Dobrica Cosic Felt He Had Become Milosevic's Puppet

Ehmed Pasic is Bosnia’s Ambassador to Kuwait. From 1977 to the early 1990’s, he was editor of the Yugoslav Office for Arabic, Turkish and Chinese Languages. He enjoyed his life in Belgrade. He considered himself multi-cultural and, though a Muslim, rarely attended Belgrade’s only mosque. It began to change for him in the early 1990’s when Slobodan Milosevic came to power.

His department and others in the federal government were 'cleansed' of non-Serbs and Serbs whose loyalty to Milosevic’s program was questionable. In 1992, he was demoted to the beginning level, an ordinary interpreter. Ambassador Pasic told the Court that he managed to keep his job because he had friends in high places who protected him.

Though he kept his job, his life in Belgrade as a Muslim, became increasingly intolerable. Despite the fact that he was a federal employee, the Serbian State Security Service (DBS) paid him frequent visits, usually on Mondays, often taking him to police headquarters for questioning. The Monday visits were so frequent that his wife, who he was not allowed to tell about them, began suspecting he was having an affair. Their apartment was also frequently searched, so frequently in fact that he and his wife began laying traps so they could tell when someone had been there. Apparently, he was interesting to the DBS because of his foreign contacts and the high level government meetings he had attended.

Though he had been demoted, Mr. Pasic was called in to translate at one of those high level meetings in 1992. Libyan President Mu’ammar Gaddafi wanted to talk to Yugoslav President Dobrica Cosic about a proposal for settling the Yugoslav wars. While Ambassador Pasic waited for more than an hour in Cosic’s antechamber until the two presidents were connected by telephone, he watched men in different types of military uniforms come and go. Some of them were muddy and disheveled and talked about fighting in Bosnia and Croatia. He also overheard one half of a series of telephone calls between Federal Foreign Minister Vladislav Jovanovic and someone he addressed as “Mr. President,” and “President Slobo.” The implication is that Jovanovic was receiving orders about the Gaddafi conference call. Eventually, Pasic and Jovanovic were ushered into the other president’s office for the phone call with Gaddafi.

The content of the telephone call was not remarkable. Gaddafi offered to fly all the Yugoslav leaders to Tripoli where he would help them find a peaceful solution to the conflicts. No one took him up on his offer. What Mr. Pasic did find remarkable was that “President Cosic was not able to utter a single sentence to President Gaddafi until Jovanovic told him what to say.” When the phone call ended, Cosic asked Pasic to stay behind. An even more remarkable two hour conversation ensued between the two men, according to Mr. Pasic.

During the course of the conversation, President Cosic asked Mr. Pasic to be his advisor on Islamic questions, both within Yugoslavia and with the Islamic and Arab world. In the end, Mr. Pasic did not agree, but he told the Court that Cosic had “charmed” him. He believed that Cosic was “a noble man who wanted to give meaning to his life.” The emotion of the moment brought Mr. Pasic to his knees. He told Cosic that God had never given anyone the chance that he (Cosic) now had, and he begged him to save the Bosnian children. “If you manage to save just one, you will have given your life meaning,” he told the Yugoslav President.

Cosic whispered his reply. “How could I do that? That despot Milosevic won’t even let me open my mouth,” he said, referring to the conversation with Gaddafi and Jovanovic. “I’m just a puppet here.” Cosic felt Pasic could help him become independent from Milosevic. However, it was the FRY president’s very impotence that decided Pasic not to accept his offer. He did not want to become a puppet, too.

In court, no one mentioned the irony of this occurrence. Dobrica Cosic, one of Yugoslavia’s leading authors, was also one of the chief architects of the infamous Memorandum by the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences, which many believe was instrumental in reviving Serbian nationalism. Both Milosevic and Mr. Tapuskovic, the amicus from Belgrade, treated Cosic with near reverence in their cross examinations. For the witness to say their national idol had become nothing more than Milosevic’s tool was insulting. If the Ambassador’s testimony is true, of course, the insult and humiliation of Dobrica Cosic, whom they characterized as the Serb national symbol, came from Milosevic. There is support for this in the fact that on May 31, 1992, Milosevic had Cosic impeached from the presidency of Yugoslavia.

Ambassador Pasic also testified about the atmosphere in Belgrade during that period (1992 to 1993). It was full of soldiers and military vehicles and men bragging about their exploits in the Croatian and Bosnian wars. During a celebration at the White Palace, Colonel Veselin Sljivancanin told a table of guests how he had bravely killed the enemy at Vukovar. In the Palace Hotel restaurant in Belgrade, filled with revelers mostly from Bosnia, Mr. Pasic told the Court he “heard stories I could barely stomach.” A man he knew bragged about Foca, “It’s not important how many Balija’s [Muslims] were there. The important thing is there will never be any there again.”

