Christiane Amanpour: An historic moment

Amanpour: "Milosevic looked uncomfortable"

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- CNN's Chief International Correspondent, Christiane Amanpour reports from the Hague, where she saw Slobodan Milosevic appear before the international war crimes tribunal on Tuesday.

This is the moment this tribunal has been waiting for since it was created back in 1993.

The prosecutor says, and all the prosecutors have said, that the chief aim of this prosecution was to bring the chief architects of the Balkan wars to justice.

And today, the chief prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, said there will, perhaps, never be as important a trial as the one that has just started.

The principal prosecution attorney, Geoffrey Nice, is continuing his opening statement. The entire morning -- just over three-and-a-half hours -- had been take up by the prosecution opening statements.

EXTRA INFORMATION In-Depth: The case against Milosevic  CNN Presents: The people against Milosevic    MORE STORIES • Milosevic trial splits Serb views  • Speaking out for Kosovo's dead  • What they said: Quotes from the prosecution  • Charges: A summary of the indictment  • Timeline: The Milosevic years  • Milosevic: Key quotes    CNN.com Europe More news  from our European edition    QUICKVOTE Slobodan Milosevic says the charges against him are a conspiracy by the West. Do you agree? Yes No View Results

And they are slowly trying to build up a case for Slobodan Milosevic's rise to power and his command and control over all the institutions and installations in the former Yugoslavia -- political, military and financial.

Opening the proceedings today was Carla Del Ponte. She issued a half-hour statement really laying the scene for how the trial would unfold.

She started by saying that this must be an important moment of prevention, as well as justice, it must be the departure point so something like what we saw over 10 years in the Balkans never happens again.

She talked about a new term being coined -- "ethnic cleansing" -- she talked about almost mediaeval savagery and calculated cruelty that went far beyond what she called the legitimate aims of warfare.

Then she insisted this was a trial to prove individual guilt and responsibility not one that would put the entire Serb nation on trial.

But this is what Milosevic's stance is -- he says it is a politically motivated trial, and that it is biased against not just him, but the entire Serbian people. He has refused to recognise the legitimacy of this tribunal and he has refused to have legal representation in court.

He does, however, have legal advisors and handful of them have been sat in the public gallery.

For the first time, Milosevic was confronted with the individual stories by the prosecution of instances of individual crimes committed and individual victims that had been listed by the prosecutors.

And for the first, time, certainly in the experience of this reporter, Slobodan Milosevic looked uncomfortable. He didn't look smugly at the spectators gallery as he usually does. He shifted around in his seat, his eyes looked down, and he made many, many notes.