Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Page 8486

1 May 11, 1998.

2 --- Upon commencing at 10.30 a.m.

3 (Closed Session)

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

Page 8487

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13 page 8487 redacted – closed session

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

Page 8488

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13 page 8488 redacted – closed session

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

Page 8489

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13 page 8489 redacted – closed session

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

Page 8490

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13 page 8490 redacted – closed session

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

Page 8491

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13 page 8491 redacted – closed session

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

Page 8492

1 (redacted)

2 (redacted)

3 (redacted)

4 (redacted)

5 (redacted)

6 (redacted)

7 (redacted)

8 (redacted)

9 (redacted)

10 (redacted)

11 --- Recess taken at 10.48 a.m.

12 --- On resuming at 11.15 a.m.

13 JUDGE JORDA: The hearing is resumed. Please

14 be seated.

15 Mr. Prosecutor?

16 MR. KEHOE: Yes, good morning, Mr. President,

17 Judge Riad. We are going to move back to the

18 cross-examination of Mr. Vulliamy that we postponed, I

19 believe, on the 24th of April, 1993.

20 JUDGE JORDA: Go ahead, please.

21 MR. KEHOE: I believe the Defence counsel has

22 the floor and if the usher could bring Mr. Vulliamy

23 into the courtroom?

24 (The witness entered court).

25 WITNESS; Resumed.

Page 8493

1 JUDGE JORDA: Mr. Vulliamy, good morning.

2 Thank you for coming again. You hear me? Thank you

3 for coming. You are still under oath.

4 I will not repeat to explain the conditions

5 under which we're meeting today, but for you, that

6 doesn't change anything at all. You will be asked

7 questions by Defence counsel. This will not change

8 anything in terms of your examination-in-chief and

9 cross-examination. It is a procedural issue that has

10 been resolved in full agreement between the Prosecution

11 and the Defence to sit in the absence of one judge;

12 whereas, the two Judges, Judge Riad and myself, have

13 been designated as presiding officers.

14 So nothing is changing. You're still under

15 oath. You will now be asked questions by Mr. Hayman,

16 one of the Defence counsel of General Blaskic.

17 MR. HAYMAN: Thank you, Mr. President, and

18 good morning, Mr. Vulliamy?

19 A. Good morning to you, sir.

20 Q. Let me ask you, first, is it correct that you

21 testified for the Office of the Tribunal Prosecutor in

22 the Tadic case?

23 A. I did, yes.

24 Q. Have you agreed to testify in future cases in

25 the future, without identifying the cases; is that also

Page 8494

1 correct?

2 A. I've been notified that there's likely to be

3 one other, yes.

4 Q. Let me direct your attention to that portion

5 of your testimony on direct examination which dealt

6 with your meeting with Mate Boban on the 13th of August

7 1992.

8 With the permission of the court, if at any

9 time you would like to refer to a transcript of the

10 your earlier testimony, the Defence would certainly

11 encourage you to ask for that opportunity?

12 A. I do have one, not with me now, but I'll do

13 my best not to waste your time. I do have the same

14 notes I had with me last time. I'll refer to them and

15 save you the bother, if possible.

16 Q. Very good, thank you. Do you recall at your

17 meeting with Mate Boban on 13 August, 1992, was there

18 anyone else present?

19 A. Yes, there was, a reporter from the

20 Associated Press with whom I had been to the AMP

21 (phoen) at Dretelj.

22 JUDGE RIAD: Can you just look at us?

23 THE WITNESS: Of course, I'm sorry, yes,

24 forgive me.

25 --- Short pause.

Page 8495

1 JUDGE JORDA: Excuse me. We have a problem

2 with the transcript.

3 You testify in many of the hearings, then you

4 are a witness to many of the troubles that we are

5 having with the equipment.

6 THE WITNESS: That's quite all right, sir.

7 JUDGE JORDA: For you, in the end. Now, it's

8 working.

9 Please continue.

10 MR. HAYMAN: Thank you, Mr. President.

11 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, who was the AP reporter who was

12 present with you in that meeting on 13th August?

13 A. Her name was Maude Bielmann from the AP and

14 there was a translator who was employed by the

15 Associated Press whose name, I'm afraid, I can't

16 remember.

17 Q. Is it fair to say that in that meeting, Mate

18 Boban voiced support for a federal system of government

19 in Bosnia and Herzegovina?

20 A. He wanted a form of government that he called

21 that of cantons or provinces. I don't recall the word

22 "federal" being used, but, I mean, the bit that I

23 noted and that stuck in my mind was this reference to

24 cantons and provinces and that he was talking about his

25 difficulties in accepting the constitution of

Page 8496

1 Bosnia-Herzegovina as formulated when it secured its

2 independence.

3 Q. Is it correct that at no time in the meeting

4 he stated that Herceg-Bosna should legally become a

5 part of Croatia; that is, be annexed to Croatia.

6 Q. He didn't use the term annexed. To the best

7 of my recollection the term -- the term was that

8 Herceg-Bosna was culturally, spiritually and

9 economically part of Croatia but had been severed from

10 Croatia by what he called unfortunate historical

11 circumstances.

12 Q. Would you agree at no time did he state that

13 Herceg-Bosna should legally become a part of Croatia?

14 A. I don't recall him using the word "legally,"

15 but it was fairly clear that he didn't intend for there

16 to be much of a border between the two.

17 Indeed, there wasn't at the time, a fairly

18 cursory border, anyway.

19 Q. I may pause for a moment after your answers

20 to allow the interpreters to complete their

21 interpretation.

22 A. That's fine.

23 Q. Just for your information.

24 A. That's fine.

25 Q. Now, let me direct your attention to

Page 8497

1 Travnik. In September of 1992, at about that time,

2 were there refugees coming into Travnik?

3 A. Oh, yes, thousands of refugees.

4 Q. From where?

5 A. Mostly from the area around Prijedor, Samski

6 Most, Banja Luka, and the north-western Bosnian Krajina

7 as it's called, and they were coming over the road, a

8 road which I knew well. A part of my testimony before

9 did not cover, because it wasn't directly relevant, an

10 occasion on which -- whereas a correspondent from

11 Reuters I joined one of these convoys which the Serbs

12 were herding over the mountains throughout a no-man's

13 land at a place called Smet.

14 They were pretty terrifying convoys and they

15 were coming down into Travnik throughout August when I

16 travelled on one, and throughout September and, indeed,

17 into the autumn, they continued to come.

18 Q. In September when you travelled with this

19 group of refugees, were the refugees predominantly

20 Croat on Muslim?

21 A. Predominantly Muslim, but there were some

22 Croats among them.

23 Q. Do you have an estimate whether there was

24 1,000 or 5,000 refugees on this occasion in September,

25 1992 that you saw?

Page 8498

1 A. As I recall, the number that had come into

2 Travnik - this is to the best of my recollection - when

3 I made that journey in August, 1992 was something like

4 36- to 40,000 had come over that road from the Prijedor

5 area, and by the time I went back in September,

6 although it might have been at a slightly later date, I

7 recall the figure of 76,000, yes.

8 So we're talking about tens of thousands,

9 yes. During the time I was in Travnik in September, it

10 would have been two nights' worth, as it were, and I

11 think that probably from my experience the convoy I was

12 on would have represented some 2- to 3,000 people.

13 Q. Is it fair to say that those numbers were

14 larger than the size of towns such as Travnik and

15 Vitez?

16 Do you know how large Travnik was, perhaps I

17 should ask first?

18 A. No, I don't, I'm afraid, because the

19 population was impossible to gauge. All I know is the

20 number of refugees swelling, the original populations

21 of Travnik and Vitez became proportionately higher and

22 higher as the autumn went on, obviously, yes. They

23 moved some on to Zenica and to Herzegovina, depending

24 on their origin, but most had to stay.

25 Q. Would you say that these vast numbers of

Page 8499

1 refugees moving into Bosnia were severely overtaxing

2 the infrastructure and social services available?

3 A. Yes, such as they were. People were doing

4 the best job they could to cope, but, I mean, there

5 wasn't much of an infrastructure to tax.

6 But obviously the authorities in both Travnik

7 and Vitez and other towns, Zenica in particular, were

8 finding it difficult to cope with these numbers, yeah,

9 particularly since these towns -- or Travnik was still

10 under siege.

11 Q. You said in your earlier examination that in

12 September of '92 you met an HVO commander in Travnik by

13 the name of Pokrajcic?

14 A. Joko Pokrajcic, yes.

15 Q. And that he said "he was not going to bow to

16 pressure from either side", quote, unquote, page 7758

17 of the transcript.

18 Did he say to you who or what forces were

19 specifically putting pressure on him?

20 A. To the best of my recollection, he made it

21 clear that he was talking about his own army, on the

22 one hand, putting pressure on him to be part of a

23 hostile state of affairs with the Muslims, and that

24 there was pressure on him from the Muslim side too, and

25 that he was resisting this pressure.

Page 8500

1 In fact, he said, his words, to the best of

2 my recollection were: "I'm here to fight for the

3 victim peoples of this war", and said something about

4 "over my dead body will I not do that".

5 Q. Did he say specifically to you, though, who

6 was putting such pressure on him on the Croat or HVO

7 side?

8 A. He didn't name any names, no, but he -- I

9 mean, he left room for no other inference than, I'm

10 caught between these two sets of pressures and that on

11 the Croat side it was coming from his own army, yeah.

12 Q. Well, did he say -- I take it he said nothing

13 more, whether there was pressure from Mostar, pressure

14 from local politicians, pressure from the regional

15 command?

16 A. He didn't specify on that occasion, no.

17 Q. Thank you. Now, let me direct your attention

18 to the next month, October of 1992. You said you heard

19 that on October 20th, 1992 Mate Boban had visited

20 Travnik?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. How did you hear this?

23 A. It was in the paper when we were in Split.

24 Q. Do you recall what paper?

25 A. I think Slobodna Dalmacija, but I don't, I'm

Page 8501

1 afraid, no. It could have been one of the Croatian

2 papers.

3 Q. Do you recall, was it a Croatian language

4 paper or an English language paper?

5 A. Croatian language.

6 Q. Can you read the Croatian language?

7 A. No, I can't, but we had translators reading

8 the papers for us every day.

9 Q. Did you ever talk to anyone in Travnik that

10 said they had seen Mate Boban in Travnik in October,

11 1992?

12 A. I didn't talk to anybody in Travnik, but I

13 talked to people at the Vitez radio station about it,

14 yes. That would be the following night.

15 Q. What did they say about Boban, whether or not

16 he had been in Travnik in October, 1992?

17 A. They confirmed that he had been, but we

18 didn't talk about it much.

19 Q. What did they say?

20 A. I can't remember exactly, I'm afraid.

21 Q. You also said that you heard that on the 21st

22 of October, 1992, there was a shoot-out or a conflict at

23 a gas station over the division of petroleum supplies.

24 A. Yeah.

25 Q. Who did you hear that from?

Page 8502

1 A. First of all from my translator, who is also

2 a cameraman, and then later when we got up to Vitez, at

3 the radio station people were talking about it, both

4 the Muslim and the Croatian people at the radio debate

5 were talking about this incident at the gas station.

6 Q. Did any of those people tell you who had

7 attacked whom in connection with this gas station?

8 A. The account I heard from the guy who was

9 producing the programme was that there had been an

10 argument over the distribution of fuel and that the HVO

11 had said to the Muslim that they weren't going to get

12 their share or their entire share, and there was an

13 argument and an exchange of fire and a Muslim was

14 killed.

15 Q. Do you know whether there was a local

16 history; that is, a history within Travnik going back

17 some time concerning a dispute over this gas station?

18 A. No. I knew that there had been -- I mean,

19 when I went back in September, that's when I very first

20 heard about, shall we say, arguments or tensions that

21 Mr. Pokrajcic, that we spoke about earlier that we

22 dealt with, but I didn't know until that day that there

23 was a particular dispute about fuel, no.

24 Q. Did you ever learn whether or not there was,

25 though, a history at the local level going back many

Page 8503

1 months to this dispute that ultimately erupted into

2 violence over this gasoline station in Travnik?

3 A. No, I didn't know about a dispute over that

4 specific gasoline station up until that night, no. A

5 dispute over an arms factory in the area, yes, but not

6 the gas station.

7 Q. You said during your direct testimony that

8 also in October of 1992 you heard a radio station, a

9 radio programme involving Pero Skopljak?

10 A. Yes. No, I was actually at -- this was

11 actually the same radio forum in a house in Vitez where

12 the station was based and he was there.

13 Q. You were present and you heard the dialogue

14 and discussion?

15 A. Yes, we were sitting in the room where they

16 were having the dialogue, yes.

17 Q. You also said in the course of that

18 discussion Pero Skopljak Skopljak Skopljak Skopljak

19 said that the HVO was the only legal authority in

20 Vitez, or something to that effect?

21 A. Yes, from now on was the gist of what he was

22 saying, but it was a declaration of what he seemed to

23 think was the new state of affairs in the town.

24 Q. What was Pero Skopljak Skopljak Skopljak

25 Skopljak's position at the time?

Page 8504

1 A. I don't know.

2 Q. Do you know whether it was military or

3 civilian?

4 A. He was representing the HVO.

5 Q. Was he representing civilian elements; do you

6 know?

7 A. I don't. He was introduced as being the --

8 representing the HVO. This debate, this forum, call it

9 what you will, the HDZ was represented, the HVO was

10 represented, the Muslim party, the SDA was represented

11 as was the Bos -- actually, no, the Bosnian army were

12 not, and he was the representative of the HVO.

13 Q. Was there anyone present at this forum, as

14 you put it, in uniform?

15 A. To the best of my recollection, everyone was

16 in civilian clothes, except for some of the aids who

17 were sort of hanging about at the back and the people

18 guarding the doors and so on.

19 But the debaters, if you like, the

20 participants were in civilian clothing.

21 Q. You said during your testimony on page 7766

22 that you heard an ultimatum had been issued in Mostar

23 by the HVO to the Bosnian army that it was to disarm

24 immediately and either disband or come under HVO

25 control?

Page 8505

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. Who issued that so-called ultimatum?

3 A. The HVO in Mostar. It was on the radio in

4 Split when we returned from Novi Travnik that day.

5 Q. Do you know whether it was issued by a local

6 command, national; that is, Herceg-Bosna HVO command or

7 some other element within the HVO?

8 A. Well, it had certainly been issued by the HVO

9 in Mostar as we found out when we got there, but given

10 what we had just heard in Vitez and what we had seen in

11 Novi Travnik and what I had heard from Mr. Boban and

12 would hear from Mr. Boban within 36 hours, it seemed to

13 be coming from everywhere, from the top.

