Christiane Amanpour: Classic Milosevic

Amanpour: "Milosevic was at times impassioned, caustic and sarcastic"

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- CNN's Chief International Correspondent, Christiane Amanpour reports from the Hague, where she saw Slobodan Milosevic setting out his defence on Thursday.

For those of us actually sitting in court, who could actually see and feel the dynamics of what's going on there, it was classic Slobodan Milosevic.

He is a man who is extremely used to public speeches, some of the Serbian journalists here said that he would perform exactly like this.

He was playing not only the domestic gallery, but also to international public opinion.

He repeatedly used as his defence the exact planks that we had been told he would use by his legal advisors.

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He showed a film to begin with, that was designed specifically to deny the prosecution claims of whether there were atrocities committed against Albanians in Kosovo.

The film was constantly used to ... show what Milosevic actually felt happened in Kosovo, and that was a fight, a civil war, between the Kosovo Liberation Army and Serb forces there.

He also said at one point in his defence that he was simply defending his country, defending the people and that he -- just like America is doing now -- was waging a war against terrorism.

At times impassioned, at times caustic and sarcastic, Milosevic accused the world global networks, as he said, of waging a propaganda campaign and of stirring up war against his country.

He accused the prosecutor of failing to understand that what happened in Kosovo was not mass deportations, as the prosecution contends, but it was Albanian civilians fleeing for their lives and in fact being told by the KLA to flee.

Again he said there were no massacres in Kosovo, merely the result of civil war between KLA fighters and Serbs.

He said the prosecution's opening statement amounted to a pack of lies, he said: "it's all fabricated -- it is all lies."

He again denied what the prosecution keeps saying here, he denied that this was a trial against him as an individual, he said that the prosecution was trying to put all of Serbia -- all of its institutions, its military, and its intellectuals -- on trial.

This is exactly what we expected from Slobodan Milosevic. Although I must say that at times it was impassioned, and at some times humorous.

He has absolutely refused the contention that he and the Serbian government or military had anything to do with starting the civil wars or fanning the flames of those civil wars in Croatia, Bosnia and in Kosovo.

About Croatia and Bosnia, he pointed to the prosecution and said: "Your bosses destroyed Yugoslavia" and he said: "Your bosses," meaning presumably international world leaders of the West, "are responsible for the destruction of Yugoslavia.

He has always said that he was just trying to prevent the disintegration of Yugoslavia.

About Kosovo, he said that the prosecution has tried to say that Kosovo is somehow distinct and bordering on Kosovo. Again he said that Kosovo is Serbia.