1 Wednesday, 24 August 2005

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 [The witness entered court]

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

6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, please continue with your

7 examination-in-chief.

8 WITNESS: VOJISLAV SESELJ [Resumed]

9 [Witness answered through interpreter]

10 Examined by Mr. Milosevic: [Continued]

11 Q. [Interpretation] Good morning, Mr. Seselj. Yesterday, we started

12 a question concerning the testimony of Shukri Buja, who mentioned the

13 Black Hand and other politicians in Serbia. So I will read out to you

14 what he says. I have before me page 6421 of the transcript from his

15 testimony, where he was asked about the arrest of some citizens in Racak.

16 He said: "We did not arrest any civilians. We detained for a very brief

17 period. We took the risk of intervention of Serbian paramilitaries of the

18 kind of the Black Hand [In English] in the midst of the civilians in order

19 to cause incident that could have huge repercussions and result in another

20 massacre." [Interpretation] I won't go on.

21 Reading the question: "All right. These stories about the Black

22 Hand and paramilitary formations are stories we've already heard. They

23 are quite -- [In English] equally inaccurate and -- they are quite

24 picturesque and equally inaccurate and untrue. But since you've mentioned

25 it, you claim that all politicians, and you are referring to Serb

1 politicians, had military units in Kosovo.

2 "You say --" that is quotation from page 9 of his witness

3 statement: "Kostunica posed for a photograph when he toured the Serb

4 troops in Kosovo during the conflict. He wore a bandolier on his chest,

5 wearing an ammunition belt across his chest, holding an automatic weapon.

6 I saw Seselj on television in a military uniform several times visiting

7 his own units."

8 [Interpretation] Then I asked him "[In English] Are you referring

9 to Kosovo yet again?

10 "Yes. Kostunica did pose, and that appeared in the dailies

11 bearing those images. If you want ... we can procure a copy." Et cetera.

12 [Interpretation] Please tell me, he goes on page 6442, again I asked him:

13 [In English] Towards the end of the paragraph, it says: 'All the

14 politicians have military units. They all attacked Kosovo in some way.'

15 That's what it says."

16 [Interpretation] Tell us, what politicians -- he mentions you,

17 Kostunica. So what politicians had their own paramilitary formations in

18 Kosovo?

19 JUDGE ROBINSON: Before you answer, Mr. Seselj, Mr. Milosevic, in

20 future when you have a passage like that which you intend to read, you

21 should summarise it. The essence of the question you are putting to

22 Mr. Seselj is that there has been evidence in this case from Prosecution

23 witnesses that politicians had their own paramilitaries in Kosovo, and you

24 ask him to comment on it, and you make a specific reference to the witness

25 saying that he saw Seselj on television on a number of times visiting his

1 own units, and that could be said in a minute. You don't have to read out

2 all of it. I know it's a practice which has evolved throughout this case

3 and it's employed by the Prosecution as well, but I think we waste too

4 much time. Just put the essence of the question to Mr. Seselj.

5 Mr. Seselj, provide us with the answer now.

6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In Kosovo and Metohija, there were

7 no Serb paramilitary formations. They simply did not exist, either in

8 Kosovo or anywhere in Serbia throughout the duration of the Kosovo crisis

9 culminating in war. The Black Hand was a secret organisation of officers

10 dating from before World War I. Never, even when it existed, was it a

11 paramilitary organisation. It was a group of officers conspiring against

12 a dynasty and a king. They were preparing to assassinate the king and

13 queen and bring a new dynasty to the throne. That was the exclusive role

14 of the Black Hand.

15 In the Austrian media, there were suspicions that the Black Hand

16 was also involved in the assassination of the Austrian heir to the throne,

17 Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo. The Black Hand came to an end during World

18 War I. After that, it never existed any more.

19 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Seselj. I think you have provided

20 the answer by saying that there were no Serb paramilitary formations

21 there.

22 Mr. Milosevic.

23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] But I only answered part of the

24 question. I also have to answer the part that refers to Kostunica. He is

25 currently the Prime Minister of Serbia. It's a very important question.

1 I insist on answering unless you prevent me.

2 JUDGE ROBINSON: Let's have a brief response to that.

3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Kostunica, like some other

4 presidents of opposition political parties, visiting the imperiled Serbs

5 in Kosovo and Metohija. At a military checkpoint he borrowed a

6 machine-gun from a policeman and had his picture taken with it. All of

7 Serbia laughs when somebody says Kostunica had a paramilitary unit. That

8 is not in his nature. It's not like him. It's quite impossible. Neither

9 he nor the Serb Radical Party or anyone else had paramilitary units, nor

10 did they review any paramilitary units. These are fabrications, fantastic

11 fabrications, incredible fabrications.

12 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Seselj, what was the date of the incident

13 involving Kostunica?

14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It wasn't an incident. Why would it

15 be an incident? It was just an event.

16 JUDGE BONOMY: When was it? Let's not waste time --

17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] As far as I can recall, this

18 happened in the summer of 1998. As far as I can recall. But who am I to

19 recall Kostunica's CV? This was published in the papers and it was around

20 that time.

21 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

22 Q. Mr. Seselj, so it's quite clear: Kostunica had no paramilitary

23 formations. Is this clearly what you know about it?

24 A. Yes, absolutely.

25 Q. Very well. Witness K6 said there was a group active in Kosovo

1 called Arkan's Tigers, and he went on to say - that's on page 6597, and I

2 won't read, Mr. Robinson - he said that Seselj's men were there as well as

3 the Black Hand. He said Arkan's Tigers, Seselj's men, and the Black Hand.

4 Is this correct?

5 A. I won't repeat what I have already said about any men of mine or

6 any paramilitary units of the Serb Radical Party, which is untrue. But I

7 also have to deny what he said about Arkan. I never spoke well of Arkan

8 in public. We were always in conflict. But I have to tell the truth:

9 After the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Dayton Accord, Arkan

10 disbanded his Serb Volunteer Guard, and it never reappeared anywhere in

11 any incident or event. It simply did not exist any longer. He continued

12 dealing in criminal activities after the war, but the Serb Volunteer Guard

13 no longer existed.

14 Arkan formed a political party. I tried to defeat it in the

15 election campaign, and I was quite successful in that. I defeated him in

16 a televised debate, and his party failed completely in the elections. He

17 thought that he could take advantage of any renown he had won in the war

18 on the political scene, but I did my best to destroy that.

19 This lawyer, Toma Fila, was also a member of his party --

20 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you. That went a little beyond --

21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] -- who is here in two cases.

22 JUDGE ROBINSON: That went a little beyond what was required for

23 the answer.

24 Mr. Milosevic.

25 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

1 Q. Let's go on to the events in Krajina. How many times were you in

2 the Krajina during 1990 and 1991 before the outbreak of any hostilities?

3 A. More than once. I can't give you the exact number. I remember

4 many of my visits to the Krajina. For example, I attended the meeting in

5 Petrova Gora, the rally that is, and the rally in Srb. Then I was in Knin

6 when the Autonomous Province of Krajina was promulgated. Then I led that

7 great march of Serbs to Plitvice. I cannot tell you the precise number of

8 times I visited, but I can recall my visits. I visited Eastern Slavonia,

9 the eastern part of Krajina, even more often. The first time was on the

10 9th of March, 1991. I didn't go there in 1990. In 1990, I went to the

11 western part of Krajina. But after the 9th of March, 1991, I made several

12 visits to Baranja, Eastern Slavonia, and Western Srem.

13 Q. And when was this big popular rally in Kordun that you just

14 mentioned in Petrova Gora?

15 A. Well, it was officially termed rally of Serbs and Croats, and it

16 took place on the 4th of March, 1990, and the immediate occasion for it

17 was the fact that Franjo Tudjman, the president of the Croatian Democratic

18 Union, I think on the 24th of February, stated that the Independent State

19 of Croatia had been an expression of the historical tendencies of the

20 Croatian people. And I have to say that during World War II this was a

21 quisling formation belonging to Hitler, and the Ustasha perpetrated crimes

22 against the Serbs, Gypsies, and Jews, surpassing in number the crimes

23 perpetrated by Hitler. In response to this statement made by Tudjman, a

24 steering committee - it was not a political party, and it consisted of

25 both Serbs and Croats - organised a rally in Petrova Gora, and they called

1 it a rally of Serbs and Croats, and the main speaker was retired General

2 Dusan Pekic.

3 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Seselj.

4 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

5 Q. So you were one of several tens of thousands of participants.

6 What organisation were you representing there?

7 A. At that time, I was the president of the Serb Freedom Movement,

8 which was the first name given to our party. I was there from the people

9 in the top leadership of Vojin Vuletic, the then vice-president Djordje

10 Nikolic, and Mrs. Radmila Nikolic, his wife, who drove us there.

11 Q. You have just explained the reason why this large rally on -- in

12 Petrova Gora on the 4th of March, 1990, was organised. Can you tell us

13 very briefly how the Serbs in Krajina, and not just in Krajina but all

14 over Croatia, experienced that HDZ rally in the Lisinski Hall in Zagreb,

15 the concert hall, and the words that you have just quoted spoken by the

16 then President Franjo Tudjman of the party?

17 A. Well, the Serbs had very painful memories. They had suffered a

18 genocide in the Independent State of Croatia, in Jasenovac alone,

19 according to official data, about 700.000 Serbs were killed, 60.000

20 Gypsies, and 35.000 Roma, Jews --

21 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's correction: 60.000 Jews and 35.000

22 Roma.

23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] They encompassed Srem and part of

24 Bosnia-Herzegovina. There were mass graves, mass executions in various

25 sites. The Serb people suffered grievously throughout World War II, and

1 Tudjman reminded the Serb people of that suffering. The Serbs were

2 frightened throughout the Croatian federal unit. They were afraid that

3 their terrible fate from 1941 to 1945 would be repeated.

4 Q. And when was the rally in Lika held which you also attended?

5 A. In late July. I think it was the 25th or the 27th of July, 1990.

6 C The immediate cause for the calling of that rally was the opening of a

7 public debate on the amendments to the constitution of Croatia. Tudjman

8 by then had already come to power because his party had won in the

9 parliamentary elections in late April and early May. There were two

10 rounds and they won 41 per cent of the votes, but according to the

11 majority election system, they had two-thirds of the seats in the Croatian

12 parliament. They immediately proceeded to amend the Croatian

13 constitution, and they deleted from the text of the constitution the

14 definition that the Serbs were also a constituent nation in Croatia.

15 According to the then Yugoslav legal constitutional theory, the status of

16 a constituent nation meant that in one could alter --

17 JUDGE ROBINSON: The question really was when was the rally that

18 you also attended. You tend to be a little prolix. You answered it.

19 Just concentrate on answering the specific question. Don't elaborate

20 unless Mr. Milosevic or the Chamber asks you to.

21 Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

22 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] Just now you said that the

23 immediate occasion was the beginning of the procedure of adopting

24 amendments to the constitution of Croatia, and you indicated the most

25 important element, that is to say the deletion of the Serbs as a

1 constituent people from the constitution of Croatia. In all the post-war

2 constitutions, was the Serb people defined as a constituent people or,

3 rather, Croatia as the state of the Croatian people, the Serb people, and

4 the other peoples living in it?

