19:33 2002-03-02
SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC: CIVILIAN OBJECTS WERE NATO'S MAIN TARGETS
Slobodan Milosevic:
I would like not to be interrupted in
half an hour, as I have been listening to the charges for
two days
already. But I would like to use… (the judge breaks in).
Judge Richard May:
What would you like to add?
S.M:
I have touched upon some juridical problems several
times already, but you ignored them. You know, only the court
provided by the law may hold a trial, as it is fixed in all international and
national documents. The problem of legitimacy of
this court has been
already touched upon. No response was received. I doubt that the court is
legitimate, as it has not
been instituted in accordance with the
laws; the UN Security Council was not authorized to give the court the right it
had
not itself. That is why the court can not hold a trial. I expect
you to comment on the juridical problems, and, as you have
been
recommended from outside, appeal to the International court for its advisory
opinion. But nothing has been done.
To my mind, this problem is of significant importance for the
international right and justice on the whole. That is why it
needs to
be settled. When I submitted a large text with arguments on the problem, it
became a serious reason for it.
One more problem I would like to find out. I have already mentioned
the problem of my illegal arrest with participation of a
Tribunal
representative in Belgrade, the Serbian and Yugoslavian Constitutions have been
violated at that. This became a
reason for the Union government to
resign. Several criminal cases have been instituted in Yugoslavia for this very
reason. Any court is to consider habeas corpus before a trial begins.
This fact was ignored, and hearings were initiated.
The problem of
habeas corpus, I am speaking about, is provided by the declaration for human
right and for political rights,
the universal, European, American and
others, those ones you perfectly know about.
Finally, it is regulated by your own practice, as you have considered
problems of illegal arrest in different cases. You
were to have held
a hearing on my illegal arrest, as I have been delivered here as a result of a
crime that is treated as
such not only by the legislation of my
country, but in the legislation of many other countries, by the international
norms and
conventions.
Another question of mine that you have ignored. I mean, in this case
we can not call the trial honest and equitable. The UN
recommendation
about public prosecutors of 1990 provides for an objectivity requirement. What
we hear at the trial now
confirms, the prosecutor is not only biased,
but has already made up a sentence for me. The Prosecutor’s Office
conducts an information campaign and organizes a parallel trial in mass media,
designed for some parallel lynching with a
view to proves that it
is…(the judge breaks in).
Judge May:
Let me interrupt you. Why do you think the
Prosecutor has already voiced a sentence for you?
S.M:
The previous prosecutor (Luise Arbur) during her
meeting with Madeline Albright said, they were doing the same work.
But she was a representative of the belligerent party. The charges are based on
the information provided by the British
intelligence and obtained
during the war against Yugoslavia. It is well-known, intelligence services
provide only selective
data, but not those that disagree with their
own interpretation. I think some other arguments can be mentioned as well. But
the problems were ignored, and no decision was passed. You failed to
appeal to the International court as for the
legitimacy problem. No
hearing was started on the basis of habeas corpus and on the fact that your
representative took
part in a criminal offense…(the judge breaks in).
Judge May:
Mr.Milosevic, we have already passed a decision
on the problems you mention. Your personal treatment of the tribunal
has nothing to do with this case. The decision has been passed, no need to take
it up at the current hearings.
The sequel to Milosevic’s speech after film showing in his defense:
What you have seen is, I would say, just an atom, even less than an
atom of truth in the ocean of lies and propaganda,
used by the mass
media as a war instrument against my country. Not Serbian, but German and
British tapes have been
chosen deliberately. We are not acquainted
with those people. You have heard a German general speaking he was
ashamed of the government’s actions. As long as you read my correspondence (by
the way, I get many letters that must
be complicating for your work),
you know the letters sent by American officers who are also ashamed of the US
government; there are many letters sent by British intellectuals and
servicemen, French veterans, all of them are ashamed
of their
governments’ actions.
When the Yugoslavian problem is touched upon, more and more people
appear in the west as well, who appreciate the
truth more than the
comfort guaranteed by humiliating implementation of the political bosses’
instructions. It is to be
mentioned here, the western mass media and
global information networks have been used as a war instrument to tell the
lies to the people. I am sure, the truth will be restored there,
those people who lied about Yugoslavia, who turned the
information
war into a frontline war troops with many victims, will be held up to shame.