14 Q. I don't recall you saying that in Vitez Pero

15 Skopljak had taken the position that the BiH army had

16 to disarm immediately and come under HVO command.

17 A. He didn't say that--

18 Q. Did he make any such statement in this radio

19 discussion programme that you observed in Vitez?

20 A. I don't recall the details about disarming,

21 but he did say that the HVO was the only legal

22 authority.

23 Q. Well, you seem to have quite a good memory.

24 Did he issue an ultimatum that was equivalent to the

25 ultimatum you learned of on 23rd October, 1992 having

Page 8506

1 been issued, you have testified, by the HVO in Mostar?

2 A. I don't recall him making that specific

3 ultimatum about disarming, no, but I have a note of him

4 saying that the HVO was the only legal authority.

5 Q. Would you agree that the so-called ultimatum

6 you learned of in Mostar was directed to the BiH army

7 in Mostar?

8 A. Well, it was directed at the BiH army right

9 across the territory. I mean, it was being directed at

10 them in Mostar through that -- in that specific

11 language, but, I mean, all over the territory the HVO

12 was taking over in the areas that it claimed.

13 Q. So in what way was this ultimatum issued to

14 the BiH army in Busovaca, for example?

15 A. I don't know. I wasn't in Busovaca, I don't

16 know.

17 Q. In what way was this ultimatum issued within

18 the municipality of Kiseljak?

19 A. In Kiseljak, I don't know. The BiH army was

20 insignificant in Kiseljak.

21 JUDGE JORDA: Could you slow down for the

22 interpreter?

23 THE WITNESS: Certainly.

24 A. We would later see it being enforced, not

25 verbally, but in armed action within 48 hours of Mostar

Page 8507

1 in Prozor, Tomislavgrad and so on. So, yes, it was

2 across the board.

3 I mean, I wasn't in every town to hear the

4 ultimatum being made verbally. I'm not claiming that.

5 What I'm saying is that the HVO was described

6 as "the only legal authority in Vitez," as the fighting

7 started there. As fast as one could keep up, it was

8 happening in Mostar and then -- well, I won't jump the

9 gun, but I've testified as to what happened in Prozor

10 after that, which was most articulate.

11 Q. Aside from the radio discussion programme

12 involving Pero Skopljak Skopljak Skopljak Skopljak whom

13 you were not able to identify as a civilian or a

14 military figure, do you have any other information

15 confirming that any ultimatum of any sort was issued to

16 the BiH army in the Vitez municipality on or about 23

17 October, 1992 telling the BiH army has had that it had

18 to immediately disarm or come under HVO control?

19 A. Well, I've described that situation in the

20 radio debate to the best of my recollection and as far

21 as my notes back up that recollection.

22 As regards to Mr. Skopljak, I'm saying that

23 he represented the HVO. I think he was in civilian

24 uniform, civilian clothes, sorry. But as regards

25 ultimatum in Vitez, those are the words I took note of

Page 8508

1 and I think one can say that firing a substantial

2 amount of ammunition into the Muslim enclave in the

3 centre of the town is a fairly articulate declaration

4 of intent. There was a lot of shooting going on as

5 well as radio talking.

6 Q. You told us that there was -- that you were

7 told that there were barricades, BiH army barricades in

8 Stari Vitez and shooting both coming out and going into

9 Stari Vitez; is that correct?

10 A. I was told that the Muslims in Stari Vitez

11 had put up barricades, I have no reason to disbelieve

12 that and the shooting was going both ways, but I think

13 I've made it clear that most of the shooting seemed to

14 be, as we could ascertain - which is not to the point

15 of certainty - going in, rather than out of the Muslim

16 area.

17 But, most importantly, I testified and would

18 do so again, that the mobilisation around Vitez was a

19 very substantial one and that all the roadblocks that

20 we went through coming up to Vitez and leaving the

21 following day were HVO and the troops coming up the

22 line, as I put it before, were HVO.

23 I mean, this was not a sort of an isolated

24 event. There was a very substantial mobilisation going

25 on by the HVO.

Page 8509

1 Q. You described the conflicts that you saw or

2 heard about in Travnik, Vitez, and the ultimata -- one

3 or more ultimata in Mostar in October, 1992 as an

4 all-out war, page 7765 of the transcript.

5 In your view, did an all-out war start in

6 October, 1992 between the HVO and the BiH army and

7 continue thereafter until the Washington Agreement; is

8 that your view?

9 A. Well, we -- well, I tried to sort of -- I

10 mean, we tried to tell us that this can't be a war,

11 these people are allies. What I saw in Prozor a couple

12 of days after going to Mostar was an all-out war, not

13 between the HVO and the BiH army, but between the HVO

14 and the civilian -- the Muslim civilians of Prozor,

15 who, as I testified before, were shelled and gunned out

16 of town.

17 Certainly by the time we get to the

18 Washington Agreement, there was an all-out war being

19 waged against the civilians of east Mostar, that's for

20 sure.

21 Your point that this was continuous is, I

22 mean, is a fair one. There were cease-fires here,

23 cease-fires there, but the thrust was a war, yes, from

24 that week -- the week beginning 20th or so of October

25 through until the end of the siege in east Mostar that

Page 8510

1 I described was, yes, an all-out war.

2 It certainly wasn't a game of chess.

3 Q. Would you agree that war came to Travnik in

4 June of 1993, Mr. Vulliamy; real war?

5 A. Within Travnik. Travnik was at war

6 throughout, as you know, against the Serbs, but the war

7 within Travnik between the Muslims and the Croats,

8 summer of '93, yeah, maybe a little bit before.

9 JUDGE RIAD: Excuse me. I want to be a

10 little bit clear. When you spoke of the war between

11 the 28th of October and the siege of east Mostar, is it

12 war with civilians or war-war. The word 'war' has got

13 a meaning. Please use the right words.

14 A. Yes, and it is one that we grappled with

15 throughout. I mean, a war one used to think of between

16 armies, rival armies who fight by sort of mutual

17 agreement.

18 Very little of what happened in Bosnia

19 between the Muslims and the Croats or the Serbs and the

20 Muslims and Croats can be really described as war like

21 that. The vast majority of the violence was by

22 soldiers against civilians, and the vast majority of

23 those killed and wounded were civilians, with the

24 exception of some disastrous offensives in various

25 directions.

Page 8511

1 So, yeah, I'm glad you raised that, because I

2 mean, one searches and continues to search for another

3 word, but--

4 JUDGE RIAD: Can it be called massacre?

5 THE WITNESS: Yes. I think shelling women

6 and children in streets and houses - and I must not get

7 too angry about this in a courtroom - it isn't war,

8 it's something worse than war and 'worse than war' is a

9 phrase I've used quite a lot.

10 In the conflict that counsel is asking me

11 about, yes, there were -- between the Muslims and the

12 Croats and between October the 20th and February, '94,

13 there were battles, if you like, between soldiers and

14 exchanges of gunfire between soldiers.

15 But most of the violence, most of the

16 cruelty, most of the atrocities were by artillery,

17 mortar, gunfire against civilians. That was the

18 flavour, the tenor of this war and everything that

19 happened in Bosnia.

20 JUDGE RIAD: Fighting civilians? Were they

21 fighting back?

22 A. Well, no. I mean, the pattern mostly was

23 small communities under siege and you can't fight

24 back. If I can summarise it - this could be a long

25 answer - but to summarise, most of the violence was by

Page 8512

1 -- was either shelling from hilltops into communities

2 and death by sniper and motor fire, and occasional

3 massacres as militias would go into communities and

4 kill people as at -- well, Bosanska, Krupa, Zepa,

5 Ahmici indeed when civilians were simply killed at

6 close range.

7 And then there were also -- there was

8 violence against refugees. The convoy that I went on

9 that I was talking about earlier when counsel asked me

10 about the refugees, when we walked on that road to

11 Travnik from Prijedor, there were bodies on the road.

12 They were clearly shooting at refugees, that's the

13 Serbs at that time.

14 But certainly this was a war against

15 civilians. We like to use the term 'refugee' meaning a

16 side effect of war between armies, but in this

17 conflict, the refugees were the raw material of the

18 war, they were its whole point; the removal of

19 populations was what the war was all about. They were

20 the raison d’être, they weren't a side effect.

21 The violence was against the civilians in the

22 most part, and I use the word 'war' as shorthand.

23 You're right, it is not strictly correct, it is war

24 against people who have not the means to fight back.

25 JUDGE RIAD: Thank you very much.

Page 8513

1 MR. HAYMAN: Thank you.

2 Q. We'll get to the Prozor conflict in a

3 moment. Staying with Travnik for just a question or

4 two, would you agree that what you learned of and saw

5 in Travnik in October, 1992 was not a conflict between

6 the HVO and the civilians; it was a conflict between

7 the HVO and the BiH army over material and military

8 supplies?

9 A. Thank you, absolutely. In Travnik, there was

10 no war by the HVO against the Muslim civilians and

11 there was no war by the Bosnian army against Croatian

12 civilians. Travnik, the inter-necine war in

13 Travnik -- sorry this is so complicated -- the

14 internecine war in Travnik was actually a row

15 between soldiers.

16 Q. Before we come to Prozor, let me ask you

17 about your meeting again with Mate Boban on the 24th of

18 October, 1992.

19 You have told us, page 7772 of the

20 transcript, that Mate Boban told you in this meeting,

21 we have our political platform and anyone who disagrees

22 with it will either step down or leave in some other

23 manner.

24 Did you understand him to be referring to

25 officials or members of the HDZ party in

Page 8514

1 Bosnia-Herzegovina stepping down if they did not agree

2 with his platform when he made that statement?

3 A. I understood him to mean anyone who didn't

4 agree with him and his platform, be they in the HDZ or

5 the HVO or any other grouping on the Croatian side -

6 and I think I was right to infer that.

7 The HVO and the HDZ are so entwined at this

8 point that it seemed to be slicing a hair to make any

9 distinction between them. He was saying, you know,

10 this is the line, obey it, or else you're out.

11 Q. Was the HVO originally formed as the military

12 wing of the HDZ party? Is that what you're saying?

13 A. No, it was formed as a Croatian army within

14 Bosnia-Herzegovina, but the relationship between the

15 HVO and the HDZ became, as I said, progressively

16 entwined as the war went on. I don't think there's

17 much debate about that.

18 Q. Would you agree that the term 'someone

19 stepping down if they don't agree with a political

20 platform' appears to refer to politics and to a

21 political party?

22 A. Well, as the commander Lacic, the commander

23 of the HVO in Mostar had said to us that same

24 afternoon, he had used the term civilian military

25 authority.

Page 8515

1 In these circumstances, there was no great

2 distinction between a political project and the

3 military one. Mr. Boban had articulated his political

4 aims and had left us in no doubt that it was for the

5 HVO to impose those aims militarily.

6 I mean this wasn't an election manifesto.

7 Q. In your conversation with Mate Boban on 24

8 October, 1992, again, did he state that he believed

9 Herceg-Bosna should legally become a part of Croatia,;

10 that is, should be annexed to Croatia?

11 A. No, he didn't use the term legally, not that

12 I recall.

13 Q. Let's turn to the conflict you witnessed or

14 the aftermath of the conflict in Prozor, which I

15 believe you witnessed on the 27th of October, 1992?

16 A. Yes. I witnessed the aftermath on that day.

17 Q. Is it fair to say you arrived after whatever

18 active fighting or firing had occurred was over?

19 A. Yes, that's right.

20 Q. Would you agree that the conflict in Prozor

21 broke out after a conflict between the HVO and the BiH

22 army over the control of the road through Prozor to

23 central Bosnia?

24 A. I don't know about that, but I can imagine

25 that -- I certainly could accept that as an

Page 8516

1 explanation.

2 I tried to explain how important the road was

3 to the HVO for reasons of controlling the aid to

4 central Bosnia and also into Sarajevo for a lot of the

5 time, and I can imagine that would have been of concern

6 to anyone who wasn't in the HVO.

7 But as you said, by the time we got there,

8 the fighting, if that's the right word -- and again, I

9 qualify that, given what I was asked from the Bench

10 just now -- the shelling and the shooting of the

11 civilians had finished because the Muslim civilians had

12 all gone.

13 Q. Would you agree with the statement with

14 respect to Prozor that, as dawn broke, this is page 222

15 of your book, 'then as dawn broke and people started to

16 flee, mobs had moved into town firing willy-nilly, and

17 then began to torch, loot, and cleanse the town'?

18 A. Yes, I would. That is what the people who we

19 found next day in flight across the mountains told us,

20 that the firing from the mountainside to the south-west

21 of the town happened overnight, and at dawn these

22 people came in and they were shooting everywhere and

23 they started looting and burning the houses.

24 Yes, that's what I was told and I hadn't seen

25 anything in the town the previous day that suggested

Page 8517

1 they were wrong. In fact, it seemed to be exactly

2 right.

3 Q. So you agree with the statement in your book

4 on that subject?

5 A. Yeah.

6 Q. Thank you. If the Registrar could assist and

7 place Exhibit 29L on the ELMO, please? The easel,

8 excuse me. I misspoke.

9 Mr. Vulliamy, so we can collectively refresh

10 our recollections, Exhibit 29L is a map of certain

11 portions of Bosnia and Herzegovina on which you were

12 kind enough, I believe, during your direct examination

13 to indicate a route known as Route Diamond for aid

14 coming from the south up into central Bosnia; correct?

15 A. Indeed.

16 Q. Now, I believe you testified at page 7780 of

17 the transcript that it was militarily obvious that the

18 HVO needed to control Prozor in order to secure a

19 resupply route for troops and material in central

20 Bosnia; correct?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. By that, do you mean it was a matter of

23 military necessity for the HVO to preserve that

24 resupply route into central Bosnia?

25 A. Yes. The UN troops were turning a mountain

Page 8518

1 track into a fairly decent road so that they could take

2 aid up into central Bosnia and, for awhile, also that

3 route was necessary to supply Sarajevo as well, because

4 the two tarmac routes in, one through Mostar, one

5 through Livno were too dangerous because they were

6 exposed to the Serb guns.

7 My point was that for the HVO the Route

8 Diamond had two functions -- well, control of the Route

9 Diamond had two functions; one was because if you

10 controlled it you controlled the supply of aid; and

11 also, as was becoming clearer and clearer to them and

12 they made no secret of this, it was a way for them to

13 get their troops up into central Bosnia which you could

14 see them doing day in and day out.

15 Q. Without that route, the HVO in the Vitez and

16 Busovaca municipalities were cut off by any outside

17 resupply by land; correct?

18 A. Other routes would have been much more

19 difficult, put it that way, yeah. The UN was building a

20 road for them so obviously it was by the most

21 convenient.