5 A. That was the precondition for the existence of the Croatian

6 federal unit within the then Yugoslavia. It was only in that variant that

7 the Croatian federal unit could exist and include all those territories;

8 that is to say that it included equal constituent peoples - Croats, Serbs,

9 and other nationalities, as they were called at the time.

10 Q. Tell us, at that time was there similar anxiety with regard to the

11 symbols that the new Croatian -- the new Croatian authorities adopted on

12 the 25th of July, 1990?

13 A. The president of the HDZ, Franjo Tudjman, even while fighting for

14 power, was intensively renewing Ustasha symbols, and when the Croatian

15 state was proclaimed, the Ustasha chessboard was proclaimed the coat of

16 arms of the Republic of Croatia and the flag of the Republic of Croatia.

17 Then also Franjo Tudjman started returning the most extreme right wing

18 members of the Croatian immigration. They started becoming ministers.

19 This was a signal to the Serbs what was in the offing. There was nothing

20 good they could expect with the Ustashas coming back to power.

21 THE INTERPRETER: Could the speaker please be asked to slow down.

22 The pace is very fast.

23 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic and Mr. Seselj, just look at the

24 transcript. You will see the interpreter asking you to slow down, both of

25 you.

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1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, I do not have any

2 transcript. I'm not following the transcript because I don't know the

3 English language. Actually, I do know the English language as much as I

4 need it, but I don't know as much as you'd like me to know.

5 JUDGE ROBINSON: Never mind. I brought it to your attention. The

6 interpreters are asking you to slow down.

7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes. I shall bear that in mind, and

8 I assume that Mr. Seselj will too, that the pace of speech should be

9 slower because of the interpreters.

10 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

11 Q. I'm going to read some paragraphs out to you, 94 and 95, that is,

12 of this so-called Croatian indictment.

13 MR. NICE: [Previous translation continues] ... policy of not

14 allowing the phrase "so-called indictment." I know it's a small point but

15 it's a matter of respect for the Court. It's an indictment and it's

16 nothing else.

17 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic. An inappropriate comment.

18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, as for the nonsense

19 that --

20 JUDGE ROBINSON: I don't wish to debate it. Just move on with the

21 -- with your questions.

22 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

23 Q. I'm reading paragraph 94 to you: "In April and May 1990, the

24 Republic of Croatia held elections in which the Croatian Democratic Union

25 won a plurality of votes and secured a majority of seats in the Croatian

1 Sabor (parliament). The new Sabor then elected the HDZ candidate Franjo

2 Tudjman president of Croatia."

3 So the elections were held and the Croatian Democratic Union won a

4 plurality of votes and secured a majority of seats in the Croatian

5 parliament. And immediately after that, in paragraph 95, it says: "In

6 advance of the 1990 elections, the nationalistic Serbian Democratic Party

7 was founded in Knin, SDS, advocating the autonomy and later secession of

8 predominantly Serb areas from Croatia."

9 Mr. Seselj, what is your knowledge, aware of the situation in the

10 Krajina? Can you confirm this distinction that is made between the HDZ

11 and the SDS? It says: "In advance of the 1990 elections, the

12 nationalistic Serbian Democratic Party was founded in Knin..." What about

13 the HDZ? Was it founded before the elections? Which party was founded

14 first, the HDZ or the SDS?

15 A. In Croatia already in 1989, opposition political parties were

16 established at the time when official laws had not allowed that yet. They

17 were all Croatian parties. Ujdi Branko Horvat, the Croatian Democratic

18 Union of Franjo Tudjman, the Liberal Party -- I don't know its exact name

19 but there was a liberal qualification in its name. It belonged to Slavko

20 Goldstein, and so on. Serbs did not establish their own political parties

21 at all until the 14th of February, if I remember correctly, which is when

22 the Croatian parliament voted on a law on a multi-party system, that is to

23 say the free establishment of political parties. Three days after that --

24 I may be making an error in terms of the date but I don't really think

25 that matters, it's the essence that matters. So only when this

1 possibility was provided by law, the Serbian Democratic Party was

2 established. All parties that were established before that in Croatia

3 were more or less nationalistic except for some small, very insignificant

4 ones that failed soon. It was the Croatian Democratic Union that was the

5 leading party.

6 When I say "nationalistic," I don't believe that there is a

7 negative connotation involved per se. Nationalism is not a negative

8 phenomenon. Chauvinism is a negative phenomenon; hatred for other people

9 and other nations. This party proved to be a chauvinist party.

10 The SDS was established as a reaction to the Croatian Democratic

11 Union, and it only tried to protect Serb national interests. The first

12 president of the Serb Democratic Party was Dr. Jovan Raskovic. He very

13 clearly presented the programme orientation of the SDS in three words,

14 practically. If Yugoslavia continues to exist as a federal state, the

15 Serb Democratic Party is in favour of the life of Serbs in Croatia as was

16 the case before. They do not ask for any kind of autonomy within Croatia.

17 However, if Yugoslavia turns into a confederation, the SDS calls for

18 territorial Serb autonomy within Croatia in the territory where there is a

19 majority Serb population. However, if Croatia secedes from Yugoslavia,

20 then --

21 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. I'm stopping you now because you answered

22 the question as to when the party was founded.

23 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

24 Q. Yes. But before that, I put another question quoting these two

25 paragraphs.

1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, I asked what

2 Mr. Seselj's knowledge was in relation to these qualifications regarding

3 these two parties and what it was that they were advocating, these two

4 political parties.

5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Obviously this formulation --

6 JUDGE ROBINSON: [Previous translation continues]... Mr. Seselj.

7 Then, Mr. Milosevic, it was your fault. Don't put three questions to him.

8 Put one at a time. The three questions will inevitably induce an overly

9 long answer.

10 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

11 Q. Was a single one of the objectives put forth by Dr. Jovan

12 Raskovic, the president and founder of the SDS and that he presented when

13 the party was established, could any one of them be called chauvinistic,

14 anti-Croat, or in any way hostile towards Croats in Croatia?

15 A. Absolutely not. First of all, the wife of Dr. Jovan Raskovic was

16 a Croat. His daughter was married to a Croat. Secondly, Dr. Jovan

17 Raskovic at all rallies that he spoke at - I was present at some and I

18 followed others through the media - insisted that the Serb Democratic

19 Party and the Serb people are not against the Croats, not against the

20 Croatian people, not against Croatia, that Serbs were only against

21 Ustashas. And he kept repeating that time and again practically

22 everywhere where he spoke, and I assume that the public still remembers

23 that. Only against Ustashas. Ustashas are Croatian fascists.

24 Q. He said that he was against Ustashas, not against Croats and not

25 against Croatia and the Croat people is something that he repeated so many

1 times and something that people could hear so many times on television

2 that it truly cannot be denied by anyone.

3 It is obvious here -- and you explained just now how the HDZ was

4 established, how the Serb Democratic Party was established. Do you

5 remember who the majority of the Serbs voted for in these first

6 multi-party elections in April, May 1990?

7 A. In their naivete, most Serbs believed that Tudjman would not win

8 the elections, that the policy of brotherhood and unity of the Serbs and

9 Croats would win, a policy that had been promoted for half a century

10 officially and that had been considerably espoused by the people

11 themselves. Most Serbs opted for the former League of Communists or,

12 rather, the Party for Democratic Change of Ivica Racan. A significant

13 number of Serbs also voted for the Socialist Party of Croatia that was

14 founded by Boro Mikulic.

15 After these elections, the Serb Democratic Party won only five

16 seats in the Croatian Sabor. Perhaps there were another 15 or so Serbs in

17 other political parties, but there were some in Racan's party and perhaps

18 in others too.

19 So the Serbs did not believe that Tudjman would win. They thought

20 that a democratic option would win, a nationally tolerant option. That's

21 what mattered the most for them. Therefore, they opted for various

22 political parties that they expected to promote political tolerance in the

23 political life of Croatia after the elections. When Tudjman won the

24 election and after the Ustasha order was re-established in Croatia, then

25 the Serbs started rallying around the SDS.

1 Q. As for the vote of most Serbs in these first elections in Croatia,

2 that is to say the SKHSDP, the membership and the leadership, were they

3 made up in such a way that they were undoubtedly ethnic Croats?

4 A. Yes. A vast majority were ethnic Croats but there were Serbs too.

5 The vice-president of the Sabor was from that party, a Serb. I cannot

6 remember his exact name, but this is reliable information. He resigned

7 after the Sabor became so anti-Serb. But if I remember correctly, after

8 the first elections, a Serb was the vice-president of the Sabor, and he

9 resigned soon after that.

10 Q. Can it be said that actually at these first multi-party elections

11 in Croatia most Serbs did not vote on ethnic grounds at all?

12 A. No.

13 Q. But basically on the basis of the political options of the parties

14 they voted for.

15 A. That is true. Most Serbs then did not vote for that party which

16 is called a nationalistic party here. However, the HDZ is not a called

17 nationalistic party, which shows the partiality of whoever wrote this.

18 Q. That is also a fact that need not be proven further.

19 MR. NICE: There's a lot of commentary and effective leading in

20 these questions. It's now for the Court where it wants to discipline the

21 accused, but if you look at the last three questions, re: "Can it be said

22 that..." That's leading in tendency or nature. "Basically on the basis

23 of the political options of the parties they voted for," and so on. We're

24 not getting responsive questions and answer, but of course, it's very

25 difficult at this volume actually to work out what's being said in time to

1 raise the objections.

2 JUDGE ROBINSON: These are points at issue, points in dispute,

3 Mr. Nice?

4 MR. NICE: I can't say whether they're in dispute or not at the

5 moment. I'm not going to deal with --

6 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

7 MR. NICE: I can't say whether they're in dispute or not and I

8 doubt if I'm going to deal with them in detail.

9 JUDGE ROBINSON: Because generally I tend to overlook leading

10 questions where they are not matters of controversy for the Prosecution.

11 MR. NICE: As Your Honour pleases.

12 JUDGE ROBINSON: But, Mr. Milosevic, we have been through this

13 several times. When you begin a question, "Isn't it true that...", "Isn't

14 it clear that ..." it will almost inevitably be a leading question, which

15 is not permissible.

16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right, Mr. Robinson.

17 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

18 Q. Mr. Seselj, a very neutral question: This kind of vote by most

19 Serbs from the Socialist Republic of Croatia, what did it say about their

20 attitude towards the Croats, Croatia, and the SFRY?

21 A. This shows that Serbs were loyal citizens of Croatia as a federal

22 unit in Yugoslavia. It shows that the Serbs wanted a civic state after

23 the communist regime was toppled in the first multi-party elections and

24 that they expected this state of citizens. The outcome of the vote can

25 show how truly disappointed the Serbs were once this democracy and

1 multi-party system was renewed.

