An Exclusive Special: Krajisnik, Karadzic Wartime Stories (Apr 6, 2000)

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TiM GW Bulletin 2000/4-3

Apr. 6, 2000

Remembering Serb Victims of Hitler's Bombing on Apr. 6, 1941; Plus...

A TiM EXCLUSIVE: Wartime Diary Notes re. Karadzic, Krajisnik

Excerpts form TiM Editor's Bosnian Wartime Diaries Published for First Time

BELGRADE, Apr. 6 – Exactly 59 years ago today, on Sunday April 6, 1941, Adolf Hitler, outraged by the March 27, 1941 Belgrade street demonstrations in which the Serbs rejected the pact that the then Yugoslav government had signed with the Axis powers, and overthrew their government, ordered his Luftwaffe bombers to destroy the Serb capital. Hundreds of casualties ensued. World War II gathered up some more steam. Let us pray…

Krajisnik: A Patriot, Devoted Father; Plus, How Karadzic, Krajisnik Misjudged Milosevic, the West in 1994

W. AUSTRALIA, Apr. 6 – The following is a compilation of stories and anecdotes regarding Momcilo Krajisnik and Radovan Karadzic, the two top Bosnian Serb leaders, that the TiM editor had compiled durin

g his wartime trips to Bosnia, and in his several meetings between 1992 and 1996 with the Bosnian Serb leaders in Pale, their capital at the time. Most of the original Djurdjevic diary notes are now available in the Archives of the Hoover Institution at the Stanford University in California. But the excerpts that we bring you here in this special report represent the first public airing ever of these exclusive pages of history.

The photo on the right, for example, was taken at Krajisnik's office at the "old" Presidency Building in May 1994. Immediately after that meeting, the TiM editor was driven through a thunderstorm and a hailstorm during which his driver told him a story which led to a TiM Bulletin and a July 4, 1994 Arizona Republic column, "How Ordinary People Became Extraordinary Heroes."

PALE, May 27, 1994 – Momcilo Krajisnik's office is on the second floor of the Presidency Building, directly above the press room on the main floor. Consequently, it has the same bay windows as the lower conference room. One could say, therefore, that his is the "oval office" of the Bosnian Serb Presidency Building.

I had heard from “X” that Krajisnik had just come in from a negotiating session with the "contact group" at a small Alpine village in France. Yet, he seemed genuinely and (he said) pleasantly surprised to see me at Pale.

"I've heard so much about you," he said as we shook hands. "It's so great to meet you, especially here at Pale." His enthusiasm and friendliness were evident and sincere, even though this was the first time we have actually formally met (I saw him briefly in a group setting during my last visit to Pale in 1993). We sat down facing each other across another long black conference table (see the above photo).

Krajisnik said that it was tremendously important for them to receive the moral and intellectual support from the Serbs in the Diaspora. "We draw upon your strength to renew ours," he said sounding very emotional. "That's why what you're doing is so invaluable to us."

Then Krajisnik started to reminisce a little. He recalled, for example, what happened when they visited New York to take part in the U.N.-sponsored negotiations there in March 1993. "Those were very tough days for us," he said. "Often we felt discouraged and despondent (RK, for example, was sued for rape in a case orchestrated by the Muslim lobby). We were also extremely lonely and very tired. But when we saw those enthusiastic, smiling, delighted faces of the Serbian-Americans who came to the U.N. Plaza to give us their support, we could feel a renewal of our strength to go on." His eyes seemed to moisten at this moment.

I explained to him how close we came to meeting in New York on that occasion. "But your plane was so late, that I could not wait any longer," I said. "So I returned to Phoenix before you had arrived."

Krajisnik nodded understandingly. "I know," he said. "We had so many hassles just getting there (some countries at first did not want to give their plane over flight rights, or delayed issuing them). We took 28 hours getting to New York."

While he was President of the Bosnian Parliament before the war (in 1990-1991), Krajisnik said that he had had to struggle with the Muslims and the Croatians all the time. The daily proceedings were televised. During one his visits to Mostar, an old Serb woman approached him and said, "As soon as you take your seat behind that bench (in the Bosnian Parliament), I take my seat in front of the TV. Somehow, I get a feeling that as long as I am in front of the TV, it makes it easier for you to fight those bastards."

