1 Tuesday, 20 May 2003

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 --- Upon commencing at 9.02 a.m.

5 JUDGE MAY: We'll begin today by giving the Trial Chamber's oral

6 ruling on the Prosecution motion under Rule 93 bis to vary the number of

7 witnesses and the length of time available to present evidence.

8 On the 10th of April, 2002, the Trial Chamber ordered that the

9 Prosecution should finish its case within one year of that date, that is,

10 14 months from the commencement of the trial. The Trial Chamber expressed

11 the view that no trial should last longer than that.

12 On the 25th of the same month, the Appeals Chamber rejected the

13 Prosecution's application for leave to file an interlocutory appeal

14 against the order, finding no error in the Trial Chamber's exercise of

15 discretion or prejudice to the Prosecution, but noting that a Trial

16 Chamber may always reconsider its decision.

17 At the Pre-Trial Conference for the Croatia and Bosnia part of the

18 case on the 25th of July last year, the Trial Chamber, under Rule 73 bis

19 (C) set the number of Prosecution witnesses at a total of 177, and under

20 Rule 73 bis (E), the time available to the Prosecution for presenting

21 evidence as until the 16th of May of this year. The Trial Chamber said

22 that if circumstances altered during the trial, the Prosecution might

23 apply for variation of the order, such variation only to be made for good

24 cause.

25 The Prosecution complains that the original order created what

1 they call an anomaly by setting the number of witnesses and fixing a time

2 available. No anomaly was created. The order was perfectly plain. A

3 hundred and seventy-seven witnesses might be called, and the time

4 available was until 16th of May, 2003.

5 Additional days have been added to the time available, brought

6 about by the ill health of the accused. On the 2nd of April this year,

7 this was announced to be an additional 54 days, which it is now calculated

8 would result in a finishing date of the 5th of September of this year.

9 As of 16th of May, the Prosecution has called 179 witnesses,

10 including 55 in the Bosnia and Croatia part. There have been 192 days of

11 hearing, 95 in the Bosnia and Croatia part.

12 The Prosecution now applies for an order varying that of the 25th

13 of July to allow its case to continue until the Trial Chamber has heard

14 the evidence of all its witnesses in a schedule to its motion or the

15 witnesses whom the Trial Chamber decides should be heard. Moreover, the

16 Trial Chamber should dispense with any fixed date by which the Prosecution

17 case must be concluded.

18 There are now some 118 witnesses left on the schedule I've just

19 referred to, estimated to take about 119 days. The Prosecution also ask

20 for a period to call Rule 92 bis witnesses and estimates it could finish

21 its case in January or February next year.

22 The ground on which the Prosecution seeks this variation is that

23 it is in the interests of justice, under Rule 73 bis (F), to do so in the

24 circumstances which have become clearer as the trial has progressed. Thus

25 while the Trial Chamber could only make a projection in April 2002, now in

1 a better position to make the assessment.

2 The Prosecution claims it has made every effort to meet the

3 timetable and it cannot resolve the time difficulties without being

4 obliged to abandon significant portions of its core case.

5 The Prosecution also applies to the Chamber to vary the number of

6 witnesses and says that it will continue to substitute new witnesses if

7 such become available.

8 The amici submit that the motion should be denied since, if

9 granted, it would make the Prosecution case excessively long and

10 oppressive to an accused having to cope with this scale of trial. They

11 also assert that the amount of evidence and exhibits would become

12 unmanageable. They submit that the Prosecution has not showed good cause

13 for variation so late in the trial, having had sufficient notice of the

14 Trial Chamber's view of the time given, and further submit that it would

15 be wrong for the Trial Chamber to indicate which witnesses should be heard

16 since this would involve the Trial Chamber in the Prosecution of the

17 accused. The Prosecution should be ordered to supply a final list of

18 witnesses in order to enable the accused to have adequate time for

19 preparation of his defence.

20 The background to the application is Article 21 of the Statute,

21 which provides that the Trial Chamber shall ensure that a trial is fair

22 and expeditious and that proceedings are conducted in accordance with the

23 Rules of Procedure and Evidence with full respect for the rights of the

24 accused. This, of course, means a trial that is fair to both Prosecution

25 and Defence and expeditious for both. However, the Trial Chamber has a

1 wider public duty to ensure that a trial is expeditious and does not

2 consume too much in the way of international time and resources.

3 Against this background, Rule 73 bis (F) provides that during the

4 trial, the Trial Chamber may grant the Prosecution's request for

5 additional time to present evidence if this is in the interests of

6 justice. Therefore, in the present case, the Trial Chamber must be

7 satisfied that it is in the interest of justice to vary its original order

8 of the 25th of July. Put another way, has the Prosecution shown any good

9 cause for the Trial Chamber to vary its original order? Alternatively,

10 have the circumstances altered in such a way that the order should be

11 varied?

12 It is not possible to say, as the Prosecution submits, that the

13 Trial Chamber was not fully informed when it made its original decision.

14 At the time, the trial had been under way for five months. The

15 Prosecution could not complain if there were no extension of time, since

16 it has known for more than a year there would be a time limit and what it

17 was. On the other hand, the Trial Chamber must consider whether it is in

18 the interests of justice so to limit the Prosecution case that it is not

19 able to call as many witnesses as possible relating to its core case.

20 The Trial Chamber has come to the conclusion that it would be in

21 the interests of justice to allow some variation in the time limit to

22 allow the Prosecution more time to call further witnesses it regards as

23 essential. However, the Trial Chamber is also of the view that if granted

24 in full, the Prosecution case would become excessively long and oppressive

25 to all concerned, in particular the accused who has to meet this case and

1 mount a defence.

2 Therefore, a balance has to be struck in the interests of justice.

3 In doing so, the Trial Chamber considers in the circumstances of this case

4 that it would be more convenient to express the variation in terms of

5 hearing days rather than to set a time limit as in the original order.

6 Accordingly, the order of the 25th of July will be varied to allow

7 the Prosecution 100 days from the 16th of May this year as the time

8 available for presenting its evidence. There will be no variation in the

9 order concerning the number of witnesses, but the Trial Chamber has in

10 mind that the Prosecution has not yet identified all its witnesses and

11 that without such a list, it is difficult for the accused adequately to

12 prepare his defence. The Prosecution has indicated that it will finalise

13 the list shortly. The Trial Chamber will keep this matter under review.

14 I deal with one other matter. We have an application in respect

15 of Witness B-024. We grant the protective measures sought.

16 MR. NICE: We are grateful. Your Honour, we are grateful. Before

17 the witness comes in, one other administrative matter, in fact possibly

18 two.

19 [Trial Chamber confers]

20 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Nice.

21 MR. NICE: One matter. The Chamber may remember that the question

22 of --

23 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please, Mr. Nice.

24 MR. NICE: Very sorry. The question of Croatian statehood was

25 something we were going to deal with by a paper that we would serve on the

1 parties and in particular upon Mr. McCormack in his role as the amicus

2 dealing with such matters. We are proposing to do that, I hope, this

3 week. And the particular reason for doing that is then it will be a paper

4 available in advance of the constitutional expert giving his evidence.

5 So -- unless the Chamber has changed its mind on the utility of having

6 such a paper served, given the arrival of Mr. McCormack, that's what we'll

7 do this week.

8 Can I deal with the second matter in just private session?

9 JUDGE MAY: Yes. We'll go into private session.

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24 [Open session]

25 THE REGISTRAR: We're now in open session.

1 JUDGE MAY: And perhaps we could have the witness, please.

2 While waiting for the witness -- he's here.

3 [The witness entered court]

4 JUDGE MAY: Perhaps you can tell us sometime about the programme

5 tomorrow.

6 MR. NICE: Yes. The witness who comes tomorrow is a witness who

7 must really start -- the witness coming tomorrow is a witness who really

8 has to be dealt with in the day, and it would be convenient if any other

9 evidence can, in the terminology, wrap around --

10 JUDGE MAY: Well, it may be that this witness's evidence is not

11 concluded, but he'll be able to come back.

12 MR. NICE: Oh, yes.

13 JUDGE MAY: Mr. de la Brosse, I'm sorry you've been kept waiting.

14 We had to deal with some administrative matters.

15 WITNESS: RENAUD DE LA BROSSE [Resumed]

16 [Witness answered through interpreter]

17 Examined by Mr. Nice: [Continued]

18 Q. Yesterday, we were, as the Court will recall, in the sector of the

19 witness's report headed "Media at the heart of the Yugoslav war," and we

20 had reached pages 59 and thereabouts, but we now come to page 62 of the

21 report, but more materially we come to footnote 138 and clip 11. If that

22 can be played, please.

23 [Videotape played]

24 THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] "I have golden teeth in my hand.

25 They told me that these teeth were pulled out with knives from live people

1 who were later killed.

2 "Do you have any examples of somebody being killed or slaughtered

3 or any examples of misdeeds?

4 "I left earlier, but as far as I know, there were other kinds of

5 torture.

6 "What happened?

7 "Well, slaughtering, gouging out eyes, cutting off children's

8 fingers. In baking pans on liberated territories we found children they

9 wanted to roast. Soldiers with heads cut off, the injured were

10 disembowelled, the TO members. So they have no mercy even for the wounded.

11 They have no mercy for anyone. I don't know how that is, they are animals

12 or what, they are not human."

13 MR. NICE:

14 Q. [Previous translation continues]... television output on the 17th

15 of November, 1991?

16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. President, would you allow me to

17 make two comments before commenting on that excerpt? Thank you very much.

18 If it's possible, I would like us to refer systematically to the

19 fact that the French and English pagination is not the same and I would

20 ask that the paragraph numbers be referred to, because otherwise I find it

21 difficult to find my way around in the text.

22 And in addition, I had some trouble -- that is, I would need some

23 more time in order to find myself, and that's why I'm asking you

24 systematically to indicate the paragraph number so that I can find my way

25 around quickly and not take so much time. Moreover, I wanted to make a

1 comment, rather a clarification about the question I was asked yesterday

2 by Judge Robinson and in respect of which perhaps I wasn't very clear in

3 the answer I gave.

4 Reference was made to the excerpt, the video clip about the

5 excavations and the funeral service that we heard about and the

6 amalgamation that was made between what happened in the Second World War

7 and the situation that reigned in Croatia in the 1990s and 1980s. If I've

8 understood your question, you wanted to ask whether we could talk about

9 lawful or unlawful propaganda before the beginning of the war.

10 If I seemed to you that I was hesitating, it is because that goes

11 back to the question about the legal guards or safeguards that are around

12 it, but I'm not a legal specialist, but it seems very closely connected to

13 me to propaganda, and with your authorisation, I would like to answer

14 about -- your question by adding several things.

15 First of all, there are international texts which prohibit all

16 hateful ethnic or religious hatred. I'm thinking about the International

17 Covenant, Article 20 on human rights, which was ratified by Yugoslavia.

18 And I'm also thinking about the republican federal texts which exist in

19 Yugoslavia. And so as of that time with -- through this type of ceremony,

20 one stigmatises a community - in this case the Croatian Community - as a

21 whole. One could speak about unlawful propaganda whether or not one is in

22 a war context.

23 This is what I wanted to say. And additionally, you also asked me

24 yesterday -- I was a bit nervous, I didn't really mention something. This

25 type of ceremony began as early as 1987 in Serbia and were transmitted on

1 television. And here I can refer you to the work of a French sociologist

2 who is well known, Veronique Nahoum-Grappe, and I refer to this in note --

3 footnote 93 of the report. Thank you very much.

4 Q. Thank you, Mr. de la Brosse, and it's entirely my error that I

5 haven't been using paragraph numbers as well as footnote numbers. I will

6 make sure that I do.

7 Reminding yourself of the clip we saw of the teeth allegedly taken

8 out and of the reference to children's fingers, baking pans, and

9 disembowelment, what would be your comment on that clip and its location

10 in your views on propaganda?

11 A. What I would note right away is that, speaking professionally, the

12 report is unsatisfactory because the testimony of civilians that was taken

13 -- well, in respect of these alleged atrocities provide no proof for the

14 allegations. And the witnesses are never direct witnesses, eyewitnesses.

15 My commentary is that through this procedure, through an overall

16 judgement depicting the Croats as being inhuman, I think that that appears

17 in the clip. It allows a better justification of the -- of their

18 destruction and their elimination.

19 Q. Thank you. May we go now to paragraph 64. It's on page 64 in the

20 English, but it's paragraph 64 as well. May we lay on the overhead

21 projector first of all something from tab 60.

22 This is a part of your report dealing with the way that the Croats

23 were singled out as Ustasha, and it's within a sector of your report

24 headed "Stigmatising the opponent." We see here a report of the 25th of

25 September, 1991, order by the regional territorial Staff Commander saying,

1 item 1: "I order that all enemy's armed forces are called by what is

2 their right and only name, Ustashas."

3 Next, please, tab 61, page 7. This is within an army bulletin

4 document of the 14th of November of 1991. So it's an army document

5 promulgated to army people generally, I think, and it says this: "The

6 liberation of Vukovar, Borovo and Borovo Naselje will bring back freedom

7 to the beleaguered civilian population and above all the Serbs kept there

8 as hostages. Yesterday some 60 persons were rescued from Vukovar. They

9 had survived all the Ustasha horrors, having spent many days and weeks in

10 cellars without enough food or water. They were taken to Vojvodina and

11 are recovering there."

12 Thank you very much. And then tab 63, please. The page numbered

13 2 at the top. Again from an army bulletin, number 35 of those bulletins,

14 and the date is the 5th of October, 1991. But here we see a statement by

15 the Federal Secretary for National Defence, General Kadijevic. The

16 highlighted passage reads: "Despite our efforts, the events have taken

17 quite a different turn primarily because of the activities of internal

18 destructive forces, but also because of a significant influence of some

19 foreign factors which are deeply involved in everything that is taking

20 place ..."

21 Over to page 3, we see how he characterises what he is describing.

22 Top of the page, please. "In one part of the country, we are being

23 labelled occupiers. The fascist regime in Croatia..."

24 Further down the page: "Acting upon the decision of the SFRY

25 Presidency, our exclusive goal was to prevent bloody inter-ethnic clashes

1 and the repetition of the genocide against the Serbian people ..."

2 Next passage: "What is in force in the Republic of Croatia is

3 neo-Nazism. At present, neo-Nazism is the most serious threat to the

4 Serbian people in Croatia, but it is also diametrically opposed to the

5 vital interests of the Croatian people and any other people in the

6 Yugoslav environment."

7 And finally on this topic, tab 65. This is an order from Colonel

8 Cedomir Bulat dated the 20th of November of 1991 from Tactical Group 2.

9 The highlighted passage of this order, headed "Information On The Goals Of

10 The War" reads: "In these times, the fate our peoples is being decided

11 and we must not allow others to determine it, to destroy us and enslave

12 us."

13 After a gap: "... in this war we defend the right to life and

14 survival, dignity, honour and the right of those peoples of our country

15 who champion the continuation of the mutual living in Yugoslavia."

