1 Tuesday, 8 February 2005

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 [The witness entered court]

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

6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Before you recommence your examination-in-chief,

7 Mr. Milosevic, may I remind court-assigned counsel and yourself of the

8 Prosecution's motion concerning the recalling of the witness Ivan Kristan

9 and to remind you that it is still open to you to make a response to that

10 motion if you wish.

11 MR. KAY: I've actually drafted it and e-mailed it to Ms. Higgins

12 yesterday but failed to attach it, a frequent failing of mine, so it will

13 be filed later on today.

14 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Kay.

15 WITNESS: MITAR BALEVIC [Resumed]

16 [Witness answered through interpreter]

17 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Kristan --

18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Balevic.

19 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Balevic, rather, you remain subject to the

20 declaration that you made.

21 Mr. Milosevic, you may start.

22 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

23 Examined by Mr. Milosevic:

24 Q. [Interpretation] We left off before the break with some data in

25 tab 4.

1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I should like to mention to you,

2 Mr. Robinson, that the white books that we mentioned and that you marked

3 for identification, I did believe that they had already been introduced as

4 exhibits, but then I shall be tendering them, since they haven't, through

5 the next witness. I have the grounds and foundation to do that.

6 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

7 Q. So without going into establishing or, rather, going into those

8 exhibits now, Mr. Balevic, bearing in mind the situation that prevailed in

9 Kosovo, you were there at the time and you're well aware of it, I should

10 like to say that from the beginning of 1995, as it says in this book, that

11 Albanian terrorism began from 1998 -- 1995 to 1998. And on page 4,

12 paragraph 4, it says: "From the beginning of 1995 to the end of 1998,

13 Albanian terrorist bands or groups carried out 1.484 --" "Between early

14 1995 and the end of 1998, Albanian terrorist gangs mounted a total of

15 1.845 armed attacks on both members and installations of the Serbian

16 Ministry of the Interior," et cetera, et cetera. And in the following

17 paragraph, it says that 364 people were killed. Among them were 122

18 police officers, 242 citizens of Kosovo and Metohija, 97 of whom were

19 Albanians. And at the same time, 605 people were injured, whether

20 seriously or lightly, et cetera. And it also says that 249 people were

21 abducted.

22 Now, my question to you, Mr. Balevic, is this: Who were the

23 victims of the Albanian terrorists in Kosovo and Metohija during the

24 material time, the time you are testifying to, or to be more specific,

25 1995 when the KLA appeared with all its activities up until the end of

1 1999?

2 A. Mr. President, the victims of Albanian terrorism in Kosovo and

3 Metohija, and that's what this book talks about, the passage you read out,

4 were not only the Serbs and Montenegrins but also the Albanians and other

5 people who were not Albanians. Unfortunately, after the signing of your

6 agreement on the 13th of October with Holbrooke, according to these facts

7 and figures, about 50 Albanians were killed and 27 kidnapped.

8 I'm going to quote one example, the killing of -- in Novo Selo

9 near Vucitrn in June 1998 - I think it was 1998 - of Zejnula Bunjaku just

10 because he was married to a Serb woman.

11 According to this information, it also says that more than -- more

12 Albanians were killed than -- from their -- from the hands of their

13 compatriot terrorists than were killed during the whole war, and a lot did

14 lose their lives during the war. And I'm sure you all know or, rather,

15 that you know of one case in point, and that was on the 14th of April, if

16 my memory serves me, on the road between Prizren and Djakovica. I think

17 the village's name was Bistrazin, when a column was bombed, a column of

18 Albanians and about 100 Albanians were killed as a result. So that large

19 number of Albanians were killed -- more Albanians were killed at the hands

20 of the terrorists than in clashes with the state police, in fact.

21 Q. You mentioned just now what happened after the agreement between

22 myself and Mr. Holbrooke. Despite that agreement and the agreement

23 reached that a verifying mission should come in, did the attacks by

24 Albanian terrorists continue in Kosovo and Metohija?

25 A. After your agreement with Holbrooke -- actually, this just meant

1 an agreement for the Serb side, was binding on the Serb side for the army

2 and the police, which on the 26th, the Yugoslav army began to go back to

3 barracks, and all 20 remaining checkpoints were abolished, disbanded, so

4 that Serbia or, rather, the state, the army and the police complied with

5 what you undertook to perform under the Holbrooke agreement, but

6 unfortunately, the other side did not comply. Quite the contrary; they

7 received support and a free reign to carry on even more violent terror

8 against the Serbs and Montenegrins, and this was confirmed by the killings

9 that took place afterwards. And the mass exodus. People were leaving en

10 masse more so than before the agreement. And then the other crimes

11 against the Serbs, Montenegrins and indeed Albanians that they committed.

12 Q. Very well, Mr. Balevic. Let's now move on briefly to another

13 matter. I'm going to ask you about just some events which you yourself

14 were able to witness, I believe. You're not from Pec yourself, but you

15 know the family -- the Trifovic family from Pec very well. What happened

16 to them on the 14th of December, 1998? What happened to that family?

17 A. Yes, I do know the family well. The Trifovic family, we have some

18 Kumship relations. They were godfather or parents to one of my cousins.

19 There were four brothers and they worked in the railway company where I

20 was the manager. I don't know the young men who lost their lives, but I

21 do know the family, and I knew the father of the boy Dragan Trifovic, and

22 his name was Vojin, and it is the grandson of Dusan Trifovic. The tragedy

23 that befell that family, according to what I had heard because I went to

24 pay my respects and condolences, I wasn't able to go to it the funeral

25 myself because the roads were blocked so you had to go through Kosovska

1 Mitrovica, Crna Gora and Rosanj, anybody wishing to go attend the funeral,

2 and the official people went by helicopter from Pristina to Pec to attend.

3 But according to what I was told and what I heard and what I learnt from

4 friends and family who attended the funeral themselves, and from other

5 people too, there was such a lot of sadness, it was such a great tragedy

6 that if we were to compare it, we can say it was like the execution of the

7 pupils in Kragujevac, of schoolchildren in 1991 but not by virtue of its

8 mass character.

9 JUDGE ROBINSON: Please just tell us what happened to the family.

10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. I'm sorry. The terrorists

11 mowed them down in the Panda cafe while they were sitting and relaxing. A

12 band of them entered, four or five of them, and shot them down. They were

13 bullet-ridden, and the bodies were completely mutilated from the bullets

14 in this cafe, the Panda cafe. And it is interesting to note that a

15 student by the name Ivan Radovic who was killed on the occasion as well

16 whose father subsequently, Bogdan Radovic, was kidnapped and his fate is

17 not known, and his uncle Milos Radovic from Vitomirica in his -- was

18 killed in his own house, in his own home because he didn't want to leave

19 his home and move out, and he was killed because he was a Serb. So that

20 was done by a group of terrorists in the Panda cafe where they were

21 sitting quietly. They were mowed down by firearms, bullet-ridden.

22 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

23 Q. Mr. Balevic, you yourself saw the aftereffects of the Galerija

24 tragedy in Pristina, Cafe Gallery in Pristina. What do you know about

25 that?

1 A. The crimes committed on that territory of Pristina were numerous.

2 There were many more of them. This was one cafe that was located in the

3 centre of town, close to the electrical distribution company building,

4 where once again a terrorist group stormed the building and opened up

5 fire, a burst of gunfire, wounding seven young men. I came the next day,

6 the following day. I wasn't able to go there that very night. I didn't

7 dare go because there was a security hazard, and I saw that there were

8 pools of blood all over the place, shattered glass, shattered furniture,

9 tables and chairs. It was terrible sight to behold. Unable to describe

10 the horror of it after that terrorist attack.

11 Q. Mr. Balevic, you've just described to us some of the things that

12 you talked about; two attacks on premises where the owners were Serbs and

13 the victims were Serbs. Do you happen to remember an attack on the

14 premises of an Albanian, owned by an Albanian?

15 A. Yes, Mr. President, I do. A grocery store that was owned by Enver

16 Shala, for example, in the Dijana [phoen] settlement, near the new market,

17 Nova Pijaca, across the road from the post office. On the 6th of February

18 1999 it was blown up. There was a large explosion. It was blown up and

19 Enver Shala, the proprietor of the grocery store, was killed and two of

20 his workers, employees. The explosion was so strong that the windows were

21 shattered on the post office building which was across the road, about 100

22 metres away from the grocery shop itself.

23 Q. Tell me now, please, Mr. Balevic, how did this affect you? When I

24 say "you," I mean the Serbs and Montenegrins living in Kosovo and

25 Metohija. How did you feel when you heard about the crimes committed in

1 the village of Klecka, Djordjeni [phoen] near Decani, not far from the

2 bauxite mine near the source of the river Mirusa, for example? What

3 effect did that have on you?

4 A. Well, those are the most terrible executions sites in Kosovo and

5 Metohija. Klecka, for example, was terrible and had the effect that it

6 speeded up, accelerated, the exodus of the Serbs and Montenegrins and not

7 -- the non-Albanian population loyal to the state of Serbia who had good

8 relations with the Serb population, they continued to leave the area, to

9 move out. Security was taxed to a maximum. General jeopardy. There was

10 no safety and security over there regardless of the authorities that

11 remained.

12 Klecka, and you can see this from the documents and information,

13 was a stronghold for the terrorists, and according to our information or,

14 rather, the information -- official information from the SUP of Pristina,

15 provided by the SUP, there were about 150 terrorists and 22 Serbs were

16 killed on that occasion, but the order of the killings was such --

17 actually, they had a warehouse there and a prison there and a crematorium

18 of an -- unprecedented since World War II, and I don't think that history

19 will ever see the likes of that again because I'm sure the international

20 community will never allow anything like that to happen. These people

21 were first tortured and then they were killed, and then they were tied

22 with wires and taken off to the Klecka crematorium. Not all the bodies

23 were burnt, whether because there was not enough space in the crematorium

24 or because the temperature hadn't been set properly, so parts of the

25 mutilated and semi-burnt bodies were found dug near the crematorium with

1 their legs tied with wire. And this is confirmation and proof. And this

2 is something that the international journalists were able to learn, and

3 that was the official statement made by the Pot Parol [phoen] of the SUP

4 of Pristina, Bozidar Pilic.

5 The other execution site or crime site for the Albanian people was

6 Glodjane because they were killed there. It is between Decani and

7 Djakovica. That's where it is located, that crime spot, where about 40

8 dead bodies were found. 20 were buried. They were unidentified bodies,

9 12 were identified bodies, and the secrets of the Radonjicko lake will

10 never be uncovered and how many bodies there are in the lake there. There

11 were young people there -- children, in fact, from the age of 8 upwards --

12 and it is claimed --

13 MR. NICE: Interrupt for a minute. I have no idea what the

14 witness's source of this information for this material is. It's all

15 extremely detailed. It's unlikely I shall be able to deal with it in

16 cross-examination, and in any event it's probably not relevant. I'm not

17 going to object to it's being given but I ought to explain my position

18 right away.

