It’s rough to be the underdog. Nobody believes your claims and everybody wants to gang up against you. If only you could convince the world that you were in the right all along.

Slobodan Milosevic, former president of Serbia, is trying to paint a woeful picture of his struggle as he stands trial for multiple counts of crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide and others. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia is hearing arguments from both sides in The Hague, Netherlands. It is at peer with the Nuremberg trials. Despite the grave counts he faces, Milosevic stands defiant. The Serbian expansion he orchestrated when Yugoslavia crumbled led to some of the most violent conflict of the decade. He’s accused of authorizing mass murders of ethnic Albanians, Bosnians and Croats on a mission to purify the Balkans.

Milosevic is still popular in Serbia, and he is using it to his advantage in the trial. Putting a spin on the genocide charges against him, Milosevic claims that the trial is really political, with the entire globe ganging up against Serbia. According to some Serbians, the Albanians are just as guilty in committing atrocities against Serbs.

Claiming that the Albanians and Bosnians were able to capture the media and successfully manipulate the news, Natasha Scpanovic, from the Association of the Families of Missing Serbs, says that those groups are also guilty.

Milosevic chose to forego legal counsel and to defend himself at The Hague tribunal, and has been setting his own agenda since. According to the BBC, two parallel trials are taking place in The Hague, the more publicized prosecution of Milosevic for genocide, and Milosevic’s prosecution of NATO and the West.

Milosevic accuses NATO of crimes against humanity; among his star-studded list of potential witnesses are Bill Clinton, Madeline Albright, Tony Blair, Kofi Annan and Helmut Kohl. In addition to trying to railroad his way as prosecutor against the United Nations, NATO and the Western world, Milosevic is dismissing the charges that he is largely responsible for commanding and coordinating rape, murder and ethnic killings through the Balkan peninsula.

The Milosevic trial is forecasted to take two years. While the world may focus on the charges brought against one man, his attempts to reframe the tribunal as a political trial underscore the most troubling facet of the proceedings. Milosevic was at the helm of rampant expansionism in the name of Serbia, and the neighboring nations were the ones vulnerable to the aggression. The atrocities committed in the name of advancing the Serbian people cannot be ignored.

Are Serbians guilty? Perhaps the case can be made for those who served in the military and carried out Milosevic’s orders to rape, plunder and execute. However, the entire Serbian population carries the stigma of Milosevic’s deeds, and they still coexist with the groups that Milosevic strived to eliminate.

The war crimes tribunal will not bring closure to the divisions in the Balkans. However, other nations with similar sad histories have begun to come together by owning up to their past deeds. In South Africa, after nearly fifty years of brutal apartheid, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission spearheaded by Nelson Mandela, Bishop Desmond Tutu and others was able to serve as a vehicle for airing grievances and finding out what happened to friends and family members who were persecuted by the apartheid regime. In return for truth and reconciliation, criminal trials were avoided, and the country has been able to make a transition from oppressive rule to a system that reaches for equality.

Such a regionally organized commission may be a more effective way for the residents of the former Yugoslavia to seek the truth from the decade of violence and reconcile to the point that they can peacefully coexist in the new Balkan states.

However, Milosevic’s self-centered defense strategy to deflect the blame for genocide is not doing anyone any favors. If he continues his underdog approach as he presents himself as a representative of the Serbian people, truth in the former Yugoslavia will elude even the tribunal in The Hague.

Rachel Faber Machacha is a graduate student in international development studies from Emmetsburg.