THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, July 23 (Hina) - Protected witness B-83 ended his testimony at the trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic before the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague on Wednesday, while U.S. historian Audrey
Helfant Budding, called by the prosecution, began hers.
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, July 23 (Hina) - Protected witness B-83 ended his
testimony at the trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic before the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague on
Wednesday, while U.S. historian Audrey Helfant Budding, called by
the prosecution, began hers. #L#
Most of the hearing and cross-examination of B-83, a former
employee with Serbia's defence ministry, was closed to the public.
In the brief public part, B-83 said that on several occasions in
1991 and 1992 he saw the leaders of Croatian rebel Serbs' self-
styled Republika Srpska Krajina (RSK), Goran Hadzic and Milan
Martic, and the leaders of Serb paramilitary units in Croatia,
Dragan Vasiljkovic and Zeljko Raznatovic aka Arkan, at Serbia's
defence ministry and that he even talked to them.
As soon as the prosecution started entering evidence on cooperation
between Serbia's defence ministry and RSK authorities, the trial
was closed to the public.
Budding, a historian who received her doctor's degree at Harvard
for a thesis on Serbian intellectuals and the national issue, made
for the prosecution a study on Serbian nationalism in the 20th
century. She worked at the U.S. diplomatic mission to Belgrade from
1987 to 1990.
Responding to questions from the prosecution, Budding spoke among
other things about the consternation among former Yugoslavia's
republics when Milosevic for the first time announced the
possibility that Serbia's borders within the ex-federation might
be altered and when he said that all Serbs should be in one state.
Budding said that after the former federation disintegrated,
people in Serbia did not view Serbia's borders as the legitimate
borders of Serbhood.
According to the U.S. historian, the Memorandum of the Serbian
Academy of Arts and Sciences was the draft document for the solving
of the Serbian national issue which she said started surfacing in
the mid-1980s.
Claims from the Memorandum that Serbs were the victims of
decentralisation in the ex-Yugoslavia and that their status in
Kosovo was difficult were exaggerated and one-sided, she said,
adding the Memorandum was the foundation for Milosevic's political
rise to power.
Cross-examining the witness, Milosevic tried to point out that
Budding's views of Serbian nationalism in her Harvard thesis and
study for the prosecution of the Hague tribunal were different, but
the judges told him not to generalise. The cross-examination
continues tomorrow.
(hina) ha