No Contact With Arkan

VREME weekly (May 31), Blic daily (June 3) and TV Studio B (June 4) published or screened a CNN documentary on Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan in which CNN reporter Amanpour made the following claim:

"In August 1990, in Belgrade, JNA General Marko Negovanovic, signed a document authorizing Arkan to form a special military unit..."

The documentary aired on Studio B showed my photograph and the alleged document I allegedly signed.

I deny all responsibility in the completely false claim by reporter Amanpour. I never signed the alleged document CNN reporter Amanpour has linked to my name. That is why that document never existed nor can it exist. The publicly broadcast document in CNN’s documentary is, from start to finish, in form and content, a great, flagrant lie and a primitive forgery.

The following shows that it is a forgery:

a) the fake document forges my signature and my duties and shows that I was in the PU (head of the Defense Secretariat Political Section). Although there was no date on the forged document nor a place where it was written, Amanpour set its date herself as August 1990. These are the true facts:

1. I was head of the Defense Secretariat Political Section up until May 15, 1989.

2. I was appointed head of the Secretariat Security Department on May 15 1989 and I stayed in that post until May 15 1991.

3. The head of the Political Section in 1990 was Major General Dusan Zunic, a man not well known to the public.

b) The form of official Defense Secretariat documents was defined by JNA regulations and is well known.

c) The content and form of the text of the forgery is absolutely different to the established, defined forms of communication in the JNA. The JNA Political Section had no jurisdiction to issue documents like that let alone form units. That was in the jurisdiction of the Third Department (organization, reinforcements and mobilization). That department was part of the general staff, not the Defense Secretariat. The forgers should have forged the seal of the SFRJ General Staff, not the Defense Secretariat (SSNO).

I don’t believe accomplished CNN reporters couldn’t see those cardinal mistakes, let alone the need for professional expertise of the text which that renowned TV company could provide.

d) The structure and content of that fake document does not meet the most basic requirements of official JNA documents. The forgers of the document wrote "Decision On Appointment". It would be logical for the text to follow the form of a decision and express the stand of whoever made the decision. Instead, the forgers approved the "appointment". Imagine the logic of that decision, that the forgers decided that the SSNO secretary (a post which never existed) should authorize someone unknown. That confusion can be created only by inexperienced forgers capable of making this primitive fake which Amanpour passed on to the public as the truth even though it is a false document.

e) That the entire document is a flagrant fake can also be seen by comparing my alleged signature on the fake document which CNN submitted and my signature on my bank card which is several years old.

Since CNN received this document, it’s strange at the very least that they didn’t try to face me with it and get a comment, the more so since they tried to interview several former JNA generals who refused because they recognized the true intentions and background of media fabrications launched by CNN.

This primitive forgery is logically contradictory and clashes with the basic regulations and moral values the JNA was based on. It is completely illiterate in military terms and would not be signed even by a young sergeant let alone a general. No one, not even the lowest battalion staff sergeant, would put a seal on it or file it because it does not meet any of the requirements of a military document. Everyone can see that this is a forgery. What are the criteria of CNN reporter Amanpour when she can’t see that obvious lie.

I will demand satisfaction in court to protect my human and professional honor from the elementary untruth because CNN subjected me to the vilest slander and political manipulation.

And finally, I want to inform CNN and the public that I never had any contact in any form with Zeljko Raznatovic neither professionally nor outside my duties. The way in which Amanpour attacked my honor and dignity by submitting a forgery and fake document can be used against any decent citizen.