19 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Nice. And, Mr. Milosevic, I didn't stop

20 the witness, but I've already made it clear that I don't like long

21 narratives. You ought to be asking the witness specific questions. For

22 example, you could have asked him about the second alleged execution site.

23 So please bring this narrative to a close as quickly as possible,

24 Mr. Balevic, and then we'll have another question.

25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.

1 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

2 Q. Mr. Balevic, just complete what you were saying about the second

3 execution site or crime site. You said that some dozen people were killed

4 there. Tell us who those people were and what information you have about

5 that.

6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, I have not come here

7 to tell you stories, nor is that my wish, but unless I tell narratives at

8 length, I'm afraid that you won't be able to understand what these

9 execution sites mean to the Serbs.

10 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Balevic, I have stopped you. You will follow

11 my instructions and the evidence will be given in accordance with those

12 instructions. It's a matter of how the evidence is given not the evidence

13 itself. I don't like long narratives because it's difficult to

14 understand. I like questions and short answers.

15 Go ahead, Mr. Milosevic.

16 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

17 Q. Mr. Balevic, how many people were killed at that second execution

18 site or crime site? And you spoke about the village of Djakovica.

19 A. About 40 were established and they say that there were six more

20 burial sites that have not been uncovered yet. Amongst them there are

21 Albanians. Twelve were buried and identified at Djakovica, and 20 remain

22 unidentified bodies, and those are the official data sent out by the chief

23 of SUP.

24 Q. And what about the third execution site that you mentioned a

25 moment ago? Just briefly, please.

1 A. The bauxite mine where five dead bodies were found. There were

2 more, but the others were not uncovered.

3 Q. Mr. Balevic, you are from Kosovo Polje yourself. Tell us, please,

4 what happened with the vice-president of the Municipal Assembly of Kosovo

5 Polje, Zvonko Bojanic on the 18th of December, 1998.

6 A. Vice-president Zvonko Bojanic was killed. He was kidnapped on the

7 17th, killed on the 18th of December, 1998 in a violent way. Terrorists

8 stormed his house, took him outside, tied up his brother. Another

9 relative who was there, a woman, was shut up. They took him off in a

10 Mercedes, looted the house, took all the valuables, the gold, the

11 jewellery, and everything they were able to take, and took him off in the

12 direction of Lapusnik. And according to the reports, he was killed near

13 Careva Cesma and the dead body, mutilated, was found. He was so mutilated

14 that not even his mother would have recognised him.

15 Q. Do you have any knowledge about the reactions on the part of our

16 forces of the interior, the interior forces with respect to these

17 terrorist attacks? And I'm talking about your personal knowledge.

18 A. My personal knowledge is this: Our forces, that is to say the

19 state forces, when I say "our forces," the state forces of Serbia,

20 responded to the attacks, and I personally toured and visited our bases.

21 That was in Lapusnik, Olovac, Crni Luk, Malisevo and Podgradje. I have

22 proof and evidence of where I was, the tour I made. And they convinced me

23 that they were able to have law and order prevail. And I should also like

24 to confirm that at the railroad crossings on the 3rd of May -- 23rd of

25 May, 1993, there was a classical ambush in which two policemen were killed

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1 and five wounded, whereas on the 28th of February, 1998, in the village of

2 Likosane, four people were killed, four policemen, two were wounded from

3 an ambush. And this confirms and shows that killings took place from an

4 ambush and our organs, the state organs, had to respond by opening fire

5 when the need arose.

6 Let me also add this: When Zvonko Bojanic was killed, I omitted

7 to say that a minute ago, the village of Vasiljevo was surrounded in order

8 to catch a terrorist, and the commander, who was nicknamed Sultan, was

9 there, and he held the village under siege, but the order came that the

10 forces were to withdraw and not to attack the village and not jeopardise

11 the lives of the inhabitants.

12 Q. Tell me, please, what was the behaviour and conduct -- and may I

13 just put something right. A moment ago, on the 23rd of May, 1993, I think

14 it should be 1998. Did you mean to say 1998 when you spoke about that

15 railway crossing?

16 A. The 23rd of May, 1993.

17 Q. I understand, and the other incident took place in 1998?

18 A. Yes, that's right. They were different periods. I was just

19 telling you about the killings; 1993 and 1998.

20 Q. Tell me, please, what did you personally, and according to what

21 you learnt, know about the behaviour of our army and our police force and

22 our security forces vis-a-vis the civilian population?

23 A. According to my knowledge and what I saw and what I became

24 convinced of is that our forces never attempted to jeopardise the

25 population, the Albanian population, except what happened when they were

1 attacked, except when under attack from an ambush or from sniper fire when

2 they responded, fire meeting fire.

3 Q. Mr. Radovic [as interpreted], would you answer my question,

4 please. I did not ask you how they reacted towards the terrorists, what

5 their reactions were there when they shot at them. What I'm asking you is

6 what was the relationship toward the civilian population. So not those

7 who were shooting at them.

8 A. Mr. President, they were protecting and indeed protected equally

9 the Albanian people and the Serb and Montenegrin inhabitants without any

10 differentiation between the two groups.

11 Q. At one of the meetings that you attended by virtue of your office

12 and post in Pristina at the time when terrorism escalated, and that

13 meeting was also attended by high-ranking state and party officials coming

14 in from Belgrade. They were the top state and party leaders, in fact, of

15 their day and they had come in from Belgrade. To the best of your

16 knowledge with respect to the measures, anti-terrorist measures, what was

17 said at the meeting of the provincial board, the meeting that you attended

18 yourself?

19 A. It was an expanded meeting of the provincial board, Kosovo and

20 Metohija.

21 Q. When did the meeting take place?

22 A. I'm sorry, I can't remember. I didn't make a note of the date.

23 Q. Well, tell us roughly.

24 A. Roughly prior to the war, just before the beginning of the war,

25 which would make it towards the end of 1998 or thereabouts, but as I say,

1 I didn't make a note of the date so I don't want to guess.

2 There were several such meetings, in fact. That was the last one,

3 which would make it the end of 1998. And at that meeting, among other

4 things, calls were made for and let me say that Milomir Minic attended the

5 meeting, Gorica Gajevic, too, Tomic, Dragan, Sainovic and others - I don't

6 remember their names just now - but they demanded the liquidation of

7 Albanian terrorism, that the state should liquidate Albanian terrorism.

8 And that was not only brought up at that meeting. You received an

9 official letter from the funeral of the young man in Pec, six of them,

10 from the wives and mothers of Pec, to put a stop to Albanian terrorism.

11 They got together and wrote you an official letter as president of the

12 Municipal Board of Klina, that terrorism should be stopped, and many

13 others, too.

14 Q. I understand that, Mr. Balevic, but tell us what the relationship

15 was towards the citizens of Kosovo and Metohija themselves. When I say

16 "citizens," I mean both the Serbs and the Albanians and Montenegrins and

17 Turks and everybody else living there. What was the relationship and

18 attitude of the state leadership and provincial leadership towards the

19 general inhabitants?

20 A. Well, linked to that question and the answers that we were given,

21 this is what we were told: They said that there would be a political

22 settlement to resolve the crisis in Kosovo and Metohija and that there

23 cannot be a frontal attack which would jeopardise innocent citizens

24 because the terrorists would take them as a human shield, and that was the

25 response, that was the answer. And that is why the Serb -- the Serb

1 people were not happy to see that terrorism had not been liquidated yet in

2 Kosovo and Metohija.

3 Q. And what can you tell us about this famous humanitarian or

4 infamous catastrophe and ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and Metohija? What is

5 your knowledge about that?

6 A. My personal knowledge, and I'm talking about Pristina, and I'll

7 tell you something further afield as well but this is my personal

8 knowledge: Ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and Metohija was the ethnic

9 cleansing of Serbs and Montenegrins and that ethnic cleansing took place

10 throughout the 20th century. The columns of Albanians that I came across

11 in Pristina, for instance, were such that they did not look to me as if

12 they were refugee columns at all because they were going by slowly past

13 the railway station, the bus station, carrying small bags. They didn't

14 look the way that Serb columns looked. So these columns to me appeared to

15 be sort of construed, manufactured columns, staged columns to look like

16 refugees.

17 I spoke to many Albanians, and I tried to prevail upon them to go

18 back home. I did not succeed. But the answers I was given from them,

19 they said we have to go. There was no other answer that I received. So

20 the ethnic cleansing of Albanians or any policy along those lines, to the

21 best of my knowledge, simply didn't exist, and I can confirm this by

22 presenting you with a piece of information.

23 Q. I don't know what information you mean.

24 A. Well, I'll give it briefly. Pristina, for example, before the war

25 had 240.000-odd inhabitants. Of that number, 44.000 [Realtime transcript

1 read in error"^"] were Serbs and Montenegrins. Today Pristina numbers

2 over 500.000 inhabitants, of which 120 are Serbs. So who was ethnically

3 cleansed there? See for yourself. You can see that it was the Serbs who

4 were ethnically cleansed.

5 Q. Very well. Now, Mr. Balevic, from the facts and figures that I

6 have, or information I have, I can see that you personally at the railway

7 station in Pristina, between the 25th and 30th of April, 1999, took care

8 of --

9 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, the transcript doesn't --

10 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please, Your Honour.

11 JUDGE ROBINSON: The transcript doesn't show the number of Serbs

12 that the witness said were there prior to the conflict. It says Pristina

13 before the war had -- of that number --

14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, about 44.000. I apologise.

15 44.000. I apologise, Mr. Robinson, for that.

16 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

17 Q. It's not your mistake, Mr. Balevic, it's just that there was a

18 slip in the transcript. You gave us the correct figure, I believe.

19 Now, tell us what happened at the railway station in Pristina

20 between the 25th and 30th of April, 1999.

21 A. There were several hundred Albanians there. We didn't count them

22 all but I was informed by the office and the staff. I was present at the

23 staff for taking in refugees from Srpska Krajina. Dragan Pelevic [phoen]

24 was his name. And our warehouse was close by the railway station, our

25 food warehouse for the refugees coming in from Republika Srpska. We were

1 told that there were several hundred Albanians there at the railway

2 station, women and children, and I issued him an order to take from the

3 warehouse which stored food for refugees, to take the food necessary -

4 bread, tins, biscuits, milk - and to distribute it among the Albanians

5 there. That is what he did and he kept taking food there for three days,

6 for as long as they were there. I don't know where they left afterwards.

7 Now, when I asked him whether they were receiving food, most of them were

8 receiving food. Some refused to receive food, but he noticed that they

9 took food from others afterwards, so that we assisted and helped out those

10 Albanians, not refugees, Albanians who were at the railway station at

11 Pristina.

12 Q. All right. So when you saw to those Albanians at the railway

13 station in Pristina, tell me, please, did anybody force them to board the

14 trains and leave Pristina at all? Was there any police there exerting

15 pressure under -- over them?

