1 Tuesday, 8 March 2005

2 [Open session]

3 [The witness entered court]

4 [The accused entered court]

5 --- Upon commencing at 9.04 a.m.

6 JUDGE ROBINSON: May I mention two housekeeping matters before we

7 begin. Firstly, on Thursday morning, the Trial Chamber will be hearing

8 another matter at 9.00 a.m. We expect to finish that matter by the end of

9 the first break, so the parties should be on stand-by to recommence this

10 trial at 10.30, that's the beginning of the second session.

11 Secondly, I understand that we will not have any German

12 interpretation for tomorrow, but my expectation is that we will conclude

13 this witness's testimony today with the cooperation of Mr. Milosevic and

14 Mr. Nice.

15 Mr. Milosevic.

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

17 WITNESS: DIETMAR HARTWIG [Resumed]

18 [Witness answered through interpreter]

19 Examined by Mr. Milosevic: [Continued]

20 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Hartwig, we left off talking about your

21 experiences in Pristina. What was the relationship or attitude of the

22 ordinary Albanians towards the political situation?

23 A. One has to differentiate between those who helped to form public

24 opinion and those for whom it was just a matter of their own lives and

25 survival. The average Albanian was actually less interested in politics,

1 but he was interested in establishing foundations for his economic

2 survival irrespective of external influences for managing his life. That

3 was the average Albanian.

4 Of course, there was certainly also, among these one or the other,

5 who was pleased to make promises or follow promises from Albanian

6 politicians for -- who promised a better life under different conditions.

7 Q. To the best of your knowledge, were any rights curtailed with

8 regard to the Albanians?

9 A. I personally heard only general complaints that most of the Serbs

10 have. They have done one or the other thing. But in personal

11 discussions, I never heard any reprimands against any particular person or

12 individual offices of the Serbs.

13 Q. Mr. Hartwig, did you ever have an opportunity of asking anybody?

14 Did you ever ask anyone whether they were lacking in some rights and -- or

15 anything else; and if so, what? Denied any rights?

16 A. I had two cases, and I made inquiries specifically about these.

17 First of all, there was the complaints that the people at the university

18 did not use their language, and I then spoke to the head of the

19 university, and he said that in the first semester for the curriculum and

20 the general administrative rules the Serbian language would be used, but

21 otherwise there was also the possibility, depending on the ethnic

22 relationship of the participants, that they could speak Albanian.

23 The second case, we lived in the house belonging to a doctor

24 couple, and we heard that the man lost his position in the ministry

25 because of his -- because he was Albanian, and the same applied to his

1 wife and applied also to the son and to the daughter. But I heard in a

2 talk that the father didn't lose his position because of his Albanian

3 nationality but because he had simply reached retirement age. And in this

4 period, the mother gave up her professorship at the university to be

5 together with her husband, and the son was in hospital because -- had

6 problems in the hospital because did he not want to operate on a Serb, and

7 the daughter was training to be a specialist doctor.

8 This statement I heard from an Albanian, and that is from the

9 daughter, and this seemed to me to be credible.

10 Q. Tell me something about the attitude of the Albanian population or

11 individual groups or categories of the Albanian population towards your

12 own mission. Or let me be more specific: Were there any cases where your

13 cars would be stopped, the vehicles belonging to your mission would be

14 stopped by members of the KLA, intercepted?

15 A. Well, the only ones that ever stopped us or ever stopped me in

16 Kosovo were members of the KLA, or they had set up roadblocks in

17 territories governed by the KLA, and therefore, they did not have a

18 diplomatic pass, just the personal appearance and -- but they were -- did

19 not respect diplomatic passes. But as I said, we were stopped, and in

20 individual cases people did shoot at our vehicles, but we had armoured

21 vehicles.

22 Q. When you said people shot, who shot at your vehicle?

23 A. I'm not sure who shot, but certainly either it was in the zone

24 controlled by the KLA, but also -- although that was not the case in my

25 case, but somewhere near Stimlje where this happened.

1 Q. And would you say that the KLA was a terrorist organisation, in

2 your opinion?

3 A. I can only compare with an organisation that one heard about quite

4 a lot in my country, that is the Red Army Faction, and these people wanted

5 to have another republic, and they were designated terrorists.

6 Q. And how would you qualify the goals and the means of the KLA?

7 A. If a grouping is concerned with means, using peaceful means, then

8 one can establish a democracy. But the means that were adopted there did

9 not comply with democratic means. They were, in my opinion, very clearly

10 beyond legality, and also the actions that were started with these means

11 were beyond legality.

12 Q. As you have already told us, you met many members of the KLA. How

13 would you qualify the leaders of the KLA? What would you say about them?

14 A. Well, I didn't meet the higher people in the KLA but just those

15 that you could call middle management. In principle, these were very

16 simple commanders who quite simply wanted the Albanians to have the sole

17 decision rights in Kosovo.

18 Q. And what was the attitude of the KLA leaders towards the Serbs,

19 for instance, and other non-Albanians, for that matter?

20 A. As a personal statement, I think I already mentioned that. In the

21 unofficial version of the constitution of Kosovo, there was a paragraph

22 that they should not continue to live under or with the Serbs, but nothing

23 had been said about the other ethnic groups. And later I read about this

24 in the newspaper, and therefore this is secondhand information for which I

25 would not like to give my assessment.

1 Q. What is your impression, or what knowledge do you have throughout

2 the time you spent in Kosovo and Metohija about who caused the problems

3 during that period of time that you were there? What would you say?

4 A. I believe that the origin of the --

5 JUDGE ROBINSON: Don't answer that question. It's too general,

6 and it just invites mere opinion.

7 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

8 Q. Mr. Hartwig, according to your knowledge and information and

9 judging by what you were able to see and learn, led to problems, caused

10 problems in Kosovo and Metohija?

11 JUDGE ROBINSON: That's the same thing. Move on to another

12 question, Mr. Milosevic. Let's bring this to an end now.

13 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

14 Q. Mr. Hartwig, were there any attacks launched by the KLA on police

15 stations?

16 A. There weren't just attacks against police stations, also attacks

17 at individual police out on patrol. And I believe that ultimately that

18 was the policy, to make such attacks against the executive power of that

19 country, because as a rule they used -- they used to expect to have

20 searches being made. They also probably expected actions which could be

21 seen as very negative.

22 Q. Can you explain that to us a little better, please?

23 A. Well, if there was an attack against a civilian, then without

24 doubt it is possible that in a country where perhaps it's normal for a man

25 to carry a weapon, that this escalates into a shoot-out between

1 individuals. At the moment where the executive branch would come into

2 play, that is then not normally a man-to-man fight but it becomes a

3 collective action instead perpetrated by a unit of the police or security

4 forces directed against not one man or individual but directed, rather,

5 against a group of people.

6 Q. Well, I must say I'm not following you well enough. It's not

7 clear enough. Did the forces of law and order react to the KLA, to the

8 KLA attacks?

9 A. As far as I know, most of the actions undertaken by the security

10 forces were reactions to incidents, happenings which had been perpetrated

11 by the other side.

12 Q. And did the KLA hide behind civilians?

13 JUDGE ROBINSON: No. That's -- you can't ask that. That's

14 clearly leading.

15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right.

16 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

17 Q. Mr. Hartwig, did you happen to talk to the leaders of the police,

18 our police, for instance, in Kosovo with respect to the risks that

19 civilians were running during these provocations on the part of the KLA?

20 A. I certainly talked to people. As I mentioned, with General

21 Djukic, for example, but I also, and I can't remember -- there was the

22 police chief of Malisevo with whom I've had an extensive discussion on

23 which were the risks which resulted from ambush situations, from attacks

24 against members of the executive and also members of the civilian

25 population.

1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, you asked Mr. Hartwig, Did the

2 forces of law and order react to the KLA, to the KLA attacks, and he said

3 that as far as he knew, most of the actions undertaken by the forces were

4 reactions to incidents, happenings which had been perpetrated by the other

5 side.

6 It would obviously strengthen your case if you could direct

7 Mr. Hartwig or ask him if he was able to identify any specific incidents

8 where the official forces, security forces, reacted to incidents, because

9 that might go towards a defence of self-defence. But as it is, it has

10 just been left at a very general -- very general level. But you're facing

11 an indictment with many allegations of violence by security forces, and it

12 would clearly help your case if you could bring evidence to show that this

13 violence, the alleged crimes were committed as a reaction and in a

14 proportionate way to action taken by the KLA.

15 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

16 Q. Mr. Hartwig, you have heard what Mr. Robinson has just said, and

17 he explained it very well. Could you please now confirm or refute that

18 the conduct of the security forces in Kosovo was a reaction to the attacks

19 from the KLA.

20 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, you're facing an indictment with

21 specific allegations of incidents happening at a particular village, in a

22 particular municipality where so many people were beaten or killed. Just

23 to have him give -- to make general conclusory remarks is not what we're

24 really looking for.

25 In preparing the witness, you should have sought to find out

1 whether he was in a position to give that kind of evidence. I mean, he

2 was there. In his work with the ECMM, he might have received reports

3 which would have confirmed that the security forces were acting

4 responsibly to the attacks by the KLA.

5 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

6 Q. Mr. Hartwig, can you quote some examples of such events having

7 taken place where the forces of law and order reacted to attacks from the

8 KLA?

9 A. These events are almost six years back. I know I have notes in

10 which KLA attacks are described and where, as a result, some of the

11 attackers were injured or even killed, but currently I'm afraid I can't

12 give you an exact statement telling you this happened in this place or

13 that place or it was this or that incident exactly. But it were -- these

14 were incidents which effected attacks against the police as well as also

15 sometimes military personnel.

16 Perhaps one example, if I am allowed to mention this: Kotlina,

17 Ivaja, and Gajre, there the radio had said this was an arbitrary action

18 undertaken on the part of the security forces. However, in the course of

19 the discussion, I heard that it was from, I think, Pudina [phoen], but I'm

20 not entirely sure about the exact name, but people shot from somewhere in

21 the hills on bridges below, so that basically that action directed against

22 the three villages can be seen as a reaction.

23 Q. Mr. Hartwig, I do realise that a lot of time has gone by since

24 then, but if we look at the chronology of events from the time you were

25 the head of the -- of the monitoring mission in Kosovo, I'm going to quote

1 and go through a few events and ask you whether you remember them or not.

2 For example, let's start with January 1999, for instance, and I'll skip

3 over the previous points.