16 The next paragraph we see reference to the support of Austrian

17 neo-Nazism, the paragraph ending: "... the Yugoslav People's Army had no

18 other choice but to take the war that had been imposed on it and to meet

19 force with force.

20 "JNA is leading a defensive war with very clear goals."

21 A reference to: "Prevention of repeated genocide against Serbs in

22 critical areas."

23 And over the page, please, Usher. "Use this information when

24 preparing for the execution of the coming tasks, in order to make all

25 members of the unit entirely understand these precise goals of the war,

1 adopting them permanently as a main motive for courageous and

2 self-sacrificing conduct in armed combat."

3 Thank you very much. The general topic was singling out Croats

4 and soldiers as Ustasha or as fascists fighting on behalf of Germany. Any

5 comment in addition to what these documents themselves reveal that you

6 would like to add, please?

7 A. What I would like to say, one finds the same terminology used in

8 the Serbian media in order to stigmatise the enemy. I had confirmation of

9 this from journalists whom I met. Having said this, these directives were

10 not written but, rather, oral in which they were asked to speak about

11 Croatian combatants as Ustashas or fascists, using that type of

12 terminology.

13 Q. At the same part of your report and indeed at the conclusion of

14 the same paragraph 64, you will find footnote 143, and can we now please

15 play clip number 12 which comes from the 9th of September, 1991.

16 [Videotape played]

17 THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] "The panic-stricken Tudjman

18 mercenaries and villains calling themselves the guards have barricaded

19 themselves in the centre of Kostajnica, shooting at everything. We also

20 learnt that a horde of butchers from Tudjman's Black Legion is headed

21 towards Banija. The horde of mercenaries and murderers thirsty for

22 Serbian blood barricaded in Kostajnica seem to realise increasingly that

23 they have been written off."

24 MR. NICE:

25 Q. Mr. de la Brosse, your comment on that clip, please.

1 A. Yes. This is an example of what I was just speaking about.

2 Through the vocabulary and terminology used, what they're trying to do is

3 stigmatise the enemy. What is striking here also is that reference is

4 made to what happened during the Second World War at the time of the Black

5 Legion.

6 Q. We move to the next paragraph of your report, paragraph 65 within

7 the same topic. It's page 65 in the English version. Can we look at tab

8 66. Right. There is no tab 66. In which case my error, but we'll go to

9 footnote 146, if we may, and play clip number 13 from the 20th of November

10 of 1991.

11 [Videotape played]

12 THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] "It is known that several dozens of

13 children have fallen victim to the Ustasha knives. Bodies of entire

14 families are still being found slaughtered on the very doorsteps of their

15 homes as well as members of the army. This town is a great Serbian

16 martyrdom. For the past months, Vukovar's outskirts have been the outer

17 limits of a huge concentration camp."

18 MR. NICE:

19 Q. What do you want to say about this clip? And if you're able to,

20 what your understanding is as to its accuracy or reliability.

21 A. Here again one sees the practice of historical amalgamation made

22 between the Croatians and fascists of the Second World War and Tudjman's

23 Croatia. The purpose of the comment on television was to stigmatise the

24 enemy, and I refer to you the terminology that's being used, "Ustasha,"

25 and the parallel which is drawn between the situation in Vukovar. The

1 fact that the concentration camps are being used and murders of innocent

2 people, that refers us back once again to the Second World War.

3 Implicitly, the comparison is made with the Croatian concentration camps

4 that existed during the Second World War.

5 The key to the reading of what was -- the key to all of this is to

6 read -- read it as -- to present it in a caricature way.

7 Q. On to paragraph 65, page 66 in the English version, tab 147, clip

8 14, broadcast on the 5th of April of 1992.

9 [Videotape played]

10 THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] "After negotiations on peace and only

11 five minutes before the Bajram prayers, the army barracks 'Severni logor'

12 was blown up. It was planned by Ustasha and carried out by jihad warriors

13 with a cruelty typical of both. It marked the first time jihad set foot

14 on European soil."

15 MR. NICE:

16 Q. Similar in part, otherwise different from what we've seen. Your

17 comment, please.

18 A. Here again one sees the procedure which is designed to stigmatise

19 the enemy, using certain kinds of terminology which I've studied. I

20 thought I could make an overall comment on both examples which I gave in

21 the footnote, if you allow me.

22 Here once again we see the practice of historical amalgamation

23 starting with facts. One takes note of a massacre of 200 or 300 Serbs in

24 a village and this is linked directly to what happened during the Second

25 World War. And so once again, this is another example of historical

1 amalgamation systematically practised in the media coverage which was done

2 of the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina as in Croatia.

3 Q. I can go back to what I thought was tab 66, and I was wrong, and I

4 think that I'd like your comment, please, on this document which is

5 Exhibit 361, tab 2. Can I -- no. I withdraw that. I'll maybe come back

6 to that later, maybe not.

7 So we'll move on then in the report from footnote 167 to the next

8 subsection, which is headed "Conspiracy paranoia," and we come to

9 paragraph 68 of your report, found on pages 67 and then onto 68 in the

10 English version.

11 If we can look, please, at footnote -- beg your pardon. Can we go

12 -- no. Sorry, Your Honour. I shan't be a second.

13 Can we go to page 68 in the English then and -- no.

14 Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff is right. Let's go back to page 66, footnote 147.

15 This is all part of paragraph 65, and can we play, please, tab 15 from the

16 26th of May, 1992.

17 [Videotape played]

18 THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] "The day on the Mostar frontline up

19 to now has been relatively peaceful without significant armed

20 provocations. However, the Ustashas continue to launch occasional attacks

21 but they're obviously too weak to mount an all-out offensive. Namely,

22 according to military sources, commando units continue to infiltrate

23 liberated territory. Especially worrisome are reports of what's happening

24 to the Serbs of Roska Gora and Bogodol where, according to certain

25 military sources, two to three hundred Serbs were savagely massacred and

1 all their property destroyed. The crime resembles those committed by the

2 Ustashas as long ago as 1944."

3 MR. NICE:

4 Q. Is there anything additional to your previous comments that you

5 would need to make about that particular clip which exemplifies points

6 you've already made?

7 A. I think that -- that this shows the -- I confused with the page

8 numbers here but I made comments already about both excerpts, both clips,

9 because I mentioned both of them in that same footnote.

10 Q. Let's go on to paragraph 68 which, as I said, is on page 68 in the

11 English version. Paragraph 68, and it is footnote 156. It's in the

12 section headed Conspiracy -- or subsection headed "Conspiracy paranoia"

13 and we're going to look at a clip dated the 22nd of November, 1991,

14 showing Kadijevic, I think.

15 [Videotape played]

16 THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] "With pronounced impatience, Germany

17 is for a third time attacking our country. It now resorts to modern

18 methods but it also uses the fascist methods from World War II. Germany

19 then made use of the so-called 'fifth column.' Now it is opting for

20 various other methods of special warfare in preparation for economic

21 followed by military action."

22 MR. NICE:

23 Q. Your comment on that, please, Mr. de la Brosse.

24 A. This is an example of this alleged plot against Serbia. The

25 example is important because it isn't just anybody who is experiencing it

1 but, rather, the Minister of Defence. If I had any comment to make, I

2 would say that it's one example of many, and what I would say is that the

3 specific nature of Serbian propaganda has to do with the extreme diversity

4 and variety of the groups that were being targeted as enemies or as

5 potential threats against the Serbs.

6 To give you an idea of the variety of those targets, I would

7 simply like to list for you some examples. Among those are the Slovenes,

8 the Albanians in Kosovo, the Muslims and Bosnia-Herzegovina Croats, the

9 Macedonian independence seekers, and the independence seekers in

10 Vojvodina, and those people who would be part of this alleged plot,

11 through the examples that I could get my hands on in the print press and

12 on television, radio, you've got the United States, the Vatican, France,

13 Albania, Austria. And among the organisations which also could be part of

14 that plot are the European Community, NATO, then the United Nations, and

15 institutions like the CIA, the KGB, and the French secret services. Other

16 participants in that alleged plot in Serbia would be the independent

17 press, the NGOs. I could mention the Soros Foundation, the Helsinki

18 Committee or the Serbian opposition.

19 So these are examples, among many others, which demonstrate the

20 extent of the targets that are named as plotting against Serbia. And so

21 there is a message here which is simple to understand and which is to

22 constantly repeat under various forms the same message, and the idea is

23 that the Serbian people is threatened from everywhere and that therefore

24 the idea implicitly suggested is that you are all getting together in

25 order to threaten us and we've got to band together to protect ourselves

1 against that threat.

2 Q. With that same --

3 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please, Mr. Nice.

4 MR. NICE:

5 Q. With that same topic in mind, could we turn to the last line of

6 your paragraph 69, which can be found in the English on page 70, and it's

7 footnote 161, and it is the next tab, tab 17 -- the next clip, clip 17.

8 Thank you very much. It's slightly longer.

9 [Videotape played]

10 THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] "It is a total war being waged

11 against our nation, a total war. We are exposed to physical genocide and

12 extermination, spiritual and moral genocide by denying our entity as a

13 nation. It is being waged by armies, politicians, the church, the media,

14 by an entire universe united in winning this war against us and us losing

15 it. I believe that the most important thing of all is to do everything in

16 our power to defend the truth. We must tell that world that these are

17 times of shame and lies and that in these times of shame and lies no means

18 are spared to spiritually annihilate an entire nation. In this spiritual

19 genocide against our nation, an entire civilisation is participating

20 through the so-called mass media."

21 MR. NICE:

22 Q. Your comment on that, please.

23 A. I think that one has to recall the context in respect of this

24 clip. This is a time when the international community had become more

25 firm against Serbia, and at that point one sees the idea coming out that

1 Serbia was the victim of an international plot which was genocidal, and

2 here this idea is transmitted by Mr. Cosic who was an historical figure in

3 Serb nationalism and additionally he was the president of the Federal

4 Republic of Yugoslavia, which gives credit to that idea.

5 This idea of genocide allegedly perpetrated by the international

6 community on the Serbian people can be found also in the example I have

7 mentioned above.

8 Q. Move on in your report, please, to paragraph 71, English page 72,

9 footnote 166 where you, in your report, say that a facet or a further

10 facet of the anti-Serbian plot was the notion of a conspiracy purportedly

11 exercised by internal traitors. So clip 18, please, broadcast on the 23rd

12 of September of 1991.

13 [Videotape played]

14 THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] "Calls upon all its members and

15 citizens to fulfil their civil duty, defend their homeland from fascism

16 and prevent the extermination of the Serbs in Croatia. The Serbs have

17 always managed to recognise and eliminate traitors and we believe that

18 they will be able to do it again."

19 MR. NICE:

20 Q. Mr. de la Brosse, your comment, please.

21 A. In this example, there is another facet of the idea of a plot,

22 that is those internal traitors, fifth columns getting orders from abroad,

23 that is the internal threat which has to be eliminated. And the context

24 is important here because it is one of war, and broadcasting this type of

25 news can be seen as opening the door to the lynching of any opponent of

1 the regime.

2 Q. Thank you. Move to paragraphs 72 and 73 on page, in the English

3 version, 74 under the general heading "Triumph of disinformation."

4 You speak in paragraph 73 of how information contradicting

5 official propaganda was methodically swept aside, and you cite as a

6 flagrant example the shelling of Sarajevo and Dubrovnik by Serbian forces.

7 Can we look at tab 57, please.

8 Now, this is from the publication Monitor on the 29th of January

9 of 1993 under a headline "The truth was written long ago" and the subject

10 being the Montenegrin involvement in fighting on the Dubrovnik front.

11 If we turn to the third page of this translation of the article,

12 please. Here is some highlighted extracts: "In the days to come, Pobjeda

13 daily newspaper would note that 'courageous scouts' of the Veljko Vlahovic

14 Brigade killed four Ustashas in fighting for the village of Dubravka, and

15 while retreating, the Ustashas looted and torched houses in the village.

16 My unit first saw a Pobjeda journalist on the 7th of October, two days

17 after the article had been published in Pobjeda.

18 "On the 14th of October, 1991, we liberated Plat and Kupari."

19 Further on: "They were reporting that fierce resistance by the

20 Ustasha forces near Plat had been crushed." Gap. "And the bodies of

21 foreign mercenaries were found." Gap. "We heard a lot about foreign

22 mercenaries during those 15 days of warfare. The fear of falling into the

23 hands of various Kurds, Germans or Africans was rife among the soldiers.

24 In fact, during those 15 days, we had not encountered a real military

25 formation nor had a single mercenary outsider been captured or killed."

1 Next paragraph begins: "Plat was taken, in effect, without a

2 fight."

3 Within the next paragraph: "Like ants with a clear and precise

4 task, the soldiers split up in search of war booty. Nothing that might be

5 of use escapes attention."

6 Then at the bottom: "Items that can't be carried are utterly

7 destroyed in an appalling manner. Only the bare walls remain."

8 Your comment, please, on this extract in relation to the Dubrovnik

9 campaign.

10 A. I think that this is yet another example showing the

11 disinformation techniques that were used in order to deceive public

12 opinion about what was happening actually at -- during the operations.

13 What is striking here, interesting here is that this is the testimony of

14 somebody who participated in the operations and who is taking note of the

15 complete disparity between what he experienced and what was being

16 interpreted by the media in respect of what had happened. This is a

17 classic procedure for disinformation.

18 MR. NICE: Tab 58, please, on the same context, or in the same

19 context.

20 Can we look at the top of the page, please, Usher. Make sure that

21 I'm looking at the right document. Yes, this is from Monitor on the 17th

22 of December, 1992: "We shall win the war, the war force that has been

23 upon us." Now, the version on the overhead projector hasn't been

24 highlighted, by my oversight, for which I apologise, but we can pick it up

25 easily enough. In the first paragraph we see, for example, in the second

1 line: "Liberation --" In the first paragraph, on the second line, we see

2 reference to: "Liberation march against the Ustashas, the Kurds, the

3 carpetbagging mercenaries that, as the listeners were informed, fill

4 Konavle and Dubrovnik."

5 And the next paragraph, second line, we see a reference to the

6 public being grievously astonished. "Revenge was sought. Combative ardor

7 flared up, precisely what General Torbica had intended to achieve." And

8 three lines on a reference to the MUP, Ministry of Interior losses of 600

9 to 700.

10 And the following page at the top paragraph, it gives an example

11 of the flavour of this article. The second line from the top. Thank

12 you very much. "In practice --" Second one, that's fine. "In practice,

13 the disarmament of all the paramilitary formations that the Ustasha

14 government had for a long time been aiming against the territory of

15 Montenegro and Herzegovina was being carried out, the basic objective

16 being to carry the civil wars to those areas too."

17 The next paragraph beginning: "Saying that the leaders of

18 Montenegro had several times warned the Ustasha government ..." Further

19 references to Ustasha in that paragraph. And in the quotations I think

20 from Pavle Strugar in the following paragraph which we can see if you go

21 down a little bit. Four lines up from the bottom of that paragraph.

