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CNN Live At Daybreak

Milosevic Continues Opening Statement That Blames NATO

Aired February 15, 2002 - 05:12   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: High drama in the Hague this morning after prosecutors listed their charges of war crimes against Slobodan Milosevic. The former Yugoslavian president is blaming NATO for killing civilians.

CNN's Christiane Amanpour is covering the trial in the Hague and she joins us live with some perspective -- Christiane.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, Slobodan Milosevic is in the second day of his opening statement. This follows two days of the prosecution's opening statements. And Milosevic is not directly answering the charges that have been leveled against him.

What he's doing instead is trying to accuse the accusers, if you like. He says that it's not him or his forces that was responsible for the death and mass expulsions of Kosovo Albanians back in 1999 but that it was the NATO intervention. He also says that the expulsion and the forced movement of those Kosovo Albanians was directly planned by the U.S. administration.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC: Movement of Albanians from Kosovo was of strategic importance for the Clinton administration to win the support of the media and public opinion, confirmation and justification for what they were doing. The air strikes were so fierce that at that time in Kosovo even wild boars from the mountain of Cicevica swam over the Cicevica River, something that never happened before.

As for the population, I wish to underline that under the threat of bombs, more than 100,000 Serbs also fled from Kosovo.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: So what Milosevic is trying to do here in the stand is essentially turn conventional history on its head. He's basically saying that the suffering of the Albanians happened after the NATO intervention rather than before, which is, in fact, what the evidence shows, that it was because of the suffering and the expulsion of Albanians that NATO intervened. He has been showing scores of really gruesome, grizzly photos of what he says were civilian casualties caused by what he claims to have been deliberate NATO targeting of civilian casualties. NATO, of course, admits that some of its bombs did go astray, but has always maintained that those were accidents and immediately regretted them.

There were some 500 civilian casualties according to human rights and humanitarian officials in Kosovo and Serbia during the NATO campaign. But, of course, Slobodan Milosevic is accused with command responsibility over thousands of Kosovo Albanian deaths and hundreds of thousands of forced people, people being forced to leave Kosovo, and that is the crux of the charge against him.

And so far he is trying to turn that on its head and put NATO on trial instead -- Carol.

COSTELLO: I know he is, in part, defending himself. Is he putting on a good defense?

AMANPOUR: Well, it depends. Yesterday's performance was fairly spirited. It was antagonistic and indignant and impassioned. And for the most part, yesterday's session seemed to be a good defense in his own defense. Today's has been literally an hour and a half, mind numbing hour and a half of some of the most awful photos that, in fact, CNN policy simply is to cover up with a different graphic some of the most grizzly photos. So a lot of what he's showing on the stand today is not being broadcast. Some of it, of course, was.

It's a defense that's directly aimed at the Serbian people and he's not really answering the charges that have been alleged against him.

COSTELLO: Okay, I know you have to get back in the courtroom.

Thank you very much.

Christiane Amanpour reporting live for us from the Hague this morning.

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