The Srebrenica Massacre - Nova Srpska Politicka Misao

Securing Verdicts: The Misuse of Witness Testimony at The Hague
tween NATO and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), the longhatched
plans to bomb Yugoslavia, the deliberate deceptions about
Kosovo casualty figures in order to justify NATO’s attacks as well as the
plan to launch a ground invasion of Yugoslavia:
General references to the policy of the governments of the
UK or Germany regarding Kosovo, and to the alleged policy regarding
the ‘diminution of the State of Serbia’ in particular, do
not constitute “necessary” information for the defence of any of
the charges in the Kosovo indictment. Nor, more specifically,
have the Assigned Counsel shown that the prospective witnesses’
“awareness” of such policies is something which, if proved,
would affect the Accused’s defence case in relation to any particular
charge….Mr. Blair and Mr. Schröder’s “awareness” of a
UK or NATO policy to support the KLA or NATO would not,
even if proved, buttress the Accused’s arguments on any matter
relevant to a determination of his guilt or innocence in relation
to these allegations. 6
The decision is patently absurd in light of the ICTY’s ceaselessly repeated
accusation that Serbia had for years pursued a policy of ethnic
cleansing in Kosovo to “ensure continued Serb control over the
province.” The Kosovo indictment against Milosevic declares: “Forces
of the FRY and Serbia undertook the operations targeting the Kosovo
Albanians with the objective of expelling a substantial portion of the
Kosovo Albanian population from Kosovo in an effort to ensure continued
Serbian control over the province. To achieve this objective,
forces of the FRY and Serbia, acting in concert, engaged in well-planned
and coordinated operations.” 7 How does one refute such an accusation
other than by evidence that Serbia’s objective was to defend itself against
a long-planned NATO-KLA attack?
The Culpability of Non-Serbs
Then there are the Croats, the Bosnian Muslims and the Kosovo Liberation
Army—NATO’s de facto allies. In contrast to its pursuit of highranking
Serbs, the ICTY’s focus here is almost exclusively on the crimes
of mid-level or low-level fighters. To be sure, to demonstrate its evenhandedness,
the ICTY did launch—secret—investigations of Bosnian
President Alija Izetbegovic and Croatian President Franjo Tudjman.
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