4 On the 5th of January, a MUP patrol came upon an ambush at Suva

5 Reka. Four policemen were seriously wounded. Do you remember that event?

6 A. I think that was one of the first large-scale ambushes. And if

7 I'm not wrong, this was near Suva Reka.

8 Q. Thank you, Mr. Hartwig. Now, do you remember the 8th of January?

9 Let's once again skip over a few days and go to the 8th of January when

10 three officers of the MUP were killed from an ambush and three civilians

11 wounded when eight soldiers -- and this all took place on the 8th of

12 January -- was kidnapped by the --

13 MR. NICE: If the accused is reading from a document that's

14 available to the Chamber, no doubt the Chamber would like to know what the

15 document is. If he is reading from one of the proposed exhibits of the

16 witness, he should identify which tab. My observation is that thus far,

17 the accused is giving more detail than is contained in the only tab in the

18 witness's exhibit file that relates to these matters. So I don't know

19 what he's reading from.

20 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, what are you reading from, if

21 anything? Are you quoting from a document?

22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I am reading from my own

23 chronological notes reflecting events from the time when Mr. Hartwig

24 headed the monitoring mission. I presume that he remembers the 8th of

25 January when three policemen and eight soldiers of the army of Yugoslavia

1 were killed and kidnapped respectively.

2 MR. NICE: [Previous translation continues] ... is simply leading.

3 If he turns to I think it is tab 2 of the witness's materials, he will

4 find an abbreviated reference to these topics, and an appropriate way, if

5 he wants to go into it, would be to say, and I'm looking at the document

6 headed 14th of June, I think, of 1999, but then typed headed the 6th to

7 the 13th of January, 1999 -- tab 2.

8 JUDGE KWON: Tab 3.

9 MR. NICE: I'm sorry, I left my tabbed version upstairs. I'm

10 grateful to Your Honour. Tab 3, of course,.

11 And if you look at the foot of the first paragraph, you will see

12 references to either 3 MUP in a KLA ambush. We can certainly track the

13 date of that to the 8th of January. If the accused wants detail of that

14 from this witness, then one way he could deal with that without leading

15 the detail himself from whatever records he's relying on is to ask the

16 witness to amplify the entry on the document. Whether that's what he

17 wants to do, I don't know. But simply him reading out his version of the

18 documents won't be satisfactory to the Chamber, I suspect.

19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well. Very well. I shall

20 adhere to the exhibits, and they are perfectly sufficient to explain the

21 situation. Very well, Mr. Robinson.

22 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

23 Q. Mr. Nice has just mentioned tab 3. I will not even linger on the

24 bottom of the page that he described. Just tell us before we start with

25 this, Mr. Hartwig, what does WSS mean -- WASS?

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13 English transcripts.

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1 A. This is an abbreviation for weekly assessment. This is a type of

2 report which I had to submit on a weekly basis to mission headquarters.

3 And this was based on the daily reports submitted by individual teams and

4 also used information from additional talks I had and information and

5 intelligence we received.

6 Q. All right. Mr. Hartwig, this weekly overview of events, as you

7 said, is dated 21st of January, 1999. It's tab 3. I shall draw your

8 attention to page 2, because it gives a dense account of a multitude of

9 events, and it mentions EU-KDOM relationship.

10 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Milosevic, if the date is 21st, then it should be

11 tab 4.

12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I'm sorry. In my binder it's tab 3.

13 I must have made a mistake in arranging the tabs.

14 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

15 Q. In any case, yes, it says here, Weekly Assessment, 6 to 13th

16 January, tab 3. Paragraph one says: "... explosion of a hand grenade in

17 front of a cafe at Pristina, the murder of the Serb manager of the Obilic

18 power plant, the killing of 3 MUP in a KLA ambush, and the capturing of 8

19 VJ soldiers by KLA."

20 So this is covered in your weekly report. Does it refresh your

21 memory as to these events, because they are contained in your daily and

22 weekly reports?

23 A. Well, at the moment I can remember the word the manager of the

24 power station Obilic, the story with the murder and under which

25 circumstances they were -- they were killed in an ambush. I'm afraid the

1 details of this I'm not familiar with, but as far as I recall, they used

2 part of a street which formed some of the control area of KLA, and that

3 the capture -- that the capture on the side of the international community

4 caused some disquiet, the capturing of the VJ soldiers. But I cannot

5 recall details as to how and under which circumstances now patrols of the

6 security forces were attacked or how individual policemen were killed.

7 Q. All right. But I suppose this explosion of a hand grenade in

8 front of a cafe in Pristina and the killing of the manager of the power

9 plant in Obilic and the killing of three policemen, as it says here, from

10 an ambush and the kidnapping of soldiers were events that were doubtlessly

11 recorded and verified by your monitors. That's what it says in this

12 weekly assessment.

13 A. Certainly there is nothing in this report that was just imaginary.

14 The hand grenade attack in Pristina, which as far as I can recall,

15 actually, was the first attack within a city, within a town, and I said at

16 that time that the war had been transferred to the town after I think also

17 something similar had happened in Pec before that. But this was

18 significant as an event because that village was the main town of Kosovo.

19 Q. Thank you, Mr. Hartwig.

20 A. Pristina, I'm sorry, was the main town of Kosovo.

21 Q. Very well. Thank you, Mr. Hartwig. Let us just go through a

22 number of these tabs. Please look at tab 5, dated 28th of January, 1999.

23 In paragraph 2 under paragraph 1, it says: "After KLA attacks against

24 police cars [In English] with eight policemen injured, MUP surrounded a

25 house at Mitrovica covering approximately 12 KLA fighters; MUP ordered to

1 surrender twice - but the response was small-arms fire. When KLA tried to

2 escape, two fighters were killed and the others escaped."

3 [Interpretation] That's the event. And now comes this sentence

4 which is very typical, so I would appreciate your comment on this.

5 "[In English] In public, the two KLA fighters were described as

6 victims of MUP violence and caused clear demonstrations of Albania

7 solidarity."

8 [Interpretation] Mr. Hartwig, you are a German officer with a

9 great amount of experience, and you know this event that is described

10 here. So vehicles -- not one vehicle but vehicles of the police were

11 attacked, eight policemen were wounded. The police surrounds a house,

12 only the house where the perpetrators are located. The police invite them

13 twice to surrender, with the intention to arrest them, as any police would

14 do. However, the perpetrators respond with fire, tried to break out, and

15 in the attempt, two of them get killed.

16 This is then portrayed as --

17 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, just ask the question without

18 making comments.

19 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

20 Q. -- as a sacrifice on the part of the attackers. Well, Mr.

21 Hartwig, I will ask him [as interpreted] some more questions based on the

22 events, but from this event and the previous events, was the conduct of

23 our law enforcement and security forces an aggressive one or was it,

24 rather, contained? In other words, would you characterise it as normal

25 behaviour on the part of law enforcement and security forces, by your

1 standards?

2 A. Unfortunately, I do not have the document here, so I'll just

3 follow what has been said, that in this incident both OSCE was there, but

4 also members of our own mission were there, and it was not mentioned in

5 our report that the security forces were aggressive in any manner or -- or

6 that they behaved in an excessive manner. It was a normal police action,

7 which actually must be regarded as having been normal.

8 The claimed perpetrators flee into a house, they barricade

9 themselves, the house is surrounded, and the people in there are then

10 called upon to put down their arms and to surrender. So this was a topic

11 of our evaluation afterwards. And it should be said that the -- or to say

12 that the police did not behave correctly.

13 JUDGE KWON: Just a second. I think the witness should have his

14 binder in front of him.

15 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

16 Q. Mr. Hartwig, I'm sorry, I thought all the time that you had the

17 documents in front of you. I thought they had been put in front of you,

18 and that's why I quoted and invoked certain paragraphs.

19 This is paragraph 5 that we were dealing with.

20 JUDGE KWON: Tab 5.

21 THE INTERPRETER: Tab 5, interpreter's correction.

22 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

23 Q. I read out to you part of paragraph 2 from page 1, paragraph 1.

24 JUDGE KWON: It's in the middle of paragraph 1.

25 JUDGE ROBINSON: But he has already commented on that,

1 Mr. Milosevic, without the tab in front of him, so you can move on.

2 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

3 Q. Mr. Hartwig, what I'm asking you now refers not only to this

4 incident but to your entire experience as head of the monitors in Kosovo

5 and Metohija. Would you say that law enforcement and security forces

6 behaved aggressively or showed restraint?

7 A. Well, I had no statements as to the police having been behaved

8 aggressively in total.

9 Q. Very well. Thank you. But let me ask you a more precise question

10 now. To the best of your knowledge from all the time that you spent

11 there, did security forces ever attack the KLA first?

12 A. Well, I refer to what was given to me as part of my task and what

13 I heard from my team and what I myself saw and experienced or received in

14 reports, but according to that, as a rule we're concerned here with

15 reactions on the part of the security forces.

16 Q. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hartwig.

17 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Milosevic, I would like the witness to deal with

18 the paragraph which is at the foot of the same page. What was the basis

19 of this observation, and what was the reason for him to put this paragraph

20 in his report?

21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Shall I read the paragraph,

22 Mr. Kwon? You mean the one that begins with: "This is the classic and

23 normal development..."?

24 JUDGE KWON: Yes.

25 THE ACCUSED: [In English] "... classic and normal development:

1 Attempts and assassinations by KLA against police MUP -- against

2 police/MUP which - in turn - allegedly try to identify and arrest the

3 perpetrators ... but where and how police/MUP search for and identify

4 them? After the operations, weapons are hidden and the fighters convert

5 to normal citizens with no visible link to KLA. Since it is not the

6 speciality of Serb forces and impossible under those conditions to

7 surgically conduct operations, the hammering seems to remain the only

8 response. It can be expected that, as long as KLA applies its guerrilla

9 tactics, the proceeding of police/MUP and VJ against KLA will remain

10 unchanged."

11 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

12 Q. Mr. Hartwig, Mr. Kwon wanted you to comment on this paragraph as

13 well, the one from your report.

14 A. In this paragraph, I stated one of the fundamentals of partisan

15 fighting. This does not relate specifically to KLA or security forces of

16 the Serbs, but this is a generally applicable recipe which one finds in

17 all wars, used in partisan battles. But one mixes among the civil

18 population in the hopes that the moral barriers of those attacks are so

19 high that nothing will happen. But this is simply wishful thinking in

20 most wars in the past, and certainly this type of partisan fighting is

21 very specific, and in principle it has rules that certainly have been laid

22 down in terms of common law, but in practice they are very difficult to

23 adhere to.

24 JUDGE KWON: So this is your general observation at that time.

25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] To just add to that, it is does not

1 relate specifically to this situation; it is a general observation.

2 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.

3 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

4 Q. Mr. Hartwig, from your contacts with chiefs of police, did you

5 hear anything about their efforts to avoid civilian casualties at all

6 costs?

7 A. I haven't understood this correctly, acoustically, so perhaps you

8 could repeat that. Would you be so kind as to repeat the question,

9 please. I simply didn't hear it properly.

10 Q. Certainly. In your contacts with chiefs of police, police

11 administration, were you informed of all the steps taken by the police to

12 avoid civilian casualties?