22 "They exercised Ustasha's good knowledge of their terrain."

23 The next paragraph begins with reference to the Ustasha

24 government. And to save time, if we just turn swiftly over to page 3,

25 cast our eyes down the first fresh paragraph, with this line -- really

1 four lines down: "Marovic picturesquely explained that once the fascists

2 had the Jews and the Ustashas the Serbs, and we believed that history

3 would never be repeated. Unfortunately, said he, life did repeat itself

4 and so did historical tragedy." And then we have explanation for the

5 Dubrovnik operation by Marovic.

6 And the next paragraph, Milo Djukanovic, the Montenegrin Prime

7 Minister, quoted as: "Because we had to talk on the Croatian side with

8 Ustashas, hypocrites, criminals, frenzied bloodsuckers - in a word,

9 mercenaries - whose mission was to break up the state of Yugoslavia."

10 Going on to say they committed genocide.

11 Well, I've perhaps taken enough of the court's time with this

12 particular article.

13 Your comment on it insofar as your previous comment doesn't cover

14 it adequately.

15 A. I think that this is an example yet again of terminology and the

16 use of certain procedures that we talked about already, so I have no

17 specific comment to give you about that.

18 Q. Thank you very much. Can we move to footnote 177 at the end of

19 paragraph 74, the same -- the end of paragraph 73, I beg your pardon. The

20 same paragraph, the same general topic. Can we look at footnote 177,

21 which is on page 75 of the English version, and it is clip 19 and it deals

22 with the University of Sarajevo's library fire.

23 [Videotape played]

24 THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] "Last night in Sarajevo there was a

25 fire in the university library. Luckily, the invaluable cultural treasure

1 had been moved out of it two months before. It is now difficult to

2 establish what exactly caused the fire. True, there was heavy fighting

3 here Trebevic last night. We scrutinised the facade for shell damage

4 close up but were unable to find any. We noticed, however, that the

5 flames licked from within. It all points to yet another Muslim

6 manipulation like the one in Dubrovnik when car tyres were set on fire,

7 something we've already seen."

8 MR. NICE:

9 Q. Your comment on this, Mr. de la Brosse, please.

10 A. What I would say is that the information, which contradicts the

11 official version of what happened, is either omitted or is distorted in

12 order to make it closer to the official version. So this is an example

13 which refers to -- to an involuntary -- to another manipulation which was

14 mentioned a few minutes ago, that is the shelling of Dubrovnik which was

15 presented to the television viewers in Serbia as something which had been

16 concocted by the foreign cameramen who were simply mixing up -- were

17 burning a tyre in front of the camera so that many people would think that

18 there had been shelling. So this is an example of disinformation and

19 manipulation, one of many examples, that happened in Dubrovnik. There

20 would be others in Sarajevo, and I refer to these in my report. What --

21 the attempt is being made to shift the responsibility onto somebody else.

22 Q. For those looking at the index to your report, we move from the

23 second part, "Media and the service of war," and its third subsection,

24 "Triumph of disinformation," to part three of your report which, if the

25 index can be laid on the overhead projector, shows - and I'm only going to

1 deal with this in summary to save some time - that part 3 is bringing into

2 line any alternative information or opinion as a condition for official

3 propaganda to succeed.

4 And you have three sections to this part of your report. First,

5 how the Serbian press was under tight surveillance. Second, how war

6 propaganda and national cohesion operated during the Kosovo war. And

7 third, the reasons for the impact of propaganda on public opinion.

8 If we start with the first part of your report, and there are now

9 only, I think, a couple more paper references - three- and one more video

10 to look at, you deal with the tight surveillance of the Serbian press

11 starting at, in the English, page 79 and paragraph 79.

12 You cover the psychological pressure imposed on recalcitrant

13 journalists, the rejection of media broadcasting federal information, and

14 you then turn to a plan of action that you say can be evidenced against an

15 independent press.

16 And if you would be good enough to find yourself at paragraph 83,

17 which in the English version is at page 81, it may be helpful if we look

18 at two documents. One will be tab 22.

19 Looking here, Mr. de la Brosse, at a special decision by the Human

20 Rights Committee concerning reports of particular states, and the date of

21 this document is 1992, I think. And we can see, under the decisions

22 taken, on the first page highlighted -- a little further down, please.

23 Highlighted under -- that under Article 14 of the relevant Covenant:

24 "Measures were taken to combat advocacy of national, racial, or religious

25 hatred constituting incitement to discrimination hostility or violence in

1 relation to Article 20 of the Covenant." That was in respect to

2 Bosnia-Herzegovina. Over the page, we can see something similar for

3 Croatia.

4 And then at the foot of that page, under heading C, Human Rights

5 Committee expressing its concern. Over the page, please. And acting

6 under the Covenant, took measures to combat advocacy. First of all, it

7 requests the government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to submit a

8 report, and then it deals with measures taken to combat advocacy of

9 national, racial, or religious hatred.

10 Your comment, please, on this document.

11 A. My comment and the lesson I can draw from this is that the

12 authorities of the Serbian Montenegrin republic were aware of the harmful

13 influence of certain media in their territory, were transmitting messages

14 of racial or religious nationalistic hatred and hostility, encouraging

15 violence, and under the legislation which was in force, steps were to be

16 taken to make all of this incitement stop.

17 Q. You will remember the question of connection that His Honour Judge

18 Robinson asked you yesterday at an early stage. Does your comment on this

19 document connect also to that question?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. May we look, in addition, at an already exhibited document,

22 Exhibit 359, tab 3. And it's pages 23 and 24. Effectively, I think, 23.

23 That document.

24 This is a Human Rights Watch document, and it deals, on the

25 highlighted passage, with press restrictions, saying that: "Helsinki

1 Watch is concerned about reports that the Yugoslav army is forcing local

2 newspapers in Kragujevac and other areas in inner Serbia to print lists of

3 persons who the JNA claims are army deserters who fled from the

4 battlefields in Croatia. Military authorities purportedly intended to

5 post such lists in public areas. At anti-war rallies in Serbia, petitions

6 were signed protesting such action by the Yugoslav military."

7 And later: "Helsinki Watch is concerned that the public

8 disclosure of the names of purported deserters could lead to reprisals

9 against them or their families by paramilitary groups or individual

10 extremists. Moreover, by demanding that local newspapers publish such

11 lists, Yugoslav military authorities are interfering with freedom of the

12 press."

13 Perhaps we can just turn over about -- a few -- yes. Very well.

14 We'll stick with that one quoted passage. This again, does this show the

15 state of knowledge on the basis that the Human Rights Watch report is

16 correct?

17 A. My comment is that at issue here is an additional warning to the

18 authorities in respect of unlawful and dangerous practices.

19 I think that the document is interesting. I don't think I read

20 the whole document, but the passage does show clearly that what is being

21 designated is trying to make public opinion think a certain way, which is

22 not doing what was expected. And the document also makes one think -- I

23 know that one should -- reference made to the statement. I refer to the

24 list of journalists who were deviating or who were not sufficiently -- not

25 sufficiently controlled at the beginning of the 1990s. I'm thinking about

1 a list that was set up by Vojislav Seselj which was read out on television

2 and which called for the elimination of certain recalcitrant German --

3 journalists. I met some of them in Belgrade.

4 So this is a procedure of revenge. Thank you.

5 Q. The next sub-part of your report on this general topic, which was

6 "Serbia press under tight surveillance," is headed "Direct involvement of

7 the Milosevic couple," and it's paragraph 86, to be found on page 82 of

8 the English version. And if we may see part of tab 4.

9 And it's the second page of this exhibit. If the usher would --

10 sorry. These are first an extract from Jovic's diary. It's footnote 197

11 in the paragraph concerned, and it says this in the paragraph of the

12 report: "Milosevic's wife started to publish a series of articles in the

13 Duga magazine in the form of her diary and thoughts in which she touched

14 on numerous political and social issues but also announced what could

15 later happen or what should happen. Everything she announced really did

16 happen. What she objected to would be publicly attacked."

17 Then later, he says: "A phantom which could destroy one single

18 sentence hovered above the people."

19 MR. NICE: The next highlighted passage -- yes. Can we play this?

20 We've now found the French clip, Your Honour. Can we play the last

21 clip? And I think that Your Honours do have a transcript of it. Clip 20.

22 [Videotape played]

23 THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover] "That's how it worked. What you saw

24 on the state channel, the war mongering discourse and practices, that

25 we're now able to lay bare. The false information and fabricated reports.

1 Milosevic gave his orders directly to the director of the television

2 station."

3 MR. NICE:

4 Q. That, I think, was Dusan Mitevic, formerly a director of the RTS

5 speaking.

6 Your comment on these two exhibits, please.

7 A. I'm sorry, I'm having a problem with the interpretation. I don't

8 catch all the names. I heard -- didn't hear Mitevic, I think it should be

9 Mitevic. This clip omits the fact that false information is being

10 practised, and it refers to fabricated reports. And in the interpretation

11 that I heard, that's what I heard, but I don't know if you got it. It

12 talks about false information and fabricated reports.

13 My comment therefore would be that within those closest to

14 Milosevic, this direct involvement of President Milosevic is supported.

15 Q. The next section of your report --

16 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Nice, what's the source of this last clip?

17 MR. NICE: I think the witness can tell us the source of the last

18 clip. It's an interview in the documentary "Milosevic: A very modern

19 dictator," and it was BBC in association with France 2 and France channel

20 5.

21 Q. Is that correct, Mr. de la Brosse?

22 A. Yes, absolutely.

23 Q. And the next section, as I've already explained, was "War

24 propaganda and national cohesion during the Kosovo war." It's paragraph

25 93, Mr. De la Brosse. It's page 85 in the English. And may we look,

1 please, at tab 20.

2 Now, this is a document, so that we can explain, that I think you

3 found or located on a web -- on a website; is that correct? Or somebody

4 else did. And -- tell us, therefore, the website you got it from and

5 when.

6 A. I think that it was the 92 site -- B92 site. It's indicated on

7 the address you have on the upper right-hand corner.

8 Q. You can see that the highlighted passage that I want to be on the

9 overhead projector - thank you very much - is headed "Serbian Information

10 Ministry, instructions for the operation of news agencies and media

11 outlets in the circumstances of imminent war danger."

12 I will read half a dozen of the paragraphs.

13 1. "Media operators to establish 24-hour monitoring and permanent

14 contact with state agencies."

15 5. "Reports on losses and casualties of the Yugoslav army and the

16 Serbian police are strictly prohibited."

17 6. "Every journalist in the field or in the newsroom must be at

18 the service of the state's current interest and participate in the system

19 of reporting and information."

20 8. "Police and army actions must be described as defence

21 activities or the struggle to preserve and defend the country."

22 9. "Enemy losses should be described by terms 'neutralised,'

23 'incapacitated,' 'paralysed' and 'liquidated.'"

24 10. "No information which would spread defeatism and panic must

25 slip through the hands of the editor-in-chief."

1 13. "The so-called Kosovo Liberation Army must be referred to as

2 'a gang,' 'terrorists' and 'criminals.'"

3 14. "NATO forces must be referred to as the aggressor."

4 15. "Media operators are required to emphasise that army and

5 police personnel are fighters for the freedom of the country."

6 Well, describe the origin, so far as you're concerned, of this

7 document. First of all, is what's described there consistent with the

8 material that you have been examining, the raw material that you've been

9 examining?

10 A. These instructions come from the Serbian Ministry of Information,

11 so this is at the time where the air war had begun.

12 I'm sorry, I got a comment from the interpreters in French.

13 This is the time when the air war was about to begin or had

14 already begun. It was the 24th of March, 1989. So we have a reading

15 list, in a way, that was imposed on the press. There was absolutely no

16 latitude in respect of information, and information was held back at the

17 source, comments were dictated to the journalists. And so we are dealing

18 with de facto censorship and suppression of any press freedom. It was

19 1999. Excuse me.

20 JUDGE KWON: Mr. de la Brosse, is the document we are watching

21 through the ELMO or tab 20 the original one or the translation of what is

22 posted on the website?

23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] On the internet site there -- you

24 have the version in English and in Serbo-Croat. So I read the English

25 version. It isn't a personal translation that I made or a translation

1 that anybody else made.

2 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.

3 MR. NICE: Your Honour, I have two more paper references. I see

4 the time. I have located what I misdescribed -- or to be more precise,

5 Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff has helped me locate what I misdescribed as tab 66. If

6 I can deal with that. It's, for those looking for it, it's an already

7 tendered exhibit; 361, tab 2. The Chamber and Mr. de la Brosse may wish

8 to return to paragraph 65, which in the English is materially on page 65.

9 And to remind the Chamber and those listening, this is within the

10 subsection headed "Stigmatising the opponent."

11 The document itself, which we can see on the overhead projector is

12 from the publication Narodna Armija from the 9th of January, 1992, the

13 headline "The truth has broken all barriers" and "A soldier's story."

14 He deals -- we needn't trouble with the first page. If we go to

15 the third page, a daily situation analyses where he deals with the complex

16 task he, the author of this account, was given, was complex, he says. And

17 then we see the highlighted passage, "who felt proven hatred." "Of

18 particular concern to us was the enemy who felt proven hatred of JNA

19 members." Further down, highlighted: "The enemy's operations were hard

20 to predict because they used all kinds of tricks and attacked

21 perfidiously." Further on: "I personally realise that it was important

22 in this war, as we were up against an enemy fighting an extremely dirty

23 war. In particular, we made a big effort to explain this to our soldiers,

24 who were eager to fight but were not used to such perfidiousness on the

25 part of the enemy."

1 Next page, the last document we're going to look at. "Proven

2 courage of our soldiers. I also want to point out the selfless courage of

3 our soldiers. They all wanted to fight. They all conducted themselves

4 bravely. However, I want to point out that political intrigue by some

5 parties created considerable confusion amongst our troops."

6 Next passage: "The population was in fact terribly indoctrinated,

7 especially the Muslims and Croats. They were scared by the arrival of

8 Montenegrin and Serbian soldiers so that sometimes we arrived in almost

9 completely evacuated villages while in other villages people received us

10 with fear. After awhile, however, this fear disappeared as they realised

11 that the soldiers had not come as occupiers but as liberators. Later, we

12 had friendly encounters with locals bringing fruit and cakes to our

13 soldiers, treating them to what they had."

14 And finally: "I believe this is one of the greatest

15 achievements. In Dubrovnik they also realised that the JNA had not

16 shelled them despite their fierce propaganda which always pointed that

17 out."

18 Within the context of your subsection "Stigmatising the enemy,"

19 your comment on this, please.

20 A. I think that the terminology used to characterise the Croats in

21 general, speaking about -- when they use the expression "Ustasha fighters"

22 or "Muslim fighters" as being jihad warriors, this is also found in the

23 description of the combats -- of the combat itself. I go back to page 71

24 of the report in French. The reports ordinarily showing the Serbian

25 troops show no images of destruction of civilian victims when the Serbian

1 troops attack a town, this is systematically shown as a defence mechanism

2 or shown as the liberation of a town. This was seen in the media coverage

3 of Vukovar and also in respect of what happened in Sarajevo.

