[ALBSA-Info] NYTimes.com Article: Milosevic Claims Moral Victory in War Crimes Trial

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Milosevic Claims Moral Victory in War Crimes Trial

February 18, 2002 

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS


 

Filed at 2:12 p.m. ET 



THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) -- Slobodan Milosevic ended a
three-day tirade against ``new colonialism'' by the West,
then heard the first prosecution witness in his war crimes
trial testify later Monday about a Yugoslav scorched-earth
plan to kill Kosovo Muslims. 

Mahmut Bakali, an ethnic Albanian and former head of
Kosovo's Communist Party, said he had heard of the plan for
a Serb invasion of Kosovo -- the province of Serbia with a
Muslim majority of ethnic Albanians -- from the Serbian
head of security in 1997, David Gajic. 

``It was the plan of Serbia, or a plan of Milosevic,'' he
said, ``This would be insanity on a large scale.'' 

Bakali's testimony moved the trial into its second phase
after the prosecutors and Milosevic spent a week laying out
their cases in opening statements. The former Yugoslav
president is on trial on 66 counts of war crimes during the
1991-99 Balkan wars, including genocide in Bosnia. He could
be sentenced to life if convicted on any count. 

During a 10-hour opening statement, Milosevic seized the
offensive, blaming his enemies for the crimes of which he
himself stands accused, and describing himself as a
peacemaker. 

He showed contempt toward the prosecution's portrait of him
as a ruthless power seeker who orchestrated the murder and
expulsions of non-Serbs to create a ``greater Serbia'' in
the former Yugoslavia, now made up only of Serbia and much
smaller Montenegro. 

To gain a conviction, the prosecution must prove Milosevic
either ordered atrocities against civilians, or that he
knew about -- or had reason to know about -- crimes
committed by his subordinates that he failed to prevent or
punish. 

With its first witness, the prosecution began to build its
case that Serb brutalities were premeditated and well
planned. 

Bakali said the plan he heard from Gajic was intended ``to
destroy 700 Albanian-populated settlements and to destroy
property and to destroy people.'' 

He said he warned the security chief that the blitz would
result in war. 

Bakali was fired by the Yugoslav leadership in 1980 for
allegedly organizing pro-independence protests by Kosovo
Albanians. He disappeared from public view until 1998, when
he became a member of a Kosovo Albanian delegation that
negotiated the reopening of Albanian-language universities
in Kosovo. He met several times with Milosevic that year. 

Describing one of the meetings, Bakali said: ``I told him:
'You are killing women and children,''' referring to a
police action in the village of Prekaz that left more than
40 members of a family dead in early 1998. 

Milosevic apparently replied: ``We are fighting against
terrorism.'' Milosevic said the police had given the
residents two hours to flee but they didn't, according to
Bakali. 

``He knew about the incident,'' Bakali said. 

Earlier, Milosevic ended his opening statement as he had
begun it last Thursday, with a denunciation of the tribunal
as ``an instrument of lies,'' and rejecting its ``false and
inverted indictments.'' 

Although he may cross-examine witnesses, it was the last
opportunity Milosevic will have to say his peace until the
prosecution winds up its case, probably in about a year. 

Milosevic accused the West of manipulating ethnic hatred in
the Yugoslav republics to break apart the country and place
it under Western domination. He singled out Germany and the
United States for allegedly supplying separatist groups
with arms. 

``War on the territory of Yugoslavia was incited by big
Western powers,'' Milosevic said. ``The goal of Western
envoys was not to bring peace, but their interest was
destroying the country and ensuring a new colonialism.'' 

Mounting his own defense, Milosevic has come to every court
session with a heavy leather briefcase. He read from stacks
of notes and presented scores of gory photos and video
footage showing the victims of the 78-day NATO bombing
campaign of Yugoslavia that ended the Serb crackdown in
Kosovo. 

Milosevic denied prosecution charges he planned and ordered
the Srebrenica massacre of thousands of Bosnian Muslims in
July 1995, for which he stands accused of genocide. 

More than 7,000 Muslim men and boys were killed in a
weeklong rampage by Serb forces in the U.N.-declared
Bosnian safe area. Witnesses say captives were lined up and
gunned down by machine gun fire. 

Milosevic said he learned about the killings from U.N.
special envoy Carl Bildt and immediately ordered an
investigation. He said men were arrested, but had to be
released because of a lack of evidence. 

He also denied knowledge of the horrors in Bosnian prison
camps -- where thousands of non-Serbs perished during the
1992-1995 Bosnian war -- saying he was told prisoners were
being kept only briefly to be swapped in prisoner
exchanges.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-War-Crimes-Milosevic.html?ex=1015070025&ei=1&en=e813a82c2a65b12a



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