Milosevic Demonstrates Power in Lilic Cross Examination

One could almost hear the violin music and see the lights dim, as the man in the dock and the man in the witness chair attempted to recreate the glory days of Milosevic's reign. 'Is it true,' Milosevic asked Zoran Lilic, 'that Serbia, Yugoslavia and I personally invested all our efforts to achieve peace as soon as possible?' 'Yes,' replied his once loyal cohort. 'The outcome was a whole series of peace plans.'

Throughout years of negotiations during a decade of wars, Slobodan Milosevic, President of Serbia, was chief negotiator for the Serbs, wherever they lived. By law and protocol, the President of FRY should have played that role. From 1992 to 1997, Zoran Lilic was President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, of which Serbia together with Montenegro were its constituent republics. When lead Prosecutor Geoffrey Nice asked the witness if international negotiators ever asked to deal with him, he replied that his predecessor, Dobrica Cosic, 'had that privilege. Afterwards, everything was in the hands of Mr. Milosevic, and the international community accepted that.'

Milosevic didn't have control over the Bosnian or Croatian Serbs, Mr. Lilic, corrected Mr. Nice more than once. Rather, he 'wielded a great deal of influence.' Cross examining, Milosevic immodestly asked the witness, 'Do you remember who contributed the most to the leadership of the Republika Srpska (RS) accepting and signing the [Vance-Owen] Plan?' 'You made the greatest contribution,' his dutiful acolyte responded. The two continued to reminisce about Milosevic's participation in the RS Assembly session that ultimately rejected the Plan. The Accused had addressed the Assembly twice, he reminded the witness. Yes, Mr. Lilic acknowledged, 'you almost achieved acceptance' on the first intervention. 'In my second address,' Milosevic recalled, 'I sought to refute their arguments. The Assembly responded with applause.' 'That is precisely what I wanted to say,' Mr. Lilic eagerly added. Milosevic had been so persuasive, they agreed, that the SDS [Serbian Democratic Party which controlled the Assembly] adjourned to confer, refusing to let Milosevic or his delegation attend for fear he would sway them to accept a plan they had decided in advance to reject.

The above colloquy between the Accused and the Prosecution's witness is emblematic of most of Milosevic's cross examination of Mr. Lilic, as well as their long professional relationship. Mr. Lilic was the loyal apparatchik from his early days in the SPS (Milosevic's Socialist Party of Serbia) through his presidency of the FRY. He even overcame his bitterness at being ousted as the SPS's Serbian presidential candidate in 1997, returning to offer his services to Milosevic in 1998 to help find a peaceful solution in Kosovo. When he found himself at odds with Milosevic over his Kosovo policy, he was again ousted. Perhaps, that's why he ended up in court, testifying for the prosecution against his former leader.

The nostalgic lovefest continued when Milosevic read from notes of an August 1995 meeting of the top leadership of the RS and Serbia, preparatory to the Dayton Peace Conference. Mr. Lilic also attended the meeting. In court, Milosevic meandered over the text, describing his efforts to convince the Bosnian Serbs to participate in the Dayton negotiations, occasionally asking for Mr. Lilic's assent -- which was willingly given. The witness agreed with the Accused that the Bosnian Serb leadership was difficult to deal with and that Serbia had 'rather poor relations' with them. At one point, the RS leaders explained why they should be an appendage to the FRY, Milosevic related in Court as if he were testifying. 'And I say directly to their faces, 'No, because we have had bad experiences with you so far.' Mr. Lilic, of course, agreed.