4 So here we in some ways are dealing with the promotion of

5 prettified images, showing good Serbs as opposed to a bad enemy, which is

6 stigmatised both through terminology used to describe the enemy and the

7 atrocities which allegedly are committed by that enemy.

8 MR. NICE: That's all I ask of the witness unless there's anything

9 -- let me just deal with this.

10 Q. Thank you, Mr. de la Brosse. The balance, of course, of your

11 opinions are as expressed in your report produced as an exhibit to this

12 Court.

13 A. Thank you.

14 MR. NICE: I think that's all I'm going to ask but will just

15 consider it with Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff over the break if the Court is about

16 to have one.

17 JUDGE MAY: We'll adjourn now for twenty minutes.

18 --- Recess taken at 10.36 a.m.

19 --- On resuming at 10.59 a.m.

20 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Nice.

21 MR. NICE: Your Honour, may I add one question or topic arising

22 simply from His Honour Judge Robinson's question of yesterday morning when

23 he noted of a report that we'd been considering that the connection was

24 drawn between nationalists' rhetoric and the commission of fearful

25 atrocities, and His Honour observed that the witness would be able to

1 substantiate that connectoral link between national rhetoric and the

2 commission of fearful atrocities, but I forecast that we might deal with

3 it later.

4 I made a reference to that question when dealing with tab 22, I

5 think, earlier this morning. It's right we should take the witness and

6 the Court to paragraph 4 of his report. Lay that on the overhead

7 projector. It's at page 4 in the English.

8 Q. Mr. de la Brosse, page -- paragraph 4 begins with this assertion:

9 "With the media acting as go-between, nationalist political propaganda

10 prepared and conditioned public opinion for the war, so fostering the

11 worst atrocities perpetrated in furtherance of the ethnic policies."

12 Now, that conclusion may be a conclusion apt to be drawn by

13 political scientists or sociologists or others. Can you please help us

14 with how you draw that conclusion yourself.

15 A. Here we are dealing with social sciences, not the natural

16 sciences. It's not always easy to demonstrate the effects that -- that

17 the broadcasting of different messages could have on the public by simply

18 looking at the terminology and the vocabulary which is used in order to

19 describe the adversary. What I would like to say is that I myself relied,

20 or actually I studied the role of the media and tried to show what were

21 the mechanisms used for propaganda being used in the media. The media,

22 after all, are only actors among other actors even if they represent the

23 most convenient way of reaching the largest amounts of people in the

24 population, that is, public opinion.

25 What I wish to add is that through the use of the Serbian

1 resentment against other groups and the designation of scapegoats by the

2 use of vocabulary which is being used in order to denigrate the different

3 groups, so much so that sometimes that group is not given any kind of

4 human qualities, this was able to facilitate the commission of crimes.

5 The vocabulary which was used in the media but not only in the media, this

6 vocabulary was reappropriated by the public, and I was struck by that in

7 the conversations that I had with journalists in Belgrade who explained to

8 me that the public spoke the way people spoke on television, and that one

9 -- that that vocabulary was never neutral. Even if propaganda is a

10 virtual weapon, and in that respect it should be distinguished from what

11 one would call in English "a smoking gun," that propaganda does designate

12 the road which was taken, the behaviour which was adopted, and what the

13 enemy was that had to be eliminated.

14 I would perhaps like to go back to the very definition of

15 propaganda which I give in the report, but I think that it would be

16 important to recall that in this -- before this Court. That propaganda is

17 ordinarily called all of the techniques used to influence people on a

18 political level. And so its objective is to influence the behaviour of

19 the public or have it take on as its own certain ideas.

20 The vocabulary is used in order to transmit that propaganda, and

21 it is a way of allowing my -- in my opinion, that was a way of allowing

22 the consequences of the propaganda to take effect.

23 Q. Sorry. If I cut you short, please conclude.

24 A. I would like to add that, for the propaganda to be fully

25 effective, all the more effective insofar as you -- in a specific society

1 in -- would not have the possibility with a video to bring out different

2 opinions. Counter opinions. And it becomes all the more effective if

3 only one truth is distilled for public opinion. That's what I attempted

4 to show or to have understood in this report.

5 JUDGE ROBINSON: I think, Mr. Nice, if I have a difficulty with

6 it, it is the categoric, unequivocal way in which it is framed. As he

7 says, we're not in the realm of natural sciences; it's social sciences.

8 If it were framed in some other way not so categoric. For example,

9 "likely to lead to atrocities." But in this categoric manner, I don't

10 know whether it can be substantiated.

11 MR. NICE: Your Honour, it's helpful to know that concern, and

12 Mr. de la Brosse hears you first before I come to the supplementary

13 question I would ask him.

14 Q. Is there any observation you'd like to make in relation to His

15 Honour's concerns about the categoric nature of your assertion in

16 paragraph 4 or in the report that we read yesterday?

17 A. In my report, I perhaps should have emphasised the fact that these

18 are social sciences that we are dealing with and that things are not

19 always so easy to demonstrate as would be the case in the natural

20 sciences. Having said this, however, the formulation perhaps may be a bit

21 overly-stated, but nonetheless, I reach the same conclusions that

22 Mr. Mazowiecki reached in his report. Perhaps I allowed myself to be

23 influenced, when I drafted this sentence, by the very powerful conclusions

24 that we find in that report.

25 Q. That is my last supplementary question on this topic and the last

1 question I want to ask you is this: Is there anything you feel able to

2 say from all your diverse social science background, anything you feel

3 able to say about what -- what other elements may co-exist - for example,

4 the nature of government or the existence of fighting or whatever - what

5 other elements may exist that make a fertile bed for propaganda to

6 flourish in its effect? Is there anything you want to say about that?

7 It's a long question.

8 A. As I said a few minutes ago, the media are only one of the

9 instruments which transmit that propaganda. There are other agents for

10 socialisation which can be used which have an influence on the way that

11 the public views things. Among these others, the other players, the other

12 actors, of course there are the intellectuals, there's the church, there

13 are the politicians. And so we see that within these various groups the

14 themes that we see within the media were also transmitted and so the media

15 are one player among others. The difference is to be found in the fact

16 that they are able to reach the largest numbers of people.

17 Q. Thank you very much, Mr. de la Brosse. You will be asked some

18 further questions.

19 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, you can have, we've decided, three and

20 a half hours, if you wish it, to cross-examine this witness. Of course,

21 if you don't want to take that long, that's a matter for you, but we have

22 in mind the length of the Prosecution's examination but also the fact that

23 there is this report on which you are entitled to cross-examine the

24 witness.

25 If you'd like to begin.

1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I would first of all like to clear

2 up this matter of time, Mr. May. Namely, Mr. Nice said at the beginning

3 that he would go through the report very quickly, focusing mainly on its

4 structure and only rarely would he quote certain passages from it, which

5 means that he endeavoured to shorten his time as much as possible on the

6 understanding that this report, as you see, has a hundred pages plus these

7 two binders which, let it be said in passing, we received only yesterday

8 these two binders, are documents that we are familiar with. So he himself

9 said that he would expedite things and that he would only select a few

10 examples.

11 As far as I'm concerned, in addition to matters of structure and

12 other points made by Mr. Nice, I do have to enter into the very contents

13 of this report. Therefore, I certainly need more time for this witness

14 than the time you have allotted to me, which is more or less the same time

15 given to Mr. Nice. So I expect you to give me a longer period to

16 cross-examine this witness. I think these are arguments that cannot be

17 rejected.

18 JUDGE MAY: Well, in fact it's not right that it's the same as the

19 Prosecution. We have built in an extra hour for you to examine on the

20 report, but we will review the position at the end of the time. It

21 depends partly what use you make of the time and how expeditiously you

22 deal with things. We will consider it in the light of those matters, but

23 let us begin now.

24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.

25 Cross-examined by Mr. Milosevic:

1 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. de la Brosse, tell us begin with the remark

2 made by Mr. Robinson a moment ago and your general response to that

3 question. The critical word -- the critical point is your categorical

4 assessment of certain phenomena.

5 Towards the end of your testimony today, you explained as

6 propaganda or, rather, propaganda as a distorted representation of reality

7 and a series of expressions were used. The implication is that you know

8 the truth and you are comparing what you analysed with the truth. Is that

9 right, Mr. de la Brosse?

10 A. I'm not claiming that there is an absolute truth. I am claiming

11 that the way that information was dealt with and commented on was not

12 sufficiently varied, that it was a one-way street.

13 Q. I will challenge that later, but let me refer to a few things that

14 you characterised as propaganda a moment ago and as distorting the truth.

15 For example, you quoted that, regarding the NATO forces that committed an

16 aggression, it is suggested that the term "aggressor" be used for them.

17 Is it your opinion that they were not an aggressor?

18 A. I don't think that I have to qualify -- characterise NATO as an

19 aggressor. It was an intervention which does not fall within my analysis.

20 The way that I spoke about that event that you are alluding to has to do

21 with the way the media spoke about it. I'm not making any statements on

22 whether or not NATO's intervention was well-founded. That is what you are

23 alluding to.

24 Q. Very well. But wasn't a war waged against Yugoslavia?

25 JUDGE MAY: This is where we waste time, you see, with argument

1 with the witness. The witness is here dealing with propaganda. It's not

2 for him, as he says, to characterise it. It may be a matter which we have

3 to decide at the end. But going over old ground is not going to help us

4 and it's not going to get you more time. So let's move on to another

5 topic.

6 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

7 Q. A moment ago, you mentioned the KLA, that it should be described

8 as a terrorist organisation. Do you believe that the truth, according to

9 you, means that the KLA was not a terrorist organisation?

10 A. I don't remember having mentioned the KLA. Could you give me some

11 more information, please?

12 JUDGE MAY: It's a reference -- it's a reference in the document

13 which you produced. May we be reminded of the tab number? I rather think

14 it was one of the --

15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, the document is being used

16 as an example of propaganda.

17 JUDGE MAY: Yes.

18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] And what if it so happens that this

19 is an example of the truth?

20 JUDGE MAY: I'm sorry, what was the number?

21 MR. NICE: Tab 20, we think.

22 JUDGE MAY: Tab 20.

23 MR. NICE: Yes. The very recent document that the witness has in

24 mind, the Serbian Ministry of Information document.

25 JUDGE MAY: Yes.

1 MR. NICE: Yes. It's item 13 on --

2 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Mr. de la Brosse, that is the reference, 13,

3 "The so-called KLA must be referred to as 'a gang of terrorists and

4 criminals.'"

5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Let me go back to the approach that

6 I used when I prepared the report. What I tried to do, and I hope that I

7 succeeded, was to -- to take apart the different propaganda mechanisms and

8 show how they worked. I'm not an expert in the events that took place in

9 the former Yugoslavia. And for your version to be correct or for it not

10 to be correct is not the issue here for me. What I'm interested in, as

11 somebody who studies propaganda, was the way the facts are presented and

12 interpreted, either correctly or incorrectly.

13 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

14 Q. Yes, but --

15 A. Could you make your question a little bit clearer, please?

16 Q. The point is that you use this document that you're holding in

17 your hand as an example of propaganda or of a distorted presentation of

18 the truth. And what are we going to do if it so happens that that is in

19 fact the truth? Why should that then be considered something

20 inappropriate for the media to report on? I even believe that it was

21 mildly put to call them terrorists. They should be called drug Mafia, and

22 many other terms could be used to describe the worst kind of crime that

23 was engaging in within the so-called KLA.

24 A. I think that we've got to go back to the meaning of or the

25 significance of this and the reading list that was imposed on the

1 journalists, the way that information was dealt with and the latitude that

2 was left to the journalists for dealing with information. It was

3 absolutely zero. They had no latitude.

4 I go back to the context of the time when most of the independent

5 or alternative media were either prohibited or, because of this reading

6 list imposed on them, had to deal with information a certain way only.

7 What I wanted to emphasise was the way that the Serbian public

8 learned about what was going on in Kosovo, that it was a one-way street, a

9 unilateral approach, and in that case we are here confronted with a

10 propaganda procedure. I'm not making any judgements about the truth or

11 the non-truth of whether or not the KLA was a terrorist organisation.

12 Q. But you have just passed judgement by saying that the media had no

13 freedom, that the journalists had no freedom. Where did you get that idea

14 from, that the journalists had no freedom? Do you know that for a fact?

15 Just tell me, please. You're claiming that. That is what you assert, and

16 then we'll move on. We'll come to those questions later.

17 A. I provided a list of the different methods that were used in order

18 to limit or to silence the journalists by obstructing their freedom of

19 speech. I published these in different categories in a document that was

20 given to you, and that is what I base myself on in order to support this

21 point.

22 Q. So you're claiming that reporters didn't have any freedom. Very

23 well.

24 Now, tell me in answer to a few more preliminary questions, why do

25 you believe, for instance, that reports on various atrocities were

1 propaganda? If it so happens that they may be truthful, do you believe

2 that the press should have kept quiet about them? And if they don't keep

3 quiet about them, then it's propaganda. I'm talking about a series of

4 examples that were shown here.

5 A. Could you be more precise, please.

6 Q. For instance, you had here - one of the most recent examples - of

7 a video clip showing teeth that were extracted and a reference made to

8 mutilations and massacres. What are we going to do, Mr. de la Brosse, if

9 that is truly the truth? As an expert for the media, do you believe that

10 the media should have kept quiet about them if these were atrocities

11 committed against the Serbs?

12 A. The example that you are referring to I think it has to do with

13 the passage where you see teeth that allegedly were torn out of Serb

14 mouths, the -- by the Croatian fighters, and the interview of a old man in

15 a uniform. Is that the example that you're using?

16 Q. Yes, yes, but I've only taken one example. So my question is a

17 more general one: Why reports about events, about real atrocities are

18 considered by you to be propaganda. As an expert for the media, should

19 this have not been reported at all so as not to disturb the public?

20 A. The problem with the example that you are referring to is that -

21 and that's what I want to emphasise now - is the way that information was

22 produced. It doesn't really -- it's not solid, because at no point is any

23 eyewitness mentioned and absolutely no proof is provided in the report of

24 the fact that this took place or didn't take place. I'm not saying it

25 didn't, but there's no proof that it did.

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1 Do you understand the nuance that I'm trying to put forward here?

2 JUDGE MAY: He's asking you questions, but you can make your

3 points. Yes.

4 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

5 Q. I do indeed understand the difference, but your testimony is also

6 in the service of the demonisation of the Serbs, which has been going on

7 for a whole decade. I do understand the distinction.

8 Let me ask you a few more preliminary questions.

9 JUDGE MAY: No. You're not going to put that allegation and get

10 away with it like that.

11 Now, Mr. de la Brosse, what he's put is that your evidence, he

12 puts it, is in the service of the demonisation of the Serbs. Now, you

13 should have the chance to answer a serious allegation like that.

