1 Wednesday, 1 March 2006

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 [The witness entered court]

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

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

7 re-examination.

8 WITNESS: SLOBODAN JARCEVIC [Interpretation]

9 [Witness answered through interpreter]

10 Re-examination by Mr. Milosevic: [Continued]

11 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

12 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

13 Q. Just a few questions. I'll try not to keep you long.

14 Mrs. Retzlaff said that I dismissed and appointed people such as Milan

15 Babic, whom she used as an example. Do you recall how Babic was replaced

16 and who replaced him?

17 A. Mr. President, at that time, I was not in the Republic of Serb

18 Krajina, but I know about these events. He was dismissed because he did

19 not want to accept the Vance Plan offered by the Security Council and the

20 other mediators to resolve the issues that had arisen in Yugoslavia;

21 primarily the European Union, OSCE, and so on. The parliament then

22 intervened as the highest legislative body of the Republic of Serb

23 Krajina, as is usual in any state, and the signature question --

24 Q. All right. You don't have to go into any further details. Was it

25 the Assembly of the Krajina that replaced Babic?

1 A. Yes. That's just what I'm saying.

2 Q. Very well.

3 A. And if you like, I would like to say that he rose very fast in his

4 career and had you had any influence of that, he would certainly never

5 have been Prime Minister, nor would he have become minister of foreign

6 affairs after I was replaced.

7 Q. When he became the foreign minister, you described that situation.

8 He was appointed to that post after he won a majority in the Krajina

9 parliament.

10 Q. Yes.

11 THE INTERPRETER: Could there be a pause between question and

12 answer, please.

13 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

14 Q. So did someone --

15 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic and the witness, the interpreter is

16 asking you to observe a pause between question and answer.

17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I apologise once more.

18 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

19 Q. Very well. Mr. Jarcevic, did anyone from Belgrade exert any

20 influence for him to have the appropriate make-up of the parliament so

21 that he could become a minister of foreign affairs?

22 A. Well, there's no point in even talking about it. At the

23 parliamentary elections, he won the majority, and so he, of course, was

24 able to take the highest posts in the country, and that's the same in

25 every country in the world.

1 Q. Throughout the time you were minister of foreign affairs and a

2 member of the cabinet, can you give a single example of Belgrade

3 intervening in the appointment of any official in the Krajina?

4 A. No. I have no such information, but I could inform the Chamber of

5 a very interesting combination of cadres in the state after the

6 multi-party elections which were under the control of the Security

7 Council. President Martic, who won several percentages more than

8 Mr. Babic at the election, said to me, "Our country needs an economy

9 and --"

10 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Jarcevic. You did answer the

11 question.

12 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

13 Q. Very well. Mr. Jarcevic, Mrs. Uertz-Retzlaff showed you a letter

14 here which you sent to Republika Srpska. I was not able to see the date

15 in this extract, because you can't see it here, but this was at the time

16 when you were talking about the dangers and calling people to unity. Do

17 you remember that letter?

18 A. I don't have it before me because I've already packed away my

19 papers. I didn't think I'd need them any more.

20 Q. Very well. As you don't have it before you and I want to put only

21 one question in connection with it, Mrs. Uertz-Retzlaff quoted -- there's

22 a long passage at the beginning which takes up more than half a page, and

23 towards the end of that passage there's a sentence of yours: "The Serbian

24 knights must be on the Serbian borders," and she asked you what borders

25 these were.

1 At the beginning of this passage, where you say, "Dear Mr. Buha,"

2 and right after that it says: "The Croatian army has attacked all the

3 points along our border. Its only aim is to kill and expel the Serbs from

4 the Republic of Serb Krajina, just as it has done with the Serbs in

5 Herceg-Bosna and the Republic of Croatia." So it says the Croatian army

6 has attacked all our borders. And at the end of the passage, you say the

7 Serbian knights - meaning the Serbian soldiers - have to be on Serbian

8 borders. What kind of borders? This is all in the same passage. It's

9 all one paragraph. So what kind of borders are these?

10 A. Well, these are the borders of the Republic of Serbian Krajina or,

11 rather, the UN protected areas, as our country was called in the

12 international organisations and as it was called by all the members of the

13 United Nations.

14 Q. I won't go into this. Just a moment. You were shown a document

15 here or, rather, a letter that you sent to Stanisic in connection with the

16 arrival of a delegation of the Cossack army of Russia. Do you have this

17 before you?

18 A. No, but I know what it says, so I don't have to look at it.

19 Q. All right. Very well. You speak of the arrival of a delegation,

20 as it says here in paragraph 2, four air tickets Moscow-Belgrade-Moscow.

21 What does this indicate?

22 JUDGE ROBINSON: [Previous translation continues] ... 968. Yes.

23 Go ahead, Mr. Milosevic.

24 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

25 Q. What does this explain when you say four air tickets

1 Moscow-Belgrade-Moscow? Does it mean that they have to arrive from where

2 and where are they going on then?

3 A. As for air transport, they had to go from Moscow to Belgrade and

4 then go back to Moscow.

5 Q. So a four-man delegation?

6 A. I think it was a larger delegation, but some of the tickets were

7 to be paid for by the government of the Republic of Serbian Krajina, and

8 other tickets were to be bought by the Republika Srpska in

9 Bosnia-Herzegovina. However, this letter doesn't show all these details.

10 Q. And do you say here that talks are to be held and that something

11 is to be signed?

12 A. Yes. The representatives of the Cossack organisation had many

13 proposals to make to us which are not contained in this letter. For

14 example, economic cooperation, military, and expert cooperation, and so on

15 and so forth.

16 Q. And does it say here that a contract on cooperation is to be

17 signed of the Republic of Serbian Krajina with this organisation?

18 A. Yes. That's just what I said.

19 Q. Does the visit of this delegation and the measures you took to

20 organise their arrival, does all this fall outside the framework of a

21 normal kind of cooperation? Because this is a letter from you to

22 Stanisic, who was the chief of state security.

23 A. Mr. President, I explained yesterday; it was wartime. It was a

24 time when Yugoslavia was being broken up. Both enemies and friends were

25 travelling through our airports and crossing our borders. Of course we

1 had to make sure that this kind of delegation would have a passage open to

2 the airport. We esteemed this organisation highly because the Cossacks

3 used to be the backbone of the Russian army, and they had a decisive

4 influence on the formation of the Russian state. Certainly the security

5 organs of Serbia would have to look after airports, not just the borders.

6 So it's quite normal that I sent a letter to the Ministry of the Interior

7 of Serbia, first of all to inform them, because they couldn't have

8 received such information from the organs of Serbia or Yugoslavia since it

9 was we autonomously as representatives of the Republika Srpska who were

10 having talks with this organisation which was promising us that we would

11 meet with understanding on the part of the executive organs of the Russian

12 Federation, which of course did not happen.

13 Q. Mrs. Uertz-Retzlaff showed you an intercept of a telephone

14 conversation between me and Perisic. Just briefly. They've crossed out

15 something that would help provide an explanation, but it's not

16 indispensable. Is Akashi mentioned here?

17 A. Mr. President, yes, Akashi is mentioned.

18 Q. Who is Akashi?

19 A. Akashi was one of the prominent representatives of the United

20 Nations. At the time, it was rumoured that he would become a candidate

21 for the post of Secretary-General. If I may say, he was probably

22 unsuccessful because he openly spoke about the massacre perpetrated by the

23 Croatian army in Western Slavonia. He was the first to say that the blood

24 on the pavement was being washed away with hoses.

25 Q. He was certainly one of the most eminent representatives of the

1 United Nations, but in the Yugoslavia of the time, he was the number one

2 representative of the Secretary-General. That was his official post.

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. He was therefore representing the United Nations. On page 2 there

5 is mention of the minister of the foreign affairs of Greece, Papuljaz.

6 Have you seen this?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. Is the fact mentioned that he was coordinating with the European

9 Community because Greece was then presiding over the European Community,

10 so there's Akashi, Papuljaz, the United Nations, the European Community.

11 Does this show that there were activities on the way between me and the

12 representatives of the UN and the Greek minister of foreign affairs which

13 was coordinating the European Union at the time?

14 A. Mr. President, I can present my opinion here. You always

15 cooperated closely with all the representatives of the United Nations and

16 the prominent countries of Europe, including the European organisation the

17 OSCE, as well as the European Union. And here, by asserting this, all

18 that's left for me is to confirm that it was quite wrong that your name or

19 the name of the government of Yugoslavia or Serbia be linked to some

20 military actions against the Republic of Croatia and against the

21 Muslim-Croat Federation, as it says in the indictments of this

22 Prosecution.

23 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Jarcevic, just answer the question. Just a

24 simple answer.

25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I have answered it.

1 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

2 Q. All right. Let's put aside for a moment our efforts to work

3 through the representatives of the United Nations, EU, and so on. With

4 respect to the Flash Operation, Operation Flash that is commented on in

5 the second intercepted conversation, do you know, Mr. Jarcevic, that I

6 presented a document here provided to me by the other side - that is to

7 say Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff's side, in the course of duty - the stenographic

8 notes of the Council for National Security where we can see, starting from

9 Tudjman and then all the rest, that the Croatian leadership, even without

10 the knowledge of its own government, of their own government, staged an

11 attack on the motorway in order to go ahead with Operation Flash. Do you

12 know about that?

13 JUDGE ROBINSON: What's the question? The question is whether you

14 know about that.

15 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

16 Q. Well, the question is whether it was -- whether it became known

17 here in this premises that that action was staged by the Croatian

18 leadership as a pretext to force the Serbs out of Western Slavonia.

19 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: The witness cannot really tell us here what

20 we have heard in earlier parts of these proceedings. I mean, how could he

21 help us there? It's a leading question, I think.

22 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. I agree. Mr. Milosevic, ask another

23 question.

24 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

25 Q. Mr. Jarcevic, later on was it uncovered and found that this

1 Operation Flash was launched because of a staged attack which was not

2 perpetrated by the Serbs, but it was staged by the Croatian services as a

3 pretext for an alleged police operation?

4 A. Even small children in the former Yugoslavia know that to be a

5 fact.

6 Q. You were shown here a conversation or, rather, this conversation,

7 and it says that I speak of Martic's wilful conduct and the attack on

8 Zagreb, Sisak, Karlovac, and so on. Can we see here that we know about

9 that? Is that something that we know about, or do we take it at face

10 value, information provided at that time at face value? What 15 children

11 dismembered and so on? Is that something that actually happened?

12 A. I don't think that happened. The Croats would send out

13 information about casualties in different ways. There probably were

14 casualties, but I don't think there were more than six individuals who

15 were wounded or killed. And on our side, there were hundreds of dead.

16 Q. Can we see from this that at that time we believed the Croatian

17 media or that we didn't believe the Croatian information?

18 A. Well, we can see that you believed it because you were surprised

19 to hear that shells had fallen on Zagreb or around Zagreb. I don't know

20 where those rockets -- what those rockets reached, but you were surprised,

21 and that indicates that you did not take part --

22 Q. No. What I'm asking you is this: Did we believe the reports

23 coming in and published by the Croatian information media?

24 A. Mr. President, you reacted to those reports. Whether you believed

25 them or not, I don't know, I can't say.

1 Q. All right. Fine. You were also shown here a document relating to

2 the mobilisation and sending recruits to the army of Srpska Krajina. Do

3 you have that document in front you?

