HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK ---------------------------
[Remember, Mesic is the man who authored the book "How We Destroyed Yugoslavia" and vowed upon assuming the position of the President of the Presidency of the Yugoslav federation that he would be "Yugoslavia's last president"!!!!!!]
Croat Chief Testifies Vs. Milosevic
By KATARINA KRATOVAC
.c The Associated Press
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - Croatian President Stipe Mesic calmly testified at Slobodan Milosevic's genocide trial Tuesday, saying the former Serb leader was ``doing everything to destroy'' Yugoslavia while claiming he wanted to save the nation.
Mesic was the first head of state to appear in the former Yugoslav leader's landmark U.N. proceedings.
``What he (Milosevic) was interested in was a 'greater Serbia' that would be created on the ruins of the former Yugoslavia,'' Mesic said. ``Milosevic said he was fighting for Yugoslavia, but he was doing everything to destroy it,'' he said.
Mesic, the last chairman of the rotating Yugoslav presidency, added new detail on the tense run-up to nearly a decade of warfare that erupted with Croatia's war of independence in 1991.
Milosevic, 61, faces 66 counts of war crimes during the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, 61 of them for the wars in Croatia and Bosnia for which he is now on trial.
Before Mesic walked into the courtroom, Milosevic blamed the Croat leader for Yugoslavia's downfall.
``This witness is problematic in every way because of his criminal role in destroying Yugoslavia,'' Milosevic said.
Mesic, 67, sat a few feet from Milosevic in the witness stand and avoided eye contact with the accused as he dryly answered questions from U.N. prosecutors about Milosevic's prewar policies.
Mesic accused Milosevic of intentionally setting off ethnic violence in Croatia in order to create a nation for the Serbs that incorporated large portions of Bosnia. Serbia is the dominant republic in Yugoslavia.
``The Serbs in Croatia were needed to ignite the fuse, in order for the war to be transferred to Bosnia and Herzegovina,'' Mesic said.
Mesic said Milosevic - the Serbian president at the time - took control of the Yugoslav federal budget, funded by all member states, and used the National Bank to finance Serb forces in Croatia and later Bosnia.
Milosevic transformed the Yugoslav army into a force loyal to the Serb cause, Mesic said, prompting Croatia to cut payments to what Mesic said had become ``an aggressor against Croatia ... sided with Milosevic.''
Mesic testified about a meeting in March 1991 where Milosevic and Croatia's late President Franjo Tudjman are said to have secretly discussed dividing Bosnia.
Although Mesic wasn't at the meeting, he said Tudjman later told him that Milosevic had suggested he ``take'' Croat-populated lands in southwestern Bosnia.
``Events on the ground later showed that the plans from that meeting were taking action in Bosnia,'' Mesic said, as Bosnian Serbs and Croats occupied land and proclaimed it their own.
In Tuesday's hearings, Mesic reviewed the minutes of a meeting of Yugoslavia's rotating presidency in July 1991 at which he warned that Milosevic intended to conquer Croatia.
``That can happen only through a horrible war and in blood - Croatia will never relinquish a centimeter of its land to Serbia,'' he said at the meeting.
Mesic is expected to testify for two days about unsuccessful negotiations among ex-Yugoslav leaders intended to stave off war when Croatia declared independence in 1991.
He can give firsthand accounts of the Balkan politics that fueled the disintegration of the former six-state federation and Milosevic's alleged role in the region's ethnic bloodletting.
Last week, in the opening statement for the Bosnia-Croatia phase of the trial, Milosevic, who is defending himself, rejected prosecution charges that he masterminded a plan to purge non-Serbs from Serb-dominated areas of Croatia and Bosnia.
Milosevic was indicted by the U.N. tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in May 1999, becoming the first head of state to be charged for war crimes while in office.
10/01/02 11:29 EDT
--------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST
==^^=============================================================== This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x4K.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 ==^^===============================================================
