US embassy cable - 04THEHAGUE2196

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 THE HAGUE 002196 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR S/WCI - PROSPER/RICHARD, EUR/SCE - 
GREGORIAN/MITCHELL, L/EUR - LAHNE, INR/WCAD - 
SEIDENSTRICKER/MORIN 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 1.6 FIVE YEARS AFTER CLOSURE OF ICTY 
TAGS: PREL, PHUM, BK, HR, SR, NL, ICTY 
SUBJECT: ICTY: MILOSEVIC REVISITS HISTORY IN OPENING OF 
DEFENSE CASE 
 
Classified By: Legal Counselor Clifton M. Johnson per reasons 1.5(b)-(d 
) 
 
1.  (C) Summary.  After a series of health-related delays, 
Slobodan Milosevic opened his defense on August 31, 2004, at 
the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia 
(ICTY) with a predictable, political, often dull, and highly 
skewed survey of Balkans history.  Milosevic repeatedly 
blamed Germany and the Vatican, and to a lesser degree the 
United States, for instigating the break-up of Yugoslavia and 
characterized Serb conduct as a fight against secessionists, 
Islamic fundamentalists, neo-Nazis, and terrorists. 
Milosevic,s tired and unreconstructed presentation had 
little rhetorical resonance, provided only the barest 
substantive legal defense to the charges against him, and 
tested the patience of the judges.  Milosevic is expected to 
call his first witness, in what is shaping up as an almost 
exclusively political defense, on September 7.  A decision 
today imposing legal defense counsel on him is being reported 
septel.  End summary. 
 
2.    (C) Milosevic launched his long-anticipated defense at 
the ICTY with a rehash of the same political themes he 
flagged during his opening statements in 2002.  He said that 
the prosecution had presented an "untruthful, distorted 
picture" of what had happened in the Balkans that was a 
"tireless distortion of history" intended to shield from 
responsibility "those who are truly responsible."  The 
essential fact that needed to be understood, he said, was 
that these events told the story of the "violent destruction 
of a European state."  This destruction was a "crime against 
peace" where mostly Serbs were displaced from their homes and 
a series of war crimes committed against them.  The war was 
"instigated and supported by " Germany, the Vatican, and the 
United States," whose policies promoted and encouraged the 
secession of Croatia and other republics.  These countries 
"supported a totalitarian chauvinist elite, terrorist(s), 
Islamic fundamentalists, (and) neo-Nazis."  "In the face of 
this armed rebellion" Yugoslav authorities were "duty-bound 
to take all necessary measures in order to restore law and 
order." 
 
3.  (SBU)  Focusing the majority of his statement on events 
in Croatia, Milosevic accused Croat "paramilitaries," 
"neo-Nazis", and "terrorists," of starting a war against the 
JNA in July 1991 and committing ethnic cleansing and other 
abuses against the local Serb population.  Milosevic then 
described Bosniak leader Izetbegovic,s alliance with the 
Croats and, developing his theme of a battle against Islamic 
extremism, noted his Islamic links and referred to the 
arrival of Hezbollah in Sarajevo armed with CIA supplied arms 
from Afghanistan.  These forces were further supported by 
"allegedly retired American officers" (e.g. MPRI) who 
instructed the Croat army.  In the course of this military 
campaign against the Serbs, "five to six times more poison 
(e.g., rounds containing depleted uranium) was dropped (on 
Serbia) than was the case in Hiroshima." 
 
4.  (SBU)  Under pressure from "Germany and the Vatican," 
other European states "prematurely" recognized the break-away 
republics as states.  Recognition opened a "Pandora,s box" 
that led to civil war, the expulsion of Serbia from the UN, 
and its diplomatic isolation.  With these actions, "the way 
was opened for craziness and lawlessness" and "it was 
difficult to stop the blood stained process."  By promoting 
the break-up of Yugoslavia, "Germany " achieve(d) what it did 
not achieve through two world wars." 
 
