Prosecutor. You went astray last week. You're not to

9 follow the same course. If you have a legal submission to make as to why

10 we should hear the evidence, then make it. Why do you say we should hear

11 this evidence?

12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Precisely because of that,

13 Mr. Robinson. Because Mr. Nice here quite recently, once again on several

14 occasions, claimed that the authorities at the time that I was president

15 and Mr. Seselj at the time vice-premier of the government, and his

16 members, ministers of the federal government, covered up the Srebrenica

17 case. Now, these documents show quite the contrary, that is to say that

18 our government uncovered what it was all about. We arrested Erdemovic in

19 1996. You wouldn't have even taken him to trial here had we not arrested

20 him, but you released him. And this Prosecution did not bring any lawsuit

21 against those who perpetrated that particular crime; the entire 10th

22 Sabotage Unit along with its commander.

23 JUDGE ROBINSON: We've already heard that evidence. What else is

24 there to it? We've already heard that evidence.

25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, apart from that, I would

1 like --

2 JUDGE ROBINSON: You are moving into the area of non-forensic

3 political comment, which will not be allowed.

4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, it is not a political

5 comment. It is a legal argument, the fact that here in this room Mr. Nice

6 claimed that we covered up the crime in Srebrenica, whereas we can see

7 quite the contrary here and quite the contrary is being proved here.

8 Now I'd like to show an excerpt from a film that I received

9 pursuant to Rule 68 from Mr. Nice a few months ago as disclosure. I think

10 Obrad Stevanovic was testifying at the time but I didn't have time to show

11 the tape then. I received it pursuant to Rule 68 from the opposite side

12 over there. It's a brief excerpt from the film - may we have it played -

13 and it speaks about the background.

14 [Videotape played]

15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Just let me tell you that there was

16 an error in the technical booth. I've been informed that Mr. Ognjanovic

17 is putting that error right. I wanted to show a different excerpt. This

18 is a very long film, what we're seeing now, but it's not the right part of

19 it, the right excerpt.

20 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, are you saying that the five

21 minutes that we just spent watching this film has been wasted? Why didn't

22 you stop us earlier?

23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I kept expecting the excerpt that I

24 wanted to show you to start. I don't have either the time or the

25 possibility to watch these films in the -- in prison, and my associates

1 prepared this, and I was told that they had prepared the exact portion and

2 extract I wished to show here.

3 JUDGE ROBINSON: Do you have the correct excerpt now for us?

4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] With the minutes and time. I should

5 have. Now I've just been told that they're trying to put that mistake

6 right. I would like you to hear the statement by the Muslim official from

7 Srebrenica with regard to the events in Srebrenica.

8 [Videotape played]

9 "We are now part, working for the peace to make a peace, to -- to

10 reach an agreement about a peaceful solution in Bosnia-Herzegovina, but

11 one point is very important. It's a problem of guarantee for -- guarantee

12 for the agreement. We will -- we will ask and request from the President

13 Clinton that United States participate in -- in this [indiscernible]. Of

14 course, within NATO forces and so on."

15 "Some surviving members of the Srebrenica delegation have stated

16 that President Izetbegovic also told them that he had learned that a NATO

17 intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina was possible, but could only occur

18 if the Serbs were to break into Srebrenica ..."

19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, we don't need to see this any

20 further. We can stop the tape there.

21 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. What is the question that you have to put

22 to the witness?

23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Before I do ask the question, I'd

24 like to draw your attention to the fact that the quotation which supports

25 the assertions, the claims, of the Muslim head from Srebrenica is to be

1 found in the report of the UN Secretary-General dated the 15th of

2 November, 1999, and I have that report here before me. It is on page 31,

3 paragraph 115. You will be able to find the quotation that you just saw,

4 among other things. I don't know whether you want -- would like me to

5 have it placed on the overhead projector.

6 JUDGE ROBINSON: What I would like is a question.

7 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

8 Q. Mr. Seselj, did you have any knowledge about the political

9 background of the events in Srebrenica in the light of all these facts

10 that I have presented here from Erdemovic's criminal report, his arrest,

11 the participation of the 10th Sabotage Detachment, Izetbegovic's political

12 calculations with Clinton and the events that were to follow?

13 JUDGE ROBINSON: Now, that kind of question is an invitation for a

14 very long and meandering answer from the witness. Put --

15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. Mr. Seselj --

16 JUDGE ROBINSON: Put a more focused and specific question to

17 Mr. Seselj.

18 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

19 Q. Mr. Seselj, you've just seen a film now. Before that, you saw

20 those press releases and you know the press release about what happened in

21 Srebrenica. Your own representatives were on that government. You know

22 about Erdemovic and his conviction here, and you've just seen this film.

23 Do you know about what you've just seen on this film?

24 A. Yes, as deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Serbia, on a few

25 occasions I received intelligence reports, both from the military and the

1 civilian security service, that is to say the state security service,

2 which contained concrete data that our services had obtained, namely that

3 it was foreigners who had initiated the crime in Srebrenica, that the

4 foreigners organised everything, that it was not hard to find the actual

5 executors among the mercenaries but the objective was --

6 JUDGE BONOMY: Could I interrupt briefly. Who had organised the

7 crime in Srebrenica, you mention. Now, could you define that crime for me

8 before we go any further? Can you tell me how many victims there were of

9 the crime you say was organised by foreign forces?

10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I am saying that the French

11 intelligence service directly organised this in concert with other Western

12 intelligence agencies, and according to the information that I received

13 then --

14 JUDGE BONOMY: Are we talking about the 1.200 victims we've been

15 speaking about earlier in the evidence or are we now talking about a

16 larger number of victims?

17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No.

18 JUDGE BONOMY: So we're going back over the same territory that

19 we've already been over. Is that the position? We've been over the

20 French influence, we've been over the mercenaries, we've been over the

21 individuals who were involved, we've been over Erdemovic. Are we going

22 over it again?

23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. Bonomy, that quite simply is not

24 correct. I am not talking about the same thing again but you simply don't

25 want to hear me out. Please give me two or three minutes to say what I've

1 got to say. If that is repetition, then interrupt me.

2 According to intelligence reports, we found out that everything

3 had been staged for several reasons. First of all, to serve as a basis

4 for issuing an indictment in The Hague against Radovan Karadzic in order

5 to eliminate Karadzic from the forthcoming negotiating process.

6 Secondly, because Western politicians on several occasions made

7 unwise statements to the effect that there was a genocide going on against

8 the Muslims in Bosnia, at all costs they wanted to construe at least

9 something that would be akin to genocide, and the key deception that they

10 created was an inversion of categories; a protected zone of the United

11 Nations and a protected group according to the Genocide Convention.

12 According to the Genocide Convention, it was only the

13 Bosnia-Herzegovinian Muslims as a whole that could have been a protected

14 category. According to the 1991 census, there was 2.160.000 of them, and

15 the protected zone from Srebrenica -- of Srebrenica was a safe area of the

16 United Nations. That category has nothing to do with the Convention on

17 Genocide. So that was the deception; namely that the Muslims of

18 Srebrenica be proclaimed a protected group according to the Convention on

19 Genocide, to abuse the name of a protected area by equating it to the

20 category of a protected group, and that that be used for levelling an

21 accusation against the Serbs that they had committed genocide. Then the

22 Office of the Prosecutor in The Hague was instructed to act accordingly by

23 their masters from the West. That is the deception.

24 I as vice-premier received detailed information from our services

25 about this deception, to exaggerate the number of victims as much as

1 possible, that all the Muslim casualties from 1992 to 1995 be put onto one

2 list as if they had all been executed after the liberation of Srebrenica,

3 that all of those who got killed in any way be placed on that list.

4 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

5 Q. Mr. Seselj, did you have occasion to read the testimony of General

6 Morillon before the French parliament in which he says that the reason for

7 Srebrenica was a reason of state and that it should be sought on the line

8 Paris-New York?

9 A. Yes, I had that document in my hands as vice-president -- as

10 vice-premier of the Republic of Serbia, and that is additional proof that

11 the crime in Srebrenica was construed by the West.

12 Q. Do you know that in his hearing before the French parliament

13 Morillon said that this was a trap for Mladic but that for reasons of

14 state this had to be done to him?

15 A. Yes. He said that this was a trap for Mladic. Morillon, in the

16 French parliament, stated that this was a trap for Mladic, but he kept

17 silent about the fact that this was first and foremost a trap for

18 Karadzic, to eliminate Karadzic, and that the crime in Srebrenica should

19 be used as a pretext for the systematic mass bombing of Republika Srpska

20 which had rendered the Serb army so incapable that it made it possible to

21 launch a major Croat-Muslim offensive and to involve directly the army of

22 Croatia into that initiative.

23 THE INTERPRETER: Could Mr. Milosevic please pause before the end

24 of the question.

25 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, the interpreter is asking you to

1 pause before you put your question. And the same for Mr. Seselj before he

2 answers.

3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right.

4 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

5 Q. Mr. Seselj, do you have any knowledge that would give you and

6 through which you could give an explanation to the fact that these

7 perpetrators from the 10th Sabotage Detachment were not held accountable

8 here where Srebrenica is referred to to such a large degree?

9 A. As vice-president of the government of Serbia --

10 JUDGE ROBINSON: That explanation not going to be helpful. Ask

11 another question.

12 Mr. Milosevic, you had indicated that you would have completed

13 your examination-in-chief by yesterday. We're here this morning. In the

14 past you have always tried to conclude with a flourish, and that flourish

15 usually gets you into trouble. You ask leading questions, and you descend

16 into political comment. If you do not have any other questions to put to

17 the witness, then end your examination-in-chief or I will end it.

18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, I have just completed

19 my examination, but you interrupted me and therefore I haven't thanked

20 Mr. Seselj for his evidence yet. I have provided documents here which

21 primarily have to do with the allegations made by Mr. Nice to the effect

22 that the authorities of Serbia and Yugoslavia were trying to cover up what

23 happened in Srebrenica, whereas documents prove the contrary.

24 Before Mr. Nice starts examining Mr. Seselj, I ask you to admit

25 into evidence a letter that was on the ELMO that Mr. Seselj read or,

1 rather, he read excerpts. The 8th of December, 1992. This was a letter

2 written by Radovan Karadzic to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees,

3 Mrs. Sadako Ogata, and to the head of the ICRC, Mr. Sommaruga, with copies

4 to Lord Owen and Dobrica Cosic, president of Yugoslavia, and it shows that

5 there was agreement among all three warring parties in Bosnia-Herzegovina,

6 namely the Serb, Croat, and Muslim side, under the auspices of the UN in

7 Geneva, to allow the civilians who wished to leave the territory under the

8 control of one side to cross over to the territory held by another side,

9 that they should be allowed to do so. This confirms the statements made

10 by the witness during his testimony about the departure of civilians from

11 a particular territory to another territory that was under the control of

12 a side they considered to be friendly.

13 So according to the agreement reached among the three parties in

14 Geneva, that was feasible.

15 JUDGE ROBINSON: Where is this letter, Mr. --

16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Here it is.

17 JUDGE ROBINSON: Let us have a look at it.

18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Fortunately, I have it both in the

19 Serbian and English languages. Please have a look at the Serb copy and

20 the English text.

21 JUDGE ROBINSON: This was actually put to Mr. Seselj?

22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] It was put to Mr. Seselj in relation

23 to his testimony about that, namely that major movements of population

24 from one area to another were not a consequence of any kind of ethnic

25 cleansing but rather an agreement reached by the three sides to

1 have this organised and to ensure the support of the Red Cross and the UN

2 High Commissioner for Refugees.

3 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice. Mr. Nice.

4 MR. NICE: If it was put, I have no objection.

5 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, we'll admit it. Please give it a number.

6 THE REGISTRAR: That will be D306.

7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. Seselj. I have no

8 further questions.

9 Mr. Robinson, I also ask that this decision of the district court

10 from Belgrade dated the 13th of November, 2000, releasing those persons

11 from prison, also be admitted into evidence.

12 THE REGISTRAR: That will be D307.

13 JUDGE ROBINSON: As it's not translated, it will, in accordance

14 with the practice, be marked for identification.

15 JUDGE BONOMY: I have two questions, Mr. Milosevic. You referred

16 to a report of the United Nations Secretary-General of the 15th of

17 November, 1999. Is that already an exhibit in the case?

18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I hope it is but I'm not sure of

19 that. I assume that the relevant reports pertaining to Yugoslavia are all

20 exhibits in this case. I have the report here in front of me, and I can

21 loan it to you so that you can at least cast a glance at it, because the

22 report that I got on the basis of Rule 68 as part of the exculpatory

23 material includes what I highlighted here, number 31. I used yellow

24 highlighter. It's a very long report, over 100 pages. You can have a

25 look. The report is entitled The Fall of Srebrenica.

1 JUDGE BONOMY: I would like to see the part that you've

2 highlighted, please.

3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Please go ahead. The second part of

4 the highlighted paragraph is the one you could have seen on the overhead

5 projector as it was quoted by the Dutch too. It pertained to the killing

6 of 5.000 persons.

7 The highlighted section, the one highlighted in yellow - and could

8 you have it enlarged so that it can be read - you saw this on the film,

9 part of it.

10 "[In English] Some surviving members of the Srebrenica delegation

11 have stated that President Izetbegovic also told them he had learned that

12 a NATO intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina was possible, but could only

13 occur if the Serbs were to break into Srebrenica, killing at least 5.000

14 of its people."

15 [Interpretation] That's what you saw on the screen. And that is

16 an integral part of the report of the Secretary-General dated the 15th of

17 November, 1999.

18 Also on the screen you could see the chief of police from

19 Srebrenica, a Muslim, saying that Izetbegovic had told them that Clinton

20 had proposed to them that they kill some Muslims so that there could be an

21 intervention afterwards. That was what he said on camera.

22 JUDGE BONOMY: I've perhaps misunderstood. I thought you were

23 claiming that there was some support in this report for the idea that this

24 was all being staged, but all this does is reflect the assertion which is

25 then denied. Now, is there another passage that you were going to refer

1 to?

2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] No. I've just presented this

3 passage.

4 JUDGE BONOMY: All right. Thank you. The second matter is this:

5 You put into Mr. Seselj's mouth various words said to have been uttered by

6 General Morillon before the French parliament. Do you have a transcript

7 of what he said to the French parliament?

8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I do. I do. It's a public

9 document, the hearing of General Morillon before the French parliament.

10 As a matter of fact, I think I've already exhibited it here, but I'm going

11 to ask my associates to find a copy and to have it handed over to you.

12 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

13 MR. KAY: The report on The Fall of Srebrenica is Exhibit 547, tab

14 36.

15 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Kay.

16 JUDGE BONOMY: That's the UN report.

17 MR. KAY: Yes.

18 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

19 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, what about the video?

20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes, yes, the video, too. By all

21 means I would like to have it admitted into evidence. According to Rule

22 68, I received it, so both parties agreed that it is important, otherwise

23 Mr. Nice would not have sent that material.

24 JUDGE KWON: It's a Dutch programme. Do you know the name of the

25 programme?

1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I can look it up, and I can tell you

2 the name of the programme, of the whole programme, that is. It is a Dutch

3 programme because it was their soldiers who were in Srebrenica at the

4 material time.

5 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. We'll admit it.

6 MR. NICE: Well, Your Honour --

7 JUDGE ROBINSON: Do you have something to say about that?

8 MR. NICE: Yes. The fact that something is provided to the

9 accused under Rule 68 doesn't make it --

10 JUDGE ROBINSON: No, no. That's not the basis under which we're

11 admitting it, I assure you.