Milosevic also pointed out that he proposed giving the tie breaking vote on the six member delegation to himself because '[I] was the most skillful and experienced negotiator.' After a lengthy monologue, Milosevic turned to Mr. Lilic, 'I'm asking you, was it possible to have reached Dayton if this step had not been made?' He is referring to the meeting, his role in aggressively persuading the Bosnian Serbs to attend Dayton and his insistence that they sign a written agreement to that effect with the Serb half of the delegation. Mr. Lilic responded, 'Only one thing is certain, and I have repeated it many times, there wouldn't have been Dayton Accords without exerting this much pressure from your side.' When Milosevic pointed out that Mr. Lilic was nominated in the top position of the delegation, his loyalist replied, 'My name is first only de jure, and you will agree.' 'I do agree,' the Accused said. 'My efforts were crucial.'

Milosevic also gave the cooperative witness an opportunity to reiterate his testimony that Milosevic had nothing to do with the Srebrenica massacre. With little prompting, Mr. Lilic testified, 'I also established that no one from the leadership of Serbia and FRY could have issued such an order and we were not aware of it. I presented my view several days later [in a meeting] with you. . . . [Y]ou were more than angry, shaken.' According to Mr. Lilic, Milosevic told him at the time, 'These crazy Serbs from Pale (the RS leadership), I can't believe they did something like this.' The witness went on to say, 'No one from our side was informed of that, unless through private conversations . . . outside our day to day meetings.' Acknowledging the truth of the Srebrenica massacre, he concluded, 'The Srebrenica case is truly tragic. It was done by individuals. There was no organized participation of the FRY and the leadership.' Milosevic added that the RS leadership denied knowing about it, too.

In their eagerness to establish that Milosevic and the Serb and FRY leadership were not involved in planning the Srebrenica massacre, both men appeared not to understand that they did establish that Milosevic knew of the massacre shortly after it happened. If Serbian MUP forces were involved in the massacre (and there is some evidence that they were involved in the fighting), then Milosevic had responsibility to investigate and take disciplinary action. The Prosecution has yet to present its Srebrenica evidence.

Mr. Lilic, as a loyal supporter of Milosevic and the SPS, not surprisingly testified that the party's proclaimed goal of keeping all Serbs in one state meant retaining the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He also acknowledged that the SPS platform included providing support and assistance for the RS and RSK (Republic of Serbia Krajina). On direct examination, Mr. Lilic testified that the FRY Government paid salaries and benefits of VRS (Army of the RS) and SVK (Army of the RSK) personnel. The annual expenditure was 8 million Euros. The witness characterized the payments, which continued to be made until March 28, 2001, as humanitarian assistance to support the families of former JNA troops who remained in Bosnia and Croatia after the JNA was dissolved.

Testifying about the breakup and transformation of the JNA in 1992, Mr. Lilic presented the same view Milosevic has espoused in court. When the JNA withdrew from Croatia and Bosnia in 1992 under the Vance Plan, SFRY no longer existed. The JNA became the army of the new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (consisting only of Serbia and Montenegro). JNA members who were not citizens of Serbia or Montenegro could not belong to the new army (VJ), the witness said. They returned to their home states (Bosnia and Croatia), and received the benefits described above. While that sounds legitimate, the funds were only provided for Bosnian Serb and Croatian Serb forces. It was not a general distribution of accrued or expected benefits to all former JNA soldiers.

In some cases, the witness's eager agreement was not so definitive. When Milosevic asked him if the General Staff of the VJ played a command role over the main staffs of the VRS and SVK, Mr. Lilic responded, 'That is simply impossible,' then added the qualification, 'if all normative and legal decisions were abided by.' He also stood firm that the Serbian police (MUP) were given authority over the VJ, as well as provided with more resources, though he declined to agree with Mr. Nice that the MUP was militarized. It was with the VJ that Mr. Lilic drew the line. His loyalty to the Yugoslav Army conflicted with his loyalty to Milosevic and the SPS. This was as evident in Court as it was in reality -- and it led to Mr. Lilic's fall from grace. [See CIJ report on Lilic's testimony about Kosovo.]