4 A. No, I don't, but yesterday I confirmed that I wrote the document.

5 Q. No, no, no. Zivota Panic wrote the document, the Chief of the

6 General Staff, and we're talking about taking in these recruits.

7 A. That was in response to my letter.

8 Q. All right, then. Now, in the first paragraph of this document it

9 says --

10 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour, that's 352, tab 152.

11 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff.

12 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

13 Q. Well, I hope you have it in front of you now.

14 A. That's not it.

15 Q. Can you find it?

16 A. Well, we have it in English here, yes.

17 Q. Well, you have an attachment in Serbian.

18 A. Well, Mr. President, you go ahead and read.

19 Q. All right. Now, it says here in the first paragraph that:

20 "Because of the aggression on the part of the armed forces of the

21 Republic of Croatia on the territory of the Republic of Serbian Krajina,

22 the government of the Republic of Serbian Krajina has declared a state of

23 war and issued a general mobilisation ..."

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. So what was the reason for what they did, the pretext?

1 A. The Croats attacked three points in the Republika Srpska Krajina

2 in the south.

3 Q. Was that the zone under the protection of the United Nations?

4 A. Yes, under full UN protection, and there were about 300 Serbs who

5 were killed.

6 Q. So the United Nations did not defend them.

7 A. The United Nations went away and the soldiers of Kenyan Battalion

8 and some other battalion lost their lives, and this was rumoured, but

9 Croatia was never accused nor did they ask that these people be punished.

10 Q. So the United Nations failed to protect and defend them. Then it

11 goes on to say: " ... on the basis of that they ordered a general

12 mobilisation," and then it says, "on the basis of which all conscripts of

13 the Republic of Serbian Krajina ..." So who are we talking about here?

14 Are we talking about citizens of Krajina who were conscripts of the

15 Republic of Serbian Krajina or anybody else's citizens?

16 A. Only the citizens of the Republic of Serbian Krajina.

17 Q. So they were the only ones that could be the conscripts of the

18 Republic of Serbian Krajina; right?

19 A. Yes. And can I add something, Mr. President? The representatives

20 of the United Nations --

21 JUDGE ROBINSON: Please don't add anything. Let's move on.

22 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

23 Q. So it was their duty, these conscripts, to report, and they would

24 be taken in.

25 Look at point 4 now, please. Who assigns these conscripts? They

1 are being allowed to gather somewhere on the territory of Serbia and

2 Montenegro, and what does it say in paragraph 4? Who is sending them?

3 The assignments -- what does it say?

4 A. "The assignments of the conscript soldiers will be performed by

5 the government office of the Republic of Serbian Krajina in Belgrade, Mosa

6 Pijada Street ..." et cetera, telephone --

7 Q. All right, you don't have to read that.

8 A. It's my office.

9 Q. So it says sending conscripts to the government office of the

10 Republic of Serbian Krajina; is that right?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. Thank you, Mr. Jarcevic.

13 A. Well, the state functioned. That's what it means.

14 Q. Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff also showed you another document, a letter, in

15 fact, at that time by the minister of foreign affairs, Milan Martic. It

16 dates to 1993, April, and the letter was sent to the presidents and

17 minister, and it speaks about the difficult financial situation. Do you

18 have that document?

19 A. Yes, here it is.

20 Q. All right. Fine. Now, just read out these critical words in the

21 first paragraph. He speaks about the highly unfavourable material and

22 financial situation. So what was this about? What does it mean

23 "unfavourable material and function situation"? Was it about anything

24 else but that?

25 A. No.

1 Q. So it's an unfavourable material and financial situation that he

2 is addressing. And what does he say at the end of that paragraph? Within

3 the frameworks of your possibilities ask for your assistance. Is that

4 what it says?

5 A. Yes, that's what it says.

6 Q. So it says: "I have an unfavourable material and financial

7 situation. Please give us assistance as far as you can."

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. So who else can the -- somebody from the Republic of Serbian

10 Krajina ask aid and assistance from in terms of material and financial

11 aid? What other country? Serbia first and foremost, I assume.

12 A. Yes, that's right.

13 Q. Now, take a look at the last paragraph. What does it say there?

14 "Even though we are aware of difficult economic situation of the Republic

15 of Serbia, we believe you will find ways to secure certain funds and send

16 them to this Ministry as assistance." He says "assistance" once again;

17 "as assistance."

18 So was there any question of Serbia -- or, rather, was it that

19 Serbia, the people, the nation, were asked to send aid and that they did

20 do so?

21 A. Had Serbia done anything else, it would have been an ally of

22 Croatia.

23 Q. Well, had it not assisted, we would be scoundrels of the worst

24 kind. Helped out in a difficult situation.

25 Now, we're just commenting on what you published, and you were

1 shown this news item by Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff. It was -- it says the

2 Jarcevic -- Foreign Minister Jarcevic says that the Croatian --

3 THE INTERPRETER: A little slower, please. Could the speaker

4 please read more slowly, thank you.

5 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, please read more slowly.

6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well, Mr. Robinson.

7 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

8 Q. Do you know -- what efforts were made, both by the international

9 representatives and Krajina - Nikolic was the Prime Minister - along with

10 great support from Belgrade, to endeavour to normalise relations between

11 Knin and Zagreb? The expression "normalise relations between Knin and

12 Zagreb," was that something that was present during that time all the

13 time, in the forefront?

14 A. Most of the proposals and wishes came from the government of

15 Krajina, Serbia, and Yugoslavia to establish peace with Croatia. Now, as

16 far as normalisation of traffic was concerned and other aspects of life

17 were concerned, from 1992 to 1995 we always offered the Croats passage

18 through the Maslenica bridge. They never wanted to accept that because

19 they kept informing their people that we were preventing this and

20 therefore planned a military settling of accounts with us.

21 Q. All right. Thank you. I'm not going to show you any more

22 documents, although there were quite a few of them. But you said when

23 Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff quoted something that the then Norwegian Foreign

24 Minister Knut Vollebaek said, you said that he wasn't to be trusted and

25 believed. What do you base that on?

1 A. Mr. President, I said that on the basis of his testimony, which is

2 highly unreliable, not true. And I did say yesterday, and I'll explain

3 this, that he also stole my bag at the airport in Oslo. If the Trial

4 Chamber is interested in hearing more about that --

5 Q. Well, I'm sure they're interested if the minister steals a bag.

6 That doesn't go to his credit.

7 A. Well, he wasn't the foreign minister at that time. He was to

8 become foreign minister later on. Well, quite -- it was very simple for

9 him to be angry with the Croats who didn't sign the agreement. He went

10 across the runway with me and was angry because two hours before that,

11 before the official declaration that the Croats refused to sign, I had let

12 the foreign press agencies know about that beforehand. And he said,

13 "You've destroyed my career by doing that because you leaked the news two

14 hours in advance."

15 Q. What happened?

16 A. Well, we received Tudjman's letter before them that the Croatian

17 delegation had to return to Zagreb and was not allowed to sign the draft

18 agreement that had already been agreed upon. We received this earlier on.

19 It was a surprise for the Croatian security detail who led the Croatian

20 delegation to the negotiations, and of course I sent this news to the

21 cabinet in Belgrade and they informed the press agencies that Tudjman's

22 letter would arrive tomorrow, vetoing the Croatian delegation at secret

23 negotiations to sign the agreement that was proposed by the international

24 community.

25 And instead of being angry at Croatia, Vollebaek was angry at me.

1 And I was carrying my bag or suitcase, my bag. I had all my belongings

2 with me, and our delegation boarded one vehicle, the Croatian delegation

3 went into another car, and Mr. Vollebaek said to me, "You know, the

4 Croatian luggage will be stored in one part of the plane and the Serb

5 luggage will be stored in other part of the plane, and Mr. Jarcevic please

6 believe me when I say that these belongings of yours, your luggage, that

7 the state security will be responsible for your luggage, the Norwegian

8 state security, so put your luggage over there, your suitcase over there.

9 So it would have been bad manners had I refused, so I put my bag -- I

10 loaded it up onto the vehicle that was transporting the luggage of the

11 delegation of the Republic of Serbian Krajina.

12 Now, since the Croats went from Budapest on another flight, we

13 stayed on in the same plane, we landed in Belgrade, and my bag was nowhere

14 to be seen. Since I had some photographs of the house I was born in in

15 the bag and my uncle's photographs which the Croats had set fire to and

16 destroyed in Bosnia during those days, I sent a letter to Zagreb and I

17 said, "Mr. Vollebaek, please return my bag to me. I want all my

18 belongings to be inside it, especially the photographs which are very

19 valuable to me because they -- I cannot take other photographs of them

20 because it's been destroyed. Unless you do so, if you fail to do so, I

21 shall sue for damages."

22 Three days later I was informed by an official in my cabinet, in

23 my offices, that during my absence Vollebaek turned up, handed over the

24 suitcase without a -- uttering a single word, and disappeared. Nothing

25 else.

1 Q. Thank you, Mr. Jarcevic. This was very --

2 JUDGE ROBINSON: I'm sorry. Mr. Jarcevic, you concluded from what

3 happened that Mr. Vollebaek had stolen your bag. It doesn't sound like

4 that to me. It was just a mix-up, which quite often happens, and you're

5 being a little unfair to Mr. Vollebaek in describing him as a thief.

6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I informed you that he said he would

7 guarantee that nothing would happen to my luggage, and this was an

8 obligation conditioning the agreement.

9 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

10 Q. Well, we're not challenging that he brought the bag back.

11 A. But how did he happen to have it?

12 Q. Well, it didn't get lost with him --

13 JUDGE ROBINSON: You're finished?

14 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes, I have. I thank the witness.

15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] You're welcome.

16 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Jarcevic, that concludes your testimony.

17 Thank you for coming to the Tribunal to give it, and you may now leave.

18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you, too.

19 [The witness withdrew]

20 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Your Honour.

21 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

22 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: I would just like to inform in particular

23 Judge Bonomy, who asked about the mass graves in Marino Selo and Pakracka

24 Poljana. We actually have heard evidence on these matters. In

25 particular, Ivan Grujic testified on these issues at page 17376 and 17377,

1 speaking about an exhumation in Pakracka Poljana with 19 Serb victims in

2 one mass grave. And also other witnesses such as, for instance, C-037

3 addressed this issue at page 10854 to 10857. And I have also inquired

4 within the Office of the Prosecutor, and Mr. Bob Reid, who was there in a

5 very early stage of the Tribunal, actually confirmed that an investigator

6 of our office worked on both these locations but as it is -- was something

7 done in 1994, 1995, he was not able to actually come up with the results

8 on whether exhumation had taken place under -- under -- with the

9 participation of the OTP. That's so long ago. It will take more time.

10 If you want to know more on this, then we'll dig further.

11 JUDGE BONOMY: I'm very grateful for that. Thank you,

12 Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff.

13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, since I don't have

14 those numbers, page numbers, before me, is Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff speaking

15 about the testimony of their witnesses about the number of Serb victims?

16 JUDGE ROBINSON: Ms. Uertz-Retzlaff.

17 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: Yes, Your Honour. It was Witness Ivan

18 Grujic, from the Croatian office, who --

19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right, all right.

20 MS. UERTZ-RETZLAFF: -- talked about this exhumation.

21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. I ask because Jarcevic

22 here in his letter referred to 2.500 Serbs that were killed, and then we

23 heard the figure of 19, and that seems to be a bit of a difference,

24 doesn't it?