5.  (SBU)  Milosevic made nearly two dozen references to 
Hitler and Nazis in describing Croat and German officials and 
policies.  He characterized the "myth of Greater Serbia" as 
the central fear of Germany and then traced the purported 
history behind this "myth."  This notion of a "Greater 
Serbia" is a "sheer lie" and remains a "smokescreen to 
conceal their own crimes and "evil deeds."  In one of his few 
references to the charges against him, he said that the "myth 
of a Greater Serbia" took a central place in this false 
indictment against me."  The Tribunal, he said, is just 
chasing "specters." 
 
6.  (SBU) Milosevic,s fixation with "the Vatican" was 
another recurring theme.  He described the Vatican as 
motivated by a struggle against orthodoxy.  According to 
Milosevic, "Serbia was to be destroyed and invaded to 
strengthen the Austro-Hungarian monarchy as a stronghold of 
Catholicism " and, in particular, to serve as its basis to 
expand to the East." 
 
7.  (SBU) Milosevic,s discourse on U.S. motivations in the 
Balkan wars was more prosaic.  Smaller ineffective former 
Yugoslav states made it easier for the United States to 
impose its "economic, political, and in particular, military 
presence in Europe."  This plot was all part of U.S. efforts 
to impose a "new world order" and "the transformation of the 
world to a corporation society under the leadership of the 
World Bank and the United States, where robbery would be the 
main motive."  President Clinton was involved in "dangerous 
liaisons with Islamic fundamentalists, and they include 
Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, the KLA terrorists in Kosovo, etc." in 
carrying out this purported policy.  Once the EU opted at the 
end of 1991 to support the independence of the former 
republics, they all "became satellites of the United States." 
 
8.  (SBU) Milosevic,s discussion of Kosovo explored several 
themes.  First, Milosevic tried to show that the Kosovars 
lived quite well under Serb authority (e.g. enjoying 
"considerable political and economic freedom") in comparison 
with conditions in Albania.  Second, the withdrawal of the 
Serb authorities in Kosovo led to a multitude of "acts of 
terrorism" against Serbs by the KLA, including the 
destruction of "150 churches."  The "pogrom" in Kosovo was 
the result of the collaboration between UN forces, the ICTY, 
and Albanian terrorists.  This made the ICTY part of a "joint 
criminal enterprise."  Milosevic alleged that the "terrorist 
KLA" was "armed and trained" with the assistance of "Germany, 
the United States, Switzerland, and " some Islamic 
countries."  Also implicated in KLA support is British 
intelligence, Turkey, and the "Albanian drug mafia." 
Curiously, after cataloging abuses committed by the KLA, 
Milosevic, noted that "in addition to FAS, the State 
Department is the only institution in the U.S. that deals 
with the question of terrorist organizations seriously." 
Truer to form he then referred to the "partnership between 
Clinton and the KLA" and described meetings between former 
U.S. officials and KLA members.  This alliance between the 
United State, NATO, and the KLA led to the Racak massacre 
which, in Milosevic,s version of history, was a media event 
constructed to provide a pretext for "NATO aggression."  In 
reviewing the subsequent bombing campaign, Milosevic repeated 
old charges that NATO forces committed numerous war crimes 
involving the use of cluster bombs and depleted uranium 
rounds.  He added that by targeting chemical-related 
facilities, "a chemical war was also waged against Serbia" by 
NATO. 
 
9. (SBU)  Milosevic diverged briefly from his history lesson 
to reiterate his attack on the legitimacy of the Tribunal, 
commenting that "it is illusory to look for logic in a staged 
process."  He said the Tribunal represents "serious 
discrimination" against one country and that only the 
International Court of Justice could provide an authoritative 
view on the Tribunal,s legitimacy.  The Tribunal was 
"neither international nor independent."  He described it as 
an idea of former German FM Kinkel that was then taken over 
by former Secretary Albright and championed by the Soros 
Foundation and NGO,s like Coalition for International 
Justice.  Milosevic alleged that there were regular 
communications between SHAPE and the Chief Prosecutor, 
confirming that "it,s a NATO institution."  It was funded by 
NATO, Soros, Islamic countries, and other "dark sources." 
 
