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Milosevic Behind Yugoslav Break Up, Croat Leader Says
Reuters via Yahoo ^ | 10/1/02 | Katie Nguyen

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.


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: balkans; campaignfinance; croatia; serbia; yugoslavia
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Comment #21 Removed by Moderator

Comment #22 Removed by Moderator

Comment #23 Removed by Moderator

To: Tropoljac
Oh, that's funny! That's reallly funny! The Croatian Serbs were led by collaborationist Chetnik Momcilo Djujic who was evacuated by the Germans in 1945 to Italy.

Here you are taking things out of context again, Trop. Sure, there were Chetniks who collaborated, especially those who were outside the Ravna Gora command, but someone had to fight the Germans and their allies. The backbone of the Partzian movement, the cannon futter, were the Serbs. The Croats didn't fight the Germans in any significant numbers. And Slovenes...that's another story.

If the Serbs didn't fight, YUgoslavia would have been "liberated" by the Red Army in 1944 and incorporated into the Eastern Block and Warsaw Pact and the balance of power would have been lost -- with Greece for sure going communist as well. The world would have looked a lot different for the next 50 years if it hadn't been for those Serbs.

24 posted on 10/01/2002 6:35:00 PM PDT by kosta50
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Comment #25 Removed by Moderator

To: Tropoljac
By your logic above, Kosovo is free to go as well you know...or are they not allowed since they're Albanians and Kosovo is the sacred Serbian home

That's a negative. The right to self-determination was Constoitutionally reserved only for "constituent peoples," Trop, and not for "nationalities." Since the Serbs inside Socialist Croatia were a constituent people, they had every right to secede from Croatia.

Besides, Miloshevich warned that if Yugoslavia breaks up, the internal borders are up for grabs ebcause they were not protected under the Helsinki Accord.

26 posted on 10/01/2002 6:39:47 PM PDT by kosta50
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Comment #27 Removed by Moderator

To: Tropoljac
Yugoslavia still had a chance, until you guys let Slovenia go

That goes without saying. At that point the rest of the dissolution should have been negotiated.

28 posted on 10/01/2002 6:42:34 PM PDT by kosta50
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Comment #29 Removed by Moderator

To: Tropoljac
Nevertheless, 12% or not, by the Croatoian constitution, the Serbs were one of the two constituent peoples of Croatia and therefore had a constitutional right to self-determination. Their methods may be subject to some scrutiny but not their right.
30 posted on 10/01/2002 6:44:52 PM PDT by kosta50
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To: Tropoljac
It wasn't about numbers, Trop, but by the definition of Yugoslav federation -- Yugoslavia was a federation of contituent peoples: Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Montenegrins and Macedonians. Others were national minorities which did not have the constiutional right to self-determination and I believe that's in line with the uN Charter otherwise you'd have a chaos.
31 posted on 10/01/2002 6:47:06 PM PDT by kosta50
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Comment #32 Removed by Moderator

Comment #33 Removed by Moderator

To: Tropoljac
I was trying to point out Mesic's dishonesty. He blames Milosevic for the break-up, for which he worked so hard as head of state and he even decorates himself with the final achievment of breaking up that state(Yugoslvia )!

Imagine George W. Bush saying:"...ladies and gentleman, my job is finished.The US does not exist anymore..."

If Slobo was willing to accept a confederal solution to Yugoslavia, it'd most likely be around today.

Most likely, huh? How likely is that, that Croats would have given up their 1000 year old dream? Be honest, not very likey!:) The goal would have been achieved then in two steps(first confederation, then independence)! Instead, it was in one step! The Krajina Serbs would have been screwed anyways with same result as we know it today!

The job rotated from one administrative unit to the next. When it was our turn, Slobo and his three yes men blocked the standard procedure. Then later the JNA refused to heed the orders of its commander-in-chief, President Mesic. That commander-in-chief would have been shot in any normal country in the world by every decent soldier. He was a traitor guilty of high treason!

...and what about the Croats caught in the secessionist Serb areas? Towns like Slunj and Drnis which had Croat majorities? Could they further secede from the Serbian secession brought on by the Croatian secession?

Why not? It's not the serbs who started this game of secession, so don't complain about it! As I said, you can't demand a right for yourself and then refuse the same right to the other party. As it was the the croats right to seccede, so it was the serb's right! Fair enough!

Oh, that's funny! That's reallly funny! The Croatian Serbs were led by collaborationist Chetnik Momcilo Djujic who was evacuated by the Germans in 1945 to Italy. He never once fought the Italians or Germans.

He was to busy fighting the Ustasha Monsters:), but there were Serbs who faught the Germans. Wouldn't you agree or are we going to rewrite history? And by the way, the Serbs did win the last two World Wars and there's nothing we can change about it. Denying them their historical 'reward' isn't helpful! By the way there were collaborationist everywhere at that time. They even claimed Draza Mihajlovic was one!

Regarding the term genocide, all I can say: Eye for an eye!

34 posted on 10/01/2002 6:53:09 PM PDT by DestroyEraseImprove
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Comment #35 Removed by Moderator

Comment #36 Removed by Moderator

To: Tropoljac
...and therefore the Croats within the Serb unit as well. By your logic above, Kosovo is free to go as well you know...or are they not allowed since they're Albanians and Kosovo is the sacred Serbian home?

I'm talking about constituent people that would have the right to self determination! As the albanians were not a constituent people, but a minority (including a large number of illegal immigrants from the last decades), this would not apply to them!

37 posted on 10/01/2002 7:00:04 PM PDT by DestroyEraseImprove
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To: vooch; ABrit; Hoplite; Fusion
if "greater serbia" was Milosevic's key policy why didn't he ever mention it?

Because it was a top secret, perfectly hidden like the death and rape camps were. Lack of evidence is a proof of Serbian perfidy. I am sure Hoplite, Fusion or A-brit can explain it to you.

38 posted on 10/01/2002 7:01:23 PM PDT by A. Pole
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To: Tropoljac
All the WW2 Chetniks that I know are from Dalmatia and Lika. Not one of them has one good thing to say about the Germans or the Ustashe. They've told me numberous stories about them being caught in the middle of the two.

There were two wars going on in Yugoslavia during WW2. One was the Axis vs. the Allies. The other was a 3 sided civil war that included Chetniks, Partisans, and Ustashe. Because some Chetniks cut deals with the Italians or Germans promising not to attack them so they can fight the Partisans without worrying about the Germans attacking from another front does not make those Chetniks either part of the Axis or even its ally. To the Chetniks of Dalmatia and Lika, the Germans were as much the enemy as the Partisans or the Ustashe.

39 posted on 10/01/2002 7:02:17 PM PDT by getoffmylawn
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Comment #40 Removed by Moderator


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