22 There was another route that I did indicate

23 that went up through Tarcin and up through Kiseljak,

24 but that became too dangerous periodically, yeah.

25 Q. Also, is it true that that route required you

Page 8519

1 to be able to travel from Kiseljak to Busovaca on the

2 road connecting those two towns in order to get to the

3 Lasva or Busovaca municipalities -- excuse me, the

4 Vitez or Busovaca municipalities; correct?

5 A. The Tarcin route, if you wanted to get to

6 Vitez via Tarcin you would have to have gone through

7 Busovaca, yes, which for the HVO presented problems

8 because that was cut from their point of view for a

9 while.

10 Q. It was cut by the BiH army; correct?

11 A. Absolutely, yes.

12 Q. Did the HVO control Prozor from roughly

13 October 27, 1992 until the signing of the Washington

14 Accord?

15 A. So far as I know, yes, and it still does.

16 Q. And were the ability to block humanitarian

17 aid going into central Bosnia, at least into the Vitez

18 and Busovaca municipalities?

19 A. Not to block it, but to call the shots, I

20 mean, to say yea or nay as to whether humanitarian aid

21 could pass.

22 And to charge rent, sometimes the UN had to

23 pay for the use of their own road.

24 Q. Would you agree that during the tours of duty

25 of the three British battalions that served in central

Page 8520

1 Bosnia; that is, from roughly November, 1992 until past

2 October of 1993, every single UNHCR aid convoy that

3 reached the BRITBAT area of responsibility reached its

4 destination; do you agree with that statement?

5 A. I don't know about all, but certainly the

6 vast majority, yes. I mean, they didn't appear to be

7 taking much nonsense.

8 Q. Do you recall writing an article published in

9 the Guardian on April 2, 1996 and which is attributed

10 to you in which you wrote, or it is reported and

11 written that you wrote, "In November, 1993 the

12 Yorkshires left, the reckoning undisclosed. It is now

13 estimated that between 40 and 50 Croats and 20 to 30

14 Muslims fell to the regiment's guns, an unbeaten

15 UNPROFOR record, but every single UNHCR aid convoy

16 that entered the Yorkshires' terrain reached its

17 destination, a record shared only with the Cheshires.

18 Do you agree with that statement?

19 A. Yeah, that sounds right.

20 Q. Would you also agree that the conflict in

21 Prozor in October of 1992 would have heightened

22 tensions between Croats and Muslims in central Bosnia;

23 that is, in the Vitez, Busovaca, and Kiseljak

24 municipalities, that the nearness and proximity of that

25 open conflict in Prozor would have heightened tensions?

Page 8521

1 A. Well, yes. Let's get back to the question

2 from the Bench. I mean, 'open conflict', I mean, this

3 was a bombardment of a civilian population that left

4 town. The Croats didn't leave Prozor, the Muslims

5 did. That is bound to increase tensions in central

6 Bosnia, yes. How could it not?

7 Q. Did you become aware, directing your

8 attention to Exhibit 29L, of a point in time following

9 October, 1992 when the BiH army came to control

10 portions of the terrain over which Route Diamond

11 passed?

12 A. Could you give me the dates again, sir? I'm

13 sorry.

14 Q. At some point in time after the HVO came to

15 control the town of Prozor --

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. -- Did you learn that the BiH army had taken

18 control over some portion of the terrain between Prozor

19 and where Route Diamond enters central Bosnia proper

20 via Novi Travnik or Travnik?

21 Did you become aware of that information?

22 A. Of course I was aware of it. At some point

23 further up you went through BiH army checkpoints.

24 There was one in Novi Travnik as you came around a

25 short bend, if I recall, and the Bosnian army also

Page 8522

1 controls a forest up above Gornji Vakuf which was also

2 along Route Diamond.

3 Q. And above that forest; that is, the forest

4 above Gornji Vakuf, could the BiH army shell the road

5 and essentially close it to Travnik, if they wished?

6 A. Yes, they could, and both sides could and did

7 shell it in Gornji Vakuf itself.

8 Q. Can you tell us, roughly, when this was that

9 Route Diamond came under the control of the BiH army?

10 A. So far as I know, the area to the north of

11 that forest was always in their hands I think, or if it

12 wasn't, then, you know, then I would have been out of

13 the country.

14 So I'm not quite sure that there was -- I

15 mean, there were bits of Route Diamond further up

16 towards Vitez which, I'm trying to think, which they

17 had -- which the BiH army had from October and had not

18 lost in October and kept, I think, into 1993, probably

19 held until about February, 1993 when I think they then

20 lost the roadblock that I talked about on the bend in

21 the road.

22 I wish I had a village. I don't know, I'm

23 afraid. You come out of the forest, you go down

24 towards Novi Travnik, you come to a bend in the road,

25 there was a BiH checkpoint there and it had gone by

Page 8523

1 January 1993 so they had had it up until then, yeah.

2 Q. Would you agree that at other point or points

3 or Route Diamond after February 1993, the BiH army

4 maintained its positions and control over some portion

5 of Route Diamond up until the Washington Agreement in

6 1994?

7 A. Well, in July 1993, I can't answer the

8 question, actually, because in July 1993, the fighting

9 was so heavy on Route Diamond that it was unusable. As

10 I said, you had to use the other route through. Sorry,

11 that was February 1993 when we got knocked back. July

12 1993, I didn't see a BiH army checkpoint when I went on

13 Route Diamond in 1993, but that's not to say they

14 didn't control some of the area in the forest where

15 they may not have had checkpoints because there was a

16 gang up there that people didn't want to meet, but they

17 didn't have checkpoints but we were told that the

18 Bosnian army still controlled parts of the forest, but

19 I'm afraid I can't help you with specific roadblocks.

20 I don't think there were any by the time we got to

21 July.

22 Q. So in summary, this will be my last question,

23 as far as you know, at all relevant times after -- from

24 October 1992 to the Washington agreement, the BiH army

25 had the ability to cut off Route Diamond; is that fair?

Page 8524

1 A. I honestly can't tell you all the way

2 through. I mean, I didn't travel Route Diamond all the

3 time right up until the Washington agreement.

4 Q. Let me rephrase the question.

5 MR. KEHOE: If the witness can finish his

6 answer before counsel interrupts with another

7 question.

8 A. I'll answer it as best I can. There were

9 parts of Route Diamond that the BiH army definitely

10 controlled up until January 1993 because they had

11 checkpoints. There were parts of Route Diamond which

12 they were reported to control in July 1993, but there

13 were no visible checkpoints, but they may not have had

14 any or they may have been in the forest. I can only

15 really help you up until the summer of '93.

16 Q. And thereafter you don't know; is that

17 correct?

18 A. Thereafter, I don't know. I have to be

19 fair.

20 JUDGE JORDA: Mr. Hayman, how long do you

21 think your cross-examination will last?

22 MR. HAYMAN: Mr. President, I'm about halfway

23 through.

24 JUDGE JORDA: Very well. I suggest that we

25 have a five to ten-minute recess.

Page 8525

1 --- Recess taken at 12.07 a.m.

2 --- On resuming at 12.35 a.m.

3 JUDGE JORDA: The hearing is resumed. Have

4 the accused brought in, please?

5 Mr. Hayman, I have discussed with my

6 colleague, we are going to sit until quarter past one

7 so as not to break up your cross-examination and we

8 will resume at 2.30.

9 Is the accused here?

10 We can proceed without a transcript, almost

11 without an usher, but without you we can't do anything,

12 but we do need the accused.

13 (The accused entered court).

14 JUDGE JORDA: Very well.

15 MR. HAYMAN: Thank you, Mr. President.

16 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, let me turn your attention to

17 the fall of Jajce. Was that in late October, 1992 that

18 Jajce fell to the Serbs?

19 A. Yes, and going into the first days of

20 November.

21 Q. I believe you testified that the fall of

22 Jajce during that period of time led to an exodus of

23 roughly 40,000 people?

24 A. Yes, correct.

25 Q. Some of those were combatants but the

Page 8526

1 majority were civilian refugees?

2 A. That's right.

3 Q. Were most of the refugees Croat or Muslim?

4 A. The majority -- 50/50, maybe slightly more

5 Muslims, but a larger proportion of Croats than among

6 the refugees that we had been talking about earlier

7 coming from the Prijedor area.

8 Q. Did those refugees also flood into Travnik?

9 A. Oh, yes.

10 Q. Now, you testified earlier that some soldiers

11 with whom you spoke said they had withdrawn from Jajce

12 as part of a Croat-Serb deal. Do you recall that

13 testimony?

14 A. Yes, I recall that, and I recall them saying

15 that.

16 Q. Did you discuss that issue with the brigade

17 commanders of both the HVO and the BiH army at the time

18 in Travnik?

19 A. Yes, and they did not -- as I recall, they

20 did not share that view. Both the HVO and the Bosnian

21 army thought that the defence of Jajce had become

22 untenable. The talk of a deal and the umbrage of it

23 came from the troops themselves.

24 Q. Let me ask you if you agree that the

25 following statements were made, and I'm reading from an

Page 8527

1 article attributed to you in the Guardian dated

2 November 2, 1992.

3 Colonel Haso Ribo of the Bosnian army, who

4 has within a month changed from a genial and confident

5 man into the lachrymose commander of a desperate army

6 said, "We were under intense and irresistible military

7 pressure pure and simple. There was the risk that

8 Jajce would be cut off, the corridor cut by winter and

9 that there would be a massacre."

10 Do you recall Colonel Ribo making, in

11 substance, that statement to you?

12 A. Yes, indeed. I recall the corridor up which

13 he and his Croatian allies were trying to defend

14 Jajce. We tried to get up it ourselves. It was

15 absolutely terrifying. That was his position and, as I

16 recall, the HVO had roughly the same argument.

17 The different account was coming from the

18 soldiers who had been defending the town.

19 Q. Do you recall Colonel Filipovic of the HVO in

20 Travnik telling you, at the same point in time, "It was

21 an unequal battle and it became more and more so. The

22 order to withdraw came from local civil authorities

23 with tacit approval of both commands."

24 A. Yes, I recognise this. As I said, I think

25 the HVO agreed with Commander Ribo -- Commander

Page 8528

1 Filipovic agreed with Commander Ribo that they could no

2 longer defend Jajce up this narrow corridor and that's

3 what they said and that's what the men were saying.

4 They were saying different things and I

5 reported them both.

6 Q. In substance, did Colonel Filipovic make the

7 statement to you that I made to you?

8 A. Oh, yes, in an interview.

9 Q. You described a checkpoint at Romboci (phoen)

10 south-west of Prozor which you visited in October of

11 1992 where, at one point in time, there were soldiers

12 wearing HOS uniforms and later those soldiers were

13 wearing HVO uniforms. Do you recall that subject?

14 A. Indeed. Yes, I went through that roadblock

15 many, many times.

16 Q. Let me ask you if you agree with the

17 following statement on that general subject in your

18 book at page 214, which reads: "That for a

19 considerable period of time, the region was a lawless

20 embroilment of militias fighting their own wars against

21 each other amid what would become a bedlam of

22 violence."

23 And this is a reference to the Croat side I

24 believe; is that correct?

25 A. Yes, that's a reference to the Mostar area in

Page 8529

1 August, 1992 when there was an internecine row

2 going on between the HOS and the HVO and, indeed, the

3 HOS leader was killed by the HVO. That was at a time,

4 indeed, when there was a melee of militias of various

5 kinds, to a greater or lesser extent, under HVO

6 command.

7 That was some months before the period we

8 were talking about back in August, 1992 and pertained

9 to Mostar as I think is clear in the book, and it's a

10 chapter called the Rule of Madness, I believe.

11 The, if you like, imposition of HVO authority

12 happened subsequent to that, and so far as I could see

13 was pretty much in place by the time we got to this

14 October watershed, if you like. But that's correct as

15 regards to the Mostar area back in August.

16 Q. Your testimony is then that things had

17 changed by description in your book by roughly October,

18 1992; is that right?

19 A. Had changed dramatically, yes, and would

20 change in the weeks to come, yes, that the smaller

21 units, the free-booters, or whatever we want to call

22 them, were being marshalled under the top-down

23 authority of Mate Boban and the HVO and that, by the

24 time we get to the end of October, visibly at least,

25 this more homogeneous authority, more monolithic

Page 8530

1 authority is pretty much in place.

2 Q. Do you have any specific information you can

3 share with the court concerning the way in which HOS

4 units or a HOS unit in the Vitez municipality was

5 absorbed into the HVO; that is, whether they came under

6 the command of the operative zone, or whether they had

7 a line of command as a special unit to the Ministry of

8 Defence in Mostar? Do you have any specific

9 information on that subject to provide to the court?

10 A. I'm afraid I don't. I don't know about the

11 HOS in Vitez specifically. This HOS unit that was

12 manning the roadblock at Romboci (phoen) we got to know

13 because they had a roadblock and you had to present

14 yourselves to them and it had HOS written on the side

15 of their little hut.

16 And the HOS uniform was a full black tunic

17 back in August. They didn't have that, they would have

18 maybe fatigues, trousers and a black T-shirt. They

19 came under HVO authority and had HVO uniforms in that

20 last or penultimate week in October.

21 I'm afraid I can't help you with HOS in

22 Vitez. There were other groups in Vitez that we heard

23 about who were coming under the command of the HVO.

24 I'm not saying the HOS wasn't in Vitez, they may very

25 well have been, but I didn't have any direct contact

Page 8531

1 with them.

2 Q. Would you agree with the thesis that the

3 first truly high intensity, violent conflict between

4 Croats and Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina was in

5 Prozor in roughly October of 1992?

6 A. The first systematic driving out of Muslim

7 civilians -- the first systematic attack upon the

8 civilians by an army was in Prozor in 1992 -- in

9 October, 1992 so far as I could see. You're using the

10 term 'fighting' as though it was between two rival

11 armies. I saw the aftermath of 5,000 civilians being

12 shelled and shot out of a town and a subsequent

13 looting.

14 Q. You would agree that what happened in Prozor

15 was at an intensity that had not happened anywhere else

16 in Bosnia-Herzegovina between Croats and Muslims at the

17 time; correct?

18 A. Yes, it was the first ethnic cleansing, not a

19 term I like and, with hindsight, a sort of scale model,

20 a dry run, if you like.

21 Q. Would you also agree that that type of high

22 intensity conflict between Croats and Muslims first

23 came to the Vitez Busovaca and Kiseljak municipalities

24 in the municipality of Busovaca in January, 1993?

25 A. Vitez, Kiseljak and Busovaca?

Page 8532

1 Q. In other words, in the Vitez and Kiseljak

2 enclaves, did the first intense conflict come in the

3 Busovaca municipality in January of 1993? Would you

4 agree that that is true?

