Witness Describes Milosevic Regime Weapons Trafficking

Did the Serbian State Security Service (SDB) and the Yugoslav Army (JNA/VJ) supply weapons, ammunition and military supplies to the Bosnian and Croatian Serbs through the Association of Serbs and Emigrants of Serbia (Matica) under the guise of providing humanitarian assistance? Witness B-179 came to tell the Trial Chamber in the Milosevic case that they did. He knew because he participated in it, he said.

In addition to leading some of the convoys, B-179 claimed he overheard a conversation between Milan Prodinic of the Serbian MUP (Ministry of Internal Affairs) and JNA/VJ Lt. Colonel Bora Stanisic, where one of them said 1200 trucks containing weapons and ammunition had been sent to Bosnia and the Krajina (Serb-held area in Croatia) by the end of 1992. Weapons and military supplies were secured from the JNA/VJ warehouse at Buban Potok, transported in Serbian MUP and some private trucks, and driven by Matica drivers to the RS (Republika Srpska) or RSK (Republic of Serbia Krajina). Some of the stored weapons in the warehouse were taken by the JNA from local and republican territorial defense (TO) units.

B-179 testified that the president of Matica, Branislav Crncevic had a red telephone so that he could reach Milosevic and the Serbian MUP at any time. He said Milosevic was kept fully informed of events on the battlefields of Bosnia and Croatia, and of Matica's arms trafficking. Bora Stanisic and Milan Prodinic were constantly in touch and met every afternoon. Every morning, there was a meeting at the SDB with the Matica president, Prodinic, Jovica Stanisic (head of the SDB) and Mihalj Kertes (member of Serbian Presidency, among other positions). There was some confusion whether the witness testified that Slobodan Milosevic also attended these meetings. On direct examination, he said Milosevic was informed of the meetings. On cross examination, Milosevic asked him whether he said that Kertes, Stanisic, Crncevic and Milosevic usually met in the mornings and the witness replied yes. Milosevic pointed out how ludicrous it was that he, who is depicted as an autocratic leader, should go to the SDB every morning before going to his own office. B-179 replied, 'I didn't say every morning.' The source of his information, he claimed, was Prodinic.

To support his claims about what he was told and what he participated in, the witness produced a number of documents. A series of receipts were for small amounts of weapons and military equipment that B-179 said was for Matica staff to provide security. This was provided through ordinary channels -- by making a request through the Department of Defense and the JNA/VJ. For the massive weapons transfers to the RS and RSK, the Department of Defense was sidestepped. Only a small circle of insiders in the Serbian MUP and the JNA/VJ knew about the weapons operation. According to the witness, even Lt. Col. Bora Stanisic took orders about this from the Serbian MUP, not from his army superiors.

Some documents he produced appeared to support B-179's claims. One was a request from the police at Donji Lapac in Croatia for weapons' silencers, something not produced by the army. According to the witness, they were procured from a private workshop. Another document was a receipt for 225-82mm mortars and shells, which he had signed. He testified that everyone receiving weapons from Buban Potok had to sign for them. Apparently, all documents which went to the front were burned in a fire at the warehouse, or so Prodinic told him. Some of the witness's personal documents were taken when the SDB searched his apartment. B-179 claimed to have other documents hidden at various places, which he lacked time to retrieve before coming to testify. When Amicus Curiae Branislav Tapuskovic pressed the witness to provide the name of any person who had received arms in the RS or RSK, the witness would not, saying he had received an anonymous death threat and had had to hide his family for their safety.

One other document he produced was signed by Biljana Plavsic (member of RS Presidency). It was for receipt of radio transmitters which were intended for Radovan Karadzic. The unidentified source was in Germany. B-179 testified that he drove Mrs. Plavsic to Batajnica (JNA/VJ base near Belgrade) where she signed for the equipment.

Mr. Milosevic began his cross examination by calling the witness a liar. 'The witness is telling untruths from the beginning to the end,' the Accused told the Court. When Judge May asked the witness if that were true, B-179 replied, 'If he is a liar, I am not. I do not lie.' Mr. Milosevic then pointed out that the witness said in his statement to ICTY investigators that his motivation for testifying was 'to show that Serbs are not a genocidal people.' 'What does genocide mean?' the Accused asked B-179. 'The killing of one people, Mr. Milosevic. You, as president of Serbia, inflicted the greatest damage and genocide on your own people, the Serbian people,' the witness responded. In his statement, B-179 also said that he joined the SPO (Serbian Renewal Movement, an opposition party led by Vuk Draskovic) in 1998 in order to topple the Milosevic regime.

When the witness described how dangerous it was to drive the weapons' convoys into the RS and RSK, Mr. Milosevic asked, 'That means the Serbs were besieged in many places.' 'Yes,' responded the witness. But when the Accused followed up with a similar question ('Did the Serbs attack the Croats or were they attacked?'), B-179 responded, 'Mr. Milosevic, I could give a very lengthy answer to that question. I have seen so much I don't know whom to trust anymore.'

For the most part, the Accused hammered the witness with questions designed to show that Matica (and Serbia) was only providing humanitarian aid in Bosnia and Croatia. Some financial or in-kind aid came from Serbs in the diaspora and was intended for Bosnian and Croatian Serbs. Other humanitarian aid (medicines, food, clothing, blankets) from the Red Cross was sent without regard to ethnicity.

B-179 testified that he led one such convoy to Bosnia, where part of the shipment was for Pale (Serb-held) and the other for Sarajevo (center of Bosnian Government). When he stopped in Pale, however, Radovan Karadzic ordered him to turn over the entire shipment. The witness gave two accounts of how he resisted Karadzic and was able to take the remaining supplies on to Sarajevo. On the witness stand, he claimed that after he refused Karadzic's demand for all the supplies, Karadzic called Djuritic, an assistant in Matica. 'He [Djuritic] asked Karadzic who was there. He told my name, then Karadzic gave in and allowed the trucks to leave for Sarajevo.' In his statement to OTP investigators, however, he claimed he told Karadzic to remove the obstacles or he would shoot. When Milosevic questioned him about the discrepancy, he seemed to say both were true. 'I don't know if the threat or the conversation with Djuritic [caused him to release the convoy].'

As the Accused repeatedly questioned B-179 about the humanitarian aid sent to Bosnia and Croatia, the witness finally objected. 'Yes. It is correct. Matica did have a humanitarian line of work but it had another which you keep avoiding. Why don't you ask about that part?'

Judge May summed up the testimony in cautioning the Accused not to repeat questions to which he had received answers, merely because he didn't agree with them. 'It is his [B-179's] evidence that Matica was distributing weapons all over Bosnia and Croatia. You dispute it. We will have to make up our minds.' Despite the noted discrepancies, the details the witness presented tend to support his involvement in a weapons trafficking operation by high officials of the Serbian MUP and JNA/VJ, officials who were close to Milosevic. The noted discrepancies in B-179's testimony, such as they are, are not of the order to discredit his evidence in total. It is a matter of how much weight the Trial Chamber will give it.

The recently admitted transcripts of RS Assembly Sessions provide substantial corroboration that Serbia, with Milosevic's knowledge and assent, was supplying the Bosnian Serbs with massive amounts of weaponry (according to General Ratko Mladic, Serbia and the JNA/VJ together accounted for about 90% of VRS military supplies and weapons). B-179 testified about one possible way it was done.