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American Morning

Milosevic Says Nato Responsible For His Actions In Kosovo

Aired February 14, 2002 - 09:20   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Former Yugoslavia leader, Slobodan Milosevic, finally spoke up this morning. After sitting by quietly in protest, the first head of state to ever go before the international war crimes tribunal erupted in an animated defense of his actions on day three of his trial.

CNN Chief International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour is standing by at The Hague to bring to bring us up-to-date on all of this. Good morning, Christiane.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. The session is now in recess and Milosevic will reappear, again, to continue his opening statement, tomorrow morning. But, today, in the first part of that statement, he took four hours and delivered an often impassioned defense of what he had done back when he was head of Yugoslavia, and particularly during the year 1999 of the Kosovo war.

His main point, as we have been led to believe, was that it was NATO who was the real criminal. Those were his words. Because it was NATO who cause all the suffering, the expulsions, the killings in Kosovo during its intervention in 1999. That is the line that he is sticking to.

He is portraying himself as the victim and as the defender. Saying that all he did was to defend the Serbian people, and, frankly, he said, all he did was just what the United States is doing right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC, FORMER YUGOSLAV PRESIDENT (through translator): The Americans go right the other side of the globe to fight against terrorism in Afghanistan. A case in point. Right the other side of the world, and that is considered to be logical and normal. Whereas, here, the struggle against terrorism in the heart of one own's country and one own's home is considered to be a crime. That means that you are not master in your own home, that you can't react to terrorism in your own home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Now despite the evidence that's been collected by the international tribunal, Milosevic insisted that there had been no massacres committed by Serb forces or Yugoslav forces in Kosovo. That it was all just a result of what he called a civil war between Kosovo Liberation Army forces and the Serbian forces. He denied that any of his forces had ever killed any civilians.

He also said that there was no such thing as deportations ordered from Kosovo. Of course, the indictment accuses him of ordering the forced expulsion of 800,000 Kosovo Albanians, in those scenes that we remember so well from 1999. He said, again, that that was all NATO's fault. He accused NATO of deliberately targeting civilians. NATO has always said that it never did that. So, this was the tone of Milosevic's opening statement, and we're no doubt going to see more of that tomorrow when he takes the stand again.

Today, although he has said he doesn't cooperate with this tribunal and doesn't have legal representation in court, he was clearly very well prepared. He brought videotape, he brought pictures. He had briefcases of files full of typed notes, and, as I say, he spent four hours outlining his defense. Most of it, in a political speech. Paula?

ZAHN: And, Christiane, we'll be counting on you to keep us updated on how he continues to proceed in this trial. Thank you very much. Appreciate that.

And, Jack, I think it will be awfully interesting to see how his assault on NATO will play. Guess it's a little too early to tell now.

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, the trial is going to last a while, isn't it?

ZAHN: Yes. Years.

CAFFERTY: And we'll be here every day of it.

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