I worked for peace, Milosevic tells tribunal

Relaxed and unapologetic, Slobodan Milosevic rejected yesterday charges of genocide and claims that he orchestrated Europe's worst war crimes since World War Two, insisting that he should be recognised for "working for peace" in the Balkans.

UN war crimes prosecutors opened their case against the former Yugoslav president for atrocities in Croatia and in Bosnia, where they say genocide – the most serious of the 61 charges against Mr Milosevic – was committed.

Using maps to highlight the changes in the ethnic population in the Balkans following the wars from 1991-5, Geoffrey Nice, the chief prosecution lawyer, said this was evidence of "thousands of killings, innumerable acts of inhumanity and thousands of counts of ethnic cleansing".

Smiling and joking with legal advisers as he arrived in court, Mr Milosevic appeared to relish his return to the limelight as the trial entered a crucial new phase following the Kosovo prosecution.

The former Yugoslav president painted Serb military actions as self-defence against Croats and Muslims, and argued that there was an international campaign to turn Serbia "into a third-world country and, even worse, to send it back to the Stone Age".

Earlier, Mr Nice linked Mr Milosevic to a string of the most notorious events of the Balkan wars of the 1990s, including the bloody assaults on Vukovar, the sieges of Dubrovnik and Sarajevo, and the massacres at Srebrenica.

The prosecution lawyer argued that Dubrovnik, on the Croatian coast, was shelled about 1,000 times "for no reason save intimidation or reprisal", with the loss of 40 lives. The carnage was greater at Vukovar where the hospital was emptied and 200 to 300 men were executed.

In Bosnia, Mr Nice said, non-Serbs were subject to "expulsion, imprisonment in inhumane conditions, torture, sexual assaults, killings". The situation in the enclaves into which Muslims fled was so bad that amputations were given without anaesthetic.

The prosecution argues that Mr Milosevic had "command responsibility" – that he knew atrocities were taking place and did nothing to stop them. Furthermore, it says that he provided support and training for the Bosnian Serb army, with the salaries of officers being paid from Belgrade.

"He utilised many resources at his disposal," Mr Nice said. "He had a fundamental role in the planning, organising, financing and direction of the plan ... without him it is difficult to conceive of the events happening." Mr Nice, however, hinted at the difficulties he faces in proving his case. He admitted that leaders such as Mr Milosevic "don't leave paper trails" and acknowledged that Western leaders had dealt with Mr Milosevic. His crimes, "long suspected, have now been revealed by evidence", Mr Nice said.

To achieve a genocide conviction is particularly difficult because prosecutors need to prove that there was intent behind ethnic cleansing. Richard Dicker, of Human Rights Watch, argued: "There is no question that these crimes occurred, the challenge is to draw a link with Milosevic on crimes such as Srebrenica."

Prosecutors expect to call senior politicians including two former Yugoslav presidents, Zoran Lilic and Stjepan Mesic, now President of Croatia. They aim to build up a painstaking picture proving that he was central to events.

They will try to link Mr Milosevic to the events in Vukovar through his association with Arkan, the late warlord and paramilitary leader, and to the events in Sarajevo through his financial support for the senior Bosnian Serb general there.

They will also seek to establish the connection with Srebrenica via the activities of General Radislav Krstic, whose allegiance to the Yugoslav – rather than the Bosnian Serb army – was proved when he was arrested.

In a defiant mood, Mr Milosevic argued that the United States and its allies had waged an economic, media, political and military campaign backed by Germany and the Vatican. By turning the financial screw on Serbia the international community was guilty of genocide, he said. "The flames of that war were fanned and directed by the greatest power in the world," he said.

Mr Milosevic said the siege of Dubrovnik was precipitated by Croat attacks on Serbs, and that the assault on Srebrenica by Muslim fighters who used the UN haven as their base. By contrast, "Serbia, and myself deserve recognition in working for peace in the area and not as a protagonist of war," he said.