Our Man in the Hague

Here's the story: Cedomir Mihajlovic, a high-ranking Serbian state security official (in the job from 1990 to his defection on September 10, 1994), was a friend of Risto Djogo, director of the Bosnian Serb TV whose body was found a day before the defection. Mihajlovic says that was the night he saw the writing on the wall and decided to retire. He and Djogo had been gathering material on war crimes in Bosnia and the involvement of Serbian secret services and President Slobodan Milosevic (documents, tapes etc.). The experienced operative with no faith in coincidence saw things clearly: Djogo was killed by Arkan's men after telling them about the project.

On September 11, the police searched Mihajlovic's apartment in Novi Beograd. They didn't find him because he'd already gone into hiding but police records show that they confiscated two passports; one diplomatic one ordinary and around 1.3 million dollars in cash. Where did Mihajlovic get hold of police records? He says they came from the same source that provided the earlier documents; Zoran Vukelic, a childhood friend and head of the Serbian police archives who had financial problems. Mihajlovic said he gave Vukelic 7000 dollars for his services. The police documents and Djogo's video tapes were put in a vault in the Invest Bank in Skoplje.

Mihajlovic then contacted the Dutch embassy in Belgrade proposing to go to the Hague and present the international war crimes tribunal with the evidence. "Deep in my heart, I believed in the tribunal and that was the main reason I went to the Dutch not the Americans," he said.

Mihajlovic left for Skoplje with a temporary passport issued by the embassy and met Belgrade embassy official Hubertus Van Schip there on October 6. They removed the documents from the bank and went to meet a UN official who took the documents. A Dutch official said earlier that it wasn't right to send the documents through the diplomatic mail.

Mihajlovic arrived in the Hague and his hearings with chief prosecutor Richard Goldstone began on October 17. They lasted several weeks and Mihajlovic stayed in an apartment furnished by the tribunal. Simon Leach, a British policeman and investigator in the Mihajlovic case, confirmed in writing that he received the documents on October 18 and promised to return them to Mihajlovic on request. Leach said later the documents had been handed to the Dutch BVD security services which signed up Mihajlovic later. Goldstone confirmed the documents had been handed over on January 12 and 20 1995.

That's where the story gets foggy. Something happened between the tribunal and BVD and that is clear from the fact that the scandal broke out in the US not Holland. The New York Times was the first to get the whole story and insisted on BVD-tribunal relations that were not clear. The documents are a very serious thing, if they're true. These are official Serbian police papers signed by important people ordering war and other crimes, ethnic cleansing, robberies and other things in Croatia and Bosnia. They name Jovica Stanisic (Serbian state security chief), Dragan Visnjic (sector 5 chief), Radovan Pribicevic (his deputy), police officials Jovan Vlahovic and Dragan Simendic. The documents allegedly instruct Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan in his operations in Bijeljina to "arrest the SDA leaders, Moslem policemen and paramilitary organizers and send them to Erdut (Serb held Croatian town where Arkan based his headquarters) ... To scare the Moslem population, execute a small number of them. Another document is a series of instructions on running POW camps and adds that 10 agents will be sent from Belgrade to act as inmates and gather information and another six to identify and select prisoners for transfer to Yugoslavia. That document suggests lowering the number of camps to two or three since western intelligence services have informed the media that camps exist. It is signed by Stanisic.

A third document orders Arkan to share out booty: "Keep 2.5 million German marks for the needs of the unit and 15 kilos of gold" the rest (3.8 million marks, 375,000 dollars, 400,000 Swiss francs and 38 kilos of gold) were sent to Cedomir Mihajlovic for transport. So why was there hesitation to follow those orders, the NY Times wondered.

The question is logical: Mihajlovic seems to have decided to reinvestigate his faith in the tribunal and escaped from Holland to another western country (probably the US) since he wanted political asylum, but instead became a refugee. In any case events gained speed.

Several days later, Roger Cohen from the NYT spoke to Mihajlovic and saw the documents. It seems there was more hesitation there because the daily published the story several days later. In the meantime, the Associated Press got the same story (but without all the details) and published it, as if the NYT needed encouragement.

VREME has confirmed that Mihajlovic does exist, as well as all the other operatives named in the documents. The Serbian police sector 5 are analysts, a place to gather information and suggest a course of action. Mihajlovic claims that Jovica Stanisic is in everyday contact with Slobodan Milosevic; that Arkan worked for the Yugoslav state security earlier; that the Serbian police organized, armed and controlled paramilitary units and monitored the systematic robbery in the war.

Anyhow, the scandal has broken. Somehow at the same time, Radovan Karadzic received a warrant from the tribunal for 19 persons suspected of war crimes.

Some logical questions arise here. The history of defections from one secret service to another is rich; the US and Russia both had their fair share. Yugoslav services had relatively few defectors but the Mihajlovic case is obviously delicate: obviously this is a long term activity that was well thought out. The doubts cast on the documents are purely formal for now, the political dimension will decide the outcome. Whatever proof the west gets, diplomatic considerations will take precedence and they'll talk to the strong not the weak. No one is interested in the truth here. In that sense the coincidence of the Contact Group's trip to Belgrade and the publication of the story by the NYT are negligible.