13 A. I have not heard anything about this. Probably in the situation,

14 I wouldn't have asked that specific question because tactics of -- in this

15 kind of conflict are such that it is virtually impossible to really direct

16 what is happening unless you completely ignore such attacks and simply

17 accept them without comment.

18 Q. Tell me, then, if, in response to their attacks, our forces used

19 disproportionate force.

20 JUDGE ROBINSON: Well, in my view, he shouldn't be asked the

21 question in that way. Ask him specifically what kind of force was used,

22 and then we will assess the proportionality.

23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, I am bearing in mind

24 that Mr. Hartwig said at the very outset that he had served for 30 years

25 in the German army, that he had dealt extensively with these affairs and

1 issues. He headed a monitoring mission. I presume that he had to come

2 face-to-face with the fact that disproportionate force was being used if

3 it was indeed used. He had several months of practice, direct involvement

4 in Kosovo. I'm simply asking if, in his opinion, disproportionate force

5 was used there.

6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Hartwig, you were there. What kind of force

7 was used by the armed forces in response to the KLA attacks?

8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] As a rule, after an attack they

9 started looking for the perpetrators, and when approaching a possible

10 scene, there were still shots being fired from some of the villages. And

11 as part of a simple search of houses, people were arrested, and certainly

12 people were also taken away for questioning.

13 There may -- yes, there were cases, actually, that when there was

14 stronger shooting from these villages, that then the police forces would

15 have used heavy machine-guns in reply.

16 During the time I was there, at any rate, no heavy arms were used,

17 at least not until, let's say, the last ten days or so before evacuation.

18 That was a time when I heard from Podpuzuve [phoen], that area in the

19 north, that there was artillery fire occasionally. But until that time,

20 they didn't use heavy arms; light artillery weapons were employed. And

21 KLA attacks were also done with artillery weapons with anti-tank grenades

22 and so on.

23 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. And I will allow you to comment on the

24 proportionality, because I now recollect that several Prosecution

25 witnesses did comment on it.

1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I can only reply something which I

2 was told in a discussion with -- someone said if people could do as they

3 would like to do, he said then we, the Serbs, would probably have managed

4 to cope with the KLA. And I think the way he used the word "cope" was not

5 in a general sense of eliminating the threat but perhaps might have meant

6 they would have used sufficient pressure on the KLA that they might have

7 been forced to negotiate as a result. But there was the statement that if

8 they had been given a free hand, they would have had more opportunities.

9 That was a statement made in my hearing.

10 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

11 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

12 Q. At the time when you heard that, did you have the impression or

13 maybe was it said explicitly that their activities were minimised, reduced

14 to pure self-defence?

15 A. It was not mentioned that activities were reduced, but it was

16 stated unequivocally that these were not security forces' actions which

17 were executed in an arbitrary matter. It was also made very clear that it

18 was the job of the security forces to ensure that all people living in

19 Kosovo, irrespective of their ethnicity, could be protected.

20 Q. While we are still at tab 5, let me draw your attention to item 2,

21 which in this report as well seems to confirm your notes that we saw in

22 tab 1.

23 In item 2, in your own text, the report of the 28th of January, it

24 says: "The Rector of the Albanian University of Pristina stated [In

25 English] 'Not under the Serbs and not with the Serbs,' the new Albanian

1 constitution does not acknowledge Serbs as a national minority and

2 Albanians engaged in watching human rights cannot imagine at all to think

3 of some type of co-existence with Serbs."

4 [Interpretation] And then he says: "[In English] This, together

5 with the strong ongoing Albanian demand NATO to militarily interfere

6 indicate that no political resolutions with the Serbs are sought or even

7 preferred any more.

8 "The Albanian side only needs to continue with its tactics of

9 stitches, just waiting for the (anticipated) Serb reactions - and sooner

10 or later, the international community will react in one or the other way."

11 [Interpretation] Mr. Hartwig, we're not talking about the rights

12 of Albanians here. What this refers to is, as you yourself said and

13 mentioned, you were told by rector of the Albanian University, that they

14 wished that -- to see no more Serbs in Kosovo. So was that the clear

15 message sent out to them? Is that how you understood it?

16 MR. NICE: [Previous translation continues] ... if he wants to

17 make things difficult for the witness, but he seems to have overlooked the

18 second paragraph that leads "President Rugova's spokesman..." He didn't

19 read that out. Maybe the witness ought to have the whole passage in mind

20 before he's asked to give the sort of answer that's sought by the latest

21 general question.

22 JUDGE ROBINSON: That's a matter you could raise in your

23 cross-examination.

24 MR. NICE: I can do, but from the witness's point of view, it's

25 unfortunate if something is taken completely out of context.

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1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, what the spokesman

2 said, Rugova's spokesman said does not carry the same weight as what the

3 witness was told by the rector of the university, because the rector of

4 the university tells him the following, he tells him something quite

5 contrary to what Mr. Nice is saying. They would like ethnically pure --

6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, let's move on. Let's hear your

7 very specific question.

8 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

9 Q. Mr. Hartwig, how did you interpret what the rector of the

10 university told you? Here it says: "Not under the Serbs and not with the

11 Serbs." That's what it says here.

12 A. To live not with somebody nor under somebody in a house does, for

13 me, mean it's either/or.

14 Q. Mr. Hartwig, do you know about these stories from the time that

15 you were there about destroyed villages that were told, and did your

16 monitors go and check those stories out to see if they were true?

17 A. Well, I did give you one example which I'd like to refer to again,

18 Kotlina, Gajre, and Ivaja, where these villages were said to have been

19 destroyed. And after three days, one village had been destroyed, the

20 other two villages had certainly been looted and to some extent devastated

21 as well. Personally, though, I did not see villages destroyed. I did see

22 individual houses here or there which had been destroyed but not villages.

23 Q. And did you receive reports about large numbers of Albanian

24 refugees, and did you investigate such reports if you did? Was your

25 mission able to check reports of that kind out?

1 A. In connection yet again with the event on the three villages,

2 Kotlina, Ivaja, and so on, I heard on the radio that approximately 4.000

3 refugees had arrived at the border point Djeneral Jankovic, and as it

4 happened, one of my teams was in the area and the members of that team

5 reported to me that up to 3 to maximum 400 people were indeed there in the

6 general area.

7 Q. And did you learn of the reasons why the population left their

8 villages? Were you informed about that?

9 A. I think this was linked to the fact that the population may well,

10 at least in part, have known which of the villages or the people in the

11 village belonged to the KLA and who might also have been using arms. In

12 the case of these three villages, I had been told that because of the fact

13 that there had been small fire outside directed from the villages to the

14 Serb guard on the road from Pristina to Skopje, and that as a result of

15 the fire directed against them, the security forces had engaged in a

16 search. And according to the report, the people may, some of them at

17 least, have fled the villages, but the report also made clear that the

18 security forces moved them to, I think it was Kacanik, and the children

19 were taken to school, the men to the police station in order to be

20 questioned or examined there as to finding out whether there was any link

21 between those people and the KLA.

22 Q. Tell me now, please, Mr. Hartwig, whether you had any information

23 of any kind about the fact that the authorities or -- saying that the

24 authorities had expelled the Albanians from their villages.

25 A. Personally, I have no knowledge of this, nor did I see any mention

1 of it in the reports.

2 Q. Thank you, Mr. Hartwig. And did you receive complaints that the

3 police had been behaving improperly towards civilians? Did you receive

4 any complaints like that?

5 A. I did not hear general -- no, I correct myself. I did not hear

6 any complaints regarding individual police officers behaving in an

7 improper way to civilians. Occasionally the name of the police was

8 mentioned in connection with the arrests of Albanians which were arrested

9 in connection with attacks or other events or people who were taken to be

10 in remand prison. But these were all general remarks along the lines of

11 "The police did this or that," but there were no specific complaints

12 stating that police officers had behaved in any way severely unlawfully.

13 Q. Mr. Hartwig, was the KLA aggressive towards the Albanians as well?

14 A. In part, yes. I know from reports that Albanians were killed for

15 the simple reason they worked either for the Serb administration or that

16 they worked for the Serb police force. Or Albanians who were suspected of

17 being collaborators, they were subject to a greater risk.

18 Q. Well, all right. Apart from those working for the administration

19 and the police or collaborators, can you quote any examples where a doctor

20 might have been killed or a public personage or a humanitarian worker for

21 not supporting the KLA, for instance?

22 A. There were -- well, basically there was no alternative. The

23 Albanians had to either support the KLA actively, so they had to support

24 the KLA or even join. And I frequently heard that pressure was exerted

25 in order to convince Albanians that it would be sensible to join the KLA.

1 And there was a story of a doctor who I think had a birthday party near

2 Pec, and in the course of the celebrations some men dressed in KLA

3 uniforms entered the building and shot some of the guests in their knees

4 or in the legs, and the -- some of the family were supposed to be forced

5 to join the KLA as a physician. This was perhaps the most extraordinary

6 example of that kind.

7 Q. All right. Well, putting it mildly, you referred to that as

8 pressure, when people were being shot at.

9 Mr. Hartwig, what do you know about the kidnapping of both Serbs

10 and Albanians? So I'm not speaking only about the kidnapping of Serbs but

11 of Albanians as well.

12 A. At some time after I had received information that over 140 Serbs

13 were alleged to have been kidnapped, talked to the president of the

14 kidnapped Serbs in Orahovac. One of the aims of our mission was to try

15 and effect a reconciliation and cooperation. And I asked this gentleman

16 whether he had a list of the names of all the Serbs who had been abducted

17 or whether he could at least give me the names of those Serbs from

18 Orahovac who were missing. It was interesting, because he told me he

19 could obtain that list for me but only after he had discussed it with his

20 Albanian neighbour. My idea was that activity was in that small area of

21 Orahovac to find out something about the whereabouts of those Serbs who

22 had been abducted, but at the same time, I also wanted to find out where

23 in that very same area there might be Albanian citizens who were arrested,

24 who were kept away. I wanted to know that to relieve the minds of their

25 relatives.

1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, I'm expecting you conclude your

2 examination-in-chief by the break so that we will have the other two

3 sessions for cross-examination and your re-examination.

4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, I'll do my best, of course,

5 Mr. Robinson, but this is a very important witness, and I can't omit some

6 important questions.

7 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

8 Q. Now, did the members of the KLA wear uniforms? Yes or no.

9 A. Well, the KLA, I don't know whether all the members of the KLA

10 wore uniforms, but it was customary for the great majority of people in

11 the KLA wearing camouflage uniform, and a small part -- I mean, this sort

12 of olive camouflage. And a small part of the people wore uniforms all in

13 black.

14 Q. And were there any KLA members -- when I say were there, I don't

15 mean exceptions, but I mean a significant number who wore civilian

16 clothing?