5 A. Busovaca and Stari Vitez, I'm not sure which

6 would have been the first, but they would have been the

7 first two, yes.

8 Kiseljak had very few Muslims living there,

9 so obviously the intensity was lesser.

10 Q. Would you agree with the statement in your

11 book at page 255 that, "at Busovaca, in the Lasva

12 Valley, it was the armija which came down from the

13 hills and "cleaned" out the Croatians."

14 Would you agree with that statement in your

15 book?

16 A. Well, the village is just to the east of

17 Busovaca, yes. I'm not trying to say that this is all

18 one-way traffic. It's pretty obvious who has got the

19 upper hand, it's the HVO, but I'm not here to pretend

20 that this is all one-way.

21 Yes, the Muslims were attacking as well. I'm

22 not denying that.

23 Q. When you say the village is to the east of

24 Busovaca, are you referring to Dusina and Lasva, or are

25 you referring to Gusti Grab and Oceust down between

Page 8533

1 Kacuni and Bilalovac; can you clarify?

2 A. I'm referring to the area at the south-east at

3 which the BiH army set up a roadblock shortly after

4 that time. I don't want to get into a conversation

5 about specific villages, because if I did I would then

6 be going beyond by specific knowledge which I don't

7 want to do.

8 Q. As you understand, by that roadblock, cutting

9 the main road from Busovaca to Kiseljak; correct?

10 A. For awhile, yes, the BiH army had a roadblock

11 south of Busovaca on that road to Kiseljak, yes.

12 Q. Did you also describe the ensuing conflict in

13 and around Busovaca as follows: "The squalid small-town

14 nature of the violence led to the rapid circulation of

15 rumours which in turn fanned the flames of fighting".

16 Do you agree with that statement?

17 A. Yeah.

18 Q. Now, let's return to Travnik and Colonel

19 Filipovic, the HVO commander you've described meeting.

20 I believe you visited him in January, 1993; is that

21 correct?

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. You said Colonel Filipovic would have none of

24 Boban's war with the BiH army.

25 Could you tell us, again, briefly how did he

Page 8534

1 exhibit his desire to cooperate with the BiH army?

2 A. With an episode that I described in my

3 testimony. At considerable risk to himself and his

4 opposite number in the BiH army and us, I might add, we

5 went up Mount Vlacic together, so within a few hundred

6 yards of the Serb guns, and he staged a little sort

7 of filmed episode at which he sat next to his opposite

8 number in the BiH army, Commander Kulilovic and made it

9 clear that -- they joked a bit about how at least we

10 can tell each other we don't trust each other, and then

11 he made this remark that, yes, I'm walking the edge of

12 the knife.

13 I mean, that was his way of saying I'm very

14 unhappy about this, and a rather potent way it was too,

15 under the guns up there.

16 Q. Is it fair to say that Colonel Filipovic made

17 no attempt to hide his active cooperation with the BiH

18 army, rather, he attempted to promote and publicise his

19 views in that regard. Would you agree with that?

20 A. He wanted to say, I think, if I interpret him

21 properly, that as he put it, "coming up the valley

22 towards Travnik was a pressure on him to adopt a

23 bellicose attitude towards his Muslim allies and that

24 he didn't want to do that; and he was, as you say, yes,

25 I agree with you, he was making it quite clear that he

Page 8535

1 didn't want to do it.

2 Q. And he was publicising -- actively

3 publicising those views; correct?

4 A. Indeed.

5 Q. In your conversation with him when he said he

6 was being made to walk the edge of the knife, was this

7 on your trek up the Vlacic feature and how long was it?

8 A. It was intermittent and having to split up,

9 you don't know when you're approaching a gun position,

10 you have to stretch apart and it was either on the way

11 up -- actually, it was more than likely when we were

12 sitting on the rocks under the guns or on the way

13 down.

14 We spent some time together to wait for a

15 truck to meet us by sort of a hut.

16 Q. Did he expressly say what he meant when he

17 said he was being made to walk the edge of the knife?

18 A. Well, yes, he did. He talked about pressures

19 coming up the valley. That is when I heard Colonel

20 Blaskic's name mentioned and Mate Boban. He was

21 articulate about it.

22 Q. What did he say Colonel Blaskic was making

23 him do?

24 A. Walk the edge of the knife, which I took to

25 mean tightrope walk between two things he didn't want

Page 8536

1 to do.

2 Q. And at the time Colonel Filipovic was

3 actively promoting cooperation with the BiH army?

4 A. Very much so.

5 Q. Did he say what it was Colonel Blaskic was

6 ordering him to do what he didn't want to do?

7 A. No, he didn't specify. He grouped Colonel

8 Blaskic together with Mate Boban and said that he was

9 walking the edge of the knife, they were making him

10 walk the edge of the knife, and that he wanted to --

11 that he -- I took that to mean, and by all means try an

12 alternative interpretation if you want, there were two

13 things he didn't want to do, he didn't want to leave

14 the HVO because he was an HVO man and a Croat and a

15 loyal Croat, but nor did he want to do that he was

16 pressurised to do, which was to adopt hostile attitude

17 to the BiH army that was happening almost everywhere

18 else across the territory, apart from Travnik and

19 places to the north and so on.

20 Q. Would you agree from the conduct that he

21 exhibited and, indeed, promoted, that he had not been

22 forced to adopt and exhibit any type of hostile

23 attitude towards the BiH army?

24 A. He made it clear that he was under extreme

25 pressure to do so.

Page 8537

1 Q. Did he attack the BiH army in Travnik in

2 January of 1993?

3 A. No, I don't think so.

4 Q. In February of 1993?

5 A. Not that I know of.

6 Q. March of 1993?

7 A. I don't know how long he remained the

8 commander during that spring, so I would be -- I don't

9 want to -- I'd like to help, but I don't want to make

10 any suppositions.

11 There was fighting later that spring, but I

12 wasn't there and I wouldn't want to testify as to how

13 it started or who started it or whether he was still

14 the commander. I'm afraid I just don't know.

15 Q. But it is your understanding that ultimately

16 in the spring or June, approximately, of 1993, it was

17 the BiH army that drove the HVO out of Travnik;

18 correct?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. By the way, have you kept in touch with

21 General Filipovic?

22 A. No, I haven't, I'm afraid.

23 Q. But you were aware that he was promoted to

24 the rank of General within the HVO; weren't you?

25 A. I knew he had been promoted. I didn't know

Page 8538

1 he was a General and then I can only presume that he

2 went over that side of the knife and not the other

3 side. I don't think he wanted to fall on it, nor do I

4 blame him.

5 But, no, I haven't kept in touch with him is

6 the answer, but I respected his position. I thought he

7 was a decent man.

8 Q. A man committed to his views; wouldn't you

9 agree?

10 A. Yeah, a man who believed in the alliance

11 between --

12 JUDGE JORDA: Please face the Judges.

13 THE WITNESS: I apologise.

14 JUDGE JORDA: When you get the question, I

15 say this to all the witnesses, of course, it is normal

16 your question comes from one side or the other and it

17 is normal that you turn that way; but when you're

18 answering, please, address the Judges because, after

19 all, they are there for that purpose.

20 THE WITNESS: I shall, I'm sorry.

21 He was a man who, so far as I could gather,

22 believed in the alliance at the beginning of the

23 war between the Bosnian army and the HVO, as was

24 planned we thought, wrongly, and it is for that that I

25 respected him.

Page 8539

1 We had seen a horrific amount of the violence

2 that the Serbs had meted out to both people and, as a

3 group of journalists covering the war, and I suppose to

4 say we hoped that alliance would hold together as well

5 and it didn't.

6 It was refreshing when you met Croats who

7 believed in it and were prepared to speak their mind

8 against this command from on high. I thought he was

9 doing something honourable by trying, at least, if not

10 successfully.

11 MR. HAYMAN:

12 Q. In sum, you found him to be a man of honesty

13 and integrity; is that fair?

14 A. Yes. The Croats and the Muslims had been

15 fighting together against this juggernaught of violence

16 that the Serbs were meting out to their people, and we

17 had seen that in alliance in Mostar, they were

18 effective against all the odds, and here was Mate Boban

19 and his command structure rupturing that alliance, and

20 here was a man who was not prepared to administer a

21 knife in the back and I admired him for it. He was

22 against the run of play and he was a brave man for

23 doing so.

24 What happened to him after that, as I've

25 said, I don't know.

Page 8540

1 Q. If Exhibit 173 could be put on the easel,

2 I'll ask you a few preliminary questions first while

3 it's being put on the easel.

4 You left Bosnia-Herzegovina in February of

5 1993 and did not return until July, 1993; is that

6 correct?

7 A. That's correct, yes.

8 Q. In July of 1993, you did visit the Vitez

9 area; correct?

10 A. Yes, I did.

11 Q. Now, I believe you said in your earlier

12 testimony that during that visit to Vitez in July of

13 1993 it came to your attention, rather dramatically,

14 that there was a sniper of the BiH army firing on the

15 garden in the home in which you were staying from a

16 hill next to the British battalion headquarters;

17 correct?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. Could you take a look at Exhibit 173, which

20 is the smaller aerial photograph -- perhaps it will fit

21 on the ELMO, I apologise. Why don't we try that?

22 I apologise to the usher for that needless

23 effort.

24 And my question for you, Mr. Vulliamy, would

25 be: Can you indicate on Exhibit 173 the hill from

Page 8541

1 which this Bosnian army sniper fired on the residence

2 in which you were staying?

3 A. Yes, I shall try. I only later learned he

4 was in the Bosnian army, actually. His flag up there

5 was the crescent, the Islamic crescent.

6 Q. If we can orient the map the other way so the

7 numbers are facing the bottom of the screen; in other

8 words, a quarter turn in a counter-clockwise direction,

9 I believe.

10 Now, if it could be lowered on the ELMO --

11 the other way, the other direction, please, a little

12 bit lower, please, just another inch or two lower.

13 Thank you.

14 First of all, on Exhibit 173, Mr. Vulliamy,

15 do you recognise the area below the letter '1', not in

16 the circle that is marked 1, but below the letter'1',

17 the large number of light-coloured buildings? Do you

18 recognise that as constituting all or parts of the

19 BRITBAT base?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. Can you indicate whether the hill from which

22 this-- where was the hill, where was the approximate

23 location of the sniper that was firing on you?

24 A. I'm trying to find what was known as

25 television alley which is where the BBC had a house,

Page 8542

1 television as it was jokingly called.

2 Q. To help you orient further, do you see the

3 bridge, see the river or the stream and the bridge

4 going over the river and the stream just above the

5 number 3A?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. And then as you go up the photograph to 4A

8 and 4, that is a hill frequently referred to as

9 Grbavica. Does that help you orient yourself?

10 A. A bit, yes. I'm trying to find the house

11 first and, as soon as I've got the road and the house,

12 I'll know exactly where the hill is.

13 Q. Please do.

14 A. If I'm not mistaken, this is the television

15 alley, as it was called, either that or that, and the

16 -- yes, that's right. So we're here and the garden is

17 here and he's been shooting down.

18 JUDGE JORDA: We can't see anything now,

19 Mr. Usher.

20 MR. HAYMAN: I believe we can't cover that

21 portion of the ELMO, Mr. Usher, because as we cover

22 that upper portion of the ELMO we're obstructing the

23 workings of the ELMO itself.

24 Q. Very well, on the lower portion of Exhibit

25 173, can you tell us-- ?

Page 8543

1 A. Can you tell me, is this the main road here?

2 This is where the houses were that the BBC would have

3 been in. Do you happen to know that?

4 Q. My understanding, and the Prosecutor can

5 disagree if he so wishes, is that the road you

6 indicated is the main road going by the BRITBAT base.

7 And the top of the photograph is the portion

8 of the road heading in an east or south-easterly

9 direction and the portion on which you have the pin now

10 is the portion of the road heading west/north-west, away

11 from Vitez.

12 A. Right. Well, in that case, that's television

13 alley, as it was called, and the garden is somewhere

14 there, and if that's the hill, the sniper would have

15 been shooting behind the BRITBAT into the garden.

16 So the sniper was located approximately at

17 the circle marked 4 on Exhibit 173; is that right?

18 A. I think so. I have to say -- if anyone can

19 help me find television alley, I hate to use the term,

20 but that's what it was called, then I will be able to

21 mark the hill with more accuracy, but the house was --

22 the house ran adjacent to the main road behind the

23 BRITBAT and the hill was to the west of the house.

24 And so the snipers firing on us it would have

25 come behind the BRITBAT which would be in that

Page 8544

1 direction.

2 So I'm prepared to say that that is the

3 hill. If that is the road, if I'm right in identifying

4 in the road, and I think I am find the road, then

5 you're right in identifying the hill.

6 Q. Thank you. We're concluded with that

7 exhibit, Mr. Usher.

8 You described your visit also to east Mostar

9 in July, 1993?

10 A. No.

11 Q. No visit to east Mostar in July, 1993, I'm

12 sorry?

13 A. No.

14 Q. Later then in time you visited --

15 A. September, 1993 first time in east Mostar.

16 Q. Very good, thank you for correcting me. Did

17 you learn during that visit or any other visit what the

18 size of the BiH army unit or units were in east Mostar?

19 A. I didn't learn the exact size. I mean, they

20 were there. They were very scantily armed. It

21 certainly wasn't - to refer us back to our previous

22 conversation - this was not fighting. It was enclosed,

23 it was fully enclosed. There was a small track coming

24 down from Lepenice that you could get ammunition in

25 through horseback, but apart from that it was

Page 8545

1 completely cut off.

2 Q. They were under siege; is that right?

3 A. And how, yes.

4 Q. Do you have any idea of the number of BiH

5 army soldiers in Mostar?

6 A. No, I don't. But the number of soldiers is

7 almost irrelevant. I mean, there were plenty of

8 soldiers with maybe a couple of bullets each, I don't

9 know.

10 But east Mostar was -- when you say 'under

11 siege', yes, indeed. There were four-figure numbers of

12 shells and mortars coming in every day exploding and

13 killing and maiming a population swelled with women and

14 children.

15 Q. Do you know whether civilians were invited to

16 leave east Mostar at any occasion -- on any occasion

17 during the siege?

18 A. I didn't hear about that, no.

19 Q. You said in your testimony at page 7789 that

20 you concluded from events in October of '92 that there

21 was one chain of command under Mate Boban and that it

22 was working.

23 Do you have any specific information for the

24 Tribunal concerning the way in which Mate Boban exerted

25 control over HVO military units; that is, did he issue

Page 8546

1 orders through HVO military commanders? Did he issue

2 orders through HDZ political channels? How did he

3 exert control, as you have concluded, over the HVO?

