Posted on 10/01/2002 1:42:55 PM PDT by bob808
THE HAGUE (Reuters) - The first head of state to testify at Slobodan Milosevic's war crimes trial accused him on Tuesday of engineering the break up of Yugoslavia and using the army to seize Croat land in the pursuit of a "Greater Serbia."
Croatian President Stjepan Mesic, who took over the rotating Yugoslav presidency in July 1991, said Milosevic invoked the threat of war in his plan to "restructure" Yugoslavia.
The former Serbian president faces 61 charges, including genocide, in this key Bosnia and Croatia stage of the biggest international war crimes trial in Europe since Hitler's henchmen were tried at Nuremberg.
"I'm quite certain that Milosevic did not favor any kind of Yugoslavia that was federal or confederal. What he was interested in was a Greater Serbia built on the ruins of Yugoslavia," Mesic, 67, told the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia in The Hague.
Prosecutors accuse 61-year-old Milosevic of genocide in Bosnia and crimes against humanity in Croatia in a scheme to create an ethically pure Greater Serbia in the early 1990s.
The court heard minutes from a 1991 meeting of the rotating federal presidency in which then-president Mesic -- who held the Yugoslav post for just a few months before resigning -- warned of Serbian imperialism.
"Gentlemen what they want is territory. They want to grab Croatian land and trick the army into doing it for them," prosecutor Geoffrey Nice quoted Mesic as saying during the meeting with representatives of the army and the five other Yugoslav republics.
"Croatian villages have been burned and cleansed. Territory is being seized," Mesic was quoted as saying.
Milosevic, forsaking a united Yugoslavia for the creation of a Serbian state, approved Slovenian and Croatian secession as part of plans to carve the country along ethnic lines, Mesic said.
"Milosevic said let Slovenia go. We know why he said that because there were no indigenous Serbs in Slovenia. He said let Croatia also leave Yugoslavia but not those Serbs who want to remain in Croatia," Mesic, dressed in a dark suit and striped tie, said.
He said Milosevic planned that Croatian territory on which Serbs lived would remain in Yugoslavia, and said the Serb leader deceived the world with his plans and even Serbs in Croatia.
"The Serbs in Croatia were only needed to ignite the fuse in order for the war be transferred to (neighboring) Bosnia Herzegovina. With regard to Croatia whatever territory could be wrested from it would be joined to Greater Serbia," Mesic said.
Contained in the indictment against Milosevic is the notorious 1995 Srebrenica massacre, Europe's worst atrocity since World War II where up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed after Serb forces overran the U.N. "safe area" in Bosnia.
Prosecutors at the U.N. court last month wrapped up their case on Kosovo, where Milosevic and former aides are accused of expelling almost one third of the Albanian population from the disputed Serbian province.
Milosevic was Yugoslav leader during the Kosovo conflict, but experts say convicting him for the Bosnian and Croatian conflicts, when he was Serb leader, will be tough.
"Milosevic said let Slovenia go. We know why he said that because there were no indigenous Serbs in Slovenia. He said let Croatia also leave Yugoslavia but not those Serbs who want to remain in Croatia,"
Uh, correction Stejpan, it should be "... those Serbs who want to remain in Yugoslavia."
So Slobo is guilty for both breaking up Yugoslavia and for trying to keep it together? Mira Markovic, leftist hag that she is, still summed it up best when she said "I wish they would make up their minds."
Stejpan also seems to confirm that Milosevic was only interested in hanging on to Serb inhabited areas. Interesting.
Now Slobo is guilty of "approving" Slovenian and Croatian secession. Absolutely amazing...
But what WAS his job then, I ask? He was the Head of State of the SFRY at that time....and not a patriot at all :) .