16 A. No pressure was brought to bear against the Albanians at the

17 railway station there. Now, how they were brought there I don't really

18 know but there was no pressure being exerted. And let me tell you

19 something else that I think will be interesting for you. I was a member

20 of the management board of the Kosmet Tours company, which was the

21 transporter at Kosovo and Metohija because they no longer transported

22 things abroad, but Ivan Ivancevic called me up and said the Albanians keep

23 coming in and asking for buses to take them to Skopje and Prizren,

24 probably further on to Albania, I assume. And this is the answer I gave

25 him: I said, Ivancevic, don't you and I be factors who are going to

1 accelerate the exodus of Albanians, moving out of Albanians. He rang me

2 up the next day, said they are very persistent, they want to pay me, and I

3 gave him the same answer I gave him the first time: Don't let us speed up

4 this process. And then when I went to see him in his office later there

5 was an Albanian by the name of Coca there. I repeated what I had said and

6 I -- afterwards, I left the office and I said, well, you can do what you

7 like but my advice to you is not to do that. Don't engage in things like

8 that, and I'm sure Ivancevic will bear me out.

9 Q. Very well. Now, do you have any knowledge at all about people

10 expelling Albanians from Kosovo and Metohija and sending them to

11 Macedonia, for example? Because you were head of the railway system in

12 Kosovo and Metohija, you occupied that kind of post, so during that time,

13 the time of the NATO aggression, the bombings, did anybody send Albanians

14 to Macedonia or Albanian?

15 A. I have no such knowledge and information, nothing about that. In

16 my own building, the building that I lived in, there were four Albanians

17 and three Serbs, for example.

18 Q. Do you want to say that there were four Albanian families and

19 three Serbian families?

20 A. Yes, that's right. Four Albanian families and three Serbian

21 families living in my residential building. Three of the families went

22 off. They left somewhere, but they returned the same day, the very same

23 day when our country was bombed, which means that they were somewhere

24 nearby. They hadn't gone far off. And as their neighbour, I protected

25 their apartments because there were Serb bandits and criminals that

1 engaged in unauthorised activities, but unfortunately, they destroyed my

2 flat. They looted my flat. So that was how they repaid me. Not all of

3 them but just several of them. And I don't have any information about any

4 pressure brought to bear against them and forcing them to leave by the

5 police or anybody else.

6 Q. And what happened after the arrival of the international forces in

7 Kosovo and Metohija, for example? How long were you -- did you stay there

8 for?

9 A. I stayed until the 26th of June in Kosovo and Metohija, and after

10 the arrival of the KFOR forces, we Serbs and Montenegrins and Albanians,

11 except the terrorists, of course, expected that the KFOR forces would

12 ensure peace, freedom for the entire area and all the population there,

13 that they would bring law and order. They came in with great pomp and

14 ceremony. They were greeted with flowers and flags. I don't mind this,

15 that was quite all right. But this was a sort of a foretaste that things

16 would not end well. Unfortunately, when the forces arrived, what happened

17 was that people continued to leave and the terror against the Serbs and

18 Montenegrins continued in the presence of those forces, and there is a lot

19 of evidence to bear that out and I shall be going into that later.

20 Q. Well, what did you want to tell us in connection with that? But

21 just briefly, please. Go ahead but briefly.

22 A. Well, at the moment the KFOR forces entered -- and I don't

23 remember the exact date, I think that it was around about the 10th, but I

24 don't remember exactly. Anyway, when the forces arrived, the Serbs and

25 Montenegrins continued to leave the Prizren area of Suva Reka because our

1 forces had to withdraw from that area and the KFOR forces took over. But

2 the exodus of the Serbs and Montenegrins continued and can -- I can tell

3 you something more about their leaving, that exodus, if you wish.

4 JUDGE ROBINSON: You say when the KFOR forces arrived, "the Serbs

5 and Montenegrins continued to leave the Prizren area because our forces

6 had to withdraw and the KFOR forces took over." But I don't quite

7 understand why the Serbs had to leave because the KFOR forces took over

8 and your forces left the area. Could you explain that?

9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, I can. Mr. Robinson, our

10 forces left on the 26th of June. The police and army returned to their

11 garrisons. No. After the signing of the agreement, but they left at the

12 end of June, because the KFOR forces did not protect them from terrorism,

13 the torching of houses, and the exodus of Serbs and Montenegrins. It was

14 continued. This process continued. So that is the difference between the

15 period when our forces left and the forces of KFOR came on the spot, so

16 that the Serbs and the Montenegrins did not have any protection. They did

17 not enjoy any protection. And according to my information and what was

18 heard at the time, the KFOR forces were predestined to protect the

19 Albanians, whereas we expected them to offer protection to the Serbs,

20 Montenegrins and Albanians. The Serbs were not protected, and the process

21 of their exodus and the torching of looting continued.

22 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

23 Q. Tell me this now, Mr. Balevic: The Albanian terrorists, the KLA,

24 continued their rampage before the eyes of KFOR.

25 A. Yes, with unabated violence. Even more so in fact than was the

1 case previously.

2 MR. NICE: [Previous translation continues] ... in the form of a

3 question. It's a comment at the least.

4 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic. You made something in the

5 manner of a comment. Continue.

6 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

7 Q. [No interpretation]

8 A. [No interpretation]

9 JUDGE ROBINSON: We're missing the translation now.

10 THE INTERPRETER: Can you hear the English booth now?

11 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, I'm now hearing the English.

12 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

13 Q. Where do you live now, Mr. Balevic?

14 A. I now live in Krusevac. I'm a displaced person. I'm a refugee

15 from Kosovo, because there were 12 other Balevic families, over 60 members

16 of the family left Kosovo, and we live in Krusevac.

17 Q. Where do your family members live?

18 A. They're all over the place from the south of Serbia to Banat,

19 Belgrade and Nis.

20 Q. What did you leave behind in Kosovo and Metohija? When I say

21 "you," I'm not referring only to you personally but members of your

22 family.

23 A. Everything. The members of my family left their apartments. I

24 sold my apartment for peanuts because I simply could not live there. And,

25 for example, in my daughter's apartment there is an Albanian living there

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1 who won't leave it. Everything was razed to the ground in other places,

2 especially Milorad and Obrad. Then the graves of my parents are there, of

3 my uncles, my brothers. My youth remained there. Everything I created,

4 everything I did, it's all there where I lived before.

5 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, let him tell us, when did he

6 leave? When precisely did he leave Kosovo?

7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] On the 26th of June, 1999. Before

8 that, I left Pristina on the 19th. I fled to Kosovo Polje to stay with my

9 daughter, because the Siptar whose shop I kept, Fadil Islami, he gave me

10 his besa. That's what the Albanians call their word of honour. He asked

11 through my son to give him the key to my apartment. I took his word.

12 However, unfortunately, he destroyed everything and he took everything

13 away, including family photographs, in order to prove how loyal he was to

14 terrorism rather than to good neighbourly relations.

15 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

16 Q. All right. These decades of your life there and your social

17 activity in Kosovo, but over all that time what were your relations like

18 with other Albanians? With your neighbours, people you worked with, with

19 whom you communicated in everyday life, what kind of relations did you

20 have with them?

21 A. It is my assertion that you will not find an Albanian who will say

22 anything negative about my behaviour except for those who are malicious,

23 that I was always in favour of good neighbourly relations between them and

24 my family and my relatives and our community in general. That is what I

25 can say for my part. There were very good relations from the other side

1 too. I have to say that. However, later on, when terrorism came to the

2 fore and these claims for having Kosovo turned into a republic, then all

3 these relations were disrupted and became untenable.

4 Q. You had friends among the Albanians; yes or no.

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. You had friends among the Albanians.

7 A. I had many friends among the Albanians. They condemned this,

8 although not publicly. Some actually spoke out in public, too. Perhaps I

9 could mention their names but I think there is no need for me to mention

10 that here for the sake of their safety. They condemned this kind of

11 behaviour, but they had to obey the orders issued by their leaders.

12 Q. All right. Since you had Albanian friends, how are your friends

13 doing? Do you know how they reacted to the fact that you had to move out

14 of Kosovo?

15 A. They said, Mitar, you're good neighbour, you're a good friend,

16 you're a good man, but you're a Serb and you have to leave Kosovo and

17 Metohija. Quite a few things were ascribed to me because I chaired the

18 meeting of citizens in Kosovo Polje but primarily because I'm a Serb or,

19 rather, Montenegrin. That's it.

20 Q. All right. When you left on the 26th of June, 1999, was that the

21 first time that you had to leave Kosovo and Metohija?

22 A. Mr. President, can I just say something? When KFOR came -- can I

23 just say this very briefly? Serbs and Montenegrins moved out in six

24 different directions. These were streams of persons who were moving

25 towards -- from Pec to Montenegro, from Klina to Mitrovica, from Kosovska

1 Pomerje [phoen] to Bujanovac, from Prizren to Mitrovica, from Kosovo Polje

2 to Merdari and Nis. These were long columns, I have to point that out,

3 and this is after the arrival of KFOR. Could you please repeat the

4 question that you really wanted me to answer. I'm sorry.

5 Q. You said you moved out on the 26th of June, 1999. Was that the

6 first time you had to move out of Kosovo and Metohija?

7 A. Unfortunately, this is the second time I had to do that. In '41 I

8 lived in Budoslav [phoen], the municipality of Klina nowadays when

9 everything was burned down, destroyed. With my family I had to move to

10 Pec, but I got to Albania and I was also arrested and I was sent to prison

11 by some kind of Skender division.

12 Q. How old were you then?

13 A. I was 13 at the time.

14 Q. Can you make any comparisons between those who expelled you in

15 1941 and those who expelled you in 1999 in terms of the resources they

16 had, the way they behaved?

17 A. When the first onslaught came in 1941, when the Italian, German

18 and other occupation forces came to the territory of Kosovo and Metohija

19 then, so during this first onslaught there were torchings, killings,

20 lootings, expulsions, rapes too, but sporadically. However, in terms of

21 the method used and the brutality involved, it differs from the terror

22 against the Serbs and Montenegrins in the period that came after that. It

23 was more massive, it was more cruel, it was more -- it was worse.

24 Q. Are you going to go back to Kosovo, Mr. Balevic?

25 A. I'm going to go back. Not only I but all members of my family and

1 all Serbs and Montenegrins when a proper government is established there.

2 The rule of the Republic of Serbia, when peace is ensured, equality for

3 all citizens who live there, because Resolution 1244, unfortunately did

4 not manage to secure that. And I think that this Resolution should be

5 written in black letters for Serbs and Montenegrins.

6 So it's not only I who is going to return. All Serbs and

7 Montenegrins are going to return once there is an authority that can

8 ensure peace and order.

9 Q. Thank you, Mr. Balevic.

10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I have no further questions,

11 Mr. Robinson.

12 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Milosevic.

13 Mr. Nice.

14 Cross-examined by Mr. Nice:

15 Q. Mr. Balevic, putting it very shortly and subject to your last

16 observations about people who you knew on a personal basis, your testimony

17 over a couple of days has been highly critical of Kosovo Albanians. Would

18 that be fair?

