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return of refugees and enhance the marginalization of minorities
by excluding them from political decision making; and cultural and
educational policies that exclude minorities from Serbia’s political
and economic systems. The Serbian strategy today is essentially one
of waiting for a more propitious international climate in which the
Serbian question will be treated in a manner more sensitive to and
consistent with Serbian interests.
In Pursuit of an Ethnic State
That there was a deliberate Serbian policy to create an ethnic
state was confirmed at Slobodan Milošević’s trial before the Hague
Tribunal, which helped establish a detailed chronicle of the war.
Milan Babić, the former president of the Republic of Serb Krajina
(rsk) who had helped implement the Serbian agenda in Croatia,
testified that the program had been prepared in detail by institutions
such as the Army, the police, the Serbian Academy of Sciences
and Arts (sanu), and the media. The Hague Tribunal proceedings
brought to the forefront the fact that ethnic cleansing was the object
of the war, not its byproduct. According to Jovan Jovičić, law professor,
this expedient was used to “rally all Serbs in one state”; the
plan was for Republika Srpska (rs) and the rsk to unite with Serbia
and Montenegro into the “United Serb Lands.” Asked by Prosecutor
Geoffrey Nice what the name of this state would be, witness
Čedomir Popov, historian and a member of the Academy, replied that
it would be called Serbia. 493
To understand why Serbia tried to create a Serbian ethnic state,
a project that could never have been accomplished without war and
493 During Milošević’s trial, the media tried to devalue the admissions made by Hague Tribunal
indictees, notably by Biljana Plavšić, a top Bosnian Serb leader, with the object of presenting
them as the outcome of pressure from and deals with the Tribunal . Many witnesses
have faced pressure to change their testimonies . In the Šešelj trial e .g . two prosecution
witnesses Jovan Glamočanin and Aleksandar Stefanović changed sides and became
witness for the defense . A protected witness in the Milošević case who identified Brana
Crnčević as a person who armed Serbs from Krajina (Croatia) was killed in a car accident .