THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, July 15 (Hina) - Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, who is on trial before the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, accused prosecution witness Stjepan Kljujic on Tuesday of supporting the division of
Bosnia-Herzegovina during the war.
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, July 15 (Hina) - Former Yugoslav president
Slobodan Milosevic, who is on trial before the UN war crimes
tribunal in The Hague, accused prosecution witness Stjepan Kljujic
on Tuesday of supporting the division of Bosnia-Herzegovina during
the war. #L#
In the first part of his testimony, Kljujic, who was a Croat member
in the Bosnian collective presidency in the early 1990s, told the
trial chamber that Milosevic and the late Croatian president Franjo
Tudjman advocated the policy of carving Bosnia up.
Rejecting claims that he had negotiated the partitioning of Bosnia
at his secret meeting with Tudjman in Karadjordjevo, Milosevic
cited the transcript of a 1997 conversation between Tudjman and his
aides, in which Tudjman said that he had met Milosevic twice at
bilateral meetings and once at a meeting that also involved Alija
Izetbegovic, and that no mention was made of the division of
Bosnia.
Kljujic responded by saying that "Hrvoje Sarinic acknowledged this
in his book", and Milosevic retorted that Sarinic would testify
about it later on.
The witness stressed that Tudjman had never told him that he had
negotiated the division of Bosnia with the accused at the
Karadjordjevo meeting, but only that he had been given the Cazin
area from Milosevic.
In order to corroborate his statement about cooperation between
Zagreb and Bosnian Serbs, the witness cited a secret meeting
between the then Bosnian Croat and Serb leaders, Mate Boban and
Radovan Karadzic, in Graz in May 1992, and asserted that their
cooperation caused much damage to the Croat people in Bosnia-
Herzegovina.
The accused tried to undermine the witness's credibility saying
that he had publicly advocated a sovereign Bosnia but secretly
worked on the annexation of its parts to Croatia. In this context,
Milosevic mentioned some speeches that Kljujic had given in public.
Kljujic denied it saying that he had always advocated a unified
Bosnia and the equality of the three peoples.
The accused insisted on questions about the Muslim-Croat conflict
in Bosnia in 1992 and 1993 and the involvement of Mujahedeen and the
Croatian Army. He referred to reports gathered by intelligence
services of Croatia regarding massacres of Bosnian Croats and a
letter the then Bosnian Muslim leader, Alija Izetbegovic, sent to
German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel.
According to the letter, Izetbegovic claimed that there were six
Croatian brigades in Bosnia, that central Bosnian towns were
ethnically cleansed of local Muslims and that Croatian Army
officers were commanding local Bosnian Croat units.
Kljujic said he could not confirm those allegations as he had held
no official post at the time, but added that ethnic cleansing had
been conducted by both sides.
Milosevic showed documents on the arming of Muslims and Croats in
Bosnia in the autumn of 1991, and interpreted this as their
preparation for war. He also showed documents about Bosnian camps
where Serb civilians had been detained.
(hina) ms sb