Notizie dall'Aja...

[yurj]

The Hague▓s Nightmare: Milosevic Strikes Above the Belt

The first stage of the trial of Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, which was devoted to Kosovo, concluded on September 11. The prosecution failed to provide any important witnesses, and the accused defended himself and artfully conducted cross-examinations. Here are the reports of Russian news agencies about the case.

The trial of the former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who is accused of war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, has recommenced in the Hague last week. The first stage of the hearing devoted to Kosovo is already over, and the second stage is dedicated to Bosnia and Croatia (the events of 1991-1995 are to be covered). The Milosevic trial has arlready been forgotten in the West, and criticism of Milosevic is less harsih in the foreign mass media. Observers say that Milosevic produces rather crushing facts and his opponents have nothing to respons with. The trial on the whole and all the charges are very obvious. It is better in this situation not to set up a clamor and use the trial to demonstrate to the world what will happen to those who disagree with the opinion of the "world community" (the USA and NATO in particular).


On Friday, Slobodan Milosevic declared that the ⌠nationalism of Croatia▓s local authorities■ who came to power in Zagreb in 1990 was the main cause of the war in Croatia. Rebellions in Croatia▓s Serbian enclaves incited continual persecutions and humiliation of Serbs. Croats intended to drive them out of the republic. Serbs were persecuted everywhere, those who disagreed were severely beaten, Serbian settlements were destroyed and plundered, ect. According to RIA Novosti, Milosevic cited official statements from the Croatian press at the time and official declarations made by Croatian officials.

When nationalist Franjo Tudjman came to power in Croatia, the record of Serbs as of an ethnic group living on Croatian territory was withdrawn from the constitution completely. There were people who argued to set up special ghetto and resettle the Serbs there.

Duting the trial, Milosevic spoke a lot about the atmosphere of ⌠national hysteria and ethnic hatred,■ which had been spread by Zagreb. As it turned out, the problem wasn▓t at all that Serbs didn▓t want to live in Croatia themselves, as the Hague Tribunal says.

BBC quotes Milosevic as saying that the slaughter in Srebrenice in 1995, when thousands of Muslims were killed, had been especially planned by people intending to satanize Serbs in the eyes of the whole world. These people also needed a reason for a war in Bosnia. ⌠French secret services and the Bosnian Muslim government■ actively participated in preparation for this action. The slaughter had been planned in July 1995, just several days before the events in Srebrenice. Assassins obediently fulfilled the will of their customers and committed mass assassinations. Milosevic said: ⌠The information I obtained proves that the then-leader of the Bosnian Muslims, Alija Izetbegovic, used Srebrenice as means for his personal manipulations and held it in reserve for further political machinations.■ He added: ⌠I want the world community to know the truth about this terrible crime.■

It is an open secret that relations between Slobodan Milosevic and leader of Bosnia Serbs Radovan Karadjic were rather complicated at that time. It was even said that Karadjic was going to testify against Milosevic during the trial. These rumors by the way have turned out to be an unpardonable lie and just another psychological attack on Serbs. However, the ex-president of Yugoslavia hurled no accusations against Karadjic during the trial and denied any blame of Serbian republic President Ratko Mladic for the bloodshed in Bosnia.

Slobodan Milosevic declared: ⌠Radovan Karadjic swore he had known nothing about the events in Srebrenice. I am sure that the military honor of Mladic and Krstic wouldn▓t let them punish the civilian population. The truth is directly opposite to what you are saying. It was the Serbian population that was persecuted, threatened, and assassinated; it was they who were really in danger.■ Milosevic says that the ethnic conflicts in Croatia and Bosnia were incited by the West, which aimed at destroying the united Yugoslav state.


The Hague trial is to proceed this week when incumbent Croatian President Stipe Mesic will appear. Mesic will be held responsible by Milosevic. Slobodan Milosevic blames Mesic for inciting Croatian nationalism, as a result of which the Yugoslav republic broke up. In addition, US Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, ⌠the initiator of the Bosnian peace treaties,■ concluded on the bones of the Bosnian civilian population, is also to appear at the trial.

Sergey Yugov

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President Mesic to give evidence against Milosevic

The President of Croatia, Stipe Mesic, is due to give evidence today against the former Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosevic, at the UN War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague.

Mr Milosevic is charged with genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The BBC says Stipe Mesic is the first of a series of high profile witnesses who will give evidence during this crucial phase of the trial.

He and Mr Milosevic are old adversaries.