Now I would like to touch upon the problem I have been wishing to say for seven months already.
Within the two last days the prosecutors have been saying they were
judging an individual person. The three
prosecutors mentioned, not
the nation, but an individual person was on trial. But they accuse the whole of
the nation,
starting with Serbian intellectuals. A war against the
Serbian intellectuals with the Serbian academy of science and arts
at
the head was launched. A memorandum of the Serbian Academy of science and arts
has been already cited, the
memorandum is said to have been an
ideological platform for the crimes against Albanians. It was the memorandum in
which Serbian academicians described the situation of a 15-year
prescription and mentioned the situation in Kosovo. But
not only the
intellectuals of Kosovo have been accused. The Kosovo battle was also accused.
One of the prosecutors
said, he knew nothing of the fact, why two
million people came to the Kosovo field to celebrate the 600th anniversary of
the battle we had lost. The prosecutor does not know (although he
accuses the Serbian history and the Kosovo battle)
that it was a
battle for Serbia and Europe, for Serbia as well for Europe.
But not only the Serbian intellectuals, the Academy of science and
arts and the Kosovo battle have been accused. The
whole of Serbia’s
institutional system that rendered assistance to me has been accused, I mean the
parliament, political
organizations and mass media. The people who
supported me and voted for me at multi-party elections have been
accused as well. The only point we coincide in, is that my behavior was a
realization of the people’s will. But the people
have been accused of
this support rendered to me. I say, even my conduct here is a manifestation of
the people’s will.
The army and police, volunteers and territorial
defense, named “Serbian forces” have been accused. The Serbs outside
the country and people in Serbia, everyone who has supported me and supports
now, are accused. The whole of the
nation is accused at that.
This has been said within two days already, but now we hear that an
individual person is accused only. Then the
person, I mean myself,
has been proclaimed to be a superman with superhuman power, influence and
authority even
beyond the limits of the state, perhaps it is some
magic power, even a godlike one. At the same time my emotional state,
my opinion about the events and my thoughts are of special concern now.
Americans go across the world to struggle against terrorism. It is
considered to be logic and normal. But an anti-terrorism
struggle
inside the country is considered to be a crime. Does it mean that we have no
right to react to terrorism in our
own home? I can prove the
connection between this and that terrorism.
The false accusation goes further than any imagination could even
reach. It is said, I have caused NATO aggression, the
war against
Yugoslavia and sufferings of millions of people on purpose to get a reason for
killing Albanians. I am asking
myself: “Could not they have invented
some other, more probable explanation?” Yesterday we heard that I ignored every
limits, except for the boundary between Serbian and non-Serbian.
Although, Serbia has been the only country on the
territory of the
former Yugoslavia that managed to preserve its ethnic structure over the whole
period of the Yugoslavian
crisis. It remains the same it was 12 years
ago when the crisis broke out.
The reality in Yugoslavia denies the shocking thesis and the lie
itself. And we will have to listen to such obscure
statements and
ignore the Yugoslavian reality, that is the reality of not the present-day
moment, but the reality of more
than decades; it is so precise that
completely denies such nonsense. Serbia and I personally are said to be carrying
out a
genocide policy outside Serbia. But there is no genocide policy
in Serbia, for which territory I am responsible as the
president.
They want to shift on me the blame for the crimes they have committed.
They say, our heroic defense against NATO aggression was just a cover
for crimes against Albanians. But you are
insulting the whole of the
nation. The facts known to the planet – about 24-hour bombing of Kosovo within
78 days – are
attempted to be abolished with witnesses’ help. The
witnesses will be forced to say they had to escape from “the
Serbian
forces”, as you call the army and police. The facts well-known to every citizen
on the planet will be denied by
some witnesses who are expected to
come here and say: “We escaped not from NATO bombing, but we escaped from
Kosovo because of the Serbian forces.”
You have just seen the tapes from the west and heard the generals deny
the facts. There are other witnesses who
wish to come here and say,
what is true and false in the construction you offer. The whole of the
construction is false.