Citing another possible example of the Serb-Americans' concern about what's going on here, I also told Krajisnik about the Easter services this year in Phoenix, when the St. Sava church was so full that the crowd overflowed into the yard.

"You see what happens when the Serbs get scared," I joked, trying to lighten up the conversation. "They remember their church."

Krajisnik's eyes lit up. He proceeded to talk with almost a Messianic zeal about the Bosnian Serbs' cause. "All Serbs should know that we are building a new Serbian state here," he said. "That's why we must get it done right. Which means that both democracy and our religious traditions must be respected."

Krajisnik paused and smiled. It was evident that he had just recalled something. "During the session of our National Assembly in May 1993 (held to decide about the Vance-Owen plan), we had all sorts of dignitaries here," Krajisnik said. (The Greek Prime Minister) "Mitsotakis was here; (Slobodan) Milosevic was here; (Dobrica) Cosic was here... And so was the Bosnian Serb Bishop." Of course, Cosic and Milosevic are both former Communists and the self-declared atheists.

Nevertheless, "we insisted on carrying out all our traditions," Krajisnik said. "Which meant we kept getting them up on their feet quite often. First, when the national anthem was played. Then, when Bishop ...... said God's prayer before dinner. Being of Orthodox faith, Mitsotakis, of course, took part in everything with enthusiasm. But we noticed that although Cosic and Milosevic got up, they never crossed themselves."

Then the dinner was then served. After the desert, Bishop ..... was getting ready to say another prayer, thanking God for the food they had just received. That's when Milosevic got antsy. He leaned toward Krajisnik and said, "Look at the priest ("pop") fidgeting! He seems to be getting ready to make us get up on our feet again."

I told Krajisnik that I'd had a similar experience during my last meeting with Milosevic in February 1992. As we were trying to coordinate our schedules, his Communist-raised secretary Mira, told my assistant, "Oh yes. I remember. Mr. Djurdjevic has a meeting with the priest ("pop") at 6 p.m." The “priest” (“pop”) was none other than Patriarch Pavle, the head of the Serbian Orthodox Christian Church.

"As they say in English - 'like father, like son,'" I noted. "Except that, in this case, it's more 'like boss, like secretary.'" Krajisnik nodded in agreement.

At one point, Krajisnik's secretary Milena, entered the room with a camera in hand. "I hope you don't mind if she takes a picture of us as a souvenir?," Krajisnik asked. "No, not at all," I said. "As long as it doesn't end up with the CIA files," I joked. "They probably have plenty of pictures of both of us," Krajisnik said, as we both laughed.

After Milena took the picture, I asked her to do the same using my camera. She obliged (see the above photo).

I asked Krajisnik about his profession and his family. He said that he was an economist by training, who specialized in financial analysis. I smiled. I told him that this sounded like my own (daytime) job.

Krajisnik said that he had three children. His wife had died during the war. She suffered a broken leg in a mine explosion. The wound got infected which led to a blocked artery. And since the Serbs didn’t have adequate health care services under war conditions, she was gone before anyone could save her (also see "How Ordinary People Became Extraordinary Heroes" for more on poor wartime medical services in the Bosnian Serb Republic).

As I was leaving his office, Krajisnik introduced me to his three teenage children who were waiting outside. Their names are Njegos, Milos and Jagoda. The way they looked at Krajisnik with adoring eyes said it all about how devoted a father he must have been, despite being a single parent during war and his state duties.

Outside, dark clouds which had been gathering all afternoon had turned to rain. Suddenly, it got quite dark and misty.

Krajisnik suddenly became agitated. "In that case, please leave right away. The front lines are quite close to the road in some places. It really isn't wise to travel at night. The last thing we need is that something, God forbid, would happen to you while you're our guest here." He paused as if reflecting upon what he had just said. Then he shook his head. "No, you should leave without delay."

He spoke like a typical Serb who is always concerned more about the welfare of his guest than about his own. You see, Krajisnik himself had just come through those allegedly dangerous stretches of the road ( albeit in daylight). I thought that it was cute to see his worrying so much.”

