THE TRIAL OF SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC
For the Initiated and Uninitiated
Part One
R.K. Kent
Bread-and-butter Historian
Prosecutor Carla del Ponte, (despite her last name is not concerned with
building any Bridges)
Mr. Milosevic, you are charged hereby for crimes against peace, against
humanity, for war crimes and for genocide. How do you plead?
Milosevic
(clearing his throat) Can you be a little more specific?
Judge May (jumps in)
Certainly. You have destroyed (the Second) Yugoslavia by making it
impossible to have peace; you have fomented wars across recognized
international boundaries; you have sought to create a "Greater Serbia"
by annexing the Croatian Krajina region; you STARTED the "ethnic
cleansing" by trying to chase out and/or kill all non-Serb populations;
the Markale market-place massacre at Sarajevo, for example, implicates
your command; and you have engaged in genocide at Kosovo to empty this
region of its ethnic Albanian majority. At Kosovo, you had a hand in
killing between 100,000 and 10,000 ethnic Albanian men of Muslim Faith.
The massacre at Racak is an internationally noted example of this
genocide. The cremating of bodies in the furnace of Trepca was an
obvious attempt to hide your gruesome deeds. How's that for starters?
Milosevic
You forgot to blame me for bad weather too but MAY (no pun intended) I
ask a couple of questions before addressing this would-be bill of
particulars ? (mike is turned off, May and del Ponte are consulting}
Judge May,
You are not here to ASK questions but what is the nature of your
questions?
Milosevic
Both seek just an explanation
Judge May,
You may ask your two questions. This is a Civilized Court.
Milosevic
Can you explain to me -and the world at large- the difference between
killing and maiming civilians from the ground or from the air? Are they
not just as dead and just as wounded? My second question is how come
that terrorism is deemed non-existent when carried out from the air and
how come that certain terrorists are transformed into "freedom fighters"
and others stay on the black lists even for alleged and not proven acts
of terrorism, pure and simple?
Judge May
Your questions are ENTIRELY IRRELEVANT. Please address FORTHWITH the
particulars you had asked for and I went through the trouble of
providing
Milosevic
Oh, well, you will see in the course of time that my questions go to the
heart of the matter, they ARE central (another mike cut-off)..
Judge May,
MR.. Milosevic please ANSWER the charges. You are not here TO ACCUSE.
You are the ACCUSED.
Milosevic
OK, MAY (no pun intended)I let you have it, Judge? I did NOT "destroy"
Yugoslavia. I tried to PRESERVE it. The Yugoslav Federal Constitution
allows for negotiated and peaceful exit of any Republic but the
nationalist secessionists opted for the use of force and for attacks on
Serb civilian minorities on hand. They did this with powerful, and
promised support and aid from abroad, initially from the strongest
European nation, Germany, from the Vatican and later from a new entrant
into the Balkans, the United States of America. The Yugoslav Federal
Army was no match for such a combination of forces; it could barely
protect Serb minorities under attack; the all too rapid recognitions of
independent Slovenia and Croatia by Germany and the U.S. gave overnight
a single Federation its "new" states and "international" borders. Units
of the Federal Army, trapped, for example, in the vast Bosnian land mass
could not withdraw FAST ENOUGH and were declared as "forces of
occupation" giving "proof" of "plans" for "Greater Serbia."
Judge May, (interrupting)
Are you denying that "Greater Serbia" was a major factor?
Milosevic
"Greater Serbia" is a myth invented to tar the Serbs as an "imperialist"
people, something they have NOT been throughout their history.
Judge May,
So you claim. But, do proceed to answer the rest.
Milosevic,
At once, your be-wigged Eminence. Let me mention crimes against PEACE
first. . In 1992 and in 1993 I did not commit any. Instead, I am on
RECORD for having FAVORED the Lisbon Peace Accord of February 1992,
brokered by the European Union. But, the U.S. killed it by supporting an
independent Bosnian State ruled by a Muslim leader who usurped his power
of Office by refusing to turn the government over to his LEGAL Serb
successor. A year later, I supported the Vance-Owen Peace Proposal, as
did Richard Holbrooke, hardly a Serb supporter.
