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Milosevic Behind Yugoslav Break Up, Croat Leader Says October 1, 2002 By REUTERS Filed at 11:03 a.m. ET THE HAGUE (Reuters) - The first head of state to testify at Slobodan Milosevic's war crimes trial portrayed him on Tuesday as a frosty warmonger bent on creating an ethnically pure Greater Serbia, at the ultimate cost of Yugoslavia. Croatian President Stjepan Mesic repeatedly accused Milosevic of engineering the breakup of Yugoslavia and using the army to seize Croat land in his pursuit of a Greater Serbia. ``Milosevic did not favor any kind of Yugoslavia that was federal or confederal. What he was interested in was a Greater Serbia built on the ruins of Yugoslavia,'' Mesic told the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia. Former Serbian president Milosevic faces 61 charges in the Bosnia and Croatia stage of the biggest international war crimes trial in Europe since Hitler's henchmen were tried at Nuremberg. The case against him relating to Kosovo was made earlier. The 61-year-old is accused of genocide in Bosnia and crimes against humanity in Croatia in a scheme to create a Greater Serbia in the early 1990s. Mesic, who in July 1991 was the last to hold the rotating Yugoslav presidency, said Milosevic invoked the spectre of war in his plans to ``restructure'' Yugoslavia and hijacked the country's army to enforce his plans to redraw Serbia's borders. The court heard minutes from a meeting of the federal presidency in which then-president Mesic -- who stayed for just a few months before resigning -- warned of Serbian imperialism. He described how Milosevic siphoned money from the coffers of the Yugoslav federation and took over control of the National Bank to finance a Serb army and help Serb rebels in Croatia. ``What they want is territory. They want to grab Croatian land and trick the army into doing it for them,'' prosecutor Geoffrey Nice quoted Mesic as saying during the 1991 meeting with army officials and representatives of the six Yugoslav republics. Croatian villages had been burned and cleansed as part of the operation, Mesic was quoted as saying. ``(Milosevic) could have desisted from war options because he knew what was going on the ground, but he did nothing to stop it,'' Mesic testified. EMOTIONLESS MILOSEVIC Mesic, a former lawyer who was elected Croatian president in 2000 on a pro-Western reformist ticket, portrayed Milosevic as a ruthless figure, devoid of concern for individual suffering. ``I never saw any sign of feeling in him, ever,'' Mesic, in a dark suit and striped tie, told the three-judge bench. ``All he had was goals he was implementing.'' Milosevic, who became Yugoslav president in 1997 after seven years as Serb leader, was a manipulator who quickly got rid of his associates once they had achieved what he wanted, Mesic said. In his single-minded aim to carve up the country on ethnic lines, Milosevic approved secession for Slovenia, which had no Serb minority, and for Croatia -- as long as it did not include those parts where its Serb minority lived, Mesic said. He said Milosevic planned that Croatian territory on which Serbs lived would remain in Yugoslavia, and said the Serb leader deceived the world with his plans and even Serbs in Croatia. ``The Serbs in Croatia were only needed to ignite the fuse in order for the war be transferred to (neighboring) Bosnia- Herzegovina. With regard to Croatia whatever territory could be wrested from it would be joined to Greater Serbia,'' Mesic said. Contained in the indictment against Milosevic is the notorious 1995 Srebrenica massacre, Europe's worst atrocity since World War II where up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed after Serb forces overran the U.N. ``safe area'' in Bosnia. Milosevic has refused to plead out of scorn for the Hague tribunal. Judges have entered not guilty pleas on his behalf. Prosecutors at the U.N. court last month wrapped up their case on Kosovo, where Milosevic and former aides are accused of expelling almost one third of the Albanian population from the disputed Serbian province. Milosevic was Yugoslav leader during the Kosovo conflict, but experts say convicting him for the Bosnian and Croatian conflicts, when he was Serb leader, will be tough. Milosevic, who is defending himself, is due to cross examine Mesic on Wednesday. http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-milosevic.html?ex=1034498300&ei=1&en=ef64551dee376463 HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! 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