"Milosevic said let Slovenia go. We know why he said that because there were no indigenous Serbs in Slovenia. He said let Croatia also leave Yugoslavia but not those Serbs who want to remain in Croatia,"
As bob already mentioned it seems as Stipe is a little bit confused. Now I will try to remind him a little bit. Stipe look,....., when Croatia demanded independence, that means secession from Yugoslavia, the Serbs trapped within Tito's borders in Croatia at that time demanded as a constituent nation the right NOT to leave, that means to stay within Yugoslavia and keep the status quo. The majority serb areas within the Republic of Croatia, declared that they will remain part of Yugoslavia in case Croatia seccedes. That was their right as citizens, as a constituent nation, and as a people that faught two victorious worls wars, defeated Hitler mostly on their own, payed a high price in blood and lives and finally where exposed to genocide by exactly THIS revived Croatia in the 90's. On the same day he declared independence, Tudman the old fox, declared the serbs within Croatia to be a minority and not a constituent people anymore! So he he stripped away the constitutional rights from them and thought he solved that legal problem!! What a genious, or to use my own words, what an as*hole!
But, so let it be. Germany ensured this independence was recognized(planned all along by the highest institutions in Germany and executed by the BND-Klaus Kinkel, Genscher, and Exil-Ustashas in BRD in the 80's, very interesting to research by the way).
The serbs argued then from another point. They applied the former scenario with Yugoslavia and Croatia to Croatia and the Krajina. That means, if Croatia within Yugoslavia had the right to self determination and secession, then surely the serbian Krajina would have that same right within the newly created independent Croatia! They demanded the same right to self determination and secession, as Slovenia and Croatia did before (later followed Bosnia with the Bosnian Serbs, Republika Srpska and the same scenario again)! But guess what, now secession was a bad thing. Not good any more, because Serbs demanded it! But we all know they are just 'Untermenschen'! Ask Stipe, or Franjo,Helmut, Hans-Dietrich and Bill, they can confirm it. Something I, as an intelligent person cannot understand from a rational point of view is, that the State Departement pushed for Bosnia's independence, allthough knowing it meant civil war, death and desruction for that republic.
Just something for american freepers here(amazing statement!): What would you do when some of the states you are living in declared independence? For example California or Florida declared independence from the US against your will and the next day you wake up they tell you that you are not anymore a US-citizen and that you don't have the rights anymore that were granted to you by the US-constitution? You are just a minority in a spanish speaking new and independent mexican California! This is what happened to the serbs in the beginning of the last decade in the former Yugoslavia and guess what, they took up their arms and faught! Are they to blame for that? Just a legal question? And just by the way, they also faught coincidentally Aljia Izetbegovic's radical islam in Bosnia!
Germany already had its hooks in Croatian and the US State Department was caught with its pants down. The US had hoped that Yugoslavia would hold together and be drawn into its sphere of influence.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall information was pouring into US intelligence services so fast that they couldn't keep up with the flood. By the time the State Department got its bearings, Slovenia and Croatia had gone bye bye and the race was on to "colonize" the remaining republics as they fell from the tree. This is when the US threw its weight behind an independent Bosnia. Another factor was Saudi Arabia's blackmail of the US. Saudi Arabia linked the purchase of billions of dollars of jet fighters to the US's backing of the Bosnian Muslims. The one and only true God of the United States had spoken. The Almighty Dollar appeared as a burning bush to Anthony Lake and told him to back a unified and independent Bosnia.
I wish I had the time to see "ex" commie Mesic under cross examination, for it will be the first time he has ever had to answer any hard questions on the subject of his hand in destroying the SFRY.
BTW please note, there hasn't been one speech, one document, one TV interview, one article, one vote.......which places the words "Greater Serbia" in Milosevic's lips..........if "greater serbia" was Milosevic's key policy why didn't he ever mention it ?
That's a little out of context, Trop. The resistance to Mesic assuming the chairmanship of the presidency was based on the fact that Mesic was by then a member of the HDZ, and HDZ's official platform, which, Mesic reiterated, was the dissolution of Yugoslavia, and to be its "last president."
The military had no choice: sworn to uphold the Constitution and defend the country's integrity (physical) from enemies, foreign and dmoestic, could not have possibly supported such a man. Besides, the Presidency, not one member, had the power of a collective commander in chief, so to say that the Army refused to obey Mesic is taking it out of context.
Dissolution of Yuglslavia could have ben accomplished legally only by acclamation. Yugoslav Constitution required concensual agreements in order to avoid outvoting by simple majority (mayorizatsiya).
The fact that Miloshevich did secure 4 votes out of 8 placed Serbia in a better position with respect to the rest of the lobsided federation, but certainly not in the leading position. After all, 4 was only 50%, and concensus was required.
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