14 Is that what your evidence is in service of?

15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Absolutely not, Mr. President. I

16 was simply referring to what I said a little while ago in order to

17 characterise the specificity of the Serbian propaganda. That is the idea

18 of paranoia. I referred to a long list of people and organisations,

19 groups who were targeted by that type of practice, and I believe that it

20 fits into this kind of reasoning with the purpose of which would be to

21 discredit me.

22 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

23 Q. But please answer a few more preliminary questions for me and then

24 we'll move on to some others. You mention here a large number of

25 examples, and we also saw some video clips which, for instance, say -- use

1 the term "Muslim extremists did this and that," "The Ustashas," "The

2 Ustasha combatants did this and that," "such-and-such misdeeds," and you

3 claim that when the term "Muslim extremists" is used, the reference is to

4 all Muslims. When the term "Ustasha fighters" is used, that that is used

5 to imply the Croatian people. And neither of these is true.

6 For example, in Kadijevic's statement, the one that you quoted

7 from and showed a video clip of, didn't you hear him talk about all

8 peoples and him saying that when talking about the Croatian people, that

9 the atrocities that were taking place were to the detriment of those same

10 Croatian people? So how can you, in view of the examples you yourself

11 have given, say that when the term "Muslim extremists" is used the

12 reference to all Muslims, and when "Croatian criminals" is used the

13 reference is to all Croats?

14 For example, the events of the 11th of September committed by

15 Muslim extremists, condemnation of that event, is that condemnation of all

16 Muslims?

17 JUDGE MAY: Your question has lasted two minutes, and how that can

18 be a question, I simply don't know. Let's try and construct a question

19 out of it.

20 Well, I think the point -- just a moment. Since you're not going

21 to ask a question, I'm going to ask it for you.

22 The first point that's made is that the references to "Muslim

23 extremists" and "Ustasha fighters" is not true as an example of a

24 reference to all Muslims and all Croats. So I suppose what is being said

25 is that there are plenty of other examples, including what Kadijevic said,

1 which show people talking in more general terms about the Croatian people

2 and the Muslim people. So I suppose one could put it this way: Is your

3 description of them as extremists or Ustashas, is that an exaggeration of

4 what was in fact broadcast or written?

5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] What I mean is that the examples

6 that were discussed and shown today and yesterday, these come from the

7 report, and there are several of them. The least thing that I could say

8 with a little bit of distance in respect of the examples that I had access

9 to don't all appear in the report. I mean by this that even if there were

10 sometimes counter examples implicitly, or explicitly in fact, what is

11 shown -- well, how should I say?

12 The -- systematically there is a generalisation made. When it

13 applies to an entire community, an adjective which is extremely pejorative

14 -- the fact that one speaks about, for instance, the Croats as "Ustasha

15 combatants," when you're part of the Serbian public and you know about the

16 historical context of the Second World War, I think that the connection is

17 made in the minds of people, that is, the Ustashas today are the ones who

18 perpetrated yesterday's atrocities and so one must be distrustful of them.

19 There are many, many examples in the report which I can't -- I

20 don't have it immediately in my -- at my fingertips there, I can't give

21 them to you right now. I -- in order to do so, I would prefer to refer

22 you back to the report.

23 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

24 Q. What I'm asking you is this, Mr. de la Brosse: How can you use

25 the expression "Muslim extremists" and identify it with all the Croats,

1 for example, or the Ustasha Bojovnik, the Ustasha fighters or combatants,

2 how can you identify that with all the Croats? That's what I wanted to

3 say. And the Muslim extremists, how can you identify that as meaning the

4 whole of the Muslim population?

5 I assume that when you use the word "extremist," it doesn't apply

6 to all the Muslims, or if you say "the Ustasha combatants," it doesn't

7 apply to all the Croats by the same token. So how are you able to draw

8 the conclusion that what is implied is all Croats or all Muslims? How are

9 you able to come by that particular conclusion then?

10 A. I think we've got to put the process of the generalisation

11 together and we have to compare that with the fact that, through the

12 media, a certain number of statements by officials were -- political

13 officials were made. Officials from the Serbian government, officials who

14 made the connection much more explicitly.

15 When you hear somebody -- I'm sorry, I really don't pronounce the

16 names very well, the Serbo-Croat names.

17 When you're talking about Mrs. Plavsic, when she said that the

18 Muslims have a genetic heritage which is inferior and degenerate, when you

19 hear statements by a leader who is a Serb leader in Bosanska Krajina, when

20 you hear that person say that children from mixed marriages, he's

21 referring here -- I'm not quoting it exactly, but that those children are

22 -- are -- should be turned into soap, that's all that they're good for,

23 that's a general context which means that the connection and the

24 generalisation, at least from my point of view, the connection is made in

25 the public -- in the public mind.

1 I could also mention statements -- there are many of them in the

2 report, in the footnotes. We could mention somebody like Vojislav Seselj,

3 things that he said about the Croats. That's an entire context which

4 means that in the public's mind, by recalling the atrocities on both sides

5 -- by both sides during the Second World War, that this connection is

6 made.

7 Q. All right. And would you be so kind, as you have just quoted some

8 examples, to tell us whether you have had any such example, in fact; an

9 example where you would be able to quote me or one of the representatives

10 of the authorities of Serbia or Yugoslavia? I don't know which local Serb

11 in Krajina this was all about, and I'm not interested in the statement

12 made by Mrs. Plavsic who was not a functionary either in Serbia or in

13 Yugoslavia either, but can you give us an example of some representative

14 from the Serbian or Yugoslav authorities in respect of what you were

15 saying? And I can't believe that even Mrs. Plavsic was able to say

16 something like that.

17 A. Except that the statements that I've just mentioned were covered

18 by the Serbian media. But since you're asking me this question whether a

19 political important -- important political leaders used terminology which

20 referred to a historical context, that is specifically Second World War,

21 which used pejorative terms in order to designate a community, I think

22 that perhaps we could refer to extract number 3 or clip number 3 where you

23 yourself say in a speech, I think -- that is tab 35, or paragraph 35

24 perhaps. Thirty-six, excuse me. When you used generalising terms by

25 referring to the -- speaking to the Kosovo Albanians.

1 Let me try to find the note. Maybe somebody could help me with

2 that, find the note. You are speaking about -- well, the clip was in

3 English.

4 MR. NICE: Your Honour, I'm sorry not to be able to render

5 immediate assistance. The -- it's the one -- one clip I haven't

6 independently footnoted. Will come after footnote 47 and before footnote

7 114, and --

8 JUDGE MAY: It may be that rather than waste time looking for it

9 now we can come back to it if someone can find it over the adjournment.

10 Yes. We'll come back to this, Mr. Milosevic.

11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Please, as you -- actually, the

12 opposite side doesn't seem to have much luck when quoting excerpts from my

13 speeches and extracting them from the context. I have tab 36 here before

14 me, and I also have in front of me the original or, rather, a photocopy of

15 the newspaper in question where this speech has been printed.

16 So would you please be so kind as to look at what it says. It

17 says it is the legitimate desire of the Serb people to live in Yugoslavia.

18 That is the heading of the article.

19 JUDGE MAY: Let the witness find it. Have you got tab 36, Mr. de

20 la Brosse?

21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] de la Brosse himself said it was tab

22 36, in fact.

23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I'm looking for the translation of

24 the clip.

25 JUDGE MAY: The one we want you to look at now is tab 36. Do you

1 have the exhibit? Here's one coming up.

2 Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

3 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

4 Q. Point this out to me, please. Where is it in my speech that I say

5 something targeted against any ethnic group whatsoever? And the subtitle

6 of the article is the peoples who wish to leave Yugoslavia can do so in a

7 legitimate legal way without violence. The Republic of Serbia guarantees

8 peace to all citizens and peoples, but it requires the same to be shown to

9 itself.

10 And then there is another subtitle: We are proud of the fact that

11 Serbia is not waging a nationalistic policy.

12 Then once again on page 1, it says: "Five proposals for the

13 future." And it also says: "All political institutions and the JNA are

14 going to guarantee peace and that constitutional laws should be passed

15 with respect to the realisation of the people's rights to

16 self-determination, that a referendum should be held in the same way on

17 the same day based pursuant to the decisions made by the SFRY Assembly,

18 the Yugoslav Assembly. After the referendum, that the will of the people

19 should be demonstrated and implemented and to hold multi-party, free

20 elections for the Assembly of Yugoslavia."

21 So there we have it. And I am not quite clear on what you're

22 saying. As you indicated this particular table, tab 36, in which you

23 refer to my own speech, and here it says: "Decisions without any

24 outvoting on the part of ethnic groups, the survival of Yugoslavia

25 expresses the spirit of Europe, et cetera." That's what I say.

1 Therefore, as you yourself pointed this out to me and said that

2 there was an idea expressed by me which in that respect, according to you,

3 was coloured by an ethnic hatred, be so kind as to read it out to me. I

4 was not the one who quoted tab 36. You mentioned tab 36 yourself. So

5 quote it to me, please.

6 A. I was referring in fact to paragraph 53 of the report, and the

7 video clip which was shown deals with footnote 111 and 112, both

8 footnotes.

9 In those excerpts of speeches that we heard in the clips, you are

10 speaking -- or, rather, you're using a generalising type of vocabulary

11 when you speak about murderers -- excuse me. You used the expression "to

12 put an end to the murders of Serbs and Montenegrins in Kosovo."

13 Further on -- that way you are establishing an Albanian state on

14 Serbian territory.

15 Further on, and here I'm referring to footnote 112. [No

16 interpretation]

17 JUDGE KWON: We don't get the English translation.

18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] You refer back to the Ustasha

19 fascists. You yourself, in the speech, you use vocabulary -- a vocabulary

20 with historical connotations when you talk about pro-fascists, when you

21 talk about the situation in Kosovo where there were murders of Serbs and

22 Montenegrins. In some way, you use the same terminology which was used in

23 the media.

24 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

25 Q. Mr. de la Brosse, so what? Isn't it not the duty of a state to

1 put a stop to the killings? Do you consider that there were no killings

2 of Serbs or Montenegrins in Kosovo at that time and perhaps the state

3 should not have reacted? I don't understand.

4 Why do you consider what I say, that is when I say that the

5 killings of Serbs and Montenegrins in Kosovo must be stopped, why do you

6 consider that to be turned against the Albanian national minority living

7 in Kosovo and not as what it says, to stop the massacre, persecution,

8 expulsion of Serbs and Montenegrins in Kosovo? Isn't that the duty of the

9 state? Where do you see propaganda there? What do we do if it is true

10 that there were killings?

11 JUDGE MAY: Let him answer the question.

12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The purpose of the paragraph which

13 deals with that speech is to show independently of the fact whether it was

14 true or not, was to show that you yourself were participating in the

15 stigmatisation of both of the communities when you used terms which are --

16 which is used in the media at the same time and which said that the Croats

17 -- well, that is to substitute the word "Ustasha" to refer to the Croats

18 and to use the word -- well, how shall I say this? -- "terrorists" in

19 order to refer to the Kosovars. That's all part of that effort at

20 stigmatising and generalising, excessively generalising in a context in

21 which at the same time one finds similar terminology in the media and also

22 within other institutions I mentioned, the terminology that was imposed in

23 the armed forces in order to designate the enemy.

24 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

25 Q. Oh, that's very good, Mr. de la Brosse. Fine. Although, as I

1 read out to you, the subtitle here says: "We are proud of the fact that

2 Serbia is not waging a nationalist policy." And I also say, and you have

3 another subtitle here, that "Serbia is a state incorporating all its

4 citizens and that in Serbia it is equality, national equality of citizens

5 that is the first concern."

6 But as you say that the media used this, did you happen to read,

7 for example, The New York Times of November 1993 in which it says - and I

8 happen to remember this particular portion; it was by David Binder, he was

9 the author, an American correspondent of the New York Times - he says, "Of

10 the 10.000 houses that were blown up with dynamite in Croatia," do you

11 rank him amongst the so-called Serb propaganda-mongers? Did you happen to

12 read that article?

13 A. I didn't read that article. I don't have enough information in

14 order to make a statement about that. You're speaking about 10.000

15 houses --

16 Q. Well, look for it. He writes about this. He says that 10.000

17 houses in Croatia were blown up by dynamite. And the article concludes by

18 saying that Croatia outside the areas that were under the UN protected

19 areas are today completely ethnically pure. 10.000 houses blown up with

20 the use of dynamite. And of course this comes under the ranks, I suppose,

21 of propaganda and Serb propaganda which wielded its influence on The New

22 York Times, I assume. Or was it vice versa? Don't you think you have put

23 matters topsy-turvy, upside down?

24 A. No, absolutely not. I'll go back to the purpose of the report,

25 which was to demonstrate the operative mechanisms. And I'm very aware of

1 the fact that I'm not an expert - far from that - an expert on the history

2 and chronology of the conflict.

3 There are several examples that I give in the report which refer

4 to facts about which I cannot be sure whether or not they really occurred,

5 but which I found interesting, and that's why I carried out this work,

6 that is, to show the interpretation that was made of those facts.

7 I'm not making a definitive statement about whether or not they

8 happened or whether what is being said was true or not. Having said this,

9 however, it is absolutely possible that the article you're alluding to,

10 and which I don't have, might have some propaganda messages. That is not

11 the purpose of my work, to confirm or not to confirm whether or not

12 certain facts actually occurred.

13 Q. But you assume a position on them, Mr. de la Brosse, and this

14 implies that this is just pure propaganda and that the events never took

15 place. And what I'm saying to you, and I'm quoting you one example of

16 this, where a paper which was not at all working to the advantage of the

17 Serbs nevertheless writes about these events which did take place. So

18 what are we going to do if the events actually did take place, Mr. de la

19 Brosse? Is that then used for disseminating hatred or is that just

20 reporting on the events that took place, or perhaps the press should not

21 react at all to events that have taken place?

22 A. Can't we -- could we have a look at the -- closer look at the

23 example, the example that you're referring to?

24 Q. What example do you mean?

25 A. Well, you just referred to an example.

1 Q. I just quoted the example in The New York Times. It is not an

2 example. It is 10.000 houses blown up with the use of dynamite in

3 Croatia, and the vast majority of those houses were Serb houses. And it

4 also speaks about the ethnic cleansing of Croatia of the Serbs and the

5 conclusion that Croatia is the most pure ethnically -- the most pure

6 ethnic region in Europe as a consequence of these crimes.

7 So do you rank that as being Serb propaganda dictated by the

8 government in Belgrade, perhaps, and myself as the president of the

9 republic, what The New York Times wrote about?

10 A. Could I have the time to read the article, The New York Times

11 articles?

12 JUDGE MAY: Just deal with the matter. No doubt there are other

13 reports on the other side. There are reports, no doubt, and propaganda,

14 and I think you mentioned this, by the Croats and also the Muslims. Is

15 that right? Presumably you accept that.

16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.

