THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, March 14 (Hina) - British politician Paddy Ashdown on Thursday began testifying in the trial against former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic by describing his meeting with the former Croatian president, Franjo
Tudjman in London seven years ago, when Tudjman drew a line marking how Bosnia should be divided. Asked by prosecutor Geoffrey Nice about his meeting with Tudjman in London on May 6, 1995, Ashdown said he drew towns and the coast of the former Yugoslavia on the back of a restaurant menu, and Tudjman drew the division line. The drawing is known in Croatia as "Tudjman's serviette." Using a photocopy of the menu, Ashdown described how Tudjman drew a line dividing Bosnia between Greater Croatia and Greater Serbia. President Tudjman told me the Muslims will be included in the Greater Croatian and Greater Serbian territories, and Bosnia will no longer exist, he said. The menu original is kept at the
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, March 14 (Hina) - British politician Paddy
Ashdown on Thursday began testifying in the trial against former
Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic by describing his meeting
with the former Croatian president, Franjo Tudjman in London seven
years ago, when Tudjman drew a line marking how Bosnia should be
divided.
Asked by prosecutor Geoffrey Nice about his meeting with Tudjman in
London on May 6, 1995, Ashdown said he drew towns and the coast of
the former Yugoslavia on the back of a restaurant menu, and Tudjman
drew the division line.
The drawing is known in Croatia as "Tudjman's serviette."
Using a photocopy of the menu, Ashdown described how Tudjman drew a
line dividing Bosnia between Greater Croatia and Greater Serbia.
President Tudjman told me the Muslims will be included in the
Greater Croatian and Greater Serbian territories, and Bosnia will
no longer exist, he said.
The menu original is kept at the international war crime tribunal's
archives and was introduced during Ashdown's testimony at a trial
against the former commander of the Central Bosnia Operation Zone,
Tihomir Blaskic, as one of the pieces of evidence proving the
international character of conflicts in Bosnia, that is, that
Croatia was involved in the war in Bosnia.
Lord Ashdown, the newly-appointed High Representative to Bosnia,
visited the country in 1992 for the first time. He is the first
witness for all three indictments against Milosevic; for crimes in
Kosovo, Croatia and Bosnia.
Speaking about Kosovo, Ashdown said he visited northern Albania in
the summer of 1998, where he saw that the activity of the Kosovo
Liberation Army was one of the destabilisation factors in Kosovo.
According to him, the KLA was well organised and well equipped.
In his report to the British government, Ashdown then recommended
that Albanian authorities be provided with assistance in the
establishing of a rule of law in the country's north, to restrict
the KLA'a activities.
I regret that my suggestion was not accepted, he said.
Ashdown described how Albanian refugees from Kosovo told him that
they fled to Albania from an army which first shot at them in their
villages, and then during their flight through forests and across
mountains towards Albania.
He said he saw the proof of this when he personally visited the
border between Kosovo and Albania, when he saw Yugoslav Army troops
shelling houses and villages.
I was shocked...I did not see the other side firing, he said.
He arrived in Kosovo only three months later, because he was refused
a visa. During this visit in September 1998, Ashdown said he was
shocked by the extent in which Kosovo Albanian villages were
systematically destroyed and burnt, and the residents displaced.
He said he was particularly shocked by what he saw in the Drenica
area where the Yugoslav Army burnt down all Albanian villages.
Ashdown joined the British Navy at the age of 18, and served with the
commandos for 13 years. He served the military in Borneo, the Near
East and Belfast.
(hina) lml sb