25 JUDGE ROBINSON: Your next witness, Mr. Milosevic.

1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The next witness is Ms. Alice Mahon.

2 [The witness entered court]

3 JUDGE ROBINSON: Let the witness make the declaration.

4 THE WITNESS: I solemnly declare that I will speak the truth, the

5 whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

6 JUDGE ROBINSON: You may sit.

7 You may begin, Mr. Milosevic.

8 WITNESS: ALICE MAHON

9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I intend to start, but I'm waiting

10 for them to assist the lady; to give her her headphones, et cetera,

11 because I assume that we won't be able to work without them.

12 JUDGE ROBINSON: She is now equipped, so you may begin.

13 Examination by Mr. Milosevic:

14 Q. [Interpretation] Ms. Mahon, could you please introduce yourself

15 briefly.

16 A. Yes. My name is Alice Mahon. I was the MP, the member of

17 parliament for Halifax in West Yorkshire for 18 years until I stood down

18 at the general election of May 2005. I helped to form and chaired the

19 Committee for Peace in the Balkans. I'm widely travelled in the former

20 Yugoslavia and was elected to the NATO parliamentary Assembly in 1992, and

21 I remained a member of that Assembly until I stood down in 2005. I was a

22 member of the Civilian Affairs Committee, which has now been renamed and

23 called the Civic Dimensions of Security. I chaired the subcommittee on

24 civic governments for four years and travelled during the civil war in

25 Yugoslavia to many parts of that country with the committee, and I also

1 chaired the whole committee for four years until October of 2005.

2 The many places I visited in the former Yugoslavia, some I visited

3 two or three times, were Sarajevo, Knin, Vukovar, Belgrade, Macedonia,

4 Slovenia, parts of Croatia, Krajina, Republika Srpska, Kosovo, Banja Luka,

5 Serbia obviously, Novi Sad, Belgrade, Kragujevac. I visited during the

6 civil war with the international women's movement also. I went

7 independently to Sarajevo, to Banja Luka. I was there during a period

8 when the now secretary of state for defence, Dr. John Reid, was there, but

9 I was with an independent group of women from the different ethnic

10 communities.

11 I never in all my travels met the main leaders of the various

12 groups in Yugoslavia, including Mr. Milosevic, who I met for the first

13 time this week. Others, including the secretary of state for defence, did

14 meet with, for example, Dr. Karadzic and General Mladic.

15 JUDGE ROBINSON: Ms. Mahon, may I ask you, to what party did you

16 belong when you were a member of parliament?

17 THE WITNESS: I was a member of the Labour Party, Mr. Robinson.

18 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.

19 THE WITNESS: So I went against my own government, in effect, with

20 my position on the former Yugoslavia, because I was totally opposed to

21 what I considered to be an illegal bombing by NATO. I made my views very

22 clear, and of course I'm on the record, both in the NATO parliamentary

23 Assembly and in my own parliament, for taking that stance. I did not

24 believe that we had the legal right to bomb a sovereign state, and I did

25 not believe there was an impending catastrophe looming in Kosovo. Thank

1 you.

2 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you. Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

3 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

4 Q. Ms. Mahon, you mentioned a few moments ago that you were one of

5 the founders of the Committee for Peace in the Balkans. When was this

6 Committee for Peace in the Balkans established, and can you tell us a bit

7 more about its activities?

8 A. Yes. The Committee for Peace in the Balkans - and I have one of

9 their publications here the Court might be interested perhaps in looking

10 at - was established in '93, 1993, and it opposed military intervention by

11 NATO and others in the Yugoslavian situation. It stood for lifting of

12 sanctions against the whole Yugoslavia, so it was a peaceful union that we

13 set up. We wanted financial assistance to be increased and given in large

14 measure to reconstruct the civilian infrastructure of the whole of

15 Yugoslavia. We were campaigning for urgent humanitarian assistance on a

16 non-discriminatory basis for all the refugees who had been called -- who

17 had been created because of the civil war.

18 Other parties joined the Committee for Peace in the Balkans, so it

19 was a cross-party committee, and we also had big support from the major

20 trade unions in the United Kingdom. The main theme of the committee and

21 the main aim of the committee was that we believed that military

22 intervention would exacerbate tensions rather than bring peace to what was

23 a troubled region. The committee's entirely funded by donations of its

24 supporters, and we got regular contributions in the form of standing

25 orders and people just coming along to meetings. We organised a number of

1 meetings all around Great Britain. We attended major conferences, trade

2 union conferences, and always put forward the principles on which the

3 committee was formed.

4 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Ms. Mahon.

5 Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

6 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

7 Q. Ms. Mahon, on the basis of the information that you have provided

8 just now at the very outset, it is clear that you were a member of

9 parliament at the critical time in 1998 and 1999, and earlier on as well,

10 but now I shall focus first and foremost on that particular period. I'm

11 going to put a question to you. As for the reasons for the bombing of the

12 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, a countless number of times the following

13 was mentioned: Preventing a humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo. My

14 question to you is the following: As a member of the British parliament

15 and as, we can see, the chairman of relevant committees, did you get a

16 single shred of information from various agencies, competent agencies of

17 Great Britain that there was a looming humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo?

18 A. No. On the contrary. I went to Macedonia, to Kumanovo, three

19 weeks before the bombing started in Yugoslavia, with the NATO

20 parliamentary Assembly subcommittee. We stayed in Skopje in the

21 Aleksandar Hotel in Macedonia, and we went to the extraction force base

22 near the border with Kosovo where we were briefed by General Valentin and

23 General David Montgomery. They were there to lift out the OSCE

24 verification monitors should they need to be extracted should firefights

25 or hostilities break out again, but at that time there was relative calm.

1 We did go on to the border with the United Nations troops to watch an

2 incident, and we were a mixed group of members of different NATO

3 parliaments, and we -- the Danish officer in charge explained to us that

4 some people -- and we could see through the field glasses. It was

5 explained to us that some people had left their homes 24 hours earlier,

6 and we saw them going back, some in vehicles and some just coming down a

7 path through the woods. And they said that they had been a firefight

8 between the Yugoslav security forces and members of the KLA or UCK,

9 whatever they're called.

10 One of my colleagues asked were they Albanians who were returning

11 to their home, and the Danish soldier said no, as a matter of fact, this

12 particular group were Serbs. It's quite common, if a firefight starts,

13 people get out of the way. And that was his explanation.

14 We did not feel, at the conclusion of that visit, that there was

15 going to be a massive exodus of people, although some people were, as the

16 one we witnessed, leaving. But we'd been told over and over again by our

17 Prime Minister Tony Blair --

18 JUDGE ROBINSON: May I ask --

19 THE WITNESS: Yes, sorry.

20 JUDGE ROBINSON: You say you did not feel --

21 THE WITNESS: No.

22 JUDGE ROBINSON: -- that there was going to be a massive exodus of

23 people. Why is that?

24 THE WITNESS: Talking to the soldiers on the ground, Mr. Robinson.

25 It's something I think I always did in all the years I was a member of

1 NATO, was trying to engage in conversation with soldiers, because

2 servicemen and women by and large don't have a political axe to grind.

3 Quite often you get to know the truth. Sometimes the truth about their

4 officers as well, which doesn't always make for easy telling. But also at

5 home with some of the reports --

6 JUDGE ROBINSON: So you gathered this from --

7 THE WITNESS: From mixing with the military personnel and the UN

8 personnel on the border as well, yeah.

9 JUDGE ROBINSON: I see.

10 JUDGE BONOMY: Ms. Mahon, I didn't catch the date of this visit.

11 THE WITNESS: This visit was three weeks before the bombing

12 started in 1999.

13 JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

14 THE WITNESS: Actually, to the day almost. The NATO parliamentary

15 Assembly reports are all accessible on the NATO internet, to confirm the

16 committee's visit.

17 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

18 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

19 Q. Ms. Mahon, you did not receive any information on a looming

20 humanitarian catastrophe, but how do you explain the fact that your Prime

21 Minister Blair said in public that there was a humanitarian catastrophe in

22 Kosovo?

23 JUDGE ROBINSON: She can't explain that. Next -- another

24 question, please.

25 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

1 Q. Ms. Mahon --

2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] But perhaps she can, Mr. Robinson.

3 Perhaps she can.

4 JUDGE ROBINSON: No. I'm not allowing her. That's not a matter

5 for her.

6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right.

7 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

8 Q. Ms. Mahon, did you have occasion to talk to your Prime Minister,

9 Mr. Blair, about the attack on Yugoslavia?

10 THE WITNESS: Oh, yes. With a number of MPs. I saw Mr. Blair and

11 Robin Cook, the foreign secretary, on a number of occasions. I believed

12 and the Committee for Peace in the Balkans and some other members of

13 parliament believed that NATO was looking for a new role. We had many,

14 many discussions in the NATO parliamentary Assembly about the role of NATO

15 with the ending of the Cold War, and we were worried that if NATO took

16 this unilateral action, then it would open Pandora's box and they could do

17 it elsewhere. I think events in Iraq and Afghanistan have proved us

18 right.

19 I had a lot to do with the Prime Minister during this period

20 because I asked a number of questions. I also saw the foreign secretary,

21 because I'm sure people will be aware - it's certainly on the record in

22 Hansard - that on January the 18th of 1999 Robin Cook told the House of

23 Commons that since the cease-fire agreement and since the agreement to

24 reduce the number of security forces in Kosovo, the biggest number of

25 violations that had been -- had taken place in Kosovo had been perpetrated

1 by the KLA and not by the security services. And he told us that in the

2 House of Commons on the 18th of January, 1999.

3 So I -- I took it that we were all pleased. We thought this was

4 going to avert NATO going in heavy handed because they see now that the

5 Yugoslavs are sticking to their side of the bargain.

6 MR. NICE: Your Honours, before the next question, there is

7 obviously a question of relevance about this witness's evidence. I'm

8 unlikely to challenge, of course, the sincerity of her views or anything

9 of that sort, if her evidence is valuable to you, but we're not

10 investigating the reasons for the bombing. We are investigating the

11 underlying facts that are proved by evidence of those facts, and there is

12 either a limit, or almost a limit to the value that opinions of this kind,

13 sincere though they may very well be, can have. But as I say, I don't

14 want to stop the witness or to seem to be shutting out evidence if the

15 Chamber finds it to be helpful.

16 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Kay, do you have anything to say on the

17 general issue of relevance?

18 MR. KAY: As the Chamber knows, the accused is defending this case

19 on the basis of self-defence and the role and activity of the KLA, as it

20 was known, before the NATO bombing and the events caused by the KLA before

21 the NATO bombing which can be linked to events after the NATO bombing

22 which is the period when most of the charges against this accused rise --

23 arise in the indictment. There is only one specific incident, Racak, on

24 the 15th of January, before the NATO bombing. In those circumstances, the

25 evidence of this witness may well be of great use to the Tribunal if she

1 is able to explain what she saw and knew at the time, remembering that the

2 accused's case is that the KLA were acting in a way to cause conflict with

3 the Serb forces, provoking the Serb forces to react. They themselves were

4 instigating acts of violence, were staging, if you like to use that word,

5 or causing people to leave en masse in a walkout or exodus from the region

6 to provoke the international forces of NATO to attack the former

7 Yugoslavia, the FRY as it was.

8 [Trial Chamber confers]

9 JUDGE ROBINSON: In our view, at this stage at any rate, the

10 evidence is relevant.