12 MR. NICE: -- a television programme, and as to television

13 programmes, we've been permitted to put in a very limited number of

14 excerpts from particular television programmes when the witness concerned

15 has been able to say something specific about the passage seen. I'm not

16 sure that that is the case here. This is just a general television

17 programme. It's up to the Chamber.

18 [Trial Chamber confers]

19 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. We'll admit only those parts that were

20 played.

21 THE REGISTRAR: That will be D308.

22 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Nice.

23 Cross-examined by Mr. Nice:

24 Q. Mr. Seselj, before we move from Srebrenica --

25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, let's understand one

1 another. I didn't ask for the entire tape to be admitted into evidence

2 but only the portions I played. Thank you.

3 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

4 MR. NICE:

5 Q. Before we move from Srebrenica, let's see if I can understand a

6 few things you've been saying. What do you mean "staged"?

7 A. What I mean by that is that the French intelligence service,

8 through its agents, paid the 10th Sabotage Detachment and its members to

9 organise the shooting of Muslim prisoners of war near Srebrenica in order

10 to ascribe this crime to the entire Serb leadership. That's what I mean

11 when I say it was staged. There is no doubt that the crime actually

12 occurred.

13 Q. As to the total numbers killed, as you know, the Krstic judgement

14 says probably between 6 and 7.000, a figure adopted in the RS by their

15 commission in a recent -- sorry, 7 to 8.000 in Krstic, a figure adopted by

16 the RS in their comparatively recent concession about the massacre in

17 Srebrenica. Are you saying that there were no other people killed apart

18 from the 1.000 or 1.200 killed by the Sabotage Detachment?

19 A. I'm certain that it was not 7.000 who were killed. As far as I

20 know, the Republika Srpska and its commission speak of 7.000 missing, not

21 killed. I know for certain that on the list of those killed there are

22 names of people who died much earlier. The list of those killed even

23 includes names of Muslims who were arrested by Djukanovic's police in

24 Montenegro and delivered to Deronjic in 1990, and he shot them then at

25 that time. I cannot swear that only 1.200 were killed. It might have

1 been a little more or a little less, but it is certainly not possible that

2 7.000 were executed.

3 You are saying it was 7.000 in order to artificially construct a

4 thesis that this was genocide, because according to the convention --

5 Q. [Previous translation continues] ...

6 JUDGE ROBINSON: I think you have responded to the question.

7 MR. NICE:

8 Q. Now, the next thing is this: You speak of foreigners who staged

9 this, foreigners about whom you learnt things from intelligence. Is this

10 just the French or is it other nationalities that are involved as well?

11 A. The French intelligence service, according to the information of

12 our intelligence services, carried this out. In their reports, our

13 intelligence services - and I had these reports in my hands and read them

14 - considered that the French had done this in agreement with other

15 Western services, bearing in mind primarily the American intelligence

16 services.

17 Q. That brings me to my next question: When was it that you had

18 these reports in your hand?

19 A. This was sometime in 1998.

20 Q. And who made them available to you in 1998?

21 A. As the deputy Prime Minister of Serbia, I regularly, almost daily,

22 in the cabinet of the Prime Minister read various intelligence reports.

23 There was one copy sent for the entire cabinet. It could not be

24 photocopied or taken out of the Prime Minister's office. It could be read

25 by the Prime Minister and the deputy Prime Ministers. Then it was taken

1 away. It was registered under a number as a state secret. This can be

2 confirmed by Mirko Marjanovic, the then Prime Minister, and as far as I

3 know, all the four deputy Prime Ministers, at least some of them.

4 JUDGE BONOMY: We have already had exhibited here an annual report

5 or compilation of intelligence reports that seemed to be compiled by the

6 Serbian government, and I think the point was that it openly recorded the

7 information that was being obtained through intelligence. That evidence

8 related to Kosovo rather than to any other part of Serbia, I think. But

9 are you saying that there would be available a similar document which

10 would be a compilation of intelligence reports in general relevant to the

11 period of the war in Croatia -- sorry, in Bosnia?

12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I cannot speak of a whole document

13 that might be a compilation of various reports from various periods of

14 time. I am now speaking of daily or periodic reports which I was given

15 access to either in the state security service or the military security

16 service. They sent those to the cabinet.

17 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, do you think these reports are still

18 available?

19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] How could I know? I've been in

20 prison for two and a half years. I don't know what has happened in Serbia

21 in the meantime. It's up to you to ascertain that. But I can prove

22 through the testimony of the then Prime Minister or my colleagues the

23 other deputy Prime Ministers that these documents did exist.

24 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

25 MR. NICE:

1 Q. Well, His Honour brings me indeed to the point that I was

2 interested in, but let's approach it in a slightly different way. You saw

3 these documents in 1998. What exactly were they?

4 We -- let me just help you a little bit. We've had the reports of

5 the kind His Honour Judge Bonomy has told you about, we've had quite a lot

6 of intercepts of people speaking to one another. Those are two of the

7 sorts of raw material that we may have from intelligence sources. Now you

8 tell us, Mr. Seselj, precisely what category of material were you

9 reviewing in 1998?

10 A. These were documents that the intelligence services delivered for

11 their inspection to the highest ranking government officials. I have

12 mentioned one of those documents pursuant to which we replaced Jovica

13 Stanisic, and later on Mr. Milosevic replaced Perisic. This was a whole

14 file full of various intelligence documents about the CIA centre in Vienna

15 who had the operational task of toppling Slobodan Milosevic. This

16 includes information of opposition leaders from Serbia going for talks.

17 Q. You're an educated man. If you're given a report on an

18 interesting or controversial topic, you'll be likely to want to know how

19 reliable it is, what its sources are. Can you tell us, please, either in

20 detail what the material was you reviewed or, if you can't remember, on

21 what sources, what primary sources this material relied so that we can

22 know what existed in the archives?

23 A. The sources were under code, and we were not told about the

24 specific sources, but I made an effort to check the content of these

25 reports in other ways. Let me illustrate this in another way also.

1 This information which I received as deputy Prime Minister in 2000

2 led me to name those who participated in the murder of Arkan in 2000. My

3 information was of such a nature, and sometimes --

4 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Seselj, you have a tendency to deviate from the

5 subject. I think Mr. Nice wants to know what the sources were for the

6 information about Srebrenica, not about Arkan.

7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I'm telling you about the nature of

8 the information that was made available to me. It was made available to

9 me for inspection, but I was quite clear about the sources. The sources

10 mentioned were under code. The code usually had some kind of made-up

11 name.

12 MR. NICE:

13 Q. That's the -- that's the intelligence -- that's the human

14 intelligence source, perhaps. Now, in intelligence reporting, the human

15 intelligence source may be disguised even from privileged readers like

16 yourself by the intelligence services, but what he's reporting or she's

17 reporting on doesn't need to be protected, so that if your human

18 intelligence source says Mr. X and Madam Y made an agreement whereby

19 Srebrenica would be staged, you the reader should be able to know who

20 Mr. X and Madam Y were. Could you tell us, please, from your reading of

21 the material if there are any individuals identified in this staging.

22 A. These were reports I read about seven years ago. I cannot recall

23 every detail. I recall the essence, and I recall the form in which these

24 reports were made available to us. These reports concerned the most

25 varied topics, but pursuant to the reports on Srebrenica, I did speak out

1 in public later on. I was among the first in Serbia to publicly name one

2 of the officers who was involved.

3 Q. Who was the officer?

4 A. I publicly named on more than one occasion Colonel Beara, and that

5 is common knowledge. You can find a large number of media reports on

6 that.

7 JUDGE BONOMY: The question, though, is about the individuals who

8 were behind the cover-up. Beara, I presume, you indict as someone who

9 implements it, but this is such an important matter, albeit seven years

10 may have elapsed, one would expect you to remember individuals. Indeed, I

11 would have expected you to speak out against them.

12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] On more than one occasion I did

13 speak out against them. I condemned them in public. That is those

14 criminals who executed Muslim prisoners of war in Srebrenica. There is

15 evidence to show this.

16 JUDGE BONOMY: We are looking behind that, for the French people

17 who are supposed to be behind it.

18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] How should I know who the French

19 people were? Mr. Bonomy, here you are used to false witnesses brought by

20 the Office of the Prosecutor who, even after a lapse of 15 years, recall

21 every detail.

22 JUDGE BONOMY: You see, it strikes me that that sort of assertion

23 in response to the what I thought was measured debate we were having is

24 bluff and demonstrates a failure on your part to address the issue which

25 I'm seriously trying to address at the moment. However, no doubt Mr. Nice

1 will be able to succeed where I have failed.

2 MR. NICE: I can only do my best.

3 Q. Will you tell us, please, Mr. Seselj, when and where you -- I

4 haven't -- I haven't finished --

5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] First of all, I protest against what

6 you have said, that I'm bluffing. You as a Judge cannot permit yourself

7 to say something like that. You can decide on that when I have finished

8 my testimony. You cannot tell me here to my face that I am bluffing

9 without any arguments to support it. That is not fitting for a Judge.

10 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Seselj, the comment you made was that I was

11 used to false witnesses brought by the Office of the Prosecutor who, even

12 after a lapse of 15 years, recall every detail. Now, that's just an

13 assertion, a generalisation which has no substance in its context because

14 we are not dealing with, at the moment, witnesses who come here 15 years

15 later. We're dealing with a witness of distinctive intelligence who has a

16 close interest in Srebrenica, and it's against that background that I am

17 asking the questions I'm asking. And to refer in the way you have to

18 Prosecution witnesses with that sort of generalisation is pointless in the

19 context of our debate, and for that reason I call it bluff. It's

20 something that you assert with a view to concealing, perhaps, we'll have

21 to investigate that later, your own absence of knowledge on the matter.

22 MR. NICE:

23 Q. Mr. Seselj, when and where did you first set out the version of

24 events that you told us about half an hour ago involving the staging of

25 Srebrenica? Where did you first, and when, did you first set that out?

1 In a speech, in a book, in an article, in an interview?

2 A. I can't recall when was the first time, but more than once I

3 publicly stated that the execution of Muslim prisoners of war in

4 Srebrenica was staged, and you have an abundance of testimony about that

5 in my books, because in my books I publish my features, my television

6 broadcasts, and my newspaper interviews. You have this available and

7 there is an abundance of that. I didn't say it just once, I said it

8 dozens of times.

9 Q. Mr. Seselj, they're your books and I'd like you please to point us

10 now, or after the first break if that's more convenient, to either the

11 first, if you can, or at any event an early account by you that matches

12 the account of staging that you gave to the Judges a little earlier. Now,

13 can you give me that detail now or will you require the short break to

14 search your memory and help us?

15 A. I don't need any break. This is in my books. The Serbian public,

16 all of it, is familiar with that. It's well known in the Serbian public

17 that I have already spoken about this, but for me to look it up, I'm not

18 your clerk, Mr. Nice. I abide by what I say, but it doesn't cross my mind

19 to try and convince you of anything.

20 Q. Mr. Seselj, I'm asking you to help the Judges, please, by

21 referring us to a printed version, as you say it will be, of a first or

22 early occasion when you gave this account. Will you give them that

23 assistance?

24 A. Yes. I will refer the Judges to my books which contain my

25 television, radio, and newspaper interviews from 1997 and 1998 onwards.

1 These books are full of statements of this kind, giving the version I am

2 advocating here today based on the information available to me at the

3 time.

4 JUDGE BONOMY: What -- what is wrong with Mr. Nice's suggestion

5 that at the break, or even tonight, you might consider the position

6 further and tell us when was actually the first time you spoke out about

7 this? It seems a perfectly reasonable request.

8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, he wants to burden me with a

9 lot of work outside this courtroom. I have submitted 80 books to the

10 Office of the Prosecutor. My collected works are now being published in

11 hardback, and do you want me to leaf through all of that? No. It's

12 Mr. Nice's service that should do that. And then if they fail to find it

13 they can say it's not there, and then I can try and catch out Mr. Nice and

14 prove that he's lying.

15 JUDGE BONOMY: No, I must say I'm concerned about this. We all

16 have busy lives, Mr. Seselj, and you'll appreciate that the life of a

17 Judge in this case is a busy one. It would just seem to be reasonable to

18 ask the person who wrote the material to identify when he first referred

19 to it, but if you cannot help, then the matter will have to rest there.

20 MR. NICE: Your Honours, I will, of course, be as interventionist

21 as is necessary with this witness to control him and to stop his excesses,

22 but will the Court please look at the last line of the last answer. Bear

23 in mind the character of some of the questioning of the accused last week,

24 and I wonder if it would consider --

25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] First of all, I protest.

1 MR. NICE: I wonder if the witness could ---

2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I protest.

3 JUDGE ROBINSON: What are you protesting? Mr. Nice is on his

4 feet. Let Mr. Nice address me first and then I'll hear from you.

5 Mr. Nice, what is it that you're bringing to our attention?

6 MR. NICE: I'm bringing to your attention the sort of observation

7 that the witness has made, twinning it with the sort of questions and

8 observations that the accused made last week, and I'm inviting the Chamber

9 to ensure that an appropriate decorum is maintained in this Court.

10 The last answer of this witness, and the last sentence of it, is

11 absolutely improper and unacceptable and I'm not going to stand here

12 endlessly while ill-disciplined accused or witnesses are given free rein.

13 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Seselj, it's not -- the suggestion that you

14 made that Mr. Nice might be proved to be lying is an inappropriate one and

15 not acceptable. It's a remark I made to the accused as well. Mr. Nice is

16 right; we must observe a level of decorum appropriate with the

17 proceedings.

18 Let us have mutual respect from all parties in the Court.

19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson.

20 JUDGE ROBINSON: I don't want to hear from you, Mr. Milosevic, on

21 this.

22 Mr. Seselj, yes.

23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, you are putting in my

24 mouth something I did not say. I did not say that Mr. Nice was lying. I

25 didn't say that once. What I said was that if Mr. Nice were to say that

1 this was not contained in my books from that time, then I would bring my

2 books here and I would catch him out and show he was lying. That was a

3 conditional clause. I didn't say he was lying. There have been no

4 excesses here, but he is now trying to create an incident. That, however,

5 is his problem and your problem with him, not with me. I am trying to

6 behave properly here and politely.

7 JUDGE ROBINSON: Let us move on. Let us move on. Mr. Nice.

8 MR. NICE:

9 Q. Mr. Seselj, the last question I really want to ask you about this

10 intelligence that you read, or the last subtopic on the intelligence you

11 read, at least at the moment, is this: What was the date of that original

12 intelligence? Was it 1995, 1996, or when?

13 A. The date was a day before I read it. Therefore -- well, these

14 reports were daily and periodic reports. The periodic reports sometimes

15 contained analyses of certain topics and could then include information

16 from previous years. However, every report that I read was dated from the

17 previous day.

18 Mr. Milosevic received the same kind of reports, as did a certain

19 other number of people in the state.

20 Q. The raw material upon which these reports was based, was that a

21 1998 conversation between perhaps a human intelligence source and someone

22 else or a 1998 intercept looking back over three years, or was the raw

23 material itself 1995 or 1996 material?

24 A. This is simply an impossible question. How can I answer it? Who

25 in my place could give a convincing answer to such a question? Our

1 intelligence services had their people in various institutions in Serbia.

2 They also had their people in the opposition political parties. They had

3 their people abroad. An officer of the French army, during the NATO

4 bombing, was shown to be a Serbian intelligence agent. Traditionally, our

5 intelligence agencies were always very capable in that respect until the

6 change in government in 2005, but you are now asking me to tell you about

7 these reports in detail as if I had them before me now or as if I tried to

8 memorise them at the time and learn them off by heart. I'm telling you

9 about the basic facts I learned in that way.

