Slobo: Serbs Were Real Victims

More than two years after his trial opened, Slobodan Milosevic launched his defense against war crimes charges Tuesday, insisting with indignation that the Serbs he led with an iron fist were the real victims in the wars that tore apart Yugoslavia and destroyed millions of lives.

Charging that the prosecution case was a "distortion of history," Milosevic said Serbia's actions were a response to rebellions by other ethnic groups and outside threats by Islamic radicals who piggybacked on Yugoslavia's tensions to foment mayhem in the Balkans.

Milosevic sometimes turned red with the effort as he rushed to complete his opening statement in the allotted four hours, frustrating translators who struggled to keep up with his rapid-paced presentation in the Serbian language. He pressed the judges for more time, arguing that prosecutors took three days to outline their case when the trial opened in February 2002.

He is charged with 66 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Balkan wars of the 1990s which killed more than 200,000 people.

Prosecutors say he was responsible for ethnic cleansing to create a "greater Serbia" that united Serbs across the former Yugoslavia. In 150 trial days, the prosecution failed to present a "smoking gun" proving he ordered illegal operations, but built a circumstantial case seeking to establish the chain of command for war crimes.

Milosevic said the accusations against him were "an unscrupulous lie and also a tireless distortion of history," and said he had defended his country against a conspiracy to "wipe out Serbia from the map of Europe." He charged that prosecutors had "presented everything in a lopsided manner" to fit their version of events.

He again challenged the legitimacy of the court. He said its creation in 1993 by the U.N. Security Council was illegal and "the most serious form of discrimination against one country."

"This tribunal was formed with the sole purpose in mind of covering up the mistakes of failed Western policy," he said. The court was designed at the height of the Balkan fighting as "an instrument of war" by the NATO countries.

Milosevic portrayed the Serbs as victims rather than aggressors: victims of a plan supported by the United States and Europe to break up Yugoslavia, of an attempt to wipe out Croatia's Serb minority, and of a Saudi-financed plot to create an Islamic state in Bosnia.

He compared events in Croatia at the start of the Balkan wars in 1991 to the "genocide of Serbs by Croatian fascists in 1941." He said tens of thousands of Serbs were killed or driven from their homes in Croatia before the Yugoslav army responded.

"This is a classical example of an armed rebellion against a state," he said. "A state has the right to use all means necessary to control the rebellion."

Later, Milosevic said, mujahadeen fighters flooded into Muslim-dominated Bosnia from Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Morocco "to support the first Islamic state in Europe." The Afghans came with arms supplied by the U.S. intelligence agency, the CIA, Milosevic said.

Milosevic's case, seen as the most important war crimes trial since World War II, has been repeatedly delayed by his poor health. The start of the defense was originally set for April, but was postponed five times when doctors determined that Milosevic's blood pressure was dangerously high.

The three U.N. judges must still decide whether to override Milosevic's objections and appoint a defense lawyer to avoid more months of postponements and to keep the proceedings professional.

They also must decide whether his indictment — which covers alleged crimes committed during the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo — should be broken into separate parts to speed up proceedings.

Milosevic studied law, but had never before practiced it. Representing himself, he has used the trial as a platform for political rhetoric more than for legal argument.

On Tuesday, Judge Robinson cautioned Milosevic that he was wasting time with historical arguments that were legally irrelevant and would not be admitted as evidence.

The first witnesses won't be called before Sept. 7, the tribunal said. Milosevic initially submitted a list of 1,400 names, but only a small portion can be called during the 150 days he has been given to present his case.

His lawyers say he wants to call former U.S. President Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, among many foreign politicians. The judges can refuse to call witnesses if they are considered irrelevant to the defense case.

Prosecutors closed their case in January after calling nearly 300 witnesses in 150 trial days.