|
Milosevic on Trial
Serbian Faces War Crime Charges in International Court of Justice
Latest story:
 March 12, 2002 -- All Things Considered: Sylvia Poggioli reports from Belgrade that Yugoslavs are closely following live television coverage of Slobodan Milosevic's war crimes trial in the Hague. Before the trial began, reformers in Serbia hoped the proceedings would force their countrymen to confront the brutality of the crimes committed in their name. But with the help of supporters back home, Milosevic has mounted a surprisingly skillful defense, acting as his own attorney. Reformers fear the trial may actually be fueling Serbs' feeling that they are being victimized.
The trial in brief:
It has been called the most important war crimes trial since Nazi leaders were prosecuted in Nuremberg, Germany after World War II. Slobodan Milosevic -- dubbed the "Butcher of the Balkans" by his enemies but considered a hero for those fighting for a Greater Serbia -- faces charges of genocide and "crimes against humanity" for his part in three separate but closely related wars that tore apart the former Yugoslavia.
Prosecutors at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, accuse Milosevic of "medieval savagery" in his climb to power as the leader of a collapsing communist country.
"Beyond the nationalist pretext and the horror of ethnic cleansing, behind the grandiloquent rhetoric and the hackneyed phrases -- the search for power is what motivated Slobodan Milosevic," Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte told the panel of judges on the first day of Milosevic's trial on Feb. 12, 2002.
 |
|
Milosevic faces three separate indictments at the International Court of Justice:
• In 1999, Milosevic -- along with four other senior Serb officials, still at large -- was indicted for his alleged role in the murder of 900 Kosovo Albanians and the "ethnic cleansing" expulsion of 800,000 civilians.
• In 2001, Milosevic was indicted for his alleged responsibility in the deaths of hundreds of Croats and other non-Serbs from 1991 to 1992 and the forced deportation of 170,000 from Croatia.
• Also in 2001, Milosevic was accused of responsibility for his alleged role in the the massacre of civilians in Srebrenica, Bosnia, the killing of several thousand Bosnian Muslim men and boys, the three-year siege of Sarajevo by Serb militia and the deportation or imprisonment of more than 250,000 people.
|
|
Milosevic is charged with genocide in the 1992-95 Bosnian war. He faces "crimes against humanity" for his part in the conflict in Croatia from 1991-92, and in Kosovo in 1999.
Milosevic has refused to recognize the legitimacy of the court and insists on representing himself, rather than seek the assistance of defense lawyers. Judges entered not guilty pleas on his behalf and appointed three international lawyers as "friends of the court" to help look out for Milosevic's legal rights.
Under Milosevic's watch, more than one million people were thrown into prison or forced to flee throughout the Balkans. Tens of thousands more were killed or injured during the three conflicts, and whole cities were reduced to rubble. The term "ethnic cleansing" entered the English lexicon as a way of describing the violence.
"Some of the incidents revealed an almost medieval savagery and a calculated cruelty that went far beyond the bounds of legitimate warfare," Del Ponte told the court.
|
|
A skull of a Bosnian man shot with a bullet in the head waits to be identified in a morgue in Visoko, Bosnia, Feb. 11, 2002. The remains of hundreds of other Muslims believed to be killed by Bosnian Serb forces early in the 1992-95 war have been found in mass graves.
Copyright 2002 Reuters Limited
|
However, Milosevic has dismissed the charges as a conspiracy by Western nations and NATO to end his legitimate rule and hide Western meddling in the region's politics.
Some of Milosevic's supporters, protesting the trial outside the court, called the trial a "lynching." They accuse the West of making him a scapegoat for a failed peace deal and a Western push for more power in the region, and lay greater blame on former President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
But Milosevic's foes are demanding that the world do more to repair the damage of "ethnic cleansing" and help refugees go home.
 Browse more NPR stories on Milosevic, International Court of Justice, Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia.
|