The escape, that you consider to be a deportation, coincides with the
bombing. The dates fixed in the charges coincide
with the dates of
bombing. Here is one more evidence of manipulation with the facts and attempts
of shifting the
responsibility for the crimes on the victim. NATO
bombed and organized mass killing of the Albanians, who did not obey to
the orders of the Kosovo liberation army to escape, the people beaten
and killed because they did not want to escape.
Such was the concept
voiced by Madeline Albright: Serbs oust Albanians; Albanians are consequently to
leave Kosovo
to prove the thesis that we oust them.
After bombing leaflets in Albanian with appeals to leave Kosovo fell
down from the planes. The Kosovo liberation army,
as well as its
ally, did the same and killed everyone who tried to resist. Nevertheless,
Albanians did not wish to escape
and got back to their villages.
Certainly, people from the areas of hard battles had to escape and they did.
Serbs escaped
to Hungary, the Serbian Republic (on the territory of
Bosnia and Herzegovina). May of the people who had left the place
during the war, got back to the Serbian Republic; they have been probably ousted
by “the Serbian forces”, as the
accusation says. It seems as though
something of the kind can be invented in ten years to shift the blame for one’s
own
crime onto other people.
I am asking a question: is there a court capable to cancel the 24-hour
bombing within 78 days only based on the evidence
of so-called
witnesses, who say they have been ousted by “the Serbian forces”? I am sure, it
is a crime for the
Prosecutor to use this lie. By the way, probably
it would be better to allow such statements of the Prosecutor and make
the planet watch this farce. Intellect of a normal human is insulted
by the statements made here. Yesterday it was said:
crimes accompany
deportations always. But the truth is, when a collision with a terrorist group
or bombing occur, the
population does escape. The way you treat the
situation presents the collisions with the terrorist group and bombing you
saw on the tape as crimes committed by “the Serbian forces”, and
escape of the population is treated as a deportation. I
say once
again, the Kosovo liberation army forced the people to leave the place with
orders, assault and murders, and
then NATO joined with bombing and
appeals for escape. This is the truth about your deportation stories.
I would like to say a fact known to everyone in Serbia. The Serbian
tradition says, a prisoner of war and an unarmed man
are a relic,
anyone who attempts at it is to pay for it. Neither army, nor police did it. I
do not mean that this could not be
done by some separate groups or
individuals. I only mean, the police and army have not been involved in it; they
only
protected the country. Some separate people can commit crimes in
any country of the world, they are accused and
persecuted everywhere.
To me mind, army and police, state, government and nation can not be accused of
such crimes.
Military men and police know better than anybody else, how many
terrorists escaped among the civilians. It was easy to
discern
terrorists among the civilians as they took off the uniform and had only the
underwear on to escape. It was a
safe way for the terrorists to
escape, as the police and servicemen could not open fire when civilians could be
wounded
or killed as well. It is an open secret that many terrorists
escaped this way. US representatives in Kosovo knew about it.
The
terrorists knew about the instruction not to open fire in the crowds with
civilians. We have already discussed it, but
the instruction was
still in force.
Thus, the top-priority task of the army and police was to neutralize
the terrorist organization of the Kosovo liberation army
and
protection of the civilians. Do you think any mass deportation could be
organized without any command or special
preparation? The witnesses
you saw on the tapes yesterday, said they would not confirm the lies. during the
break they
were asked by journalists as for comments to the tapes.
The people answered they were not going to testify. Do invite
these
witnesses for us to hear what they have to say. Anyone, who speaks truth, will
say the line of my government
and myself was honest. Lots of things
have been enumerated as proofs. I do not think they are bad. Yesterday the
decorating of three generals was mentioned. I do not think it is bad
to decorate the generals who defended the country.
Yes, thousands of
people have been decorated for the courage during the NATO aggression. We are
the only country
that shook down a NATO stealth-technology plane.
When I saw the plane in the base, Mr.Holbrook told me, the
construction cost $2,5 billion. When the head of the military base told me the
place cost, let us say, $40 million,
Mr.Holbrook whispered to me: “Do
not believe. They understate the spending, the plane costs not less than $250
million.”
This plane, that can not be seen, was shoot down in our
country. I think the man who did it, deserves a decoration, even
fifty decorations for the act.
Everyone who shook down a plane or a cruise missile will be decorated.
To be continued
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