11 Mr. Milosevic, please continue.

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

13 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

14 Q. Ms. Mahon, in view of the office you held - and there is no need

15 for me to repeat all the positions you held - do you know for when the

16 bombing of Yugoslavia by NATO was planned?

17 A. I only know what probably the Court already knows in that

18 Madeleine Albright's number two, James Rubin, had already said that

19 contingency plans, say August, 1978 [sic] he'd already made it public, and

20 the Court I'm sure has seen the publication that contingency plans were

21 being made, and of course we do know from experience on NATO that to

22 conduct a bombing of this scale takes a certain amount of preparation. It

23 cannot be just gone into overnight. So I'm pretty certain from reports

24 coming to NATO and to the NATO parliamentary Assembly - and we had our

25 annual meeting in the October and I'd been on one or two subcommittees

1 during that period - that there was widespread discussion amongst NATO

2 parliamentarians about the preparations that were taking place. We were

3 all perhaps lulled into a false sense of security with the October

4 agreement, 1998, that maybe this was a chance to avert bombing. But I do

5 want to emphasise again that, politically, NATO was looking for another

6 role. The expansion of NATO as it took in the Baltic states and some of

7 the countries of the former Soviet Union had occupied it for a number of

8 years, and I think it's important that the Court realise that NATO is

9 controlled by the Americans. I make no apology for being political about

10 that. I am a politician, and I did observe it firsthand, the absolute

11 power that America ran NATO with.

12 Could I add something else about the parliament?

13 JUDGE ROBINSON: No. We'll proceed by way of questions and

14 answers.

15 THE WITNESS: Okay. That's fine.

16 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, next question.

17 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

18 Q. Ms. Mahon. Ms. Mahon, are you aware of the explanation proffered

19 in the West for the attack on Yugoslavia, to prevent some kind of

20 genocide? Are you aware of that?

21 A. No. That word was certainly not -- not being used then. We were

22 told that the -- the Yugoslav security forces were repressing the

23 Albanians, but we were all aware, even the people who supported the -- the

24 bombing, that the KLA were organised and were a guerilla faction within a

25 sovereign state, and having gone through the Northern Ireland experience

1 in the United Kingdom, we know that countries have a right to stop

2 terrorists or guerilla activities and also have a right to defend their

3 borders. I think -- I think that's the right of any sovereign state. So

4 I suppose it depends which side of the argument you were on, but I

5 certainly was not -- we were told that there was going to be massive

6 ethnic cleansing and that that was going on. The facts didn't support

7 what we were being told. And certainly my experience in Kumanovo taught

8 me that when a firefight starts or when bombs are going off, civilians, if

9 they have any sense, get out of the way.

10 JUDGE BONOMY: Ms. Mahon, can you tell me, who told you there was

11 to be massive ethnic cleansing?

12 THE WITNESS: Oh, it was -- in the immediate run-up to the

13 bombing, the foreign secretary and the Prime Minister, in my opinion, made

14 some rather exaggerated claims, and I think the facts speak for

15 themselves. The mass exodus of Albanians from Kosovo started after the

16 bombing, and I think it's natural, as I will repeat, people get out of the

17 way when bombs are dropped. I had a map of --

18 JUDGE BONOMY: That's not my -- bear in mind the question I asked

19 you.

20 THE WITNESS: Sorry.

21 JUDGE BONOMY: It's important to concentrate on the questions, and

22 I think you answered it. You said they exaggerated statements, without

23 any specification, but we may here more of the specification later, thank

24 you.

25 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

1 Q. Ms. Mahon, you said that the Prime Minister and the minister were

2 making exaggerated statements. Before that, I asked you about the

3 humanitarian catastrophe that you said did not exist. Tell us, on the

4 basis of your own experience precisely from that time, was your Prime

5 Minister telling you the truth or not?

6 JUDGE ROBINSON: That's not a matter for her. That's not a matter

7 for her.

8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.

9 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

10 Q. Ms. Mahon, is it true that you, together with a few other members

11 of parliament, tried to organise a vote in parliament in relation to the

12 engagement of your country in the aggression against Yugoslavia?

13 THE WITNESS: Am I allowed to answer that?

14 JUDGE ROBINSON: What's the relevance of this now, Mr. Milosevic?

15 We are straying, aren't we? What's the relevance of this?

16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, Mr. Robinson, it is relevant,

17 and how, in view of the fact that there were reactions against attacking

18 Yugoslavia, and positions that were taken later on proved that that

19 reaction was right, or justified. I think it is therefore necessary to

20 know what kind of attempt was made to stop and prevent such crimes.

21 Mr. Robinson, for instance, what I have here is a periodical from

22 Great Britain. "[In English] [Previous translation continues] ...

23 Committee has reported that the NATO air war on Yugoslavia was illegal."

24 [Interpretation] That is what they said at the time.

25 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic. Mr. Milosevic, in my view the

1 public opinion in the United Kingdom as to the bombing and justification

2 for it is not relevant.

3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, I'm not talking about

4 public opinion at all. I'm not talking about public opinion at all. What

5 I quoted to you was the opinion of the Foreign Relations Committee of the

6 parliament of the United Kingdom or, rather, their conclusion. It's not

7 public opinion, it is the position taken by an official organ of Great

8 Britain.

9 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Yes.

10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I think that you should make it

11 possible for Ms. Mahon to give an answer to see what kind of attempts they

12 made at the time to have the truth established or, rather, to make it

13 impossible for their country to take part in this illegal attack on

14 Yugoslavia. I don't know why you're bothered by that.

15 JUDGE ROBINSON: I say it's not relevant, and that's my ruling.

16 Ask another question.

17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right.

18 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

19 Q. Ms. Mahon, did the parliament of which you were a member take any

20 kind of position in connection with Kosovo before the beginning of the

21 bombing?

22 A. No. We were not -- in the British parliament, we're not allowed a

23 vote on whether to go to war. The first time we've been allowed to vote

24 on going to war was on Iraq when, as you are aware, 141 Labour MPs voted

25 against. But we -- the Prime Minister takes us to war under the Royal

1 prerogative. The only thing we could vote on was the adjournment of the

2 House, that the House did not adjourn, and that's what we did. A few of

3 us organised that.

4 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, bring the witness to issues that

5 are relevant to the indictment. And do not try to use her evidence for

6 non-forensic purposes.

7 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

8 Q. Ms. Mahon, what was your standpoint, in view of the office you

9 held, about the NATO campaign against Yugoslavia?

10 A. I thought it was illegal. I still think it was illegal. I think

11 it opened the way for the invasion of Iraq.

12 Q. Can you say with certainty what the real reason was for the

13 bombing?

14 THE WITNESS: Am I allowed to answer this? It's saying "No

15 broadcast" on here, on the screen, and the court is in recess it's saying.

16 MR. NICE: Can she say what was the real reason for the bombing is

17 the question. I venture to suggest it's not a question that she can

18 answer.

19 THE WITNESS: It's okay. It's come back on. It had switched off.

20 Okay.

21 JUDGE ROBINSON: Just a minute.

22 [Trial Chamber confers]

23 JUDGE ROBINSON: Well, I think she already said what the reason

24 was, but we will allow her to comment briefly.

25 THE WITNESS: Sorry. The question was what was the reason --

1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

2 THE WITNESS: -- for the bombing. I think it was purely

3 political. I think it was an extension of American influence in the area.

4 And I am a politician, so I do talk in politics. I think it was to do

5 with the break-up of Yugoslavia, and they had to -- they'd already

6 intervened in the Krajina, they'd already intervened by training -- the

7 SAS and the CIA were training the KLA guerrillas. We had notice of that,

8 it was in the press, and we discussed it at some length on the NATO

9 parliamentary Assembly, and I think it was just a matter of time before

10 the bombing started.

11 We also know that Bill Clinton was in something of a mess

12 domestically. Madeleine Albright was already making plans, as I said, in

13 the summer previous to the bombing, and with hindsight, it seemed to me

14 that they were going to do it just as we saw with the preparations for the

15 Iraq war. I think America now has a base in Kosovo and will remain there,

16 and their bases are now dotted all over what was a former different

17 economic system to theirs.

18 JUDGE ROBINSON: And there is no need to apologise for being a

19 politician. Politics is a noteworthy profession.

20 THE WITNESS: The training of the KLA was widely reported. John

21 Simpson, a very eminent journalist in the United Kingdom, reported that

22 the CIA trained the KLA and left them very, very well equipped when the

23 bombing started, and certainly they had some extraordinarily good weapons.

24 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic, next question.

25 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please, for Mr. Milosevic.

1 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

2 Q. What do you know about the KLA? What did you know at the time,

3 apart from what you've already mentioned, that Robin Cook said that they

4 were the ones violating the cease-fire and so on? What do you know about

5 the KLA?

6 A. Well, I know that 12 months before they were on America's most

7 wanted list of terrorists and that there was a complete change of mind by

8 the Americans and overnight almost they became their allies. Mr. Cook

9 probably was a convert, a convert to the KLA somewhat later, when he was

10 let in on the act, because on the 18th of January, 1999, he was telling us

11 they were committing most of the violations, and as we know, a couple of

12 months later they were our allies, and our armed forces and our aircraft

13 were used to help bomb Yugoslavia, a sovereign state that had done us no

14 harm or was no threat to us in any way at all.

15 Q. You mentioned a little while ago that immediately before the

16 bombing you were at the Macedonian border in order to see what the

17 situation was in Kosovo and Metohija. Later, after the war, you visited

18 Kosovo and Metohija again, as far as I know, in 1999. Were you able to

19 meet any KLA leaders or ordinary soldiers or their families?

20 A. Yes. I went with the NATO parliamentary Assembly in September

21 1999. We stayed in the camp, in the tents at the -- overlooking Pristina

22 in the old film studio, and we met -- we toured, obviously, the area. We

23 saw a lot of the damage because colleagues were saying - it was a sort of

24 guessing game - who did that, then? And nearly all of the massive damage

25 obviously was done by NATO.

1 We met Mr. Hashim Thaci, who is a well-known leader of the KLA.

2 He was with Mr. Bernard Kouchner, who was the administrator immediately

3 after the bombings stopped. We had a meeting with other leaders,

4 including one from the minorities, a Serb, and also a gentleman from the

5 Roma community.

6 Mr. Thaci -- may chair of the committee at that time was an

7 Italian senator at that time, Senator Migoni, and he described Mr. Thaci

8 as somebody you would not like to meet without having some bodyguards.

9 Mr. Thaci denied totally that there was any harassment of the minorities,

10 but we just listened to both the Roma leader and the Serb leader telling

11 us about the killings and the burnings of houses that were going on

12 against the minorities, but Mr. Thaci just very coldly dismissed it,

13 wouldn't discuss it. And knowing something of Mr. Thaci's background, I

14 wasn't surprised.

15 JUDGE ROBINSON: Did you form the same impression of Mr. Thaci as

16 the Italian, that you would not wish to meet him without bodyguards?

17 THE WITNESS: Absolutely. He was very cold, quite hostile because

18 he was meeting politicians, so he probably -- probably gathered that we

19 were not totally supportive. And of course we were getting the stories

20 from other people about reprisals on the civilian population, the minority

21 civilian population.

22 Mr. Kouchner was more diplomatic and did point out that the forces

23 -- the occupying forces were trying to prevent this happening, but of

24 course at that time it was shortly after, just a few months after and the

25 killings and kidnappings, burning of houses, were a regular occurrences.