Immediately prior to the above meeting with Krajisnik, the TiM editor had spent

most of his day in Pale with Dr. Radovan Karadzic, then the president of the Bosnian Serb Republic. Here are some choice excerpts from the TiM editor’s Bosnia war diaries from which it is evident that Karadzic was rather naïve, at best, about what sort of a “partner” he had in Milosevic:

We talked for a while about Warren Zimmermann's turning his coat inside out after leaving the State Department, and becoming one of the vocal hawks who were urging the bombing of the Serbs.

Karadzic pointed out that Zimmermann sabotaged the talks in Lisbon in March 1992 by encouraging Alija Izetbegovic, thus igniting the war in Bosnia.

I said that while that may be true, the U.S. policy was against the break up of YU all the way through late 1991.

Karadzic replied that even that's questionable. He said that the YU intelligence people had installed some eavesdropping devices at a Belgrade reception in June 1991, during which they taped Jim Baker telling Izetbegovic that the U.S. would support him.

"That's interesting," I said. "Because at the same time, Baker had publicly chastised Tudjman and Kucan (the Croatian and Slovenian leaders), and warned them not to dare secede from YU."

I then explained to Karadzic that I had in my possession a copy of a July 1991 letter to Baker from Tudjman in which Tudjman was alluding to the earlier support which he had received from Baker (i.e., the U.S. government), and was hoping that they could reestablish such a relationship.

In other words, it is entirely possible that, while taking a public stance against the Yugoslav breakup, the American diplomacy was secretly encouraging it. Our unwavering support to the Albanian separatists in Kosovo, for example, also points in the same direction. It may be, therefore, that Zimmermann did not lie to me (in June 1989) about his belief that YU would hold together, and that he was a Serbs' friend just because he was stupid or malicious. He may have done it while merely carrying out a duplicitous American policy.

I repeated to Karadzic my earlier view that the UNPROFOR troops were basically an occupying force. And that allowing them into Bosnia was a strategic error.

"Maybe," Karadzic replied. "But we can grab them just like that if the war escalates."

"Yes," Karadzic said. He described several minor incidents where this has already happened.

After the Gorazde bombing by NATO, the Bosnian Serbs kept the UNPROFOR troops in check for a while. In Sarajevo, for example, where the UNPROFOR troops were guarding the Serbian heavy weapons depots left there after the February U.N./NATO ultimatum, Karadzic ordered that the UNPROFOR soldiers be surrounded by the Serbs. "So about 50 U.N. soldiers were guarding the weapons, and about 500 Serbian soldiers were guarding the U.N.," Karadzic said. "We can take those weapons any time we want."

In another incident in Central Bosnia, Gen. Rose ordered the UNPROFOR to widen a corridor which the Muslims had used to transport their troops. That meant pushing the Serbs out of their present positions by force. Karadzic promptly ordered that, as a counter-measure, the UNPROFOR troops be surrounded in their armored vehicles, and the Serb heavy weapons trained on them for 24 hours.

"I told our commanders not to shoot, but just to keep them in gun sights," Karadzic said. "It was an exercise in humiliation. The UNPROFOR officers even had to get our commander's permission for when and where to relieve themselves. After 24 hours, we let them go. We had made the point. Now they know who is boss on Serb land."

Karadzic said that the members of the new "contact group" came to see him at Pale and to introduce themselves. "They sat at this very table and tried to give me advice about this and that," Karadzic said. I listened for a while, and then told them that we only take advice from our friends. "And I know that you are all our enemies," he said bluntly, staring each diplomat in the eye. They shuffled uncomfortably in their chairs. "But after that, they cut the B.S.," Karadzic said.

I asked RK if he were aware of the fact that I was critical of him when he acceded to the Sarajevo ultimatum.

I went on to explain why I was critical, i.e., that one concession would lead to additional ones.

"You did?" I said. "Well, in that case, I am all ears. Please explain to me how the Serbs 'won' by withdrawing from Sarajevo and leaving some of their weapons behind."

RK said that there were three major benefits to the Serbs. First, they were able to pull out half the heavy weaponry which is now being deployed elsewhere. "And we can take the rest back any time we want," he said. Second, there are now clear demarcation lines between the Serb and the Muslims positions. They are being guarded by the UNPROFOR troops, which moved in between the Serbs and the Muslims. "This may be the basis of future divisions of the city," he said. Which is something the Muslims never wanted. "Third, we have taken Sarajevo out of the hostile media headlines," Karadzic said.

