Owen says Milosevic was not racist but could have stopped ethnic cleansing

The former Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, was "fundamentally not a racist" but a nationalist who failed to use his power to stop the Bosnian war and prevent two years of slaughter, the EU's former peace envoy said yesterday.

Lord Owen told the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague that Mr Milosevic harnessed Serb nationalism for his own political ends, but failed to use his influence to end the Balkan conflict. Mr Milosevic faces 66 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo.

"He was in charge of a government that could stop [Bosnian Serbs] from shelling Sarajevo and stop ethnic cleansing," said Lord Owen. "If he would have done that, it would have brought peace to Bosnia two years earlier."

Lord Owen argued that Mr Milosevic's main aim in fomenting Serb nationalism was to keep himself in power.

As the EU's peace envoy and co-author of a peace plan drawn up in the early stages of the war, Lord Owen's evidence was carefully balanced and given with half an eye to defending his own record as an interlocutor with the accused. A strong theme of his testimony was the opportunity lost when the plan he co-authored with the American diplomat Cyrus Vance was spurned.

The blueprint for peace, which was accepted by Bosnian Muslims, would have divided Bosnia into 10 ethnic regions. Bosnian Serbs rejected it at the crucial session of their parliament in May 1993, arguing that it awarded them too little land.

At times Lord Owen was sharply critical of Mr Milosevic who, he said, tried to make the world believeBosnian Serbs were beyond the control of Belgrade when he "knew perfectly well that was not the truth".

"I believe he did have that power. I know at times he felt he didn't, but at that time his power and influence over the Bosnian and Croatian Serbs was strong," said Lord Owen.

But he portrayed Mr Milosevic's influence over the Bosnian Serbs as being in sharp decline after that crucial moment. That could bolster Mr Milosevic's claim that, at the time of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, he had no control over the Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.

Lord Owen also testified that, more than two years before the fall of the enclave, Mr Milosevic expressed concern about a confrontation between Muslim and Serbian forces.

"He feared that if the Bosnian Serb troops entered Srebrenica there would be a bloodbath because of the tremendous bad blood that existed between the two armies," he said.

Nevertheless, Lord Owen said Mr Milosevic had a "measure of command" over Bosnian Serb forces and that he had been urged, "time and time again" to cut off their fuel supplies and ammunition to force them to stop fighting.

More than 7,000 Muslim men were killed after the Bosnian Serb army overran the enclave of Srebrenica. The massacre is an important element in the genocide charge against Mr Milosevic.