4 A. Well, I can say what I saw at Mate Boban's

5 various headquarters, which was that there were never

6 not senior HVO people there. I mean, the HVO were

7 always in his company.

8 He talked of the HVO as though it were the

9 executor of what he intended to carry out. He would

10 talk about the HVO a lot more than he talked about the

11 HDZ, of which he was the official. I mean, he used

12 HDZ, HVO, almost interchangeably and was forever

13 asserting to us the authority of the HVO throughout the

14 territory. That is what I got from being with him and

15 being at his headquarters.

16 When it comes to what one saw happening, what

17 I saw happening on the ground, then I can say that

18 everything that Mate Boban said he was going to do was

19 then done by the HVO.

20 If he said, you know, we are now going to

21 assert our authority in this way, as he did in that

22 meeting I had with him in October, we could see it

23 happening all over the territory, in Vitez, in Mostar

24 (inaudible) with mobilisations on the road

25 accordingly. This was more than anecdotal. So that's

Page 8547

1 my answer.

2 Two things: One is what you saw and the

3 people you saw at Mate Boban's headquarters, and the

4 way he talked about the HVO. I mean, he didn't say, I

5 hope the HVO will do this; he said, the HVO will do

6 this.

7 And then the second part of the answer, on

8 the ground, they did.

9 Q. I'm afraid you misunderstood my question and

10 answered a different question. My question was--

11 MR. KEHOE: I object to counsel's comments.

12 If counsel has another question, he can ask another

13 question. The editorialising, I think is

14 objectionable.

15 MR. HAYMAN: The record is clear. The answer

16 was not responsive and the court can take notice of

17 that, and I think I should be permitted to refocus the

18 witness on the question so we can get an answer to it

19 on the record.

20 MR. KEHOE: The answer is the answer to the

21 question that was given. This is the witness' answer.

22 If counsel doesn't like that answer, that's another

23 subject, but counsel's editorialising on responses to

24 the questions is improper.

25 JUDGE JORDA: I'm sorry, Mr. Kehoe, but it

Page 8548

1 didn't sound to me like a commentary. It didn't seem

2 to me to be as particularly weighty or substantial but,

3 in any case, we need a little rest, so I suggest that

4 we adjourn.

5 The witness will also be able to take a

6 breather, and we will resume at a quarter to three.

7 --- Luncheon recess taken at 1.13 p.m.

8 --- On resuming at 2.53 p.m.

9 JUDGE JORDA: The hearing is resumed. Please

10 have the accused brought in.

11 (The accused entered court)

12 JUDGE JORDA: Mr. Hayman, as all yours.

13 MR. HAYMAN: Thank you, Mr. President.

14 Mr. Vulliamy, I have three or four or areas to cover,

15 if you will bear with me. I'm nearing the end.

16 A. That's fine. Don't worry.

17 Q. When we broke before lunch, the question I

18 was trying to express and ask was, is it correct that

19 you were not privy to the types of internal

20 communications with either the HVO or the HDZ that

21 would shed light on what orders were issued, to whom

22 they were issued, through what chains or lines of

23 commands they were issued vis-à-vis Mr. Boban and

24 others in the HVO?

25 A. Correct. The HVO were not showing me, or, to

Page 8549

1 my knowledge, anybody else, their internal commands,

2 nor was Mr. Boban, so I wasn't privy to their

3 classified documents. What I was not privy to but

4 witness to, were Mr. Boban's declarations of intent as

5 regards both the HDZ and the HVO, and the way in which

6 he regarded both as on hand and available to him to

7 carry out his intentions, and those intentions

8 accordingly being carried out as sequiturs on the

9 ground, so one didn't need to see the internal

10 documentation. You just had to see what they were

11 doing to people.

12 Q. What were his intentions in the municipality

13 of Travnik, if you know?

14 A. So far as I know, his intentions in the

15 municipality of Travnik, was that Travnik, despite its

16 northern position and its Muslim majority should be

17 part of Herceg-Bosna. That was declared and that --

18 well, quite what being part of Herceg-Bosna entailed

19 was made manifest to us from what ensued in Prozor,

20 Novi Travnik, Vitez, Mostar and other places, namely,

21 as I tried to say earlier in my testimony, one came

22 reluctantly to the realisation that no Muslims were

23 meant to be living in that area.

24 Q. So your conclusion is that, Boban intended,

25 that all Muslims were to be driven out of the Travnik

Page 8550

1 municipality; is that right?

2 A. I think Mate Boban wanted the population of

3 Herceg-Bosna to be as much -- to be as exclusively

4 Croatian as possible and that if Muslims were intended

5 to remain within that territory, they were to have

6 professed -- they were to be sufficiently subservient

7 to his order, further to present no threat. I'm not

8 saying that he wanted a complete, sort of, Muslimised

9 statelet, but I'm saying that he certainly did not

10 intend to have any Muslims in the area under his

11 command who were going to present him with any kind of

12 political military problem, as he saw it.

13 Q. Putting the --

14 A. And Travnik was part of that area.

15 Q. Putting the incident at the gasoline station

16 aside, and as to which you have already said you don't

17 know whether there was a local history giving rise to

18 that incident or not, but putting that incident aside,

19 can you tell us anything the HVO did in Travnik in

20 October 1992 to force the BiH army to come under the

21 command or be subservient to the HVO. Did they do

22 anything else, that you can tell the judges about in

23 October 1992, consistent with the intent you have

24 expressed on the part of Mate Boban, in that regard?

25 A. No, and that's precisely my point. Travnik,

Page 8551

1 the HVO in Travnik, presented Mate Boban and the chain

2 of command was developed or almost developed by October

3 1992, with a problem. The city had a tradition of

4 tolerance between the two. It had been, and this was

5 another important difference, I think, it had been a

6 front-line town in the war against the Serbs, so there

7 was an experience of fighting together among the

8 soldiers of both sides, unlike, in many of the other

9 places in Herzegovina, although not Mostar, I will

10 agree, and yes, it was a central Bosnian town and it

11 was more tolerant than most, and I think the HVO and

12 Mate Boban had a problem in Travnik. In October 1992,

13 that which Mate Boban was able to mobilise within the

14 HVO behind his intentions at, as we saw, Prozor, Novi

15 Travnik, Vitez, Mostar, he was not able to achieve in

16 Travnik precisely because he could not get the

17 commanders to fall into line.

18 Q. So you would agree that local events varied

19 depending on the conditions, relationship between the

20 HVO, and the BiH army and other local factors?

21 A. No, I wouldn't say that. I would say there

22 were exceptions to the rule and they were easily

23 identifiable and they were isolated exceptions. One

24 was Travnik. The other was up in Tuzla, where another

25 tradition of tolerance existed and there were small

Page 8552

1 villages in the area between Zenice and Tuzla, where

2 the HVO declined to accept this hostile position as

3 regards to the BiH army. I would not say that it was

4 -- it was like sort of a jigsaw in which everyone made

5 up their own mind. I'm talking about specific places

6 where there were different traditions and specific

7 commanders in place who sought to defy what was going

8 on in Mostar, Vitez, Tomislavgrad, Prozor, Novi Travnik

9 and, as it were, the main block of Herec-Bosna.

10 JUDGE RIAD: Excuse me, HVO commanders?

11 A. Yes. Specifically in Travnik and Tuzla where

12 the HVO -- in Travnik, I mean, it did come to blows in

13 the end, although not quite as dramatically in Prozor

14 and the other places, but Travnik was the one place,

15 where the HVO sort of held out against this obligation

16 on them coming up the valley, as Filipovic put it, to

17 engage the Muslims in a war. And the other place was

18 Tuzla which we haven't talked much about, which was

19 way, way, to the north where the Croats remained loyal

20 to the government army.

21 JUDGE RIAD: And there was no massacres?

22 A. No, there weren't.

23 MR. HAYMAN:

24 Q. In Zepca, do you know, in October of 1992,

25 did the HVO adopt a hostile, an aggressive or a

Page 8553

1 cooperative stand vis-à-vis the BiH army?

2 A. So far as I know, in Zepca, I never went to

3 Zepca, it was cut off, but people came down into

4 Travnik and Vitez from Zepca and, I don't know about

5 October 1992, I'm afraid I can't answer your question,

6 but later on in 1993, Zepca and Zavidovici which was a

7 nearby village were reported to be, this is me

8 reporting to you what I heard, two places where an

9 infamous alliance between the HVO and the Serbs took

10 place, and the HVO and the Serbs built a pontoon

11 together bridge in that area to try and cut off the

12 Muslims. You raised Zepca as an example. It was a

13 particularly perfidious situation.

14 Q. In 1992 or the first half of 1993, do you

15 know, did the HVO in Zepca adopt a cooperative stand

16 vis-à-vis the BiH army or were they aggressive and

17 hostile towards the BiH army?

18 A. I don't know about 1992 but during the summer

19 of 1993, as I said, in Zepca, the HVO was reported to

20 join ranks with the Serbs against the Muslims. I'm

21 repeating what I heard reported. I did not see this

22 happen firsthand. (Witness please slow down).

23 Q. Do you know if in Vares, to the north-east or

24 east of Zenica, in October of 1992, the HVO adopted a

25 cooperative stand vis-à-vis the BiH army or were they

Page 8554

1 aggressive and hostile?

2 A. Vares was another that I should have added to

3 the list that included Travnik and Tuzla, but in Vares

4 something very sad happened. In Vares, which is just

5 above Olovo in the eastern bit of central Bosnia, the

6 HVO was, again, wanting to be cooperative with the

7 Bosnian government army and they were themselves

8 deposed during 1993 by other units of the HVO, who came

9 up from Kiseljak to depose, get rid of, the elements in

10 the HVO who had sought to cooperate with the Bosnian

11 army.

12 Q. And those were the forces and units of Ivica

13 Rajic that came up with Kiseljak and had effective

14 control over Vares; correct?

15 A. That's right. The HVO in Vares had tried to

16 cooperate with the alias, as Mr. Filipovic, of whom

17 we've spoken in Travnik and, well, they were walking

18 the edge of the knife as well, because Mr. Rajic's

19 battalion's came up from Kiseljak and ousted those in

20 Vares who were wishing to cooperate with the Bosnian

21 army. That is another good example of the will of what

22 was coming up the valley imposing itself against those

23 who wished to cooperate with the Bosnian army, and that

24 is quite well reported, that, again, sad putsch against

25 Croats who wished to be -- take a more moderate

Page 8555

1 position towards the government army.

2 Q. So to summarise, in the fall of 1992, Vares

3 was an exception to the thesis you've stated. Zepca

4 was an exception and Travnik was also an exception;

5 correct?

6 A. Yes, that's right, and none survived. They

7 were all either brought to heal or they, in the case of

8 Travnik, the Muslims won out, as you've said before,

9 and I agree. In the case of Vares, the moderates were

10 opposed, pushed out and in Zepca, the indications were

11 that they must have been pushed out because they were

12 alive with the Serbs, by the summer of 1993, against

13 the Muslims so, yes, in October, there was still -- I

14 mean, the declaration that no dissent would be

15 tolerated from Boban suggested there were dissent and

16 that dissent was rubbed out. If you were still in the

17 position of command, if you look at the pattern in the

18 summer of 1993, those people were gone.

19 Q. Then, of course, I omitted Busovaca where

20 you've already said in January 1993 the BiH army

21 attacked first. Wouldn't you include that in a way,

22 the Busovaca municipality, as an exception to the

23 thesis you've stated, given that the BiH army attacked

24 first in January of 1993?

25 A. I have to be honest with you. I didn't know

Page 8556

1 the HVO in Busovaca. I didn't hear that they were -- I

2 certainly didn't hear that they were particularly

3 moderate. My knowledge of the situation in Busovaca is

4 that both sides were on for a war. I don't think the

5 -- from what I've heard of Busovaca, I would not want

6 to say, in a court, that they were among these

7 moderates that I'm talking about, no, I've heard quite

8 a lot about nastiness from both sides in Busovaca.

9 Q. But wouldn't you agree that if the BiH army

10 attacked the HVO first in January 1993, that is

11 contrary to the basic thesis you have presented to this

12 court and, thus, it would be appropriate to take

13 Busovaca and hold it aside as somewhat of an exception

14 to your thesis?

15 A. I'm not sure that the BiH army did attack

16 first in Busovaca. I think in the town, the HVO

17 attacked first. In the surrounding villages, the

18 Muslims attacked with some unpleasantness. I know that

19 the Muslims attacked in the villages to the south-east,

20 because I saw the roadblock where they had taken a

21 section of the road. I'm not trying to lily white

22 those people. In the town, I don't know. I think it

23 was tit or tat, probably. I wouldn't say that Busovaca

24 was an exception. No, I don't think the HVO in

25 Busovaca was attempting to defy the line in the way

Page 8557

1 they were in Travnik, Tuzla is an exception, it's a

2 long way off and it's not claimed by Herceg-Bosna, and

3 as you remind me, Vares.

4 Q. Was there an HVO unit in Zenica, if you know?

5 A. Yes, a small one, I think.

6 Q. Would you agree that they had a cooperative

7 relationship with the BiH army in the fall of 1992?

8 A. I honestly don't know. I wasn't in Zenica at

9 that time.

10 Q. You have written, have you not, at page 258

11 of your book that Zenica was the "most stridently

12 Muslim city in Bosnia."

13 A. I think it was, yes.

14 Q. By that, do you mean that by late 1992, the

15 MOS, the Muslim armed forces composed of extremists and

16 roughians had become more and more predominant in the

17 city. I'm quoting from your book, at page 258? Do you

18 agree with that statement?

19 A. Oh, yes, as they felt --

20 JUDGE JORDA: Mr. Hayman, I don't mind if you

21 cite the book of Mr. Vulliamy on two or three

22 occasions, but please remain within the bounds of the

23 examination-in-chief. I understand that it is

24 important so I didn't want to stop you, but I still

25 wouldn't like you to take too long. Up to now, it has

Page 8558

1 been very logical, but to destabilise the witness, and

2 I assume he is destabilised, should be prevented. I

3 don't want us to spend the whole afternoon by

4 extracting sentences from the book, seeing whether they

5 are contradictory or not. We are here with a witness

6 who said a certain number of things during his

7 testimony on the 24th of April, 1998, so let us try and

8 focus on what he actually said as much as possible.

9 It is already at least five, six, seven times

10 that you have cited this or that sentence from the

11 book. In any case, I'm not here to defend the

12 witness. I'm defending the judges. We are not at an

13 institute of political relations. We have here a

14 witness who testified on the 24th of April and you are

15 now cross-examining him. Thank you.