1 And burning of churches as well, which was very disturbing.

2 JUDGE ROBINSON: Did you visit the area on any other occasion?

3 THE WITNESS: Yes. I -- I've been back to Kosovo --

4 JUDGE ROBINSON: No, no, during the conflict.

5 THE WITNESS: Yes, I did. I went to -- to Yugoslavia with a

6 reporter from the Daily Mirror and the photographer. The Daily Mirror is

7 a tabloid newspaper.

8 JUDGE ROBINSON: When?

9 THE WITNESS: That was during the bombing. I went to -- from

10 Hungary. I was criticised quite heavily by my own party for going, but I

11 wanted to see what was going on.

12 JUDGE ROBINSON: And where did you go?

13 THE WITNESS: I went to Novi Sad in Vojvodina first. The Yugoslav

14 security forces insisted on sending a car. The Mirror paid for part of

15 the expenses, I paid for part, but they provided a car for us. They

16 wouldn't let us in, on the basis that they were being bombed and it was

17 dangerous, unless they provided protection, and I think, probably with

18 hindsight -- we wanted our own car and we argued, but with hindsight, it

19 was probably a good thing.

20 We went to Novi Sad where we were allowed to just get out and mix.

21 We got out onto the last remaining bridge that had not been bombed at that

22 time, the one with the railway across it, and there was a huge

23 demonstration taking place. So we got out and we talked to people. The

24 Mirror talked to whoever they wanted to, took as many photographs as they

25 wanted. I talked to quite a number of people. They were very mixed

1 ethnically because Vojvodina is. I think there are 25 different ethnic

2 groups in Vojvodina.

3 The guards started to get a bit -- the guards, the car driver,

4 started to get a bit anxious because we were there a couple of hours, and

5 they said we had to get to Belgrade before it became dark because the

6 bombing started at night. So we left and we went to the International

7 Hotel in -- Intercontinental Hotel in Belgrade.

8 During the evening we saw the bombers come and bomb the oil

9 refinery in Pancevo. It was quite frightening, really. It was -- I'm 68

10 years old, I can just remember the Second World War and the sound of

11 sirens, and I have to say it did have a bit of effect.

12 The following day we got our drivers back. Our cameraman almost

13 got arrested. He wandered off by himself and, as you can imagine, when

14 they heard an English voice they were not too happy and they called the

15 police and the police did accept his explanation, Bill Rowntree. And the

16 following day we went to Pancevo to see if we could talk to some of the

17 workers there. A couple of them agreed to talk to us. The rest were

18 quite hostile to us even though I was saying and Bill was saying that we

19 didn't approve of the bombing. The reporter, Ms. Johnson, did approve of

20 it but she didn't say anything. But we did talk to them and they did say

21 that they were continuously being bombed in that complex.

22 The thing that worried me was the small -- with the houses nearby

23 and the small village, small town, because the stench and the fumes and

24 toxic waste coming from that bombing must have been very bad for the

25 civilian population.

1 We then sent to -- we went to a place called Kragujevac where the

2 huge Zastava car factory had been. That car factory had a small annex

3 that made shooting -- fancy shooting guns. They're quite well known, I

4 understand, in gun circles for these exceptionally good hunting rifles, et

5 cetera. But the car factory itself had been hit by 22 cruise missiles.

6 It was just wrecked.

7 JUDGE ROBINSON: Did you see anybody fleeing their homes in --

8 THE WITNESS: No. No. We saw some refugees in Kragujevac, but

9 they were from another conflict in the Krajina. We visited them.

10 JUDGE ROBINSON: All right. Thank you.

11 Mr. Milosevic.

12 THE WITNESS: We -- sorry.

13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I was waiting, Mr. Robinson, for the

14 interpretation to end. The interpretation went on for quite a long time.

15 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

16 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

17 Q. Ms. Mahon, on the occasion of your visit to our country during the

18 bombing, you have just described several events. Is that all you saw

19 during that visit; Novi Sad, bridges destroyed, the Pancevo refinery,

20 Kragujevac, Zastava, the car factory? Are these all the places you

21 visited in the course of that visit?

22 A. No. I went to a small town called Cuprija, and they had been

23 bombed because a couple of miles outside the town there was an old

24 military dormitory, but the bombs had missed and hit the town and 400

25 dwellings had been damaged. Some had been completely wiped out. Luckily,

1 only one person was killed and seven injured.

2 The mayor of the town, who was not one of your supporters,

3 Mr. Milosevic, had voted against you, and so had the town, that the mayor

4 of the town showed us around. We saw a nurses' home that had been damaged

5 by the bombs. We visited a dentist and his wife whose house had been

6 written off, basically, and she was injured, but they were just thankful

7 they were living. But the damage to Cuprija was extensive. These were

8 civilian targets that were being hit by NATO bombs.

9 Q. Ms. Mahon, during your visit you saw many places and many events.

10 The places you saw, were they military targets where you saw the effects

11 of the NATO bombing, or were these civilian facilities, or both?

12 A. I didn't see any military targets at all. Now, we were under war

13 conditions and we -- had we asked to see them we might have -- they might

14 have refused us, but certainly the car factory, the trade unions there -

15 and I met the trade unionists who organised in the factory - had sent the

16 coordinates of the factory to NATO, every country in NATO, including the

17 Pentagon, saying, please, this is a factory that makes cars and tractors -

18 and that's all we saw as we walked around for hours in that factory -

19 please don't bomb us. It's miracle -- and they were having a sit-in every

20 night, and it's a miracle that those workers were not killed. Some of

21 them were injured and rather gruesomely. The photographer took a

22 photograph of where they had been sitting and the blood on chairs. We did

23 talk to the leader of the trade union, the secretary, who said we had

24 pleaded with the world, please don't bomb us.

25 And I have to say these -- these civilian targets, I think they

1 were targeted deliberately. But the tragedy about Zastava car factory is

2 there was a big heating plant there that supplied heating for almost all

3 of the town, and that went. The tragedy about that bridge I stood on -

4 because it was bombed two nights later, there are -- there were no bridges

5 left in Novi Sad over the Danube - it carried water and other supplies

6 across to the other side of the town. So these were targets that hurt

7 ordinary people, and people were dying under those bombs. You know,

8 they're not this pinpoint accuracy. It's just another sort of Hollywood

9 myth. Those bombs do go astray and they do hit civilian targets, and I

10 feel passionately that NATO should be in the dock in this place as well.

11 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic. One more question before the

12 break.

13 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

14 Q. Ms. Mahon, to go back to the Verification Mission in Kosovo late

15 1998, early 1999, are you aware of the activities of the Verification

16 Mission in Kosovo in that time period?

17 A. Yes. I -- during the 1980s I took a great interest in what was

18 happening in Central America. It was one of my interests in foreign

19 affairs, and I visited Nicaragua and El Salvador, and so Mr. William

20 Walker, who was in charge of the OSCE mission, was somebody I knew well.

21 His reputation went before him. He presided over, in El Salvador --

22 Q. Just a moment. Just a moment. From when did you know William

23 Walker? You said you knew him. When did you get to know him?

24 A. I went to Nicaragua and to El Salvador during the 1980s, when the

25 nuns and priests were killed in El Salvador. Mr. Walker denied the

1 existence of the death squads. He also ran the Contra, the illegal

2 Contras who attacked the democratic government of Nicaragua. He's very,

3 very well known in Central American circles. And so I was dismayed when

4 he headed up the Verification Mission.

5 I -- my committee went into great detail about the Racak massacre

6 and we stood it, and we had speakers over to talk to us about the forensic

7 evidence, the Committee for Peace in the Balkans.

8 It was also widely discussed on the NATO parliamentary Assembly,

9 and the view was taken that Mr. Walker in many circles - in many circles,

10 not just Committee for Peace in the Balkans - that Mr. Walker had perhaps

11 arranged an incident, tragic as the deaths of those people were. And of

12 course Racak was used to bring in Rambouillet and ultimately to bring in

13 the bombing of Yugoslavia.

14 I also, with the Verification Mission, when I was in Kumanovo, met

15 some of the OSCE verification monitors in the hotel we were staying in,

16 Aleksandar Hotel. Two or three of them came to have a night off and a

17 rest. They were convinced, those people we spoke to, had the verification

18 monitors been doubled, that they were doing some good work and were trying

19 to bring the communities together, and I do think, a bit like the weapons

20 inspections in Iraq, I think it's a pity they weren't allowed to get on

21 and finish the job.

22 JUDGE ROBINSON: Ms. Mahon, that's a very serious allegation to

23 make against Mr. Walker, to have concluded that --

24 THE WITNESS: Yeah --

25 JUDGE ROBINSON: -- he had arranged the incident at Racak.

1 THE WITNESS: Well, I think some of the forensic people and many

2 other observers have made the same observation, Mr. Robinson. Now, I

3 don't know. I'm -- I'm just telling you what people concluded from the

4 talks they were given, from the discussions they had. I certainly don't

5 think we should have destroyed a country based on what Mr. William Walker

6 said.

7 JUDGE ROBINSON: I gather that you also agreed with that --

8 THE WITNESS: Yes, I think there is something highly suspicious

9 about what happened at Racak.

10 JUDGE ROBINSON: But to say that Mr. Walker arranged it, that's a

11 very serious --

12 THE WITNESS: Well, would you like me to say that I think

13 Mr. Walker just happened to be there, and people disagreed with him

14 profoundly about that being a massacre.

15 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, it's already gone further because you've

16 indicated that other people have already expressed a view that he arranged

17 the incident, and you talk about forensic people and many other observers,

18 so I think we need to hear who they are.

19 THE WITNESS: Yeah. We had speakers come to the Committee for

20 Peace in the Balkans and who expressed the view that Racak was not the

21 massacre that -- I suppose I can get you that information from the

22 archives, if you like. They'd be putting a political joint of view.

23 JUDGE BONOMY: Sorry, a forensic person involved, you wouldn't

24 expect to be putting a political point of view.

25 THE WITNESS: No, no. People speaking about the forensic

1 evidence.

2 JUDGE BONOMY: Not some --

3 THE WITNESS: No, no, not --

4 JUDGE BONOMY: You're not referring to the forensic --

5 THE WITNESS: Not the forensic scientists themselves, although I

6 have seen the film where -- the BBC showed the film where there were

7 doubts expressed.

8 JUDGE BONOMY: Well, if this -- that answer had been left that

9 way, it could have been very misleading.

10 THE WITNESS: Okay.

11 JUDGE ROBINSON: We will adjourn now for 20 minutes.

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

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

14 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Kay?

15 MR. KAY: Before we resume, Your Honour, may I raise an urgent

16 administrative matter, and it concerns the scheduling for next week. The

17 witness Momir Bulatovic has travel difficulties. He would not be arriving

18 until Tuesday. The case is scheduled to resume on Wednesday next week.

19 Bulatovic is a very big witness, requiring a great deal of preparation.

20 At the moment I'm aware of the fact that those acting on behalf of

21 Mr. Milosevic in preparing his witnesses are trying to fill in for next

22 week, which is highly unsatisfactory as I know that it wouldn't be the

23 best use of time, whereas he will need time to deal with this significant

24 witness who will require a great deal of preparation.

25 So I have an application to make, and that is that the case be

1 adjourned next week to enable Defence preparations and that we take up the

2 schedule again resuming on the 14th of March. In my view, it would be the

3 best use of court time to enable him to be prepared properly. The Court

4 are aware of the fact that there have been personal reasons which have

5 prevented his earlier attendance in The Hague, and these are matters that

6 simply have not been able to have been got round in the interim period.