19 A. No, that would not be fair. You are saying that, and I do not

20 accept that. I was critical towards terrorists who were ethnic Albanians,

21 not towards ethnic Albanians as such, the Albanian nationality. I never

22 linked it to that because Serbs can live with ethnic Albanians, can go on

23 living with ethnic Albanians. So your statement is incorrect.

24 Q. Very well. You have so far, I think, said nothing or almost

25 nothing critical of the behaviour of Serbs individually or collectively.

1 Is that a fair representation of what you've told the Judges?

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. Do you accept that in the area where you were living Serbs

4 committed any wrongs? "Smetkopje" [phoen], to use the word "crimes," but

5 do you accept that the Serbs committed any wrongs against the Kosovo

6 Albanians, or are the Serbs blameless?

7 A. Yes. There were Serbs, but unfortunately they are not Serbs.

8 These were Serb bullies, Serb bandits, Serb criminals, Serb drunkards who

9 committed misdeeds that do not belong to the Serb people. There were

10 torchings of Albanian houses. Albanian shops were looted. For example,

11 one street in Pristina, which is called Peyton Place, that is what people

12 call it, quite a few Albanian shops were torched there but also some Serb

13 shops. In Gagani [phoen], my neighbourhood, also some shops were looted.

14 I tried to defend, during the day, one shop, but I almost lost my life in

15 doing so. So it did happen. We condemned that. We the Serb people

16 condemned that, and there were arrests by the MUP authorities. There will

17 be testimonies to that effect from the MUP authorities.

18 Q. Do you accept that there were killings of Albanians by Serbs?

19 A. No. I'm not aware of any such cases.

20 Q. And --

21 JUDGE BONOMY: I wonder if I can ask a question. When you say,

22 Mr. Balevic, that there will be testimonies to that effect, that's about

23 arrests from the MUP authorities, what do you mean by that?

24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, probably there will be

25 witnesses here who will confirm how many proceedings were instituted

1 against those who were involved in destruction, in the looting of Albanian

2 shops and torching of Albanian shops. There will probably be witnesses

3 and also there will be statistics to show how many people were detained at

4 the SUP and how many charges were brought against people. I can refer to

5 the name of the head of the MUP at that time --

6 JUDGE BONOMY: So you obviously have knowledge about the

7 preparation of the case and the evidence that is to come later in the

8 case; is that right?

9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No, no, no. It's just my assumption

10 that I'm not the last witness who is going to testify about Kosovo and

11 Metohija in the Defence of President Milosevic. There will be witnesses

12 who will confirm that.

13 JUDGE BONOMY: No. I mention the point because I see that you

14 spend a great deal of time reading from papers in front of you, and I

15 wonder if you had some document that you constantly were reading to us.

16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] These are documents that you

17 admitted into evidence. I don't know if they were translated. In these

18 documents, everything that I said is written down. I spoke mainly about

19 Pristina. And as far as I know, this was -- this document was admitted

20 here and part of it was translated too. I know that for a fact.

21 Now, whether you are going to value my testimony properly or not

22 depends on your own willingness.

23 JUDGE BONOMY: Am I mistaken in thinking you have some handwritten

24 notes in front of you which you refer to a great deal? No, not that

25 document. Other papers that you have actually lying in front of you at

1 the moment.

2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] These are notes from this document,

3 from this Sleepless Night that you have reserved. Then also the Crazy

4 Country of Serbia, a document that you also received. I just made notes

5 so I could answer your questions and the questions of the accused faster

6 and more efficiently.

7 MR. NICE:

8 Q. I think what His Honour wanted to know is whether the documents

9 lying under your left hand right now are documents from which you were

10 reading when giving evidence. Yes or no.

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. No, under your -- yes. When were those notes prepared?

13 A. After the questions that were put here from the very beginning and

14 when I heard that these documents were admitted into evidence by this

15 Court.

16 Q. Do the notes that you've got in front of you reflect in any way

17 the very general evidence you were giving today about the suffering of

18 Kosovo Albanians?

19 A. No. I talked about the suffering of the Serbs and Montenegrins,

20 not the Kosovo Albanians. You've made a mistake in that respect.

21 Q. My error entirely. Thank you for correcting me. Did you have the

22 opportunity of reading from those notes when you were talking in very

23 general terms about the suffering of the Serbs and Montenegrins?

24 A. No. I knew that by heart. I didn't need any notes. I just

25 needed to register the dates involved, because dates involve numbers. I

1 know everything by heart. I remember things very well, but dates are not

2 easy to remember. It's probably not easy for you to remember such things

3 either.

4 MR. NICE: Your Honour, I'm sorry I not to have alerted the Court

5 to the reading of documents today. I had been alive to the issue on the

6 last occasion but I didn't have a sight line this morning as to what he

7 was doing.

8 JUDGE ROBINSON: Do I understand that the notes were prepared

9 after the break, after you last gave evidence, Mr. Balevic? Notes from

10 which you --

11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. Yes. Please, I have to give

12 you an answer. Mr. Nice has been putting some questions in a rather

13 provocative manner. I have your own instructions here as to how testimony

14 should be given, and on page 8, item 1, item 1, subparagraph (B), it says

15 -- please allow me to read this. "A witness is physically present in the

16 courtroom and shall tell the Judges what he or she heard or saw or what he

17 or she knows about the events that he or she is being questioned about."

18 I have honoured this, and on the basis of this I have the right to

19 testify about what I saw, what I heard, and what I know, and I have the

20 right to do so unless you refute these instructions.

21 JUDGE ROBINSON: If you are reading from notes, the Court should

22 be apprised of that. Mr. Milosevic knows this. We will have to determine

23 what weight to attach to the evidence in the light of that.

24 JUDGE BONOMY: The reason I've raised this, Mr. Balevic, is that

25 the first day that you gave evidence, which was the 25th of January, I

1 noted that you never look up when a question is asked and you're

2 answering, and I noted it again today. You never look at anybody. You've

3 begun to do it now, now that questions are being asked that perhaps you

4 weren't quite aware would be asked, and it's much easier, I think, for a

5 Judge to assess a witness if he can have some sort of eye contact with him

6 or some reaction from him in the course of evidence, and unfortunately,

7 much of your evidence was a sort of monotonous apparent recitation of what

8 appeared to be documents in front of you. So it's only right that you

9 should have an opportunity to comment on this because it may at a later

10 stage affect my assessment of your evidence.

11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Please, sir, Mr. Bonomy, what is

12 your question, what is your comment, and what is a statement that you're

13 making? Could you please distinguish between all of these things for me.

14 If you're talking about my demeanour, about my behaviour, about where I'm

15 looking at, I don't know what to say. Do you prefer witnesses who look

16 you straight in the eye or those who don't?

17 JUDGE BONOMY: I'm now alert to the fact that you are responding

18 to the person who is asking you the questions. You've done it with

19 Mr. Nice. You've done it with me. But during the course of your

20 evidence, both on the 25th and today, I particularly noted that you spent

21 your time looking down at the desk in front of you from which I was able

22 to see today that meant that you were reading, and I wonder if in fact you

23 were also reading on the 25th.

24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.

25 JUDGE BONOMY: Well --

1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, I was. It's just a reminder

2 for me. It's not that I was reading. I repeat: What I read as a

3 reminder is in the documents that you have admitted. You can check that.

4 JUDGE BONOMY: It's important for me to know that that's what you

5 were doing so that later I can factor that into my assessment of your

6 evidence and bear in mind that the reason that you were looking down is

7 that you were reading which may mean it's entirely innocent or it may mean

8 something else. I have to assess that later in the context of all the

9 evidence and I just wish to give you the opportunity to explain the extent

10 to which you were relying on notes that you had made before you gave

11 evidence in court.

12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. Thank you for having said

13 that, but I looked down even when I was not reading. I don't always have

14 to look up, do I?

15 MR. NICE:

16 Q. And just one point arising from the questions you've recently been

17 asked, Mr. Balevic. At one point when you were dealing with Serbs the

18 accused corrected your answer by saying, "Did you mean to say four Serb

19 families?" and you accepted his correction. Were you and he speaking in

20 any sense from a prepared script of your evidence? Just yes or no.

21 A. No. No.

22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson.

23 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, I intervened because

25 sometimes in our country people say "three Serbs, four Albanians" but

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1 they're actually referring to families, and that is not readily

2 understandable from your point of view, and that is why I asked him to

3 explain this, three Serb families and four Albanian families. You will

4 assume that in an apartment building there aren't three Serbs and four

5 Albanians living there. It's families, really, so it's not the right kind

6 of communication. I simply wanted to clarify that to make it clear,

7 nothing more than that.

8 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Nice. I think we can move on now.

9 JUDGE BONOMY: Before you do, just let me make it clear. There is

10 nothing in principle wrong with reading from a prepared script as well,

11 knowing the context of this particular trial. The real issue for me is

12 that I would like to know the extent to which that's actually happening.

13 And I think there's been a degree of reading in this instance that we

14 weren't alerted to.

15 And it would be helpful, Mr. Milosevic, if notes are being used by

16 the witness, that we are actually alerted to that in the course of his

17 evidence.

18 MR. NICE:

19 Q. Let me look at another document while we're on this general

20 topic --

21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Bonomy, I did not have the

22 impression that Mr. Balevic was giving answers by reading. I think that

23 even if he does have a little piece of paper in front of him, that is all

24 too modest to cover the entirety of his statement. From what he said just

25 now, it was my understanding that he wrote down some dates because he's

1 75, after all, and he cannot remember each and every date off-the-cuff.

2 He wrote down some dates, but he testified about matters that he knows

3 about, not -- he wasn't involved in reading.

4 MR. NICE: If the witness can have a look at the Serbian version

5 of this. And if the usher, Mr. Prendergast, would be good enough to place

6 the English version on the overhead projector. We needn't spend very long

7 with it.

8 Q. This is a document, is it not, page 1, Mr. Balevic, About Us.

9 It's about an organisation called Freedom, or Sloboda. Yes?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. And if we turn on the English version to the third page, you'll

12 see that the National Committee for the Liberation of President Slobodan

13 Milosevic has managing board members. Are you a member of the managing

14 board? You're marked as number 5, but that's alphabetical. Mitar

15 Balevic, pensioner from Kosovo Polje.

16 A. I'm sorry, what's the page that you're reading from?

17 Q. In your version it will be --

18 JUDGE KWON: The second page.

19 MR. NICE: The second page, is it?

20 Q. Yes, the second page where we see your name listed.

21 JUDGE KWON: Number 6.

22 MR. NICE: Your Honour has detected an error in the translation, I

23 think.

24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] This is the first time I see that I

25 am a member of the managing board.

1 MR. NICE:

2 Q. It doesn't say that. Doesn't say that. It simply says that those

3 marked in red were members of the managing board. We only have it in

4 black and white, and I'm asking, were you a member of the managing board?