10. (C) The legal content of Milosevic's defense was 
relegated to a brief discussion at the end of his 
presentation where he challenged the validity of the "joint 
criminal enterprise" theory underlying the prosecution and 
described it as a "nebulous construction" used to circumvent 
the inability of the prosecution to prove criminal intent. 
Referring to Kosovo, he said that the prosecution had failed 
to produce any orders to commit crimes or prove that any of 
the generals involved had "any knowledge about anything that 
could have constituted a crime before these crimes actually 
happened."  Milosevic also referred to the testimony of 
General Vasiljevic to demonstrate that he had "personally 
insisted that all perpetrators should be arrested."  "What 
else could the executive government have done ... but to 
categorically insist on the Prosecution of all perpetrators 
of crimes ...?" Milosevic asked rhetorically.  Finally 
focusing on the key vulnerability in the prosecution's case 
he argued that "Throughout these two years you have not 
presented a shred of evidence or a single testimony that 
might indicate a link between a crime that was committed or a 
criminal with the troop commanders, the generals you have 
indicted, or the political leadership of Serbia, or me 
personally.  On the contrary you have evidence that we did 
our utmost to prevent crimes."  Returning, unhelpfully, to 
his political case, Milosevic summed up his defense by 
stating that the chronology of events, which he would 
demonstrate through witnesses, indicates:  "First, that what 
the Serbs did were reactions to what the Muslim side did, 
that is to say violations of the constitutional rights of the 
Serbs.  And this, what the Serbs did, was only making up for 
what the other two, the Muslims and the Croats, took away 
from them." 
 
11.  (C) Milosevic appeared robust and healthy throughout his 
5.5 hour presentation, which extended into September 1.  He 
made extensive use of typewritten notes and quotations which 
he linked together in his oral presentation.  Milosevic,s 
argument was largely built on fringe sources that he 
invariably described as authoritative or senior foreign 
officials whose statements were either taken out of context 
or misquoted.  (Note:  Milosevic, for example, alleged that 
President Clinton in his March 24, 1999, address to the 
Nation on the eve of the NATO bombing campaign had said  The 
Serbs did not cause only World War I.  Without them there 
would have been no Holocaust."  In fact, Clinton said: 
"Sarajevo, the capital of neighboring Bosnia, is where World 
War I began.  World War II and the Holocaust engulfed this 
region."  Embassy legal officers have passed the accurate 
text to lead Prosecutor Nice who today informed the Court 
that Milosevic had provided a "complete misquotation."  End 
note.)  Milosevic interspersed these statements with his own 
chronicle, blurring historical fact with interpretation. 
This approach seemed to have little resonance with the 
Chamber which admonished him for making a presentation whose 
relevance was not clear, asked for details about his sources, 
and expressed irritation at his "offensive" and "flagrant 
insult" that the Tribunal was participating in a joint 
criminal enterprise against him. 
12. (C) Comment.  Milosevic,s propagandistic history of the 
Balkan wars and its portrayal of the Serbs as being 
victimized by outside forces was fairly predictable.  More 
surprising was how quickly the initial excitement at hearing 
the long awaited defense turned to fatigue and disinterest. 
After two hours of his presentation, Judge Robinson, various 
clerks, and spectators were observed nodding off.  The press 
gallery, which had been filled to capacity at the opening, 
dwindled as day wore on and the spectator gallery shrank to 
under two dozen..  While Milosevic,s presentation was 
animated and forceful, it lacked new information and a 
connection to the charges at hand that would have made it 
more compelling.  Instead of addressing and explaining his 
role in the events, Milosevic painted his story in broad 
brush strokes reaching back to the 19th century and 
squandering time on such issues as the "false accusations" of 
Serb involvement in the assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand. 
 Indeed, by taking this sweeping declamatory approach 
Milosevic may have done little more than reinforce the 
Prosecution,s portrayal of him as the overarching and 
authoritative figure in the Balkans drama.  End comment. 
RUSSEL