THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Jan 15 (Hina) - The last prime minister of the former Yugoslav federation, Ante Markovic, resumed his testimony as a prosecution witness in the trial of Slobodan Milosevic before the UN war crimes tribunal in The
Hague on Thursday, saying that the Yugoslav army had the support of the accused in its plan to arrest Croatian and Slovene leaders in the early 1990s.
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Jan 15 (Hina) - The last prime minister of the former
Yugoslav federation, Ante Markovic, resumed his testimony as a
prosecution witness in the trial of Slobodan Milosevic before the UN
war crimes tribunal in The Hague on Thursday, saying that the Yugoslav
army had the support of the accused in its plan to arrest Croatian and
Slovene leaders in the early 1990s.#L#
"Defence Minister Veljko Kadijevic came to me with a plan of the
Yugoslav Army Command to arrest the Croatian and Slovene leaders
without the SFRY (Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) Presidency
knowing," Markovic told the court.
Markovic gave his main testimony last October.
Under Kadijevic's plan, presidents Franjo Tudjman of Croatia and Milan
Kucan of Slovenia and their aids were to be arrested and Markovic was
offered to take the helm of the country temporarily. Markovic said he
had rejected the plan and asked Kadijevic about arresting Milosevic.
Markovic quoted Kadijevic as saying that he supported Milosevic
because "he was the only one fighting for Yugoslavia".
Milosevic denied his involvement in the plan or in other key
developments, including negotiations between Tudjman and Milosevic at
the hunting lodge in Karadjordjevo and the missile attack on the
Croatian government headquarters in Zagreb.
Markovic reiterated his earlier statement that Milosevic and Tudjman
had told him separately that they had agreed in Karadjordjevo on
partitioning Bosnia-Herzegovina, which Milosevic dismissed as "an
absolute lie".
"You told me that. I still remember the details, while you are
suffering from amnesia," Markovic said during the cross-examination.
Milosevic made every effort to prove that the Yugoslav army had not
fired missiles at the Croatian government headquarters in October 1991
while a meeting was in progress there involving Tudjman, Markovic and
Stipe Mesic, who was a member of the SFRY Presidency at the time.
Milosevic cited an interview with senior Croatian Communist-era
politician Stipe Suvar and an article published in his newspaper
"Hrvatska ljevica" (The Croatian Left), which said that it was a mock
attack.
"I was bombed," Markovic said, describing how a missile exploded in
the dining area minutes after they had left.
Markovic dismissed Suvar's statements as incompetent, and cited the
assessment by Air Force general Antun Tus that "six or seven missiles
were fired".
Markovic said he was against the Serbs being stripped of their status
as a constituent nation in Croatia, and that he had told Tudjman and
members of the Croatian parliament that it was necessary to initiate
"direct negotiations with the Serbs, rather than through Belgrade and
Milosevic".
Markovic completed his testimony in the trial of Milosevic, who is
charged with genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina and crimes against
humanity in Croatia and Kosovo.
The trial will continue on Friday.
(Hina) vm sb