INTERVIEW OF
SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC TO THE FOX NEWS CHANNEL
RITA
COSBY: President
Milosevic, thank you so much for joining us from
SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC: I feel fine, you know I'm here in the jail, the
so-called "prison" of that illegitimate tribunal, which is not having
any legitimacy exactly as NATO aggression
against
RITA COSBY: Now that tribunal has called you an indicted war criminal,
how do you feel about that title?
SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC: You know I can tell you, I'm proud for everything I
did in defending my country and my people, all my decisions are legitimate and
legal, based on the Constitution of Yugoslavia, and based on the right of
self-defense which belongs to every nation in the world
. And their decisions - NATO leaders' decisions were all criminal.
They were simply killing our people and they have thrown more than 22,000 tons
of bombs to hospitals, to apartments of civilians, to electricity facilities,
water supply, bridges, railways, trains, refugees, and that was all one
massive killing of innocent people and that was the real crime, so right
address for war crimes in Yugoslavia is NATO. That all was done in
front of the eyes of all the world, so I don't believe in spite the huge
media campaign against my country, that it is possible
to hide those facts.
RITA COSBY: Do you think that you have anything to apologize for,
because tens of thousands of Albanian
lives were lost?
SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC: They were lost in the NATO aggression. I want
to remind you that before the aggression started there were only some rare
conflicts with small groups of terrorists who
were putting bombs in cafes, in market places or somewhere else, killing
innocent people. That was all, and that was calmed down in the Autumn of 1998. They were bringing they're arms by tractors
getting it back to the police, and that was completely calmed down. And
people were in their homes, and there was verification mission of OSCE, so in front of them, that was completely clear, Kosovo
was completely calm. But when NATO started bombing on 24th of March, lots of
civilians were killed, and of course lot of them tried to escape what was
normal - everybody was running away. I said to one of your colleagues during
the war when he was asking me why the people were running away: "How one
wouldn't t run away under air alarm of 24 hrs a day and under massive bombings
of NATO". Everybody was running away, including dears, bears, birds,
everybody was running away.
RITA COSBY: What I wanted to ask you, was you did direct Serb
troops to kill Albanians, of course Albanians were killing Serbs as well, but
you did direct Serb troops to kill Albanians, how do you feel about that?
SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC: No, no, the troops were avoiding to kill
civilians anyhow, they had only to eliminate terrorist groups which were
killing people, both Serbs and others - Albanians, Turks, Muslims, everybody.
Even when they were quite clearly visible within
the groups of civilians, there was strict order that police or army
should not open fire - just to avoid possibility to kill any civilian. So there
was nothing like killing civilians done by armed
forces of
RITA COSBY: But many civilians were raped, many were killed - there is
proof of that . They ended up in mass graves, how do
you explain that?
SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC: There were individual crimes, but there was
clear order that any crime has to be punished
immediately, and whoever did it has to be arrested. And the proof that that
order was obeyed quite clearly and exactly as it was
supposed to be obeyed, is the fact that more than 500 different individuals
were immediately arrested by the police or the army. So, armed forces and
police forces had nothing in common with any crime which was committed in
Kosovo. Those were consequences of chaotic situation created by massive bombing
of NATO. In such chaotic situation, of course there is always a possibility for
different criminal elements to do some crime, but there was very very efficient action against all of them to be immediately
arrested and sent to jail. Army and police forces were defending the country
and were not used against the population They
were our citizens and they were not object of any military action.
RITA COSBY: Are you sorry - and I will say that
some of the Albanian leaders, and Albanian officials have said that they
are sorry that some Serb civilians were killed in the process, as you have
said, in the chaotic situation. Are you prepared to say now that you and others
are sorry for, maybe some of the civilian
deaths, some of the other deaths that happened to have been killed?
SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC: Many things happened in that chaos, but you have to
be aware of the fact that that was just the
consequence of that criminal aggression committed by NATO against
RITA COSBY: Are you sorry I guess, a lot of people...
SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC: Of course, all of us are sorry for the death
of any person anywhere in the world, nobody can't be happy for the death of any
person anywhere, that is so obvious so that it is not
the question at all.
RITA COSBY: What will you use as your defense at the trial, and will you
represent yourself? What will you use as your defense?
SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC: You know, this trial is really illegal, but I
said to you that all the decisions of mine were
completely legitimate and legal in defense of my country, and their decisions
were completely criminal and that is the big difference. That is the big
difference. Look now at what they are doing in
RITA COSBY: But in this case, Mr. President, the NATO troops are coming
in and they are disarming the Albanians, do you
think that is a good thing?
SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC: They will disarm Albanians like they disarmed
Albanians in Kosovo. I remember what commanding general of KFOR in July 1999,
said - that "KLA" was disarmed, and than those disarmed are
killing people every day under the auspices of NATO, who are occupying Kosovo,
so I don't believe that they will disarm them. They will only say that, but
they will not do that.
RITA COSBY: How do your people in
SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC: Yes, I have very wide and very strong support
within my people. So, they understand how they have brought that
puppet regime now in
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