Fighting Over History
WAR OF WORDS: Croatian President Stipe Mesic answers questions from former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic
AP Photo/ICTY
Thursday, Oct. 3, 2002
Stipe Mesic never once looked at Slobodan Milosevic, but that didn't stop the exchanges between the long-time adversaries from being heated and personal. Interpreters had to work hard to keep up with the pace.
"You are testifying here that I was the one who broke up Yugoslavia and that you were in favor of Yugoslavia. And any child in Yugoslavia knows?," began Milosevic, before Mesic interrupted him.
"I think that we can reach agreement on one thing very quickly here. I am not the person on trial here," said Mesic.
"Well that's the point!" said Milosevic, who thinks the wrong man is sitting in the dock.
"We're going to adjourn now," said an exasperated Judge Richard May, who also worked hard to keep the dramatic proceedings under control as the two political leaders argued over their very different versions of Balkan history. Often frustrated, Judge May reminded Milosevic more than once that accusing other people of crimes is not a legal defense. It often seems, though, that Milosevic doesn't care: he frequently addresses the public gallery when speaking instead of the court — he maintains his real audience is the public and not the court, which he refuses to recognize.
President Mesic testified that Milosevic broke up Yugoslavia. But Milosevic says it was Mesic — as Yugoslavia's last president — who disbanded the country. During cross-examination, Milosevic sought to discredit Mesic by accusing him of everything from assassinating political rivals to cooperating with the Hague court in order to avoid his own responsibility for war crimes. He also accused Mesic of being part of the Croatian nationalist movement that incited the Serbs there to violence.
"Pure fantasy," is how President Mesic answered most of those charges. He says it was Milosevic who caused Croatian Serbs to rebel. While admitting Croatian nationalists inflamed anti-Serb sentiments, dismissed many Serbs from jobs in Croatia, and committed some war crimes, Mesic said he himself always worked for peace and that Croatia is now a lawful state prosecuting suspected war criminals. In any event, testified Mesic, "that is no reason for destroying Dubrovnik, for destroying Vukovar, for destroying [other] Croatian cities." And it's certainly no reason, added Mesic, to massacre civilians. President Mesic's testimony continues Thursday.
In other news from the Tribunal that could have implications for the Milosevic trial, a former president of the Bosnian Serb republic pleaded guilty to persecuting non-Serbs in Bosnia ten years ago. Speaking via a video link, 72-year-old Biljana Plavsic changed her original plea and admitted guilt to one count of persecution. In exchange for that plea, prosecutors dropped all seven of the other charges against her — including genocide. Plavsic has been on provisional release for a year, and her location was kept a highly-guarded secret.
Speaking in The Hague, though, her lawyer Eugene O'Sullivan said by accepting responsibility and expressing remorse, Plavsic hopes to offer consolation to the victims from all three sides in the Bosnian war. "Her acceptance of this responsibility will, she hopes, enable her people to move past the carnage of the past decade," says O'Sullivan, "to reconcile with their neighbors, and, ultimately, to restore their dignity as a respected people." She called on other Balkan leaders to do the same.
Prosecutors welcomed Plavsic's decision as "unprecedented and courageous." Indeed, Plavsic is the first political leader to admit guilt. "It's a word I don't like, but it is a historical moment, because it hasn't happened before in this way and it hasn't happened in this war," says lawyer Heikelina Verrrijn Stuart. "It's still so problematic ? and that somebody who was in charge within the power group in Serbia — somebody who knows everything that happened — now says that she's remorseful and she's admitting to every, every detail — for the victims and for the perpetrators, that must be a very huge step forward."
By pleading guilty, Plavsic is admitting to the murder and torture of hundreds of non-Serbs at Bosnia's prison camps and the systematic rape of women in the town of Foca. But her lawyers say no deals were made with prosecutors regarding her sentence — which could be life in prison — and that she hasn't agreed to testify against anyone else at the Hague court, including former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. But she may not have to. In her guilty plea, Plavsic admits that the Bosnian Serbs worked with the Yugoslav army and Serbian paramilitary troops in Bosnia, something that could very well be used against Milosevic. Prosecutors are trying to prove that Milosevic — when he was the president of Serbia — was responsible for the wars in Bosnia and Croatia. Regarding Bosnia, Plavsic may have just provided a crucial link.
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