10 Q. When did you first mention this material to this accused? I don't

11 want to know what you said to him, but in the proofing sessions when did

12 you first mention the existence of this material to this accused?

13 A. As far as I can recall, we didn't even discuss this during the

14 proofing sessions, but we did discuss it before or, rather, we discussed

15 the crime in Srebrenica before on various occasions. When I was deputy

16 Prime Minister, I frequently had consultations with Mr. Milosevic who was

17 the president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. We were coalition

18 partners.

19 Q. You would both have known of this material. I just want to know,

20 do you know whether any effort has been made on behalf of the accused to

21 produce this material to this Court?

22 A. I don't know that. What the fate of that material is I don't

23 know.

24 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... believe, if your account of

25 it is accurate, that the material that you returned to its custodian has

1 since been destroyed, is there?

2 A. The fate of the material is something that I do not know. All I

3 can do is to draw your attention to the fact that after the 5th of October

4 there was a lot of burning of various intelligence material and dossiers

5 in the institute in Belgrade -- security in Belgrade. So what happened, I

6 don't know. And I'm not -- I don't interfere with the work of the Defence

7 team of Mr. Milosevic. All I'm doing is speaking about what I know. And

8 what I say I stand by.

9 MR. NICE: [Previous translation continues] ... the Courts will

10 not be surprised to know that requests for assistance to produce documents

11 that would have incorporated such material have of course been sent, and

12 indeed followed up, but all with negative result.

13 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, you, too, have to observe the pause.

14 If you look, you'll see that you're overlapping.

15 MR. NICE: Yes.

16 JUDGE ROBINSON: We're going to adjourn for 20 minutes.

17 --- Recess taken at 10.32 a.m.

18 --- On resuming at 10.54 a.m.

19 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, to continue.

20 MR. NICE: Before I do continue, can Mr. Saxon bring you

21 up-to-date with our inquiries into the proposed exhibit of the accused.

22 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

23 MR. SAXON: Very briefly, Your Honours. The newspaper articles

24 published in Politika by Jovan Dulovic were not attached to submission

25 number 55 of Vojislav Seselj, which was provided to the Prosecution some

1 months ago. These articles were merely referred to within the text of the

2 submissions. Selected portions of these articles were referred to from

3 pages 10 through pages 44 of Mr. Seselj's submission number 55.

4 So at this time, the Prosecution does not have full copies of

5 these articles in its possession. It has previously, in May of 2002,

6 disclosed under Rule 66(B) other articles by Jovan Dulovic, the

7 journalist, but these are different articles that were published in 1994

8 and 1995.

9 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Saxon.

10 MR. NICE:

11 Q. Mr. Seselj, I hope to return to Srebrenica as a topic if time

12 allows later. However, there's one thing I want to ask you about and give

13 you a chance to consider over the next day or so that I'll be asking you

14 questions so that you can help us, and it relates to what you said about

15 the proceedings against Erdemovic in 1996.

16 Are you aware of the fact that Erdemovic had been interviewed by

17 and had given an account of events to a journalist by the name of

18 Janekovic?

19 A. As far as I recollect, and that really was quite some years ago,

20 this statement given by Erdemovic to a journalist led to his arrest in

21 Serbia.

22 Q. And --

23 A. Was a pretext for his arrest in Serbia, if I remember correctly.

24 Q. Are you aware that Janekovic's records of the interview were taken

25 from the journalist at an airport, seized from, I think it's his or her

1 luggage -- it's her luggage. Are you aware of that? Seized by the

2 authorities from her luggage on the 2nd of March of 1996.

3 A. I don't know about that. I'm not aware of it.

4 Q. Yes. What I want you to help us with is this: Can you point us,

5 please, to any public acknowledgement or public process against Erdemovic

6 or anyone else in respect of Srebrenica before that date, the 2nd of

7 March, 1996, when it was known that the journalist was in a position to

8 reveal what Erdemovic had himself revealed?

9 A. You're asking me questions on the basis of my negative answer to

10 the previous question. I don't know that anybody seized any notes of any

11 journalist. To the best of my recollections, Erdemovic was the first whom

12 the authorities in Serbia prosecuted for Srebrenica, and that was just one

13 year after the event in Srebrenica, or less than a year. And I was in the

14 opposition at the time, I wasn't in the government at the time, so I can't

15 give you any more detailed information about that.

16 Q. You've answered questions about everything, you've claimed

17 knowledge of nearly everything on all theatres of the conflicts and all

18 matters of government and all matters of legal process, and I'm giving you

19 a chance, the longest chance I can give you, to identify between now and

20 the end of your testimony any public acknowledgement or public process by

21 the authorities in Serbia of Erdemovic or of anyone else before the 2nd of

22 March of 1996. I want your help on that.

23 A. I don't have that information that somebody before March 1996

24 publicly process -- was publicly processed because of the crime in

25 Srebrenica.

1 Now, as far as your comment goes that I said that I know

2 everything, no. That's what the Trial Chamber said, and then

3 semi-jokingly I confirmed that. I never said that I knew everything, was

4 omniscient, nor can anybody be. Only God knows everything, and I am much

5 lower down on that scale, but more than you, Mr. Nice.

6 Q. I have a few questions to ask you about your approach to this

7 Tribunal, the relevance of which will become obvious, but first of all the

8 question. Do you recognise the ICTY generally? Not this particular

9 Chamber, we'll have no personalisation of this Chamber. Do you recognise

10 the ICTY generally as a lawfully constituted body? Yes or no.

11 A. No. I consider that this International Tribunal for the former

12 Yugoslavia is unlawful, that it was established by an unlawful organ, the

13 Security Council, which pursuant -- which, pursuant to the UN Charter, did

14 not have the right to do so and that this Court was not established to

15 establish justice but peace, and it is the first Court or Tribunal in the

16 history of mankind given the task of establishing peace and not

17 establishing the truth, justice. And as a legal man myself, as a

18 professor of constitutional law, theoretically speaking I bring into

19 question the legality and lawfulness of this Tribunal and I claim that it

20 is not legal or lawful.

21 Q. Again with no reference to the Judges in this particular Chamber,

22 just to confirm what your position is about recognising the lawful

23 authority of the judiciary of the Tribunal generally. Do you recognise

24 any lawful authority in the judiciary generally?

25 A. I consider that this Tribunal is not a lawful organ, that this

1 Tribunal is anti-Serbian. It is a political institution as such, and this

2 Tribunal is oriented against the interests of the Serb people. And the

3 sources of financing fully compromise the Tribunal. It was not financed

4 only by the United Nations but by Soros and many other private persons and

5 states in the world who had a personal vested interest in it.

6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, at this stage I have to ask you about

7 the relevance.

8 MR. NICE: Certainly.

9 Q. Mr. Seselj, when you came into this room, you took the solemn

10 declaration. In what way, then, in light of your last two answers, does

11 that bind you at all?

12 A. I solemnly declared before the eyes of the public and mankind that

13 I will speak the truth without entering on that occasion to the fact of

14 whether this Tribunal was lawful or unlawful, and I have adhered to that,

15 to tell the truth. And -- however, I will always question the legality

16 and lawfulness of this Tribunal, both professionally and on scientific

17 grounds.

18 Q. So there's nothing in your declaration that binds you to the Court

19 generally, or indeed to this Chamber specifically. As you've expressed

20 it, it's to mankind; correct?

21 A. I have here the text of the declaration that I uttered and I

22 declared here. "I solemnly declare that I will tell the truth, the whole

23 truth, and nothing but the truth." I did not say here that I would

24 recognise this Tribunal, which I consider to be illegal, that I would

25 recognise the way in which it was established, and that I would recognise

1 the alleged objectivity or unbiasedness because I claim that the Tribunal

2 is biased and prejudiced, but what I did declare is something that was

3 written down on this piece of paper.

4 Q. There's a practical problem. One of the reasons I'm asking you

5 these questions, and I'm only going to ask you a few but only a few more

6 about your attitude to the Tribunal.

7 If it ever becomes necessary or desirable for me in

8 cross-examining you to refer to, in private session, of course, to

9 witnesses who might be protected, is there any way you can explain to us

10 that you would honour that protection and not publish their names?

11 A. Ever since I arrived at The Hague prison, I did not disclose a

12 single name of any protected witness, and I abide strictly by that

13 provision because I don't want to put -- give you this argument of telling

14 me that you're not informing me about the protected witnesses so that I

15 can question their testimony. I never published -- made public their

16 names except my Defence -- to my Defence team, and I did so to them

17 legally. I sent them confidential material disclosed to me by the

18 Prosecution, and they never made that public, they never published that.

19 Q. I may have to return to that and just a few questions about your

20 attitude before we move on to something else so that we can understand

21 where you stand.

22 Have you described -- and I haven't got a copy of this but you'll

23 recollect words to this effect: Have you described to the BBC that The

24 Hague is a place where there is an "anti-Serb plot" that you will unmask?

25 A. Yes. And in the trial against me, I will unmask that anti-Serb

1 plot by proving that all the accusations against me are false, based on

2 false witnesses, based on false evidence, and politically motivated. Your

3 motive was to do away with me from Serbian political life because there

4 was the danger of my party taking over power in Serbia. So that is the

5 sole reason for which you raised the indictment against me. You first

6 raised the indictment and only then began to collect evidence against me.

7 You had nothing against me once you raised the indictment, and you have

8 nothing against me today either, and that's relevant.

9 Q. Can you look at the following document, please, that I'm afraid is

10 not translated, but nevertheless it's very short and you can help us with

11 it.

12 A. You have to provide me with documents in the Serbian language.

13 Q. It comes from your own website, so it is in the Serbian language.

14 A. Excellent.

15 Q. This lists some of the documents and books currently being

16 advertised on your website; is that correct? Well, the Radical Party's

17 website, your party's website.

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. Just looking down that list of contemporary publications, is one

20 headed A Genocidal Israeli Diplomat, Theodore Meron?

21 A. Yes, that is my book entitled The Genocidal Israeli Diplomat,

22 Theodor Meron, because he was the Israeli foreign minister, and he

23 implemented genocide against the Palestinian people and as such he cannot

24 be qualified to be the president of the International Tribunal which is to

25 try other people for similar crimes. And he abused his position as

1 president of the Tribunal; he held a speech at the anniversary of

2 Srebrenica and spoke about genocide.

3 Q. Sometimes the answer can be very brief. If you feel it's going to

4 be helpful for you to go on at length in the way you have done, I won't

5 necessarily stop you, but the answer can be brief.

6 Is a second --

7 A. Mr. Nice, if the answer is too brief, then it is not complete and

8 not in the interests of justice for me to give incomplete answers. As you

9 can see, all my answers follow the same direction as do your questions,

10 and I'm just confirming what you've said. I'm answering in the

11 affirmative, so you don't have to run away from my answers, and I'm doing

12 my best to make them concise, well-centred, and concentrated on what

13 you're asking me, but, of course, complete.

14 Q. The second book title that we see there, In the Jaws of the Whore

15 Carla Del Ponte. Is that the sort of material your website is publishing?

16 Yes?

17 A. I published a book under the title In the Jaws of the Whore Del

18 Ponte. "Carla" and "Kurva" is a play on words. "Kurva," in the Serbian

19 language, means prostitute, so the symbolism there is clear. I consider

20 Carla Del Ponte in the legal sense to be a prostitute because she does not

21 adhere to legal principles. She is downtreading them. She is waging an

22 anti-Serb policy and wishes to try the whole Serbian people and makes a

23 selection of the individuals whom she indicts in this Tribunal on that

24 basis.

25 Q. Let's look at the next document, please.

1 A. You're not going to stop there, Mr. Nice, I assume. I thought you

2 would go through all the titles so I could explain them.

3 Q. Is it -- this document comes from your magazine. I may have to

4 find the passage, but there's a passage that's been translated into

5 English, and on the Serbian version it's on the right-hand side of the

6 page. And in February of this year, were you publishing in your magazine

7 in respect of this Court an article headed The Criminals Are Banning

8 Vucic's Visit? And in the second -- or the third paragraph, you say this:

9 "Aleksandar Vucic is not coming to visit me in his capacity as a member of

10 the Serbian Radical Party but rather as my accepted legal advisor. I

11 accepted him as my legal advisor but you, all you members of The Hague

12 Tribunal Registry -" perhaps you'd like to read the last line of that,

13 please, to us, in the Serbian.

14 A. Why didn't you read it all out? You read more beautifully than I

15 do. At the end I said: "... all you members of the Registry office of

16 The Hague Tribunal can only suck my dick." But that is not my article.

17 It is my submission to the secretariat of The Hague Tribunal, which for a

18 full two and a half years is preventing my Defence and refusing to

19 register my legal advisors and in other ways violating elemental rules and

20 regulations with regard to my status and rights.

21 Q. Read the last short paragraph on this page.

22 A. No, I can't do only the last one. I have to do the penultimate

23 one and the last paragraph together because you can understand the last

24 one only if I read the one but last paragraph as well.

25 Q. [Previous translation continues] ...

1 A. "My legal advisors are not my Defence counsel and that is why they

2 need not fulfil the conditions stipulated by the Rules of Procedure and

3 Evidence for Defence counsel. All they have to do is to fulfil those

4 conditions which I prescribe for them. And you can go on hampering my

5 Defence and then ultimately you're going to have to eat all the shit that

6 you excreted.

7 "Fuck you all, beginning with Hans Holthuis, and so on, including

8 that Tjarda van der Spoel, who is a crook."

9 So that has nothing to do with my Defence. That's the man, and

10 his aim is to make my Defence impossible.

11 Q. Two more and then I'm done with this. The next one, please, is an

12 extract from your magazine or newspaper of April 2005. Could you just

13 look at that. Perhaps the usher can even show the two pictures on the

14 overhead projector.

15 The first deals with -- the picture deals with the Pope, doesn't

16 it?

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. And it accuses the Pope of being the main culprit for the -- this

19 is the late Pope, the main culprit for the crimes falsely alleged against

20 yourself. Can you, in a couple of sentences so that we can understand it,

21 and I would ask you to be brief, explain why it is that you say the late

22 Pope was responsible for the crimes charged against you? You dealt with

23 it in evidence and I didn't follow it.

24 A. John Paul II, the Pope until the recent one, continued the

25 traditional Vatican anti-Serb policy, and he is the main culprit for all

1 the crimes in this war, because through his policy he caused the war. And

2 I have a multitude of evidence. My legal advisors are busy preparing an

3 extensive report on it, because the crux of my Defence is the thesis that

4 for all the crimes that are being ascribed to me, the main culprit for

5 those are Pope John Paul II. And let me remind you of The Book of

6 Recollections by the American ambassador to the Vatican written at the

7 beginning of the 1990s about the papal policy and his efforts to break up

8 Yugoslavia, and that is the thesis that I will be promoting, so be well

9 prepared when my trial goes ahead, that will be the main thesis of my

10 Defence.

11 Q. You haven't produced any documentation to support this as part of

12 your evidence here. Just help us, please: Do you have any piece of

13 material, any bit of writing or any recorded intercept or piece of

14 intelligence that connects directly to the late Pope whom you have

15 associated with this policy? Any piece of paper you'd like to produce to

16 us?

17 A. I have a book, A Book of Recollections, written by the American

18 ambassador to the Vatican at the beginning of the 1990s which was

19 published in Zagreb as well, and my legal advisors are busy writing an

20 extensive report which will be finished by the New Year on that subject,

21 and I'm going to disclose it to you, to hand it over pursuant to Rule 67

22 of the Rules of Evidence and Procedure in preparation for my Defence. The

23 Pope was the first to recognise the independence of Croatia before any

24 other country did, in an unlawful way, and that is how he opened the dam

25 and the flow was from the other Western countries.

