Milosevic smiles at genocide claims

SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC relaxed in his chair and smiled across a UN courtroom yesterday as prosecutors accused him of genocide.

They claimed he was the kingpin in a plan to wipe out Bosnia’s Muslims.

On the opening day of war crimes hearings on his role in the 1991-1995 wars in Croatia and Bosnia, Milosevic portrayed the Serbs as victims of ethnic aggression and said his policies had been aimed at peace, not war.

The first part of his trial, on the 1998-1999 Serb crackdown on the Albanians in Kosovo, ended earlier this month and hearings were adjourned for two weeks to give Milosevic time to prepare for the next stage of the landmark proceedings in The Hague.

Prosecutors plan to call 177 witnesses, including Croatian President Stipe Mesic and former Yugoslav President Zoran Lilic, to prove their case, expected to last well into the spring of 2003.

In opening remarks, trial prosecutor Geoffrey Nice QC described Milosevic as the undisputed leader of a “joint criminal enterprise” established in the early 1990s with the sole aim of creating a pure Serbian state in Yugoslavia.

The charges are the gravest and toughest yet to prove in Milosevic’s trial. The former Serb strongman held power in Yugoslavia for 13 years, but prosecutors say he was careful not to leave incriminating evidence behind.

Legal experts have said that because Milosevic was not the Yugoslav president at the time of the atrocities, the case will he harder to prove.

Prosecutors say Milosevic, along with other members of the Serb political structure, such as former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, planned and implemented a scheme to murder thousands of civilians and force countless more to leaves their homes.

Milosevic’s indictment covers the systematic execution of Muslim men in Srebrenica and the dreaded Bosnian detention camps. Page after page list the names of children, women, and the elderly, said to be the victims of “a campaign of ethnic cleansing”.

Without Milosevic, it is hard to conceive of the enterprise happening, Mr Nice said during the 80 minute opening statement. “He had a fundamental role in the organisation, the planning, the financing and the direction of the plan,” he said.

In Bosnia, Mr Nice said: “The civilian population knew they could not escape. And as one witness observed, the impression created in the civilian population of the Srebrenica enclave was of a relentless and unstoppable momentum that could only lead to the death of everyone inside.”

Bosnian Serb general Radislav Krstic was convicted last year of genocide for a week of killing in eastern Bosnia that left around 8,000 male Muslims dead.

Milosevic countered the existence of a common criminal plan, but said all factions had violated laws of combat.

“I do not dispute war crimes were committed, but they took place on all three sides,” Milosevic said. “But the war crimes were not a policy, the victims in the war against Yugoslavia were all three peoples. I should be recognised for fighting for peace. The only war was a war against Yugoslavia” by the Western powers.

Milosevic has been charged with 61 counts of war crimes during the five years of conflict when he was the president of Serbia, one of the six republics that made up Yugoslavia.

One survivor of the war crimes Milosevic is on trial for watched the proceedings on television from her home in Bosnia. Munira Subasic, 64, said his red tie reminded her of the blood that washed over her homeland.