"I can certainly agree with the third benefit," I replied. "But then, that's something you could have done a year ago. Why didn't you?"

"We couldn't," RK said. "Have you ever heard that joke about a "hajduk" (a Serb rebel) and a Turk?" he asked.

A "hajduk" caught a Turk one day. "Hey, I've caught myself a Turk here," he yelled to his partner. "That's great," the partner replied. "Bring him over." "I can't," the "hajduk" said. "He is too heavy." "Then let him go," his partner said. "I would let him go, but he won't let go of me," the "hajduk" finally fessed up.

Karadzic said that the Sarajevo situation was similar. If the Serbs were to give in to the Muslims, they would lose valuable territory. It wasn't until the NATO ultimatum that they had a chance to separate themselves from the enemy with the UNPROFOR troops filling the void between the two.

His explanation of a "Serb victor" may be plausible at a first glance. But I could not help but figure that it was a rationale concocted after-the-fact. In other words, the Serbs were naively talked by the Russians into retreating. When Vitaly Churkin's treachery became evident, Karadzic needed a rationale for why he fell for his pitch last February (1994).

You see, there is one thing that doesn't add up in Karadzic's explanation. If he indeed saw the opportunity in the NATO ultimatum to freeze the Sarajevo demarcation lines, he could have pulled out without surrendering any weapons at all to the U.N. Why didn't he? (My guess: Because he chickened out, preferring to appease, rather than confront, the western powers).

However Karadzic ended up rationalizing the Serb withdrawal from Sarajevo, he could not easily argue against the fact that the opening of the Tuzla airport was of any benefit to the Serbs. So he tried to minimize the error by engaging in semantics.

"Isn't that more than enough?" I asked. "I hear, for example, that the other day a contingent of some American soldiers from Macedonia arrived in Tuzla in an UNPROFOR plane."

He nodded affirmatively. "I know. We think that there were only about 80 of them," he said.

"That's more than enough if they are weapons instructors," I thought to myself, but did not say it out loud. "Aren't the Muslims now getting arms shipments of a more sophisticated kind, not just in increasing quantities?" I asked, referring to the comments I had heard from others.

"Yes, they are," RK admitted. "But most of it is being air dropped to them" (as opposed to shipped via the Tuzla airport).

I asked RK if he thought that the Muslim shelling of Brcko, for example, during the last session of the Bosnian Serb Parliament, was a deliberate effort to disrupt it.

"No question about it," RK replied. "One of the shells fell only 50 meters away from the building we were in. Nor was it much of a structure. Its roof structure was so weak that a shell would have probably gone right through it. But we never interrupted the session. Nor did we even consider moving it to another place. It was important for us, the leaders, to demonstrate to our people that we were also prepared to share in the risks of war."

When the Serbs complained to the U.N. about the Muslim shelling, the U.N. offered to make Brcko a "protected zone." But Karadzic refused. "We did not want their 'protection'," he said. "We know what that could have meant."

He walked over to one of the maps and showed me how the two exclusion zone circles around Tuzla and Brcko would have overlapped, cutting off the Serb corridors to the Krajina and to Pale. "We just wanted the U.N. to record who is always starting the fights, and to assert our right to defend ourselves."

Karadzic looked pensive. "You know what?" he asked rhetorically as a person does who has just thought of something. "I am going to write an open letter to (Bill) Clinton and to (Boris) Yeltsin. I will tell them about the hell our people are going through in Brcko. And I'll give them a deadline by which to stop the Muslim attacks. Or else we will defend ourselves vigorously."

"I hear you've also suffered some losses recently at Ozren?" I said, trying to see if that incident fitted the victim role. It did not.

"That was different," he said angrily. "We did not lose much territory there. But we lost 110 people needlessly. That was either a case of treason or incompetence. We'll find out which." He said that the officers in charge of that (Teslic?) unit, which had been caught by surprise and decimated by the Muslims, were relieved of duty while under investigation.

"If this were treason, they'll be court-marshaled," he said. "If they are found negligent, they'll be demoted." He paused. "This unit has caused us problems elsewhere," he added, saying that he was not happy with the state of readiness in his army.

This was no consolation to RK, but he said that the YU Army was in even worse shape. "There is still a lot of sloppiness there which the Communists had left behind," he said.