17 A. I'm not aware of that, because obviously I can't see when I look

18 at a civilian whether this is a member of the KLA or not. All I do know

19 is that when, for example, the eight prisoners were released, the Yugoslav

20 soldiers, the negotiating group of the KLA were wearing uniform at that

21 time.

22 Q. Mr. Hartwig, you haven't answered me fully. What did you know

23 about the kidnapped Albanians? So I'm not referring to the kidnapped

24 Serbs but to Albanians who were kidnapped by the KLA.

25 A. Concerning the whereabouts of Albanian -- Albanians abducted by

1 the KLA, I know very little about them. Some -- some of them would have

2 been killed. The fate of the others did not become public knowledge

3 partly because it frequently took a long time until links could be

4 established between a kidnapping here and a corpse found there at a later

5 stage.

6 Q. Did you have any idea about the number of Albanians killed and

7 kidnapped Albanians by the KLA? Any idea of the numbers?

8 A. Personally, I have no knowledge about this. I think that I can

9 remember, though, that there was a time, probably mid-1999 or a little

10 later, there was a team from Italian television, and let me repeat once

11 again that this is not my own knowledge, this is what I have been told,

12 and this Italian TV team was said to have reported that every second

13 killed Albanian was killed by other Albanians.

14 Q. Mr. Hartwig, would you please take a look at the last page of tab

15 4, and the question I'm going to ask you is did the monitoring mission of

16 the OSCE try to place under control your own monitoring mission? And

17 before you answer that question, take a look at what it says here. "[In

18 English] On 13 January, TM Mitrovica was chased by way by OSCE chief

19 operation, General --" Drewienkiewicz, I suppose. That's the DZ. "--

20 from the place of 8 VJ soldiers' release. On 14 January, HRO had a

21 discussion with the General DZ who clearly expressed that he considers EU

22 KDOM superfluous. If it --" [Interpretation] Yes, superfluous,

23 unnecessary. "[In English] If it could not be absorbed by OSCE, then at

24 least EU KDOM should work for OSCE. It was made clear that EU KDOM, apart

25 from its current name which was going to disappear in the near future, was

1 going to perform its mission according to its mandate given by EU and not

2 accept any restrictions of freedom of movement within its AOR. Final

3 impression was that OSCE operation would like EU KDOM to disappear today

4 rather than tomorrow."

5 [Interpretation] Please, would you explain to me how it was that

6 Walker's mission endeavoured to place under its control your own mission,

7 and what was the motive for that, or, rather, what was the explanation

8 given?

9 A. Well, you know, I didn't get any explanation at all for this, but

10 I assume that essentially it was a wish on the part of General DZ, as he

11 was generally called, as we have heard, in other words, this is organised

12 militarily somebody is responsible for a particular area and anybody

13 within area is subjected somewhere to the command of the person in charge

14 and responsible for this area.

15 Now, we as an observer mission for the European Union, we were --

16 we did not come under the auspices of OSCE, and therefore there was some

17 disquiet about the fact that other observers were to be seen in this area,

18 that they were active in this area, and basically this was the reason.

19 But after the discussion with the general, there were no problems

20 subsequently.

21 Q. Take a look at tab 6 now, please. And it's indicative, because

22 once again you speak of -- well, you say -- there's an explanation you

23 give here that they are always dissatisfied, the penultimate paragraph.

24 "Typical example for a part of the situation." "[In English] Typical

25 example for a part of the situation: Kosovo Albanian workers are

1 repairing and reconstructing the damaged school of Lodje; only workers

2 with an ID can pass the control point. Sometimes individuals without

3 personal documents delay the control and passing procedure; in order to

4 help the Kosovo Albanians to receive their ID faster and easier, the Pec

5 mayor asked them to come to his office and to provide just the names and

6 few data. This was refused by the workers' speaker. Obviously, they like

7 to continue to blame local authorities for harassment and disadvantaging

8 them rather than reacting in a smart and normal way."

9 [Interpretation] What does this show, then, Mr. Hartwig?

10 A. Well, it certainly shows that there were Albanians or

11 functionaries who tried to defuse the situation, and they tried to help

12 where they had the possibility. And there were people who were certainly

13 not interested in defusing the situation.

14 Q. I'm not sure I've understood you. You said that there were

15 Albanians -- this Pec mayor was a Serb himself who asked them to provide

16 documents, but they refused to do so, as it says in your report.

17 A. Well, I didn't refer just to Albanians here, but I could have said

18 the same for the Serbs. On the Albanian side, there were some who tried

19 to minimise the problems, and the mayor of Pec, who, incidentally, also

20 had a good reputation in the Albanian region, he wanted to help to speed

21 up the reconstruction of the school. And on the other hand, there was the

22 workers' speaker, who didn't want assistance. He didn't want things to be

23 simplified but he wanted to retain the status quo.

24 Q. As we don't have much time, I'm going to go to tab 12 now. I hope

25 I'll be able to get through what I want from that tab by the break. Take

1 a look at this weekly assessment of the 11th of March, 1999.

2 After the first paragraph, you say the following: "[In English]

3 Only between the first of March -- only between the first of March and

4 today we noticed the following incidents against police, MUP, and VJ."

5 [Interpretation] That means we're talking about 11th of March, and it was

6 between the 1st of March and the 11th, during those 11 days.

7 "[In English] One police officer killed and four police officers

8 injured in an attack against a police patrol near Kacanik on 1 March.

9 "Two Serbs abducted in the Orahovac area by the end of February

10 were released by KLA one Serb heavily wounded, one dead. High MUP

11 presence --"

12 JUDGE ROBINSON: We must have a question now, Mr. Milosevic.

13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, I'll ask my question when I

14 have read all these separate points. This is a report which covers 11

15 days in the month of March. So it is the final month during which this

16 mission was present there, the mission led by Mr. Hartwig.

17 JUDGE ROBINSON: We'll be here to the crack of dawn if you're to

18 read all of that. It's in front of the witness, so he sees it.

19 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

20 Q. Mr. Hartwig, you have several pages here listing the events, each

21 one of them mentioning dead people, killings, and the like. Does all this

22 relate to KLA attacks against the police and the army? Of course, with

23 some exceptions. I shall read out: "One Albanian was abducted from the

24 village of Perane by 10 Albanians wearing camouflage uniforms and armed

25 with automatic rifles. [In English] The abducted Albanian is a member of

1 the Albanian National minority and inspector of MUP at Prizren.

2 "One woman at Pec was threatened by a masked and unknown person

3 who reportedly was a KLA member. 'How can you sleep peacefully while our

4 brothers in Drenica are dying every day?' After some questioning

5 about her husband the woman was raped twice."

6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Okay, Mr. Milosevic. We have -- Mr. Milosevic,

7 we have the point that these pages are accounts of KLA attacks. What's

8 the question? Generally they are accounts of KLA attacks, one or two

9 exceptions. What's the question of the witness?

10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, the exceptions relate to

11 attacks on Albanians. I said that the attacks were -- the KLA attacking

12 the police and army with the exception of the cases where incidents where

13 Albanians were attacked.

14 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

15 Q. But are we dealing with KLA attacks here for the most part?

16 A. Well, according to the documents received at that time, obviously

17 it was a question of attacks by the KLA.

18 Q. And can you quote a single example whereby the army or police

19 attacked anybody in Kosovo during that period of time?

20 JUDGE ROBINSON: What period is that -- does that cover,

21 Mr. Milosevic? 1 to 11 of March. Okay.

22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, this witness -- Mr. Robinson,

23 this report or these reports cover the period from January, but this last

24 exhibit comes from the 1st to the 11th of March. But you have before you

25 Mr. Hartwig's reports from January or, rather, the reports of his

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1 missions, and the notes he wrote down covering the entire period of

2 several months, and his testimony covers the period from November 1998, in

3 fact.

4 So my questions relate to that entire period and his overall

5 experience during it. So please bear that in mind with my request that

6 these exhibits be tendered into evidence.

7 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

8 Q. Mr. Hartwig, before I conclude the examination-in-chief, I'm just

9 going to read out the last sentence of this last exhibit of yours which

10 relates to the period between the 1st and 11th of March, and it is this:

11 "[In English] These examples are not a complaint but a demonstration of

12 things are considered, evaluated and sold to the public."

13 [Interpretation] Mr. Hartwig, generally speaking, is it

14 characteristic of your testimony that there are great differences between

15 the findings of your observer team, your monitors and your monitoring

16 teams, and the reports coming out by the governments of the European Union

17 and the media in the West?

18 A. Well, I would like to start off with a restriction here. I'm not

19 quite sure what the European Union in general published here, but these

20 differences between reality and practice, of course, were very clear, and

21 they were noticeable, and I think that this did not just occur to us

22 observers in the observing mission.

23 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Milosevic, for closing your

24 examination-in-chief.

25 We'll now take the break for 20 minutes, and then we'll have the

1 cross-examination.

2 MR. KAY: Can tabs 3, 4, 5, 6, 12 be exhibits.

3 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. They will be exhibited, yes.

4 We will take the break for 20 minutes.

5 --- Recess taken at 10.35 a.m.

6 --- On resuming at 10.57 a.m.

7 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Kay, you had asked for the admission of

8 specific tabs.

9 MR. KAY: Yes.

10 JUDGE ROBINSON: We looked at the question over the break, and we

11 are actually minded to admit all of them --

12 MR. KAY: Very well.

13 JUDGE ROBINSON: -- as reports prepared by the witness.

14 MR. KAY: I don't disagree.

15 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice.

16 MR. NICE: On that, Your Honour, I'd simply observe that the

17 witness hasn't spoken to some three of them.

18 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

19 MR. NICE: I wasn't necessarily going to propose to ask any

20 questions about them on the grounds that he hadn't referred to them. I

21 raised at an earlier stage the concerns of the Prosecution, this was in a

22 written filing, the concerns of material being produced without being

23 referred to by the witness. Perhaps we can come back to it at the end of

24 the evidence. I want to be brief with this witness.

25 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. I consider this exceptional. They are all

1 matters prepared by the witness. Very well.

2 Cross-examined by Mr. Nice:

3 Q. Mr. Hartwig, was it your idea to give evidence? Did you volunteer

4 yourself to the accused or were you asked to give evidence?

5 A. I have been asked.

6 Q. How were you identified, do you know? By what publication or by

7 what speech were you identified as somebody who might help the accused, do

8 you know?

9 A. I don't know how this happened in detail, but I do know that a

10 report, which was sometime early in 1999, a report on the KLA also ended

11 up in Belgrade, and I assume that this brought up the connection.

12 Q. Is this one of the documents in your exhibit tab?

13 A. No, it is not. That report was an individual report dealing with

14 the expansion of the KLA. It was a report which I had put together as an

15 individual report --

16 Q. When?

17 A. We did not have any confidential reports of that type. We spoke

18 very openly and transmitted them openly.

