Global Policy Forum

By Marlise Simons

Bosnian Serb leader today became the first high official to plead guilty of crimes against humanity and to express remorse publicly for the war and bloodshed in the Balkans. The decision by the official, Biljana Plavsic, the former Bosnian Serb president, opens the door for her potentially crucial testimony against Slobodan Milosevic, the former president of Yugoslavia, or other leaders involved in the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

As part of the plea agreement, all other charges against Mrs. Plavsic, who was not in court for her plea, will be dropped, including genocide. Immediately after her guilty plea, her lawyer at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague said that no deal had been made involving her sentence or testimony. But under court rules, Mrs. Plavsic can be compelled to testify. Eugene O'Sullivan, co-counsel to Mrs. Plavsic, said in a statement that "by accepting responsibility and expressing her remorse fully and unconditionally," she hoped to offer some consolation to the victims of the Bosnian war, Muslim, Croat and Serb. Many thousands were killed or imprisoned and uncounted others were driven from their homes. He added that she understood "that she is subjecting herself to a possible sentence of life imprisonment."

The unexpected guilty plea compounded the day's exceptional events at the tribunal. Indeed, it seemed timed to take advantage of the unusually large presence in The Hague of reporters and television crews from the former Yugoslavia to watch the duel of two aging Balkan leaders.

For earlier, in the same courtroom, Mr. Milosevic, the jailed former Serbian strongman, and Stjepan Mesic, the current Croatian president, spent the morning sparring. Today it was Mr. Milosevic's turn to cross-examine Mr. Mesic, a day after Mr. Mesic testified against Mr. Milosevic, repeatedly accusing him of blocking all political solutions and provoking the wars that broke up Yugoslavia.

Some lawyers said they were impressed by the sight of the two leaders arguing in an international criminal court, if only because it had seemed unthinkable until recently. For a long time, the tribunal created in 1993 to deal with the Balkan conflicts of the 1990's had only few and low-ranking defendants on trial.

The Croatian president, a sharp debater, seemed unperturbed by Mr. Milosevic's relentless questioning. He even addressed him scathingly as "Mr. Accused." Mr. Milosevic started off questioning Mr. Mesic about his time in prison and about political killings in Croatia, asking him if he had been involved in any of them. Mr. Mesic replied, "I had as much to do with that as I had with Lincoln's assassination." Several times, Mr. Milosevic's questions backfired, allowing Mr. Mesic to add further possibly detrimental information.

As the old adversaries traded accusations and broadsides, they often set off laughter in the public gallery, which was packed with observers from Serbia and Croatia. Observers can be seen but not heard in the court, which is shielded with thick bulletproof glass.

The presiding judge, Richard May, often stepped in to bring Mr. Milosevic, and sometimes both men, back to order. At one point, after Mr. Mesic told Mr. Milosevic that he was talking nonsense, Judge May said, "We are not going to continue in this way."

Then, as the two men quibbled about the inflammatory writings of a 19th-century Croatian politician, Mr. May wryly intervened. "The trial chamber is not assisted by the exchange of abuse," he said, "particularly abuse of 100 years ago." The judge also warned Mr. Milosevic that he was not using his time to his advantage by repeatedly straying off the subject, making speeches and accusing Mr. Mesic of crimes, rather than questioning his evidence. "Mr. Milosevic, what you must understand is that attacking others is not a form of defense," Judge May said. "It is of no relevance."

As for Mrs. Plavsic, her guilty plea took most court watchers by surprise. "Here you have a main player in the war facing the truth," Florence Hartmann, spokeswoman for the prosecutor, told reporters after the plea. "We hope others will accept their responsibility for the past events. It's the first time a high-level Serb leader expresses remorse and reaches out to the victims."

Sentencing hearings for Mrs. Plavsic, a 72-year-old former professor of biology, will take place in December. She spoke today by video link from an undisclosed location in the Balkans, where she is free on provisional release. Judges informed her today that she could remain at liberty for security reasons until the December hearings.

Court officials said her guilty plea, apparently proposed by the prosecution, came after long negotiations by lawyers on both sides. Seven other defendants have pleaded guilty before the tribunal, but none of them are as high-ranking as Mrs. Plavsic.

Her case has been special from the beginning. The only woman publicly accused by the tribunal of war crimes, she surrendered to the court in January 2001. At first, she pleaded not guilty to eight counts of war crimes, including genocide, related to her role as the vice president of the Bosnian Serbs during the war. She was close to Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian leader, whom she succeeded after the war. Both Dr. Karadzic and Gen. Ratko Mladic, the military leader, have been indicted twice for similar charges by the tribunal, but they remain at large.

When she surrendered, an official from the prosecutor's office described her as such a key figure during the Bosnia war that "there is much that she can tell us, even about Milosevic."

Prosecutors also hoped that she would provide valuable information about Momcilo Krajisnik, her co-defendant and the right-hand man to Dr. Karadzic in the war.

Among lawyers monitoring the court, some looked beyond her possible role as a future witness. "It's critically important for someone at such a high level to say they did wrong," said Judith Armatta, a lawyer and trial observer for the Coalition for International Justice, a tribunal support group based in Washington. "There is the possibility of a snowball effect. And it will help the truth process in the region."

Ms. Hartmann, the prosecutor's spokeswoman, said she believed that "expressing remorse is a big step in the process of reconciliation," adding, "To deny what people went through is like a second death for victims."

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