Slobodan Milošević Quotes

By adding three lies, one does not get the truth — only a bigger lie.

I can tell Albanians in Kosovo that in Serbia, no one had trouble living for not being Serbian. Serbia has always been opened for all, and for those who had no other place to go—and for those who had no other place to go, for the poor and rich, for those who are happy and sad, and for those who are only passing through, and for those who wish to stay. Serbia only doesn’t want evil people, even if they be Serbian.

This is a political trial. What is at issue here is not at all whether I committed a crime. What is at issue is that certain intentions are ascribed to me from which consequences are later derived that are beyond the expertise of any conceivable lawyer. The point here is that the truth about the events in the former Yugoslavia has to be told here. It is that which is at issue, not the procedural questions, because I’m not sitting here because I was accused of a specific crime. I’m sitting here because I am accused of conducting a policy against the interests of this or another party. The nature of he proceedings here is such that a lawyer cannot deal with it.

So in addition to what I’ve quoted to you just now, in Prizren, I say particularly in this place and in this town, I want to tell you something that I consider to be the most important in this town, because in it, there are Serbs, Albanians, Muslims, Turks, Roma, and others. Every one of the ethnic groups, to a large proportion. That is why I believe that this town and this region should be an example of carrying out the policy of national equality of rights, a policy that would make it possible for all people to give — to live on a footing of equality and under humane conditions, that there should be a high degree of mutual understanding and that a joint life of all citizens should be built successfully.

I read to you parts of the indictment claiming that I was part of a joint criminal enterprise to expel Croatians from Croatia, Muslims from Bosnia, Albanians from Kosovo, in order to create some sort of Greater Serbia. Now, if you have in mind that the greatest part of that Greater Serbia would be precisely the Republic of Serbia, which did not see any expulsions at all throughout the crisis, do you find it logical that Serbia should initiate expulsions from territories outside of Serbia?

I do not suggest to you, Comrades, that in staying you put up with the suffering and the situation that you're not satisfied with. Quite the contrary. You must change the situation together with all other progressive people here in Serbia and Yugoslavia.… We in Serbia and everybody else in Yugoslavia will strive to change the situation.

Remark to Serbs in Kosovo Polje. After Serbs who were rallying in front of the building Milošević was in were pushed back and beaten by the Kosovar provincial police force composed of Albanians. The leader of the Serb rally Miroslav Solević in the BBC documentary The Death of Yugoslavia stated that in organizing the rally the Serbs prepared for a confrontation with the police as they brought two trucks with stones in them and used the stones to throw at the police. Milošević stepped outside, followed closely by TV and newsreel cameras, and walked directly into the crowd where Serbs approached him saying that they were being beaten by the police in which he proclaimed the above-mentioned words. (24 April 1987)

We know how to handle these murderers, these rapists, these criminals. We've done this before … in Drenica in 1946. We killed them. We killed them all. Of course we did not do it all at once. It took some time.

No one is allowed to beat you! (Нико не сме да вас бије!)

Well, I want him to answer the following question: Where in my speech was there any reference to anything that would jeopardise the rights of Albanians? So I’m quoting this to him. “In this area there should be a policy of national equality of rights, a spirit of tolerance should prevail. Everything that characterises a humane, democratic society.”

If we legalised this state of lawlessness, then all those who are exposed to lawlessness are endangered. Today it is the Serbs and Montenegrins that suffer most from that, but tomorrow this could be the Albanians, too, and that is why, unless law and order is introduced and respected in the broader social and historical sense, this will be the interest of all of the inhabitants of Kosovo.

We'll do the same that we did in Drenica in 1945 or 1946.… We got them together and we shot them.

Yugoslavia cannot exist without Kosovo! Yugoslavia will become disintegrated without Kosovo! Yugoslavia and Serbia will never give up Kosovo!

I tell you, Izetbegović has earned Sarajevo by not abandoning it. He's one tough guy. It's his.