An anti-Muslim propaganda campaign monopolized the media. Mr. Pasic said almost every night the television aired programs about the genocidal character of every nation in the former Yugoslavia, except the Serbs. He described one particular program that was broadcast repeatedly. A panel of “so-called experts” (doctors, professors, etc.) were assembled to comment on the story told by an obviously pregnant woman, who sat with her back to the camera. She said she had been raped repeatedly by “Alija’s soldiers” (reference is to Alija Izetbegovic, then seen as leader of the Bosnian Muslims). They were brutal to her until she became pregnant, when they suddenly became quite decent, helping her to move to an area under Serb control. One of the “experts,” who claimed he was a doctor and an expert in Islamic studies, was then called upon to explain why this happened. Ambassador Pasic recalled the man’s explanation, “In their genocidal book the Koran, it says, ‘Muslims, rape the infidels whenever you have the chance to do so, especially Serb women. Rape and be brutal until one becomes pregnant. Once pregnant, be decent to them because their children will be mujahedeen.”

The ludicrousness of the Koran referring specifically to Serb women was lost on Mr. Pasic’s neighbor, who, having seen the television show, physically attacked Mr. Pasic. The neighbor, who Pasic described as a “peace-loving man,” said he had no idea that such a bestial man lived next door to him.

Anti-Muslim propaganda was also likely responsible for two grenade attacks on Belgrade’s mosque. In addition, television crews regularly photographed those who attended services, even interfering with the Imam’s prayers so that he asked them to desist. According to the witness, one cameraman retorted, “Everyone’s doing his job. I’m on assignment here.” Mr. Pasic said the television never broadcast any of the footage. The purpose, he felt, was to intimidate and spread fear among the population. Mr. Pasic also testified that the Imam, who was the Mufti (high religious leader) for all of Serbia, attempted to meet with Milosevic to seek the Serbian President’s protection for the Muslim population, but that Milosevic refused him an audience.

Milosevic heatedly and belligerently questioned Ambassador Pasic, who responded in kind. Milosevic accused the witness of fabricating his evidence, but his most repeated accusation was that Mr. Pasic’s testimony was in “bad taste.” The latter prompted Judge May to intervene at one point to say, “It doesn’t matter. It is his evidence.” Milosevic claimed that the Ambassador was “humiliating” Dobrica Cosic by saying he had no power. The Amicus Branislav Tapuskovic went further. Apparently finding it incredible that Cosic would ask Mr. Pasic to tell him about Muslim tolerance, Mr. Tapuskovic demanded of the witness, “Does anyone know the holy scriptures, the Koran better than Mr. Cosic? Did he need to ask you?” To which Mr. Pasic replied calmly, “As far as Islamic tolerance, I’m sure I was better on it than him.”

Milosevic also challenged the credibility of Mr. Pasic’s claim that the DBS broke into his flat. The witness stood firm. “People from your [police] services, in plain clothes, entered when we were inside and took my books.” Slipping into his fabricated reality, Milosevic challenged: “Since you were an employee of the federal organs, you must be aware of your civil rights. Did you receive any certificate for the property seized?” Meeting the Accused’s argumentative tone, the witness replied, “Could you have asked for a certificate in 1941 in Berlin?” Milosevic protested likening Serbia to Nazi Germany: “No one could enter your apartment without a warrant. Why are you making up things like that?” But Mr. Pasic had the last word: “I’m just telling facts. I was a citizen of your state. I had no rights.”

Ambassador Pasic’s confrontational stance in response to Milosevic’s confrontational cross examination was mostly effective, but it had its weaknesses. Milosevic quoted an earlier statement given by Mr. Pasic where he claimed that Jovanovic addressed Milosevic as “Comrade President” and “Comrade Slobo” rather than “Mr. President” and “President Slobo” as he testified in Court. The witness said he stood by both his earlier statement and his testimony. On re-examination, Prosecutor Dermot Groome sought to resolve the matter and refresh the witness’s memory. He produced a document of corrections Mr. Pasic had made the week before his testimony, apparently including one to the effect that Jovanovic had not addressed Milosevic as “comrade.” Mr. Pasic, however, insisted that Jovanovic had used the term. Looking at the list of the witness’s corrections, Judge May asked again, “You say Jovanovic used both expressions, president and comrade?” When Mr. Pasic replied, “yes,” the Judge, with a half smile, suggested the Prosecutor withdraw the corrections since they had not clarified matter.

While a confrontational style can help a witness stand up to a brutal cross examination, it can become so reflexive that it serves as a trap, with a witness unable to back down. Mr. Pasic would have better served his cause to have admitted the discrepancy and allowed for the possibility he may have been wrong when he gave his prior statement.

The judges will weigh these considerations in assessing Ambassador Pasic’s testimony. Given their knowledge of human frailty and the pressure of testifying, the Chamber is unlikely to discredit the witness’s entire testimony because of the discrepancy. Still, the Prosecution may be well-advised to provide some corroboration.

Mr. Pasic and his wife fled Serbia to Hungary in 1994, again with assistance from friends in high places.