17 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

18 Q. All right, Mr. de la Brosse.

19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, I have received here in

20 those masses of boxes with papers in them a fair amount of documents

21 entitled "Annexes" from the other side over there. I didn't bring these

22 documents here. So I was given them by Mr. Nice's apparatuses and it

23 begins 04995988 is the number, and it includes different assertions made

24 by different people, and all of them could be ranked in this - what shall

25 I call it? - anti-Muslim and anti-Croatian propaganda, whereas in fact it

1 is about prominent public political figures, representatives of foreign

2 countries, in fact. And this is material that I received from the

3 opposite side over there.

4 For example, on page 00495264, there is a statement by Alfred

5 Sherman, the one-time advisor to Margaret Thatcher, and it dates back to

6 1994, the month of September. And point 23 says: "The war being waged

7 today on the territory of Republika Srpska was signed by Germany in order

8 to effect hegemony in the Balkans. It is the goal of the Germans not only

9 to thwart the Serbs in Republika Srpska and the RSK but to separate

10 Kosmet, which is Kosovo and Metohija, Sandzak and Vojvodina, from Serbia

11 in order to establish control over the Danubian valley in the Balkans,

12 based in the Balkans." So this is what can be read from their own

13 documents. And there are numerous other examples.

14 JUDGE MAY: Let us consider -- let us consider what to do about

15 these documents. Do you want -- wait a moment. Do you want -- just wait

16 a moment. Do you want this witness to comment on the documents which have

17 been produced to you and which you may want to put into evidence?

18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes. Yes, Mr. May. We heard

19 Mr. Nice quoting --

20 JUDGE MAY: Very well. Let us --

21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] -- certain statements taken out of

22 context.

23 JUDGE MAY: Very well. We will consider the way in which it can

24 be done. There are one of two ways: Either the documents can be put

25 individually in front of the witness and he can comment on them, or it may

1 be more expeditious, save your time, if the witness takes them away and,

2 over the adjournment, reads them, because we're not going to finish his

3 evidence today.

4 Now, that may give him more time to take them in and also to be

5 able to comment on them. But if you wish, you can put them individually

6 to him today. But what you can't do is read out parts of them or chunks

7 of them and then expect him to comment without having a look at them.

8 Now, what would you like to do?

9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, what I have quoted by

10 Sherman is quoted in the document of the opposing side. I haven't

11 extracted anything. And I wanted to ask the witness, since he attributes

12 such positions to Serb propaganda, I wanted to -- let us leave out The New

13 York Times. Let him take the article and read it. But for instance, how

14 he would comment Mr. Sherman's comments in connection with his allegation

15 regarding some sort of Serbian paranoia about a conspiracy against

16 Yugoslavia. Is it paranoia or is it reality? Was the war against

17 Yugoslavia paranoia or reality?

18 JUDGE MAY: I'm stopping you because he cannot comment without

19 seeing the document. Now, if you put the document to him, he can comment

20 on it. If you want him to do that, he must see it. Otherwise, there's no

21 point going on.

22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, would they be kind enough and

23 give him the copies? Because I have a Serbian version translated into

24 Serbian. I said 00495188, including right up -- up until the page

25 00495286, the document having been received from the side opposite. Would

1 they be kind enough to give him the English version, let him read them,

2 and then I will refer to only a few examples. Of course, he can't read a

3 hundred or so pages that I have here.

4 So what Sherman is saying, for instance, about Germany's plan --

5 JUDGE MAY: Just wait a moment. There's no point going on with

6 this. Can you oblige, Mr. Nice?

7 MR. NICE: In time. We can't simply do it instantly. That's the

8 problem. We've managed, for example, to track down The New York Times

9 article. That's now being copied. But the next article, which will be

10 one part of a substantial body of disclosure simply can't be done

11 immediately. It can be done but it can't be done just like that.

12 JUDGE MAY: Can it be done before the witness returns on Thursday?

13 MR. NICE: If we're given a list, yes. If we're given a list of

14 numbers, we can have it by then, certainly.

15 JUDGE MAY: We can have The New York Times after the adjournment,

16 with a copy for us all, please, if that's possible, and we'll have the

17 other documents on Thursday morning.

18 MR. NICE: May I make this general point: At the moment, of

19 course, I can't immediately be sure what category of statement the Sherman

20 statement is. If it's a private statement, it's unlikely to be of much

21 relevance in a propaganda -- in a passage of evidence about propaganda

22 unless it touches on that topic specifically. It may be worth having in

23 mind.

24 JUDGE MAY: Let us have the document and then we can make some

25 sort of judgement about it.

1 Yes.

2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, then please take also the

3 document an article by John Rose, called "Serbs, Jews and Bosnia," Jewish

4 Week, New York, August 1993. To help you, it has three pages. "The

5 campaign waged by our media in America against the Serbian people is

6 simply unbelievable. The Serbs fought against the Nazis. They paid a

7 terrible price because they fought on the side of the allies against

8 Hitler. Those of us who survived Holocaust understand them. They

9 suffered the same fate as we did. They --"

10 JUDGE MAY: Now, I'm going to stop you reading it out because

11 we'll come back to it when we have the original, when we have the

12 original. The witness cannot comment on it without seeing it.

13 Mr. Nice, can you help with that second one? Is that a sufficient

14 reference to be able to pick it up?

15 MR. NICE: August 1993. The date in August would help.

16 Alternatively, the registration, the ERN number, if the accused has that

17 on the version.

18 JUDGE MAY: Have you got -- have you got those, Mr. Milosevic?

19 The date of the article, precisely what day in August, and the ERN number

20 if you have it.

21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] August 1993, Jewish Week, New York,

22 and the ERN number on top, printed on the page: 00495192. If that is the

23 ERN number you're referring to.

24 MR. NICE: Thank you.

25 JUDGE MAY: Now, while we're at it, is there anything else you

1 want found and want put to the witness? Any other documents there?

2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes, I have many documents from this

3 pile. For instance, 00495196, from Die Zeit, Mike Tuman. "The War of War

4 Reporters," Hamburg, the 2nd of September, 1994, and he says -- I've given

5 you your ERN number: "The warmongering reporting has exaggerated numbers

6 and selected facts unilaterally to instigate the government's reaction

7 against the Serbs." And then on that same page with the same number, war

8 report: "Unnamed sources in the UN have indicated that in order to force

9 the hand of foreign intervention, the Bosnian side exaggerated suffering

10 and even instigated Serb attacks, not to mention other planted and

11 fabricated attacks against their own population."

12 And then I think it would also be useful for you to see the

13 International Herald Tribune, Barry James: "The Muslims are preparing an

14 offensive," Paris, the 3rd of May, 1994. "According to French officials,

15 the quantity of misinformation coming from the Muslim side is enormous."

16 JUDGE MAY: The ERN number for that one.

17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] 00495205. Then you have "The West

18 Against Yugoslavia," Jerusalem, in which people say "I appreciate those

19 among whom there is no racial hatred."

20 JUDGE MAY: Which one have we got? We now have The New York

21 Times, but so we're not interrupted, we'll come back to that. Let us

22 complete your list of documents that you want put to the witness.

23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] For example, 00495208, Die Weltwoche

24 Thomas Fleiner, "Satanisation of people is impermissible." Zurich, 1994,

25 in which he says: "Who hasn't seen the suffering and torture of

1 Christians with his own eyes cannot even imagine what it means to be a

2 member of the Raja. A human being who fares worse than an animal," et

3 cetera, et cetera.

4 And then, on the following page, 209 therefore, "An organised

5 anti-Serbian and pro-Muslim propaganda should force everyone who believes

6 in democracy and freedom to be seriously worried."

7 I don't want to burden you too much because I will run out of

8 time. Let us go back to matters of substance.

9 JUDGE MAY: Well, before we do, we now have the copy from The New

10 York Times which you put to the witness. It may be convenient if we

11 adjourn now. The witness can then have the opportunity to read what's in

12 The New York Times, and you can ask him any questions about it.

13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I don't want to use up time on The

14 New York Times. I've already tendered that article. You have it.

15 JUDGE MAY: Yes. But the witness -- the witness -- no.

16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I'm just asking the witness whether

17 that too is part of the propaganda orchestrated by the Serbian government

18 and me personally.

19 JUDGE MAY: No. I'm going to allow the witness to read this

20 during the adjournment. He can then come back and comment on it and we'll

21 move on.

22 Mr. de la Brosse, would you take The New York Times article when

23 you go, and you'll then be asked a question about it when you come back.

24 Yes. We're going to adjourn now. Twenty minutes.

25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, before the adjournment,

1 please. Before the break, please.

2 Since you have asked for the documents to be found.

3 Q. Mr. de la Brosse, you used various books, didn't you? Did you

4 have occasion to look at a book by Emil Vlajki, "Demonisation of Serbs,"

5 published in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada in 2001?

6 A. No.

7 Q. Do you believe it might be useful for you to read that book as you

8 are specialising in media manipulations?

9 JUDGE MAY: We will consider whether the witness should read the

10 book or have a look at it over the adjournment. We will adjourn now, 20

11 minutes.

12 --- Recess taken at 12.13 p.m.

13 --- On resuming at 12.37 p.m.

14 JUDGE MAY: Yes, Mr. Nice.

15 MR. NICE: It appears that the New York Times article we copied is

16 not the correct one. I think we've located the correct one and it's being

17 located in a collection of documents. We're also attempting to locate, or

18 possibly have already started to locate the other documents and copy then,

19 but I cannot say precisely when and whether within this sector of the

20 trial they will be available.

21 JUDGE MAY: I understand the witness in fact can't be here, he has

22 other commitments, on Thursday.

23 MR. NICE: I now understand that. I wasn't aware of it.

24 JUDGE MAY: That being so, we need to find a convenient time. It

25 appears Monday morning might be convenient.

1 MR. NICE: Monday would, I think, be the most convenient for us.

2 And although of course I haven't spoken to Mr. de la Brosse, if it's

3 convenient for him, I invite the Court to say Monday morning.

4 JUDGE MAY: Mr. de la Brosse, would Monday morning be convenient

5 for you to finish your evidence?

6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, it would.

7 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Well, Mr. Milosevic, we're waiting for the other

8 documents. The book which was mentioned, Mr. Nice, perhaps you can deal

9 with that too while I remember. "The Demonisation of Serbs." Have you

10 managed to track that down, an English version?

11 MR. NICE: At the moment we only have a summary on audiotape. So

12 that's not much use. We may or may not do better later.

13 JUDGE MAY: Very well.

14 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] So apart from the book, so that

15 things are quite clear, Mr. May, what I quoted from a moment ago and gave

16 you references for was meant to save time. But it is a selection made by

17 the side opposite, from 00495188 up to page 00495286. So there's a

18 hundred pages selected by the opposite side.

19 As for my selection, I will do it when my turn comes, and then we

20 will have a far more exhaustive review. In many countries many books have

21 been published about the propaganda war waged against the Serbs, including

22 the US, England, France, Germany, not to mention other countries.

23 But I would like to ask the witness to read out these hundred

24 pages or so, as well as Professor Vlajki who used to teach in Zagreb and

25 who wrote the book "The Demonisation of the Serbs."

1 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

2 Q. Let me ask you, Mr. de la Brosse, as there's also a book by a

3 compatriot of yours Jacques Merlinot, a journalist, called "Les Verites

4 Yugoslaves Ne Sont Pas Bonnes A Dire," published in Paris, 1994. Did you

5 perhaps have a chance to read that book at least?

6 A. No, I didn't.

7 Q. I will ask you then, since you are French and it will not be

8 difficult for you to look at that book, will you examine the interview

9 published in that book by Merlinot, an interview with Mr. Hoff, one of the

10 directors of Fina, James Hoff, and after Newsday published stories about

11 alleged Serbian camps of death, Hoff's associates were able to mobilise a

12 number of Jewish organisations, you have a list of those organisations,

13 and in that interview, which you will find in this book: "This was a move

14 of genius. When Jewish organisations joined the game on the side of the

15 Muslim Bosnians, we could easily identify the Serbs with the Nazis in the

16 eyes of public opinion. No one understood what was going on in

17 Yugoslavia. By a single move, we managed to provide a simple story about

18 the good and the bad guys which will continue naturally. As a result, the

19 vocabulary changed in the press. There was strong emotional words used,

20 such as 'ethnic cleansing' and 'concentration camps' which revived images

21 of the gas chambers of Auschwitz. And when Merlinot asked him, How did

22 you manage that and you didn't have any proof of what you were saying, all

23 you had were two newpaper articles in Newsday? Hoff's answer was - I

24 quote - 'Our job is not to check information, our job is to transform them

25 into information that serves our purpose. We are professionals. We had a

1 task which we performed. We are not paid to moralise.'"

2 Do you consider this answer by Mr. Hoff given to Merlinot similar

3 to yours, that it is not yours to establish the truth but only to explain

4 what media coverage of a certain political situation looks like, how it is

5 technically performed and what kind of vocabulary is used? The truth from

6 that standpoint is quite irrelevant.

7 A. You're asking me to comment on that excerpt? Is that what you're

8 doing?

9 JUDGE MAY: Can you comment -- don't ask him. Don't ask him.

10 Now, can you -- can you comment or not on it, or do you want to

11 see the whole article before commenting on it? That's the first question.

12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Oh, I'd like to see the article.

13 JUDGE MAY: Very well. The more general point -- just a moment.

14 The more general point is this: That propaganda is used on all

15 sides in these sort of conflicts, isn't it, Mr. de la Brosse? Presumably

16 you would agree with that.

17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Absolutely. I developed that

18 subject in the article that I prepared on Yugoslavia in the book "Les

19 Medias de la Laine" to show that anti-Serb propaganda was also used by the

20 Croat and Bosnian media.

21 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, you can show that -- you can give a

22 copy of that to the witness to add to the material for him to look at, if

23 you have it in French, that is.

24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I don't have it in French, but what

25 I have just quoted is to be found in the book by Michael Parenti that I

1 tendered a long time ago, published in English, and it will be easy to

2 find this passage by Merlinot. And there is a footnote which provides

3 reference to Merlinot's book which has been published in both French and

4 English.

5 JUDGE MAY: Very well. Where is it in the Parenti book? Can you

6 give us a chapter or a reference to it so the Prosecution can find it?

7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] In Parenti's book, it is, since I

8 now have on me the Serbian version, it is in chapter 9, entitled

9 "Demonisation of the Serbs," and about seven or eight pages into the

10 beginning. You can find it in Parenti's book.

11 As for Merlinot's book, I have already quoted its heading and

12 where it was published, in Paris in 1994, and it has also been published

13 in English. "The truth from Yugoslavia is not being reported honestly."

14 Is not being reported honestly.

15 This is in the book "Serbia Must Die," pages 148 to 156. And this

16 interview can also be found in the book "Bosnian Tragedy, The Role of the

17 Pentagon." In the book "NATO in the Balkans" on pages 54 to 56. So I

18 think I have provided sufficient references.