1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, how much more of this?

2 MR. NICE: Only one more point and then I'll be moving on, but I'm

3 going to explain a little more the significance of what I've been asking

4 in my next few questions.

5 Q. Just turn over, please, the next page in the article. There's a

6 caricature or cartoon of Ms. Del Ponte and "Arbeit Macht Frei."

7 Before I ask you a question about this, you made a point of

8 volunteering to come to this Tribunal, didn't you, Mr. Seselj?

9 A. Yes, consciously and voluntarily. That's how I came here.

10 Q. Having done that, having voluntarily submitted yourself to the

11 authorities whether you recognise --

12 A. I didn't surrender. I didn't surrender to any authorities. As

13 soon as I heard that there was an indictment raised against me, before

14 that was made public I reserved a plane ticket and arrived in The Hague,

15 and then at the airport, Amsterdam airport, I was arrested. So I did not

16 surrender. I took a plane ticket and flew into Amsterdam. All the rest

17 was done by you and the other perpetrators from Holland. I didn't

18 surrender anywhere.

19 Q. Having taken the course that you did, do you regard it as

20 appropriate to have a magazine of yours caricaturing things in this way?

21 Just yes or no.

22 A. Would you like to jeopardise the freedom of the press in Serbia?

23 I like this cartoon very much. I didn't draw it. Unfortunately, I can't

24 draw this well, but it's hilarious and it corresponds to reality. It's

25 hit the nail on the head.

1 Q. I just wanted you to acknowledge it now. When you were asked or

2 required by the Court to stand on their arrival, you agreed to do so,

3 saying that: "Under the threat of the Court that you will sanction my

4 failure to rise by interrupting my testimony in future, I will rise but

5 only before this particular Trial Chamber. Under this threat that you

6 will bring my testimony to an end, I will rise when you enter."

7 Now, the material I have shown you, and it's just a small part, no

8 doubt, of the available total, that shows your real attitude to this

9 Tribunal, doesn't it? Books you publish, things you say --

10 A. When Mr. Robinson threatened to interrupt my testimony, I said

11 before you all that on that threat I shall rise, but the proceedings

12 against me -- in the proceedings against me I will never rise because

13 there is no legal act binding me to do so, and I've already stated that in

14 the proceedings against me I would not take part in satanic rituals, and I

15 abide by that.

16 Now, as far as my relationship and attitude towards this Court is

17 concerned, well, you don't -- obviously don't want to hear my answer, do

18 you?

19 Q. My suggestion to you is that you are absolutely determined to use

20 the opportunity afforded you by giving evidence in this Court to give

21 publicity to the answers you've given to this accused's questions, and

22 that means you'll do anything. You'll take the solemn declaration, you'll

23 stand if it's required of you, despite your real attitude being revealed

24 by some of the material we've looked at. Am I not right? You are

25 absolutely determined to use the opportunity afforded you --

1 A. You're not quite right, Mr. Nice. First of all, I took the solemn

2 declaration to tell the truth here, and throughout my testimony I have

3 indeed told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,

4 everything I knew.

5 Now, that I would use every opportunity to fight politically

6 against this Tribunal, against The Hague Tribunal, against this Court,

7 that is true, too. That is correct. My stand and stance is absolutely

8 negative and I will follow that stance to the end of my life, and you

9 won't be able to make me waiver on that score. And of course everything

10 that you have presented shows that my attitude towards this Court is

11 extremely negative. I question the existence of this Court, the political

12 arguments, legal arguments, and as you can see through the publications of

13 the Serbian National Party, my party [inaudible] this court too.

14 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... taken, you're doing two

15 things: You're addressing your political audience back home, and you are

16 the leader of the party with the largest number of votes, I think, there;

17 is that correct?

18 A. Mr. Robinson, all of a sudden you're allowing leading questions.

19 Mr. Nice is not asking me whether I'm using this as a public platform for

20 addressing my political audience. He is simply asserting that, and since

21 you interrupted Mr. Milosevic --

22 JUDGE ROBINSON: The cross-examiner can ask leading questions.

23 Leading questions are prohibited --

24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I didn't know that.

25 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Yes, he can do that.

1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I didn't know that, Mr. Robinson. I

2 didn't know that. In future I will not object to leading questions.

3 I am testifying here because I was called by Mr. Milosevic as the

4 accused to testify about what I know in favour of his Defence. That's my

5 motive. Everything else are just assumptions by Mr. Nice which cannot be

6 proved. For example, yesterday there was no broadcast. I didn't refuse

7 to testify on that account.

8 JUDGE ROBINSON: Let us hear Mr. Nice put another question to you.

9 MR. NICE:

10 Q. That's, I'm suggesting to you, your first purpose. And the second

11 purpose relates to the accused, and I'll come to my suggestion to you,

12 broad suggestion covering all your evidence. In the course of the last

13 few days, you have given evidence that would lead to the conclusion that

14 many of the people here awaiting trial, including this accused and

15 yourself, are entirely innocent and shouldn't be here at all; correct?

16 A. Yes. Many people here have been convicted, although they are

17 innocent, and many are awaiting trial but are completely innocent, and all

18 of these are persons of Serb ethnicity. You have convicted several real

19 criminals.

20 Let me finish my response, because an incomplete response is not a

21 response. I cannot abide by a response that has been interrupted.

22 Q. At the same time, you have given evidence against several people

23 who have been here but who are characterised by the fact that they've

24 given evidence adverse to the accused, like Erdemovic, Babic, and even

25 Plavsic. You've given evidence against somebody like -- or adverse to

1 Perisic because, of course, you know that he's written letters in 1998

2 adverse to the accused. And you've given this evidence both for some and

3 against others without any reference to documentary support, haven't you?

4 A. That is not true. I mentioned the name of Momcilo Perisic only

5 twice. First, because he was replaced in 1998 on suspicion of having

6 started to work for the Americans' intelligence service, and secondly that

7 volunteers of the Serb Radical Party were under his command in Mostar and

8 he had praised them. This was not a negative comment on my part. It was

9 a positive one. At that time, he was well respected as an able commander.

10 He was replaced, however, pursuant to intelligence information available

11 to the government at the time. I said nothing that is either positive or

12 negative about him, I simply put forward the facts that I know.

13 Furthermore, studying your judgements I came to understand that

14 you very often make use of real criminals, threatening them with high

15 sentences, and then you recruit them, entering into compromises with them,

16 and in return for reducing their sentence -- you're not letting me answer

17 your questions. You're not letting me answer your questions.

18 Q. My question to you was this: The evidence, favourable and

19 unfavourable, divided between Serbs in the way I've described has been

20 given either wholly or almost wholly without any reference to raw source

21 material, to documents. It's all been on the basis of what you've heard

22 from other people; correct?

23 A. That is not correct. My knowledge was acquired in various ways,

24 sometimes through inspection of documents, sometimes because I was an

25 eyewitness of certain events, sometimes because I was a participant, and

1 sometimes because I heard from relevant sources what actually happened.

2 So the range of my sources is highly complex and cannot be simplified in

3 the way you are doing. However, whenever you don't like my answer,

4 whenever you sense it might be something you don't like, you interrupt me

5 and stop me because you don't really want me to give replies that you

6 don't like.

7 I am saying that you are making use of real criminals.

8 Threatening them with high sentences, you gave them lesser sentences in

9 order to have them appear as witnesses in your favour, and Miroslav

10 Deronjic is an example of that.

11 JUDGE ROBINSON: You have responded to the question.

12 MR. NICE:

13 Q. Before I move to the next topic, let me just give you this

14 opportunity to help us and yourself. When we come back to the detailed

15 allegations you've made, either for or against individuals, I shall be

16 seeking from you detail of your sources, just as I did with the

17 intelligence material lying behind what you say was the Srebrenica

18 staging. So I'm giving you notice now. I shall want details of the

19 people to whom you spoke and your sources on which you relied for the

20 generalised evidence which is the Defence case that you've advanced. Do

21 you understand me? Do you understand me?

22 A. I understand everything, Mr. Nice, much better than you do.

23 Q. I'm now going to turn to some of the various things that you've

24 said in the course of these conflicts. You've made the point that you're

25 a very much published man, and you have sought to say that from time to

1 time you said things that were untrue for a particular purpose. Can you

2 now, please, explain in a little more detail for what period of time and

3 for what purpose did you say things that were untrue?

4 A. That's not what I said. I didn't say it like that. What I said -

5 and I recall it very well - was the following: Setting out untrue things

6 if the entire public knows that they are not true but are simply amusing

7 and said for a certain particular purpose, this is neither lying nor

8 setting out untruths. This is witticisms, sarcasm, and so on. I was

9 waging a political propaganda war against Mr. Milosevic from the

10 Vance-Owen Plan until the beginning of 1998. In this propaganda war,

11 various insults were bandied about on both sides, serious accusations. It

12 wasn't Mr. Milosevic personally who did that but his party certainly did.

13 The secret police was working on destroying the Serb Radical Party. The

14 defence mechanism of our party, not simply mine but of all my colleagues,

15 was to use means of propaganda, those that your masters in the West use to

16 a large extent, beginning with false accusations that Saddam Hussein has

17 weapons of mass destruction in order to justify aggression, only to have

18 it later transpire that he didn't have such weapons at all. It was your

19 masters in the West who taught me how to wage a propaganda war, but I have

20 not yet risen to their level.

21 Q. So the time scale for your untruths was 1993, would that be, to

22 1998?

23 A. The time frame in which the Serb Radical Party waged a propaganda

24 war against Mr. Milosevic, his party, and their government was from

25 mid-1993 to early 1998.

1 Q. And the focus of the propaganda was the accused Milosevic himself,

2 was it?

3 A. Yes. He and his party, of course.

4 Q. Now, having said things and had things printed that were untrue,

5 have you gone around the process of correcting them ever? Have you

6 published work saying, well, it's time everybody knew that what I was

7 saying was untrue and time I set the record straight, or are you still

8 publishing the books that contain the same propaganda and untruths,

9 Mr. Seselj?

10 A. First of all -- first of all, I never renounced any of my public

11 statements, but in 1998, for example, and in later years, in 2000 and

12 after the fall of Mr. Milosevic from power, frequently in the interviews I

13 gave to various television and radio stations and newspapers, explained

14 that that was when I was waging a propaganda war against Mr. Milosevic and

15 that those statements were made within the scope of that war. Even the

16 former Minister of Justice, Vladan Batic, did what you're doing now. He

17 collected excerpts from my previous speeches against Mr. Milosevic and his

18 wife and started quoting them from the rostrum after the coup d'etat.

19 After him, I took the floor and explained these previous attacks in the

20 same way, but when Mr. Milosevic was powerful and when he was in power,

21 Vladan Batic was hiding in a mouse hole, and it was I who had the courage,

22 when Mr. Milosevic had the support of the West after the Dayton agreement,

23 to wage a very difficult political fight against him and his policies.

24 Q. All right. When we look at the material, reflect the things that

25 you've said, we've got your explanation in mind. Is there anybody else

1 individually about whom you said things that were untrue? Think back.

2 A. I'm telling you again: I wasn't telling untruths but waging a

3 propaganda war, carrying out my professional political duty. Speaking

4 untruths is something quite different.

5 If you want to say that the American President George Bush was

6 lying when he said that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, then you can

7 say that I was lying when I was attacking Mr. Milosevic. As long as you

8 don't dare say that George Bush was lying or telling untruths, you cannot

9 accuse me of that. You have to have the same criterion towards everyone

10 who acts in this way when performing a political office. Tell me that

11 Bush was lying and then I will admit that I was lying.

12 Q. I invite you, please, to speak more quietly. You're capable of

13 doing it and it's very difficult to focus on your answers when you speak

14 at the volume you do.

15 You claim to be the leader of a democratic party; is that right?

16 A. I am the president. I never termed myself a leader. I'm the

17 president of the Serb Radical Party which has a democratic character.

18 Q. You believe in democracy and the power of the people to make

19 decisions?

20 A. Yes. I sincerely believe in democracy and in the right of the

21 people to make decisions concerning their own fate.

22 Q. As an educated man, do you believe that you owe a duty to use your

23 education, knowledge responsibly, including responsibly towards your

24 fellow citizens?

25 A. I have always used my knowledge in a responsible manner, even in

1 this confrontation with you.

2 Q. How does that, then, square with your willingness to tell by way

3 of propaganda things that are blatantly false?

4 A. When some things are evidently untrue the person pronouncing them

5 cannot be described as a liar. In political life there is something

6 called a political tit for tat. In the heated atmosphere of political

7 life, this is an exchange of blows. Sometimes the blows are below the

8 belt. I did not refrain from such blows either, but only if the opposite

9 side acted towards me in that way first.

10 Q. My last question by way of introduction to the quotations I'm

11 going to put to you is this: Nenad Canak is a politician you know well?

12 A. Nenad Canak -- you don't want to hear my response about Nenad

13 Canak? Nenad Canak is one of the most immoral people in Serbia. He

14 cannot even be described as a politician because his party can never cross

15 the threshold at elections, but he's a mercenary of Western intelligence

16 agencies, paid to implement an anti-Serb subversive policy.

17 Q. In a statement to investigators of this Tribunal, which I'm going

18 to lay on the overhead projector and is available to the Chamber and

19 accused if it's wanted, I just want to put one thing about your attitude.

20 A. Who made this statement?

21 Q. Nenad Canak. Paragraph --

22 A. You said that I made a statement to The Hague investigators. I

23 have never made any statement to The Hague investigators. When I arrived

24 on the -- in The Hague, I'm started insisting on it but your colleagues

25 have been avoiding it.

1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Let us see the statement. What about it --

2 MR. NICE: Yes, put it at the -- have you got it there, Mr. Nort?

3 Paragraph 46, top of the page. Top of the page. Top of the page.

4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I don't speak English. I don't

5 understand what is being shown to me in English.

6 JUDGE ROBINSON: The interpreters will translate it.

7 MR. NICE:

8 Q. I'll just read you this short paragraph which concludes with an

9 observation of yours towards your own people. "Seselj became popular and

10 powerful because he got in touch with money."

11 JUDGE BONOMY: Where is this?

12 MR. NICE: 46.

13 Q. "He never joined coalitions, which is a very important strategy

14 for a fascist party. Seselj had to be the 'Messiah' so people would

15 follow him. Seselj is a populist and a liar and always has answers. He

16 is convinced and he convinces people with his arguments."

17 Then this: "On one occasion Vuk Draskovic and Seselj were talking

18 and Draskovic asked Seselj: How can you lie so much? Seselj replied: In

19 Serbia I have one million illiterate people so I do not have to worry

20 about my political future."

21 That last sentence that is attributed to you, is that your

22 attitude to gaining and retaining support, that you can say what you like

23 to people who may be less literate than you or illiterate?

24 A. Nenad Canak and Vuk Draskovic are both liars, traitors of the

25 Serbian people, and agents of Western Intelligence services. That is my

1 attitude towards all their statements. I never published anything like

2 this, that in Serbia I have one million illiterate people so I don't have

3 to worry about my political future. That is their lie, their fabrication.

4 There is a problem, because you in the OTP take for granted everything

5 said by Serbian traitors, and then you base your false indictments on

6 their statements, the statements of people like Vuk Draskovic and Nenad

7 Canak.

8 When I asked to have disclosed to me the material by the OTP about

9 Draskovic's Serbian Guard, they refused.

10 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... move on. Can we look,

11 please, at number 8, Der Spiegel, 1991.

12 JUDGE BONOMY: Can I take it from that answer you deny saying

13 that?