19 Q. When was your report prepared?

20 A. I'm not entirely sure any more. I assume it was probably about

21 the end of January, February.

22 Q. Where was it published?

23 A. I don't know whether it was published. All I do know is that my

24 ambassador in Belgrade contacted me, saying that he was aware that this

25 report existed.

1 Q. Because you had published something outside the terms of your

2 mission without authority from the ambassador, presumably.

3 A. I would not have needed authorisation or approval to publish, but

4 I did not publish that report.

5 Q. Then how did this report get out? You're supposed to be -- your

6 job is to observe something for a European bodied mission, and you then

7 publish something separately on the KLA and it gets out into the public

8 domain. Yes?

9 A. I would like to repeat once again: I did not publish anything.

10 We openly transmitted our reports to a variety of different recipients. I

11 am not aware how many. I have once been told that about 180 recipients

12 received our reports. I'm not aware in which way this report which was, I

13 will repeat, not dealing with confidential matters, became part of the

14 public domain, but it was never the intention to keep such reports secret.

15 If that had been the case, we would have opted for a secure form of

16 transmission.

17 Q. I asked you, through the Court last week, to go and check your

18 computer. Did you do so?

19 A. I not only checked my laptop, I also checked my desktop computer

20 in my office and I never found this paper anyway. Let me add immediately

21 that I am well aware that people can delete reports from a computer, and I

22 would never expose myself to such an accusation.

23 I did write the report at the time stated, and all the --

24 Q. And did you find the letter to Lukic that I asked you to look for,

25 through the Court?

1 A. I found a letter to General Lukic. I found it in English and in

2 German and I sent them. And in that letter --

3 Q. Do you have a copy of it with you?

4 A. I do not have a copy with me but at my hotel.

5 Q. Did it not occur to you to bring the document here? Did it not

6 occur to you that it was required for evidence?

7 A. Then that must have been a misunderstanding. The way I understood

8 you --

9 Q. Very well. Let's move on. These tabs in your exhibit binder,

10 were these documents printed for the purposes of giving evidence recently

11 from your computer?

12 A. I have a binder at home in which I've collected reports that I

13 deemed important, including this tab 1 document.

14 Q. Well, that's not entirely an answer to the question. Did -- these

15 tabbed exhibits, did you print them out from your computer specially for

16 this court hearing?

17 A. I have the weekly reports and everything that file was printed

18 from my computer, yes.

19 Q. So these are drafts. But we'll never know from you whether these

20 are exactly what was sent by you to Sarajevo, will we, because these are

21 just drafts?

22 A. All I can say is, yes, I don't know to what extent I may have

23 rewritten or rephrased something. I have some reports --

24 Q. Did you make any efforts before coming to give evidence to obtain

25 from the body to which you were providing these reports the actual

1 documents you provided at the time? Did you make any effort?

2 A. No, I did not. May I point out that mid last week, I only

3 returned from a one-year mission to Afghanistan.

4 Q. You see, if we look at the very last report that was being

5 referred to, tab 12, and the very last sentence in it which the accused

6 focused on, "These examples are not a complaint but a demonstration of how

7 things are considered, evaluated --" which needs respelling -- and then in

8 capital letters "and sold to the public."

9 Can you just help me one way or another: Did this sentence ever

10 form part of an official report that you sent through to your superiors?

11 A. This is a draft of my weekly report dated 11 March. I don't know

12 whether I sent it as it is in this draft.

13 Q. You see, there are various things about your drafts, but help me

14 with this: Did you type them yourself or did you dictate them?

15 A. Such things I always typed myself.

16 Q. Because one of the oddities of the style, if you will forgive my

17 saying so, is that when you quote something, as opposed to just putting it

18 in quotation marks, you use the words "quote" and "unquote" time and

19 again. And that's your style, is it? It's not a question of dictating it

20 to someone else and somebody else typing the words "quote" and "unquote"?

21 A. Quote, unquote, that's a sort of thing I learned for international

22 communications, and if I have written that in my reports, COM, and it's

23 COM or ECOM, it means end of comment. "Quote" is something which I've

24 always done with international communications.

25 Q. [Previous translation continues]... yourself, you were in an army

1 for 30 years. Which army was that, the West German army?

2 A. I was in the Bundes. That's the armed forces of the Federal

3 Republic of Germany, yes.

4 Q. When were you commissioned?

5 A. 1962.

6 Q. And when did you leave the armed forces?

7 A. 1993.

8 Q. And by that stage you'd risen to the rank of Unterleutnant, yes?

9 A. I was a lieutenant colonel.

10 Q. Well, the material was incorrectly revealed on the transcript. It

11 is now corrected. You spoke in the transcript of having command

12 functions. What command functions did you ever hold or did you largely do

13 non-command jobs?

14 A. I was both in charge of a battalion and a company. I have held

15 different functions in which I had command possibility.

16 Q. Let's now look at the mission you were actually engaged on. Do

17 you have the mission statement here for your mission in Kosovo?

18 A. No.

19 Q. Tell us what the mission's objective was.

20 A. The objectives of this mission was a continuous monitoring of

21 political, economic, cultural, and religious developments, and within the

22 framework of our opportunities and possibilities, we were tasked to find

23 out how cooperation could be improved between the different parties.

24 Q. Well, now that's a enormously wide range of activities you've

25 identified. Let's look at it in more detail. Your mission was one of the

1 missions generally described as the KDOMs, the US KDOM, the Russia KDOM,

2 and so on; correct?

3 A. At the time when I came to Pristina there were different Kosovo

4 Diplomatic Observer Missions. One of them was the Diplomatic Observer

5 Mission of the European Union, EU KDOM.

6 Q. Yes. But these missions were, as you rather revealed, they were

7 observer missions, weren't they?

8 A. Yes, they were observer missions.

9 Q. You've described your role as being to deal with political,

10 economic, cultural and religious developments, but basically you were

11 there to look at things and to report back.

12 A. That is, I think, what I described; to observe and monitor

13 developments in those named areas.

14 Q. You weren't negotiators or anything of that sort, were you?

15 A. There was one occasion when I attempted to negotiate. This

16 concerned the case of the abducted Serbs, where I also wanted to find out

17 whether we could get some information about the whereabouts of disappeared

18 Albanians, but it didn't get very far because I had to go to a conference

19 and immediately afterwards was the evacuation.

20 Q. You were basically there to observe. And now let's deal with

21 figures. How many people -- the accused has repeatedly said you were the

22 head of the observers and matters of that sort. Just tell us how many

23 people in your mission.

24 A. So I don't have accurate figures at my disposal now, but I think

25 at the beginning we were something like 38, 40 people.

1 Q. And at the end?

2 A. We were, well, at the end not fewer, really. Perhaps some people

3 less. Some appointments were sort of recalled by the nations involved,

4 but I think we were still between 20 and 30.

5 Q. Well, if you just look, please, at tab 2 of your exhibits, last

6 page. This is your address of uncertain date but sometime in perhaps

7 March. And at the last page of this you make it quite clear that, "Our

8 current task is still to provide a picture as accurate, as clear and as

9 quickly as possible... We were not intended to be and are not competitors

10 to OSCE..." Few lines down: "The future of the EU Attache Group ..." is

11 that you?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. "... looks pink - the smaller the better and the more beautiful."

14 Currently, and then we see a total of 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18 people. Is

15 that about the right figure, under 20 for your mission covering the whole

16 of Kosovo?

17 A. At the time of the evacuation, yes, that would have been correct

18 figure, yes.

19 Q. Very well. And although you've given a figure of 40, on

20 reflection and recollection isn't it true that you were always a very

21 small mission, probably never more than 20?

22 A. No, that is not correct. At the time when I came to Kosovo, there

23 was a larger number of us. However, over time some observers were

24 recalled by the individual nations.

25 Q. In contrast, the KVM had some 2.000 people, didn't it?

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. Now, look at your recording procedures. You've come to court

3 today with none of your original notes.

4 A. Yes, that's correct.

5 Q. None of the actually filed reports, only drafts taken from your

6 computer.

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. None of the incoming reports from the five or so stations in which

9 your 20 to 40 personnel were staffed?

10 A. No.

11 Q. I may be able to show you one of them in due course if I'm -- if I

12 can get it freed. I'll do my best. But not yet.

13 You made no complaint about the reporting effectively of those

14 2.000 monitors working for KVM. Can you give any reason why they should,

15 all 2.000 of them, or most of them or any of them, act in an

16 unprofessional and improper way in the way they recorded events?

17 A. I never said anything like that, and I'm not aware of any

18 unprofessionality in their reports either.

19 Q. You seem to be saying that the impression given by almost

20 everybody else was false and the impression given by you was true. Are

21 you including in those who gave a false and incorrect impression of what

22 was happening in Kosovo the members of the KVM?

23 A. I don't know that. All I know is that my reports are based on the

24 information we received and the information that existed, and our reports

25 for a long time were also submitted to the OSCE.

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1 Q. Let's just look at part of tab 4, last page of it, please. The

2 tensions between the fully staffed OSCE of General Drewienkiewicz and

3 yourselves revealed on the last page, and if we look at the foot of the

4 page, we see the justification which wasn't referred to by the accused,

5 but we look at the foot of the page, we see one of the reasons why they

6 were concerned about your not responding, not being responsive to OSCE,

7 because they say this: "EU KDOM should always report to OSCE when they

8 want to operate because OSCE chiefs don't want to be responsible for the

9 deaths of EU KDOM." If they didn't know where you were, they couldn't

10 ensure that you were safe, could they?

11 A. That was a statement made by General DZ, which as far as I know he

12 simply used as an argument, because the OSCE also had no opportunity, if

13 we had indeed been in a crisis situation, to help us in any way

14 whatsoever.

15 Q. Let's look at a couple of examples that they reported on that you

16 told us --

17 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] This question is inappropriate.

19 Mr. Nice says if they didn't know where they were, then the OSCE could not

20 have protected their security.

21 MR. NICE: [Previous translation continues] ...

22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The OSCE mission was unarmed. Their

23 own safety was protected by our police.

24 MR. NICE: [Previous translation continues] ... with Your

25 Honours' leave --

1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, you may raise that later.

2 MR. NICE:

3 Q. Let's look at a couple of matters you've spoken about. I think I

4 can deal with them in order. I hope so. But before I do, just tell me

5 this: In order to hold the opinions you've had, and you've been very

6 generous -- generous, you've been wide-ranging in your opinions as to

7 where the rights and wrongs lay, have you ever taken the opportunity to

8 review, or even to attempt to review the records by the OSCE in something

9 called their blue book?

10 A. No, none.

11 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... why not? You're a senior

12 military figure, you tell us with lots of experience. You're beside a

13 2.000 strong observer mission or Verification Mission that keeps rigorous

14 records. Do you not think that it would have been appropriate for you to

15 check on what others were saying and what others were reporting?