2 Q. Tell me, how many times were you in Knin and when in 1990?

3 A. As far as I can remember, I was there twice. Once the end of

4 August, beginning of September, 1990, and the second time sometime in

5 December 1990. I cannot give you the exact dates, but I believe that I

6 was in Knin at least twice.

7 Q. Tell me who it was that you saw and that you spoke to there on

8 those two occasions in 1990 when you were there.

9 A. Well, I met a large number of Serb political activists. First of

10 all, I had meetings with Milan Babic, first the president of the

11 municipality of Knin, and then president of the Autonomous Region of

12 Krajina. Then Milan Martic, who was first chief of police in Knin and,

13 after that, was minister of the interior of the Autonomous Region of

14 Krajina.

15 Q. And what was the content of these talks that you had with them?

16 A. Well, we talked about general matters related to the destiny of

17 the Serb people. They told me about details, harassment, torture of

18 Serbs, arrests, bring into custody several times. The Croat police broke

19 into police stations in Serb areas, stole weapons, et cetera. Serbs felt

20 jeopardised. They organised night patrols, night guards. They put up

21 barricades or, rather, log barriers, as they were called, in order to

22 prevent 1941 from happening all over again when the Ustashas broke in and

23 killed everyone and everything that was Serb.

24 Milan Babic, at the end of August or beginning of September, asked

25 me if it was possible for the SDS to rally together volunteers, because

1 people were exhausted after being on duty on the barricades day and night.

2 I promised that and I did that in Belgrade. I did that in the central

3 street of Belgrade, Knez Mihaila Street, and your police apprehended me

4 and I was sentenced to 15 days in prison.

5 Q. Tell me, do you have any knowledge about the proclamation of the

6 SAO Krajina from the point of view of paragraph 97 that I'm going to read

7 out to you now, where it says: "On the 21st of December, 1990, Croatian

8 Serbs in Knin announced the creation of a 'Serbian Autonomous District'

9 and declared their independence from Croatia."

10 A. As far as I remember, independence of the Serb Autonomous District

11 was not proclaimed then because the very name Serb Autonomous District

12 means that it is a district within Croatia. Later, when the Republic of

13 Serbian Krajina was proclaimed, that meant definitive separation from the

14 Croatian federal unit, but indeed in December 1990, that was proclaimed,

15 the district was proclaimed, and the first president was Milan Babic.

16 Q. This new Croatian constitution that was called the Christmas

17 constitution because it was adopted on the 22nd of December, what was new

18 in that constitution in terms of defining Serbs as a constituent people

19 or, rather, denying them that definition? What was their new status? Can

20 you give us an explanation?

21 A. The proclamation of the Serb Autonomous District of Krajina was

22 the answer of the Serb people in Croatia to the proclamation of the new

23 constitution which was already definitely decided. Nothing could be

24 changed to the text any more. So this constitution denied the Serb people

25 its rights as the constituent people, and the answer of the Serbs was to

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1 proclaim the autonomous district. In other words, they proclaimed their

2 territorial autonomy as a response to the negation of their constituent

3 status.

4 According to the constitution, the Croatian parliament did not

5 have the right to abolish the Serb status as a constituent right, as a

6 constituent people, just by outvoting. They did not have that right.

7 Q. Just another fact: This paragraph 97 says that Croatian Serbs

8 announced the creation of a Serbian Autonomous District and declared their

9 independence then. Is it true that on the 22nd of December, 1991, Serbs

10 declared independence from Croatia?

11 A. I cannot quote from that enactment that was proclaimed at the

12 time, but since they proclaimed an autonomous district, it was not

13 independence. It was about territorial autonomy. But Serbs in Croatia

14 had always been a constituent people. So the Serbs made it clear they

15 would not stay as part of Croatia unless their status as constituent

16 people was restored.

17 Q. But is it clear that when they declared autonomy they did not

18 proclaim independence?

19 A. I believe that is clear.

20 Q. When you went to Krajina, did you have opportunity to see those

21 logs, those roadblocks on access roads to Serb settlements?

22 A. Yes. I saw the logs, I saw the roadblocks, I saw the people who

23 manned those roadblocks; some of them were armed, others were not. The

24 weapons they had were mostly obsolete, old, from the depots of the

25 Territorial Defence, such as M-48 rifle that had been withdrawn from the

1 army supplies a long time ago, the Thompson rifle that had been withdrawn

2 as obsolete a long time ago again. But everywhere I went I found that

3 Serbs were very anxious and very afraid of what was coming.

4 All the Serbs in the territory of Krajina were very frightened by

5 the intentions of the new Croatian regime led by Franjo Tudjman.

6 Q. While you toured the area, while you met with people, what did

7 they say to you as to the reason why they put up those roadblocks?

8 A. Well, already many incidents had happened. Many Serbs were

9 harassed, maltreated, arrested, tortured. There were graffiti written

10 everywhere. For instance, on one Serb Orthodox Church the letter U, for

11 Ustasha, was written. Serbs were told on many occasions that they would

12 have to leave. If they don't leave on their own, their bodies with their

13 throats slit will slow flow along the river all the way to Belgrade. And

14 their life had become insufferable already in many ways.

15 Q. What you said, that their bodies would flow down the river to

16 Belgrade, was that their imagination or was that a memory of something

17 real?

18 A. It was a memory of World War II when Ustashas killed a lot of

19 Serbs and threw their bodies into the Sava river, even pinning notes to

20 the bodies saying that that was meat designated for the Bajloni green

21 market in Belgrade.

22 Q. This great number of roadblocks that you saw with your own eyes,

23 or roadblocks made of logs around houses and around population centres,

24 could that have been considered an offensive instrument or a defensive

25 instrument?

1 A. Well, a roadblock is obviously a means of defence. People who put

2 up roadblocks are obviously expecting an attack and preparing for that

3 attack. It's certainly not an offensive instrument.

4 Q. Why did you come to Krajina in early May 1991?

5 A. It was actually in April 1991. I came at the invitation of Milan

6 Babic who had organised a large march of the Serbs from Korenica to

7 Plitvice.

8 Q. What was the reason, what was the purpose of that march?

9 A. Plitvice is a majority Serb place and the police had control of

10 the police station there. A month prior to that Serb -- sorry, Croatian

11 special police attacked that police station. An incident was created

12 involving bloodshed. The Yugoslav People's Army came to deal with this

13 incident and calm things down, but the Serbs realised that the army was

14 siding with the Croats. Instead of restoring things to their previous

15 condition, they justified the Croats, in a way, and what they had done.

16 So this march was a protest against the latest Croat moves but also a

17 protest against the Yugoslav People's Army that was helping the Tudjman

18 regime against Serb interests.

19 Q. Was it a peaceful march?

20 A. Yes, it was a march of unarmed people, a peaceful one, including

21 dozens of thousands of people.

22 Q. Who was there?

23 A. I was there, Ljubica Solaja, who was then heading the Serbian

24 Democratic Party, Milan Babic. And we came across seven military

25 roadblocks. The army stopped us seven times with their combat vehicles,

1 with heavy machine-guns. You could see the bandoliers full of real

2 ammunition, live ammunition.

3 Milan Babic was at the head of the convoy. He balked in fear, so

4 I took over from him, leading the march, and we found a way to go around

5 those roadblocks. Sometimes we just went through, and sometimes we went

6 around. Eventually, we arrived at Plitvice and surrounded the

7 headquarters of General Raseta who was there. Then an officer appeared,

8 asking for negotiations. On behalf of the demonstrators, I came to see

9 General Raseta, asking him to let us go through Plitvice peacefully

10 whereas I on my part guaranteed that there would be no incident, no

11 problem, and that's what indeed happened. The demonstrators went through

12 Plitvice. They were singing songs, they were shouting slogans, but there

13 were no incidents.

14 Something happened only when Milan -- and in fact Milan Babic and

15 Milica Solaja [as interpreted] caught up with us later.

16 JUDGE ROBINSON: The question was who was there. I think you have

17 answered that.

18 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

19 Q. You just mentioned that Ljubica Solaja was heading the Serbian

20 Democratic Party.

21 A. Yes. Prior to that there was a conflict between Milan Babic and

22 Jovan Raskovic. There was a rift in the Serbian Democratic Party. I

23 don't know the exact date, however, when the Serb Autonomous District of

24 Krajina was proclaimed, the Serb Democratic Party was set up for that

25 district, and it was headed by Ljubica Solaja.

1 Q. Does that mean that Babic practically replaced Raskovic?

2 A. Yes. There was some sort of clash between them before that, but

3 Babic practically replaced Raskovic. I believe Raskovic stayed on for a

4 while, heading a separate wing that was not widely recognised, but it soon

5 came to nothing anyway.

6 Q. Do you know anything about the relationship? Why was such an

7 attitude taken towards Raskovic, because he was, after all, the founder

8 of the Serbian Democratic Party?

9 A. He was considered to be too soft. Babic was a more hard line, you

10 could even say dogmatic personality, whereas Raskovic, who by occupation

11 was a psychiatrist, often came across as a therapist even among his own

12 people. When I went there, I always tried to calm things down rather than

13 spur them on in this conflict.

14 Q. How long after the proclamation of the constitution of Croatia,

15 the new constitution, did Serb refugees start coming into Serbia?

16 A. In May, June 1990, as soon as the Tudjman regime came into power.

17 And the refugees were even evermore numerous because the new Croatian

18 authorities demanded that Serbs sign oaths of loyalty. And they

19 introduced an institution that did not exist before, called Domovnica,

20 which was a new document that certified one's civic rights; right to

21 employment, right to retirement pension, some sort of certificate. And

22 many Serb citizens were denied this paper although they wanted to have it.

23 Many did not even apply for it because they considered the new

24 authorities to be Ustashas. Many Serbs who worked in public enterprises

25 did not get these certificates. Many Serbs from crisis areas simply left,

1 ran away. They were hard up.

2 JUDGE ROBINSON: [Previous translation continues]... question.

3 You answered the question.

4 Mr. Milosevic.

5 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

6 Q. You were saying something about a small number of Serbs.

7 A. A smaller number of Serbs lived in the Autonomous District of

8 Krajina, Western Slavonia, Baranja, and Eastern Srem. A larger number of

9 Serbs lived in central Croatia, in towns like Zagreb, Rijeka, and others.

10 Maybe there were 300.000 Serbs in Krajinas, but in central Croatia there

11 were 400.000. Plus there were around 300.000 so-called Yugoslavs, people

12 who declared themselves as Yugoslavs during the census. There were many

13 among them who were children of mixed marriages but also people who

14 thought of themselves as Yugoslavs for other reasons.

15 Q. What about those Serbs who lived in central Croatia, throughout

16 Croatia, not in the Krajina areas? Even this Prosecution does not claim

17 that there were any conflicts there.

18 A. Well, there were no conflicts, especially not armed clashes, but

19 they found it hard to survive there and the greatest majority of them left

20 and went abroad. Serbs felt safe only on the territory of those

21 self-proclaimed autonomous districts.

22 Q. Did your party organise some assistance and aid to the refugees,

23 and was there a major drive in Serbia to help the refugees in general?