14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, I do deny it. You cannot find

15 it in any statement of mine.

16 JUDGE BONOMY: The answer wasn't clear because you said you'd

17 never published anything like that, but I think the reference was to

18 something said orally.

19 MR. NICE: It was.

20 JUDGE BONOMY: And I just want to be sure; you're denying saying

21 it orally as well, are you?

22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I deny that I ever said anything

23 like this, and I assert that both Nenad Canak and Vuk Draskovic are

24 absolute liars and foreign agents.

25 JUDGE BONOMY: I've explained before, Mr. Seselj, that I find it

1 helpful if you just answer the question, and if you don't answer the

2 particular question that's put it sometimes can create confusion,

3 certainly in my mind. Now, I may not have the necessary intellectual

4 capacity to deal with your answers in the way you give them, so perhaps

5 you could help me by simply answering the question that's asked.

6 MR. NICE: Your Honour, just give me one minute, please.

7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. Bonomy, my answers are quite

8 simple, but I want them to be complete, because a trial of this kind

9 cannot be a quiz where one has to give a yes or no answer.

10 MR. NICE:

11 Q. The document that's being distributed comes in various parts. I

12 think it will probably be necessary for me to guide the usher through its

13 display, if I can have it back.

14 The first one, this comes from Der Spiegel, and I think it's Der

15 Spiegel in 1991, so it's before the period of any campaign against this

16 accused.

17 As you say in this, the passage you're looking at at the moment:

18 "What would you do if you were President of Serbia?

19 "I would mobilise all Serbs, amputate Croatia in a quick war, and

20 then inform the international community about the new Serbian borders.

21 "What borders would that be?

22 "Aside from the provinces of Vojvodina and Kosovo, republics

23 Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Montenegro should be attached to

24 Serbia, as well as the territories in Croatia which are inhabited by

25 Serbs, with the border along the Karlobag-Karlovac-Virovitica line."

1 Now, that was your position then. That's the position of your

2 party; is that correct?

3 A. This is the standpoint of the Serb Radical Party spoken before the

4 war as early as July, before the army began military operations at all,

5 and of course had I been in government, but unfortunately I was not, I

6 would have amputated Croatia and prevented any kind of war.

7 Unfortunately, we had a government that was not up to that, and that made

8 it possible for the Western powers to intervene and for us to lose the

9 war.

10 Q. This identifies -- and we're going to come to Greater Serbia in

11 more detail probably tomorrow, but this identifies, doesn't it, the

12 platform of your party and its reliance upon the

13 Karlobag-Karlovac-Virovitica line, which is also slightly more defined in

14 your testimony as actually being the Karlobag-Ogulin-Karlovac-Virovitica

15 line; is that correct?

16 A. Yes. Karlobag-Ogulin-Karlovac-Virovitica. That is the western

17 ethnic border, Serbian border, which should become the state border of

18 Serbia border, and will certainly one day become that.

19 Q. And in -- picking up something that His Honour Judge Bonomy was

20 concerned about, and again to which we may return if time permits later,

21 is the choice of that line language connected or language related?

22 A. It is linked to the nation and language. The difference between

23 Serbs and Croats is a linguistic one. All Shtokavians are Serbs

24 regardless of whether they are Orthodox, Catholics, or Muslims. All

25 Chakavians are Croats. The Kajkavians in Croatia used to be Slovenians

1 but they were transformed into Croats.

2 Q. You're speaking with knowledge that may not be available because

3 we haven't touched on it in detail with this Chamber.

4 In the area of the former Yugoslavia with which we're concerned,

5 there is a dialect system, a system of different dialects, and it may be

6 broken down into three: The Shtokavian dialect; the Chakavian dialect,

7 which is typically spoken west, in Istria and possibly down the Littoral;

8 and the Kajkavian dialect, which is spoken to the north, in the area of

9 Zagreb and thereabouts. And it's those dialects and separating those

10 dialects out that lies behind your assertion that everybody apart from the

11 speakers of those two other dialects is a Serb; is that right?

12 A. That is not correct. One of the greatest Serbian linguists of all

13 times, a Catholic from Dubrovnik, Milan Resetar, in the late 19th century

14 and early 20th century proved in a scholarly manner that Shtokavian,

15 Chakavian, and -- Chakavian, Kajkavian, and Shtokavian are three different

16 languages. As regards various dialects within Serbian, there is the old

17 Shtokavian spoken in Macedonia, central Shtokavian in Prizren, in --

18 Q. Pause. We will go into this if it's relevant and if we have time,

19 but you must recognise that if you're going to let out expert knowledge of

20 the kind you're revealing at this speed, it's going to be difficult to

21 conceal. I just wanted to establish at this early stage that this chosen

22 line is indeed dialect connected and we'll come back to it later.

23 Can we look now at the next document --

24 A. To conceal or to understand? That line is based on languages

25 approximately. Chakavian, the Chakavian language is almost extinct.

1 Kajkavian is still spoken in the three counties that were in the Croatian

2 Banovina before the break-up of Austria. That is the Zagreb, Krizevac,

3 and Varazdin counties.

4 MR. NICE: Incidentally, the Chamber, if it finds the topic

5 interesting, and although the book could only at best be used as a guide,

6 because it may of course bear national partisan reflections in its maps, I

7 don't know, but at 68 of Exhibit 336 you can find some initial guidance.

8 The book is in as a map, it's not in as anything else, but you may find

9 some guidance and it may be that later on if I need a map, I'll look at

10 that as a possible examples.

11 Q. All right. Let's look now at something else, a document from 6th

12 of December, 1990, which was reprinted in your --

13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson.

14 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, yes.

15 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Nice is repeating his usual

17 practice. It wasn't Mr. Seselj that started speaking about the Chakavian,

18 Kajkavian, and Shtokavian dialects. It was Mr. Nice who mentioned the

19 dialects when presenting certain assertions, obviously not knowing what he

20 was talking about, and then he did not allow the witness to answer the

21 question that he had put. He was the one who put these expert linguistic

22 questions, not Mr. Seselj, and then he doesn't allow Mr. Seselj to give

23 expert answers to these questions. He should be careful about the

24 questions he puts.

25 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Nice will bear that in mind.

1 MR. NICE: Of course. The witness has confirmed at this early

2 stage, because I know the matter was troubling -- not troubling, of

3 interest to, one of the members of the Bench, and indeed the line is

4 linguistically related and we've got the broadest outlines at the moment.

5 Q. Now, let's look at this next document. This is an interview with

6 you on the 6th of December, 1990, and this is what you then said:

7 "Regarding Croatia, we the Serb Chetniks, are constantly telling the new

8 Ustasha leader, Franjo Tudjman, and the new Ustasha authorities in

9 Croatia, not to play games with the Serbian people living in the areas of

10 the present improvised Croatian state community. That is the Serb

11 territory, populated by Serbian people, and we shall never allow it to be

12 separated from its mother country."

13 First of all, you can see the quote on the Serbian version. Did

14 you say that?

15 A. Yes, that's what I said and that's what I repeat today. Perhaps

16 we won't manage to get these ethnic Serb boundaries along the

17 Karlovac-Karlobag-Virovitica line that quickly, however the Serb Radical

18 Party and the Serb nation as a whole will never give up on liberating the

19 Republic of the Serb Krajina from the Croatian occupation, and that

20 remains the vow of all honourable Serbs. This occupation of the Serb

21 Krajina has to stop some day. We will insist on peaceful means. However,

22 even if it turns to be necessary to take the other road, we won't evade

23 that.

24 Q. Let's look at what you said in 1990, and this is an example of

25 what was being publicised, which is why I'm interested in it. What was,

1 in 1990, a Ustasha? Was it every Croat who didn't agree to be counted as

2 a Serb? Was it only those who actively supported Tudjman's party? What

3 was a Ustasha, a word you use so regularly?

4 A. An Ustasha is a Croat clero-fascist. In their past, the Croats

5 had a very strong fascist movement of a clerical nature, and that was the

6 Ustasha movement that committed a genocide against the Serb people during

7 the Second World War, and that Ustasha movement was in recent times

8 renewed by Franjo Tudjman. Ustashas are Croatian clero-fascists because

9 it had a stronghold in the Catholic church and high-ranking Catholic

10 clergymen personally took part in the slaughter of the Serb people.

11 Filipovic Majstorovic was one of those from Jasenovac.

12 Q. See if you can help us, please. If there was --

13 A. You're asking me to explain. I mean, I'm answering your questions

14 what the word Ustasha means in my terminology and in the terminology of

15 the Serb Radical Party. Well, that's what it means.

16 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice has another question.

17 MR. NICE:

18 Q. If you were to have encountered, at the time you made this

19 interview, a person in the part of what is now called Croatia but lying

20 east of the Karlobag line and between there and the Bosnian boundary, and

21 if this was a person who simply chose to describe himself or thought of

22 himself as a Croat, would he be a Ustasha simply for that reason?

23 A. No.

24 Q. This is what I want to know: Put yourself into -- so we know who

25 you're referring to when you use this phrase. We go to such a village or

1 such a town. Who in that town are to understand themselves as addressed

2 by you when you use the word "Ustasha"?

3 A. Those who expose themselves from the positions of an Ustasha

4 ideology. Those who accept the Ustasha ideology are Ustashas. Ustasha is

5 an ideological term, like a Nazi in Germany, like a fascist in Italy.

6 Q. So, for example, when we come, as we will, to Vukovar and to the

7 residents there, did what happened to the residents there depend on

8 whether they were identified as Ustashas or not; and if so, how did the

9 Ustashas come to be identified? Please tell us.

10 A. There were Ustashas in Vukovar, and during the war Ustashas killed

11 Serb civilians in Vukovar. However, that does not mean that all Croats in

12 Vukovar were Ustashas, and I never said any such thing.

13 MR. NICE: Your Honours, just give me a minute.

14 Q. While this document is being handed round, you spoke yourself,

15 when referring to your studies, effectively of the power, and you've

16 spoken generally of the power of propaganda. Do you understand the

17 significance in the development of crimes in the course of war -- do you

18 understand the significance of propaganda in the development of crimes in

19 the course of war?

20 A. Propaganda that is of a criminal nature is explicit in that, and I

21 never engaged in the propaganda of crimes. Never, ever. You cannot say

22 that my ideology of a Greater Serbia causes criminality in its own right.

23 That is an untenable thesis.

24 Q. Did you understand -- do you understand the significance of

25 labelling the enemy or the opposition in a way that will make them the

1 object of dislike, hatred, and ultimately of dehumanisation? Do you

2 understand that process?

3 A. First of all, again you are putting things the wrong way. What

4 does that mean, to turn someone into an object of hatred?

5 First of all, those who were in the Croatian government in

6 Tudjman's regime who made the Serbs the object of hatred did that through

7 their own anti-Serb steps and their open renewal of an Ustasha ideology.

8 I was a vocal critic of that kind of policy, and I did so in public.

9 Because if Franjo Tudjman himself said several times that the Independent

10 State of Croatia from the Second World War was an expression of the

11 historical aspirations of the Croatian people, then he declared himself an

12 Ustasha. I wasn't the one who declared himself a Ustasha. After that

13 kind of a statement, I persistently attacked them as Ustashas.

14 Q. You haven't actually answered the question, which was a matter of

15 principle and arguably of great importance to this case, but in light of

16 your answer I'll ask you a second question of general propaganda principle

17 and then return to the first question.

18 Are you aware, in the use or abuse of propaganda in war, of the

19 value of attributing to your enemy your own wicked intentions so that you

20 say the other side is about to kill us, all in order to stimulate your

21 side to go and kill them? Are you aware of the significance of that as a

22 rudimentary tool of propaganda?

23 A. You are partial and therefore you are imputing things. You are

24 trying rid the Croats of their guilt, and you're trying to ascribe that

25 guilt to the Serbs. Everything that happened in this war and before this

1 war was regularly initiated by the Croat side, and every move made by the

2 Serbs was only a reaction to what the Croats had already done. You are

3 trying to put things the other way around. That's the problem.

4 And you cannot lead me that way through your logical frame of mind

5 because I'm not a sheep to be shepherded that way. I'm trying to answer

6 all your questions fully but you keep interrupting me because you're not

7 happy with my answers. You want me to confirm what you've been saying

8 through my own answers.

9 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Seselj. Mr. Nice.

10 MR. NICE:

11 Q. Two parts of the general topic of propaganda that I might like to

12 put to this witness but now this next question before we look at the next

13 clip -- or the first video clip: In the course of your up and down

14 relationship with this accused over the years, did he ever seek to

15 restrain you in your use of the terminology that you used?

16 A. What do you mean "restrain"? Am I a horse and is he supposed to

17 rein me in? What does that mean?

18 Q. I think the question is easy enough to understand. Did he say,

19 write, or do anything to you to stop you saying, writing the sorts of

20 things that you did?

21 A. He arrested me a few times.

22 Q. With the purpose of stopping you saying the particular things you

23 did about other ethnic groups, or was it for other purposes?

24 A. The purpose was to remove me from political life for at least a

25 certain period of time. However, every one of those arrests was

1 invariably supported by the pro-Western parties in Serbia.

2 MR. NICE: Let's look at a bit of video, please, if we can. I

3 think it comes from the 21st of April, 1991, in Jagodnjak. I'm sorry,

4 it's on Sanction, is it? It's on Sanction I should tell you.

5 [Videotape played]

6 MR. NICE: Thank you, that's fine.

7 Q. Do you remember that speech or speeches along that line that you

8 were making?

9 A. I admire myself for having put things so wisely 15 years ago. I

10 still stand by that. And had I been in power, they could not have seceded

11 at all. They could not have taken anything that was Serbian. They could

12 have only taken the Zagreb, Krizevac, and Varazdin counties. Nothing

13 else. Regrettably, I was not in power.

14 Q. Whatever the state of the history and its bearing on this case, by

15 the time you were making statements like this, the Republic of Croatia

16 within the Federal Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia had existed as an

17 identifiable unit for many years, hadn't it? You may not like that fact,

18 but it had existed as a unit like that for many years.

19 A. Is that a question?

20 Q. Yes.

21 A. Should I answer? Well, you didn't put it in the form of a

22 question.

23 There was a Croatian federal unit from the end of the war until

24 1991. However, that federal unit that was called Croatia was a federal

25 unit of the Croat people and the Serbs living in Croatia, and according to

1 all the constitutional text up to Tudjman's time, the Serbs were

2 constituent people within it, which meant that its constitutional status

3 could not be changed without the agreement of the Serbs. I cautioned

4 about that before the war, too, before the skirmishes in Borovo Selo.

5 This was April, 1991. I cautioned that Croatia cannot secede and not take

6 away with it what is Serb.

7 Q. My question derived from the first -- the previous question is

8 this: Making statements like this in respect of the territory of an

9 identifiable unit of the kind I've described and you've just dealt with is

10 to invite war and bloodshed, isn't it, because the only way you're going

11 to change so dramatically the shape of a unit that others regard as

12 appropriate for them and a reflection of their nationality, the only way

13 you're going to change boundaries like that is by war; correct?

14 A. No. You're absolutely wrong, and again you're twisting the truth.

15 Tudjman and his authorities were showing with increasing openness their

16 intention to secede from Yugoslavia. My response was an answer to their

17 intentions and their statements: You cannot secede. You cannot take

18 Croatia away within its current boundaries. If you're seceding, you can

19 only take that part of the territory which is undeniably Croat.

20 According to the Yugoslav legal system, the -- there was never a

21 right of federal units to secede. That was prohibited by the

22 constitution.