16 A. No. This was not -- we -- well, that means I and -- or, rather,

17 the OSCE operations and I myself had frequent meetings, and we discussed

18 matters, and basically no agreement between us was necessary.

19 Q. And just before we pass from tab 4, we see that Drewienkiewicz's

20 comment on your operation appeared to be that you'd never been seen to get

21 out of your cars, and your response to that was that apparently he'd never

22 seen a UK DOM, one of the 20 to 40 --

23 JUDGE ROBINSON: Where is that, Mr. Nice?

24 MR. NICE: The foot of the second page of tab 4. "Never seen EU

25 KDOM leave their cars," and then on team's response he admitted he'd never

1 seen a single EU KDOM in the field.

2 Q. You were a very small operation whether you were seen to leave

3 your cars or not, weren't you, Mr. Hartwig?

4 A. Yes, we were a small mission, but we had a major advantage

5 vis-a-vis the OSCE; namely that we spent a longer time in Kosovo, and we

6 certainly had longer naturally evolved relationships with both sides. And

7 from that point of view, the success or failure of our mission did not

8 depend so much on the numbers with which we were engaged but the duration

9 and evolution of ties.

10 Q. Exhibit 321 is the blue book. You've told us about events at

11 Ivaja.

12 MR. NICE: If the usher Mr. Nort would very kindly place on the

13 overhead projector two pages from the reports of the 8th and 9th of March

14 of 1999. The first page is 0352539. Thank you very much. And the second

15 -- yes.

16 Q. This is a systematic report with which the Chamber's familiar, and

17 I'm sorry, Mr. Hartwig, I'm not going to have time to take you through it

18 in systematic method, but if we look, this is something that was reported,

19 top left-hand corner, on the 8th of March, and it says: "At 0905 hours,

20 KLA reported that VJ/MUP attacked the village of Straza and shelled the

21 village of Ivaja. At 1400 hours, Straza was reported burning."

22 And then if we go to the following day, to page 03525246, on

23 the 9th of March, same systematic method of reporting. This is what OSCE

24 provided: "The VJ/MUP operation to clear the KLA from Djeneral Jankovic

25 area continues. KVM patrols were initially blocked from proceeding to the

1 affected villages. MUP or VJ forces then followed their pattern of

2 surrounding the local villages and forcing the inhabitants to flee,

3 through the use of direct and indirect fire. By mid-afternoon, houses

4 were burning in Gajre, Ivaja, Straza, and Alil Mahala. MUP units appeared

5 intent on destroying these villages."

6 Do you have any reason to doubt the accuracy of the KVM report?

7 A. [In English] I have only a reason to question the report as far as

8 those villages are concerned which I mentioned, which I visited.

9 Q. You told us something about something that looked like a lunch

10 break, think I. Are you aware that mosques in two of those villages were

11 destroyed?

12 A. I was in the village, and I described the situation when I was

13 there like a -- it looked almost like peaceful-like, during a lunch break,

14 but I also mentioned that in that village I discovered only one -- one

15 fire.

16 Q. What was the date of your visit?

17 A. I think it was the same day when it was reported, or the next day,

18 but on the 9th, on the 9th I remember one of the reports of one of my

19 teams visiting these three villages, and the next day as well, and there

20 were statements saying that there were -- those villages were not

21 destroyed.

22 Q. Statements from whom?

23 A. Pardon?

24 Q. Statements from whom?

25 A. From one of my teams.

1 Q. Have you got it here with you? Have you tried to get it from

2 ECMM?

3 A. No.

4 Q. Have you attended to the evidence in this trial which includes

5 evidence from two people, Isufu Loku and Hazbi Loku? Have you?

6 A. Of course I was not here. I can say what I mentioned. I referred

7 to the reports that I received and what I saw myself.

8 Q. Because they speak of the destruction of the mosques, houses

9 burning, and 13 tanks in the area. Any reason that you can give why that

10 evidence and why this material from the KVM is to be doubted?

11 A. I don't have any reason and I will avoid in any case any

12 speculation, but I don't know why it is described in that way. I don't

13 have any information on Straza and the second village you mentioned. I

14 referred to those. I mentioned and there I can only repeat what I

15 mentioned already.

16 Q. Let's take another example of your evidence that the accused --

17 JUDGE BONOMY: Sorry, Mr. Nice, before you do, which tab was that

18 referred to in the witness's tabs?

19 MR. NICE: Ivaja is referred to -- I'm sorry, I haven't got that

20 to hand immediately, but we'll almost certainly come to it. I think it's

21 -- yes. It may be, if Ms. Mueller helps me, it may be that he just raised

22 it. We'll check the record.

23 Q. Can we now go to the tab that you were taken to by the accused

24 this morning --

25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson.

1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

2 THE ACCUSED: [No interpretation]

3 JUDGE ROBINSON: There is no interpretation --

4 THE INTERPRETER: No microphone.

5 JUDGE ROBINSON: Microphone.

6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I'm saying I would like to assist

7 you with regard to this question by Judge Bonomy. In tab number 12, there

8 is the weekly assessment for the 1st to the 11th of March, and that covers

9 the events mentioned by Mr. Nice on the 8th and 9th of March. And on page

10 2 already, you see that the events are described in Kotlina, Ivaja, Gajre,

11 of the 8th and 9th of March, and the witness has already spoken of some of

12 them, saying what he had seen. That is just one reference. And the

13 witness has mentioned on several occasions his personal experience from

14 these villages, what he heard and what he saw.

15 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Milosevic.

16 MR. NICE:

17 Q. If you go to tab 3, which is one of the passages you were looking

18 at this morning, the 6th to the 13th of January, 1999. We see a very a

19 very spare reference that the accused was seeking in his questions to

20 amplify but you weren't able to help very much with, at the end of the

21 first paragraph which says: "The killing of 3 MUP in a KLA ambush."

22 If Ms. Dicklich would be good enough to lay on the overhead

23 projector or arrange to be laid on the overhead projector from the same

24 exhibit, 3524737. This will give you, Mr. Hartwig, some idea of the

25 systematic method of recording because this is in daily reporting chart

1 form.

2 We see here at the bottom left-hand side of the chart, pointing to

3 the general area number 2, it says: "R C1 reported that at approximately

4 1040 hours the KLA ambushed a MUP convoy, 4 kilometres north-east of Suva

5 Reka. It is reported at that there are 3 MUP KIA, 3 MUP WIA --" which I

6 suspect is killed or wounded -- "and 3 Albanian civilians were wounded."

7 We then turn on, in the same document, to item number 2 -

8 Mr. Nort, coming your way - we see a detailed account of what the KVM

9 found. "Number 2. R C1 reported that prior to 1040 hours a MUP patrol

10 consisting of 1 Lada Niva and 2 Pinzgauers was ambushed 4 kilometres north

11 of Suva Reka," map reference given. "The patrol was fired on from well

12 constructed, well camouflaged trenches which appeared to have been

13 occupied for several days. The following casualties were reported." And

14 then again, 3 KIA, 3 WIA and 3 Albanian civilians wounded who happened to

15 drive into the ambush accidentally. "The KLA departed the area

16 immediately following the ambush. An examination of the trenches revealed

17 some shell or shell casings. RPG rounds were fired. The MUP apparently

18 died whilst still inside the Pinzgauers."

19 Any reason to doubt the accuracy of this as a detailed report of

20 what we see in your report as the killing of three MUP in a KLA ambush?

21 A. [Interpretation] It is clear this is a weekly report which

22 summarises individual events. It doesn't require detailed description

23 because for this purpose we had daily reports that we sent out.

24 Q. You have no recollection and you produce no detailed report to

25 amplify what's in your weekly summary report, and you've made no effort to

1 get better material from the authorities if they still hold it. Do you

2 have any reason to doubt, please, Mr. Hartwig, the accuracy of this entry

3 by KVM?

4 A. I do not doubt the report, but I am not quite clear as to the time

5 at which we delivered our reports to OSCE as a basis for their reports.

6 But I wanted to say something else, and that is that we wrote very

7 detailed comprehensive reports from Sarajevo, and these certainly went on

8 to Brussels, and what I have in my summary, in my broad outline for this

9 period does not include these details but is intended to set up a

10 framework - at least this was my intention - for a weekly overview.

11 Q. Are you saying, help me, that your reports which no longer exist

12 or haven't been brought here match those of the KVM or are you accepting

13 that your reports from your 20 to 40 staff were substantially less

14 detailed than what KVM were able to provide?

15 A. I'm not sure. Apart from what I've just read or seen, I'm not

16 sure what OSCE otherwise transmitted or reported. We didn't get these

17 reports --

18 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... daily reporting is of exactly

19 -- is of at least the level of detail that you've seen on these reports.

20 Your reports better, worse, or about the same? Tell us.

21 A. [In English] It is different, and I may repeat: The daily report

22 includes details, and my weekly report does not include the details, but

23 it takes the events, sets that in a particular framework, and should serve

24 as a basis for an overall assessment covering that particular week. So

25 far it has to be different, otherwise it would become a repetition of --

1 of daily reports.

2 Q. You've been able to give opinions on all sorts of matters about

3 these events, but you only arrived there in the autumn of 1998, having no

4 experience of Kosovo before the autumn of 1998, correct?

5 A. I had no sound experience -- yeah, experience of Kosovo.

6 Q. Did you read reports from Helsinki Watch of October '89, of March

7 1990, of March 1993, or December of 1996, all of which were exhibits in

8 this case, to acquaint yourself with the recorded human rights violations

9 in Kosovo?

10 A. I did not read those reports. I read other reports, one very

11 excellent report from a British source on the -- on the situation in

12 Kosovo, title I don't remember, and I had good luck to have somebody who

13 was there in Kosovo since February, I think 1998, who partially

14 experienced the development and what happened.

15 Q. Before we move on, so that we can understand what your position

16 is, do you have any reason to doubt the accuracy of a series of reports on

17 human rights violations prepared in the 19 -- well, late 1980s and

18 throughout 1990s? Do you have any reason -- you said everybody got it

19 wrong apart from you. Do you have any reason to doubt what would

20 generally be written in Human Rights Watch reports?

21 A. I can only doubt what I know, and I don't know these reports.

22 Q. Well, then, in 1998 there were two Human Rights Watch reports.

23 Did you read the one of the 1st of October, 1998?

24 A. I did not read one.

25 Q. Let's read -- have a look at what was said about one of the events

1 you've spoken of in the report of the 1st of December, 1998. Remember you

2 told us or you told the Judges and all of us about a mass grave? And you

3 told us about how you went there and somebody said it wasn't a result of a

4 killing, it was a result of a tribal fight? Remember that?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. Let's have a look at how this has been reported in an exhibit in

7 this case, Exhibit 198.

8 MR. NICE: If Mr. Nort could just lay this on the overhead

9 projector, please.