7 So in my submission, it would be in the best interests of this case if we

8 adjourned, we did not sit next week, but that we resume the hearings on

9 the 14th of March to enable essential Defence preparation.

10 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice?

11 MR. NICE: It would be disingenuous of me not to acknowledge that

12 it happens that this would be convenient for me, as a member of the

13 Prosecution team, and I have to make that clear, as it happens. For the

14 Prosecution as a whole, our position has always been as stated, I think,

15 in our filing at Christmas that the accused's responsibility is to have

16 witnesses available on every day and that in the absence of being able to

17 call evidence, then those days should count. But I have to observe that

18 if there was a change of timetable by filling in witnesses whom only I

19 could deal with - certain topics certainly fall in that description - then

20 it might be that I wouldn't be here as a matter of fact.

21 So there's a combination of elements to my answer, and I hope

22 that's helpful.

23 JUDGE BONOMY: It's also clear, Mr. Nice, from the list that we've

24 been given that there are difficulties associated with a number of other

25 witnesses who are clearly shorter witnesses as well, and having said that,

1 it's been very helpful for us to have got this list, at least to expand

2 the information we had up until now.

3 MR. KAY: Just to add, because I didn't mention -- there are

4 problems with other witnesses as well. As I said about fitting in, there

5 are safe conduct issues, there are issues of passage, and there are great

6 difficulties I'm aware of that Mr. Tomanovic, who is the associate that

7 Mr. Milosevic has at court with him at the moment, is certainly in great

8 difficulty in trying to make things work for next week.

9 [Trial Chamber confers]

10 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Kay, we'll give a decision on your

11 application before the end of the proceedings today.

12 MR. KAY: Much obliged.

13 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, please continue.

14 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

15 Q. [No interpretation].

16 JUDGE ROBINSON: I'm not getting --

17 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

18 Q. Madam, you said that during your visit that week you met the

19 members of the Verification Mission. What did they tell you about the

20 situation in Kosovo and Metohija?

21 A. They -- they were hopeful that conflict could be avoided. They

22 felt that they were doing a very good job. They wanted to be allowed to

23 continue to do that job. They said that some areas were difficult because

24 there was some guerrilla activity and there was some security forces

25 activity, but they were convinced they were talking to people -- they were

1 getting people to talk to each other. One woman put it to me that she --

2 she'd arranged to get people to sit down and have a cup of coffee

3 together. They were discussing the wider problems. They all concluded --

4 we met -- when I've gone back and thought about it, there were four of

5 them altogether who we met, and they all concluded that they needed to

6 double the numbers of verification monitors, that they were thinly

7 stretched on the ground and thought it would be a good way of spending

8 money if they could do that, and certainly I think they were all of the

9 conclusion they would like to have avoided the bombing that was being

10 threatened.

11 Q. While you were taking an interest in the work of the Verification

12 Mission on that occasion and others, did you learn who the members of the

13 commission were -- of the mission?

14 A. No. We -- we were just in the same hotel. They'd come out for a

15 rest, were going back in. We just had a cup of coffee, chatted.

16 One woman, I did get her name because it was an absolute

17 coincidence. Her name was -- she was from New York. Her name was Alicia

18 Mahon, and my name is Alice Mahon and we thought that was a real

19 coincidence, so I remember her name, but the other three were young men

20 and they -- if I didn't know the name at the time I can't remember it

21 now. But certainly I remember the woman because of the coincidence about

22 the name.

23 Q. On the 12th of March, 2000, the Sunday Times reported that this

24 mission, which was supposed to be neutral, had been infiltrated by CIA

25 agents and agents of other agencies who were supporting the KLA. Did you

1 know anything about this?

2 A. As -- as a member of the NATO parliamentary Assembly, I've worked

3 with the OSCE, particularly the election monitors, on numerous occasions.

4 We all accepted that the Americans wielded a huge influence on the OSCE.

5 I recently monitored the elections in the Ukraine, and we thought we'd had

6 a good election until we read the long-term observer reports, when they

7 decided that the election had not been good.

8 So I think at all times when I've been in contact with the OSCE, I

9 have thought there's been huge American influence on -- on those

10 delegations, and I think -- I heard the same rumours, I read the same

11 reports, that the CIA had infiltrated the verification monitors in Kosovo.

12 Q. In your view, what could the consequences of that have been for

13 the role of the mission in Kosovo?

14 A. Well, I think I'm of the view, having been a long-time member of

15 the NATO parliamentary Assembly, that American foreign policy usually

16 prevails, and there are various ways of doing it. I observed this during

17 the expansion of NATO. I -- I've also had some difficulties as a chair of

18 the Civic Dimensions of Security Committee when I -- I wouldn't say just

19 the OSCE but perhaps NATO executive as well, the people who run the NATO

20 parliamentary Assembly, they seem to follow a particular agenda.

21 I'll give you an example: When I went to Latvia to -- with a

22 small group of my committee, to follow up complaints that the ethnic

23 Russian speakers in Latvia were not being given fair treatment by the

24 Latvian government and we had a couple of specific things to pursue,

25 points to pursue, I did a report that was not allowed to be published, and

1 we couldn't agree the report and so the executive produced a report. And

2 I think that's true with the OSCE as well. I think there's a political

3 agenda and I think you'd be rather naive if you didn't think there was.

4 Q. You mentioned in one of your replies the assistant of the

5 secretary of state of the USA, James Rubin. Are you aware of his

6 statement of the 3rd of August, 1998, several months before the start of

7 the bombing, in which he said that the plans were ready for action in

8 Kosovo and Metohija so that when a political decision is reached

9 intervention can be carried out very fast? He said that the number of

10 troops and the targets had already been selected and that the preparations

11 were being carried out. Did you know about this? And does what you know

12 confirm that such preparations were taking place?

13 A. Yes. I -- I read the same report in August 1998 - I have it

14 somewhere with me - from James Rubin, that contingency plans were being

15 drawn up. I actually met, along with some other MPs, Mr. Pejic from the

16 Yugoslav embassy in London, and we had a meeting before my party

17 conference where we tried to persuade him that we thought this was very,

18 very serious. He could not believe and was absolutely incredulous, he did

19 not believe that the United Kingdom would go along with the bombing of

20 Yugoslavia for all kinds of historical reasons, and we really couldn't

21 convince him. But we were convinced, some members of the Committee for

22 Peace in the Balkans, we were convinced that the plans were being drawn up

23 and there was a very realistic possibility that -- that bombing would

24 proceed, that some reason would be given for -- for the bombing, and I

25 think after Racak the Rambouillet peace accord was drawn up to give that

1 permission and drawn up in such a way to give that permission.

2 Q. Tell me, please, do you know what the tasks of the Yugoslav army

3 and security forces were in Kosovo?

4 A. Yes. I imagine the same as a similar situation that we had in

5 Northern Ireland: They were to seek out any terrorist activity, to -- to

6 try and stop it, to secure the borders, I imagine, and to generally

7 protect the civilian population. I know that in Northern Ireland we -- we

8 had a very difficult period, and as you know 3.000 people died in Northern

9 Ireland.

10 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Ms. Mahon. We are not particularly

11 interested in that.

12 THE WITNESS: Sorry, sorry. Just a comparison.

13 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.

14 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

15 Q. So we have here the fact that preparations were underway at least

16 in mid-1998 for the bombing, and the reasons came in 1999, the pretext

17 came in 1999. Now, in light of that, can you tell us what you know about

18 that. Did your Prime Minister Blair mislead you when it came for the

19 reasons for attacking Yugoslavia or not?

20 MR. NICE: I really must object. It gets a bit wearying. We have

21 about three presentational errors in that question. We start off with an

22 assumed fact which may simply not be a fact, I don't know, then we use the

23 word "pretext," and then we have Prime Minister Blair misleading. It's

24 not that the accused doesn't know how to ask questions, it's that he

25 chooses to ask them in an improper way. And what he seems forever to

1 overlook is that by improper questioning he diminishes or eliminates value

2 in the answer that he gets.

3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson.

4 JUDGE ROBINSON: That line of questioning is quite improper, as

5 you well know. It's improper because it is leading and for other reasons

6 given by the Prosecutor. I will allow you to -- to reformulate the

7 question.

8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, Mr. Robinson, the fact that

9 the witness talked about a moment ago, that is to say the clearly stated

10 position of the State Department in the form of James Rubin on the 3rd of

11 August, 1998, without a doubt speaks of the decision to bomb and

12 preparations that were underway several months before the pretexts that

13 were taken into account --

14 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic --

15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] -- cropped up.

16 JUDGE ROBINSON: -- don't waste time. If you don't wish to

17 formulate the question, I will instruct you to move to another matter.

18 It's as simple as that.

19 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

20 Q. Mrs. Mahon, for you in 1998, did you have information to the

21 effect that the bombing was being prepared?

22 A. Just the statement by James Rubin. The increased -- I would --

23 the Judge will tell me if I'm wrong or not on this one, but I would say

24 some of the exaggerated claims that were being made by the KLA and that

25 were being accepted. I think there was a huge propaganda war that went on

1 throughout the whole of the civil war and after in the Balkans, and really

2 you had to extract from reams of information what you thought was right

3 and what might happen. And I did actually accept that when somebody as

4 close to Madeleine Albright as James Rubin was, I did accept that when he

5 said that contingency plans - I think were the exact words he said, I have

6 it here somewhere - were being drawn up, I did take that very seriously,

7 which is why we asked -- Jeremy Corbyn, Tam Dalyell, and myself asked to

8 see somebody from the Yugoslav embassy, and we saw Mr. Pejic and we

9 relayed to him our concerns. That was before my party conference in -- at

10 the end of September.

11 Q. At the end of September 1998, that is; right?

12 A. Yes, 1998, yes.

13 Q. A moment ago you mentioned propaganda in the West. What do you

14 know about that propaganda? What are your assessments of that propaganda?

15 A. I -- on a -- in 1992, this is -- this is the first real alert I

16 got. Before that -- no, I'll go back. I'll go back a step. After the

17 ethnic cleansing of the Serbs from the Krajina, the first ethnic cleansing

18 in the Danubian area, we tried to get that published, as much publicity

19 for it as we could, and we got very little. And I have to say many people

20 better than I and more articulate than I wrote articles and articulated

21 what was going on, but it was almost as if collectively the press did not

22 want to know because Serbs were being ethnically cleansed. And it was one

23 of the biggest ethnic cleansing of the war, as it happens.

24 But in 1992, I went to the United Nations in New York with a

25 parliamentary delegation, and I was struck by the effectiveness of

1 Mr. Sacirbey, who was the Bosnian Muslim lobbyist in the UN. He was

2 incredible. He turned up everywhere, and his message was that the

3 international community must intervene and bomb -- bomb the Serbs. And it

4 struck me at that time how little PR was coming out from both the Serb

5 side and, I have to say, from the Croats as well. But this man was almost

6 on every stage whilst we were there. It's -- it's a coincidence we were

7 there when the Islamists tried to blow up the first twin towers and we had

8 to come back by another airline because ours was based there.

9 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Ms. Mahon.

10 Mr. Milosevic, may I inquire, how much longer will you be with

11 this witness in your examination?

12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, I'll try and get through the

13 examination-in-chief as quickly as possible, but I do think I will need

14 one more session. And that means by about the beginning of the last

15 session. Fifteen minutes, give or take.

