December 17, 2002	Tuesday	Shawwal 12, 1423

THE HAGUE, Dec 16: Biljana Plavsic, the most senior official from the former Yugoslavia to plead guilty before the UN war crimes court here, said former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic was the brains behind the campaign of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, documents released on Monday show.

Plavsic, who was one of wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic’s closest allies, said Milosevic worked closely with the Bosnian Serb leadership in the planning and execution of wide-spread persecutions of non-Serbs.

The 72-year-old former biology professor, is the first woman to appear before the war crimes tribunal.

In October she changed her plea to guilty on the charge of persecution and in exchange charges of genocide during the 1992-95 Bosnian war were dropped.

The former Bosnian Serb president is the highest ranking former Yugoslav official to acknowledge her role in Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II, in which an estimated 200,000 people were killed.

She appeared before the court on Monday in the last hearing before she will be sentenced. The verdict will not follow immediately after the three-day hearing but will be handed down at a later date.

In a document outlining the factual basis for her admission of guilt Plavsic downplayed her own role in the campaign of ethnic cleansing. Instead she pointed to Milosevic and Karadzic as the masterminds of the plan.

“Certain members of the Bosnian Serb leadership collaborated closely with Slobodan Milosevic in the conception and execution of the objective of ethnic separation by force,” the plea states.

Bosnian Serb political leaders “frequently went to Belgrade to consult with, take guidance from or arrange support from Milosevic,” she said.

Milosevic has also been on trial in The Hague since February this year on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the 1990s wars in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo.

Plavsic’s plea will be very important to the prosecution in the Milosevic case because it provides a direct link between the former president and the wartime Bosnian Serb leadership.

However, Plavsic has made it clear she will not testify in any trial and written documents cannot be entered into evidence without giving Milosevic the chance to cross-examine the witness.

In the Plavsic hearing several high-profile witnesses are to speak in the next three days, among them former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright and Nobel peace laureate Elie Wiesel.

The first three witnesses who took the stand Monday testified about the impact of the atrocities committed in Bosnia on the population in general terms.

Plavsic listened intently to the testimony and remained outwardly unmoved as a survivor of Bosnian Serb detention camps spoke of the inhumane conditions in the camps, the starvation rations he was fed and the abuse he suffered.

Auschwitz survivor and author Wiesel is the last of the prosecution witnesses scheduled to appear later on Monday.

Swedish diplomat Carl Bildt, the international community’s first envoy in post-war Bosnia, will later speak on behalf of the defence together with US diplomat Robert Frowick, former head of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) mission in Bosnia, and former Bosnian Serb prime minister Milorad Dodik.

The defence is likely to focus on Plavsic’s support for the 1995 Dayton peace accord that ended the Bosnian war.

Finally the court will hear from two witnesses who appear for both sides. Albright will testify to the importance of Plavsic’s guilty plea for the process of reconciliation in Bosnia. Alex Boraine, a former member of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, will address the court on the same subject.—AFP