Ex-Slovenian leader testifies at ongoing Milosevic trial

Serbia would never agree to a situation were parts of the Serb people living outside of the borders of Serbia would be left beyond the Serb republic. It also implied that borders (of Yugoslav republics) might be redrawn by force," said Kucan.
Kucan was the president of the league of communists of Slovenia in the late 1980s and in 1990 became the president of Slovenia, then one of Yugoslavia’s six republics. One year later Slovenia declared independence from Yugoslavia leading to a ten-day war. The former Slovenian leader is in a unique position to give insight into the way Serbia, led by Milosevic, contributed the the political crisis that led to the disintegration of the Yugoslav state and the bloody wars that followed in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo.
Milosevic, 61, has been on trial since February 2001 for more than 60 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the 1990s Balkan wars. He faces a separate charge of genocide for the widespread ethnic cleansing of non-Serbs during the 1992-95 conflict in Bosnia and would receive a life sentence if convicted.
Kucan met frequently with Milosevic during political meetings that preceeded the break-up of the former Yugoslavia in 1991. The Slovenian delegation famously walked out of a league of communist congress in 1990. "The congress announced the end of Yugoslavia as a state," the 62-year-old Kucan told the judges Wednesday.