10 It's first of all page -- the foot of page 1. This is the

11 document headed A Week of Terror in Drenica. Foot of page 1, please. I

12 think -- can I have it back? I've got to find it. It's under the

13 summary. Sorry about this. Save time if I do it this way. I hadn't

14 checked, my mistake. The actual document being produced which is in a

15 slightly different format than mine.

16 Q. You see, this -- this is an incident, Mr. Hartwig. I'd like you

17 follow it, please. The foot of the page begins: "The worst incident

18 documented in this report took place in late September 1998 at the Delijaj

19 family compound in Gornji Obrinje, a village where there had been intense

20 fighting between government forces and the KLA that left at least --" next

21 page, please -- "fourteen policemen dead. Special police forces

22 retaliated by killing twenty-one members of the Delijaj family, all of

23 them civilians, on the afternoon of Saturday, September 26. Fourteen

24 people were killed in a nearby forest where they were hiding from

25 government shelling, six of them women between the ages of twenty-five and

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1 sixty-two. Five of the victims were children between eighteen months and

2 nine years of age. Of the three men killed in the forest, two were over

3 sixty years old.

4 "Human Rights Watch visited the scene on September 29 while the

5 bodies were being carried out of the forest for burial. All fourteen

6 victims were wearing civilian clothing; most appeared to have been shot in

7 the head at close range, and several of the bodies had been mutilated."

8 Next paragraph: "In addition to the fourteen cases -- fourteen

9 persons killed in the forest, seven other members of the Delijaj family

10 were killed by government forces in and around the family compound."

11 Does that appear to you to be the same incident that you were

12 describing when you told us how somebody said that it wasn't forces that

13 did the killing, it was a feudal fight?

14 A. I don't question that. I mentioned that it was not my

15 observation, that I was told, and I had something like this statement that

16 others were involved as well, like tribes or clans, more than once. So I

17 don't believe everything which has been told.

18 Q. No.

19 A. But I think everything which encourage or which motivates one to

20 think about things, to reinvestigate, could that really be true? To me,

21 at least, it is always useful to get away from a firm root.

22 Q. Stick with my question, please, if you wouldn't mind. First of

23 all, any reason to doubt that this is describing the incident you spoke

24 of?

25 A. If it is the same, I don't know. If they write it, I take it for

1 the moment. I have no reason to doubt it or to confirm it.

2 Q. And is there any reason, Mr. Hartwig -- you see, you've been given

3 great licence to give opinions on everything and no challenge to your

4 evidence. You have come along and simply said somebody said it was a

5 tribal fight. Is there any reason to prefer, that you can identify,

6 somebody telling you it was a tribal fight to this evidence or this

7 material produced by experienced human rights observers, in this case

8 Frederick Abrahams?

9 A. I mean, if it is written and -- it's accepted and a witness and

10 whatever, I have no reason.

11 MR. NICE: Usher, could I have the book back, please. I'll find

12 another page, and it's probably better if I do it. You see -- thank you

13 very much. It's page 18 at the top. The page numbers are now on the top.

14 Thanks very much

15 Q. You see, just to explain through to you so that you can think

16 about this, this report, page 18, says the following: "After taking

17 Likovac, the government forces moved on to Obrinje. According to Sejnije

18 Delijaj, who was in Gornje Obrinje with her family at the beginning of the

19 offensive, government forces began shelling the Delijaj compound from the

20 direction of Likovac at around 8 a.m. on Friday, September 26, with

21 various types of artillery and mortars. Most of the inhabitants of the

22 compound fled to the forest to escape the shelling."

23 Then if we turn over to page 19, please, two-thirds of the way

24 down. Further down. Thank you very much. "According to the Pristina

25 media centre, a media centre with close ties to the Serbian government, at

1 least seven policemen died in the Obrinje area on September 25, 1998, the

2 day prior to the massacre of the Delijaj family and the summary executions

3 at nearby Golubovac."

4 And if we can turn over to page 20, please, Mr. Nort. Foot of

5 the page. Further down. Other way. Thanks.

6 "On September 26, Human Rights Watch researchers observed a

7 Yugoslav army Red Cross helicopter fly over the village of Plocica in the

8 direction of Gornje Obrinje, which could be seen burning in the distance,

9 and return approximately twenty minutes later."

10 And then finally 21, please, middle of the page. A bit further

11 up. "The village of Gornje Obrinje was largely destroyed during the

12 Yugoslav offensive. The village was still shouldering when Human Rights

13 Watch researchers arrived around 11 a.m. on September 29 ..." and then it

14 goes on to deal with the shooting of cattle.

15 Your evidence has no detail of any kind, does it, to put against a

16 properly sourced and rooted account like this?

17 A. There was no eyewitnesses, that's true. There was no eyewitness,

18 and otherwise, I repeat, I left with this or I relied on the reports we

19 received and on the information we received.

20 Q. You see, do you accept, Mr. Hartwig, that the KVM with its 2.000

21 observers operated a disciplined code for contacting the press and making

22 public statements? It did it in an organised way with spokesmen at the

23 top and other people keeping quiet. Do you accept that?

24 A. I'm afraid it would be of my disadvantage if I comment on this

25 one. I don't blame anybody because I have no direct reason to -- to

1 accuse or to -- to blame any -- anybody. So far -- and in addition, I

2 don't know their daily reports. I have no reason either to question their

3 reports. But I remember that very few hours after the dead bodies of

4 Racak, for instance, were found, a clear statement to the media was given

5 on who the perpetrators were.

6 Q. My question's specific but about systems. Do you accept that the

7 KVM was controlled and disciplined in contact with the press? Yes or no.

8 A. I cannot confirm because I wasn't a witness of any of their press

9 conferences whatsoever.

10 Q. You, on the other hand, after your two and a half months or nearly

11 three months with your mission of somewhere between 20 and 40 people have

12 felt free to comment on nearly all aspects of Kosovo history and life,

13 haven't you?

14 A. I haven't provided comments on every aspect of life, but --

15 JUDGE ROBINSON: He has given an appropriate answer to that

16 question, Mr. Nice.

17 MR. NICE: Very well.

18 Q. Let's look at what Klaus Naumann said. Before we look at what

19 Klaus Naumann said - he's the senior German military man, top military

20 officer - do you have any reason to doubt his reliability as a soldier?

21 A. I have -- I don't question anything, because I don't know what you

22 have in mind right now and what he mentioned, and in particular, I don't

23 know what additional information apart from our information he may have

24 had.

25 Q. I'm giving you a chance before we look at the way he put things in

1 evidence before this Court on one particular topic, I'm giving you a

2 chance. Is there anything you know -- you're free to say this however

3 embarrassing. Anything you know to doubt Klaus Naumann? Tell us.

4 A. I -- I -- how should I call it? I -- I accept the same right to

5 General Naumann as I accept to everybody, to come to own conclusions and

6 to have his own opinion.

7 Q. I mean, somebody like the top -- you can use this, please -- the

8 top military officer in Germany would have, apart from good lines of

9 reporting, he would also have access to sources of intelligence it's

10 reasonably to be inferred, correct?

11 A. [Interpretation] I certainly assume that.

12 Q. If you just look -- I'm afraid I can't see it very clearly at the

13 moment and I handed my only copy. A bit further down, please. Further --

14 that's fine.

15 This is the way General Naumann expressed his opinion of what

16 happened between the October agreements and the time when the bombing

17 started, and he said this. Please listen. "It did not last for too long

18 a time. We saw -- as of November, we saw again and again reports of

19 violations.

20 "I should really say, in all fairness, to the best information I

21 got from the reports on the ground, from KDOM and later on from the Kosovo

22 verification regime, many of the incidents were triggered by the UCK, who

23 obviously tried to exploit the vacuum created by the withdrawn Serb

24 security forces and who then sneaked in to take control of regions or

25 areas. They also, I think, launched provocations, and they were not free

1 of violence in doing that."

2 Now, he's had access to some of your reporting but a lot of other

3 reporting. Does his summary seem to be about right?

4 A. [In English] I understand it correctly, he admits that there were

5 violations, and --

6 Q. You're speaking in another language. Why do you say "admit"? He

7 simply states that there were violations. He's not taking sides. He's

8 not defending anybody. He simply states there were violations.

9 A. Yeah. Well -- [Interpretation] In this case, the witness will

10 continue in German.

11 Now, if he states this, then certainly he will have his reason for

12 this, and I would like to return to this. Perhaps it's a question of the

13 point of view in observation and perhaps there is a big difference in that

14 perhaps there are also different means of observing things from a distance

15 or from the close proximity.

16 I'm not saying that General Naumann is wrong or that he had

17 assessed things incorrectly, but simply because of the proximity there can

18 be slightly different assessments.

19 Q. Well, the passage we looked at already casts quite a lot of

20 responsibility on the KLA. Let's just look at the end of this short

21 passage. Foot of the page.

22 "The problem is that in many cases, as far as I have seen later

23 on, particularly in the course of November and December, that the Serb

24 side --" over the page, please -- "reacted again in a disproportionate

25 way. It was, if I may say so, the old attitude to react to an incident

1 where perhaps an individual had tried to kill or had killed a police

2 officer, that they then again went in and used heavy weapons against

3 villages and using disproportionately force against civilians."

4 Now, just to remind you, in summary, General Naumann, looking at

5 all the reporting, is saying lots of examples of KLA starting things off

6 filling the vacuum left by the October agreements resulting in some

7 disproportionate use of force by the VJ. This is the evidence the

8 Prosecution has called. It may well be essentially the Prosecution's

9 case. No reason to doubt it, is there? He's got it right, your general.

10 A. [In English] I can only add to the statement of General Naumann

11 what happened I think between Christmas and the end of 1998 when suddenly

12 the French foreign minister, followed by the French ambassador at

13 Belgrade, followed by even the German foreign minister since Germany had

14 taken over the EU Presidency from 1st of January, later I think even from

15 China foreign minister or whatever, when they not warned but when they

16 reminded UCK increasingly to stick to the rules, to consider the basis of

17 laws, I think this somehow fits to that former statement.

18 Q. So yes, General Naumann got it right?

19 A. Pardon?

20 Q. Yes, General Naumann got it right?

21 A. Yes, in the right direction.

22 Q. Let's look at a couple of other things. First of all, the letter

23 to Sreten Lukic. Now, as you haven't brought your version with you, the

24 version I have, and I explained that I had a secondary version, I'll

25 explain how it comes about, Sreten Lukic was interviewed, and when he was

1 interviewed, he read out the letter that you'd sent him. Here we have a

2 transcript from an interpreted version of the letter, and rather than play

3 the transcript of Sreten Lukic speaking and the interpreter translating

4 it, it will save time if we go through this printed version of the

5 transcript in English. If you had brought your version with you, we could

6 have seen the original. Have you reminded yourself of what is in the

7 version that's in the hotel?