The answer from Washington was to kill it because it "rewarded Serb
aggression." But, what the Vance-Owen proposed meant a REDUCTION in the
LEGAL Serb real estate holdings in Bosnia from 62 to 41 percent, the
allotment of its best lands and most towns and industries to the Bosnian
Muslims, not to the Serbs. In fact, I had a hard time understanding
Washington's foreign policy toward the space of Second Yugoslavia. It
resembled a whore house, with Madeleine Albright as an incarnation of a
wild-west "Madam" both in looks and in deeds, cowboy hat, boots and all.
Judge May,
There is no need to insult Madeleine Albright. She had set up this
Tribunal personally, selecting its initial personnel and securing some
$6 million in initial funds from two Muslim States. She is as pure as
Snow White and the "Madam" you gratuitously mention applies to Madam the
Secretary, first woman in U.S. History to become Secretary of State.
Hip, Hip, Hurray. Do go on, Mr. Milosevic.
Milosevic
I turn to war now. War is Hell but fratricidal wars go beyond Hell.
Despite all the proclaimed international boundaries with swift strokes
of external pens, the reality on the ground was reflected in actual
CIVIL WARS. In them, a man with a rifle is a warrior. When he discards
the rifle the man becomes a civilian. Every side in the civil
intra-Yugoslav wars segregated able bodied men from the women and
children and old men. Many were imprisoned, some were tortured, some
were executed and some were exchanged. This was the pattern across the
board. It was not confined to the Serbs or, for that matter, to anyone
else.
Next, crimes against both peace and humanity and war crimes were
committed by NATO twice within the ex-Yugoslav space. The first time was
just after the "Markale massacre" at Sarajevo. Within hours of this
event, NATO jets attacked the military targets and civilian populations
in the Serb-held parts of Bosnia. The only problem was that a detailed
U.N. report exculpated the Serbs completely but was suppressed as
"secret": by Madeleine Albright, the then U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. It
does not require a doctoral degree in Political Science to get the
picture. The second time went into the eleven weeks of bombing primarily
civilian targets in Serbia and Kosovo.
Which brings me to the charge of seeking the total "ethnic cleansing"
(hey, that is the badly translated term attributed to Radovan Karadzic)
of Kosovo's Albanians and of "genocide." Major facts cannot be changed
in a major way. There was no MASS EXODUS of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo
until the DAY AFTER NATO started bombing Kosovo and Serbia. It would
have been an act of impossible madness on my part to eliminate the
MAJORITY populations in Bosnia and in Kosovo under the watchful eyes of
an entire "International Community" dominated by the U.S. and just
waiting, at least since 1997, for a pretext to bomb Belgrade.
As for the charge of "genocide," well, Eli Wiesel said there was none.
Danny Pearl said there was none. The 1,200 European Observers said that
there was none but that the Serb Army and Police at Kosovo fought
primarily the so-called "Kosovo Liberation Army" (KLA/UCK). Such
Albanian refugees as developed in this struggle generally fled into the
nearest woods to avoid being caught in the harm. None left Kosovo until
the end of March 1999. The Markale Massacre was "assigned" to "the
Serbs," as well as the Racak "massacre at Kosovo. This would-be event
was debunked completely by foreign forensic experts as a hoax. You still
refer to it as an established fact. You do the same with the numbers
game of Albanian Muslim men allegedly "slaughtered" by my forces at
Kosovo. The Pentagon itself admitted that 100,000 was the wrong figure
but held on to the 10,000. A Helsinki Watch report in situ claimed about
3,000 dead (2000 Albanians and 1,000 Serbs) subsequently borne out by
forensic research at Kosovo under U.N. and NATO control. Foreign
forensic experts found nothing in the furnace of the Trepca mine either.
Judge May (interrupting)
Did you not START Ethnic Cleansing, Mr Milosevic?
Milosevic,
Start? No way. The first major ethnic cleansing took place between
August 1991 and February 1992 in Western Slavonia. It was carried out by
the new Croatian Army and para military units. Some 40,000 Serb
civilians fled in panic. Hundreds were killed. All the Orthodox
Christian Churches were destroyed, even the Orthodox Bishop was
arrested. But, the so-called 'International Community": took no notice
of this massive even, a real FIRST.
Judge May (interrupting)
We will now break for lunch and re-convene at 14 hundred hours GMT.
Serbian News Network - SNN
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