NORWEGIAN DIPLOMAT TESTIFIES AT MILOSEVIC TRIAL

ZAGREB/THE HAGUE, July 8 (Hina) - A former Norwegian Foreign Minister and chairman of the OSCE on Monday described how former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, on the first day of the 1999 NATO offensive against Serbia, had denied that Kosovo Albanians were fleeing from Yugoslav army terror, claiming that they were in fact going off on picnics, but previously setting fire to haystacks to give an impression that their houses were burning. #L# He said the Albanian refugees were going away on a picnic, Knut Vollebaek said, describing how he telephoned Milosevic on March 24, 1999, in a last attempt to have him accept international troops in Kosovo and cease the persecution of the Albanian residents who were fleeing in large numbers to Albania and Macedonia. The diplomat then said he had asked Milosevic at the time what kind of people would take with them all of their belongings on a "picnic". Responding to Vollebaek's objection that Yugoslav forces were torching the homes of Kosovo Albanians, Milosevic said the Kosovo Liberation Army was burning haystacks to create the impression that their homes were on fire. At the end of the conversation, Milosevic told the Norwegian diplomat he was "watching too much CNN". Vollebaek, like other diplomats who testified before the international war crimes tribunal in the trial against Milosevic, said Milosevic held a lot of power in his hands. He was the one who spoke the most and made the decisions, he said, and stressed that the former Yugoslav president also made decisions on military issues, in the presence of highly positioned military personnel. (hina) lml sb