Tanić testifies in Kosovo Six trial

Tanić testifies in Kosovo Six trial

Ratomir Tanić took four full days to testify at the Slobodan Milošević trial in May 2002. He returned to The Hague today to give his evidence again as an insider at the trial of the six former political, military and police officials from Serbia, charged with crimes in Kosovo in the first half of 1999.

As in May 2002, Tanić is again testifying under his own name – although he now has a new one, and with image distortion. One additional protective measure today is voice distortion. Tanić is part of the Tribunal's witness protection program and has been given a new place of residence and identity. He was granted additional protective measures – image and voice distortion – to prevent any of his neighbors in his new place of residence from recognizing him as a witness testifying before the ICTY. He left Serbia, as he said, after unknown persons abducted him and his wife in October 1999, torturing them for days in a "private prison".

Tanić introduced himself as a former activist of the Citizens' Union of Serbia and the New Democracy party, and as a collaborator of the Serbian State Security Service since the age of 22. He was first an "external collaborator" and then a collaborator at a higher level, as he said.

As in May 2002, Tanić began his evidence by describing the "discreet political dialogue", with the Kosovo Albanian leaders between 1995 and 1997. On the other side were Tanić and representatives of the other political parties in the ruling coalition (the SPS, New Democracy and JUL). Tanić claims he received approval to launch the negotiations by Milošević himself.

The objective of the "discreet political dialogue" was to reach a political solution which would prevent the armed conflict and the internationalization of the Kosovo problem. In Tanić's opinion, Milošević at first "sincerely wanted to reach a political settlement", but then, sometime in mid-1997, he changed his mind and suddenly became obsesses by the number of Kosovo Albanians, claiming there were less than a million of them, and that they could not seek any kind of autonomy because they numbered less than half of the population in Kosovo. After that, Milošević and his associates started preparing a military solution for the Kosovo problem. Tanić's party, the New Democracy, left the ruling coalition as a consequence.

In his testimony today, Tanić mentioned two of the six accused. As he said, Milan Milutinovic did not always share Milošević’s ideas, but executed all his orders and misinformed the international community about Serbia’s intentions. As for Nikola Sainovic, Tanić said he had obstructed the work of the State Security Service and the police in order to create a situation in Kosovo which could only be resolved through war. To this end, Milošević and his associated refused the assistance offered by Western countries for the elimination of the Albanian terrorism in Kosovo in late 1997.

Ratomir Tanić’s testimony will continue on Monday.