5 A. Not that I know of.

6 Q. That's fine. If we go to the second page in the English version,

7 and it will be part way down the first page in your version, we find

8 amongst entries these two. A little bit lower down, please.

9 "Freedom/Sloboda because of his brave and dignified attitude and by not

10 recognising the aggressor Tribunal, Slobodan Milosevic once again stood up

11 in defence of our national and state interests, in defence of freedom of

12 each of us, in defence of all peoples."

13 And then it goes on to say that: "The society will gather all

14 freedom loving people and patriots and organise, encourage and support all

15 actions for the liberation of President Slobodan Milosevic and for

16 termination of The Hague inquisition ..."

17 Are those two expressions or views that you adopt?

18 A. When I said that I was not a member of the managing board, I did

19 not say that I was not a member of this association, because this

20 association Sloboda, Freedom, is one thing, but I'm also a member of the

21 Socialist Party of Serbia, and its president is Slobodan Milosevic. What

22 is written in this programme is something that I as a member of this

23 association support because I was present when it was being adopted.

24 Q. In assessing your evidence, are you facing a Court that you regard

25 as an aggressor Tribunal? I need to know. We need to know.

1 A. No, I didn't say that. I never read this programme, and I never

2 saw where this was written, that this was an aggressor Court. I have my

3 own opinion of you, and I keep it to myself.

4 Q. You see, I can't help --

5 A. And I know that it was established for the former Yugoslavia. I

6 know that, and I'm also aware of these instructions of yours.

7 Q. You know, don't you, Mr. Balevic, that the proper form of address

8 of a Judge sitting in Court is "Your Honour," and I can't help but notice

9 - everybody will have noticed - that you have been allowed to follow the

10 accused's habit of addressing the Judges incorrectly by their surnames

11 while you address the accused as "Mr. President." Just help us, are you

12 prepared to continue with your evidence using the correct form of address

13 for the Judges of this Court or not?

14 A. I am prepared to use the same words that I used until now, and

15 these are the same forms of address that were used by many statesmen who

16 came here to testify before I did. They said "sir" rather than "Your

17 Honour."

18 Q. Very well. I'm sure it's a matter for you to choose.

19 Let's go back to this morning's evidence, and we'll have a look at

20 another exhibit before we go back and start with things chronologically.

21 Can we have a look, please, at Exhibit 106, which is the "As Seen, As

22 Told" book prepared by OSCE.

23 And if Mr. Prendergast could put it on the overhead projector at

24 page 235, and anybody who has it may also want to have their finger in, I

25 think, page 350, which is where the foot or end notes can be found.

1 Mr. Balevic, this is an exhibit in the case, and it contains a

2 summary of findings by the OSCE in respect of Kosovo Polje. I'm going to

3 read just a few passages from it, and I want your comment on whether the

4 report is accurate. Do you follow?

5 A. Well, I'd have to read this first, all of this that is written

6 here. There is a lot to be read here, and I'd have to read it in order to

7 be able to give you an answer. Perhaps you could read it out for me,

8 because you have better facilities for organising that so that I can hear

9 it in Serbian. Please go ahead.

10 Q. Left-hand column, towards the bottom of the page, please. We see

11 here a summary, picking it up at the -- towards the conclusion of the

12 first paragraph: "In the second half of June 1998, the UCK occupied the

13 coal mine in Veliki Bulatovac [phoen] and the village of Arde [phoen] or

14 Harde [phoen] Obilic." Is that correct? Just yes or no.

15 A. As far as I know, yes.

16 Q. "On the 22nd of June, nine Serb employees of the coal mine were

17 abducted on their way to work." Correct or incorrect?

18 A. Correct.

19 Q. "VJ and police attacked the UCK shortly afterwards. At that point

20 almost all the inhabitants of nearby villages fled, either westward to the

21 Drenica region or east to Prizren." Correct?

22 A. I am not aware of that.

23 Q. "Villagers also stated that in 1998, around 700 Kosovo Albanians

24 had lost their jobs in the coal mine and were replaced by Serb workers."

25 Correct?

1 A. I'm not aware of that, and I assume that it's not correct. They

2 left their jobs of their own free will in order to change the ethnic

3 pattern of the population and of the work-force.

4 Q. So you accept, do you, that there was a change of employees, but

5 you say there must have been an ethnic redistribution purpose behind it.

6 Is that what you're saying?

7 A. No, no, no. That's what you're saying. The Albanians left their

8 jobs in order to draw the attention of the international public to what

9 they viewed as an injustice towards them, and they wanted to say that the

10 situation was unfavourable for the Albanians because there were more Serbs

11 employed than Albanians. Now, that is what I said. I disagree with what

12 you said.

13 Q. Very well. So -- and was it your recollection at the time that

14 people were giving up paid employment in their hundreds for this

15 particular purpose? Is that really what you're saying?

16 A. They were leaving or giving up, I repeat, in order to draw the

17 attention of the broader public to this injustice, and they had to leave

18 their jobs because they were ordered by those who gave them orders at the

19 time to do so, by those who pursued their policies then. Nobody made them

20 leave their job on the part of the state authorities. There's not a

21 single document that would corroborate that.

22 JUDGE ROBINSON: You're saying the whole thing was staged.

23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Absolutely. Absolutely correct.

24 JUDGE BONOMY: You suggest it was staged by whom?

25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] You'd have to ask the Albanian

1 leadership that, those who were in charge of the Albanian organisations

2 there at the time.

3 JUDGE BONOMY: So you're talking about a form of peaceful protest.

4 Not terrorist motivated but peaceful protest.

5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Leaving the workplace was done

6 arbitrarily by the Albanians. I have been repeating that for -- I've been

7 repeating that several times now. Please accept my answer. They were

8 doing this on purpose in order to draw the attention of the international

9 public to this injustice brought against them and they wanted the Serbian

10 state to suffer the consequences of that. To be quite clear: It was not

11 official policy to have Albanians leave their jobs.

12 MR. NICE: Your Honour's light's on.

13 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

14 MR. NICE:

15 Q. Mr. Balevic, you see, you ask us to accept your answers, but you

16 must understand that the purpose of giving evidence is to have your

17 evidence tested, and let me just remind you of what you said in the last

18 few answers.

19 His Honour Judge Robinson asked you if the whole thing was staged,

20 and you said absolutely, absolutely correct. The next question, which

21 logically follows, from His Honour Judge Bonomy was, by whom? And then

22 you're unable to answer. So help us, please. What is your source of

23 information whereby you were able to say to His Honour Judge Robinson that

24 it was absolutely correct to say that it was staged? Where's your

25 evidence?

1 A. The evidence is that the Albanians had no reason to leave their

2 jobs, because no pressure was brought to bear against them.

3 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... look at a few more passages

4 of this summary.

5 MR. NICE: Your Honours, I was wrong when I gave the page for the

6 footnotes. The footnotes can be found, if anybody has it, on page 238.

7 I'm sorry I not to have alerted the Court to bringing the document in in

8 advance but we can keep our finger in both places.

9 Back, Mr. Prendergast, please, to 235.

10 Q. It says this: "Police and VJ maintained intensive controls at

11 checkpoints. At Grabovac, there was repeated looting of Kosovo Albanian

12 property, continuing through to the end of 1998, and the police reportedly

13 failed to investigate complaints of such crimes. One villager was

14 reportedly killed in October 1998 when he attempted to return to

15 Grabovac." And this is something provided by the Pristina Outreach

16 offices report.

17 Now, I go back. Looting of Albanian property towards the end of

18 1998. True or false, or don't you know?

19 A. I don't know about that.

20 Q. One villager reportedly killed in 1998 trying to return to

21 Grabovac. True or false or don't you know?

22 A. I don't know about that either.

23 Q. You see, because I'm going to suggest to you that this is an

24 entirely balanced report, you'll be interested to hear the next sentence,

25 which says this: "The UCK remained present in the mountains on the

1 western edge of the municipality, although according to the villagers the

2 local population did not support them."

3 Well, is that true? Was the UCK there on the edge of the

4 municipality, not receiving support from local villagers?

5 A. I don't know on the basis of what you are making these assertions.

6 I don't know about this, because I was not such a high-ranking authority

7 to be touring the mountains and other places where the KLA were. I didn't

8 dare go to places like that, so I don't know about this. But of course

9 you can assert this. That's for you to say.

10 Q. Mr. Balevic, let me just remind you, in answer to the accused, you

11 gave the most wide-ranging account of crimes committed against Serbs and

12 Montenegrins, and do you remember I stood up at one time and said I don't

13 know what the sources are, I don't know that it's relevant, but I'm not

14 going to interrupt. So you were allowed to give this wide-ranging account

15 of Serb suffering.

16 Now, I've asked you for your knowledge or ignorance of things that

17 happened in your own town and in your own municipality, a municipality,

18 incidentally, that you were instrumental in setting up, as we may

19 discover. No knowledge of the events to which I have referred at all, or

20 is your memory selective, Mr. Balevic?

21 A. Whether my memory is selective or not is a provocative question, I

22 think, Mr. Nice. I'm 76 years old. I think that you should behave

23 properly towards me, and I ask the Presiding Judge Mr. Robinson to protect

24 me.

25 I think that what is being said is exaggerated in terms of

1 Albanian suffering, and I do not know about the suffering that you have

2 been telling me about.

3 JUDGE ROBINSON: Let me assure you that you will be protected if

4 it is necessary.

5 MR. NICE: Thank you, Your Honour.

6 If the usher could turn to the --

7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I'm sorry, Mr. Robinson, but I

8 believe that it is totally wrong to speak about my selective memory at the

9 age of 76. I find that highly offensive, and I'm a witness here.

10 JUDGE ROBINSON: There's nothing improper in the question.

11 MR. NICE:

12 Q. Top right-hand column, please, if we may. This same analysis of

13 material says -- deals with the demographic composition of Kosovo Polje as

14 one of the only sizable towns in Kosovo where Albanians were in a

15 minority, deals with the location of the railway line with which you are

16 of course familiar, and then says this: "Near this railway line, many

17 internally displaced persons from Pristina witnessed abductions,

18 executions and the burning of bodies from March to May of 1999."

19 So before you left the area. And if we go, please, to footnote 5

20 on page 238, we'll see that the person who wrote this, or the people who

21 wrote this, Mr. Balevic, relied on 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

22 witnesses.

23 Now, you've been given an opportunity to identify your sources.

24 Here is a document that is sourced, and it says that near the railway

25 line, executions and the burning of bodies were witnessed from March to

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1 May of 1999. True or false or do you say you don't know?

2 A. I don't know about that. What I see here is written in English,

3 so I don't know what is written here at all. If you want me to read

4 something, give it to me in Serbian. Or maybe I'm wrong, maybe I should

5 learn English. So I don't know about what you've read out to me just now,

6 because had I known about it, I would have told you.

7 JUDGE ROBINSON: Didn't you hear it in Serbian? Wasn't it

8 translated?

9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, I heard it, and I said that I

10 don't know about this. But I'm talking about actual reading. But, no, I

11 don't know about this.