24 A. Yes, there was. Sometimes -- sometime in 1991, we formed a

25 central headquarters for these activities to help refugees move into

1 vacant apartments, to find them accommodation throughout Serbia in places

2 that were available - with the approval of the owners, of course - and

3 then these headquarters also started to deal with the issue of volunteers.

4 Q. Was that the only purpose of that Crisis Staff?

5 A. The Crisis Staff did only humanitarian work. They found clothing

6 and food for refugees, accommodation such as in hotels. We tried to

7 ensure their trade union rights. You can say a lot of things about the

8 former Yugoslavia but trade union rights were on a pretty high level.

9 There were many hotels and similar facilities available to the working

10 class to spend their holidays, and we tried to use those buildings to

11 accommodate the refugees.

12 Q. Tell us a bit more about what you knew, what you know about the

13 signing of oaths of loyalty to Croatia, a phenomenon of that time. I want

14 to hear this because we often hear claims here that somebody forced these

15 oaths of loyalty on people in Serbia.

16 A. This oath of loyalty is in fact a discriminatory act. It never

17 existed in Serbia. It was something introduced by the new authorities in

18 Croatia. Croats signed these oaths immediately, unquestioningly. Serbs

19 reacted in various ways: Some signed, others refused because they did not

20 want to be loyal to a regime. They did not question their own loyalty to

21 Croatia as a -- as a state, but they did not want to sign an oath of

22 loyalty to the new fascist regime led by Tudjman.

23 Q. Did you know -- in fact, you knew about all the new discriminatory

24 measures that were introduced at the time in Croatia, measures of pressure

25 on Serbs in Croatia. So tell us about it, especially since you had a

1 Crisis Staff to cater to refugees. What did the refugees themselves tell

2 you?

3 A. The testimony of refugees was horrifying. They told us their

4 stories, how they were harassed, how they were maltreated. Many of them

5 were physically abused, beaten. They did not dare say anywhere that they

6 were Serbs. The atmosphere of fear in Croatia was astonishing. Nobody

7 had expected that the pervasive fear from the times of the war, from the

8 times of the Ustasha regime can ever reappear.

9 Q. Did Serb -- Serbs as a group, as associations, did they give any

10 sort of reason for that kind of treatment?

11 A. No. They gave absolutely no cause for such behaviour. They had

12 no organisations of their own, neither political parties nor even cultural

13 associations. Their national cultural organisation was formed only in

14 1990. The Serbs before that had no national ethnic organisation. In

15 Croatia, they accepted the constitutional order of Croatia, but I

16 emphasise, only as a federal state within Yugoslavia. If Croatia remained

17 a federal state within Yugoslavia, they would respect it. This balance

18 served to protect their interests, and they were satisfied with that, so

19 they all took part in the political and social life of Croatia.

20 Q. Just awhile ago, you mentioned the volunteers that Milan Babic

21 asked you to provide. Did he explain to you why he was requesting

22 volunteers, and did you send any?

23 A. He said that the people manning the barricades were already

24 exhausted, that there was a large territory that had to be protected and

25 that they could use the help of volunteers from Serbia. Also, that

1 volunteers from Serbia would raise the morale of these people who would

2 realise that they had not been abandoned. However, as I was arrested on

3 my return to Belgrade because I had organised the registration of

4 volunteers to be sent to Knin, no volunteers were sent throughout 1990.

5 Q. Tell me, when was the first time the Serb Radical Party sent

6 volunteers to Krajina?

7 A. Sometime in April there was a rally in Borovo Selo in Eastern

8 Slavonia. I was invited there by Vukasin Soskocanin who was, I think, the

9 president of the local commune, but in any case he was the commander of

10 the Territorial Defence of Borovo Selo. He invited me to attend a rally,

11 and then we visited the barricades together, those that had been set up on

12 all the roads around the village, also protecting other Serbian villages

13 which were sometimes exclusively Serbian in that area, which were also

14 exposed to various forms of maltreatment and incidents by the police and

15 the so-called National Guard established by Tudjman's regime.

16 We toured some of these barricades, and he asked me that the Serb

17 Radical Party help by sending some volunteers who would contribute to

18 keeping the peace and maintaining security. He said that the work in the

19 fields was under way, the farm work, because it was April.

20 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you. You have answered the question.

21 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

22 Q. Did I understand you well? You went to Borovo Selo at the

23 invitation of the commander of the Territorial Defence of Borovo Selo,

24 Soskocanin?

25 A. Yes.

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1 Q. And then you sent volunteers at his invitation?

2 A. Yes. We sent 15 or 16 volunteers. To tell you the truth, I can't

3 remember whether it was 15 or 16. In addition to our volunteers, there

4 was one from Mirko Jovic's Serb National Renewal Party, one single

5 volunteer.

6 Q. In view of the fact that you were there and in view of what you

7 know about this, can you explain how it came about that there was a

8 conflict in Borovo Selo in early May 1991?

9 A. In late April, there were negotiations between the Serb and

10 Croatian local authorities. It was agreed that the barricades should be

11 removed from the roads, that an atmosphere of trust should be developed.

12 The Croats guaranteed that there would be no attacks or police

13 interventions on their side, no sending off members of the National Guard

14 Corps, and so on. The unanimous decision was that a peaceful solution

15 should be sought. The barricades were then removed.

16 Q. These negotiations, these talks, all this took place --

17 A. Late April.

18 Q. Yes, as you say, in late April, and this all took place at the

19 local level, between the local commune of Borovo Selo -- or, rather,

20 between whom?

21 A. The local Croatian authorities, whether in Osijek or Vukovar, I

22 can't be precise. But the result of this agreement was the removal of all

23 Serb barricades on the roads leading to Serbian villages. The volunteers

24 withdrew, there were a total of 16, to the community centre in the centre

25 of Borovo Selo. There were no longer any barricades. The atmosphere

1 became normal. It was quite relaxed. The volunteers were already

2 considering going back to Belgrade, when all of a sudden on the 2nd of May

3 Croatian policemen and members of the National Guard Corps arrived, as

4 well as mercenaries. They burst into Borovo Selo. They arrived in a bus

5 or two buses, and they immediately started shooting. In front of the

6 community centre they killed Vojislav Milic. He was the only volunteer

7 from the Serb National Renewal, although Mirko Jovic said that they had

8 sent 700 volunteers in their Dusan Silni unit to fight in Borovo Selo, but

9 these were all fabrications. There was only one and he was killed,

10 although he was completely unarmed, as soon as the Croats arrived armed to

11 the teeth.

12 The other Serb volunteers soon opened fire, and they managed to

13 defeat the Croatian attackers. According to our information, there were

14 more than 30 Croatian attackers who were killed, although the Croats

15 admitted to only 15 victims. From this we draw the conclusion that the

16 rest were -- who were not even registered or recorded. They were Kurds,

17 and I know that they had false money, forged money, money dating from the

18 Independent State of Croatia, Hitler's Reich marks, and so on and so

19 forth.

20 After some fighting, the JNA intervened. They stopped the armed

21 conflict. The Croatian attackers withdrew, they took their dead with

22 them, and the situation then calmed down.

23 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Thank you --

24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] And the Serbs of course put up

25 barricades again.

1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you. Next question.

2 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

3 Q. After this event, did you continue sending volunteers?

4 A. Not right away. A new consignment of volunteers was sent in the

5 summer. This Serb victory in Borovo Selo resounded among the Serb people

6 and volunteers of the Serb Radical Party, again the great renown. They

7 were highly esteemed. Although not all had fought there. Some had just

8 been in cafes in Borovo Selo and tried to find shelter. But because of

9 those who fought, they became very highly esteemed.

10 In the summer, when there was a conflict between the JNA and

11 Tudjman's paramilitary formations who attacked JNA barracks, killed

12 officers, seized weapons from military depots, and so on and so forth,

13 several high-ranking JNA officers visited the headquarters of the Serb

14 Radical Party, and they discussed with me the further gathering of

15 volunteers and sending them to the JNA which was having great problems

16 mobilising conscripts because the Western powers were waging a campaign

17 against mobilisation under the pretext that this was a communist army.

18 Unfortunately, the JNA, pursuant to orders from Veljko Kadijevic, still

19 wore the five-pointed star on their uniforms and the Serb people found

20 this -- they didn't like it. And then the Serbs of Croatia gathered in

21 Zijeca Street [phoen]. There was some officers among them, and there were

22 representatives of almost all of the opposition political parties. I was

23 representing the Serb Radical Party. The Serb Renewal Movement was

24 represented by Milan Komnenic, if I remember correctly; and then there was

25 the Serb Democratic Party; then there was Gojko Djogo and there was Mirko

1 Jovic for the Serb Renewal Party. And all these parties agreed that the

2 imperiled Serbs in the Croatian federal unit needed assistance and that --

3 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Seselj. The answer is too long.

4 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

5 Q. Mr. Seselj, very often there was mention here of the existence of

6 your units. You are now saying something about sending volunteers. Up to

7 now, you said that you sent volunteers to the Territorial Defence and to

8 the JNA. Did you send volunteers anywhere else, and did you establish

9 your own units?

10 A. No. I never formed any units of my own. At this meeting, an

11 agreement was reached among all the opposition political parties and the

12 JNA officers that volunteers should be organised and sent to the JNA. The

13 JNA set aside a barracks in Bubanj Potok, close to Belgrade, as a

14 collection centre for volunteers.

15 Q. What you have just explained, was it a result of the meeting of

16 this group of JNA officers which attended this meeting and the

17 representatives of the political parties who undertook to send volunteers?

18 A. Yes. That was the direct result of that meeting. The only

19 difference is that the Serb Radical Party was the only one who

20 consistently abided by the decisions reached at that meeting. The other

21 parties did not.

22 Q. Would you explain now, because it's very important in view of the

23 claims made about your units, your paramilitary formations, and so on and

24 so forth, what was the status of your volunteers in the JNA? Can you

25 explain precisely whether they had JNA documents, uniforms, and were they

1 treated in the same way as any other citizen who volunteered to join the

2 JNA?

3 A. The volunteers from the Serb Radical Party were all JNA soldiers.

4 They had military booklets where their time of service was entered. They

5 received military salaries. However small they were, they received

6 salaries from the JNA. If a volunteer was killed, he was buried according

7 to JNA protocol. A local JNA unit would arrive to fire, and the flag was

8 that of the JNA and not of the Serb Radical party. The JNA bore the costs

9 of the funeral. The families of those killed regulated their rights to a

10 pension through the JNA. Volunteers who became war invalids received

11 their rights and benefits through the JNA. Unfortunately, these benefits

12 were very small, but this was all regulated. Not a single case remained

13 unregulated.

14 JUDGE ROBINSON: Was there any difference, then, between the

15 volunteers that you sent and the JNA soldiers?

16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] There was no difference at all.

17 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thanks. Mr. Milosevic.