I asked him why, in his opinion, the Russian military were tolerating Yeltsin, who was clearly an American man. He said that the generals thought that Yeltsin was the only politician who could get them the badly needed financial help from the West with which to rebuild the Army. "The military structure isn't in any better shape than the rest of the Russian society," he said.

"Have you met Yeltsin?" I asked. He said he had not. He added that, during his visit to Moscow in February, he only met with the foreign minister, Kozyrev.

Karadzic then told me that he may get the "Sholohov Award," the top Russian literature recognition, for his books of poems.

Indeed, later in the afternoon, he received a call from Moscow confirming it. The award was supposed to be announced this weekend. Karadzic said that he would travel to Moscow in June to actually receive it.

"Who is he?" I asked. "He is the Russian equivalent of Anthony Lake," he replied. In other words, a national security advisor to Yeltsin.

Karadzic said that during the Battle of Gorazde(April 1994), the Serb troops achieved some incredible military feats. "It was a brilliant operation," Karadzic said. After the battle was over, some UNPROFOR officers looked at the rugged mountain peaks which the Serbs had taken from the Muslims and shook their heads in amazement.

"Some of these peaks had vertical rock drops on three sides," Karadzic explained. "We would first launch a frontal attack along the only milder slope, and would push the Muslims back as far as we could. Then, our special forces would trek on foot around the peak, and would scale the vertical cliffs to hit the Muslims from the flank or the back. That's how we took one peak after another. In some cases, we just went around them. After such Muslim troops realized that they were becoming exposed, and could be encircled any time, they retreated themselves."

Karadzic said that the military successes at Gorazde lifted the morale of the entire Bosnian Serb Army. But they also led to a cooling off of the relationship with the Serbian leadership in Belgrade.

"They were afraid that they'd be drawn into the war - something that Milosevic has been trying to avoid at all costs," Karadzic said. "They thought we were escalating the conflict deliberately. We were not. The truth was that my commanders had promised me that they would take a certain strategic point by 5 p.m. on a given day. And then it was the next day... And the next... It took five days during which time the entire international community was up in arms about the 'Serb aggression.'"

Milosevic was furious (as was his top general - per my earlier conversation with Gen. Perisic). Karadzic said that he called Milosevic the other day and asked if he had calmed down. I don't remember what the answer was. (But I do remember that Karadzic referred to Milosevic using the formal Serbian “vi” expression [“vous” in French; “Sie” in German], implying they weren’t personally very close).

I told Karadzic that I had the impression that these days, Milosevic is walking around all day long holding a pen in his right hand, just in case someone from the U.N. asked him to sign some sort of a peace agreement.

I added that I was afraid Milosevic would sell out the Krajina Serbs. "No, he won't," Karadzic opined. "Underneath it all, Milosevic is a good Serb. He only makes mistakes when he allows the communists to influence him."

TiM Ed.: Well, nearly six years and over 250,000 Serb refugees from the Krajina and Bosnia later – all of whom were “ethnically cleansed” from their ancestral lands thanks to Milosevic’s betrayal in 1995, we all know better, don’t we? Including Dr. Karadzic, now possibly the most “wanted man” in the world - by the western criminals he was trying to appease back in 1994.

Live and learn... The Serbs must not repeat the same mistakes in Kosovo. After all, the western war criminals are the same. The hunted-down victims (the Serbs) are the same. It's only that the Kosovo Albanians have now stepped into the role of the Bosnian Muslims - the Sarajevo thugs which terrorized the Serbs while being portrayed as victims by the NWO media.

But there is one thing which is different now. Yeltsin is gone. Putin is in. All bets are off. Which is putting NATO in a bit of a tizzy. Make that a large tizzy.

So stand by. "It ain't over till it's over," to quote one of Yogi Berra's "profound" oxymorons. And the "Kosovo Crisis" - "ain't over!" That's for sure.

W. AUSTRALIA, Apr. 6 – Regular visitors to the Truth in Media Web site will have noticed that, starting with March 24, the New Day of Infamy, we have begun to run a series of commemorative reports under the title “One Year Ago Today…” Every day between now and June 11, you will be able to see and read what we said exactly one year earlier about NATO’s bombing of Serbia – what NATO hit, what it missed, and what it lied about. And what mankind lost that day. Just click on the appropriate links at our home page – www.truthinmedia.org.