23 JUDGE BONOMY: I think -- I understand entirely what you're saying

24 here, but again if I may say, it doesn't really address the question. No

25 one's suggesting -- at least, I don't think Mr. Nice is suggesting that

1 it's not perfectly reasonable to respond to Croatian ambition by asserting

2 your own view that that is unconstitutional, illegal, ought not to happen,

3 should be resisted, it's the tone that the question is about, not about

4 the idea behind it, I think.

5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] My tone, Mr. Bonomy, matches my

6 temperament, and I am not going to adjust to anyone from that point of

7 view. My words were precise, clear, focused and aimed in a very

8 particular direction: If you want to secede, you cannot do so without a

9 war. And it was clear to everyone. Slovenia could secede without a war.

10 I attacked the JNA for intervening in Slovenia at all because there were

11 no territories in dispute. However, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina could not

12 have taken place -- could not have seceded without a war, but Macedonia

13 could have seceded without a war. But Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia

14 could not have seceded without a war and those who were working on this

15 secession actually knew that it could not take place without a war and

16 they were preparing for a war.

17 A few months before that, the military intelligence showed the

18 illegal arming of Croatian paramilitaries before the war, in January 1991.

19 So it was quite clear what the Croat authorities were preparing, and the

20 response had to be a very definite one. My response was the response of

21 an opposition politician from Serbia, not the government. And at that

22 time, that opposition party was not even in parliament. At that time in

23 April 1991, we were not even in parliament. It was only in June that year

24 that we won our first seat.

25 JUDGE BONOMY: You see, you do respond with a constructive

1 argument in support of the position you adopt, but you have to bear in

2 mind, and I suspect it's the same in Serbia as it is certainly in Western

3 European countries, that people often only hear or read the headlines, the

4 particularly prominent parts of anything that's said, and it's the tone in

5 which certain things are said that might cause concern.

6 MR. NICE:

7 Q. Can we look at another --

8 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, it's -- I think it's a convenient time.

9 We'll break for 20 minutes.

10 --- Recess taken at 12.16 p.m.

11 --- On resuming at 12.40 p.m.

12 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Nice.

13 MR. NICE: Your Honours, I've been asked about or prompted to deal

14 with exhibits. The matters I've about putting to the witness at the

15 moment, which are to do with things he said or things he has accepted

16 saying and has given his explanation for what he said in answer to

17 questions, and it doesn't seem to me necessary to produce a document

18 because it's all on the transcript. I'm, of course, happy to produce them

19 as documents if anybody wants me to.

20 The video is different, because, of course, it shows the manner

21 and so I'd ask that certainly for the video of the witness to be produced,

22 and the position will change when we move to another area of things that

23 this witness said which bear more on the facts of the indictment. When

24 looking at things, I'm quite happy for them not to be produced and perhaps

25 Ms. Dicklich and I and the Registry can discuss matters, either at the end

1 of the day, and see if we can agree to them very quickly as a proposition

2 for putting forward.

3 Q. Can we look, please, at the next document, which is slightly out

4 of order, I think. No, it's not. Yes, it is. It's the 6th of December,

5 1990, number 14.

6 THE INTERPRETER: Could the interpreters have the tab number of

7 the document.

8 MR. NICE: I'm so sorry if I haven't been giving the tab numbers.

9 It's tab 13. My apologies. I forgot that you've got them in tabbed

10 binders.

11 Q. And if you'll go, please, to the marked page, Mr. Seselj. This is

12 a statement of yours on the 6th of December, 1990, in your magazine with

13 your picture on the front of it. And the highlighted passage, which the

14 Chamber can find on page 9 of 23 - and it's on page 11 of the Serbian - on

15 page 9 -- halfway down page 9 of -- less than halfway down: "Thus the

16 Croatian people should not fear Serbian retaliation of that kind, of that

17 nature, however, Croats must be punished. They should be punished in a

18 manner in which nations and states are being punished in a civilised world

19 for crimes committed by their regimes during wars, that being the loss of

20 territories."

21 You see, your rhetoric at the time - this is in 1990 - was in

22 terms of the Croats losing territory. What do you say to that? Why

23 should you say such things?

24 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone for the speaker, please.

25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I should first like to remind you of

1 a statement made by the great French Cardinal Richelieu who said, "Just

2 give me one sentence from any text and I will find enough arguments to

3 sentence the author to death."

4 You have singled out a single sentence only from this entire

5 paragraph, but the answer is contained in the previous part of the

6 paragraph. What I say is not all Germans -- I mean, this has to do with

7 the Croat crimes in the Second World War. And then the presenter of the

8 show on television -- this is when I appeared as a candidate for president

9 in the campaign of 1990, and the presenter is asking me: "It's not the

10 fault of the entire Serb people, is it?" And I say: "Well, you know, not

11 all Germans were in favour of Hitler and the Nazis. There were Germans

12 who perished in Hitler's camps, who were killed and who had to flee

13 abroad. But they were a small minority. It was the German people who

14 were punished for Hitler's crimes in the Second World War although all

15 Germans were not Nazis. How were the German people punished? Most

16 Germans were in favour of the Nazi regime and the Germans were duly

17 punished because they lost a great portion of their territories, eastern

18 Prussia --" and then there is a mistake here, it says Sweden, but it's not

19 Sweden -- "and then it was divided according to the will of the allies

20 into three smaller states; East Germany, West Germany, and Austria.

21 Almost half a century had to go by before Germany was reunified, and it is

22 a question when its third constituent part, Austria, will be able to

23 reunite with the German entity. Germans also had to pay certain

24 reparations. They were under the tutorship of the great powers."

25 Q. We give you the whole article, of course --

1 A. You're not letting me answer. Please, I'm just asking for one

2 paragraph and you want only one sentence from a paragraph.

3 MR. NICE: Mr. Nice, exceptionally, I'm going to allow a long

4 answer because what you're putting is consistent with your theory, the

5 Prosecution theory, it's a very serious matter, that you have evidence of

6 this witness speaking of the loss of territories at the expense of

7 Croatia, so let him provide the explanation.

8 Go ahead, Mr. Seselj.

9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The text reads as follows: "Germans

10 were under the tutorship of the great powers, but as opposed to the German

11 case, although the Croats in terms of proportions, in terms of population

12 numbers committed much greater crimes. This improvised Croatian state was

13 seemingly rewarded for this. They got territories that were never

14 Croatian territories in history. For example, Dubrovnik, which was

15 traditionally a Serbian city and where Serb Catholics lived for centuries.

16 We believe that this question of the responsibility of the Croat people

17 should be brought up again. Of course, we have no intention to retaliate

18 against the Croats in an 'eye-for-an-eye' manner, to remove one Croatian

19 head for every Serbian head. No. We, the Serbs, are traditionally a

20 chivalrous people and the hands of our people were never stained with the

21 blood of innocent civilians, women, children and the elderly. We, the

22 Serbs, are fighters on the battlefield, and once we defeat our enemy in

23 the battlefield, we do not keep on tormenting or harassing him. We have a

24 chivalrous attitude towards the enemy himself as well. Therefore, the

25 Croatian people should not fear Serbian retaliation of that kind, of that

1 nature. We shall not do that. We shall remain a chivalrous, dignified

2 people in the future as well, however, the Croats must be punished. They

3 should be punished in a manner in which nations and states are being

4 punished in the civilised world for crimes committed by their regimes

5 during wars. That is to say, by the loss of territories."

6 That is my position in comprehensive terms.

7 JUDGE ROBINSON: Give us in summary form now the explanation of

8 all of that.

9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] This is a historical topic that I am

10 debating here. Croatia was rewarded after the Second World War. It got

11 many Italian territories; all of Istria, Zadar, and the coast. They

12 expelled 300.000 Italians from there instead of bearing certain

13 consequences for the Ustasha crimes. The Croat Ustashas killed a million

14 Serbs. No reparations were ever paid. Crimes were concealed, covered up.

15 And this is in 1992, so it's outside any war context. This is my position

16 with regard to that particular matter.

17 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

18 JUDGE BONOMY: There are -- there are two matters in there,

19 though. One is that the Croatian state were, you say, unjustly rewarded

20 by being given additional territory after the war, but that's not what

21 you're saying in the part that's identified. The part that's been picked

22 up in the question is that the Croats must be punished in a manner you say

23 in which nations and states are being punished in a civilised world for

24 crimes. I don't follow that argument at all about what happened to

25 Germany. You present it as if it was all planned that it would be divided

1 into two or three parts and so on. As you know, that was the result of

2 historical developments. But you're talking about them being punished by

3 losing territories.

4 Now, does that mean that you -- you were urging the government to

5 try to seize territory from Croatia, or the people to seize territory from

6 Croatia? What had you in mind?

7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] First of all, I'm not appealing to

8 the government here at all. I'm just presenting my own personal views and

9 position. If Germany was punished -- and what you say is not true; the

10 allies did plan the division of Germany before the war ended and the

11 division was established by plan, of Berlin into three parts and Germany

12 into three parts. The allies prepared and planned for that before the war

13 was over, three occupying zones. Germany lost a vast amount of territory.

14 It lost Eastern Silezia, Eastern Prussia, and it had to pay war

15 reparations. Not all, but it paid quite a lot. Whereas the Serbs that

16 suffered at the hands of the Ustashas, no reparation was ever paid and the

17 Croats were rewarded by being given far more territory than they were

18 entitled to ethnically speaking. It is my position that they should have

19 been punished by a loss of territory, and I think that it was a great

20 injustice, the establishment of a Croatian federal unit, but that's my own

21 personal position. What's that got to do with Mr. Milosevic at all? I

22 stepped out of Milosevic's prison and appeared on television. Two or

23 three days before that, before I appeared on television, I was in prison

24 where this view was presented.

25 JUDGE BONOMY: This statement is made, what, 48 years after the

1 events that it relates to?

2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.

3 JUDGE BONOMY: Forty-eight years? So -- so --

4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] And a thousand -- I would say the

5 same thing a thousand years after the events.

6 JUDGE BONOMY: So what was it you had in mind when -- if you had

7 been in power at the time you made this statement, what was it you would

8 have had in mind?

9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Please. First of all, at the time I

10 made the statement, my party was outside the law. The authorities of

11 Mr. Milosevic refused to register my party.

12 JUDGE BONOMY: If you had been in power -- if you had been --

13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, you can't take it that simply,

14 the way you would like, Mr. Bonomy.

15 JUDGE BONOMY: [Previous translation continues] ...

16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I am responding in like kind.

17 JUDGE BONOMY: [Previous translation continues] ...

18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] -- can answer the question but I

19 cannot have you suggesting the answer to me. Tudjman was already well in

20 power in Croatia. He came to power in the month of May of that year, six

21 months previously. So that is a response to what had already happened in

22 Croatia beforehand.

23 JUDGE BONOMY: So my question, my simple question to you is: If

24 you had been in power in Serbia at that time, what would you have

25 proposed?

1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] First of all, this isn't a question

2 of power in Serbia. Here you would have to be in power in Yugoslavia.

3 You would have to have been in power in Yugoslavia because that year I

4 published in Pogledi, a paper from Kragujevac, my vision of the

5 restructuring of Yugoslavia, and I called for the abolishment of all

6 federal units and the division of Yugoslavia into 30 districts.

7 JUDGE BONOMY: [Previous translation continues] ... it may be my

8 mistake, but I understood that this was said when you were a presidential

9 candidate. Was that for the presidency of Yugoslavia? I thought it was

10 Serbia, but I may be wrong.

11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. No. I was a candidate for the

12 presidency of Serbia but I'm presenting the political stances with respect

13 to the developments in Yugoslavia.

14 JUDGE BONOMY: So that's the context in which I ask you the

15 question. If you had been in power as a result of success, what would you

16 have done to follow up this statement?

17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] As president of the Republic of

18 Serbia, I could have done nothing from that position. However, I'm

19 presenting my positions on a specific concrete issue, topic, whereas you

20 want to suggest to me that everything I say in a lengthy programme is just

21 my presidential programme, electoral programme. I stress at the beginning

22 of the interview that I am presenting the programme of my party

23 comprehensively, in its entirety, not only linked to the presidential

24 functions, because pursuant to the constitution, the powers of the

25 president of the republic are so small that of himself he cannot do

1 anything.

2 Mr. Milosevic, on the basis of his position as president of the

3 Republic, had practically no power at all. He had enormous political

4 influence on the basis of the fact that his party was the largest party in

5 parliament and had formed a government. Take a look at the constitution

6 of Serbia and you will see that there are no authorisations with that

7 function in that post. You can do nothing.

8 JUDGE BONOMY: Sorry, Mr. Nice. I didn't mean to take over that

9 part of the examination.

10 MR. NICE: -- exhibited in full because the witness wishes the

11 context to be given. But I'm not going to ask him any more questions

12 about it.

13 Q. Can we look at now, please, something that you said on the 18th of

14 July, 1991.

15 For the interpreters, it's tab 12.

16 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice.

17 MR. NICE: Sorry.

18 JUDGE KWON: Judge Kwon suggests that we just deal with the

19 exhibits now.

20 MR. NICE: One by one.

21 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

22 MR. NICE: In which case, can this one -- I'd better go back there

23 and review which ones I should have asked to be exhibited. I think it's

24 probably only the video, which was the video of the 21st of April, 1991.

25 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, that's admitted.

1 THE REGISTRAR: That will be Exhibit 873.

2 MR. NICE: Then if this one could become the next exhibit.

3 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, interview to the -- that was just

4 referred to will be Exhibit 874.

5 MR. NICE: I'm obliged. And if we could now look at --

6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Is it the entire interview or just the part?

7 MR. NICE: The entire interview, and in light of the challenge to

8 context, I fear that it's probably better to put it in in full.

9 Q. If we can look, then, please, at tab 12 for the interpreters,

10 interview on the 18th of July, 1991. So we're back into 1991.

11 And if you'd be good enough, Mr. Seselj, to go to the place I hope

12 marked as page 5 of the Serbian text. It's page 4 of the English text.

13 Before we look at the passage concerned, the enthusiasm with which

14 Slovenia was let go reflected the fact, of course, that Slovenia was a

15 convenient single language, single ethnic potential state; correct?

16 A. Yes. The Slovenes were a separate nation. They had a language of

17 their own and lived on their own ethnic compact territory with very few

18 exceptions.

19 Q. But Serbs, of course, lived on all the other territories,

20 depending on how they're defined, but in any event they lived on all the

21 other territories. And so we see this quotation of yours. It's at the

22 bottom of page 4: "It might not be a definitive power, but as far as you

23 Slovenes are concerned, it does represent a very, very serious

24 insurmountable force, you know. You see, while the Serbs are

25 well-disposed towards you, you can walk. Afterwards, you will not be able

1 to. Later on, we are going to turn Yugoslavia into Serboslavia, and then

2 you can forget about secession."

3 Now, by all means, if you think that this needs interpreting by

4 reference to other questions and answers in the context, take us to those,

5 but what I'd like your help with is this: How do you think the promise of

6 creating out of most or all, even, of the former Yugoslavia Serboslavia is

7 going to be taken by your listeners or readers?

8 A. My listeners and readers were Slovenes. This is an interview to

9 the Slovenian television, and as a part to all the officials of Serbia and

10 Yugoslavia, I supported Slovenian separatism. And at one point in time it

11 seems that the Slovenes were wearing -- wondering whether to secede or

12 not. I supported them. I went along their lines and even dared them to

13 do so. And an answer to the question can be found in a very short

14 previous paragraph: "Croatia cannot secede so easily, at least not as

15 easily as Slovenia." And the Slovenes made their biggest mistake -- well,

16 you keep avoiding my answer, hearing my answer. The answer is contained

17 in a previous text, a very brief paragraph, just six lines long. Why are

18 you so impatient? You want to have short experts to build up your own

19 visions, Mr. Nice. Well, that cannot be done. It is an integral text and

20 I would just like to refer you to a brief paragraph that went before.

21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] With your permission, may I be -- or

22 with Mr. Robinson's permission, may I be allowed to read the previous

23 paragraph?