8 A. First of all, when I wrote him I asked him whether he was this

9 particular general I met several times in Kosovo, and I pointed out that

10 although his information contributed --

11 Q. Can we go back to my question? Have you as a matter of fact since

12 you were here last week read the letter or your copy of the letter that

13 you sent to Sreten Lukic?

14 A. Yeah.

15 Q. I'm going to read what I'm going to suggest is the transcript

16 through translation of that letter, and I'm going to ask you first of all

17 if you recognise it as being essentially the letter that's in your hotel

18 and I'm going to ask you for a few comments on it.

19 The document is on the overhead projector, it reads as follows:

20 "Dear, sir, and, General, on the 18th of March, 1999, I had to leave

21 Kosovo on orders. At the time, I still believed in political measures and

22 soon returned." I'll come back and ask a question about that in a minute.

23 "What happened after my evacuation is something that I wish had never

24 happened, and something that I would like to forget if it were possible.

25 I'm writing these lines as a private person, and not (any longer as a

1 member of the observer mission). With the beginning of the NATO

2 airstrikes, I have severed my contract in the service." Just perhaps

3 pausing there.

4 Does this seem to you to be a transcription of, through another

5 language, the letter that you sent to Sreten Lukic?

6 A. Well, apart from the first sentence, this is not my typical style,

7 "Dear, sir, and, General," and so on. This is not my style. But I think

8 the contents is in line.

9 Q. So far we've just seen reference to your returning. You didn't in

10 fact return to Kosovo, did you?

11 A. Pardon?

12 Q. You didn't return to Kosovo?

13 A. No.

14 Q. That may be a mistake of translation. You are described as a

15 member, not as a leader of the observer mission. We haven't been able to

16 find any documents dealing with you or anybody who actually knew you at

17 the time. Were you in fact the leader of the mission or were you, as you

18 described in evidence, a manager of the office?

19 A. I was the head regional office, and there was no documentation

20 like a letter of employment or whatever. This was a decision taken by the

21 mission headquarters, and that was the administrative decision.

22 Q. So you were appointed as a member and you became, in the short

23 period of time, the person running the office. Is that fair?

24 A. I came to the Kosovo with the information that I was going to

25 become the head of the regional office.

1 Q. I'll read on: "I also apologise for writing in German. My

2 Serbian is not that good. I didn't even get the opportunity to say

3 good-bye to you and to thank you for your help and your patience with

4 which you made clearer your view of the state of affairs and the problem

5 of your work. Something that influenced me to a large degree, and gave me

6 an incentive to understand you and the Yugoslav situation."

7 So you're accepting here that you were strongly influenced by the

8 opinions and descriptions of events given to you by Sreten Lukic.

9 A. When I came to Kosovo I followed the picture that everything which

10 was going wrong which was crimes committed were committed by Serbs. This

11 was my original belief more or less when I came. It was not that strong

12 as before, but there was still something left from all that saying what

13 the Serbs were doing and how other -- other people were suffering from.

14 So far, he did not occupy my opinion. He did not decisively

15 influence my today's attitude or my attitude in general, but he was a

16 starting point to consider things in a different way.

17 Q. According to the translated version, "influenced to large degree"

18 is the way you expressed yourself. Now, just thinking back, here is a

19 conflict with two sides to it and different opinions being expressed

20 publicly, and you were there for under three months. Is it safe, do you

21 think, to find yourself strongly influenced by the chief of police of one

22 side of a conflict like this?

23 A. I think one has also to consider the point of time when I wrote

24 that letter, and that what I mentioned when I began to reconsider my own

25 personal attitude. So far it might be misleading if you want to take the

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1 opportunity to use it as a starting point that I -- I was strongly

2 influenced. It changed my mind to come to -- to a wrong decision or to a

3 very partial attitude.

4 Q. Well, let's read on. "The task that you had been given, until the

5 time of your evacuation, at the end --" of our evacuation - I beg your

6 pardon - "at the end could not be carried out, because you couldn't and

7 weren't able to use your own means the way you thought it necessary, and

8 which would have been most appropriate to the situation."

9 So what was he hoping to do that he wasn't allowed to do?

10 A. That what I -- what I expressed earlier. I felt a very strong --

11 a very strong resistance to take action in order not to create any -- any

12 conflict with -- with the details of the Milosevic-Holbrooke agreement.

13 Q. Well -- and I hope the Chamber will forgive me if I break off from

14 the letter at this stage to return to a point that His Honour Judge Kwon

15 launched and I wanted to develop.

16 Do you remember you answered a question I think was started by His

17 Honour Judge Kwon, where you said that there were common law rules

18 favouring certain conduct of events? Do you remember that?

19 A. Yeah.

20 Q. First of all, what common law rule is it that you had in mind?

21 A. The UCK always considered itself an army, which means that they

22 were following as [Interpretation] international law as it prevails in

23 wartime conditions. So the KLA always considered itself to be an army,

24 and as an army it claimed the right to abide by the rules governing

25 international law at the time of war.

1 Q. Well, you gave your answer about the common law rule in relation

2 to tab 5, which we'll look at --

3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson.

4 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

5 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Just a small correction that has to

6 do with the translation. "The UCK or KLA considered itself to be an

7 army." [In English] "Always considered itself an army," that's what it

8 says in the transcript, whereas in the Serbian interpretation is that the

9 KLA was considered an army, which means that it was treated as an army.

10 So it's a difference between whether somebody considers themselves to be

11 something or whether they are treated as something, and I hope you

12 understand the difference between the two.

13 JUDGE ROBINSON: Well, we note the point, Mr. Milosevic. Thanks.

14 MR. NICE:

15 Q. Can we go to tab 5, please, of your exhibits, which is the report

16 for the 28th of January, 1999. You were asked about the last paragraph on

17 the page, which if there's a spare copy we'll lay it on the overhead

18 projector, otherwise, we'll just read out. You said this: "This is the

19 classic and normal development: Attempts and assassinations by KLA

20 against police and then ultimately search for and identify them. After

21 the operations, weapons are hidden and the fighters convert to normal

22 citizens with no visible link to the KLA. Since it is not the speciality

23 of Serb forces and impossible under these conditions to surgically conduct

24 operations, the hammering seems to remain the only response. And it can

25 be expected that, as long as KLA applies its guerrilla tactics, the

1 proceeding of police and MUP and VJ against KLA will remain unchanged."

2 Hammering what, the whole vicinity, including civilians? Is that

3 what you meant there?

4 A. I -- that does not mean we're talking about sort of leveling and

5 making everything the same. Perhaps I used not a very fortunate

6 expression here. Basically what I meant to convey was a massive use of

7 forces.

8 Q. Well, a massive use of forces in reaction to small incidents is

9 inevitably going to involve civilians being killed, and we've heard what

10 General Naumann said about the use of the VJ.

11 Now, were you, first of all in this report of yours, really

12 approving of the use of hammering of areas to try and dispose of the KLA?

13 A. [In English] I never approved anything. I never supported

14 anything. My directive was and my own way was to provide information and

15 as far as possible to leave any further conclusions to the people who read

16 it or who receive it.

17 Q. Let's come become to tab 2, please, which is not numbered pages

18 but it is the -- starting with the title page, it's the first, second,

19 third, fourth page into tab 2, and at the top of the page it says, "...

20 with the material status..." Do you have that page? If we come down to

21 the last paragraph, which begins "KLA stands for Kosovo Liberation

22 Army..." and go six lines down, you said this. This is your notes for a

23 talk, I believe. You said: "Actions against guerrilla fighters are the

24 most difficult military operations and, therefore, something like an area

25 covering action seems to be the only means. This is the only method

1 behind..." and then you go on to deal with what you say was sympathy by

2 the international community when TV pictures are shown, and then you say

3 this: "Finally, the liberation by the KLA and potential search or

4 retaliation by Serb security forces turn out to be a vicious circle to the

5 villagers; their alternative might be to either be killed by the KLA - or

6 by Serb Security forces."

7 Now, again, in your use of the phrase "something like area

8 covering action," were you not reflect -- reflecting and acknowledging

9 response of an extensive and it may be disproportionate kind where

10 something like the KLA was involved?

11 A. If I may repeat, I do not support, I do not acknowledge anything

12 of this. I just considered this from a military point -- point of view

13 that it is most -- most difficult, and if I may remind, this was -- was a

14 draft, but in the sense as far as those lines you were just -- or we were

15 just talking, there is no change.

16 I don't acknowledge anything. I don't think that any type of

17 armed conflict is good at all. But in such a situation, decisions need to

18 be taken.

19 Q. Well, finally, since tab 7 is in, let's just look at tab 7 before

20 we return to your letter to Sreten Lukic as we explore your attitude which

21 informs this reporting. On the 4th of February, 1999, tab 7 but the last

22 page of it, and at the top of the page where you deal with the deaths of

23 Albanians at Rugova is something I may or may not have time to deal with,

24 you said this: "Civilians will always be involved, concerned and hit by

25 bullets as long as guerrilla tactics is applied and the 'freedom-fighters'

1 hide themselves behind normal civilians ..." Were you not, in your letter

2 to Sreten Lukic -- and let's go back to that, please, if we can lay it on

3 the overhead projector while we're dealing with it -- were you not when

4 you said to him because you couldn't and weren't able to use your own

5 means the way you thought it necessary and which would have been

6 appropriate to the situation, frankly accepting that in this type of

7 position and in your judgement widespread retaliation with suffering for

8 civilians was an inevitability?

9 A. [Interpretation] Mr. Prosecutor, you spoke of my attitude a moment

10 ago, and in connection with what you said just now, let me contradict that

11 most emphatically. That is not my attitude. I am not in favour of

12 violence in any way whatsoever and certainly never for any unlawful

13 violence. It is simply a case, and all the last wars have confirmed this,

14 that increasingly we see civilians being the main sufferers of war when in

15 the past, from history, the military personnel suffered more.

16 Q. Let's read on the letter. "I have never envied you on this task

17 and the situation, because everywhere in the world politics can impose

18 such a task only on the army and the police. I have no insight into what

19 happened --" pausing there for minute. You felt free to comment widely on

20 this and that. Were you aware of efforts to internationalise the Kosovo

21 problem in 1997, 1998 to which this accused was resistant?

22 A. [In English] Yes. I know that there were -- that there were

23 attempts, but as results.

24 Q. Do you know of the man Stanisic and what happened to him when he

25 resisted the approach of the accused? Very well. Let's move on.

1 "I have no insight into what happened after my evacuation." That

2 holds true, does it? You have no knowledge, no insight into what happened

3 after your departure on the 18th of March, 1999?

4 A. I don't because I didn't receive any of the regular reports any

5 more. My teams were emigrated, and whatever I was aware of, this came on

6 -- this was a private -- private information.

7