12 MR. NICE:

13 Q. So it might have happened, as reported here, that there were

14 abductions, executions, and the burning of bodies between the start of the

15 bombing by NATO and May, which was before the time when you left the area.

16 It may have been those things happened; correct?

17 A. Yes, but until the 19th of June, I lived in Pristina, not in

18 Kosovo Polje. You got that wrong.

19 Q. Not very far away. And are you suggesting that you were in some

20 way hermetically sealed from information coming from fellow Serbs or from

21 Albanians?

22 A. No. I didn't have the opportunity of following what was going on

23 in the territory around the railway because I lived in Pristina from 1980

24 until the 19th of June, 1999. So I could not follow what was going on

25 there. Also, movement was very dangerous for us at the time, for Serbs

1 and Montenegrins, that is.

2 Q. May I ask one last question?

3 JUDGE ROBINSON: One more question before the break.

4 MR. NICE:

5 Q. And again, you see, Mr. Balevic, it's just to suggest to you that

6 the summary I'm reading to you has the characteristics of being fair.

7 In the next paragraph deals with the presence of the OSCE/KVM and

8 then says this: "The most prominent incident was the killing of the Serb

9 deputy mayor of Kosovo Polje on the 17th of December, 1998. He was

10 reputed to have been a 'moderate' Serb who did much to improve the

11 conditions of Kosovo Albanians."

12 It then goes on to say, "From January to March 1999, several

13 killings and abductions in the area were reported to KVM, the victims

14 coming from both the Serb and Kosovo Albanian communities" And that is,

15 as we can see, sourced in various documents and individuals. Does the

16 report there seem to have got it right about the deputy mayor and the

17 suffering by death of Serbs and Kosovo Albanians?

18 A. I attended the funeral of that vice-president of the municipality,

19 and I gave a statement how he was killed. As for the rest that you have

20 been asserting from this indictment of yours, I don't know about that.

21 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Balevic, we are going to take a break now for

22 20 minutes. We are adjourned.

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

24 --- On resuming at 10.56 a.m.

25 JUDGE ROBINSON: Please continue, Mr. Nice.

1 MR. NICE:

2 Q. Mr. Balevic, you've -- as you've explained, been around for a long

3 time, you've been involved in politics. We're going to discover that

4 you've been described by Mr. Dizdarevic as at one time seeming to be a

5 moderate.

6 In your evidence, you used the word "Siptar." You know perfectly

7 well how that word is regarded by Albanians. Indeed, it was a word that

8 was banned from official use in 1968. Why did you use it?

9 A. Mr. Nice, this is the first time that I'm hearing that Dizdarevic

10 seen -- referred to me as being moderate, and I thank him for that if he

11 can hear me.

12 Now secondly, the word "Siptar," I used it just by the by. I had

13 no ill intent. And up until 1968, they were called the Siptars by the

14 Serbs and Montenegrins, but after that the Serbian dictionary was

15 corrected on that point and no longer recognised the Siptars but referred

16 to them as the Albanians. So that was a slip of the tongue on my part.

17 Q. But a slip of the tongue going back 37 years to a previous

18 politically acceptable vocabulary. Does this reflect the way you

19 ordinarily describe Albanians, Mr. Balevic, that it should slip out in a

20 court of law?

21 A. Up until then when this was proscribed, that is to say when the

22 new -- they began to be referred to as Albanians, everybody in Kosovo, in

23 the state leadership and in the Serbian leadership, always used the term,

24 or mostly used the term "Siptar," "Siptar." So that did not mean any

25 special form of derogatory term or any insult like that, but once it was

1 changed we accepted that. So there were no political background to that.

2 We referred to them as Siptars, but without deriding them by doing so.

3 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Balevic, is it your understanding that today an

4 Albanian would be offended by being referred to as a Siptar?

5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Probably.

6 MR. NICE:

7 Q. Thank you. Mr. Balevic, I'm going to go back in time, but in

8 going back in time I pass over, as it were, your career on the railway.

9 Just one question about that. Was there a type of train in use and

10 purchased by your railway called a Kennedy train?

11 A. No.

12 Q. Was there an inquiry of --

13 A. Let me add something to that. If you mean a locomotive which --

14 or locomotives which were procured from Canada, diesel locomotives, then

15 they were referred to as Kennedies because that's where they came from,

16 but not a train. Not a train on the territory of Kosovo and Metohija was

17 called a Kennedy train.

18 Q. There was an inquiry, was there, into the acquisition of those

19 engines?

20 A. Not in Kosovo and Metohija but at the top of the Yugoslav

21 railways, yes.

22 Q. Yes. Were you one of the people into whom that inquiry was

23 launched?

24 A. No.

25 Q. Were you named in the inquiry at any stage?

1 A. No.

2 Q. Are you sure about that?

3 A. Sure.

4 Q. I may return to that at a later stage.

5 A. You return to it.

6 Q. As to matters of history, Mr. Balevic, you'll understand that the

7 Prosecution nor, I suspect, the Court, has no need to or interest in any

8 final resolution of historical issues, but this much you can confirm for

9 us: The view of comparatively recent history since the Second World War

10 that you have given is a Serb view, and you will know that there is a

11 contrary view held by Kosovo Albanians; correct?

12 A. And what is your question here?

13 Q. First that there is contrary body of opinion to the Serb view

14 expressed by you. Am I not correct?

15 A. What their contrary view is is a question you're going to have to

16 ask them and so forth. Now, what views they had, and opinions of the

17 Serbs they had, they confirmed that since 1941 onwards. Part of the

18 Albanian people, that is.

19 But I'd like to say something else here at this point. In your

20 indictment, the so-called Kosovo indictment, you wrote paragraph 73 or 75

21 that Yugoslavia was formed after World War II. Yugoslavia was established

22 after the First World War.

23 Q. I'm sure it's helpful for us to know the degree of your detailed

24 knowledge --

25 A. Yes.

1 Q. -- of the indictment, but we'll do better if we move along by

2 question and answer. And I want to establish that --

3 A. Yes, and --

4 Q. I want to establish that there's a contrary --

5 A. I'm going to give you an answer to that. There is a contrary

6 opinion, but they had no reason -- the Albanians had no reason to have

7 contrary opinions to those that the Serbs held because they enjoyed all

8 rights. And in the state leadership from 1945 to the downfall of

9 Yugoslavia, the Albanian leadership was represented there in the

10 Presidency, in the first and second Presidency, in the Central Committee

11 of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, and they enjoyed all rights.

12 Therefore, they had no reason for any contrary opinions.

13 Q. I'm going to give you -- I'll explain exactly why in the next

14 question but one, but I'm going to give you this chance: Men like Ibrahim

15 Rugova or Mr. Mrovci or Veton Surroi, they are not men whom you would wish

16 to characterise as men of violence, are they? They're men of peace.

17 A. No. Had they supported peace, they could have prevented the kind

18 of terror that we saw in Kosovo and Metohija. And Ibrahim Rugova, in one

19 of his statements when the KLA was first formed, he said that it was a

20 minor organisation, that he didn't know about it, but Adem Demaci refuted

21 that. So had Rugova wanted to, and his followers in the leadership, we

22 wouldn't have seen the kind of terror enacted in Kosovo and Metohija

23 towards Serbs and Montenegrins that we did.

24 Q. Very well. That's your view. Now, in the same way that we looked

25 at --

1 A. That is my observation and my answer to your question.

2 Q. In the same way as we looked at a document to see whether it

3 provided a fair and balanced view of matters within your knowledge, and in

4 light of some of your evidence, I want you to help us with a view passages

5 from a report that's been prepared for the Court by an expert called

6 Audrey Budding. And first of all, we'll be going to -- in order to make

7 it shorter, we'll go straight to page 11 in the English, and I want to see

8 if Audrey Budding's summary of matters is one that you can accept as being

9 accurate.

10 And this will be at page 9, I think of the B/C/S version. Because

11 you've said various things about population movements, and Audrey Budding,

12 on page 11 in the English, and it will be, I think, just towards the end

13 of page 8 in the B/C/S, says this: "Kosovo saw its total population

14 increase between a census --"

15 JUDGE ROBINSON: Let us get it on the ELMO.

16 MR. NICE: I'm sorry, yes, of course. On the ELMO, please. Page

17 11, and --

18 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, we have it.

19 MR. NICE: I'm sorry if Your Honours hadn't been alerted to bring

20 it in. My error if so. That is, if you prefer to work with hard copy

21 documents.

22 Q. Yes. "Kosovo saw its population increase between a census

23 performed in 1939, 645.000-odd inhabitants and the first post-war census

24 in 1948, 727.000-odd. The total increase in Kosovo's population actually

25 reflected two separate trends: An absolute decrease in the Orthodox

1 population and an absolute increase in the number of Albanians. The

2 dimensions of each trend are subject to some interpretation because the

3 two censuses are not strictly comparable. Allowing for varying

4 assumptions about the rate of natural population growth in this period,

5 French social geographer Michel Roux believes that the approximate upper

6 limit for the number of Serb and Montenegrin expellees is 36.000, a figure

7 relatively close to the April 1944 calculation of a senior German official

8 in Belgrade that 40.000 Serbs and Montenegrins had been expelled since

9 1941. Roux calculates that even on the assumption of zero natural

10 population growth among the Kosovo Albanian population in this period, the

11 demographically possible upper limit of Albanian immigration would be

12 around 104.000. Claims that 200.000 or more Albanians immigrated, Roux

13 argues, are incompatible not only with Yugoslav population figures, but

14 with Albania's own demographic development."

15 So in a reasoned passage, drawing on available expertise, draws to

16 our attention that the maximum figure of 104.000 is sustainable. Do you

17 accept that analysis? Because you've given figures about population

18 movements.

19 A. Firstly, Mr. Nice, you have mentioned so many figures that even if

20 I were a computer, I wouldn't have been able to take it all in and give

21 you an answer. Secondly, I didn't analyse the material presented by the

22 lady you mentioned. That is an historian's task. And I didn't say

23 anything with regard to population movement. I just presented the facts.

24 So I cannot comment on what the lady says, but I claim that from Kosovo

25 and Metohija, over 200.000 Serbs left, and there is official data that you

1 can find if you're interested in that. Otherwise, I'm not able to comment

2 further because I'm not aware of these facts and figures and the

3 statistical data that you brought up here.

4 Q. We'll come to all that perhaps a little later, but since you

5 mention it, what's the official data that you've relied on, and have you

6 brought it with you?

7 A. No, I haven't brought it with me. The data does exist. The

8 documents exist in the state organs of the Republic of Serbia. Many books

9 were published in the commissariat. You will be able to find it, but I

10 don't have that data and information with me or on me.

11 Q. Very well.

12 A. And I assume that your accused, Mr. Slobodan Milosevic, must have

13 those facts and figures himself.

14 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Nice, are we talking about the same thing here?

15 MR. NICE: No, we're talking about immigration as opposed to

16 emigration.

17 JUDGE BONOMY: But the figures you've quoted from the report deal

18 with the period before 1948; is that correct?.