Mr. Lilic's conflict in loyalties grew as Milosevic shifted resources and power to the Serbian MUP. In 1993, the Serbian DB (State Security Service of MUP) gained the exclusive right to tap telephones. Before, the information was shared with Army counter-intelligence. That year also saw a purge of the generals. When the Prosecutor asked Mr. Lilic if the Accused accepted it, the witness responded, 'He did. Had he not, they wouldn't have been appointed. He thought that in case of any misunderstanding with the VJ it was always possible to remove the generals.' In 1998, he did just that, removing generals who questioned his Kosovo policy, including Chief of Staff Momcilo Perisic.

The witness verified earlier testimony of Dr. Budomir Babovic to the effect that Milosevic established ranks within the Public Security Department of the MUP, bestowing its chief with a rank equal to that of the highest ranking Army officer. While Mr. Lilic said he didn't think Milosevic had an ulterior motive for doing so, he admitted that it did not go down well in the VJ.

Mr. Lilic also confirmed another piece of Dr. Babovic's testimony concerning the MUP: the heads of the MUP's Public Security Service (Radovan Stojicic, aka 'Badza') and its State Security Service (Jovica Stanisic) reported directly to Milosevic, bypassing the Minister of the Interior. On cross examination, he tried to help Milosevic out by agreeing that all three attended meetings with the Accused.

Another area where Mr. Lilic was unwilling to defer entirely to Milosevic's characterization of events concerned the Yugoslav Left Party (JUL), headed by Milosevic's wife, Mira Markovic. On direct examination, the witness testified that JUL (and by implication, Markovic) wielded power through its association with Milosevic and his SPS. Concerning the relationship of the two parties, Mr. Lilic told the Court, 'I really wish I could distinguish between the influence of either. JUL practically took over all important functions in Serbia and later in FRY.' He said that JUL controlled the media and the flow of money in Serbia, and that leading members of JUL held all important positions in the FRY.

Milosevic approached him gently on this subject, having spent considerable time reading the platform of JUL into the court record (almost as much time as reading his own speeches into the record). When the Court asked for a copy, the Accused eagerly offered bound copies in BCS and English. To the witness who insisted that JUL wielded considerable power out of proportion to its electoral support, he said, 'I have the impression that you are not saying something intentionally incorrect. It is probably as a result of the present day propaganda and not malicious.' Mr. Lilic assured him, 'You know very well I was never malicious.' The high sounding words in JUL's platform, characterizing the party as the standard bearer of a new, peaceful and prosperous society, brought laughter from the press gallery with its large number of journalists from Serbia.

Mr. Lilic responded that he hadn't referred to JUL's program, but of the influence it had on SPS and the state as a whole, and to the abuses perpetrated by many of its members in high positions. Milosevic sought to separate his wife from any of JUL's dirty business by claiming, 'She was exclusively involved in writing. Her role in JUL was not in financing or material activities, but only mental.' Mr. Lilic reluctantly agreed she might have written the program, but he would not concede that JUL didn't wield power. Even if the party held only a few government posts, they were important ones (e.g. foreign trade) and party members obtained management positions in FRY's most important businesses. Finally, Milosevic gave up and changed the subject, 'We won't dwell on this further.'

Mr. Lilic was a difficult witness, as most insiders are. Throughout the nineties, he supported Milosevic and his program. He was rewarded with high positions, though little real power. When he disagreed with Milosevic over Kosovo and use of the VJ, he lost his positions and his access to Milosevic. Despite his anger and bitterness at being treated so shabbily, Mr. Lilic remained a true believer in Milosevic's program. These conflicts were reflected in his testimony before the Tribunal. While it was evident that Milosevic still held hypnotic power over him, it was not enough to completely win him over. If Milosevic still had material power, he would have used it to isolate and silence Mr. Lilic, as he did in the old days. But he lost that power on October 5, 2000. He can no longer silence those who disagree with his version of reality. Milosevic's display of hypnotic power is itself compelling evidence of the tremendous real power he wielded even when the law didn't give it to him.