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AFP (with additional material by AP). 26 September 2002. Facing genocide charge, Milosevic says "I was peacemaker." THE HAGUE -- Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic insisted Thursday he had worked for peace in the Balkans unlike the Western "imperialist powers" as prosecutors opened their genocide case against him in Europe's biggest war crimes trial since World War II. In an uninterrupted two-hour monologue, he threw blame back at western powers, singling out Germany and the United States. Their quick recognition of independence for respectively Croatia and Bosnia after the old Yugoslav federation broke up in the early 1990s fanned nationalist sentiment, he said. In Croatia, he said, this encouraged the extreme nationalism of what he called the inheritors of the World War II nazi puppet regime, and in Bosnia, the "expansion of Islamic fundamentalism" under then Muslim president Alija Izetbegovic. To back up his assertions, Milosevic showed 45-minute video at the start of his opening statement with a compilation of statements by Western politicians and journalists recalling the break-up of Yugoslavia by the unilateral declarations of independence of Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia. The tape started with nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal saying the political program of Croatian leader Franjo Tudjman was a "re-take" of facist Ustasa regime that persecuted Serbs, Jews and gypsies. Prosecutors at the UN court in The Hague said the former Yugoslav president was the leading figure behind the bloodshed as his trial moved on after seven months from Kosovo to deal with the wars in Bosnia and Croatia. The 61-year-old Serb, facing the most serious charge of genocide, again rejected the accusations and painted himself as a man who worked to stop the violence, which left at least 225,000 people dead. "I personally invested all my powers in achieving peace," said Milosevic, who was dressed as usual in a dark blue suit and red tie in the Yugoslav national colours. The prosecution maintains that Milosevic was part of a "joint criminal enterprise" in which he had great influence over Serb leaders and their forces in Croatia and Bosnia, but Prosecutor Geoffrey warned against casting him as the "sole architect" of the bloodshed. "This may be the reality of the accused's personal history -- he, being a man committed to the plan, whom others looked to for leadership," Nice said. But Milosevic, who gave a boisterous and impressive performance in the first part of the trial as he carried out his own defence, told the court he had "worked for peace (and) not as a protagonist of war" in the Balkans. Milosevic said Yugoslavia had been used as a pawn by foreign powers "to achieve imperialist goals," and that the prosecution's version of events was "an attempt to falsify history." He conceded that war crimes had indeed been committed. "War crimes existed on all three sides but this was not the policy and no such climate was created," he said. "I am not challenging that Serbs helped the Serbs to survive in Bosnia and Croatia," he told the court. "I should be recognized for fighting for peace," he said. "The only war was a war against Yugoslavia" by the Western powers. He also again went on the attack, saying that the Serbian people had suffered a "decade-long demonisation" in which economic sanctions were slapped against Yugoslavia in what can "only be qualified as genocide." Milosevic faces life in prison if convicted by the UN tribunal, which he again called "illegal" and "part of the war" he claims has been waged against the Serbian people. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ProletarianNews http://www.utopia2000.org --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.bacIlu Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
