Page 1572
1 Monday, 26 April 2010
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 [The witness takes the stand]
5 --- Upon commencing at 9.02 a.m.
6 JUDGE KWON: Good morning, everybody. Good morning,
7 Ambassador Okun.
8 WITNESS: HERBERT OKUN [Resumed]
9 JUDGE KWON: Good morning, Mr. Karadzic. We're here to continue
10 the cross-examination.
11 I was advised we are having a new member from Mr. Harvey's team.
12 Could you introduce --
13 MR. HARVEY: Good morning, Your Honour.
14 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.
15 MR. HARVEY: [Microphone not activated] my colleague -- I'm
16 sorry. I'm assisted now by my microphone and by Ms. Colleen Rohan, with
17 your consent. Thank you.
18 JUDGE KWON: Thank you. Welcome, Ms. Rohan.
19 Mr. Karadzic.
20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Excellency.
21 Cross-examination by Mr. Karadzic: [Continued]
22 Q. [Interpretation] Good morning, Ambassador.
23 A. Good morning, Dr. Karadzic.
24 Q. Have you had a good rest? Did I tire you out on Friday?
25 A. I hope so. Thank you.
Page 1573
1 Q. I should like to go back to one point. You said that you were
2 concerned because in the 1981 census there weren't many Yugoslavs and
3 that that was a sign that Yugoslavia
4 A. Actually, Dr. Karadzic, it was not I who said I was concerned,
5 but I said that the highest of our intelligence authorities, the
6 National Intelligence Council, in a report, they called them estimates,
7 NIE, National Intelligence Estimates, they had said that the fact that
8 the small -- relatively small number of people had identified themselves
9 as Yugoslavs indicated that the state was ripe for some kind of
10 nationalist trouble. It was not my opinion.
11 Q. Thank you. Yes, that is right. Now, I should like to ask you
12 this: Well, it's another reason why I envy Mr. Tieger for having been
13 able to meet with you, and then receive very brief answers when he
14 examined you. So could you treat me in the same way as well, please.
15 Thank you.
16 Do you agree that in 1981, most of the Yugo enthusiasts were
17 among the Serbs, and the least among the secessionalist Slovenes, Croats,
18 and Muslims, secessionist oriented?
19 A. I really don't know the answer to that. I was in Berlin,
20 Germany
21 Yugoslav affairs, but I can understand that that might have been the
22 case.
23 Q. Thank you. Yes, that was a shorter answer than the first one.
24 Now what I want to ask you is this: Was that, in a way, in civilian
25 life, the political spectrum, a type of desertion from Yugoslavia
Page 1574
1 as in 1991, people deserted from the Yugoslav People's Army, having been
2 on its list? Do you know that the Slovenes, Croats, and Muslims left the
3 Yugoslav People's Army far before the outbreak of the war?
4 A. I was made aware of that when I was in Yugoslavia.
5 In answer to your earlier question, did that represent a
6 desertion from Yugoslavia
7 by looking at the previous censuses. If 1961 and 1971 showed many, many
8 more people declaring themselves Yugoslavs, well, then 1981 would make a
9 difference. But I'm not aware of the censuses of 1951, 1961, 1971, so I
10 just don't know.
11 Q. Thank you. But can we agree that in the Yugoslav People's Army,
12 it was -- just as in Yugoslavia
13 the majority who remained were Serbs?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. And would you also agree that at the first democratic elections,
16 seven members of the Presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina were elected, two
17 Serbs, two Croats, and two Muslims, and one representative of the
18 minorities or, rather, those who weren't Serbs or Croats or Muslims?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Thank you. Do you know that the Serbian Democratic Party, for
21 that position, nominated the leader of the local Jewish community,
22 Mr. Ceresnes, who was not a member of our party?
23 A. No, I was not aware of that.
24 Q. Very well, but it's a fact. Now, do you know that the Muslims --
25 or, rather, the SDA put forward, as a nominee to that position that went
Page 1575
1 to the minorities, Ejub Ganic, who was from Sandzak and, in our opinion,
2 a Muslim extremist?
3 A. Yes, I'm aware of that. I'm also aware that he declared himself
4 a Muslim after he was elected on the Yugoslav list.
5 Q. Well, can you understand that we considered that this was
6 trickery and that we were angry and upset, insulted?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Thank you. Now, when you came to Yugoslavia in a position of the
9 NATO command as a political adviser after the major crisis that took
10 place in 1971 and the replacement of the Croatian leadership, and then in
11 1972 the replacement of the Serb leadership, in the West, did the West
12 have an interest in the oppositional forces in Tito's Yugoslavia at that
13 time? Were they interested in them, the forces of the opposition?
14 A. They, of course, followed the situation in Yugoslavia, those
15 experts in it, people like Mihajlo Mihajlov were known even to the
16 general public, but as a matter of policy, they supported Marsal Tito and
17 the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia
18 was the Soviet Union.
19 Q. At the time, did you know anything about Alija Izetbegovic?
20 A. No.
21 Q. Do you agree that at that time, the Muslims, at the level of the
22 federal state, occupied significant positions and wielded significant
23 influence?
24 A. They were well represented.
25 Q. Thank you. Now, do you remember that the ideological basis for
Page 1576
1 Yugoslavia
2 Tito in order to enable the existence of both diversity and unity?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. And do you agree that the Communist Party of Yugoslavia was the
5 connecting tissue holding together the Yugoslav peoples and republics
6 together?
7 A. Up to a point, but not completely. The Communist Party, after
8 all, did not represent the broad masses of the country. It may have
9 claimed to do so, but it did not.