19 Will you now place on the ELMO please --

20 JUDGE MAY: Before you go on, Mr. Nice you can find -- the Parenti

21 book we've certainly had at some stage. I don't know about the other

22 references, perhaps you could have a look.

23 MR. NICE: I'm not sure about the other references -- we'll search

24 for them, do our best to make them available. Of course we should try to

25 make them available to the witness before he leaves today. That may be

1 more of a problem, but we'll do our best.

2 JUDGE MAY: Thank you. Yes.

3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, this is the report

4 submitted by Mr. de la Brosse. Could it be placed on the ELMO, please. I

5 would just like him to comment on the title page, and I want it to be

6 visible, please.

7 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

8 Q. So I would like you to comment on something, Mr. de la Brosse.

9 The title of your report is "Political Propaganda and the Project All

10 Serbs in One State, The Consequences of Using the Media for

11 Ultranationalist Ends." And on the bottom it says that it was compiled by

12 you at the request of the Prosecution of the International Criminal

13 Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. And it says that you are the author

14 of the report.

15 So the project, upon the order of the side opposite, the so-called

16 Office of the Prosecutor, "Political Propaganda and the Project of All

17 Serbs in One State."

18 Tell me, what project are you talking about and when was that

19 project concocted or compiled?

20 A. I would like to point out that the title is one that I chose, that

21 the title comes or stems from what I considered to be the specific nature

22 of using the media in Serbian propaganda designed to distil a principal

23 message according to which the Serbs were being threatened. I mentioned

24 the target groups threatening those groups and the various allegations had

25 as their objective fomenting fear among the Serbs and to encourage them to

1 regroup, to band together within one state, one and the same state.

2 And the choice of the report -- or, rather, the title, I was also

3 influenced by the very large number of Serbian politician's statements

4 that I quote throughout the report.

5 Q. I'm sorry for interrupting you, Mr. de la Brosse; we have to

6 economise with the time.

7 You put the heading "All Serbs in One State" in quotation marks.

8 I'm asking you what project are you talking about and when was it

9 designed? Because you say that you yourself assess that there was such a

10 project or plan for all Serbs in one state. What plan are you talking

11 about? Who made it? When was it made? Do you have any idea why you

12 chose that particular subject as the object of your research?

13 A. I consciously put it into quotation marks in order to point out

14 that the title that I chose seemed to match what through the various

15 examples that I had access to in the print press, in the media, fit in

16 rather well with this propagation of the feeling of fear which took over

17 the Serbian population who was presented as being threatened by its

18 neighbours in the international community, by certain opposition groups,

19 by certain secret services. And I said a few minutes ago that the

20 conclusion which was implicit and that I drew from that very large number

21 of examples which I referred to in my chapter on paranoia about a plot,

22 all of this was designed in order to make the Serbian people become aware

23 that it was being threatened from all sides and that it was in its own

24 interests in order to group together within one and the same state.

25 And within that meaning, the systemisation of the attacks lead one

1 to think that -- the content of the media that I had access to would leave

2 one think that behind the systemisation there was a will to distill a

3 message of fear in order to push people toward that direction. That is a

4 deduction that I made from my reading or my examination of these various

5 media contents.

6 I'm not referring here to other factors which might have been

7 within my possession in respect of a plan for a state for all Serbs except

8 for those quotations that I put into the report and which appear in the

9 footnotes.

10 Q. Very well, Mr. de la Brosse. So you chose this title, and you

11 qualified it as a project, "All Serbs in One State." Now, my question is

12 the following: Are you aware that with the exception of the diaspora, of

13 course, because there are Serbs living in America, in Australia, in

14 France, all over the world, in fact, are you aware that almost the entire

15 Serb nation with the exception of the diaspora lived within the borders of

16 the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia?

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. You are aware of that?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. Are you also aware then that it was in the interests of the Serbs,

21 among other things, to save that state? And we thought that it was in the

22 interests of others too, at least those who wished to live in that same

23 state.

24 A. Yes, I think that was Serbia's official position.

25 Q. Not just the official position of Serbia. I think it's a

1 historical fact. Yugoslavia, in which all Serbs were in fact living in

2 one state in Yugoslavia, the same applies to Croats and Slovenes and

3 Muslims -- let me add in passing, do you have any idea how many Muslims

4 are living in Serbia?

5 So tell me, please, what creation of a state in which all Serbs

6 would live are you talking about when such a state existed for all of 70

7 years? Yugoslavia, as a state, and the only internationally recognised

8 legal entity in which all Serbs, all Muslims, let me not enumerate all the

9 others, lived, and that state existed for all of 70 years. So what kind

10 of project did you suddenly discover 70 years later when such a state

11 existed for 70 years?

12 A. My answer would be that the fact that there was a Serbian republic

13 within Yugoslavia was not, and far from it, was not being -- shown as

14 being satisfactory in the media, in the print press and on television.

15 I'm thinking about media such as Politika, which systematically promoted,

16 put forward certain complaints, grievances in respect of Serbia within

17 that space of the former Yugoslavia. Within those complaints and

18 grievances that were put forward in the media, one sees the fact that the

19 constitutional status of the Serbian Republic within Yugoslavia was

20 inferior to that of others.

21 Q. Mr. de la Brosse --

22 JUDGE MAY: Let him finish. Let him finish. No. You ask long

23 questions he can answer. Let him answer.

24 Yes. If you want to add anything, Mr. de la Brosse, do.

25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] A second theme which systematically

1 was developed in the press is the genocide which allegedly the Serbian

2 population was the -- in Kosovo was the victim of, and that stemmed from

3 the fact that Serbia did not have total sovereignty over the Autonomous

4 Territory. And here I refer you to the first argument that I put forward.

5 In addition, we also see in the press at the time a very

6 significant number of articles which also speak about the risks of

7 assimilation and genocide of the Serbian community in Croatia.

8 A fourth subject or another grievance had to do with the economic

9 situation in the Serbian Republic within the Yugoslav state, and this

10 refers to the grievance against Slovenia and Croatia who allegedly took

11 for themselves the largest amount of the wealth within Yugoslavia. In

12 that press, one finds in the column "Echoes and Reactions," the expression

13 of these various grievances.

14 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

15 Q. Mr. de la Brosse, I understand that you wish to give explanations

16 which come to you off the bat at present, but I should like to ask you to

17 focus your attention, and I think this is elementary intellectual

18 rectitude, to respond to my questions and not to tell me about things I

19 haven't asked you.

20 I'll ask you about the Echoes and Reactions, don't you worry, in

21 due course, but --

22 JUDGE MAY: If the answer is irrelevant, he will be stopped, but

23 it wasn't, in our judgement, particularly the sort of question which was

24 asked. If you asked more concrete questions, you might be able to get an

25 answer.

1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, I was asking a very concrete

2 question, Mr. May, and the question was as follows, and it was very brief:

3 What kind of creation of a state in which all the Serbs would be living

4 are you referring to when such a state existed for a full 70 years? And

5 the name of that state was Yugoslavia.

6 JUDGE MAY: He's just given an answer, quite a long one, about all

7 the complaints about the Serbs and the resentment which existed. It's in

8 his report.

9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] That is quite an incorrect answer,

10 Mr. May.

11 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation].

12 Q. And that is why I'm going to ask my next question, Mr. de la

13 Brosse. Are you aware, do you know that it was precisely the Serbs who

14 strove to retain Yugoslavia? Because with its division, they would have

15 been fragmentised, whereas the Slovenes and Croats, and later on, the

16 Muslims and Macedonians started their secession. Are you aware of that,

17 that it was the Serbs who strove to preserve Yugoslavia?

18 A. Yes, I'm aware of the different positions in respect of what

19 Yugoslavia was.

20 JUDGE MAY: Suppose it was said that there wasn't any plan to

21 create a state for Serbs but there was a plan to create a Yugoslavia or to

22 maintain Yugoslavia and that was what all this was about. What would your

23 answer be on the basis of the propaganda and materials which you've

24 studied? Would you agree with that or not?

25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] What I would like to say is that,

1 through the study of the contents in the Serbian media at the time, the

2 situation in Yugoslavia was not satisfactory in respect of the aspirations

3 of Serbia. What I would like to add is that resentment was always there,

4 always there in the media.

5 The fact that Slovenia or Croatia, for instance, did not wish to

6 continue with the Yugoslav experiment and wanted to be independent gave

7 rise to the problem of the future, especially for Croatia, because in

8 Slovenia the Serbian population was very -- was marginal, but it gave rise

9 to the problem of the status of that minority.

10 What I tried to show in the report is that the media worked with

11 that Serbian minority in order to try to make it understand through

12 recalling historical events to show them that they had no future in

13 Croatia. And so when I used the expression, or the -- a state for all

14 Serbs, I'm not referring to documents about a project in respect of a

15 state for all Serbs but simply analysing the contents of articles and

16 broadcasts that I might have read or heard in relation to the historical

17 context at the time which expressed the resolve to put forward a feeling

18 of fear within the Serbian community so that that community would come

19 together within one state and live. Since the Yugoslav experience was no

20 longer possible, given the experience as things were at the beginning of

21 the 1990s, from this I thought that I could deduce, that is deduce from

22 the various examples that implicitly there was a will to bring together

23 within one state the Serbian community; and to do so, it was necessary to

24 bring back to Serbia those lands which were referred to as historically

25 Serb, those lands in Croatia and also in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, as the witness is giving

2 lengthy responses, extremely lengthy, bypassing the substance and crux of

3 the matter, could you bear that in mind, please, when ascribing the time

4 that I have left, please, at least in the technical sense.

5 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

6 Q. Now, as you say that you have analysed the media and so on, do you

7 know that the secession of the former Yugoslav republics was contrary to

8 international law and internal Yugoslav law as well? Are you aware of

9 that? Do you know about that? Do you know of that fact? You can give me

10 a yes or no answer.

11 A. I'm not a legal specialist in international affairs. I can't give

12 a specific answer to that.

13 Q. Yes, but as you seem to deal precisely with those issues, I assume

14 that even if you're not a lawyer yourself or a legal specialist, that you

15 must know --

16 JUDGE MAY: He said he can't answer that, so let's move on.

17 Indeed, it may be a matter for us in due course.

18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, you're going to deal with the

19 matter in due course, yes, but I want to ask him something else now.

20 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

21 Q. Did he happen to read, perhaps, as we're dealing with some -- with

22 you, Mr. de la Brosse, and you compiled a report, a study for the purposes

23 of the OTP, did you consider it necessary, for example, to read a book by

24 Mr. Antonio Cassese, for example, who was the president at this otherwise

25 illegal institution, let me say, but the title of it was

1 "Self-determination of People"?

2 JUDGE MAY: Unless there is some matter concerning with

3 propaganda, this is outside the witness's expertise. Asking him what

4 Professor Cassese said is not going to help.

5 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, I was asking the witness this

6 because he's working for this -- well, the opposite side over there. So

7 perhaps he read something that was written by the former president of

8 this, let me repeat how I put it, this illegal institution. But he did

9 say: "As in the case of the 12 Soviet republics under international law,

10 the six Yugoslav republics --"

11 JUDGE MAY: No. I'm not going to -- I'm not going to allow you to

12 go on. You've been told more than once - and this is you wasting time -

13 there's no point asking him about international law.

14 Now, if you've got relevant questions, you can ask them, relevant

15 to his evidence.

16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Of course I have. So you consider

17 it to be irrelevant that a professional as an expert is compiling an

18 expert report on a certain issue and is not informed about the legal

19 aspects of that same issue?

20 JUDGE MAY: We're not dealing with the law here.

21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well. Fine.

22 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

23 Q. Well, in principle, let me put it that way, because you very

24 frequently use the expression "implicitly", you like to use that word. So

25 in principle, are you aware of the fact that the Serbs, in striving for

1 life together in one state, which included everybody, based this

2 aspiration of theirs on international law and internal national law as

3 opposed to the people who strove for secession against the law? Do you

4 distinguish between the two? Are you aware of those differences in your

5 approach to compiling your expert report?

6 A. Could you make that question more clear, please.

7 JUDGE MAY: I'm going to deal with it, and this is the last

8 question on the matter of law.

9 What is alleged is that the Serbs, in their aspirations to life in

10 one state, were basing that aspiration on international law. Now, that is

11 an allegation which is made by the accused. Was it a matter which you

12 took -- just a moment. Just a moment.

13 Was it a matter you took into consideration in writing your

14 report? If it was no, just say so and we can move on to something else.

15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No.

16 JUDGE MAY: This is nothing to do with him. He's dealing with

17 propaganda. Now, what people wrote and said, you can ask him. Unusually,

18 it is the one witness you can ask about this sort of thing. So rather

19 than trying to argue the case all over again about what was legal and what

20 wasn't, and you can address us on that, why don't you ask him about what's

21 in his report.

22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May, I see that you keep

23 switching off my microphone. This does not refer to him but it refers to

24 you because you posed the question erroneously. What we were talking

25 about was the fact that the Serbs strove to preserve Yugoslavia. That was

1 the point. And that that striving was legitimate, also based on

2 international and domestic national law.

3 JUDGE MAY: You have made this point over and over again. There

4 is no point going on. This is a matter which I shall certainly take into

5 account when I come to consider and mention to my colleagues the time

6 which you should have, because I regard your continually going over the

7 same points as a waste of time.

8 Now, let's move on to something else.

9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, I didn't -- I wasn't aware of

10 repeating the same thing over and over again, but let me go back to what

11 this expert of yours claims.

12 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

13 Q. In your report, some of the quotations, extracts from what I

14 allegedly said, although all this has been pulled out of context, but it

15 serves a purpose, we can use it, because all of those speeches were good

16 ones.

17 In footnote 28 on page 13 and 14, in footnote 45 on pages 22 and

18 23, we see this striving for Yugoslavia, to preserve Yugoslavia. And I

19 should like to draw your attention to that, Mr. de la Brosse.

20 You yourself, for example, in footnote 45 at the end of page 22

21 before going on to quote my words from the weekly Nin, you say that it was

22 propaganda efforts which were made, as you say, in the form of threats.

23 And I'm quoting you: "To endeavour to prevail upon the Muslims to step

24 down from the Yugoslav federation."

25 So, Mr. de la Brosse, can we see clearly here from what you

1 yourself have chosen to quote that we did not threaten them at all and

2 that we endeavoured to try and prevail upon them to convince them to

3 remain within the Yugoslav federation. Doesn't that quite eloquently

4 testify to the fact that we wanted to preserve the Yugoslav federation?

