THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Feb 18 (Hina) - The war which broke out when the ex-Yugoslavia disintegrated was caused by demands that Serb-populated parts of Croatia and Bosnia remain in Yugoslavia, a former military counter-intelligence official
said on Tuesday at the Hague trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Feb 18 (Hina) - The war which broke out when the
ex-Yugoslavia disintegrated was caused by demands that Serb-
populated parts of Croatia and Bosnia remain in Yugoslavia, a
former military counter-intelligence official said on Tuesday at
the Hague trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.
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"Claims that Serbs in those areas should stay living in Yugoslavia
led to the armed conflicts and the civil war," General Aleksandar
Vasiljevic said in reply to prosecutor Geoffrey Nice.
Plans to secede parts of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina which
were mostly populated by Serbs is one of the main arguments of the
indictment against Milosevic, who today ended his cross-
examination of the witness.
Vasiljevic, head of security at JNA, the former federation's army,
in 1991-2, is one of the key prosecutorial witnesses in the part of
the trial referring to war crimes committed in Croatia. Mentioned
in the Milosevic indictment as one of the 15 participants in the
criminal endeavour, he is in The Hague as a repenter turned
witness.
Demonstrating the photographic memory of a long-term intelligence
man, he explained how Milosevic used Serbia's interior ministry and
state security, and sections of JNA's leadership, to coordinate
preparations for and an aggression on Croatia.
He also pointed to the defendant's liability for the crimes Serbian
troops committed in Croatia on a massive scale.
The majority of Vasiljevic's testimony was held behind closed
doors, which was also the case today.
Milosevic tried, albeit with scarce success, to refute the witness'
allegations about the "Serbian Interior Ministry's military line",
about "the ethnic purging of the JNA command personnel in 1992" and
the implementation of the plan to secede parts of Croatia and
Bosnia.
Vasiljevic backed his claims with facts and quotes, speaking about
the presence of Serbia's state security people in Croatia's Knin
since mid-1990, demands to purge the JNA of non-Serbs, and
Belgrade's appetite to have parts of Croatia and Bosnia as opposed
to "the peaceful withdrawal from Macedonia".
In the five days he spent cross-examining the witness, Milosevic
managed to get only a confirmation of intelligence reports
Vasiljevic's service did on armament in Croatia and Bosnia, which
the accused used to back his claim that the Serbs waged a "defence
war".
The general also confirmed that he "had operative data" to the
effect that when Dubrovnik in southern Croatia was attacked tyres
were set on fire in the city to alarm the international public.
Vasiljevic was also interrogated by amicus curiae Branislav
Tapuskovic, whose genesis of the Serbian-Albanian conflict in
Kosovo since World War I was abruptly cut off by Judge May.
Tapuskovic then focused on other questions, mainly in connection
with Veljko Kadijevic's memoirs.
The Milosevic trial resumes on Wednesday when, according to
unofficial reports, the witness stand should be taken by Dragan
Vasiljkovic, also known as Captain Dragan, who trained Serb
paramilitaries in the self-styled rebel state of Krajina in Croatia
since the beginning of 1991.
(hina) ha sb