16 MR. HAYMAN: Yes, Mr. President. I would

17 note I'm not speaking to destabilise the witness, but

18 there are portions of his book that bear relationships

19 to his thesis, and I thought it a quick and efficient

20 way to confirm his views on certain points by referring

21 him to the book. In fairness, cite from the book and

22 give the Prosecutor the page so if they cared to

23 explore it further on in their examination, they

24 could. That’s all I was hoping to do. I'm moving as

25 quickly as I can so.

Page 8559

1 JUDGE JORDA: Let us then ask one question.

2 Do you confirm your whole book? I'm going to ask you

3 this question. Do you confirm what you wrote in your

4 book? You wrote that book, didn't you?

5 A. 99.999 recurring percent of it.

6 JUDGE JORDA: Very well. Then let us try to

7 speed things up a little, please?

8 MR. HAYMAN:

9 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, you testified concerning the

10 February 24, 1994 cease-fire and the fact that

11 that cease-fire held throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina;

12 correct?

13 A. Yes. I was in Mostar at the time. As I

14 testified, it certainly held remarkably there, and my

15 testimony pertained to returning to Split and to find

16 that colleagues had reported the same thing happening

17 all over the place, yes.

18 Q. Was that the first cease-fire ordered by

19 General Petkovic since October 1992, if you know?

20 A. I think there were other cease-fires

21 organised, but that was the first right across the

22 board and certainly the one that worked. It was the

23 first that held that I knew about.

24 Q. Let me ask you if you remember any of the

25 following cease-fires, and then if you know whether

Page 8560

1 these cease-fires held and were successful. 21 October

2 1992 in Novi Travnik, 9 November, 1992 in Novi

3 Travnik. 24 January, 1993 in Gornji Vakuf, 27, January

4 1993, operational zone central Bosnia. 30 January,

5 1993, operational zone, central Bosnia. 18 April,

6 1993, operative zone in central Bosnia between Boban

7 and Izetbegovic, 20 April, 1993 in operational zone

8 central Bosnia between Petkovic and Alilovic; 25 April,

9 1993 by Petrovic, 9 June, 1993 in Travnik between

10 Alagic and Blaskic then 19, June, 1993 in operative

11 zone, central Bosnia Blaskic, Hadjtasanovic. Do you

12 know whether any of those other cease-fires held?

13 A. Well, some of them ring a bell, others

14 don't. I know that after your last date, some of the

15 most ferocious fighting was still to come. I don't

16 know how long each particular one held. I remember the

17 British UNPROFOR people used to count and have a record

18 of the cease fires and made a joke about how little

19 time they lasted. I believe 13 seconds was the

20 record. But if you're talking about cease-fires, by

21 definition, I think what you're mentioning are

22 intervals. They do not and cannot have lasted because

23 the war went on. Indeed, the very worst violence in

24 Mostar, was to follow your last date, and so when I

25 talk about the cease-fire in February 1994, I meant a

Page 8561

1 cease-fire that was agreed and imposed and held to

2 across the terrain, not some -- how shall I say it,

3 some expedients which lasted a number of days, hours,

4 sometimes. The war carried on through all the dates

5 you've mentioned is what I mean, but some of them do

6 ring a bell. In fact, I first heard Colonel Blaskic's

7 name from a British army officer and someone from the

8 UNHCR saying that they had been obliged to sign a

9 cease-fire, that he had negotiated, and they were very

10 uneasy about having to sign it. So yes, of course , I

11 knew there were cease-fires but they didn't have any

12 effect because the business wasn't finished.

13 Q. Would you agree that on the occasions on

14 which cease-fires did not hold that we can conclude

15 that if they did not hold on the side of the HVO, that

16 on those occasions, the HVO chain of command failed to

17 work with, I believe your words were, "coherence,

18 cogency, and efficiency." Can we conclude that?

19 A. Sorry. I didn't understand the question.

20 Q. Can we conclude that on the occasions on

21 which cease-fires did not hold and were, indeed,

22 violated by the HVO soldiers, that the HVO chain of

23 command on those occasions did not work with

24 "coherence, cogency, and efficiency," and I'm citing

25 your description on page 7822 of the transcript.

Page 8562

1 A. Well, I'll stick with my description, because

2 I don't think that the cease-fires -- correct me if I'm

3 wrong, I don't think all the cease-fires you're talking

4 about are of the instructive weight of the Washington

5 agreement. I mean, the point about the cease-fire on

6 February 24th that I'm trying to make is that it was

7 signed in Washington. The American diplomats had

8 bargained it. The threat of sanctions was behind it

9 and it was do it or else. These are -- in my

10 experience, a lot of these cease-fires are expedient.

11 Armies often agree a local cease-fire to move

12 ammunitions around, to get a breather. I don't think

13 that the crease-fires you're talking about were ordered

14 by Mate Boban from Grude to be enforced

15 permanently across the board and were broken by some

16 rogue element. I think these were a hodgepodge of

17 arrangements. I don't think that they were the same

18 sort of cease-fire, like, stop firing, stop fighting,

19 that happened in February '94. It was of a different

20 nature, if I make myself clear. I hope so.

21 Q. Just one more question on this subject and

22 I'll move on. Are you saying that the orders for those

23 cease-fires were not sincere by the commanders or

24 politicians who issued them or are you saying that the

25 stature of the Washington agreement with President

Page 8563

1 Clinton of the United States and other international

2 leaders validating the agreement, that it had a better

3 chance of success than other cease-fires, and, indeed,

4 with that additional weight, it was able to proceed?

5 JUDGE JORDA: Excuse me. I think that the

6 witness has already answered, but please give us a very

7 brief answer now.

8 A. Yes, I think that the intervals in fire, if

9 you like, were often negotiated for expedient reasons,

10 military reasons, and that the permanent cease-fire,

11 the one that worked, was instructed by the chain of

12 command going all the way up to Zagreb, in fact, and,

13 as you say, had the force of American diplomacy behind

14 it. It was stop fighting or else you're in big

15 trouble. Everyone was threatening sanctions against

16 Croatia when there was an operational cease-fire for a

17 few hours in central Bosnia sometime.

18 Q. You said in your testimony on direct that you

19 read of an ultimatum issued by Bosnian Croats that the

20 BiH army should come under HVO control or the HVO would

21 implement the Vance-Owen peace plan.

22 If the registrar could retrieve exhibit 25,

23 so that it's handy should the witness need to reference

24 it.

25 Mr. Vulliamy, did you obtain any information

Page 8564

1 concerning any such ultimatum, other than from reading

2 a Reuters' report in your London office as you

3 described on direct examination?

4 A. No. Not at the time, no. It was reported in

5 Reuters and it was reported on the radio as well.

6 Q. Have you reviewed exhibit 25, which is

7 another article discussing the subject?

8 A. Yes, I have seen that, but not at the time I

9 wrote the book.

10 Q. Would you agree, and if you don't know,

11 that's fine, you can tell us, but would you agree that

12 there's no deadline stated in that article or report

13 for compliance with the terms of the Vance-Owen peace

14 plan?

15 A. Do you want me to read it?

16 Q. If you don't recall, I don't want you to read

17 it.

18 A. I don't recall, no.

19 Q. Do you have any specific information you can

20 provide the court of any ultimatum issued or repeated

21 by HVO authorities in the Lasva or Kiseljak valleys in

22 April 1993 relating in any way to the subject matter of

23 exhibit 25?

24 MR. KEHOE: Excuse me, Mr. President.

25 Counsel asked a question about a --

Page 8565

1 JUDGE JORDA: Continue.

2 MR. KEHOE: Counsel asked a question about

3 exhibit 25 previously, and then when the witness wanted

4 to read exhibit 25, counsel didn't want to take the

5 time. Now he's asking about the content of exhibit 25,

6 and if we're going to continue asking questions about

7 this document, the witness should be given the

8 opportunity to read it.

9 JUDGE JORDA: Yes, objection granted. Will

10 you please familiarise yourself quickly with the

11 document before you?

12 A. I'll read it as quick as I can.

13 JUDGE JORDA: Take your time.

14 A. Okay. I may have to refer to it again, but

15 I've got the gist.

16 JUDGE JORDA: Please continue, Mr. Hayman.

17 MR. HAYMAN: Thank you, Mr. President.

18 Q. Now that we've taken the time for you to read

19 it, can you tell us, is there any deadline stated in

20 the article for compliance with the terms of the

21 Vance-Owen Peace Plan by the BiH army?

22 A. There seems to be in item No. 2 on the list,

23 on the second page a deadline for the gist of this

24 document which seems to be, if you will forgive me for

25 paraphrasing, you know, you get out of our territory

Page 8566

1 and we'll get out of yours, of three days.

2 Q. Doesn't item 2, doesn't that refer to outside

3 forces originating from outside the province or

4 municipality in question?

5 A. Yes, and I think that's clarified later on as

6 being that within the provinces that the Croats are

7 claiming, or that are designated Croat, it's the HVO,

8 and the BiH army would be considered an outside force

9 and vice versa. So I suppose we're saying that you've

10 got three days--

11 Q. Would you be surprised --

12 A. --for this mutually exclusive arrangement to

13 come into effect.

14 Q. Would you be surprised to learn that the BiH

15 army wanted that term because they wanted, for example,

16 HVO units from Herzegovina out of central Bosnia just

17 like the HVO wanted BiH army units from wherever,

18 Tuzla, to withdraw themselves from central Bosnia?

19 Would that surprise you? Your interpretation

20 sounds to be very different from that.

21 A. It would surprise me if the BiH army would

22 want to agree to leave all the areas claimed by the

23 HVO, yes, but then it's not really relevant what they

24 think because towards the end of the document it goes

25 on to say that if the Muslim delegations don't sign it,

Page 8567

1 we're going to go ahead anyway.

2 And then with reference to the Croatians, it

3 goes on to say that anyone who does not agree should

4 "now reduce their support to silence." So it doesn't

5 really matter what anyone thinks, does it? They want

6 it to happen anyway.

7 And this is signed by Veso Vega who I came to

8 meet in Mostar later, the main spokesman for the HVO in

9 its entirety.

10 Q. The other date or deadline, would you not

11 agree, is point 4 which has a deadline for setting up a

12 joint command between the HVO and the BiH army;

13 correct?

14 A. But I don't understand, really, where that

15 joint command is meant to be, if you could enlighten

16 me, because it seems to me that we're having your bit

17 and you're having yours.

18 Q. Joint command, that doesn't sound very

19 aggressive and hostile; does it? To set up a joint

20 command, to want a joint command?

21 A. No, it doesn't, but it's very odd that they

22 have been dismantling joint commands all this time. I

23 don't know how long you want this argument to go on.

24 Number 3 says that the HVO and the BiH army

25 in provinces 1, 5, and 9, hardly any HVO in 1, 5 and 9,

Page 8568

1 actually, very few, Tuzla is the biggest, shall be

2 placed under the BiH army. 3, 8 and 10, which is

3 Herceg-Bosna effectively, comes under the command of

4 the main staff of the HVO.

5 So I'm not quite sure what this joint command

6 is supposed to do.

7 Q. I don't think there's a question pending,

8 Mr. Vulliamy?

9 A. Well, I think there is, because Herceg-Bosna

10 has come under the HVO. I mean, there's no argument

11 about that. If the Muslims don't sign it, we're going

12 to do it anyway, and if you're a Croat and you don't

13 agree, you can "reduce your support to silence."

14 Q. What was the deadline for item or term 3?

15 Was there a deadline or was there no deadline?

16 A. Let me have a look. You know this document

17 better than I do, obviously. No, there wasn't a

18 deadline for that.

19 Q. Now, my last question on this topic, I stated

20 it previously, was objected to by counsel. I'll

21 restate it.

22 Regarding the subject matter of this alleged

23 ultimatum, do you have any specific information to

24 provide to the court concerning any ultimata issued or

25 repeated by the HVO authorities in either the Lasva or

Page 8569

1 Kiseljak Valleys in April -- in or around April, 1993

2 or do you not have any such specific information?

3 A. No, I don't. Mr. Vega speaks for the whole

4 of the HVO in my experience, so such local adaptations

5 wouldn't be necessary. And I've dealt with Vasa Vega,

6 he is the main spokesman for the whole of the HVO, the

7 top guy.

8 Q. You have discussed the state -- excuse me.

9 You have discussed the strategy of the HVO in purely

10 offensive terms, as in offence versus defence.

11 Would you agree that, in fact, the strategy

12 of the HVO in the Vitez Busovaca pocket in 1993 was

13 primarily defensive? Would you agree with that

14 statement?

15 A. Two different phases. I can half agree.

16 Vitez was, as I saw it, crucial to the HVO in two

17 different ways at two different times of the period

18 you're asking me about.

19 It was crucial in the first stage, let's say

20 late 1992 into '93, as you say, as the furthest

21 reliable outpost of Herceg-Bosna. It was the

22 northernmost bit of Herceg-Bosna in which Boban knew he

23 could count on the HVO because of what we'll call the

24 Travnik problem, for want of a better term.

25 The further north the Croats got, the less --

Page 8570

1 or certainly north of Zenica, the less allegiance they

2 owed to Mate Boban and his people down in Herzegovina.

3 So Vitez was crucial to the HVO for the first

4 bit of the period you're talking about as the uppermost

5 reliable, the northernmost reliable bit, the bit on

6 which Mate Boban could count, Vitez and Novi Travnik.

7 At that stage, I would say its, the HVO's role in Vitez

8 was very much offensive.

9 Then, after what I'll call the backlash by

10 the Muslims of the summer of 1993, Vitez, as you have

11 said earlier on in your questions, ran the risk of

12 being cut off from Herzegovina. It wasn't, actually,

13 ever a complete pocket, but it became much less part of

14 the Herzegovinian main chunk, if you like.

15 At that point, Vitez was, if you like, I

16 suppose even more important because there was this

17 defensive element to the military operation. I mean,

18 Vitez was under pressure during the latter part, the

19 latter period that you say; whereas previously it had

20 been offensive.

21 I'm sorry to be complicated, but I agree with

22 you, across the latter period there was a defensive

23 ingredient, although there's nothing very defensive

24 about a car bomb outside a Muslim enclave, which they

25 blew up, as you know, killing a lot of civilians.

Page 8571

1 But, yes, during the summer of 1993 the

2 command of Vitez was equally crucial for reasons that

3 were defensive as well.

4 Q. What did General Alagic tell you concerning

5 the BiH army's offensive intentions with respect to

6 central Bosnia?