5 Isn't that what that means?

6 JUDGE MAY: No. You must ask a question and not go on.

7 The reference, Mr. de la Brosse, is to footnotes 28 and 45, if you

8 have it. The accused is putting that it shows him trying to preserve the

9 Yugoslav federation. Perhaps you would deal with that.

10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] As regards the -- as -- footnote 45,

11 I referred to several excerpts from the press, excerpts of speeches that

12 I've quoted, Biljana Plavsic, Mr. Milosevic. I also quote Vojislav Seselj

13 who referred to threats against Muslims. And I think on the next page I

14 quote other people, once again Biljana Plavsic and yet again Biljana

15 Plavsic.

16 These are examples where it is clear that the Muslim community is

17 being threatened and it's being dissuaded from leaving the Yugoslav

18 Federation, declaring its independence.

19 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

20 Q. Very well. Fine. Mr. de la Brosse, in that particular footnote,

21 number 45, as an illustration of endeavours through threats, as you say,

22 to dissuade the Muslims from stepping down from the Yugoslav Federation,

23 you went on to quote my words published in the weekly Nin, April 1991, and

24 then you go on to quote me. And I say: "It is true that Slovenians and

25 Croats want to secede. But in my mind, Muslims don't have any interest in

1 secession from Yugoslavia. As regards the Muslims, a large part of them

2 are heavily indoctrinated, but we nevertheless assess that most Muslims

3 want good, tolerant, civilised, and, I would say, a civil, friendly, and

4 good-neighbourly relations with the Serbs and with other peoples in

5 Yugoslavia... They don't want the break-up of Yugoslavia either, for

6 there are deep roots, blood ties, family ties." That's what I mean when I

7 say blood ties, and everything else that exists. End of quotation.

8 So I have read out to you your quotations of me. And it is

9 completely true and correct that through these words of mine as well as

10 through a series of other speeches and my activities in general, I always

11 strove to have the Muslims and not only the Muslims but other ethnic

12 groups too from the SFRY should remain in the same state together with us,

13 the state of Yugoslavia. So where in what you have quoted me as saying do

14 you see a threat? Quite the contrary, I observe with respect to the

15 Muslims that the Muslims too do not wish to see the break-up of Yugoslavia

16 and that this indicates that, because we Serbs don't wish to see the

17 break-up of Yugoslavia either and nor do the Muslims. That's what I

18 stayed.

19 JUDGE MAY: I'm going to stop you. It's time we had a question

20 and an answer.

21 The accused asserts that there is in what he's quoted as saying in

22 the footnote which he's just read out, there is no threat to the Muslims.

23 Is there anything you want to say about that? If not, we'll move on to

24 something else.

25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The comment in footnote 45 also

1 refers to other quotations which follow, that those of Slobodan Milosevic

2 within the contents, all of the quotations have to be -- they have to be

3 taken in the proper context. The quotation from the excerpt of Slobodan

4 Milosevic's speech which we've just read out, along with the very explicit

5 threats to -- against the Muslim community were it to choose to secede or,

6 that is, to vote for in the independence of their republic, from my point

7 of view, constitutes an effort -- a propaganda effort, and where an

8 attempt is made to influence that population not to make a choice, that is

9 not to choose independence. And this is done through the first quotation.

10 There is no specific threat which is expressed in that first quotation.

11 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

12 Q. Are there any indirect ones? You say no direct but are there any

13 indirect threats? When I say that most of the Muslims would like to have

14 a good, tolerant, civilised, good neighbourly relationship when it comes

15 to all these ethic groups in Yugoslavia, the Serbs, et cetera. You say

16 there is no indirect threat. Is there an indirect one?

17 JUDGE MAY: There is an objection by Mr. Nice.

18 MR. NICE: No objection, just to assist: Tab 34 for the whole

19 text, if you want to find it.

20 JUDGE MAY: Well, I think, Mr. Milosevic, we've probably taken

21 this as far as we can.

22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well. Then just a few more

23 questions in this regard.

24 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

25 Q. You link up Kosovo and Bosnia, et cetera. Now, do you know that

1 for barely a year after the death of Josip Broz Tito, the former president

2 of Yugoslavia, the SFRY, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and

3 of course on many occasions before that, while he was still alive, ever

4 since 1965 and 1968 and so on, but I'm asking you about the year after his

5 death in Kosovo and Metohija that violent demonstrations broke out on the

6 part of Albanian separatists, with the demands made that Kosovo be

7 separated from Serbia and that a separate Republic of Kosovo be

8 established and that it should be conjoined to Albania. I myself, for

9 example, did not occupy any political position at that time. So are you

10 aware of that?

11 Are you aware of the fact that the tensions --

12 JUDGE MAY: Wait a moment. Let the witness answer.

13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] He said no, I believe. That was the

14 interpretation, I received.

15 JUDGE MAY: It wasn't recorded, but very well, next question.

16 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

17 Q. All right. Do you know anything about the fact that the tensions

18 -- tensions existed in Kosovo for years? These are facts that are

19 generally known, and on many occasions officially the Yugoslav leadership

20 - not the Serbian leadership, the Yugoslav leadership at top level, the

21 highest Yugoslav organs in which the Serbs had no domination whatsoever -

22 came out about this? So can that be described to my -- my media

23 manipulation of any kind in view of the fact that I was not in the

24 political realm at all at the time? And generally speaking, your whole

25 story about Kosovo doesn't have a leg to stand on. I don't know how to

1 explain this. But are you aware of these facts, the ones I've just

2 presented to you, Mr. de la Brosse?

3 A. I know that there were certain events in Kosovo which caused

4 confrontations.

5 Q. All right. Fine, Mr. de la Brosse. Let's go back to what you

6 were calling your expert report. Do you consider that in this work of

7 yours, that you use scientific methodology? Just give me a yes or no

8 answer, please.

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. We can therefore conclude that your report is some sort of

11 scientific work compiled for the purposes of this trial; is that right?

12 Would that be right?

13 A. I would like to recall the conditions under which this report was

14 produced. I was asked to set out the mechanisms being used with -- for

15 propaganda in the operative media in Serbia. This work suffers from

16 certain limits that I had to -- that I have to insist on. That kind of

17 work would assume that there was something that would be done over 15

18 years in order to deal with looking at all of the Yugoslav television

19 programmes. This would assume that one would have listened to all of the

20 radio programmes of Serbian radio and would also assume that one had read

21 and analysed all of the literary production of the various Serb print

22 media, which of course is not possible to do for one person alone or even

23 a small team. That kind of exhaustive work is physically impossible to do

24 for one person. And for this reason what I was able to do was to start

25 with the definition of what propaganda is, and starting with the

1 definition of what the principles and techniques used in order to put

2 forward that propaganda are, I had the assistance of a team of researchers

3 in Belgrade who, for me, along with the articles that I've had, because I

4 told you I was interested in this subject in 1994 already. They did this

5 kind of compilation work and reading and analysis of the articles which

6 appeared in the Serbian press and in which one sees clearly that those

7 mechanisms concern the second part of the first part where I show where --

8 how these mechanisms are operative. My first observation is that this is

9 an enormous job, and therefore one had to select a specific number of

10 examples.

11 My second limitation in this work, beyond the question of how much

12 time such work would take, the report was produced in a very short time.

13 Its purpose was to analyse the mechanisms but not to do an exhaustive

14 analysis of the sources.

15 Another limitation which stems -- which stems from that work and

16 which explains the fact that I needed an on-side assistance, the fact that

17 I do not speak Serbo-Croat. From my perspective, this is a limitation,

18 there is no question about that, but nonetheless, I do not have the

19 impression that this constituted a serious handicap. The fact that I did

20 not have the language and the cultural references which are specifically

21 related to the Serbo-Croatian language probably did not allow me to

22 describe or to identify and to see every facet of that propaganda at work

23 or to -- in order to reconstitute the entire scope and complexity which

24 was at work.

25 So this work sought to serve as a -- to give -- is to provide

1 indications of the various propaganda mechanisms that are at work in the

2 Serbian press of -- at the time and did not claim to be an exhaustive

3 study.

4 In addition, as regards the sources used, these have been

5 indicated in a document which I believe appears on the list of other

6 documents. I refer you to that list. The method used was to analyse the

7 articles in which such mechanisms could be seen at work and to -- to view

8 or to show the various clips from television from which that mechanism

9 could be seen.

10 This mechanism that I'm speaking about was supplemented by having

11 media with media people, that is with intellectuals and journalists on

12 site in Belgrade or other places, and the purpose, which was mine in the

13 report, with the assistance on site was to bring out the propaganda

14 mechanisms that were at work through the media which we had been studying,

15 starting with a definition of what propaganda is and the mechanisms which

16 were used in the past because propaganda is something which of course does

17 not begin with the Yugoslav press. It's something which goes back much

18 further and which every political power has recourse to whether it's

19 democratic or it's totalitarian.

20 I take up these various points in the first part of my report.

21 Q. Don't you think, Mr. de la Brosse, that you have just listed the

22 reasons which completely disqualify the competency of this report of

23 yours, from the fact that you hadn't read certain articles to the fact

24 that this is an enormous job that no individual could do, that it was too

25 short a time period, that others had prepared for you various sources that

1 you used, et cetera? Do you really have the impression that your

2 conclusions are completely erroneous? You had no grounds on the basis of

3 which to make these conclusions. You have just given the explanation that

4 this was something that it was impossible for you to do. Isn't that so,

5 Mr. de la Brosse?

6 A. No, not at all. What was at work was to show what mechanisms were

7 being used using a selection of articles and video clips which were

8 representative of what was found at the time in the Serbian media.

9 Q. Sir, how do you know, Mr. de la Brosse, what is representative and

10 what is not? Who does the selection for you?

11 A. The selection was made together with the team that helped me in

12 Belgrade, and through the study of the work that the Belgrade team used,

13 that is they looked through 20.000 pages and they used -- they reviewed

14 the most -- the most representative media that were published in Serbia.

15 In the same lines I could remind you that -- as I said yesterday, the

16 newspaper Politika was one of the media that was studied because, as I

17 have already said, it was a medium which enjoyed a very good reputation

18 even on the international scene. This was media which had about 200.000

19 copies, a circulation of about 200.000. In 1994, we also worked on the

20 literary discussions that were in Politika Ekspres. They were a with

21 circulation of about a hundred thousand in 1994. Vecernje Novosti, which

22 had a circulation of about a hundred thousand in 1994.

23 As regards the analysis of the use of sources that were on

24 television, the excerpts that were chosen basically came from the major

25 television news programme which was broadcast on RTS, that is Belgrade

1 television, that it was the 7.30 news. That was the -- which had the

2 largest ratings at the time. And I could also mention that television was

3 the media -- the medium through which most of the population received its

4 information, that Serbian television was the only medium, audio-visual

5 medium, that was able to reach the entire territory, that it had coverage

6 over the whole country, the whole of the Republic of Serbia.

7 All of these figures can be put together --

8 Q. Mr. de la Brosse --

9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I don't know, Mr. May, whether you

10 really believe that it is appropriate for us to keep listening to such

11 lengthy explanations of the reasons why he was not able to establish

12 anything in this analysis.

13 JUDGE MAY: He is entitled to answer your questions, and your

14 questions go -- go to his methods and also his conclusions, likewise his

15 sources. He's entitled to give an answer about that.

16 Yes, Mr. de la Brosse.

17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] You were asking me what the very

18 core of materials was that I used for preparing this report, and I'm going

19 to give you an answer.

20 JUDGE MAY: Let him finish. Let him finish.

21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] We worked essentially on the

22 television news. That is the most important news programme that was

23 watched in Serbia, that went on the air at 7.30. But having said this,

24 there were other media areas through which propaganda was able to be

25 broadcast on television and which are not covered by the report.

1 I'm thinking about the cultural programme in the broadest sense,

2 music programmes, astrology programmes, entertainment programmes.

3 Propaganda has many facets and the media which were studied were the major

4 news programme which had the largest number of television viewers.

5 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

6 Q. Will you please give me a precise answer, Mr. de la Brosse, to my

7 question so as to avoid these lengthy explanations that say nothing.

8 Did you make an analysis of the contents of the Yugoslav media

9 programmes or did you not? You know what an analysis of contents is in a

10 research project of this kind. Did you analyse the contents or did you

11 not?

12 A. Reading of articles that are published in the press, that reading

13 was done by the on-site team in Belgrade.

14 Q. Are you trying to say that you did not analyse the contents of the

15 Yugoslav media?

16 JUDGE MAY: I think he's answered that. He's described his method

17 of work.

18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I have to understand his answer

19 clearly, Mr. May.

20 JUDGE MAY: What do you mean specifically then? Did he -- did he

21 -- question: Did he read every article in the Yugoslav press? He said,

22 no, he didn't. Did he analyse every television programme? No, he didn't.

23 And he's told you the main ones on which he relied; the TV news at 7.30

24 and some other programmes. Now, he's answered your questions.

25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] First of all, I did not ask him

1 whether he had read every article. In scientific research of this kind,

2 science knows exactly the methods applied when contents are analysed.

3 There is a content analysis, which I am not going to elaborate on, so I'm

4 asking a professor and a doctor of science, Mr. de la Brosse, who knows

5 very well what my question means, whether he analysed the contents of the

6 media in Yugoslavia. Would he please give me a yes or no answer.

7 JUDGE MAY: Again, what do you mean by that? Do you mean did he

8 read every article? No. Did he see every television programme? No. So

9 what is it that you mean? And then we'll adjourn.

10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Do you mean we adjourn for today? I

11 mean exactly what I asked him.

12 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

13 Q. Do you know --

14 JUDGE MAY: I need to understand. If the Court doesn't

15 understand, the question won't be allowed. I think the simplest thing is

16 to adjourn. There is no point going on with this.

17 Yes.

18 MR. NICE: We have an extract from media on certain issues which

19 contains the quoted passages of the accused's cross-examination. In all

20 cases they are English translations of extracts, i.e., we don't have the

21 original articles here. We can make those available directly to the

22 witness, and I think we may and we've got copies for the Court, so he can

23 take them away and consider them over the adjournment.

24 As to the books -- that's -- that one was for the witness,

25 actually. I'm not supposed to speak to the witness.

1 As for the books, we haven't yet tracked them down. May we have

2 liberty to speak to and contact the witness between now and Monday in

3 respect of those books, if it's necessary for us to do so?

4 JUDGE MAY: Yes, certainly.

5 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. May.

6 JUDGE MAY: Just a moment. Mr. de la Brosse, would you look at

7 that and any other documents that you may be sent and be ready to answer

8 any questions about them on Monday.

9 Yes, Mr. Milosevic. Just a final point because it's time we

10 adjourned. Yes?

11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I understand that you won't allow me

12 to ask any more questions today.

13 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

14 Q. But Mr. de la Brosse, you mentioned that you attached a list of

15 sources on the basis of which you did your analysis. May I have that

16 list?

17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I'm just asking for that list. He

18 said that he attached a list of sources under which he -- on the basis of

19 which he did his analysis.

20 MR. NICE: Tab 3.

21 JUDGE MAY: Tab 3. No doubt the accused wants the documents, but

22 I think he'll find it in tab 3.

23 Yes. Let's adjourn now. There's another case coming into this

24 court, so we must do so.

25 Mr. de la Brosse, would you be back please, on Monday morning to

1 conclude your evidence. We will adjourn until tomorrow morning, 9:00.

2 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.47 p.m.,

3 to be reconvened on Wednesday, the 21st day of May,

4 2003, at 9.00 a.m.

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