19 MR. NICE: Yes, 1939 to 1948.

20 JUDGE BONOMY: And when the witness talks about 200.000, is he not

21 talking about a later period?

22 MR. NICE: He is talking about a later period, and we'll move on

23 to that, I hope, very swiftly.

24 Q. I want from you from time to time, if you will help us, some

25 confirmation of facts in case they become relevant later, not necessarily

1 with any extensive answer. But just as a matter of history, it was in

2 1950 that Yugoslavia broke its ties with Albania; correct?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. It was in 1956 that there was a campaign to collect weapons from

5 Albanians organised by the secret police of the former Yugoslavia and that

6 as a result of that, or at the time of that, thousands of Albanians fled

7 to Turkey; is that correct?

8 A. Disarmament and collection of weapons was not done by the secret

9 police. It was an order by the organs of authority at the time, and it's

10 true that the weapons were collected in Kosovo and Metohija. It is also

11 correct that a number of Albanians left and went to Turkey. I don't know

12 what the figure is or the reason they left. I don't claim that it was --

13 I don't know whether it was because of any violence in the collection of

14 weapons.

15 Q. The same year there was the trial of Kosovo Albanians on the

16 grounds that they were acting as spies for Albania. Many long prison

17 sentences of up to 12 years were imposed, and all the people concerned

18 were later acquitted. As a matter of fact, correct?

19 A. I'm not aware of that trial and the details of it and what

20 actually happened, so I don't think I can answer that.

21 Q. You mentioned Adem Demaci. He features, first of all, is this

22 correct, in the 1960s with a movement for unification of Albania, having

23 some few hundred members at that time?

24 A. Well, I know that he was convicted and served a term in prison,

25 how much, I don't know, and that he was working on a movement directed

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1 against the system itself and the order in Kosovo and Metohija itself. I

2 don't know what it was called, but he was found guilty of that.

3 Q. We would then move to the critical date of 1966, which you have

4 yourself identified as critical, and we've already discussed. You

5 expressed yourself in these terms about the removal of Rankovic. You

6 said, "Another terrible event in 1966 for us Serbs and Montenegrins, the

7 Communists, because the 4th plenary session was held, the infamous one

8 where Rankovic was removed from office and expelled from the party." And

9 then you said this: "That was the crash of the security network for Serbs

10 and Montenegrins." And that was an answer you gave almost without being

11 asked about it specifically.

12 That reflects, does it not, the emotional response even today of

13 Serbs to what happened in 1966; correct?

14 A. Please. I said that by replacing -- that the replacement of

15 Rankovic was the crash or fall of the security system in Kosovo and

16 Metohija for Serbs and Montenegrins, and I confirm that today, because at

17 the time, we saw Albanian nationalists come to power in the organs of SUP,

18 like Dzevad Hamza and others, whereas all the other Serb leaders were

19 replaced from the security organs, organs of the interior.

20 Q. I want to read you one footnote --

21 A. And may I be allowed to add something with respect to Rankovic?

22 During Rankovic's day, Rankovic's rule, there was something called Goli

23 Otok, Grgul [phoen] and Bileca, Goli Otok being an island where tens of

24 thousands of Serbs and Montenegrins were sent to. And I don't know

25 whether there were as many as three Albanians who stood up to the policy

1 of Tito supporting the policy of Russia and Stalin. So Rankovic, he knew

2 about these camps, Goli Otok and the others, but he remained loyal to the

3 end and never wanted to say a word against the person who had him

4 replaced.

5 Q. Look, please, at -- on the overhead projector, a footnote to an

6 existing exhibit. The exhibit is Exhibit 801, the ICG report. And if we

7 can just put footnote 90 -- 70, and I'll read it slowly to you, please,

8 Mr. Balevic, and ask for your comment as to its accuracy.

9 "Aleksandar Rankovic --"

10 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The translator said a report by the

12 ICG, in those words. The witness doesn't know what ICG is at all, I can

13 guarantee that. So could you translate. What does ICG mean? What's it

14 about? It's not a mistake on Mr. Nice's part that he is speaking English,

15 but when the interpreter says ICG, they must assume that the witness does

16 not know what ICG is or stands for.

17 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, can you help us?

18 MR. NICE: If it is a mistake at all it is my mistake and I am

19 quite happy to identify the body that prepared the report, the

20 International Crisis Group, and there is now a B/C/S version of the page

21 before the witness for him to follow the footnote in his own language.

22 Q. The footnote reads, in English: "Aleksandar Rankovic was

23 vice-president of Yugoslavia and regarded in some quarters as

24 heir-apparent to Tito. He headed the Yugoslav security police. The UDBA

25 was responsible for serious abuses of the Albanian population. On the

1 pretext of suppressing Albanian irredentism, UDBA put pressure on

2 Albanians to emigrate. Between 1954 and 1957, some 195.000 Albanians left

3 Yugoslavia, and by the time of Rankovic's dismissal, the figure had

4 reached 235.000."

5 This is a document we've looked at. We know the nature and

6 general terms of its sources. But tell us, Mr. Balevic, is what is

7 recorded here correct; 195.000 Albanians leaving between 1954 and 1957?

8 A. I don't know where you get those figures from. The figure is not

9 correct, and you can check that out in the official statistics for Kosovo

10 and Metohija, which I'm sure still exist. And I state that that is not

11 the correct figure. And it is true that Rankovic for a time was the head

12 of state security in Yugoslavia. However, the figures that you have

13 presented, there is no evidence of them being true. I don't think they

14 are correct. Because had that been so in the space of three years, the

15 Albanians would have disappeared from Kosovo altogether.

16 Q. What about the record there of the Yugoslav secret police being

17 responsible for abuses of the Albanian population? You see, you come to

18 us and you are of great assistance because of your experience and indeed

19 your age. You've got a long memory. So tell us. This is correct, isn't

20 it, that Albanians were suffering in the way described?

21 A. Please. I don't know whether you drew that conclusion from one of

22 my answers when I said that during Goli Otok, when Rankovic was the head

23 of UDBA, there were over 40.000 Serbs and Montenegrins, not a single

24 Albanian. And the UDBA protected all the nations and nationalities,

25 ethnic groups, all citizens on the territory of the country regardless of

1 what ethnicity they were, but it was against those and arrested those who

2 wanted to overthrow the regime and who opposed the regime.

3 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Nice, I'm sure it's me but I'm desperately in

4 need of assistance on what this is relevant to in the indictment.

5 MR. NICE: Your Honour, it's right to, I think, inquire. The

6 witness has given a long history. I made it clear resolution of the

7 history is not, of course, our function or the Court's function. My

8 concern is to ensure that there is recognition of the existence of

9 contrary views, but more, it's to ensure that the Court can be satisfied

10 insofar as it needs to in due course that expert material coming the

11 Court's way is reliable. And so with the questions that I've just asked

12 by way of preliminaries, and we're moving on quite rapidly to the time of

13 the 1987 meeting, but before we get there, I was going to ask for this

14 witness's comment on another short passage of Audrey Budding's report.

15 I hope that that will be helpful to the Chamber, because for this

16 reason: It seems to me, and I'm open to correction, that although the

17 Chamber doesn't need nor want to make any final decisions about these

18 historical matters, it certainly needs to know the broad parameters within

19 which different theories exist, and if it has an expert, it needs to know

20 if that expert appears to be reliable.

21 Q. And can we, with that in mind, go to page 21 in the English of

22 Audrey Budding's report, which is page 16 in the B/C/S. And you see,

23 Mr. Balevic, the expert who has reported on matters for this Court -- or

24 for the Prosecution in giving evidence to this Court, says this at the

25 foot of page 21, please -- actually, in the middle of page 21: "National

1 questions had received only glancing attention at Brioni, but took centre

2 stage at the League of Communists Plenum. (Reserving the accusations of

3 Serbian nationalism for a Serbian party forum was in keeping with the

4 principle that each party should fight nationalism 'in its own house.')"

5 And then that takes us to footnote 90. I'm not sure if the

6 footnote's been copied in B/C/S, but it's footnote 90, and she there says

7 that the matters that the witness spoke about himself, she says that, "It

8 was for the same reason that each --" footnote 90. Sorry. It's on page

9 81.

10 "It was for the same --" Further down, please. Footnote 90.

11 "It was for the same reason that each of the positions Rankovic

12 vacated upon his fall was filled by another Serb ... Casting Rankovic as a

13 Serbian nationalist ultimately encouraged Serbs themselves to see his fall

14 in national terms."

15 That's probably all I need read. Does that both reflect the

16 evidence you gave, Mr. Balevic, and --

17 A. The fourth plenary at which Rankovic was replaced, and according

18 to your observation or, rather, your question, that that was the only time

19 when the national question was raised and that it was devoted to the

20 national question. The fourth plenum was the crash of the national

21 question, the question of Serbs and Montenegrins in Kosovo and Metohija.

22 I don't know who replaced him, but I assume it was a yes-man who was ready

23 to implement what Rankovic was not prepared to.

24 So the League of Communists, to which I belonged, fought against

25 all forms of nationalism which upset brotherhood and unity in Kosovo and

1 Metohija, and therefore, they fought against Serbian nationalism by the

2 same token.

3 Q. Just to stick with His Honour's question of me and to focus on the

4 evidence you've given, it's what happened in 1966 and thereafter that lay

5 behind the actions that you and your fellow Serbs took and of which you've

6 told us starting at the beginning of the 1980s and concluding after the

7 Kosovo Polje meeting at the end of 1998; is that right? This event in

8 1966 is part of the driving force that led to the action of Serbs between

9 1980 and 1988 in Kosovo?

10 A. In 1966 events, and that were to be borne out by the 4th plenum,

11 it was the motive force of the break-down of the security system and the

12 more massive exodus of the Serbs and Montenegrins from Kosovo and

13 Metohija. It was because of this exodus and because their security was

14 jeopardised that the Serbs took measures and sought resources to enable

15 themselves to remain there and for their salvation. They knocked on all

16 the doors, but they didn't take on any policy of this kind towards the

17 Albanians.

18 Q. Very well.

19 A. Or any Greater Serbian nationalism.

20 Q. I've put my case to you in print general terms. A couple of

21 detailed matters and then we'll get to particulars.

22 One of the things you told us in evidence on the 25th of January,

23 the way I have at page 37, was, in dealing with the history of the good

24 fortune of the Kosovo Albanians, you said that university teachers, I

25 think, were hired not for the sake of giving them -- sorry, Albanian

1 professors were hired, but not for the sake of giving them employment.

2 They were hired, you said, in order to indoctrinate young Albanians

3 against living together with Serbs and Montenegrins. That was your

4 specific suggestion.

5 Now, first of all, where's your evidence for that, that the hiring

6 of Albanian professors was specifically aimed at separating the ethnic

7 groups in Kosovo?