7 A. Alagic wanted to -- he saw the Muslims as

8 being squeezed out and he wanted to establish -- in one

9 of the conversations I had with him, he wanted to

10 establish a triangle which would connect, as I recall,

11 Tuzla, Sarajevo and Travnik, which would be sort of a

12 Muslim triangle, and I think he saw that as a basis for

13 fighting out, really, against Serbs and Croats from

14 within that. That was one of the conversations I

15 remember having with Alagic.

16 Q. And that strategy would involve displacing

17 the HVO from the Lasva Valley; correct?

18 A. I would imagine so, yes, frankly.

19 Q. Because the Lasva Valley was the critical

20 communications link between Sarajevo and Travnik?

21 A. Yes, that's right. That's how he saw -- I

22 mean, at its media, if you like, which I'd say was

23 probably late February, March 1993 when the Muslims

24 really thought they were going to get stuck between a

25 rock and a hard place, if you will pardon the

Page 8572

1 expression, that was Alagic's own personal strategy.

2 He wasn't commander of anything at that

3 point, that was before he took command of what later

4 became the 17th Krajina brigade, or otherwise known as

5 or the refugee brigade.

6 Q. Would you agree that the BiH army pursued

7 that strategy with remarkable tenacity?

8 A. With a couple of minor geographical

9 exceptions, yeah, I think they had to, and if -- I

10 think they had to in order to survive. I think they

11 were looking, as I've said, in a number of places, I

12 think they were looking at extinction at a certain

13 point.

14 Q. This brings me to my last question,

15 Mr. Vulliamy. You interviewed Lieutenant Mark Jones of

16 the 9th-12th Lancers Unit after the Ahmici massacre,

17 and I believe he was in the first group of British

18 soldiers to visit Ahmici on the 16th of April, 1993.

19 Did he tell you, "not a single Muslim house

20 had been spared. Methodically and systematically, the

21 hit squad went around the village blowing up at least

22 50 homes. It was a band of 15 to 20 gunmen high on

23 slivovitz." I'm not suggesting the truth or the falsity

24 of this statement, I'm simply asking you: Did he make

25 that statement?

Page 8573

1 A. I didn't do that interview, it was done by a

2 colleague of mine who works for the Guardian called Ian

3 Trainer (phoen). He did the interview and I think you

4 got it from the book. It should be credited to the

5 addition of the paper that I didn't write for.

6 But he didn't tell that to me, he told it to

7 a colleague of mine.

8 Q. Is Mr. Trainer a professional journalist on

9 the staff of the Guardian?

10 A. Oh absolutely, yes. He's at the moment our

11 Berlin correspondent, yeah.

12 Q. What is slivovitz?

13 A. It's a sort of plum -- it's plum brandy, a

14 favourite of the soldiers in the area and of other

15 people, indeed.

16 MR. HAYMAN: Thank you, Mr. Vulliamy. I have

17 no further questions, Mr. President.

18 JUDGE JORDA: Thank you.

19 Mr. Kehoe, you have some re-examination?

20 MR. KEHOE: Just a couple of questions.

21 RE-EXAMINATION BY MR. KEHOE:

22 Q. Related back to this last point, you have

23 looked at what has happened in Ahmici -- directing your

24 attention back to this last question by counsel for the

25 Defence, you have looked at what's happened in Ahmici

Page 8574

1 and you're aware of what has happened throughout the

2 Lasva Valley, as in other places throughout

3 Herceg-Bosna?

4 A. Yes.

5 Q. All of those events can be sourced back to

6 groups of 15 to 20 gunmen who happened to be drunk on

7 some kind of alcohol?

8 A. No, I've been trying to say throughout, I've

9 been trying to say that we moved between Mate Boban

10 and various commanders and what was happening on the

11 ground.

12 The war against the civilians accelerated as

13 the political objectives, the military objectives

14 became more articulate, and that what was going on, you

15 could see -- you didn't even have to see the charred

16 villages, you just had to look at the roads in between

17 them, there was a mobilisation of an army going on.

18 Yeah, there was a lot of slivovitz around as

19 well, but not 15 or 20, no. There was units of

20 soldiers, I mean, Prozors, units of soldiers. Vitez,

21 Mostar was an entire army.

22 Q. Counsel asked you questions about a series of

23 meetings between Mate Boban and then some individuals

24 in the field. Let's place those meetings in context.

25 The first meeting counsel asked you about was

Page 8575

1 in August of 1992 with Mate Boban where Muslims and the

2 HVO had just driven the Serbs out of Mostar; isn't that

3 right?

4 A. Yes, about a month after they had joined

5 forces in Mostar, yes.

6 Q. During that conversation, was Boban's

7 hostility directed towards the Serbs or the Muslims?

8 A. No, to the government in Sarajevo, ergo as he

9 called them, Muslims, yes, I mean, to my amazement.

10 Q. Was that the conversation where Boban told

11 you he could not accept a Bosnian constitution and that

12 we are prepared to defend our freedom?

13 A. Yes, it was.

14 Q. Now, shortly after that, we discussed a

15 conversation that you had with a commander in Travnik

16 called Pokrajcic; is that right?

17 A. Yes, Pokrajcic, yes.

18 Q. Now, could it be fair to say -- and counsel

19 asked you some questions about that Pokrajcic

20 conversation?

21 A. Yes, he did.

22 Q. I think you said in response to questions by

23 counsel that Pokrajcic was feeling some pressure?

24 A. Yes, he told me about the pressure. In fact,

25 the first I ever heard of tensions between Muslims and

Page 8576

1 Croats was from the Croatian commander in Travnik,

2 Mr. Pokrajcic, a young man, and he said he was feeling

3 pressure and he didn't want to succumb to them.

4 Q. Now, you had this conversation with Mate

5 Boban in the latter part of October of 1992,

6 approximately a month or so after this conversation

7 with Pokrajcic; is that right?

8 A. Yes, the really important one I regarded as

9 being.

10 Q. Now, was that conversation more clear in the

11 sense -- or clearer in the sense of what Boban wanted

12 to happen in Herceg-Bosna?

13 A. Yes, it progressed to the same argument. I

14 mean, the argument which was roughly sketched and, sort

15 of, put in rather thinly veiled moderate language

16 became robust, uncompromising and determined, articulate,

17 yes.

18 Q. You said in response to a question from

19 Defence counsel that during that conversation, Boban

20 deemed that he would not accept any dissent or people

21 would have to leave in some other fashion if they

22 decided to dissent?

23 A. That there would be no dissent within the

24 Croatian ranks and there would be no challenge to the

25 hegemony of the HVO from the Muslim side.

Page 8577

1 Q. Would you say that pressure was part of the

2 pressure that Filipovic was feeling in February of 1993

3 where he cursed Boban and the defendant?

4 A. Yes, that's what I've been trying to say.

5 That was the pressure. When they are talking about

6 pressure, I think we're sort of overanalysing this

7 pressure.

8 To me it's extremely obvious, and it still is

9 that the pressure was on the people like

10 Pokrajcic, the moderate Croat in Travnik, his successor

11 Filipovic, the then moderate Croat in Travnik, that the

12 pressure was to fight their allies and they didn't want

13 to do it and the pressure seemed to be coming very

14 obviously from Mate Boban and from the HVO to which

15 they belonged.

16 Q. And in that conversation in October, Mate

17 Boban told you that any deviation would not be

18 tolerated; isn't that right?

19 A. Yeah, he said they would have to step down or

20 be removed in some other manner, which is pretty

21 menacing in the middle of a war.

22 Q. In the note of the 4th of April, 1993,

23 Exhibit 25, the article by Veso Vega, that is to your

24 left there, and the last half of the second page and

25 over to the top of the third page, once again, Veso

Page 8578

1 Vega on behalf of the HVO said that dissent should be

2 silenced; doesn't he?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. Is that consistent with the conversation that

5 you related on cross-examination with Mate Boban from

6 October of 1993?

7 A. Yes, entirely.

8 Q. Is it any surprise to you, in light of that

9 conversation, that Filipovic made a decision to go with

10 the HVO?

11 A. Yes, I didn't know he had been promoted but,

12 yes, I said I admired the man, I can't blame him. I

13 don't know what's happened to him since, yes, be

14 removed in some other manner is a threat, and he

15 obviously decided to batten down and obey his orders,

16 probably to save his own skin, I should think, if not

17 his career.

18 Q. Did you conclude after that conversation with

19 Filipovic and what you had known in your conversations

20 with Boban, that the defendant Blaskic had agreed to go

21 along with the ideas of Mate Boban?

22 MR. HAYMAN: It's beyond the scope,

23 Mr. President.

24 MR. KEHOE: He was just asked numerous

25 questions about this for about 45 minutes.

Page 8579

1 JUDGE JORDA: Rephrase your question,

2 Mr. Kehoe, please.

3 MR. KEHOE:

4 Q. You talked on cross-examination about the

5 conversation with Mate Boban. You talked about the

6 conversation in late February, 1993 with Filip

7 Filipovic where he cursed the defendant Blaskic and

8 Mate Boban.

9 Did you conclude after that conversation --

10 with what you knew and what you saw, did you conclude

11 that the defendant had agreed to go along with the

12 ideas of Mate Boban?

13 MR. HAYMAN: Not only is this beyond the

14 scope, this is an ultimate opinion not rendered on

15 direct. He is going beyond what he said on direct.

16 If it's allowed on re-direct, then there must

17 be re-cross. That's my position.

18 MR. KEHOE: Mr. President, the Defence

19 counsel just diced and spliced and tried to render

20 these types of conversations that were discussed by

21 this witness as unrelated in any fashion.

22 In response to that line of questioning, the

23 Prosecutor is entitled to allow this witness to

24 complete what has been raised on cross-examination on

25 these various meetings. That's all this is.

Page 8580

1 JUDGE JORDA: Yes. Objection overruled.

2 Continue, Mr. Kehoe.

3 MR. KEHOE:

4 Q. Will you answer the question, Mr. Vulliamy?

5 A. Yes. I mean, I understood from what

6 Mr. Filipovic was telling me is that if you were

7 someone who did not want to fight the Muslims, you were

8 being put in an impossible position. That was the

9 blade of the knife, you either fell off one side, which

10 meant that you gave up your career, joined the Muslims

11 or whatever; or, you fell off the other side which

12 meant that you went along with this ghastly programme;

13 or, I suppose, you did nothing and fell on the knife.

14 I shan't not go into that.

15 I think if you were a man like Filipovic you

16 were faced with a very, very painful dilemma.

17 And my answer to your question is, yes. I

18 don't know what was going on inside Colonel Blaskic's

19 head, but from what Mr. Filipovic was saying, it was

20 clear to me that Boban -- it was coming up the valley.

21 He said, it was coming from Boban, and Blaskic was

22 mentioned in the same breath and that Blaskic was part

23 of the pressure on him to turn against his Muslim

24 allies, yes.

25 And it did all come back to the conversation

Page 8581

1 with Boban. It was hard to conclude otherwise.

2 Q. On a separate subject, you were read a

3 sentence by Mr. Hayman, and the sentence was from page

4 222, counsel.

5 The sentence that was read was - and this has

6 to do with the fighting in Prozor - "Then as dawn broke

7 and people started to flee, mobs moved in to town

8 firing willy-nilly and then began to torch, loot and

9 cleanse the town."

10 Do you remember being read that sentence?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. Let me read you the sentence before that.

13 "HVO units had arrived from Tomislavgrad at the edge

14 of Prozor on Friday evening and subjected the town

15 centre and Muslim quarter to an all-night artillery

16 barrage."

17 Were the mobs that were discussed with you,

18 were they HVO soldiers?

19 A. Yes, they were in uniform and had, I

20 mentioned the red ribbon tied to their epaulette. When

21 I said we arrived after the firing and the looting,

22 they arrived after the shelling and the shooting, but

23 not -- and the looting was still going on. I think I

24 said they were taking stuff out, and these were all

25 uniformed soldiers, HVO soldiers.

Page 8582

1 Q. HVO soldiers?

2 A. Oh yeah.

3 MR. KEHOE: Mr. President, if I might have a

4 moment to consult with my colleague.

5 Mr. President, we have no further questions

6 of Mr. Vulliamy.

7 JUDGE JORDA: Thank you.

8 Judge Riad?

9 JUDGE RIAD:

10 Q. Mr. Vulliamy, we listened with great interest

11 to your testimony. You made it clear that the ultimate

12 goal of ethnic cleansing was decided and even

13 articulated by the political leadership, Boban or

14 whoever was around him, you made it very clear,

15 sometimes you said that no Muslim was to remain in the

16 area.

17 And now, did also this political leadership

18 prescribe the ways this ethnic cleansing should be

19 done, or was it left to the judgement of every commander

20 to proceed to the ethnic cleansing whether by

21 transportation, or by killing, or by looting, or by

22 burning?

23 Was it also their directives or orders of the

24 political leadership to proceed in this way according

25 to your almost round experience there?

Page 8583

1 A. It seemed that there were variations, none of

2 them pleasant. I mean --

3 Q. There were variations?

4 A. Yes. When I said that no Muslims were to

5 live in Herceg-Bosna, that was, you know, a conclusion

6 that I drew from what I had seen in the shelling and

7 shooting of people out of Prozor, and later Capljina

8 empty of Muslims, men in camps, women and children

9 herded into east Mostar.

10 But I think if one could look at variance, in

11 Mostar it was herd people out of their homes and send

12 them across the river, bomb, shell and snipe them.

13 In the area to the south of Mostar, the

14 pattern was men into camps, and I think I mentioned

15 this plan that they had discussed with the UNHCR for a

16 mass deportation to third countries through a transit

17 camp, while the women and children were herded into

18 this small pocket in the eastern side of Mostar and

19 subject to ferocious shell fire.

20 In the Lasva Valley and around Prozor, it

21 seemed to be a question of gun and some mortar attack

22 followed by systematic torching of houses, chasing

23 people out with a mixture of gunfire and the torching

24 of houses.

25 I mean, it was systematic in terms of the

Page 8584

1 objective, but I really don't know who decided who was

2 going to be torched, who was going to be put in camps,

3 who was going to be sent to east Mostar and shelled.

4 It wasn't -- it happened over a longer period

5 of time then the Serb equivalent which happened in

6 the Drina Valley in the east of Bosnia and around the

7 Prijedor, Banja Luka area in 1992 where larger numbers

8 of people were removed or detained in camps much more

9 quickly.

10 Q. I think you also in one of your statements

11 said that Boban mentioned that the policy is decided by

12 him, but the implementation is left to the military?

13 A. Yes. He said that -- he was talking about

14 the representation at the Geneva peace talks at that

15 point, and he said it will be myself, or those whom I

16 delegate, or those whom you see in my company, he said,

17 and no others.

