ARIS, Dec. 13 — Washington has agreed that Gen. Wesley
K. Clark, the former NATO commander and a contender for the Democratic
presidential nomination, can testify in the war crimes trial of Slobodan
Milosevic. But the Bush administration has demanded the right to edit
videotapes and transcripts of the sessions before they are made
public.
The two former opponents, the American general and the former president
of Yugoslavia, will face each other in court on Monday and Tuesday.
Closed sessions are routinely held at the United Nations tribunal that
deals with Balkan war crimes, but usually to protect witnesses's safety.
The conditions of General Clark's appearance are new.
The court agreed to give the United States government 48 hours to
review the testimony and to ask judges to suppress any it regards as
sensitive. Two government lawyers will accompany the general.
"The review is to ensure there was no inadvertent disclosure of
sensitive, classified information," said Pierre-Richard Prosper, the
United States ambassador at large for war crimes issues, in a telephone
interview from Washington. During the Balkan wars, he said, General Clark
"obviously had seen a substantial amount of intelligence." But, he added,
"we feel fairly confident that the bulk of the testimony and videotapes
can be released."
The current plan is to release videotapes of the sessions on Friday,
after the review, said Jim Landale, a tribunal spokesman.
The two men confronting each other in court next week have met many
times before. General Clark spent many hours with Mr. Milosevic in 1994
and 1995, when he was special adviser to Richard C. Holbrooke, who was
trying to end the Bosnia war. They were both at the 21-day peace
negotiations Mr. Holbrooke led in Dayton, Ohio, in 1995, and they spent
lengthy sessions negotiating before NATO began bombing Serbia and its
province of Kosovo in March 1999.
Mr. Milosevic, whose trial began in February 2002, is facing 66
charges, including genocide, stemming from his role in those wars, which
left more than 200,000 people dead, destroyed villages and towns, and
drove more than a million people from their homes. General Clark will be a
witness for the prosecution.
Prosecutors want to know how much Mr. Milosevic knew — or could have
known — about crimes committed by members of the Bosnian Serb military who
were on Belgrade's payroll and by Serbian police officers and other forces
directly under his command.
General Clark faces direct cross-examination by Mr. Milosevic, who
conducts his own defense and usually demands as much time to question a
witness as the prosecution. Frequently, he is given more time.
Among the 280 witnesses who have already testified at the trial, there
have been many high-profile witnesses and many senior military officers
from other nations. Only France is known to have insisted that its top
military officers testify behind closed doors.
In court, Mr. Milosevic has often railed against NATO's bombing
campaign and said NATO was the one that had committed war crimes. Of the
23,000 bombs and missiles used during the 78-day campaign, some struck the
Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, several bridges, a train full of civilian
passengers and a television station.
How much finger-pointing Mr. Milosevic will be allowed with General
Clark on the stand will depend on Richard May, the British judge who
presides over the trial.