18 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

19 Q. Mr. Seselj, you have a Ph.D. in law. You're a university

20 professor. You are familiar with the constitution of the SFRY and the

21 laws on national defence. According to this legislation, what was the

22 legal basis for everything you are talking about now? I'm referring to

23 the volunteers and their activity in the JNA.

24 A. We had a very good legal basis, both in the constitution of the

25 SFRY and the law on national defence. The law on national defence

1 provided for the following: A member of the armed forces is any citizen

2 who in an organised manner, bearing weapons in their hands, is fighting

3 the enemy. So no distinction was drawn between external and internal

4 enemies, whether this was an aggression from outside or from within, an

5 attack on the constitutional order, because it was the task of the JNA to

6 defend the constitutional order whether the attack came from outside or

7 from within.

8 Q. You said that your volunteers became members of the JNA, that they

9 had service books in which all the usual facts were entered. These

10 service books and these documents, were they identical to the service

11 books of other members of the JNA or was there any difference?

12 A. The service books were absolutely identical. They were the only

13 kind of service books that existed. All of us who had served our military

14 service had the same service books, and we kept those until the end of our

15 lives. Even when we were no longer conscripts and were liable for

16 military service, either in the regular forces or the territorial forces,

17 we still had our service books.

18 JUDGE ROBINSON: Remember to observe a pause between question and

19 answer. I hear a certain breathlessness in the voice of the interpreter

20 trying to keep pace with both of you.

21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, they will be able to draw

22 breath in about 15 minutes' time.

23 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

24 Q. Mr. Seselj, I wanted to explain the following: We all had service

25 books. Everyone was given a service book when they completed their

1 regular military service, and these are the same service books that your

2 volunteers had.

3 A. Yes. All volunteers from the Serb Radical Party had service books

4 and in their service books their command entered their time of service.

5 Q. Very good. Was there a single element -- as you have explained

6 that as they were volunteers in the JNA, they became regular members of

7 the JNA like everybody else, was there any distinction drawn between any

8 of your volunteers and other members of the JNA?

9 A. No, there was no difference.

10 Q. Were they deployed in the regular JNA units?

11 A. Yes, they were deployed in the regular JNA units according to

12 commands coming from the general staff. Neither I nor anybody else from

13 the Serb Radical Party ever dealt with issues of deployment or deciding

14 where they would be engaged and in what manner. This was all decided in

15 the JNA. Our task was simply to gather the volunteers and send them to

16 the centre in Bubanj Potok.

17 Before sending them off, I often held speeches for them. In these

18 speeches I encouraged them to fight heroically against the enemy. I told

19 them how they were to treat prisoners, civilians, women and children,

20 elderly people, and so on. They received strict instructions which were

21 in accordance with the provisions of international laws of war, that they

22 should fight chivalrously, that they should fight well but treat prisoners

23 and civilians humanely. Television cameras in Belgrade filmed some of

24 these speeches I made to the volunteers, and many journalists attended

25 these send-offs, and they can all testify to this.

1 Q. Mr. Seselj, as you sent volunteers to the JNA, did you at that

2 time have a clear idea, a clear awareness of who was in command in the JNA

3 and whether the political leadership of Serbia at that time had any

4 influence on the JNA?

5 A. I was a political and ideological opponent of those who were in

6 command of the JNA, and as a deputy in the Serbian Assembly, I publicly

7 spoke against Veljko Kadijevic and the JNA. I disagreed with many of

8 their moves. But it was my duty as a citizen to assist the JNA in this

9 situation because our state had no other legal armed force. My political

10 standpoint was one thing - it was highly critical - but it was my duty as

11 a citizen, on the other hand, to contribute to the country's efforts to

12 defend itself. My political views had no significant affect on the JNA.

13 It was only the federal leadership and the Presidency of the FRY that

14 could influence the JNA. Minister Veljko Kadijevic was the main man in

15 the JNA and he was part of the government of Ante Markovic, who was a

16 Croat. This was the last government of the SFRY.

17 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Seselj, not for the first time have I heard

18 you say that you were in disagreement with an institution or an entity.

19 Are you given to disputes by nature?

20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I was in the opposition for many

21 years. I was an anti-communist dissident. It's very hard for me to speak

22 of my natural tendencies. I -- in any case, I always voiced my

23 disagreement publicly and sometimes very vehemently.

24 Secondly, as an anti-communist dissident, I constantly attacked

25 Veljko Kadijevic for not removing the five-pointed star from the regular

1 JNA uniforms. Sometimes we couldn't mobilise people because they refused

2 to wear the five-pointed star.

3 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you. Mr. Milosevic.

4 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

5 Q. A very concrete question concerning those times: The volunteers

6 of the Serb Radical Party in the JNA, were they considered to be

7 disciplined or indisciplined?

8 A. According to all the information that I received from the commands

9 of the JNA that were in charge the officers that I was in contact with,

10 the volunteers of the Serb Radical Party were among the most disciplined

11 and the most courageous ones, and I only heard praise about them. Of

12 course there were certain incidents, there was some trouble, but the JNA

13 reacted then. These volunteers were sent away from their units, and the

14 Serb Radical Party excluded from their own membership all of those who

15 would violate laws and regulations.

16 Q. Do you know who General Zivota Panic was?

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. What did General Zivota Panic say about the volunteers of the Serb

19 Radical Party in the Yugoslav People's Army?

20 A. General Zivota Panic was, first of all, commander of the Belgrade

21 army district and then he became chief of general staff. As a matter of

22 fact, I had a major clash with General Panic, and he was removed in 1992.

23 I revealed an affair that had to do with some kind of irregularity that he

24 was involved in, but that doesn't matter now. I have seen part of General

25 Zivota Panic's statement here. That is a document that is accessible to

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1 the public. It was given to me as part of the exculpatory material in the

2 proceedings instituted against me. Zivota Panic states directly that all

3 volunteers of the Serb Radical Party were within the JNA.

4 Q. You explained why you were guided by this in sending volunteers to

5 the JNA. Very briefly. It was my understanding that that was the only

6 regular armed force. Is what you said?

7 A. Yes. That was the only regular armed force. You see, I studied

8 the theory of totalitarian political forms, left wing and right wing

9 ones. I know the nature of militarism. I know that. I've dealt with it

10 as a scholar. I know how dangerous it is to set up party armies. They

11 lead to the fascisation of the country. Also the establishment of

12 paramilitary formations that turn into gangs, dishevelled ones at that.

13 However, under my leadership, the Serb Radical Party never got involved in

14 this kind of thing.

15 I cannot swear that not a single volunteer of the Serb Radical

16 Party did not steal something that could fit into his pockets or into his

17 hands; however, there was no systematic looting in our case, there was no

18 killing of prisoners of war, and there was no maltreatment of the civilian

19 population.

20 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Seselj, how many volunteers were there from the

21 Serb Radical Party?

22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, sort of for propaganda reasons

23 we said that there were about 30.000 of them, but the real figure would

24 have been about 10.000.

25 JUDGE BONOMY: And how were they distributed among the various

1 groupings in the JNA?

2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] They were directly included in JNA

3 units. The largest concentration of volunteers was up to one company,

4 which is about 100 to 120 soldiers. Not in a single unit was there a

5 larger concentration. They were sent to different units, and it was the

6 JNA command who decided where they would be sent. Some volunteers were in

7 Eastern Slavonia. For example, in Vukovar they were with the 1st Guard

8 Brigade. There is an order of the commander of the 1st Guard Brigade

9 concerning their deployment. In Western Slavonia they were within the

10 Territorial Defence that was commanded by Colonel Trbojevic as an

11 active-duty officer of the JNA, but these volunteers were also sent to the

12 western part of Krajina, to the Udbina airfield, and from there they were

13 in the Plitvice theatre of war, and so on.

14 The entire transport of volunteers was organised by the JNA.

15 JUDGE BONOMY: Does that mean in the example you've given there in

16 the 1st Guard Brigade in Vukovar that there would be an identifiable

17 company which was comprised entirely of volunteers from the Serb Radical

18 Party?

19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, you cannot say entirely, but,

20 for example, the commander of the Guard Brigade ordered that the Leva

21 Supoderica Territorial Defence detachment that was subordinated to the 1st

22 Guard Brigade would be the unit where volunteers of the Serb Radical Party

23 would be taken in. That's where the volunteers of the Serb Radical Party

24 constituted a majority, but Captain First Class Milan Lancusin Kameni

25 [phoen] was their commander, who was on the Territorial Defence of Vukovar

1 and who was a local person from Vukovar. Through the war he became a

2 member of the Serb Radical Party. He was not a member of the party when

3 the war broke out but then he liked the Serb Radical Party and he joined

4 it as a member.

5 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

6 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

7 Q. Can we summarise what is being said about the volunteers of the

8 Serb Radical Party. Are there any exceptions to what you established and

9 stated, that the volunteers of your party were exclusively sent to the JNA

10 then?

11 A. There was not a single exception. They were exclusively sent to

12 the JNA, and as JNA soldiers they took part in armed operations at various

13 fronts.

14 JUDGE ROBINSON: Would there be any -- would there be any

15 documentation within the Serb Radical Party to confirm that?

16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That can be confirmed from the

17 service books of the volunteers but the entire documentation exists in the

18 archives commands of the army of Yugoslavia or, rather, the JNA, and they

19 have records of how many volunteers were sent where and at which theatres

20 of war they were engaged.

21 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

22 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

23 Q. And, Mr. Seselj, your party sent volunteers to the JNA and they

24 accepted that they would be under JNA command. Now, my question to you

25 is: Were there other groups of volunteers that did not want to go to the

1 JNA?

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. That were established as some kind of special units, separate

4 units outside the JNA?

5 A. Other opposition political parties that took part in this

6 agreement subsequently cheated out. The Serb renewal of Mirko Jovic

7 established the paramilitary unit of the White Eagles, but soon the White

8 Eagles became independent and got out of Mirko Jovic's control. They

9 started operating independently as a paramilitary organisation with a

10 limited number of members, but some people used them for their own

11 political and often dishonourable purposes.

12 For example, Veljko Dzakula, who was then president of the

13 parliament of Western Slavonia, brought the White Eagles to Western

14 Slavonia. They were engaged in some other places, as far as I know, but

15 my knowledge is not direct. It is based on what certain people said after

16 I contacted them, so I imagine this is not relevant for the Court.

17 However, if the Court deems it necessary, I can speak about that too.

18 Then the Serb Renewal Movement decided to set up the so-called

19 Serb Guard, and the media were full of what they were saying, that they

20 were sending 60.000 people. And that was a lie; there was only 1.000 of

21 them. Then they recruited the worst criminals from the streets of

22 Belgrade for that. Djordje Bozovic Giska, a notorious criminal, was

23 appointed commander, and he did dirty work for the federal security

24 service in the 1980s when he killed various political emigres in Western

25 Europe. His deputy was another dangerous criminal, Branislav Matic Beli.

1 The commander of the so-called Komite Detachment was Miodrag Brkic,

2 nicknamed Lale Robija, was another notorious criminal who was appointed.

3 And he raped a male convict when he was in prison so then he got another

4 six-year term of imprisonment. So they recruited the scum of the earth

5 from the streets of Belgrade.