24 Q. [Previous translation continues] ...

25 JUDGE ROBINSON: Let him -- where is the paragraph you want to

1 read?

2 MR. NICE: Middle of the page in the English, I believe.

3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It's around the middle of the page.

4 Just six lines, where I say this: "It is not that easy for Croatia to

5 secede, anyway not as easy as it would be for Slovenia. The Slovenians

6 made their biggest mistake when they allowed themselves to become an

7 instrument in Croatian hands. The Croats are constantly holding the

8 Slovenes back by comparing themselves to Slovenia, by making it seem

9 identical to the one in Slovenia. It is not the same situation at all

10 because what is holding Croatia back is not the same thing that is holding

11 Slovenia back. You have every chance of seceding. The Croats do not. At

12 least, not within the present borders."

13 Now, why am I saying all this? I am saying all this because the

14 Croats are sending the JNA to Slovenia, Stipe Mesic and Ante Markovic,

15 because the Croats are preventing Slovenian secession. They wish to link

16 up the Croatian issue and the Slovenian issue in one package so that they

17 can promulgate it more easily. I am telling the Slovenes to secede and

18 not to link themselves up with the Croatians. I said you Slovenes are

19 free to leave straight away, you can leave straight away. Croatia can't

20 because they have a large percentage of Serbs living on its territory. So

21 that is the essence of the issue.

22 MR. NICE: [Previous translation continues] ...

23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] And you would have to look at the

24 whole interview, because throughout the interview I support the Slovenians

25 in their wish to secede.

1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Seselj, I have to say frankly I don't

2 understand how that explains this statement "Later on we are going to turn

3 Yugoslavia into Serboslavia." You have attempted to put it in context but

4 I have to say frankly that I still don't understand the connection between

5 the paragraph to which you referred and the statement about turning

6 Yugoslavia into Serboslavia, which was Mr. Nice's question.

7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I am letting the Slovenes know:

8 Listen, you are a compact territory, you can secede, you have the right to

9 secede, it's in your interest to secede, go ahead, go, but don't spend too

10 much time thinking about it and link yourselves up to Croatia because that

11 will bring problems. And in all the other territories you have Serb

12 inhabitants. Once the Slovenes leave, Yugoslavia to all intents and

13 purposes is Serboslavia because the Serbs are the majority nation in what

14 is left of Yugoslavia.

15 JUDGE ROBINSON: I see.

16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Because there were almost half as

17 many Serbs there. There might have been two and a half or three million

18 Slovenes, I don't know exactly how much, but with the departure of the

19 Slovenes, all that remains is territories inhabited by Serbs in greater or

20 lesser concentration but you have them everywhere.

21 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes Mr. Nice.

22 MR. NICE:

23 Q. You see, this is the point of my question: If you were a person

24 pretending to be, as you would have it, a Croatian, or pretending to be or

25 mistakenly thinking himself to be a Bosnian listening to this interview

1 and you say you're going to create a Serboslavia, do you think it

2 reasonable that they might fear something in the form of a Serb takeover

3 of the territory?

4 A. First of all, I'm a democrat and I count on free democratic

5 elections. I rely on them. In the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, where the Serbs

6 were the majority nation, the Serbs divided into a number of parties and

7 the rest formed one party for the most part. So why would I instil fear

8 in others? I am inciting the Slovenes in leave, encouraging them to

9 leave, and here my position is quite clear; that Croatia has no chance of

10 seceding. So I thought that if Slovenia were to secede quickly, then

11 Croatia would not be able to secede at all after that. So that's the

12 point of this.

13 If Croatia and Slovenia and in one block, form one bloc, then they

14 become a terrible problem, whereas if Slovenia leaves of its own, then

15 there are no -- there is no more chance for Croatia to secede as -- at all

16 and then it would have to look for a compromise within what is left of

17 Yugoslavia. That's the point of it and that's the logic of all that, and

18 that's quite clear to one and all, and that's what I state in that

19 previous paper. The Croatians have no chance of seceding. I say that

20 expressly.

21 JUDGE BONOMY: I stand all of that. I understand what you claim

22 to have been saying, but you still haven't answered the question that was

23 asked of you. Don't you think that would put fear into the other peoples

24 who would remain within Yugoslavia because of the way in which and the

25 tone in which you were presenting this?

1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] First of all, the Serbs are not

2 vampire -- a vampire nature or scarecrows or anybody there to instil fear.

3 Why would the Serbs instil fear? What negative experiences which -- are

4 there which people -- would lead people to be afraid of the Serbs? Why

5 fear? I think it is wonderful to be a member of the Serb nation but it is

6 far from me to force anybody to be a Serb if they don't want to. But I'm

7 talking about -- I want to tell the people who split from the Serb nation

8 a long time ago, generations ago, that they have the same roots and that

9 they are part of the Serb same nation. I've been trying to do that for

10 the past 20 years, and I leave my texts to live beyond me, beyond the

11 grave, as testimony to that, and I hope that one day they will see the

12 light of day and people will see the light by reading them, because those

13 who step down from the Serb people by becoming Catholics or Muslims were

14 always used by Serb enemies against the Serb people. So how much longer

15 are we going to stand for that? And it's happening today too.

16 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Nice.

17 MR. NICE: Your Honour, I think this one had better go in as a

18 whole again because he's wanting to refer back to the context. So may

19 this be exhibited. I think it better be.

20 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, exhibit.

21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, I insist upon all my

22 texts being introduced into evidence in their entirety because they can

23 only be viewed objectively in their entirety, comprehensively. I don't --

24 I don't ask that any of them be admitted, but if they are admitted, then

25 they should be admitted in their entirety.

1 JUDGE ROBINSON: We will leave that decision on a case-by-case

2 basis, Mr. Seselj.

3 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honour, that interview of 18 June 1991 will

4 be Exhibit 875.

5 MR. NICE:

6 Q. And before I miss the point and before we move to the next

7 document, that interview, of course, in May of 1991 was after declarations

8 of independence by both Slovenia and Croatia, wasn't it? You were

9 declaring an intention to create a Serboslavia. 18th of July.

10 A. No. This was not before Slovenia's independence. The Slovenians

11 showed their intent and then the army intervened, then they were in two

12 minds. So my interview comes when they were debating in two minds and

13 that is why I'm so suggestive and saying go, go, go, unless you go now

14 you'll never leave, you'll never be able to go.

15 Q. Look at the next document, and for the benefit of the booths, this

16 covers tabs 15, 21 and 22. There may be a lack of chronology but I don't

17 think it will harm. It's from a book of the witness called Politics as a

18 Conscientious Challenge, and if we look at them in the order in which they

19 appear in the book.

20 First one you will find on English page 3 of 13 it's recorded, but

21 you haven't got all 13 pages. 3 of 13. Here's part of an interview at a

22 press conference of yours, and this is what you were --

23 A. I don't have that before me. I have some other text here.

24 Q. Bring it back. Ms. Dicklich will find the -- we've given you the

25 right text.

1 A. You didn't provide me with the press conference text.

2 Q. There's a question which says -- I said press conference, it's

3 probably wrong. There is an question from ON: "Has it already come to

4 it, as you stated in yesterday's press conference, 'If executions --'"

5 A. That's not a press conference, it's an interview for the paper ON.

6 Q. "If executions of bare-handed Serbs begin taking place, the only

7 remaining option is an eye-for-an-eye action."

8 Did you in the previous -- do you remember a press conference

9 saying something about eye for eye actions if executions of bare-handed

10 Serbs took place?

11 A. This interview was published on the 24th of May, 1991, and here

12 there was a threat of caution. There was a press conference and parts of

13 it were probably published in the press and they can be found. Here we

14 have a question with respect to the contents of that press conference and

15 I provide a very concrete answer that you have highlighted. You want me

16 to read it?

17 Q. Why don't you read it, yes. We'll follow it.

18 A. My answer is this: "Yes it has! We have already deployed several

19 Chetnik groups in Zagreb and other towns across Croatia, which are trained

20 in sabotage and terrorist activities. And if the Serb civilians start to

21 be massacred, the Chetniks will strike at Zagreb and other concentrations

22 of Croats, using their full strength. You know, when one retaliates,

23 revenge is blind. There would be innocent victims, too, but what can you

24 do. Let the Croats think about that first. We shall not strike first,

25 but if they should strike, we're not going to pay attention to where our

1 blows land. Also, unless the army disarms the Ustashas immediately, there

2 will be a lot of blood."

3 Now, we didn't have these groups. I threatened, don't massacre

4 Serb civilians, that's what I'm saying, because if you massacre Serb

5 civilians, we'll have to take our revenge and revenge is blind, and the

6 rest is quite clear. So I'm issuing a caution, I am warning them.

7 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Seselj, lower your volume. You're shouting

8 now.

9 MR. NICE:

10 Q. So you had -- is it right factually that you had deployed Chetnik

11 groups in Zagreb and across Croatia and that they were there to retaliate

12 by way of revenge if you deemed it appropriate?

13 A. No. That was a bluff. I've just been telling you that. I am

14 threatening in the face of a concrete danger. I'm saying to them don't

15 you dare do that because then terrible things will come to pass. So I'm

16 cautioning them, warning him. The threat is a strong one, perhaps too

17 strong, but I'm saying don't you dare do anything of the kind. And this

18 was a bluff, of course, because we didn't have those Chetnik groups to

19 deploy anywhere.

20 Q. See what you said on page 6 of 13 in the English. And it's in the

21 next extract you've got in your book, I think. The magazine asks you

22 under the cross-heading "Youths Will Take Away the Seal of Shame," "What

23 about Bosnia, let alone the others?" And you said this: "Bosnia is

24 undoubtedly Serbian, and if any Muslim fundamentalists do not like that,

25 they will have to pack their suitcases and leave."

1 And you were asked: "But the majority of its population is

2 Muslim." To which you responded: "So what! If they become loyal

3 citizens of Serbia, they will enjoy full citizens' rights and human

4 freedoms. If not, they will have to start packing!"

5 Let me remind you, when we look at the Kosovo section of the

6 evidence, you were able to justify proposals that people should move out

7 on the grounds that they had comparatively recently populated Kosovo from

8 Albania. What are you doing here, suggesting to Muslim fundamentalists

9 that they would have to pack their suitcases and leave, expelling your own

10 people?

11 A. I'm suggesting -- no. Suggesting, no. Just the fundamentalists.

12 And you know what great danger the fundamentalists are to the world --

13 Q. How are you --

14 A. -- and all over the world, especially Muslim fundamentalists.

15 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... pack their bags and leave,

16 Mr. Seselj, and how is the person listening to this --

17 A. Firstly, every person listening to this interview or reading it in

18 the papers knows whether they are a fundamentalist or not as far as they

19 themselves are concerned, and I draw your attention that far before this

20 the Islamic declaration was published by Alija Izetbegovic in which he

21 expressly claims that it is impossible to have a life together between

22 Muslims and Christians. So that is that concrete danger.

23 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Seselj. Mr. Seselj, once again I ask you to

24 lower the volume. Do not shout.

25 MR. NICE:

1 Q. Does that mean that Mr. Izetbegovic should have packed his bags

2 and left? Is that what you're saying? And, if so, where was it you were

3 going to exile him?

4 A. You, Mr. Nice, are reasoning in the way a small child would. This

5 is a general threat to the fundamentalists, exclusively to fundamentalists

6 and aimed at fundamentalists. It does not bring into question the right

7 of Muslims as citizens of a future state if Yugoslavia really were to be

8 broken down as was talked about previously, because it was my position

9 that if Yugoslavia does break down, then the whole of Bosnia-Herzegovina

10 should remain within the Serb state. That is my position. And what I say

11 here very expressly is that the Muslims will enjoy full equality, but

12 there is no place for any fundamentalist option. Those who are

13 fundamentalists will have to seek for better conditions in which to do so

14 because fundamentalists, as the most aggressive form of Islam, are

15 engaging in terror throughout the world.

16 Q. This is whatever it was, 1991 and fundamental -- fundamental

17 Muslims aren't inevitably associated with unlawful violence initiated by

18 foreign countries. Where would you be telling the fundamentalist Muslim

19 hearing this that he had to pack his bags and depart for?

20 A. That, quite simply, is not true, what you're just saying just now.

21 Fundamentalism at that time was highly topical in the world. It was ten

22 years after the establishment of fundamentalist power in Iran, and I

23 assume you know how far the Iranian fingers were involved in the Bosnian

24 pie and how many fundamentalists from Bosnia received financial aid and

25 all other types of aid from Iran.

1 And secondly, my struggle against Islamic fundamentalism began ten

2 years prior to this, ten years earlier on, and that's why my books were

3 banned, that's why I was sent to prison and arrested, but my struggle and

4 fight did not cease.

5 Q. I've given the witness enough opportunities to answer that

6 question. The last extract from this document, please, on the next sheet,

7 I expect.

8 Remember I asked you earlier what was a Ustasha. The magazine

9 asked you a question: "Can one reach a solution with cool heads and with

10 rifles laid down?" And you answered this: "How is one supposed to

11 negotiate with the Ustashas? Did you see today that the Croatian people

12 are entirely Ustasha? There are very few exceptions."

13 Can you just explain your answer to that.

14 A. Why don't you read on this text? Feel free. "I pay tribute to

15 the residents of Istria, Rijeka and Kvarner. They are behaving honourably

16 in this situation, and they are not in any kind of danger from the Serbs.

17 That should always be emphasised as an example." Because in Istria,

18 Rijeka, and Kvarner the atmosphere was very tolerant and there were very

19 few cases of Serb persecution. In all other parts of Croatia Tudjman's

20 terror over the Serbs was already raging, but you are taking things out of

21 historical context.

22 "The Ustashas who have gone crazy, we shall defeat them in no

23 time. I guarantee you, with one division of 10.000 Chetniks, we would

24 reach Zagreb within 24 --"

25 THE INTERPRETER: 48 hours, interpreter's correction.

1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic.

2 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone.

3 JUDGE ROBINSON: Microphone, please.

4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The answer starts with the words

5 that they are not in any kind of danger. The microphone was not on. The

6 beginning of Mr. Seselj's answer was not interpreted at all. Only the

7 second part was interpreted, that they were in no danger. "From

8 certificates." I don't know what this means, I'm reading it out now, and

9 then Rijeka is referred to. So there is no interpretation and this is

10 quite confusing, what it says in the transcript.

11 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's note that the whole answer was

12 interpreted from the first word on.

13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] He started his answer with the

14 following words: "I pay tribute to the citizens or the residents of" et

15 cetera, et cetera, and then he explained.

16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Only in Istria, Rijeka, and Kvarner,

17 in the territories of then Croatia, there was no organised persecution of

18 the Serb population, and that is precisely where the real Croats live, in

19 Istria, Rijeka, Kvarner. That is the Chakavian region, and that is --

20 JUDGE ROBINSON: [Previous translation continues] ... thank you.

21 MR. NICE: See --

22 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Seselj. Mr. Nice.

23 MR. NICE:

24 Q. See, on the previous page we've seen the way you've effectively

25 identified those who can stay as those who become loyal citizens of

1 Serbia. Incidentally, would fundamentalists who wanted an independent

2 Bosnia be those who would have to pack their bags and leave?

3 A. No. Not those who want an independent Bosnia but those who want

4 to attain an independent Bosnia by arms. They didn't have to pack up and

5 leave. They could have ended up in prison.

