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| SCAPEGOAT,
R.I.P. |
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| Published in the National Post March
15, 2006 |
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Slobodan Milosevic's obituaries are damning. In death, as
in the last years of his life, the former Serbian
President is being blamed for all of the death and
destruction that accompanied the breakup of the Yugoslav
Federation in the early 1990's. He has been described as
the "Butcher of the Balkans".
He is accused of
masterminding four wars, of committing genocide and of
massive ethnic cleansing. These charges have been
repeated so many times that they have become part of
received wisdom. Yet the facts tell a different story. |
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| Two weeks ago I
traveled to The Hague to appear as a witness in defence of Mr.
Milosevic at his war – crimes trial. We met in his cell for two
days going over my testimony. |
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On the first day, he seemed
relaxed, and in good health .On the second day, following
several hours of discussions, he suddenly became flushed and
appeared to be ill. I asked if he was alright and he said he was
OK, but then explained that he suffered from a terrible ringing
in his ears. The prison doctors had told him it was
"ppsychological" but finally agreed to a MIR, which revealed an
abnormal artery was affecting his hearing. He told me he did not
believe he was getting adequate medical attention in the prison
and wanted to get specialist treatment in Moscow, but tribunal
officials had refused. |
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| He regarded the
presiding body, the UN's International Criminal for the Former
Yugoslavia - as a political court set up to make him the
scapegoat for everything that had gone wrong in Yugoslavia. He
was aware that there was, in effect, a Western news blackout of
anything revealed during the trial that was favourable to his
case and he was also resigned to the
reality that he would be found guilty. |
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| I have been asked
often why I was willing to appear as a witness for a man branded
by the media as another Hitler. The answer is simple. His
prosecution was the most important war crimes trial since the
Nuremberg Trials of leading Nazis following the Second World
War. It was important that the presumption of innocence be
maintained, and it was equally important that those with
relevant information appear at the court so that their evidence
could be heard. I was in Belgrade as Canadian ambassador during
the critical early stages of the Yugoslav breakup drama and I
was not prepared to remain silent about what I observed. |
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| Even in the early days, it was
apparent that most of the media reporting about the cause and
course of the Yugoslav fighting was biased. In effect, the Serbs
were branded as the bad guys, and any news developments were
interpreted on that basis. But it was
not the Serbians and "Slobo"
who started the wars in Yugoslavia.
The fighting started because Slovenia, then a Yugoslav Republic,
declared unilateral independence and used force to seize the
customs posts along the Austrian border. |
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| The federal prime
minister of Yugoslavia, Ante Markovic, who happened to
be a Croatian, ordered the army into Slovenia to restore
order. The army was met by armed resistance and retired
to barracks in Croatia to avoid further bloodshed. The
Croatian security and paramilitary forces then
surrounded the federal barracks and fighting broke out
in Croatia. At this time Milosevic as president of
Serbia had no control over the federal army.
(Incidentally, the federal
Minister of Defence at the time was also a Croatian, as
was the Foreign Minister.) |
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| Later, when the army lost all of
its non-Serbian soldiers, it did become a Serb - dominated
force. But when the federal government collapsed, it was none
other than Milosevic who ordered all Serbian soldiers out of
Bosnia. (At the time I was asked to
call upon him to congratulate him for this decision.)
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From the outset of the
violence sweeping across Yugoslavia, Milosevic was a key
player in all of the peace plans that were proposed. Had it
not been for him the 1995 Dayton peace agreement could not
have taken place. He was heralded then by U.S. secretary of
state, Madeline Albright as a man of peace. |
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| Although
the war crimes Tribunal was set up in 1993 it was not until the
bombing of Kosovo five years later that a hurried indictment was
issued against Milosevic on charges of genocide. Yet the
forensic teams that searched for evidence of this genocide in
Kosovo have so far discovered less than 3000 bodies - bad enough
- but not genocide. |
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| Milosevic
was a communist party boss. He was an apparatchik and an
opportunist interested in holding on to his power, prestige and
privileges. He was not an ardent Serbian nationalist and I
believe had little interest in a "Ggreater
Serbia". As the
president of Serbia he was forced to display sympathy to his
fellow Serbians in Bosnia and Croatia, but he did not have
authority over them. He was prepared to help them but he was
also prepared to sell them out if it was to his own advantage. |
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There are many Serbians
who despise him for that. It is unfortunate that he died
before being given the chance to set down his side of
the story. Now we only have his opponent's version of
events. |
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