6 All right, I will try to slow down.

7 Then they insisted that this guard of theirs be turned into the

8 Serb army or the army of the Republic of Serbia.

9 Then the Democratic Party, they promised that they would send

10 volunteers, but that did not happen. You see, the structure of their

11 membership was, well, sort of like this Boris Tadic nowadays. These are

12 effeminate guys. They are not right for military service and they are not

13 right for leaders. But later on, when Zoran Djindjic became head of that

14 party, he had much closer ties to Radovan Karadzic than I did, for

15 instance, or anybody else from Serbia. However, since he could not

16 organise his own volunteers from Serbia, then he was joined by a commander

17 of a paramilitary organisation from Republika Srpska who --

18 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Seselj. It's time for the adjournment,

19 but in any event, I found that answer too long.

20 It may be a question of culture and jurisdictional practice, but

21 these long answers I find very, very difficult to follow, Mr. Milosevic.

22 When you ask a question and the witness has reached a certain point, then

23 you stop him and put another question. The narrative approach is not very

24 helpful.

25 We will adjourn for 20 minutes.

1 --- Recess taken at 10.33 a.m.

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

3 JUDGE ROBINSON: Please continue, Mr. Milosevic.

4 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

5 Q. Mr. Seselj, just before the break, you explained in general terms

6 some questions related to paramilitary formations. Now I'm going to put a

7 few specific questions to you, because you mentioned a few types of

8 paramilitary organisations. You started with the Serb Guard of the Serb

9 Renewal Movement. Could you please explain the position of the Serb

10 Renewal Movement at the time when the Serb Guard was established and the

11 reasons why the Serb Guard was established.

12 A. Well, at one time we were a single political party, and then in

13 June 1990, approximately, Draskovic and I parted ways. Draskovic belonged

14 to the most reactionary part of the Serb political spectrum. His party is

15 a nationalistic party. The Serb Radical Party is a nationalistic party

16 too, but his party is a monarchist party, a royalist party, then one that

17 let the church interfere in political life. That is what I consider to be

18 reactionary when I say that.

19 The Serb Renewal Movement had nationalist membership as well, and

20 it was not hard for them in 1991 to use nationalistic and patriotic

21 slogans to get some people into the Serb Guard, as it was called. In

22 addition to these criminals who were the commanders, there were honourable

23 people as well in this Serb Guard, people who were sincerely prepared to

24 fight for the freedom of the Serb people and who did not have criminal

25 motives. However, the leadership was deeply criminal.

1 This Serb Guard was actually established first and foremost for

2 expected armed clashes in Serbia. However, since I as an MP in the

3 Assembly of Serbia attacked them as a group of criminals, as a band that

4 has nothing to do with justice and the fight of the Serb people for

5 freedom, then in the summer of 1991 they were seeking ways and means of

6 being engaged at a particular front line. The Serb Guard, with a couple

7 of hundred of its members, tried to cross over to Eastern Slavonia so that

8 they would be engaged in the Slavonian theatre of war, I guess.

9 The police of Serbia, at the bridge on the Danube near Dalj

10 stopped them from crossing over. It was impossible for them to cross over

11 into Eastern Slavonia. Then they went to the western part of the Serb

12 Krajina, to Lika, and they were engaged at the front near Gospic. The

13 commander of the Serb Guard was this prominent criminal Djordje Bozovic

14 Giska, his then deputy at the theatre of war another major criminal, a

15 very dangerous one, Branislav Lajnovic Dugi, from Novi Sad. Giska got

16 killed there under very suspicious circumstances. Allegedly Djordje

17 Bozovic Giska and Branislav Lajnovic Dugi took a combat vehicle to

18 reconnoiter. Hardly ever would a commander and deputy commander go out to

19 reconnoiter. Then they stopped at a place where they were supposed to

20 carry out this reconnaissance. The combat vehicle returned and they

21 started picking plums. A sniper bullet hit Djordje Bozovic Giska during

22 this plum picking, as far as I know, underneath his arm in the chest at a

23 spot that was not protected by his flak jacket.

24 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Seselj, it appears to me that we are

25 digressing a little.

1 Ask another question, Mr. Milosevic. I'm going to have to control

2 the question and answer much more intimately than I would have liked.

3 When you ask a question, I'm going to look at it and I will make a

4 determination as to whether the answer should be a short one or fairly

5 long.

6 JUDGE KWON: Can I clarify one thing before we move on. Your

7 party was once called Serbian Movement of Renewal. So the Serb Renewal

8 Movement is totally different from that, I assume. How is it different in

9 Serbian? The abbreviation or --

10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I could explain all of that to you.

11 I hope that you expect me to explain this to you in-depth, the core of the

12 matter.

13 JUDGE KWON: Very briefly.

14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] This is the briefest possible: I

15 set one party, Vuk Draskovic set up another party. The party that I set

16 up was called the Serb Freedom Movement and Vuk Draskovic set up the Serb

17 National Renewal. Soon the Serb National Renewal threw out Vuk Draskovic

18 and we united, setting up the Serbian Renewal Movement. Then in June

19 1990, we clashed and he was removed, but he set up another party which had

20 the same party as we did, the Serb Renewal Movement. At one point in time

21 there were two parties with the same name. Then we changed the name of

22 our party into the Serb Chetnik Movement. The Serb Chetnik Movement

23 united with the National Radical Party into the Serb Radical Party whereas

24 Draskovic kept the original name.

25 Could I have given you a briefer explanation, Mr. Kwon?

1 JUDGE KWON: It has been clarified.

2 JUDGE ROBINSON: You did very well there, Mr. Seselj.

3 Congratulations.

4 Now, Mr. Milosevic, your next question.

5 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I join in the congratulations,

6 Mr. Robinson.

7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Another moment and I'll blush due to

8 all these congratulations.

9 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

10 Q. Mr. Seselj, the point of this explanation, as far as I'm

11 concerned, is the explanation of these paramilitary formations. The Serb

12 Renewal Movement of Vuk Draskovic established the Serb Guard.

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. Who is Vuk Draskovic?

15 A. Vuk Draskovic was a dissident of a nationalist orientation from

16 the previous communist period. I already said how he set up his political

17 party and how his own party threw him out. Vuk Draskovic is a prominent

18 opposition leader, has been one for years, and from time to time he was in

19 power. He was in a coalition with your party too and at that time he was

20 vice-premier. Now he is in coalition with the other pro-Western parties

21 so he is minister of foreign affairs of Serbia and Montenegro.

22 Q. What was the Serb Guard established?

23 A. In the summer of 1990.

24 Q. What was the purpose of establishing the Serb Guard?

25 A. The purpose was to prepare for internal armed clashes and

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1 settlements of account in Serbia that Draskovic was wishing for, but in

2 his speeches he said it was the preparation for the defence of the Serbian

3 people.

4 Q. Was this a paramilitary formation, this group that Draskovic set

5 up?

6 A. Yes. By all its attributes it was a paramilitary organisation,

7 and --

8 Q. How did the authorities view them?

9 A. Well, the authorities were against them, but they never actually

10 sanctioned them. There were never enough charges to send Draskovic to

11 prison, but Draskovic never -- was never held responsible for that in any

12 way because the authorities took a mild attitude towards him, and

13 Draskovic became a greater danger since he linked up with the Western

14 representatives in Belgrade.

15 JUDGE ROBINSON: What are the features of a paramilitary

16 organisation?

17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] All organisations of military type

18 that do not belong to the state structures, to the legal army, are

19 paramilitary organisations. In political theory, a paramilitary

20 organisation can be called a militia. That is an organisation that is

21 established spontaneously and has an armed character. That is, every unit

22 that is not part of the regular army and not under the control of the

23 regular army is a paramilitary unit.

24 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, yes. That's clear.

25 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

1 Q. Let us move on with brief and precise questions. Who were, for

2 the most part, members of the Serb Guard of Vuk Draskovic?

3 A. The most dangerous criminals from the underground. I enumerated

4 some of them; drug dealers, murderers, extortionists, looters, robbers, et

5 cetera. In the end of the 1980s and early 1990s, a large number of

6 criminals found themselves back in Belgrade because they found it hard to

7 survive in Western countries. Visas were introduced for our citizens, and

8 whereas Yugoslavia exported -- the former communist Yugoslavia exported

9 criminals, they started to return to Yugoslavia under the new regime. The

10 criminal I mentioned, Lale Robija, had come back from Australia.

11 Q. You said the purpose of establishing that Serb Guard was defined

12 by internal political needs having to do with the violent clash with the

13 authorities in Serbia.

14 A. Starting from the 9th of March, 1990, Vuk Draskovic never

15 completely rejected the option of a violent coup d'etat, and he spoke

16 about it all the time.

17 Q. Do you know of any instance of use of the Serb Guard for political

18 purposes?

19 A. Well, it was used for political purposes mainly in Belgrade

20 throughout the summer of 1991. They had some sort of inspection of the

21 Serb Guard in Cacak or around Cacak where a clash occurred between the

22 commander and the deputy commander, Giska and Beli. Beli was killed

23 immediately after that clash, whereas Djordje Bozovic Giska went to the

24 theatre of war in Lika after that.

25 Q. You explained that they went to Lika after the police of Serbia

1 prevented them from crossing over into Eastern Slavonia.

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. Where did they go exactly? You said they were around Gospic.

4 A. Yes.

5 Q. First they intended to go to Eastern Slavonia to be engaged, but

6 they were not able to.

7 A. They were not able to because the police prevented them. The

8 police had the task to prevent the crossing of any paramilitary units into

9 Eastern Slavonia because they had already had experience with them and

10 knew them mainly as looting and pillaging units. I cannot say that all of

11 them were like that, because some of them really participated in fighting.

12 Some were wounded, some got killed. But their entire leadership consisted

13 of criminals, that much is true.

14 Q. What happened with that Serb Guard in the years that followed?

15 A. After Giska was killed, Zvonko Smajlic became commander of that

16 guard. He was wounded near Gospic in the chest. When I went to Knin

17 sometime in November 1991, I found him in the Knin hospital. After he was

18 wounded, the Serb Guard was taken over by a prominent criminal from Novi

19 Sad, Branislav Lajnovic Dugi, and he accompanied the Serb guardsmen to

20 some front lines, but they were shunned for the most part because they

21 mostly looted and pillaged and did not fight. They had been in Foca and

22 Trebinje. In Trebinje, they had taken over a hotel, but they were

23 expelled because they were mostly engaged in looting. They were also near

24 Konjic. There they were commanded by a certain man called Boro Antelj, of

25 whom I don't know much, but their task was to smuggle arms from the front

1 line to Serbia and to equip Draskovic's units for a possible clash in

2 Serbia. All I know is that they received arms from Boro Antelj,

3 Draskovic's Serb Guard received arms from Boro Antelj.

4 Q. You explained a moment ago that Vuk Draskovic and the Serb Guard

5 paid lip-service to the defence of the Serb people but they actually were

6 more interested in looting and robbing.