6 Q. But on this page therefore you've dealt with those Bosniaks --

7 Bosnians who can stay, and here unless I've -- we can look at the context,

8 but here -- please listen to me. Here you said Croatian people are

9 entirely Ustasha, there are very few exceptions, and then you've just

10 identified the areas that, by your definition, can count themselves as

11 Croats.

12 How would anybody except the Istrians listening to this regard

13 this material, Mr. Seselj? They'd find it frightening, wouldn't they, to

14 have a politician like you proposing these sort of steps.

15 A. You can take it any way you want, but you cannot impute or falsify

16 the content of the text. This is in the form of a question: Well, have

17 you seen for yourself to date that the Croat people are Ustasha and that

18 few are not? This is a rhetorical question that was put from the point of

19 view of what had already started happening in Croatia. But you would like

20 to place the entire interview outside the context of the situation in then

21 Yugoslavia. How can you do that? Of course, in order to understand this

22 fully, you have to read the entire interview.

23 Q. In which case that --

24 A. Now, whether somebody is going to take that as a danger or whether

25 somebody is going to be afraid, well, they should first be afraid of what

1 Tudjman was doing. I am giving a verbal response to his physical

2 activity. He already has power in his hands, and he is persecuting people

3 while --

4 JUDGE ROBINSON: [Previous translation continues] ... we have your

5 explanation there.

6 MR. NICE:

7 Q. You see, before I go and look at the next document I've already

8 asked you about whether you were ever restrained by the accused from

9 speaking in the way you did or using the rhetoric that you did, but just

10 tell us this: In your judgement, was his assent to power and his

11 retention of power effectively dependent on support from nationalists or

12 from those inclined towards nationalism?

13 A. First of all, I am a particular type of nationalist in all of

14 this.

15 Secondly, when speaking of Serb nationalists one must bear in mind

16 all their groups, all their ideological views, and so on. Apart from me

17 and the members of the Serb Radical Party, in Serbia quite simply even

18 today you cannot find a single group in Serbia that would say for itself

19 that it was nationalist. Even those who are attacked in the public the

20 most as being nationalists claim that they were never nationalists.

21 That's what they said for themselves, like Vuk Draskovic, Dobrica Cosic,

22 et cetera. So you have to be very clear about this. Who do you mean by

23 nationalists? Are they all patriots? Are they only those who say for

24 themselves that they are Serb nationalists? Look no further. Except for

25 me and other members of the Serb Radical Party, you cannot find anyone who

1 says that they themselves are nationalists.

2 Slobodan Milosevic did not come to power as a nationalist. At the

3 time when he came to power, I was a persecuted dissident whose books were

4 banned, who lived from one day to the other, who was in prison and so on

5 and so forth. I even, at this period of time, was the only MP of my party

6 in parliament.

7 So I owe you an answer to another one of your questions: Slobodan

8 Milosevic had no way of stopping me from speaking in this way. How could

9 he stop me? What constitutional power does he have to stop me? What

10 legal power does he have to stop me? What is the criminal offence that I

11 committed by saying so at this time? In the times of Mr. Milosevic, not a

12 single newspaper was banned. One book was banned, and I already said

13 which one. So there was full freedom of speech.

14 Now, you can only say that you don't like --

15 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you. Thank you.

16 Mr. Nice, please.

17 MR. NICE:

18 Q. Yes. It may be I can just interrupt the flow of what I was going

19 to do for something slightly -- before we play this, Mr. Seselj, this is

20 much later. This is part of the film The Death of Yugoslavia, and

21 although perhaps not today I'll make available to the Chamber the whole

22 transcript of the complete interview.

23 Now, this was an interview that was conducted in the spring of

24 1995. Tell us, when you spoke to The Death of Yugoslavia people, were you

25 doing your best to tell the truth on this very substantial television

1 programme of record?

2 A. No. That television programme was not one I ever considered to be

3 important or substantial. I considered the BBC to be a hostile

4 television, and I didn't really care about what I said to them then, and

5 the Serb Radical Party took $500 US from them for that interview and that

6 money entered the coffers of the Serb Radical Party.

7 Q. Untruths, deliberate --

8 A. They also got a certificate stating that they had paid out that

9 sum.

10 Q. Okay. Right. I'm grateful to Ms. Dicklich. In fact, the part

11 that I'm about to play was not, in the event, part of the film, it was

12 part of the longer interview, which we also have in video form. Shall we

13 just play this little passage, please, and then see what you say about it.

14 [Videotape played]

15 MR. NICE: I have no sound. No sound. I should have -- I should

16 have told the booth. Can we go back to the beginning of this. My mistake

17 for not doing that. This is 25G.

18 [Videotape played]

19 THE INTERPRETER: "[Voiceover] This all lasted until the

20 Vance-Owen ... until the attempted putsch in Banja Luka. And Karadzic

21 counted on this as well, that maybe Milosevic would get back on track, to

22 make a break. Don't forget that Milosevic always won the elections on a

23 nationalistic platform and nothing else."

24 MR. NICE:

25 Q. You see, to The Death of Yugoslavia people, you said that he

1 always got back on a nationalistic platform. Now, is that true? We saw

2 the manner in which you presented yourself to the interviews. Was that

3 true?

4 A. Now you are ruthlessly falsifying things before the entire Trial

5 Chamber. I say quite clearly on national lines and you are falsifying

6 things by saying "nationalist." You should have been taught at school

7 what the difference was between nationalistic and national. If you were

8 not taught that at school, then you're a lost case, Mr. Nice.

9 MR. NICE: Would the Chamber be good enough, please, to control

10 this witness. My job here is to ask questions. It is not, frankly, to be

11 subject to vulgar abuse, and I'm not inclined to put up with it for much

12 longer.

13 JUDGE ROBINSON: Avoid that kind of language, Mr. Seselj. We

14 don't need it here.

15 MR. NICE:

16 Q. You see --

17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, why don't you

18 intervene? You heard in my statement that I was talking about the

19 national line and then you heard Mr. Nice correcting that to be

20 nationalistic.

21 JUDGE ROBINSON: There is no need to impute motives to the

22 Prosecutor. Just answer the question.

23 JUDGE BONOMY: But there's more to it. The translation -- sorry,

24 my microphone is not working. But the translation we have is clearly --

25 clearly uses the word "nationalistic." Not just "nationalist" but

1 "nationalistic." Now, we may have to check if there's an inaccurate

2 translation, but it's quite wrong to make an assertion about the

3 Prosecutor, particularly when you're doing it without full information.

4 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreters note that they were reading out

5 from a transcript.

6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your interpreters are your problem.

7 My statement clearly says "national line" which means patriotic line. And

8 then Mr. Nice corrected that into "nationalistic." If your interpreters

9 are no good for you, then solve your problem, but I am not going to

10 allow --

11 JUDGE BONOMY: You know --

12 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. -- I just cut you off there.

13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] How nice.

14 JUDGE BONOMY: No human can err, according to you. People don't

15 make genuine mistakes. Is that what you're saying? You're going to

16 criticise all the interpreters now on the basis of one error that may or

17 may not have been made, we don't know yet.

18 Mr. Nice, it's suggested by -- sorry, it's been suggested by the

19 interpreters that they're reading from -- are they reading from an English

20 translation?

21 MR. NICE: They're probably reading --

22 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

23 JUDGE BONOMY: So what we need to do is find out from the

24 interpreters by reference to the actual language that was used. Now, do

25 you have the Serbian text?

1 MR. NICE: We don't have the Serbian text.

2 JUDGE BONOMY: So we can't check this.

3 JUDGE KWON: The video has Serbian words.

4 MR. NICE: Has Serbian words on it.

5 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreters note that it was barely audible.

6 MR. NICE: We can play it again, if that's going to help. Can we

7 do that again?

8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.

9 [Videotape played]

10 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreters note that both times the word

11 "national" was used, at the very beginning and at the very end.

12 "National."

13 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

14 MR. NICE:

15 Q. Then what is meant by saying -- first of all, was this an example

16 of your telling the truth to the interviews or of your telling something

17 that was untrue?

18 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] What a pointless question.

20 Incredibly pointless. You are taking one sentence out of context and now

21 you're asking me --

22 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Seselj, it's not a pointless question because

23 you yourself in examination-in-chief made a distinction between occasions

24 when you spoke what you called bombast and other occasions when you spoke

25 truth. So you have set up that question.

1 MR. NICE:

2 Q. And what I'd like your help with is what -- first of all, will you

3 tell us, was this an example of your telling the interviewers the truth or

4 was it an example of bombast or untruth?

5 A. I think that you should behave properly, that you should not be so

6 rude. It's one thing to be bombastic and it's a different thing not to be

7 telling the truth. It is obvious here that national means patriotic, and

8 indeed even today I think that Mr. Milosevic was the most successful in

9 politics when he supported this patriotic policy, this national policy,

10 protecting the interests of the nation. But I have always said, and I

11 still do, that Mr. Milosevic was never a nationalist, but I was.

12 As for the way in which you interpret this, that is wholly

13 indecent.

14 Q. Let us come back now to where we were, which is, for the benefit

15 of the interpreters, tabs 16, 17 and 18. It will be the next document.

16 At the time we're still concerned with, the critical period in May

17 and June of 1991, was the sort of rhetoric you were making, using,

18 speeches you were making, tending to support the accused in his political

19 acquisition or retention of power? You tell us. You were a local

20 politician.

21 A. In 1990 and in 1991? What was the year that you referred to?

22 Q. 1991.

23 A. Not a single speech of mine was oriented towards keeping

24 Mr. Milosevic in power, but all my speeches were nationalistic, and aimed

25 against the policies of Serb enemies, but you have to spell the question

1 out in concrete terms so that I could give you a concrete answer.

2 Q. Look now at this document which is from Horvat's Ustasha

3 Phantasmagorias, on page 3 of 16, and this is -- this is number 17 and I'm

4 just going to deal with them in order, for the interpreters. On page 3 of

5 16, and for the witness I think it's page 64. Okay. He's got them there.

6 You said this: "Could the Bosnian pan-Islamists fight a war

7 against us Serbs? Recently we told them: Do not let the Muslim majority

8 become a tool of Croatia like it did in World War I and World War II."

9 You quoted this passage yourself in your evidence-in-chief. "Take care,

10 and do not interfere in the Serbo-Croatian conflict." I don't think you

11 quoted the last sentence: "If the Croats use you again, Serbian revenge

12 will be terrible, and you will end up father than Anatolia," which is a

13 town or village in Turkey, I think.

14 What did that mean for the --

15 A. You see from the text itself that that is addressed to the Bosnian

16 pan-Islamists. Bosnian pan-Islamists. That is crystal clear. Why should

17 I have any consideration towards the pan-Islamists? I'm not considerate

18 at all as far as they're concerned.

19 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... them out is that what you'd

20 do is in the late --

21 A. First of all, I don't say there that they should be kicked out.

22 I'm saying that they will not stop even at Anatolia, that if they enter a

23 war, they will be defeated in that war. I am warning them not to allow

24 them to have the Muslims used, as they were in the Second World War, for

25 the Ustasha interests. You know that a considerable number of Muslims in

1 the Second World War was involved in the Croatian Ustasha units, and some

2 of the criminals in Jasenovac were Muslims. And Hitler, in Bosnia itself,

3 established an entire SS division, the Handzar Division, consisting of

4 Muslims. That's quite clear.

5 JUDGE BONOMY: You -- you go on -- you go on in this piece to say,

6 after the reference to pan-Islamists, you say, "Recently we told them: Do

7 not let the Muslim majority become a tool of Croatia ..."

8 Now, does that mean that we can, for "Muslim majority" read

9 "pan-Islamists," that the two are one and the same?

10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It's not one and the same thing, and

11 that's not what it says in the text. Now, in your interpretation you can

12 add whatever you wish to the text itself, but the text itself is geared

13 towards the Bosnian pan-Islamists, and my threat is the following: There

14 is a conflict between the Serbs and the Croats going on now. Do not

15 interfere in the conflict by siding up with the Croats. It's perfectly

16 clear. Now, what is not in the text is something that you would want me

17 to add subsequently.

18 JUDGE BONOMY: Will you please calm down. When you say "Recently

19 we told them," there then seems to be a quotation, and it starts, "Do not

20 let the Muslim majority become a tool of Croatia, like it did in World War

21 I and World War II," and it ends with, "If the Croats use you again,

22 Serbian revenge will be terrible and you will end up further than

23 Anatolia."

24 Now, at the moment I read that as meaning the Muslim majority will

25 end up further than Anatolia. Is that a mistake on my part?

1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson.

2 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, just let the witness answer Judge

3 Bonomy's question, and then we'll hear you.

4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I have an objection to the question.

5 JUDGE ROBINSON: You can't have an objection to the question from

6 the Bench.

7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] No, no, no. No, the interpretation

8 of the question. It was not interpreted properly. He's not talking about

9 the Muslim majority at all. Muslim majority is not a word that was used

10 at all. The right interpretation would be that a larger number of

11 Muslims, et cetera, in larger numbers. The word "majority" was never

12 used. It was said here, "Do not let the Muslims in larger numbers be a

13 tool..." et cetera.

14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. Bonomy, I'm very calm, and I'm

15 giving very calm answers to all the questions, but you are trying to

16 impute that there is something in the text that is simply not there. The

17 text is a message to Bosnian pan-Islamists.

18 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Milosevic has raised an important point,

19 because it may be that this English translation from which I'm working is

20 not an accurate reflection of what you said, and again it may be that,

21 once it's clarified, we will have a much more accurate reflection of your

22 position. But bear in mind that if I didn't ask these questions and went

23 off with this document which says Do not let the Muslim majority, et

24 cetera, I could be left with the wrong impression of your evidence. So

25 please excuse me for trying to get it correct.

1 Now, Mr. Nice, is there a Serbian text of this?

2 MR. NICE: He has got the Serbian text with him.

3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In the text there is no reference to

4 a Muslim majority. In the Second World War, too, it was not the majority

5 of the Muslims who were Ustashas. A large number was, though.

6 JUDGE BONOMY: Please let us deal with this in stages that do not

7 allow diversion from clarifying the point in the article.

8 Would you please read to me from the Serbian text the part which

9 has been highlighted on that page, from "Could the Bosnian pan-Islamists

10 fight ..." Could you read that whole passage, down to "Anatolia."

11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] "Will the Bosnian pan-Islamists go

12 to war against us the Serbs? We sent a message to them recently. Do not

13 allow Muslims in large part to represent a tool in criminal Croatian hands

14 as they were in the First and Second World Wars. Bear this in mind and do

15 not interfere in the Serb-Croat conflict. If the Croats use you again,

16 Serb revenge will be terrible and you will not even stop in Anatolia."

17 So all of this is addressed to Bosnian pan-Islamists, telling them

18 not to allow the Muslims in large part, meaning in large numbers, not a

19 Muslim majority.

20 In the Second World War, a large number of Muslims were in

21 Pavelic's regime, but not the majority. There were a lot of Muslims who

22 were against fascism. But if 10.000 Muslims were in an SS division, that

23 is a large number. That is truly a large number. But it is not a

24 majority.

25 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Seselj, for the

1 explanation.

2 On that note, we'll have to adjourn. When we resume tomorrow,

3 Mr. Seselj, I'll tell you something about how cross-examination is

4 conducted so that you're not unduly disturbed by vigorous

5 cross-examination.

6 We'll give numbers to the exhibits tomorrow, and my apologies to

7 the Trial Chamber which is coming at 2.15.

8 We are adjourned.

9 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.49 p.m.,

10 to be reconvened on Wednesday, the 7th day

11 of September, 2005, at 9.00 a.m.

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