Milosevic's Logic-- An Alternative Universe: 'If I say it didn't happen, it didn't happen'

On June 11, U.S. Ambassador William Walker was asked to tell the court about his final impressions of Milosevic after four face-to-face meetings in 1997 and 1998. His response: 'My impression was that I was dealing with a person who felt that when he said something, that made it true.' This insight has been underscored by many of Milosevic's courtroom assertions since the beginning of his trial. He has repeatedly countered witness testimony in cross-examination by simply stating that it is wrong or untruthful, despite multiple reminders that such assertions are not evidence, and that the judges will not discredit testimony simply because Milosevic says it is false. Milosevic also knows that he will later have the opportunity to present his own witnesses and counter-evidence during the defense phase of the trial. This knowledge has not put an end to his exclamations of disbelief when cross-examining the prosecution's witnesses. His disbelief often comes in the form of a strange and circular logic: Milosevic insists that his forces could have done nothing illegal in Kosovo, because nothing illegal could have been authorized, and the forces wouldn?t act without authorization.

On June 5, the court heard testimony from Shukri Buja, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) commander who had been responsible for KLA activities in a zone encompassing the village of Racak. Buja, along with multiple other witnesses, testified to the murders of 45 Albanian civilians in an attack on Racak conducted by the Serb military and police on January 15, 1999. Despite extensive documentation to the contrary, Milosevic has claimed that everyone who died in Racak was a KLA fighter killed in battle. Buja?s ability to identify actual members of the KLA and the number of them killed in skirmishes around Racak that day (nine, according to his testimony) bolsters the prosecution's argument that the Racak incident involved a civilian massacre.

To counter this testimony, Milosevic read aloud from the official Serbian police report filed after the Racak incident, noting that 60 'terrorists' had been killed in an operation. This report was submitted to the court by the prosecution as evidence of police fabrication, but Milosevic read from it as a document of truth. Buja responded by saying that the police report over-tallied the death count and, more importantly, conflated KLA fighters with civilians under the rubric of 'terrorists.' Milosevic's response was startling; he informed Buja that he was reading from an 'official report' submitted through 'normal channels,' and that the report must therefore be accurate. He went on to announce that the Serb forces involved were under orders to protect civilians, and that they had a strict duty to report civilian deaths. 'They claim no civilians died, and that is my claim as well.'

Three elements of Milosevic's approach to his own defense emerge in this response: a reliance on official documentation (under his own administration) as ultimate proof of reality; an assurance that police and military forces would never deviate from orders or the underlying law; and an implicit claim that he would never officially or unofficially sanction deviations from the law. According to him, these factors prove that his forces could not have committed war crimes or crimes against humanity. This logic is not something Milosevic has adopted solely for the trial. Former NATO General Klaus Naumann testified that when he met with Milosevic on January 19, 1999, immediately after the Racak incident, Milosevic had angrily rejected reports of atrocities in Racak, saying that the police and military would never do anything counter to Serbian law.


Yet the courtroom exchange with Naumann revealed another, competing vision of the Serbian chain of command. After having painted a picture of a disciplined military completely responsive to orders from above, Milosevic later asked Naumann how any commander, 'let alone the Supreme Commander,' could know details about any given incident in which his forces might be involved. Here, Milosevic was calling up a vision of a bureaucratic structure in which the actions of subordinates are veiled from those in charge, and accountability disappears. This second version is perhaps a safer bet for Milosevic, who could end up trapped by his own insistence that no unauthorized acts were committed by his forces. If atrocities are proven, and Milosevic himself insists that nothing could occur without authorization, he will have betrayed himself.

Both visions of bureaucracy -- one disciplined and transparent, the other inscrutable -- were used by Milosevic during an exchange with protected witness K-6 on June 10. K-6 had been a Kosovar Albanian employee of the Serbian state security department involved in the detection and investigation of KLA activities. After K-6 testified that security forces had conducted killings in Kosovo, Milosevic asked him whether he was aware that the law did not authorize any such crimes. Milosevic also took pains to remind K-6 that it is a crime for a commander to order a subordinate to commit a crime. Other than demonstrating a clear understanding of exactly the type of criminal responsibility for which he himself is being tried, Milosevic's comment reveals a faith in the power of his own words, as if the witness was expected to admit either that he was lying or that he must have been mistaken about the security forces with whom he worked.

When K-6 affirmed that murders had indeed taken place, Milosevic changed course, asking the witness why he hadn't reported such crimes to his superiors, or why he hadn't gone to speak to Jovica Stanisic, then chief of the state security service in Belgrade. The witness testified that he was certain Stanisic knew everything that happened in Kosovo, given the frequent reports and trips to Belgrade made by K-6's superiors, and given the sensitivity of the situation in Kosovo at the time. Milosevic asked if the witness could imagine what a 'huge task it would be to go through every report that came across your desk from all over the country.'

Milosevic then changed course again, returning to an insistence that nothing unauthorized could have happened. He questioned the witness about his experiences with Serbian judge Danica Marinkovic, whose activities during the Kosovo conflict - including an attempt to investigate the Racak incident with a full escort of armed soldiers and police - had been widely criticized as inflammatory. K-6 had submitted testimony that he had overheard a suspect being beaten in Judge Marinkovic's office, and that she had threatened the person with more beating unless a certain document was signed. K-6 said this was not an uncommon event. Milosevic countered this evidence of a severely compromised judiciary by reminding the witness that regulations did not authorize detainees to be brought to judges' offices. If it wasn't authorized officially, then it didn't happen.

Over the course of this exchange with K-6, Milosevic wavered between the two visions of bureaucracy; at times claiming that nothing illegal happened in Kosovo because it would not have been authorized, and at times maintaining that the top levels of the administration could not have known what was happening on the ground. Ambassador Walker gave the court his opinion of how things actually functioned when he expressed to Milosevic his disbelief that any subordinate would have done 'anything inconsistent with your plans and orders.' Milosevic announced that Serb forces had acted under a standing order to protect civilians regardless of their ethnicity. 'If that was an order,' replied Walker, 'it was consistently disobeyed by some of your subordinates.' At some point, Milosevic will have to decide which version of his own bureaucracy he should present to the court. When doing so, he will also have to remember that he is no longer in a position where everything he says, no matter how contradictory, is immediately accepted as truth.