7 A. Under the influence of the American ambassador, Vuk Draskovic soon

8 turned coat completely. You have evidence of that in his speeches and

9 public statements that were very inflammatory at the time, but after the

10 war he became a peacemaker. So he always turns where the wind blows.

11 Q. You have some documents here in tabs 6, 7, and 8 where you can --

12 we can see more about this approach of his. Because it is usually I who

13 am described as an instigator of war in all of these events.

14 Look, for instance, at tab 5. What is it that you provided in

15 tab?

16 A. Well, here are some excerpts from Draskovic's newspaper Serbian

17 Word, "Srpska Rec."

18 Q. Just a moment. When you say "Draskovic's newspaper," you mean the

19 newspaper of the Serbian Renewal Movement?

20 A. This is his private newspaper. It has never been the newspaper of

21 the Serbian Renewal Movement, SPO. It was his newspaper and that of his

22 wife. But they promoted the policy of the SPO.

23 Q. In any case, this is an authentic piece of writing by Vuk

24 Draskovic dated the 7th of December, 1990.

25 A. Yes.

1 Q. Could you read from this appeal.

2 A. Draskovic addresses the Serbian Academy of Science, Serbian

3 Writers' Association, Matica Srpska, and the Centre of Emigrants of

4 Serbia, calling upon them "to meet urgently and adopt a joint declaration

5 to protect the nation." He says --

6 THE INTERPRETER: Will the speaker read slowly, please.

7 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Seselj, read slowly. The interpreters are

8 asking you to read more slowly.

9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I will. I will read more slowly.

10 "In Croatia, an Ustasha government has been re-established; armed

11 formations of Serb-killers are being founded. The Ustasha Supreme

12 Leadership has concluded an anti-Serb pact with the Arnauts --" he means

13 Albanians, but this is used as a derogatory term -- "and Muslim

14 fundamentalists, the de-Serbianized but militant and loud minority in

15 Montenegro, and the Serbophobic staffs around Macedonia, who are openly

16 asking for our territories.

17 "The Serbian people are faced with a united hatred, as they were

18 in 1914 and 1941.

19 "We must oppose the menacing Evil as soon as possible,

20 immediately. We must not allow ourselves, for the third time in this

21 century, to be overtaken by events. It is our duty to subordinate to the

22 defence of the nation, if we still have a historical conscience and

23 ambitions to endure as a people, all our inter-Serbian, ideological,

24 party, class and other disagreements and misunderstandings.

25 "The Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) proposes that the leaders,

1 that is, the representatives of the leading Serbian political parties, as

2 well as representatives of the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Serbian

3 Academy of Sciences, the Serbian Writers' Association, the Matica Srpska

4 and the Centre of Emigrants of Serbia meet urgently to draw up a joint

5 Declaration to protect the nation.

6 "That document, in our opinion, should be the starting point for

7 the adoption of a Serbian National Programme."

8 Q. I think this is enough by way of quotation.

9 A. This is from Srpska Rec of the 7th of September, 1990.

10 Q. So he talks here about the fact that Serbs are threatened by

11 genocide with the newly established Croatian authorities and formations of

12 Serb killers. He speaks of Macedonia, Croatia.

13 A. Bosnia.

14 Q. What is the nature of what is called here the facsimile of Vuk

15 Draskovic's appeal of the 7th of December, 1990?

16 A. Well, the reality was not far from his assessment as expressed

17 here, but his position here is expressed in an inflammatory manner, one

18 that instigates to war. That is obviously his approach. He's not making

19 an appeal to negotiate, to try to exert some influence, to achieve any

20 other option but the one of war.

21 Q. And that is the purpose for which this paramilitary organisation,

22 the Serb Guard, is established?

23 A. And his deputies in the parliament advocate from the rostrum that

24 the Serb parliament should proclaim the Serb Guard as the new Serbian

25 army, that his paramilitary formation should be turned into a new Serbian

1 army.

2 Q. Very well. Look now at tab 6. You provided this also from his

3 newspaper. It is authentic. There is just a brief quotation here. What

4 can we read in this brief excerpt that you selected?

5 A. That is the Serbian Word, Srpska Rec, of the 14th of October,

6 1991. It says: "... The Ustasha knife is being held to the throat of the

7 Serbian people in the western Serbian Krajinas and only Serbia can and

8 must help them. More than 200.000 Serbs from the Croatia of the

9 Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia have already

10 abandoned their hearths, and Serbia authorities have the audacity to say

11 that the country is not at war with the Ustashas. Had the Ustashas done

12 nothing other than blowing up our martyr church in Jasenovac as they did

13 several days ago, it would be reason enough to declare war on them, both

14 as a nation and as a state."

15 Now, your policy was that our country was not at war with Croatia,

16 that we were only opposing the pro-fascist regime of Franjo Tudjman,

17 whereas Draskovic insist -- insists that the Serbian nation and the

18 Serbian state should declare war on Croatia. That is very extreme. Even

19 for me as a Serb nationalist, this was too much.

20 Q. All right, Mr. Seselj. What can we see under tab 7? These two

21 can be associated with these activities of the Serb Guard and the

22 political positions of the current foreign minister of Serbia and

23 Montenegro.

24 JUDGE ROBINSON: No translation, Mr. Milosevic.

25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj selected a very brief

1 excerpt to quote. I hope we can put it on the ELMO. It is also from a

2 newspaper, an issue of April 1991, as far as I can see.

3 Place this first page on the ELMO so that Mr. Seselj can quote.

4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Just a couple of sentences.

5 JUDGE ROBINSON: It is translated.

6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Draskovic says here: "The borders

7 of our state and the entire expanse within them are fortified by Serbian

8 culture, language, names of villages and cities, names of rivers and

9 mountains, trees and birds, Serbian epic poems and traditions, monasteries

10 and endowments, our blood and graves. These boundaries are removable.

11 These Krajinas of ours are inalienable. The guns hanging from their

12 shoulders with which they're threatening us had better remain on their

13 shoulders. I do not wish upon anyone, including them, that which will

14 happen if machine-guns speak." And he uses the new Croatian speak for the

15 word "machine-gun."

16 "We are not afraid of those who wish to revive the head of state

17 Ante Pavlovic or those who dream of some kind of Greater Albania. We are

18 not afraid of those who speak our language and have our roots but have a

19 vision of some kind of Dzamahirija or Sulltanat [phoen] on Serbian land."

20 That is what Vuk Draskovic wrote about the boundaries of the

21 Serbian state as he sees them, and he published his idea about those

22 borders on the cover page of his newspaper.

23 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Seselj, can I take it that throughout 1991 and

24 1992 that Draskovic was an opposition politician?

25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, he was an opposition

1 politician. He was an opposition politician until 1998 when he entered

2 the federal government.

3 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

4 Q. Look at tab 8, Mr. Seselj, and present to us the quotation you

5 have selected. This is quite a long article, but the quotation is short.

6 This is dated the 5th of November, 1990.

7 A. Yes. Here Draskovic is addressing the Assembly of his party and

8 says, among other things --

9 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Seselj, just read selected parts of it. We

10 don't want to hear the whole page. We can read --

11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I cannot read it all. That would be

12 too much even for me. Only -- I will read only a short passage from page

13 19. It would be masochistic of me to read the entire speech of Vuk

14 Draskovic.

15 JUDGE ROBINSON: No. What I meant was that what you have selected

16 here takes up an entire page and I don't think we have the time for that.

17 So even that --

18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It's not an entire page. It's a

19 quarter of a page, Mr. Robinson. A quarter of a page.

20 JUDGE ROBINSON: It's an entire page in English. Then do your

21 best.

22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I don't know how long it is in

23 English, but if you won't let me read, I won't.

24 JUDGE ROBINSON: No, no, you can read but I don't want -- just

25 select the parts that are important to Mr. Milosevic's case.

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1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] This is the only bit I selected.

2 What is one page for you is a quarter of a page here. His speech is

3 several pages long.

4 JUDGE ROBINSON: Go ahead.

5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] All right, if you insist.

6 "We will no longer love our enemies and sacrifice ourselves for a

7 brotherhood without brothers any more. ... the command, after all, is for

8 Heaven and not for Earth, for saints and not for people. Serbs, finally,

9 no longer have anything to give away or anything to renounce except the

10 right to their existence.

11 "We are for Yugoslavia, but a new, completely different one.

12 "We are for a federation, even at the price of accepting the

13 present internal borders, which are in any case non-historical and

14 criminally demarcated, on condition that the federal state be a

15 multi-party and democratic republic or a monarchy with a strong central

16 authority and on condition that autonomous provinces or regions be

17 established everywhere where their existence is imposed by the same

18 reasons as in present-day Serbia.

19 "This in effect means that the territorial autonomy of the Serbs

20 in Croatia should be guaranteed, and then the autonomy of Istria and

21 Dubrovnik, while Bosnia and Herzegovina would be divided into four

22 autonomous regions: one where the Roman Catholics would predominate, one

23 where the Muslims would be a majority and two where the Orthodox

24 Christians would be prevalent. Applying the same yardstick, Macedonia

25 should also be reorganised internally, so that the Macedonians and the

1 Serbs and the Siptars there are satisfied in national and cultural turns.

2 "We perceive the provinces and regions within the present

3 republican borders in Yugoslavia more or less like the cantons in

4 Switzerland.

5 "In principle, we are not opposed either to a confederation

6 treaty or to the break-up of Yugoslavia. Simply, no one has the right to

7 impose a federation by force on either the Croats or the Slovenes or to

8 prevent these peoples from founding their own sovereign states.

9 "Likewise, no one may deny the Serbian people's historical and

10 ethnic rights or their right to go to war should the common state be made

11 into a confederation or break up.

12 "In that case, the Serbian Renewal Movement will consistently and

13 unrelentingly insist that no one can break away or place in a

14 confederation to the detriment of the Serbs the territories of Yugoslavia

15 that found themselves on the 1st of December 1918 within the then Kingdom

16 of Serbia, or territories in present-day Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia

17 where the Serbs were a majority people before the Ustasha genocide was

18 committed against them. This is the order of historical justice and is

19 not for negotiation."

20 What does this quotation illustrate? This quotation illustrates

21 the mood in the entire Serbian opposition at the time. The entire Serbian

22 opposition, including the Serbian Renewal Movement, the Democratic Party,

23 the Serb Radical Party, who all continuously criticised the federal

24 government and the Serbian government for having a very mild attitude

25 toward the Croatian separatists and the other separatists emerging in the

1 federal units.

2 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

3 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

4 Q. More than once there is mention here and also in some counts which

5 I will not quote for you now of some kind of inflammatory speeches

6 inciting war on the part of the regime and me personally in order to

7 incite ethnic hatred, instigate war and so on. Have you ever heard of any

8 such speeches? To be sure, no such claims have been substantiated by

9 evidence, but have you ever heard me make such a speech, or anyone

10 belonging to the Serb or Yugoslav government at the time?