16 JUDGE ROBINSON: If the Chamber were minded to grant the

17 application by Mr. Kay, obviously it would be most convenient to have

18 concluded this witness's testimony by the end of the day. Proceed.

19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I understand what you've just said,

20 Mr. Robinson. However, with respect to the testimony of this particular

21 witness, I should like to emphasise just how relevant it is in view of

22 everything that went on and everything she knows about the attack on

23 Yugoslavia. If a country was preparing and if the NATO countries were

24 preparing to attack Yugoslavia for a long period of time, then the

25 question arises how can the thesis still stand of some kind of criminal

1 enterprise on the part of Yugoslavia? And that's the main thesis put

2 forward by the opposite side over there here.

3 JUDGE ROBINSON: Please proceed.

4 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

5 Q. To go back to Kosovo, did you have any information, Mrs. Mahon, or

6 any knowledge about where the members of the units of the KLA were coming

7 from, how they were trained and how they were being armed? Did you know

8 anything about that?

9 A. Earlier on before the -- before 1998, we had had Mr. Rugova and

10 other Albanian leaders to seminars of -- of NATO, and for two or three

11 years in the run-up to 1998 we talked to various leaders of the Albanian

12 groups but not leaders of the KLA, not on my committee. Mr. Rugova very

13 kindly attended twice, and we did question him, first of all about the

14 separate entity that had been set up in -- in Kosovo education-wise, et

15 cetera, and then about links with the KLA. It became quite clear that

16 Mr. Rugova, who was a renowned man of peace, quite clear that he didn't

17 view them very, very favourably, and of course later events showed us that

18 he tried to set up his own opposition to the -- to the KLA.

19 So in that sense, yes, we did talk about them on the committee.

20 And of course they were wanted on a terrorist list then. That, taking

21 them off the terrorist list, only came later when it was convenient for

22 the leaders of NATO to do so.

23 Q. Mrs. Mahon, do you remember the Rambouillet negotiations?

24 A. Very well, because we wanted to have a copy of the -- of the

25 document, those of us who were interested, on both sides of the argument,

1 those in favour of the war and those against, desperately wanted to see

2 the Rambouillet document. It wasn't placed, unfortunately, in the House

3 of Commons library until the 1st of April, and so we had to go on what

4 ministers had told us. We did have some meetings with ministers, and we

5 -- we just had to put up with that.

6 I thought, and I -- I concur with what Lord Gilbert said, who had

7 been a former defence minister, that the Rambouillet document -- I think I

8 have his actual quote here somewhere -- could never be accepted and that

9 it was wrong. I also note that the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, who

10 reported on the period the 1st of January, 1999, to the 2nd of March,

11 1999, among its conclusions were this: "At Rambouillet, negotiations were

12 doomed by the introduction of a demand that no government could ever agree

13 to, that a foreign army be given the right to occupy the whole territory

14 of the federal republic. The military annex of the Rambouillet proposals

15 would never have been acceptable to the Yugoslav side since it was a

16 significant infringement of sovereignty."

17 And I couldn't agree more on that. I think -- I think that's

18 absolutely true. Dr. Kissinger also, I understand, was on record as

19 saying no country anywhere would accept a provocation like it. It was an

20 excuse to start the bombing. I agree with Dr. Kissinger. And we -- as we

21 know when the final agreement came after the bombing, the military annex

22 was dropped. So I think it was Madeleine Albright putting it in so that

23 the Yugoslav government could not accept it. No government would have

24 accepted that, handing over sovereignty to a foreign army. And so I felt

25 very strongly about that. I did raise the issue in parliament and so did

1 many, many other parliamentarians.

2 Q. And did you know the position of the Serb side at the negotiations

3 in Rambouillet?

4 A. Yes, I did. I received a copy from the embassy of their -- of

5 their position, and it almost mirrored in Hansard and the record as saying

6 -- let me see. Yes. If it's all right to quote the Hansard, which is the

7 official record of the British parliament. On the 25th of March, column

8 578, I said: "I want to refer to the -- in the debate peace process at

9 Rambouillet because my Right Honourable Friend -" that was the minister -

10 "said Belgrade was a stumbling-block because it refused to negotiate."

11 And I said: "I have a copy of the Serb contribution to the peace process

12 entitled The Basic Elements of Substantial Self-government in Kosovo."

13 And I also have a draft copy of the agreement that NATO tried to impose,

14 because we were leaked this. We didn't get it officially until the 1st of

15 April, but we got -- we got a leak. And there -- I said: "There is

16 little difference between the two documents. There are two sticking

17 points. First, an ambiguous passage in the NATO draft document could lead

18 to a referendum that would take Kosovo away from the Serbs. There is no

19 question that such a referendum could lead to separation and a separate

20 state. The second sticking point is the proposal to put NATO troops on

21 Serbian territory, and the Serbs will not go along with that. That was

22 confirmed when I met the deputy ambassador of Yugoslavia and other Serbs.

23 The Serbs said that they were presented with an ultimatum, not a

24 negotiating ploy, and I think that the Serbs' case should be put before

25 the House. And that's not to condone any of the atrocities that may have

1 been committed, but it's only fair that the House hears the Serb case.

2 How would we feel if events -" and I quote Northern Ireland again, I'm

3 sorry if that's getting a bit wearied. "How would we feel if events in

4 Northern Ireland escalated out of control and the rest of the world, some

5 of whom thought that we were not doing too well there, had issued an

6 ultimatum through a military alliance telling us to accept an agreement,

7 that if they didn't accept their terms, then we'd be bombed? We would be

8 outraged and in uproar and we've got to realise how the Serbs think about

9 their country. We must try and get away from the massive propaganda we

10 hear." And then I just went on to say that the Serbs have refused to

11 capitulate to our ultimatum, and as we know, the result is the bombing,

12 which I think is profoundly wrong." So I'm on the record, as many others

13 are.

14 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic.

15 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

16 Q. Well, precisely to carry on from where you left off. That

17 resulted in the bombing, as you said. Now, what, in your assessment, were

18 the consequences of the bombing?

19 A. Well, here again I'm on record a number of times saying that the

20 consequences of the bombing led to the mass exodus of the Albanian

21 population from the country. I -- I have a map of where the bombs went,

22 and I've been to some of these places since the bombing, and quite

23 frankly, I think the bombing resulted in many people evacuating, and I

24 would have done as well with my family. I would not have stayed there

25 night after night --

1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Ms. Mahon, this is of interest to us. Do you

2 have any -- any empirical evidence to support your view?

3 THE WITNESS: Yes, I do. Twelve months after the bombing I went

4 into Yugoslavia with a colleague, Bob Marshall-Andrews, Q.C. Our reasons

5 for going was the real problems with refugees in Serbia. We wanted to go

6 into the camps and talk to people ourselves. And the minister for

7 refugees accommodated us. It was quite difficult, sanctions were on at

8 the time, some of the aid agencies had pulled out. And we went into a

9 camp outside Belgrade to talk to a number of people. There was family, an

10 Albanian family, in that camp who had been driven out by the KLA and did

11 not want to go back to Kosovo. I have had in my constituency a number of

12 Albanians who fled the bombing who came to settle in Halifax, and,

13 luckily, we've got the right to remain for one or two of them. One of the

14 women, who had had a nervous breakdown, and I did a lot of work for her as

15 a constituency MP, an Albanian woman, told me that the KLA had told them

16 to leave and to get on a train.

17 We also have the -- I think it was Jonathan Steel, in the

18 Guardian, on the 30th of June, 1999 --

19 JUDGE ROBINSON: You're speaking here about the KLA.

20 THE WITNESS: Yes.

21 JUDGE ROBINSON: I think the question related to the bombing.

22 THE WITNESS: Yes. Well, the exodus of people, in my view, were

23 three things: I think the Serb paramilitaries did drive some people out.

24 I think the KLA definitely encouraged the exodus. And I went to the camps

25 - these camps were quite well provided for - I went there a couple of

1 times. And I also think people got out of the way of the bombing. So

2 that's my personal view of what happened.

3 And Jonathan Steel, in the Guardian, said a KLA fighter had

4 admitted that he'd instructed Albanians to leave Kosovo. And I think

5 that's been widely reported from other sources as well. I give three

6 examples, but -- that I personally had, but I think it's also been widely

7 reported.

8 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

9 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

10 Q. Ms. Mahon, just to be precise about these things, was the bombing

11 the main reason for the exodus or one of the reasons of the exodus on a

12 footing of equality with the other reasons, to the best of your knowledge?

13 A. Oh, I think --

14 JUDGE ROBINSON: And when you give your answer, you must provide a

15 basis for your conclusion.

16 THE WITNESS: I think the bombing was the main reason for the

17 exodus. I think people have said publicly and on the record that they got

18 out of the way of the bombing. I have to say, if we want an updated

19 example, when the military -- the US military in Iraq said they were going

20 to attack Fallujah, three-quarters of that city evacuated. The people

21 don't stay where they think they're going to get bombed. It's just my

22 experience.

23 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

24 Q. And the conduct and behaviour of the KLA? What causes for the

25 exodus -- what context could you place that in if you look at the exodus

1 and the fact that people were leaving?

2 A. Well, it's -- it -- it confirmed for them -- no, no. They got

3 what they wanted. They -- they got the world's press seeing this massive

4 exit of people, and they termed it ethnic cleansing, and so they were able

5 to -- and the press, of course, carried this widely, the refugees going

6 into -- and it was a miserable time for them as well, and they have all my

7 sympathy.

8 But I still maintain, and so many other people, that the -- that

9 the exodus of people, the ethnic cleansing, if you like, occurred after

10 the bombing started. I'm not the only one that said that. Very eminent

11 people have said that. I sincerely believe it. Unfortunately, the press

12 have ignored the permanent ethnic cleansing that's gone on before and

13 since. And as we know, there are nearly a million refugees, mainly in

14 Serbia, some in Montenegro. I visited them in the camps with

15 parliamentarians, and the world and the West don't seem to be bothered

16 about that ethnic cleansing. Wrong ethnic group, perhaps.

17 Q. You said that it might have been the wrong ethnic group to deal

18 with that, for them to deal with it.

19 A. If you want me to -- sorry. Yes, I think -- I think -- I think

20 the Serbs were demonised, and there was a deliberate propaganda campaign

21 that did demonise. I actually paid a visit to this Tribunal to visit the

22 Prosecutor with Mark Littman, Q.C., the gentleman who has done all the

23 legal documents for us on the legality of the war. And one of the reasons

24 for visiting Ms. Carla Del Ponte was I'd just returned from a visit to the

25 Krajina, from Knin and Serbia, where I had been talking to returnees,

1 Serbs who wanted to go back who had been driven out by the Croats and by

2 the bombing of the Western forces. And we took photographs of mass graves

3 outside Knin, and statements from a number of Serbs who were having a

4 terrible time. And it's reported, we had a debate in parliament about it.

5 It's been widely reported. And I asked the Chief Prosecutor -- I was

6 there with two or three; as I said, Mark Littman, Q.C., and a Serb who

7 lives in London who was part of the Committee for Peace in the Balkans,

8 and I asked if this would be investigated, this mass grave that we'd seen,

9 and we were told at the time that resources were limited. I didn't think

10 that was a satisfactory answer and still don't.