18 As regards the HVO, he talked more about the

19 HVO as the sole authority and he sort of -- I mean, he

20 described them, as had a lot of the other people,

21 Skopljak in Vitez, Lasic and Mostar, as the sole legal

22 authority in Vitez.

23 The civilian military authority, were the

24 words he used in Mostar.

25 Boban talked about the HVO also as being the

Page 8585

1 sole authority. I took that to mean that they were the

2 executor of his political decisions.

3 I mean, military wing was a word used earlier

4 of the party. I'm not quite sure that was quite

5 right. I think he basically saw Herceg-Bosna as a

6 statelet, him as the head of state, and the HVO as the

7 army. So just as the president of a country is the

8 commander in chief of the armed forces, I think that

9 was how he, in his rather self-grandiose way saw

10 himself in the HVO.

11 Q. Within the HVO there was, as you said, a

12 variation in the implementation of the policy?

13 A. In the details, yes. One area, the emphasis

14 seemed to be on shooting and mortar and burning out; in

15 other areas, it was round men into camps, women and

16 children elsewhere. Not a great deal of variation. It

17 all had the same -- well, to me grotesque message to

18 it, the same grotesque repulsion and motivation which

19 was the systematic and violent removal of innocent and

20 unarmed civilians from their place of dwelling.

21 Q. Some areas were more enthusiastic than others

22 in this procedure, this process of ethnic cleansing?

23 A. Absolutely. And some as I've tried to make

24 clear, tried to avoid it all together, a few, Travnik,

25 Tuzla and Vares didn't want any part of it.

Page 8586

1 Q. Where would you situate the area of General

2 Blaskic in this map?

3 A. On the sort of comparative.

4 Q. Comparatively?

5 A. Well, I mean, Mostar has to be said to be the

6 worst, which was not in General Blaskic's area, I

7 know.

8 I mean, Mostar, the largest numbers were

9 involved, the most ferocious cruelty involved in the

10 camps were there.

11 On the other hand, I think that -- Ahmici

12 rates pretty high on the horror list. I think there

13 was - and I didn't see this so I have to rely on

14 colleagues and newspaper reports - but there was one

15 body exchange in Vitez, apparently, which a colleague

16 of mine reported and said it was a pitiful sight.

17 The Muslims got to hand back four Croatian

18 bodies and the Croats handed back some 92 bodies, some

19 of them child size.

20 Q. Where was that?

21 A. Vitez. There was a famous incident of a car

22 bomb placed right at the edge of the Muslim quarter of

23 Vitez which killed a large number of civilians.

24 It's hard to, as during my testimony I sort

25 of tried to avoid this comparative thing, but I think

Page 8587

1 one has to. The Lasva Valley, not quite the zeal of

2 Mostar, not quite the violence of Mostar, and to my

3 knowledge, no camps like Dretelj, but let the court

4 make what it will of body exchanges 90 to 4.

5 I don't think that's challenged, including

6 children among the 90. The car bomb in Ahmici. It's

7 not far down the scale of barbarity.

8 Q. One clarification also. When you were

9 mentioning Boban's position with regard to HVO and the

10 HDZ, you said one did not need to see the internal

11 documentation, but just to see what they were doing to

12 people.

13 What do you mean by internal documentation?

14 A. I was asked a question by Defence counsel

15 about had I seen any internal orders, I think that was

16 the idea, had I seen specific instructions to specific

17 commanders. The answer is --

18 Q. I'm sorry, instructions from Boban to the

19 commanders.

20 A. I took that to be the question, yes.

21 Q. That's what you meant by documentation. Not

22 instructions from the commanders to the soldiers?

23 A. Well, I didn't see either.

24 Q. Which one did you mean?

25 A. I didn't see either instructions from Boban

Page 8588

1 to the commanders or from the commanders to the

2 soldiers, so I wasn't privy to any of the internal

3 documentation and I don't pretend to be.

4 What I meant was, if you see peoples' houses

5 bombed and shelled and burned out and people sort of

6 running around hiding in caves from soldiers who are

7 out to hunt them down, I sort of -- to make a personal

8 point, I'm not sure I need to see the orders if I'm

9 seeing this. In a way, this tells me everything I need

10 to know about what the orders must have been.

11 Likewise, in Mostar, do I need to see the HVO

12 orders if I'm running around the street being shot at

13 and watching shells being pumped into a hospital.

14 Q. You mean it speaks for itself?

15 A. To me it does when you see it happening day

16 after day, week after week, month after month, yes.

17 Q. So it was done in an organised systematic

18 way?

19 A. Yes, I don't see how else it could have been

20 done because of the -- well, because of the speed with

21 which it ignited at the end of October and, most

22 especially, I referred to this in the testimony, the

23 extraordinary speed with which it was switched off on

24 the 24th of October, or whenever it was, of October,

25 1994.

Page 8589

1 Q. You mean it was all under control?

2 A. Yes. I mean, if this had been a hodgepodge of

3 free booting drunken militias, you would not have been

4 able to have had war in Vitez, war in the Lasva Valley,

5 war in Vares, and an almighty great siege - siege is

6 too clean a word - slaughter in east Mostar, going on

7 on the 23rd of February and then nothing on the 24th of

8 February without orders being given and obeyed.

9 That's what I was trying to say.

10 JUDGE RIAD: Thank you very much.

11 JUDGE JORDA: Thank you. Two or three

12 clarifications.

13 Q. I understand that you do not count Mr. Boban

14 among the moderate Croats?

15 A. No, certainly not.

16 Q. Through those conversations, were you able to

17 assess whether General Blaskic would be one of the

18 moderate Croats or, due to his position of command,

19 does that mean that he could not have been a moderate

20 Croat in view of the level of responsibility that he

21 had?

22 Of course, through the conversations that you

23 had with Mr. Boban, I'm not asking you for an opinion,

24 but what you concluded on the basis of those

25 conversations?

Page 8590

1 A. All I can say, we've spoken enough about the

2 conversation with Colonel Filipovic. I don't need to

3 return to it, unless you want me.

4 As regards the conversations with Mr. Boban,

5 he never mentioned Colonel Blaskic by name to me, but

6 there was no -- I mean, Vitez was important to him and

7 he talked about Vitez, but he didn't mention

8 Mr. Blaskic by name.

9 So I think it would be array of me to try and

10 read into his view of Colonel Blaskic. I don't think

11 that would be proper.

12 Certainly to remain in a position of

13 authority in an important military area -- and defence

14 counsel has -- we've discussed how important Vitez was,

15 both offensively at the beginning of the project, and

16 then defensively once the backlash started.

17 I think, you know, one would presume that

18 Colonel Blaskic was certainly trusted with the command

19 of a crucial area. It would not have made sense, given

20 the second conversation with Mr. Boban in which he

21 talked about no dissent being tolerated, it would not

22 have made sense for a dissenter to have stayed that

23 long in such an important area, and nor would it make

24 sense for him to be some sort of ceremonial figure and

25 he comes out for the saluting of the flag.

Page 8591

1 Q. Regarding the cease-fires, Mr. Vulliamy, you

2 said that there were many. You gave us a list,

3 together with Mr. Hayman, but there was some that, to

4 you, were real cease-fires.

5 I'm caricaturing a little bit what you said,

6 and then others that couldn't hold. Anyway, my

7 question is: Within this long series of cease-fires,

8 did you have a feeling that some were concluded in full

9 responsibility by Mate Boban and Colonel Blaskic?

10 That's the first part of my question. And the other

11 part is, that they were broken by them?

12 A. Well, I know that some of the cease-fires

13 were concluded by Mr. Boban, and I know that directly

14 one of them was concluded by Colonel Blaskic, because

15 of the unease of the British army officer I mentioned

16 who was asked to sign that particular cease-fire which,

17 I think, would have been at the end of 1992, although

18 I'm not sure which one exactly would have been on the

19 list that Mr. Hayman read.

20 Yes, I didn't know about all those

21 cease-fires. I knew that cease-fires were declared for

22 prisoner exchanges quite often, that when prisoners

23 were crossing the front-lines, these were very frequent,

24 each side would negotiate a temporary cease-fire to

25 allow for the transfer of prisoners.

Page 8592

1 Such cease-fires were also very useful to us

2 to go up onto the front-lines where the Serbs were

3 concerned, because they would happen across Turbe, and

4 it was the only way he could get close to the Serb

5 lines during these cease-fires.

6 But I think we're confusing the word

7 "cease-fire" here a bit. When I said cease-fire, you

8 said kindly that there was one or there was some that I

9 can't -- I mean, really only one. I mean, there were

10 intervals in fire arranged locally for a number of

11 reasons, and I wouldn't presume to explain each of the

12 ones on Mr. Hayman's list, but often reinforcements, or

13 maybe with good intent locally occasionally, but in my

14 experience, with some other agenda, prisoner exchange

15 being a common one.

16 The cease-fire I'm talking about in February,

17 1994 was a cessation of hostilities. That's what I

18 call a cease-fire, is when people stop firing. All the

19 dates in the list we had earlier were followed by

20 terrible violence and, no, I'm not able to, I'm afraid,

21 comment on specific cease-fires being broken by General

22 Blaskic. I just simply don't know.

23 Q. Were you able to identify through your

24 conversations political, institutional and military

25 links between Mate Boban and Croatia within the

Page 8593

1 framwork of this conflict?

2 A. Yes, fairly frequent. Sometimes these were

3 anecdotal, inasmuch as there were very often buses

4 loaded with armed men coming up from Split, and the

5 Adriatic coast up into the Mostar area in particular,

6 and occasionally up through Tomislavgrad into central

7 Bosnia.

8 Perhaps most conclusively during the siege of

9 Mostar, when I got to know a Danish UNMO, a United

10 Nations military observer, an official, who made it his

11 particular business to identify the tanks that were

12 being used to shell east Mostar, and he told us that a

13 lot of the T-55, some of the older tanks were HV tanks,

14 Croatian army proper, rather than HVO.

15 And there was a story also earlier on, and I

16 remember reporting this earlier, in Zagreb that there

17 was at one point a battalion of the HV fighting in

18 Bosnia-Herzegovina with the Bosnian Croats.

19 Apart from that, as regards to Mr. Boban

20 himself, no; apart from his obvious affection for and

21 tie to and natural affinity with Croatia, and that he

22 was in Croatia a lot.

23 The border, I've said before, was a sieve as

24 well, I mean, it was a very cursory border. It had a

25 Bosnian army guard at the crossing points up until

Page 8594

1 about October, 1992; after which there was no sign of

2 any Bosnian presence at the border post. It was all

3 Croat and Bosnian Croat.

4 As I say, a lot of military toeing and

5 froing across the border on the roads.

6 Q. Another question, Mr. Vulliamy. In answer to

7 a question by my colleague, you said that Mostar held

8 the first place for the conflict we are concerned

9 with.

10 Do you have the impression that the high

11 staff -- for the high staff for the politicians, Mostar

12 was an example that need to be followed, or as

13 something to be rejected, too heavy a price to pay?

14 A. Well, I think -- I mean, Mostar was dearest

15 to the hearts of the Herceg-Bosna project. It was to

16 be the great capital. Mate Boban said that it was the

17 only city that has a university, an airport and

18 industry, and I think the HVO was prepared to fight

19 more bitterly and to the end for Mostar, than perhaps

20 for any other single bit of the envisaged territory.

21 Mostar was certainly not supposed to be

22 something to be reacted against. I think it was the

23 summation of it all, really; nor could it be seen to be

24 a model because it sort of built up to a crescendo

25 towards the end.

Page 8595

1 The worst of the Mostar siege was from

2 August, 1993 until February, '94, so it came at the

3 end, if you like, you know, temporally of the line.

4 So, I mean Mostar as that which the HVO would not give

5 up at any cost, yes, I think that was certainly a model

6 that the rest of the statelet was supposed to follow.

7 Mostar is sort of shining star, if you like.

8 But certainly I don't think that it as something that

9 the rest of Herceg-Bosna was supposed to be -- to learn

10 a lesson of warning from. I didn't at all get the

11 impression that the people in Tomislavgrad or Vitez or

12 Kiseljak were supposed to look at the bloody siege of

13 Mostar and think, mustn’t do it like that.

14 No, not at all. I think it was a sign of the

15 HVO to get what it claimed.

16 JUDGE JORDA: Thank you, Mr. Vulliamy.

17 THE WITNESS: Thank you.

18 JUDGE JORDA: Very well. You have come on

19 several occasions and, on behalf of the Tribunal, I

20 must apologise to you for these various

21 inconveniences. You have shown a great deal of

22 patience and you have contributed to the Tribunal

23 important testimony, and all the parties here present

24 will draw from that testimony.

25 I think that you have finished in principle,

Page 8596

1 so allow me to convey to you our gratitude. You will not

2 move for the time being.

3 We're going to adjourn for a 20-minute break,

4 roughly. The hearing is adjourned.

5 --- Recess taken at 4.08 p.m.

6 --- On resuming at 4.34 p.m.

7 JUDGE JORDA: The hearing is resumed. Can

8 you bring in the accused?

9 (The accused entered court)

10 MR. KEHOE: Yes, Mr. President, at this

11 point, we will start the cross on Witness NN. I would

12 say that there were protective measures for Witness NN,

13 who testified at the latter part of last week on

14 Friday. One of those protective measures was voice

15 distortion. I've been informed, Mr. President and

16 Judge Riad, that voice distortion is not possible in

17 this courtroom with the equipment available.

18 Accordingly, I've discussed this with counsel for the

19 defence, and the Prosecution would ask that we go into

20 closed session for the cross-examination of Witness NN

21 because of the unavailability of voice distortion.

22 JUDGE JORDA: All right. Well, of course,

23 necessity makes the law in all parts of the world, so

24 we shall proceed in that manner. Mr. Hayman has also

25 stated his view, so, Mr. Usher, we shall have a closed

Page 8597

1 session and we shall ask the usher -- how do we

2 proceed? Do we know is it enough to empty the fourth

3 booth on the right? I don't know if there was anyone

4 in that booth? Were there some spectators? Please

5 proceed with a security officer sitting there.

6 (In closed session)

7 (redacted)

8 (redacted)

9 (redacted)

10 (redacted)

11 (redacted)

12 (redacted)

13 (redacted)

14 (redacted)

15 (redacted)

16 (redacted)

17 (redacted)

18 (redacted)

19 (redacted)

20 (redacted)

21 (redacted)

22 (redacted)

23 (redacted)

24 (redacted)

25 (redacted)

Page 8598

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13 pages 8598-8615 redacted – closed session

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22 --- Whereupon hearing adjourned at 5.10 p.m.

23 to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 12th day of May, 1998

24 at 10.00 a.m.

25