11 A. No, never by you. Never by any of the government bodies in Serbia

12 under the control of your Socialist Party. Never were such statements

13 made by any of you. It was Vuk Draskovic, me, and other opposition

14 leaders who made such speeches, but certainly not any government

15 officials. We were always more radical than the government concerning

16 these issues. Draskovic sometimes really went over the top. Not even I

17 can digest what he said about the monarchy. But we always attacked the

18 authorities because, in our view, the authorities were not doing enough to

19 defend the Serb national interests and to protect the imperiled Serbian

20 people.

21 Q. Is there anything you can add to the description of these facts

22 about the Serb Guard of Vuk Draskovic, their political position and their

23 activity during the conflict on the territory of the former Yugoslavia?

24 A. The Serb Guard turned into a looting organisation. And after the

25 withdrawal of the Serb Guard from Bosnia and Herzegovina, there was a

1 conflict between Draskovic and the commander of the Serbian Guard,

2 Branislav Lajnovic Dugi, but this was a personal conflict. It had nothing

3 to do with their political or ideological orientation. Not long after

4 that, the Serb Guard ceased to exist.

5 Q. Very well. In your general explanation about paramilitary units,

6 you spoke about the attitude of the Democratic Party toward these

7 paramilitary units, and then you went on to speak about the unit and the

8 formation of a man nicknamed Mauzer which was active in

9 Bosnia-Herzegovina. Can you kindly just briefly explain what this was

10 about.

11 A. Well, the Democratic Party did not lag behind the other opposition

12 parties in this kind of orientation. Their public statements may have

13 been a bit milder, however, Zoran Djindjic, when he became the head of the

14 Democratic Party, had very intensive relations with Radovan Karadzic. No

15 one on the Serbian political scene was closer to Radovan Karadzic than

16 Djindjic and Kostunica. As far as I can remember, your Socialist Party

17 had no inter-party relations with the Serb Democratic Party.

18 THE INTERPRETER: Could the speaker please slow down.

19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The Serb Democratic Party did have

20 such relations, but not as close as theirs.

21 JUDGE ROBINSON: I've stopped you. It's very difficult for the

22 interpreter because you're going at much too fast a pace and the

23 interpreters are continually asking you to slow down. I should say --

24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.

25 JUDGE ROBINSON: -- it's not in the interest of Mr. Milosevic's

1 case. It affects the whole efficiency of the Court if we do not have

2 proper interpretation. So continue, bearing that in mind.

3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I will slow down again.

4 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

5 Q. Mr. Seselj, you are testifying here for the first time, so you are

6 not aware of the logistics here. I suggest that after every sentence you

7 wait until it is interpreted and then you can say the next sentence.

8 A. Well, my ideal was always to reach the speed of light when I

9 speak. Well, now I have to try to do the opposite, but I will try, I

10 promise.

11 Q. Well, please answer my question.

12 A. As for the Democratic Party, in 1990, 1991, or even in 1992, it

13 did not lag behind in the general efforts of the opposition political

14 parties in Serbia, but it was not internally capable of gathering

15 volunteers and sending them where they were needed in the war theatre. It

16 wanted to do this but was not able to. As I already said, the structure

17 of their membership was effeminate. It was a bit flaccid.

18 Then Djindjic found Mauzer, the commander of the paramilitary

19 forces the Panthers, and he made him a member of the Democratic Party and

20 appointed him his vice-president and the president of the Democratic Party

21 for Republika Srpska. And that's how Ljubisa Savic Mauzer participated in

22 the first elections after the Dayton Accords. Ljubisa Savic Mauzer headed

23 a band of looters which, in the war, was not very effective. But he

24 gained prominence in persecuting the Muslim civilian population. Together

25 with Arkan, he looted a large Muslim village called Janja which was loyal

1 to Republika Srpska. He entered the village, started looting their

2 vehicles, tractors, money, and so on, and the Serb Radical Party in

3 Bijeljina came into public conflict on more than one occasion with Ljubisa

4 Savic Mauzer -- interrupting me?

5 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. I think you should stop. I think you have

6 provided an answer.

7 JUDGE BONOMY: Mr. Seselj, the -- you referred to the Serb

8 Democratic Party, and you're telling us about membership and leadership.

9 That's a party distinct from the Serb Democratic Party founded in Croatia,

10 or is it -- are we talking about the same party?

11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] You see, there were two Serb

12 Democratic Parties.

13 JUDGE BONOMY: It helps to clarify.

14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] One in Croatia and the other

15 included Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I mentioned a third called the

16 Democratic Party of Republika Srpska. It was under Djindjic's control.

17 It was not termed a Serb party. When these three parties were formed,

18 they were formed by the same circle of people, former dissidents, more or

19 less moderate in orientation, who were mutually connected: Jovan

20 Draskovic, Radovan Karadzic, and the people around Micunovic in the

21 Democratic Party in Serbia. For many years before the war they were

22 friends. They had personal contacts, and so on and so forth. To begin

23 with they wanted to form a single party but then they agreed they should

24 establish three different parties. The party in Serbia did not have the

25 prefix "Serbian." It was called only the Democratic Party. Their

1 ideology was identical. Sometimes -- somewhat later some differences

2 emerged, later on, and there were internal differences that emerged later

3 on.

4 I think that's clear now.

5 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you very much.

6 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

7 Q. Mr. Seselj, you explained the existence of this paramilitary unit

8 headed by Mauzer and the close relations between the Democratic Party or,

9 rather, the way that this paramilitary unit joined the Democratic Party.

10 In connection with some of the crimes that this group committed - I mean

11 Mauzer's group - the leadership of Republika Srpska headed by Radovan

12 Karadzic has been accused of these crimes. Tell us, did the leadership of

13 Republika Srpska headed by Radovan Karadzic have control over Mauzer's

14 unit and was Mauzer's unit responsible or did it answer in any way to the

15 leadership of Republika Srpska; and if not, to whom was it responsible?

16 A. No.

17 JUDGE ROBINSON: Two questions there. Take the first one first

18 and try to deal with it briefly.

19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. Radovan Karadzic had no control

20 over Mauzer and his paramilitary unit the Panther Guard. When I met him

21 on several occasions, he complained to me of their self-will and their

22 causing problems in Semberija. The Serb Radical Party in Bijeljina also

23 came into conflict with Mauzer. Sometimes he would be abduct peaceful

24 Muslim civilians in Bijeljina and extort money from the Muslim side to

25 send them back. Sometimes Muslim soldiers of the Serb army were

1 maltreated by him and sent over to the Muslim side.

2 I happened to be in Bijeljina when a Muslim was wounded. He was a

3 soldier of the Serb army on leave, and Mauzer's men threw a hand grenade

4 into his yard. He lost a leg. I visited him in Bijeljina hospital. On

5 more than one occasion we publicly condemned Mauzer's behaviour.

6 In military terms, Mauzer was not especially significant, but he

7 was very prominent in perpetrating various crimes. Mauzer, to begin with,

8 was independent and linked to Arkan.

9 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you. And was Mauzer's unit responsible in

10 any way to the leadership of Republika Srpska?

11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] If Radovan Karadzic personally

12 complained about his behaviour, I don't believe he was responsible to

13 them. No serious state leadership can be happy with the existence of an

14 independent and renegade paramilitary formation not answering to anyone.

15 He was on the war theatre, for example, in Bratunac towards Srebrenica,

16 but he was not effective in warfare.

17 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Seselj.

18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The transcript does not reflect part

19 of what Mr. Seselj said just before you intervened, Mr. Robinson, where he

20 said that Mauzer was independent to begin with and linked to Arkan, and

21 later on he joined the Democratic Party of Zoran Djindjic.

22 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

23 Q. Did you say that, Mr. Seselj?

24 A. Yes, that's what I said.

25 JUDGE ROBINSON: That's now in evidence. Move on.

1 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

2 Q. To whom was he responsible?

3 A. He was responsible to no one in military terms. Later on, he was

4 responsible to Zoran Djindjic. He was his closest collaborator.

5 Q. Was he the president of the Democratic Party for Republika Srpska?

6 A. Yes, and Djindjic's deputy president in the entire Democratic

7 Party. Djindjic participated in his election campaign, held speeches at

8 rallies in Republika Srpska.

9 Q. And how do you view a criminal such as Mauzer being part of a

10 party which is declaring itself to be in favour of Europe, democratic

11 principles, democratic values, and so on?

12 A. No political party should be viewed only from the perspective of

13 what it says about itself or the principles it proclaims. The Democratic

14 Party under Zoran Djindjic is a deeply criminalised party. Zoran Djindjic

15 is one of the Serbian politicians who contacted the Mafia, used the Mafia

16 for his own purposes, and it turned out in the end that the Mafia used him

17 for their purposes and liquidated him when he tried to free himself of

18 them.

19 Q. You mentioned some other units but I think we need not dwell on

20 them. You mentioned the Serbian Guard, the paramilitary units of the

21 Serbian Renewal Movement of Vuk Draskovic.

22 A. There was also Arkan's Serb Volunteer Guard.

23 Q. What was its position? To whom was it responsible?

24 A. Arkan had been a criminal for many years, notorious in Europe. He

25 had been a bank robber. But for many years he worked for the federal

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1 state security service and participated in the physical liquidation of

2 political emigres.

3 In 1986 or 1987, I filed a criminal report against the then

4 federal minister of the interior, Stane Dolanc, among other things

5 accusing him of the murder of Yugoslav political emigres, the murder of

6 Stjepan Djurekovic, and in my speech, public speech to the Authors Society

7 of Serbia, I said that it was Zeljko Raznjatovic Arkan who was the

8 assassin and that after this the minister gave him a gun bearing an

9 inscription saying "To Zeljko from Stane."

10 Q. Just pause there for a second, please. Tell us in a few words,

11 who was Dolanc who at the time was minister of the interior of Yugoslavia;

12 and tell me, when was this?

13 A. Stane Dolanc was for many years one of the strongmen of Tito's

14 communist regime. After Tito's death, he was certainly the politically

15 strongest person in the state. He was the minister of the interior and he

16 was the main chief of all intelligence and counter-intelligence agencies

17 of the then communist Yugoslavia.

18 Q. Give me a more precise answer: When?

19 A. From Tito's death onwards, 1980 onwards, until the end of the

20 1980s. Now, when did his last term of office expire? 1988 or 1989, I

21 cannot remember exactly.

22 Q. You referred to your own speech at the Writers Association where

23 you talk about Dolanc and his liaison with Arkan. Is this contained in

24 tab 10? When you find it, when you find this quotation that you marked

25 yourself on page 851, because that was published in your book on page 851,

1 could you please read it.

2 A. Well, that is tab 10, Mr. Milosevic, at least in my papers.

3 Q. Well, tab 10 is what I said.

4 A. Inter alia, in this speech that I published in my book The

5 Campaign Against Heretics, this is my speech at the international October

6 meet of writers at the Writers Association of Serbia.

7 JUDGE ROBINSON: Is this translated, Mr. Milosevic? It doesn't

8 appear to be translated, in which event, if you have a particularly short

9 passage, it can be placed on the ELMO.

10 THE WITNESS: [Int