8 A. You have a document that was translated, Sleepless Nights, and you

9 will see what Professor Milanovic had to say, a distinguished professor

10 from the University of Pristina. If necessary I can find it and read it

11 out. He confirmed that in his speech, and we felt that at this meeting

12 that was held during the night between the 24th and the 25th of March,

13 1987 about the indoctrination of Albanian students and about the Albanian

14 professors coming. That is what is written in this document that you have

15 in the translated version. Professor Milanovic.

16 Q. Such things were said on the night of the 24th and 25th, and it

17 may be - we'll discuss this later - that there was an element of stage

18 management about what was said, and that's going to be my suggestion to

19 you. Did Professor Milanovic give the source of his observation about the

20 purpose of professors coming to the university in Pristina or was it just

21 a broad assertion not rooted in research? Tell us.

22 A. I am saying what he said. Now, what the sources of his

23 information are is something that you would have to ask him.

24 Q. So although you made this assertion to this Chamber, you have

25 absolutely no material, apart from one speech that you happen to have

1 heard on the night of the 24th, 25th of March, 1987; correct?

2 A. Not correct. The demonstrations of Albanians, of young people in

3 the streets, starting from '68 or, rather, first in '67 and the first few

4 months in '68 and then all the way up to '81, all of that confirms what I

5 said, that there was a considerable degree of indoctrination among them,

6 because during the first months of 1978, in the territory of Kosovo, there

7 were people shouting in favour of NATO. There were American flags, and

8 Fadil Hoxha, Dzevad Nimani headed the column, and Ymer Pula. So that is a

9 corroboration of the indoctrination of young people --

10 Q. Very well.

11 A. -- and the demonstrations in 1968. The allegation was made that

12 all of this was due to poor food at student dormitories, and that's not

13 true. It was this indoctrination.

14 Q. That's in 1981, and we'll come to that if necessary. But please

15 would you just again, for the same purpose, look at what in your version

16 of Audrey Budding's report is page 32, and if Mr. Prendergast will put

17 page 30 on the overhead projector.

18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson.

19 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I did not interrupt Mr. Nice in the

21 wish to hear what all of this would lead to. However, may I remind you

22 that when I started putting questions to Mr. Balevic, I pointed out that I

23 did not wish to ask him about historical facts but, rather, about his own

24 knowledge from the period involved. So he testified about his own

25 knowledge. I think that it is improper to give him an expert report,

1 Mr. Nice's expert, Ms. Budding, for him to give answers to it. He's not

2 an historian, he's not a demographer. He cannot give such answers,

3 especially because, as you know, I insisted that he only speak about his

4 own personal experience, and that's what he did.

5 JUDGE ROBINSON: [Previous translation continues] ... submission.

6 MR. NICE: Your Honour, can I deal with that, because it's

7 actually a matter of considerable importance.

8 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice.

9 MR. NICE: This witness has given a very broad, a very one-sided

10 on one view account, highly critical of and indeed arguably offensive to

11 one of the ethnic groups living in Kosovo. He was led to most of those

12 answers by the accused. I am exploring to the extent that I judge

13 desirable or necessary the degree to which his answers are founded in

14 either research or experience or some other reliable source. On this

15 particular topic, we've now had his answer on how reliable his source is

16 and what his sources are, and it must be proper for me to show him other

17 evidence in the case and to ask him if he has any real evidence to counter

18 it. That is one of the standard and proper purposes of cross-examination,

19 and not to do it would arguably be not to put my case. So I would seek

20 now to put the short passage on page 30 that deals with this topic --

21 JUDGE ROBINSON: We're going to consider this submission.

22 JUDGE BONOMY: But if you follow the line that the accused has

23 just presented, that what he will rely on is the knowledge that the

24 witness has of events in Kosovo, then where does this take us quite apart

25 from whether it might be justified because he answered a question at some

1 stage in his examination-in-chief that might have a bearing on Audrey

2 Budding's report? What's the point? He's not an expert. We're not going

3 to reach any conclusions based on his view of this stage of history and

4 listening to a lecture and hearing about how students behaved at the time.

5 On the other hand, he's tried to give sweeping statements about events

6 closer to the time or at the time that are relevant to the indictment, and

7 I would have thought that challenging the basis for these statements might

8 have been much more helpful to us than the basis for his perhaps criticism

9 of historical opinions expressed by others.

10 MR. NICE: The answer to that, Your Honour, is twofold. One, of

11 course I've missed out a great deal of material that he's given that is

12 contentious in the history, but there is a limit to how much it would be

13 proper to leave it all go when there is indeed material of an expert

14 nature before you to the contrary effect.

15 Second, when we come to the events of 1980 to 1988 and then on

16 into 1989, the background will be important both to understand, as I will

17 suggest through this witness, what this witness and others were doing, and

18 indeed important for the Court to follow when it hears the way we put our

19 case about the accused, which I will be able to put partly through this

20 witness, indeed significantly. But to some degree I do need the

21 background facts.

22 [Trial Chamber confers]

23 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, we think there is some merit in the

24 submission from the accused. At the same time, we understand that you

25 want to put your case through the -- through this witness, and we think if

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1 that's what you want to do, you should do that directly, and if it is

2 necessary, then you can return to the historical matters.

3 MR. NICE: As Your Honours please. The -- as Your Honours please.

4 I'll get on with it and deal with it on that basis, but I should make it

5 clear because I think there is a difference of -- arguably a difference of

6 view at the time moment.

7 Although it would be the Prosecution's case that the accused has

8 led far, far more evidence of history than is truly of value to you, and

9 we've not dealt with most of it, nevertheless, the Prosecution takes the

10 view that understanding the history from certainly 1966 or 1968 or 1971 or

11 thereabouts onwards is probably important for an understanding of

12 everything that happened thereafter, and to that extent --

13 JUDGE ROBINSON: I would say it's certainly important.

14 MR. NICE: And to that extent where issues are joined from those

15 dates onwards, I would be grateful for an opportunity to explore them as

16 briefly as I possibly can. But, Your Honour, I'll deal with the

17 university matter simply in this way --

18 JUDGE ROBINSON: Part of the question, Mr. Nice, is whether this

19 is the appropriate witness to put that to.

20 MR. NICE: On that topic, Your Honour, my problem is this -- not

21 problem. My position is this: I frequently take the view, or may take

22 the view that witnesses may be going outside that for which they are

23 properly to be called, but I don't want to be seen to be trying to shut

24 evidence out too often or too extensively, and also it's quite difficult,

25 particularly with a litigant in person, to address these matters

1 compactly. So we let a lot of evidence in.

2 I'm quite happy to take a more restrictive -- or to attempt a more

3 restrictive approach, but I've got a suspicion the Chamber would find that

4 wearying, but I'm quite happy to do that.

5 Shall I move on with this particular topic?

6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

7 MR. NICE:

8 Q. Mr. Balevic, the university position and the lecturers coming from

9 Albanian is as simple as this, isn't it: That a number of lecturers came

10 to Kosovo in the 1960s and later when the university became fully

11 independent in 1970, and this led to an explosion of education and an

12 increase in education among Kosovo Albanians, and the Serbs didn't like

13 it.

14 A. What is your question? The Serbs didn't like that?

15 Q. The Serbs didn't like the Albanians becoming over-educated.

16 That's the question, and then I'll follow up with another one.

17 A. Not correct.

18 Q. And one of the reasons they --

19 A. The education of the Albanians did not bother Serbs, but through

20 regular channels and so on. You have to read the speech made by this

21 Milanovic, who established that people got doctorates there in English

22 literature before a commission and not a single member of the said

23 commission knew a word of English. Read that. It's in the book. And he

24 quotes an Albanian professor. Serbs were not bothered by education

25 through normal schooling and according to the regulations prescribed by

1 the state.

2 Mr. Nice, I did not make sweeping statements, as you put it, in a

3 one-sided fashion and insulting to a particular ethnic group. I'll tell

4 you once again: I have a high regard for ethnic Albanians, but I talked

5 about Albanian terror and about Albanian terrorists. What happened before

6 and after KFOR came, when buses were blown up, when people were executed

7 and --

8 Q. I'm going to cut you short --

9 A. Thank you. Cut me short, but you made me give you this kind of

10 answer. I'm sorry, sir.

11 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... answer the questions. And

12 the reason that the Serbs didn't particularly want the Albanians to become

13 educated is this, in part: Before 1966 Serbs occupied a

14 disproportionately large number of important and influential positions in

15 Kosovo compared with their ethnic proportion but after 1966 and the fall

16 of Rankovic and the loss of Serb authority, Albanians took more, a larger

17 percentage of the important jobs and this, along with their increasing

18 education, was something that was not acceptable to or liked by the Serbs.

19 Isn't that the truth?

20 A. Albanians even before the 4th plenum, before 1966, held certain

21 positions. After that plenum, they took over the leadership of Kosovo and

22 Metohija. They held the highest offices in Kosovo and Metohija, including

23 the police, the courts and other organs that were of high importance for

24 Kosovo and Metohija, but they did hold high positions before 1966, too,

25 and I do not accept that they were not represented.

1 Q. Let's now, then, move on beyond 1981, because we've dealt with

2 other witnesses with those demonstrations.

3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson.

4 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

5 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Nice, as he put it, is trying to

6 establish the reason why the Serbs did not want the Albanians to be

7 educated. That means that he takes as a point of departure an assumption

8 that Serbs did not want Albanians to be educated, and that is totally

9 incorrect. He cannot base his questions on an assumption that is wrong,

10 quite simply.

11 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, these are matters that you can

12 take up later when you have an opportunity to re-examine.

13 MR. NICE:

14 Q. Let's now move beyond 1981, and before we come and look at the

15 activities of you and the others whom you've spoken of, I want one general

16 point for you to deal with.

17 By the 1980s, had this position been achieved in Kosovo amongst

18 the Serbs, namely that every incident involving, for example, a Kosovo

19 Albanian and a Serb would be characterised or instrumentalised as

20 something to do with politics, whereas it was simply an incident of

21 ordinary life? So that, for example, was it not the case that the

22 suggestion was abroad for long enough that there were a lot of rapes by

23 Albanian men on Serb women committed with a political purpose?

24 A. Ordinary incidents were never treated as political incidents, only

25 those that deserved to be viewed as political incidents. As for rapes,

1 you have it all written here; committed where, when, by who, and these are

2 official records.

3 Q. But that is --

4 A. That is in the book Sleepless Nights.

5 Q. But the problem with that, and we can look at it if time allows

6 and if the Court allows me to do it, the problem with that was that there

7 was an inquiry into the incidence of rapes conducted by, amongst others,

8 Sergej Popovic [phoen], but by Serbs, and it was recorded that the

9 incidence of rapes on an interethnic basis was lower than average and

10 therefore of no significance politically at all. And do you know of that

11 report?

12 A. I do not know of that report that has to do with rape. I never

13 investigated such matters. I really don't know anything about that.

14 Q. Very well. I put my case on that, and I'm now going to move to

15 what you said on page 43 of the transcript on the 25th of January, where

16 you describe the establishment -- where you describe the establishment of

17 a body. Would you like to tell us what the body was call