11 I also went to Banja Luka with the -- the parliamentary committee,

12 the Civilian Affairs Committee, where we were briefed by a policeman who

13 came from Preston, which is in the north of England, not far from where I

14 live, who told us, told the committee, and we questioned him on it and

15 this will be on the record, that they were only looking for Serbs when it

16 came to -- he was working for the Tribunal, but they were only looking for

17 Serbs. Well, I think there was a civil war. I think atrocities took part

18 on all sides.

19 And as Mr. Milosevic knows, I've been very critical of him, very

20 critical of Mr. Tudjman, and very critical of Izetbegovic. The reason

21 I've decided to come to the Tribunal is because when it came to keeping

22 Yugoslavia together and looking at all the leaders, I decided, and reading

23 all the Tribunal material - and since I stood down from parliament I've

24 had time to do that, and watch it - I have come to the conclusion that

25 Mr. Milosevic was the one who wanted to keep Yugoslavia together. But I

1 have been highly critical of all the leaders in the past because of what

2 happened, but I do think --

3 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.

4 THE WITNESS: -- Serbs have been demonised.

5 JUDGE BONOMY: Can I ask you when these two meetings were; that's

6 the meeting with the Prosecutor and the meeting with the north of England

7 police officer.

8 THE WITNESS: The meeting with the Prosecutor will be on the

9 record, and I came with Mark Littman. I think it was 2003. I can

10 certainly get you the -- it will --

11 JUDGE BONOMY: 2003 is good enough.

12 THE WITNESS: I think it was, yes.

13 JUDGE BONOMY: And the later one?

14 THE WITNESS: The one with the police officer in Banja Luka I

15 think was 2001, yeah. But it will be on the NATO website. It was an

16 official visit.

17 JUDGE ROBINSON: You said you have been critical of Mr. Milosevic.

18 THE WITNESS: Yes I have, yes.

19 JUDGE ROBINSON: Can you tell us what --

20 THE WITNESS: Well, I think the propaganda machine should not be

21 underestimated, because it affected us all, and we all believed things of

22 all sides, and I've said, I think on the record, that I hold no truck with

23 Mr. Milosevic. That I'd been to Vukovar, I think was one quote I made,

24 and seen what the Serbs did there. So I was laying blame.

25 And I also said about Mr. Izetbegovic that he knew about what was

1 happening to the rural Serbs in Bosnia who were being persecuted and

2 killed, and I think I said to some rather unpleasant things about him as

3 well. And similarly about Mr. Tudjman, who -- they're not here now to

4 defend themselves.

5 But the conclusion I reached after this last three or four years

6 of reading and listening and what -- this Tribunal helped me to come to

7 this decision, is that Mr. Milosevic was the only one trying to keep

8 Yugoslavia together.

9 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

10 Q. Just to go back to a few questions related to Kosovo. Did you

11 have any information to the effect that the Serbs were leaving Kosovo

12 during the NATO bombing?

13 A. Oh, yes. Yes. We -- shortly after -- well, first of all during

14 the bombing, the NATO parliamentary Assembly met in Warsaw, and I moved

15 nearly 50 amendments to the resolution that was congratulating NATO, and I

16 got some very, very limited support, I must confess. But during that

17 meeting, that Assembly, we were told by speakers - because we invite

18 speakers - that everybody was getting out of the way of the bombing, that

19 they had refugees going into Serbia as well.

20 I also, at a later seminar in Macedonia, at Lake Ohrid, we had

21 Michael Ignatieff, the journalist, and Noel Malcolm, who wrote the book,

22 or the books on Kosovo, and it sticks in my mind what Michael Ignatieff

23 said, but this was when the bombing ceased. He says, "I didn't think I'd

24 gone along with this military action." He'd just been to Kosovo. It had

25 only just finished, the bombing. "So that I could see thousands of Serbs

1 on tractors, walking, and in cars, being driven out of Kosovo. We stopped

2 one --" because he believed the ethnic cleansing was going on on a huge

3 scale. I didn't. But he said, "We've stopped one lot of ethnic cleansing

4 and we're now witnessing another." The difference I would put is that

5 one's been permanent and the other one wasn't.

6 Q. Ms. Mahon, since you follow the events in Kosovo very intensively,

7 you visited there, you visited Yugoslavia, you were in debates in

8 parliament, you were in the NATO committee, the parliamentary Assembly and

9 your parliament's committees dealing with these things and everything

10 else, I'm just going to ask you a few questions now with respect to this

11 indictment, and I'd like you to tell me whether you had any knowledge

12 about any of this from all your experiences, which are undoubtedly very

13 broad indeed and rich experiences.

14 Paragraph 53 says that I, together with others, it doesn't matter

15 who else, it says: "... planned, instigated [In English] ordered,

16 committed or otherwise aided and abetted in a deliberate and widespread or

17 systematic campaign of terror and violence directed at Kosovo Albanian

18 civilians living in Kosovo in the FRY."

19 A. The question is do I have any knowledge or experience --

20 JUDGE ROBINSON: I'm not allowing that, Mr. Milosevic. She is in

21 no position to comment on that on the basis of the evidence that she has

22 given so far.

23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, she isn't in a position to

24 comment what they wrote, but she does have the knowledge which can perhaps

25 deny it because she was in contact with people there. So I can ask her

1 the following:

2 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

3 Q. Do you have any information and knowledge which refute these kind

4 of allegations, madam?

5 THE WITNESS: Okay?

6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Do you have any specific knowledge?

7 THE WITNESS: Well, when we've been having the meetings of the

8 Committee for Peace in the Balkans, people came along and gave testimonies

9 to how they were treated, and we had some very, very lively meetings, as

10 you can imagine. There was -- during the civil war in particular. But in

11 the run-up to Kosovo as well. And one person would come on, an Albanian,

12 because there's a sizable community in London. I'm very pleased to say

13 they carried on coming to the committee meetings. And one person would

14 say something and then we'd get a Serb who would stand up and say, "You

15 killed my brother who was a policeman," or my cousin. And so from that

16 point of view we had the people viewing their differences, airing their

17 differences.

18 Similarly on the NATO Assembly, we would get one report supporting

19 -- because we have observers there from the various countries, and we'd

20 get report from -- reports from various groups saying this happened, that

21 happened. There would be a difference of opinion.

22 What -- what I will say, and I think the British delegation were

23 innocent, quite sympathetic to this, was we did know there was a guerrilla

24 organisation operating in Kosovo. We did know that -- because Robin Cook

25 told us and we all got the [inaudible], that they were violating the --

1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Ms. Mahon, I'm going to stop you.

2 THE WITNESS: Okay, that's fine.

3 JUDGE ROBINSON: It's clear to me you don't have any specific --

4 THE WITNESS: No.

5 JUDGE ROBINSON: -- knowledge of these matters.

6 Mr. Milosevic.

7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well.

8 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

9 Q. Ms. Mahon, did you have any information about what the Yugoslav

10 organs did, the Yugoslav authorities, including the Yugoslav army and the

11 Yugoslav security organs? Do you have any information as to how they

12 treated refugees?

13 A. Mainly reports from the press. We did have some reports in

14 parliament from the Defence Minister who talked about 10.000 -- first of

15 all, a hundred thousand people being killed. Then it came down to 10.000.

16 This was during the bombing, and it was about justifying the bombing. And

17 the accusations were that the Yugoslav army had carried out these

18 killings. Consequent -- subsequently we know this is not true and the

19 deaths, desperately tragic as they were, and injuries, were nothing like

20 on the scale that both Robin Cook and George Robertson were telling us.

21 Q. All right. You were in Kosovo later, that is to say after the

22 war. Could you establish what the situation was like in Kosovo after the

23 war? What is your knowledge about that? Did NATO attacks resolve the

24 problems of Kosovo, help people there? Did they create anything

25 noteworthy? So what are your observations --

1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Not relevant. Don't answer that.

2 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

3 Q. Have you heard of at least a single action where NATO forces in

4 Kosovo, after taking over responsibility for protecting the entire

5 population, tried to protect the Serbs, or an Orthodox church, or have you

6 heard of any situation when --

7 JUDGE ROBINSON: No, don't answer that.

8 No, Mr. Milosevic. Don't abuse the Court's process and time. If

9 you don't have any more questions to ask, then I'll ask Mr. Nice to begin

10 his cross-examination.

11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I do have other questions.

12 JUDGE ROBINSON: Well, then put questions that are relevant to the

13 indictment.

14 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

15 Q. As for the violence against the Serb population, do you know

16 whether that was brought to an end after the bombing stopped?

17 A. Certainly not. And we -- we -- after the 2004 --

18 JUDGE ROBINSON: That's outside the indictment period. If you ask

19 one more question like that, I'm going to terminate the

20 examination-in-chief. This is the third question you've asked, and it

21 relates to the period outside the indictment.

22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well. Then I don't want to be

23 brought into that situation, that is to say not to be able to put some

24 questions that I also believe are very important as far as this witness is

25 concerned.

1 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

2 Q. Ms. Mahon, in addition to Kosovo, you went to Bosnia-Herzegovina

3 and Croatia; is that right?

4 A. Yes. I went to Croatia on a -- two or three occasions, mainly to

5 talk to returnees, and to talk to the -- the Croats who were trying to be

6 helpful, one particular party, about the refugees. I went and saw what

7 happened, the results of Operation Storm, which were quite shocking. And

8 the refugees have been a major concern of the women's committee that I've

9 told you about. We've been trying to get people together, and we've been

10 trying to help to get people to be able to return to their homes.

11 When I was in the Krajina, I actually did a report that went to

12 the OSCE about the plight of the Serbs who had returned and the fact that

13 they were not getting any help from the government. The OSCE on that

14 occasion were very good and did take up the number of cases that we gave

15 them. And I visited recently with John Randall, Conservative MP for

16 Uxbridge, who chairs the Serbian-Montenegrin group in parliament, and the

17 Macedonian group. He was the secretary, I was the chair, and we went to

18 visit Kosovo refugees who were -- had been stuck in camps near the Kosovo

19 border in Serbia for many years. And we complained about that because the

20 administrator in Kosovo was not -- less than 1 per cent had gone back.

21 And the administrator was allowing Albanian families who lived near the

22 right to veto returnees, and so we made some complaints about that. And I

23 understand the position is slightly better now and more refugees are going

24 back.

25 But they were in a desperate case, and it did seem to me that the

1 rest of Europe had just turned their back on them. And as we know, there

2 are nearly a million people who have been ethnically cleansed from all

3 over the former Soviet Union, and most of them are in Serbia and in

4 Montenegro, and it's an absolute disgrace, in my view.

5 JUDGE BONOMY: Did you mean to say the Soviet Union there?

6 THE WITNESS: No. I said it's an absolute disgrace, in my view.

7 No, I meant to say Yugoslavia, the former Yugoslavia, sorry. I thought I

8 said Yugoslavia.

9 JUDGE BONOMY: You actually said Soviet Union and it just seemed

10 very strange in the circumstances.

11 THE WITNESS: Yes. Sorry about that.

12 MR. MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation]

13 Q. The time that you refer to when you went to Croatia, is that when

14 you came here to have the talks that you refer to?

15 A. I came here afterwards, after one of the visits, yes, but I've

16 been two or three times.

17 Q. After one of these visits. All right. How many times did you

18 visit Croatia?

19 A. Three times altogether, once with the women's international and

20 twice with NATO.

21 Q. In the briefest possible terms, what was your impression after

22 these visits to Croatia?

23 A. The visit to --

24 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic --

25 THE WITNESS: -- with