THE HAGUE, Oct 1 (Hina) - Croatian President Stjepan Mesic said at the end of his testimony in the trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in The Hague on Tuesday that during his meetings with Milosevic he had never seen
any sign of regret on Milosevic's part about the suffering of people.
THE HAGUE, Oct 1 (Hina) - Croatian President Stjepan Mesic said at
the end of his testimony in the trial of former Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic in The Hague on Tuesday that during his meetings
with Milosevic he had never seen any sign of regret on Milosevic's
part about the suffering of people. #L#
"No, I never saw any feelings on his part. He only had objectives
which he implemented," Mesic said when asked by prosecutor Geoffrey
Nice if he had ever seen Milosevic express regret over human
suffering.
Milosevic will cross-examine Mesic on Wednesday morning.
By the end of today's questioning the prosecutor introduced
documents which show that the rump presidency of the former
Yugoslavia, i.e. the then vice-president Branko Kostic, had
usurped Mesic's role, adopting a set of military decisions which
Mesic said constituted a coup.
"Everything was done with the aim of accomplishing Slobodan
Milosevic's military objectives," Mesic said, explaining that the
JNA (Yugoslav People's Army) had turned into a Serb army which
"obediently carried out what the military leadership ordered it,
and the military leadership answered to Milosevic".
Mesic explained that everything happened in line with "a single
scenario" according to which the Counter-Intelligence Service
(KOS) first caused provocations, after which the JNA came to secure
the territory, the best example of this being incidents in Pakrac
and Plitvice at the very beginning of the conflict.
He also testified that weapons for rebel Serbs came from the JNA as
did the salaries of commanders in Republika Srpska and the so-
called Republic of Serb Krajina, while armed paramilitary units
came from Serbia, so "one can't say that Serbia was not aware of what
was going on".
Mesic also spoke about how the JNA sided with Milosevic due to
financial reasons and that Milosevic ensured the JNA's financing
from federal funds and loans granted to the central bank.
Asked what Milosevic had told him about Serbs outside Serbia, Mesic
said leaving more than 2.5 million Serbs outside Serbia in case of
Yugoslavia's break-up was out of the question for Milosevic.
The constitution granted republics the right to independence, said
Mesic, adding that "Milosevic either could not or did not want to
understand this".
The last part of today's questioning resembled more a trial of the
Serbian military leadership with former federal Defence Minister
Veljko Kadijevic at its helm.
Prosecutor Geoffrey Nice introduced documents one by one
indicating that the army leadership, headed by Kadijevic, had
ignored orders by the then president of the former Yugoslav
presidency, Stjepan Mesic, as well as warnings, including those by
Mesic, that the federal armed forces were involved in attacks and in
the arming of rebel forces and that they were violating
international conventions.
The prosecutor introduced the example of the humanitarian convoy
"Libertas" for Dubrovnik to show that the military leadership had
tried to prevent the passage of humanitarian aid, ignoring in the
process orders given by Mesic, who personified the supreme
commander of the Yugoslav forces.
The prosecutor also introduced the ultimatum of October 1, 1991 in
which the army leadership threatened Croatia with retaliatory
actions.
The army, Mesic said, refused to carry out his orders with the
explanation that it was "directly implementing the Constitution".
The prosecutor also tackled the issue of Croatia being labelled as
Ustasha, that is, fascist state.
"This was aimed at discrediting authorities in Croatia," Mesic said
after being presented with one such statement by Kadijevic.
Unacceptable things did happen in Croatia, but they could not be
used as justification for the grave attacks and destruction, Mesic
added.
(hina) rml sb