Mr Mesic was a member of the collective Presidency of the former Yugoslav federation as it totted on the brink of collapse in the early 1990s.

He has always said he had been happy to give evidence against Slobodan Milosevic.

He is likely to back the prosecution's argument that Mr Milosevic wanted to create a ethnically cleansed greater Serbia at the expense of other ethnic groups in neighbouring republics, like Croatia and Bosnia.

Mr Milosevic has dismissed the charges against him as politically motivated and a falsification of history.

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Ma come? La Nato ha bombardato e quegli incapaci dell'Aja non riescono a dimostrare, con tutti i mezzi e il favor politico, la tesi della NATO.

Per fortuna che esistono i processi in democrazia, almeno oggi ne sappiamo un pò di più...

[yurj]

Milosevic the boy scout

Slobodan Milosevic puts on a show at the international criminal tribunal - and what a performance it is!

Ian Buruma
Tuesday October 1, 2002
The Guardian

Watching Slobodan Milosevic at the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at the Hague is a bit like attending a peep show, or an execution in a US jail. As a visitor, you are separated from the court by a glass wall. You sit in the shadows, while the defendant and his accusers perform in a brightly lit room. And what a performance!

Last Friday, I heard Milosevic tell the court that the "insane crime" of Srebrenica, where 7,000 Muslim men were massacred in 1995, was perpetrated not by General Mladic's Bosnian Serbs but by Croatian mercenaries led by French spooks. Mladic, Milosevic said, was an honourable man, who would never have done such a terrible thing. The massacre was part of a conspiracy to blame the Serbs for the Balkan war.

I tried to find something in Milosevic's facial expression or body language that betrayed even the smallest hint that he realised he was lying. There was nothing. His normal demeanour in court is one of bored contempt. He slouches in his chair and yawns when the witnesses speak. But when Milosevic talks about anti-Serb conspiracies or his eternal quest for peace, or his devotion to the truth, he speaks with the sincerity of a perfect boy scout.

It brought back a meeting I once had with Ferdinand Marcos, in Hawaii, after People Power had booted him out of the Philippines. Like Milosevic, Marcos had this knack of telling absurd lies without any indication that he knew he was in fantasyland. Perhaps he had told them so often that he believed them. But Marcos, by then, was really just addressing himself, to sooth his amour propre. Milosevic is speaking to a gallery not in the Hague but in Belgrade, where his fairy-tales are popular. There, the amour propre to be soothed is not just personal, it is national.

A veteran observer of the criminal court in the Hague called Milosevic "the perfect postmodern politician". In her view, truth holds no value for him. Indeed, he does not believe there is such a thing. All is manipulation. What is being manipulated in the Hague is the most lethal kind of nationalism, based on myths of victimhood, some of them going back centuries. Milosevic is steeped in 19th-century blood and soil ideology. And like German fanatics, who more or less invented it, he appears to be firmly convinced that his poor Volk are constantly plagued by international conspiracies; the whole world is out to stab the Serbs.

This comes as a welcome balm to the wounded pride of Serbs. Not only was their country badly wrecked, but they are burdened with the guilt of what they did to others. There is another gallery, however, to which Milosevic appeals, which goes beyond Serbian borders: nationalists who believe in absolute sovereignty, the kind of people who make a fetish of nationhood. They loathe the EU, of course, and the UN, but are also ready to defend the worst dictators against outside interference. European nationalists of this kind are often loathsome, but usually consistent. They hate any infringement of national sovereignty anywhere. What makes dogmatic nationalists in the US administration unusual - and inconsistent - is that they are dogged defenders of US sovereignty, vis-à-vis international criminal justice, say, but quite prepared - keen even - to intervene abroad.

Milosevic's prosecutors in the Hague have a completely different view of the world. They believe, some of them zealously, in a system of justice that does not recognise national borders. Universalism is their currency. An international criminal court should serve to spread the gospel of universal human rights. How this international justice is to be enforced in a world of sovereign states is a problem. Who is caught and who never will be is often a matter of political expediency.

Still, when I put these issues to some of the prosecutors at the Hague, they spoke of a future world where people would be converted to the virtues of universal values. Virtues and values are key words in their vocabulary. If there is more than a hint of Hitler in Milosevic, his prosecutors tend to sound like missionaries. I am sceptical of utopian schemes, and much damage has been done in the name of internationalism and universal values. And yet one cannot but wish the international court well. It may never be perfect but it is our best bet to hold at least some of the world's monsters to account.