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Massacres pretext Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=586&ncid=586&e=1&u=/nm/20020927/wl_nm/milosevic_dc_10"As a pretext for military engagement, genocide carried out by Serbs will be made up...by making it appear a genocide was carried out, an anathema will be placed on the heads of Serbs and measures will be carried out," was how Milosevic summarized the thinking he said lay behind Srebrenica.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=586&ncid=586&e=1&u=/nm/20020927/wl_nm/milosevic_dc_10
Srebrenica Was Plot to Discredit Serbs - Milosevic
Fri Sep 27, 8:19 AM ET
By Abigail Levene
THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Mercenaries directed by Bosnia's Muslim leaders and French spies carried out the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in a plot to make the world hate the Serbs, Slobodan Milosevic ( news - web sites) said on Friday.
The former Serb leader is on trial for genocide and one count relates to Srebrenica, Europe's worst atrocity since World War II in which up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed after Serb forces overran the U.N. "safe area" in Bosnia.
The former Yugoslav president, in opening arguments at the key Bosnia and Croatia section of his landmark war crimes trial, claimed Serbs were simply the scapegoats and were not to blame.
"I want the truth to be revealed for this insane crime -- in the interest of justice it has to be explained before the world public," he declared.
"As a pretext for military engagement, genocide carried out by Serbs will be made up...by making it appear a genocide was carried out, an anathema will be placed on the heads of Serbs and measures will be carried out," was how Milosevic summarized the thinking he said lay behind Srebrenica.
Milosevic, charged with genocide in Bosnia and with crimes against humanity in Croatia, said those responsible were members of the Bosnian Muslim government and a mercenary unit -- within but not commanded by the Bosnian Serb army -- and French intelligence services.
He told the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia in The Hague ( news - web sites) that the massacre plot was hatched at a meeting in July 1995 -- just days before the killings -- at the home of a Muslim municipal official.
"They agreed to have this crime committed -- to abandon Srebrenica and to carry out this slaughter," he said as Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte watched him across the courtroom.
GENOCIDE GENERAL'S "MILITARY HONOR"
The Hague tribunal last year set a precedent by convicting former Bosnian Serb General Radislav Krstic for genocide over the Srebrenica massacre that shocked the world.
Milosevic said, however, that neither Krstic nor former Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic -- wanted by The Hague for genocide along with Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic -- knew anything about the Srebrenica murders.
"I am convinced the military honor of Mladic and Krstic would not allow them to execute civilians," he said.
He himself heard of the Srebrenica massacre from former U.N. Balkans envoy Carl Bildt, he said, adding: "President Karadzic swore to me he didn't know a thing about this."
Prosecutors, who opened their Bosnia and Croatia case on Thursday, said Milosevic was linked to Srebrenica because of the involvement of Serbian interior ministry police there.
"The information I have compiled...speaks of how (Bosnian Muslim wartime leader Alija) Izetbegovic used Srebrenica for all kinds of manipulations and held it in his own reserve for various political bargains," Milosevic thundered.
FIRST WITNESS
After Milosevic finished his opening speech, prosecutors called their first witness: a former Serb politician from Western Slavonia, a region of Croatia seized by rebel ethnic Serbs and finally retaken by Croats in a 1995 blitz offensive.
A moderate member of the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) in Croatia -- which had urged Serbs to rebel against Zagreb's independence in 1991 -- the identity of the witness was concealed for his own protection and he was known only as C-037. The SDS in Croatia became more radical and marginalized the moderate politicians. The radical Serbs rejected the notion of remaining within Croatia if it seceded from Yugoslavia.
The prosecution sought to show that with Milosevic's approval, radical Croatian Serbs refused to negotiate with the Croatian government and resorted to violence, and that Milosevic offered Yugoslav Army protection for the radical SDS faction.
Prosecutors plan to call 177 witnesses in this stage, including former Yugoslav President Zoran Lilic and Croatia's President Stjepan Mesic, to prove their Bosnia and Croatia case.
Prosecutors have already put their case against him relating to war crimes in Kosovo in Europe's biggest international war crimes trial since Hitler's henchmen were tried at Nuremberg.
They say Milosevic masterminded an ethnic cleansing plan to carve out a Greater Serbia in the early 1990s. Milosevic has refused to plead out of scorn for the Hague tribunal but insists his ethnic kin were the victims, not perpetrators, of the war.
The former Serbian and Yugoslav president faces 61 charges for Croatia and Bosnia covering the 1991-5 period. The Kosovo case that prosecutors wrapped up two weeks ago covered 1999 and featured 124 witnesses in open session.
Milosevic is the first head of state ever to be indicted for such crimes while in office. He was Serbian president from 1990 to 1997, when he became Yugoslav president.
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