NZ Herald, 14.02.2002
THE HAGUE - Slobodan Milosevic is today expected to reject prosecution charges before the Yugoslavia tribunal that he was a power-drunk opportunist who wreaked "medieval savagery and calculated cruelty" on the Balkans.
Expected to take the floor for the first time on day two of the biggest war crimes trial since Nuremberg, the former Yugoslav leader will maintain his defiant self-defence against genocide and crimes against humanity charges.
Contemptuous of a United Nations court he refuses to recognise, the first serving head of state to be indicted for war crimes has appointed no defence counsel.
That means Milosevic, not a lawyer, was to make opening arguments on his behalf once the prosecution finishes its opening arguments this morning.
Prosecutors told the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia yesterday that Milosevic, aged 60, was a ruthless tactician who cynically harnessed Serb nationalism as he masterminded a campaign to create a "Greater Serbia" from the wreckage of the communist country.
Nine months after being flown to The Hague, Milosevic sat, impassively, through more than four hours which reconstructed his political rise and chronicled the catalogue of murders, rapes and forced expulsion which then convulsed the Balkans. Only occasionally there was a smile from the man who once brought fear to thousands - most revealingly while he watched footage of himself. The court monitors showed a younger, less jowly, Milosevic in April 1987 addressing Kosovo Serbs who had been demonstrating about sectarian attacks, and telling them: "you will not be beaten again".
As the video was played to the court, the ex-Yugoslav President looked on with ill-disguised curiosity, sitting back when it ended and raising his eyebrows with apparent satisfaction and a brief smile. Laughter rippled through the public gallery.
By and large, however, yesterday was hardly a day for levity. Opening the most important case in the history of the UN's tribunal, its Chief Prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, said the hearing would "make history and we would do well to approach our task in the light of history".
The ethnic cleansing unleashed by Milosevic "revealed an almost medieval savagery and a calculated cruelty that went far beyond the bounds of legitimate warfare," she said, adding that the job of the court was to try those "responsible for the worst crimes known to humankind".
The presentation was detailed, listing with forensic precision the links between Milosevic and those who committed atrocities.
There was evidence that Western intelligence services have cooperated with the prosecution, as the court heard intercepts of Milosevic's phone conversation in May 1991 with the Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, about the provision of weapons. The prosecutor also put the case into an historical context, of a coordinated attempt to whip up nationalist sentiment to help build a greater Serbia.
Milosevic - who is the first former head of state to be tried - remained calm and controlled as he sat, flanked by two burly UN guards. Without addressing a word to the court Milosevic still exerted a powerful presence.
From behind the bullet-proof glass Milosevic gave the public gallery a brief smile before assuming his more familiar, stern stare.
He faces a 66 specific charges, including one of genocide, contained in three indictments - one each for the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. Conviction is likely to mean life in prison but Milosevic rejects the authority of the court and has refused to appoint a defence counsel for the trial which is expected to last for around two years.
The deputy prosecutor, Geoffrey Nice, highlighted several examples as symbols of the terror which gripped the former Yugoslavia and provided a thread which linked the three indictments being heard together in a single trial. One incident, in Bosnia in 1992, led to a mother and her baby being burned alive; another, seven years later and in Kosovo, culminated in a 20-year-old woman being thrown down a well.
The task of the prosecution is to tie such
atrocities to Milosevic, a man who rarely left a paper trail behind him.
The prosecutor's case, which is expected
to last 18 months, in essence boils down to three main elements.
First, that atrocities occurred on an
extraordinary and horrific scale in the former Yugoslavia. Among those
highlighted were the seige of Vukovar, and the shelling of Dubrovnik in Croatia
in 1991.
Second, that this was part of a long-term strategy devised by Milosevic to create a greater Serbia or to exploit Serb nationalism to bolster his personal power. Nice said the "evidence will show that the accused had a central role in the joint criminal enterprise", or the creation of a Greater Serbia. "He had a fundamental role in planning, organisation, financing support and execution of the plan." Finally, the prosecution will seek to prove "command responsibility".
Yesterday prosecutors referred to a range of documents, outlining the connections between Milosevic and the men who terrorised civilians. Diagrams illustrated the chain of command within Serbia and the links with Bosnian Serb paramilitaries, the support offered by Belgrade with weapons or training, and the contacts with warlords such as Arkan.
As Nice put it: "Did he [Milosevic] know what
was happening? Of course he did."
-
REUTERS, INDEPENDENT
<http://www.independent.co.uk>
THE END
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