10 Q. But would you agree that given that situation, a party who does
11 not have the support of the party [as interpreted] can only rule through
12 a dictatorship?
13 A. I can't agree to that. To say that unless you rule as a
14 Communist, you must rule as a dictator, is a proposition that I don't
15 think I could support, and, in fact, I don't think it is defensible.
16 Surely, there are many countries that do not have Communist
17 dictatorships - who used to have them - who have perfectly democratic
18 countries now. We see that.
19 Q. Thank you. But you will agree, I'm sure, that the crisis, for
20 example, that ended in Croatia
21 secessionist crisis, and that Croats at the time could have elected to
22 step down -- had they been able to vote at the time, the Croats would
23 have voted to step down from Yugoslavia
24 A. I think that's possible. I'm not certain. I don't think anybody
25 can be certain of that.
Page 1577
1 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Karadzic, I'm wondering about the relevance of
2 this line of questions. Could you move quickly to the relevant issues.
3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Excellency. I was
4 just about to do that.
5 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
6 Q. Now, do you agree that it's very important who the political --
7 or what the political profile is of the main actors in the
8 Bosnian-Herzegovinian crisis; for example, that that is of great
9 importance, what their political history is and political intentions are?
10 A. Yes, that's important.
11 Q. My thesis and case, Mr. Ambassador, is that Alija Izetbegovic,
12 already in 1939, was among the founders of the Young Muslims, which the
13 Muslim organisation in Bosnia-Herzegovina held as an affiliation of the
14 Muslim Brothers from Egypt
15 A. I don't know that.
16 Q. But you're not denying it either; right?
17 A. No, I'm neither confirming it nor denying it.
18 Q. Thank you. Now, my next question: Do you know that the great
19 Jerusalem Mufti al-Husseini in 1943 on two occasions visited
20 Bosnia-Herzegovina, and people say that he was an uncle of Yasser Arafat,
21 which is of no great importance, but, anyway, that he was a great Hitler
22 ally in the Middle East?
23 A. Yes, I'm aware of that.
24 Q. And do you know that he was a guest of honour of
25 Alija Izetbegovic, and that his visits resulted in the creation of one
Page 1578
1 and then another one SS Waffen and Handzar Division, composed of Bosnian
2 Muslims?
3 A. Yes, I know about the Handzar Division. "Handzar" means
4 "scimitar," during World War II, 66 years ago.
5 Q. Now, do you know that that organisation, the Young Muslims, led
6 by Alija Izetbegovic and his group, continued secretly to act within
7 Yugoslavia
8 A. I'm not aware of that. I suspect it's possible.
9 Q. And because of that, the group was tried and given prison
10 sentences in 1947, I think it was.
11 But, anyway, I'd like us to move on to present-day times and ask
12 you: Do you agree that Alija Izetbegovic, otherwise a very persistent
13 man and with set views, continued that kind of activity even when he was
14 released from prison. And in 1970, he was the author of the
15 "Islamic Declaration," and other people just gave him advice?
16 A. Yes, I mentioned that yesterday.
17 Q. Do you agree that from 1970 to 1980, he disseminated the
18 "Islamic Declaration" through Islamic circles, and in the 1980s, he
19 started creating the nucleus of an organisation which was supposed to put
20 into practice the "Islamic Declaration," and he was tried because of that
21 at the Court in Sarajevo
22 A. Yes, I know that.
23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] May we now have 1D34 called up,
24 please, or 0034. The document on e-court, please.
25 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
Page 1579
1 Q. Ambassador, here we have the judgement from 1983 of the
2 District Court in Sarajevo
3 no, I beg your pardon. Three were Muslim, and one was a Serb, and
4 another one was a Croat. And that is a judgement for the accused in the
5 trial against Alija Izetbegovic et al, for the crime of association to
6 engage in criminal activity under Article 136, et cetera, et cetera; and
7 the trial was held from the 18th of July to the 19th of August, 1983
8 And on the 20th of August, 1983, this trial chamber passed a
9 judgement stating that the accused Alija Izetbegovic and Omer Behmen, and
10 Hasan Cengic, the accused Hasan Cengic - well, the first two were
11 definitely tried in 1947 as well, but other accused appear here - were
12 found guilty, Alija Izetbegovic and Omer Behmen, because at the beginning
13 of 1974, after several occasions in the previous years, taken up with --
14 I had hoped that the interpreters have this document in front of them so
15 I can speak quickly -- taken up with the idea of Islamic renaissance, and
16 discussed the need for the realisation of this ideology and ideal, and
17 after Alija Izetbegovic wrote and published texts of that kind, along
18 with suggestions from Omer Behmen, wrote the text of the
19 "Islamic Declaration," so the "Islamic Declaration" is something that he
20 authored, and the group existed, and they formed an association for the
21 purposes of hostile activity. Now, were you aware of this judgement
22 before you came in to testify here?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. The Western intelligence services exchanging information with
25 NATO, did they warn the authorities of this group as a possible force
Page 1580
1 which could play a significant role should there be development of events
2 involving the Soviet Union?
3 A. I have no idea. I was not involved with Yugoslavia at the time.
4 Q. Thank you. May we now move on to the next page of that same
5 document, or, rather, page 7. On e-court, yes, one page on, please.
6 It's page 7 of the text. Page 7, please, yes. Thank you.
7 Now, in that -- in the middle there, it says Omer Behmen, the
8 second paragraph marked in Serbian -- Omer Behmen added on to the text
9 about the Muslims in Yugoslavia
10 Behmen, agreeing to postpone publication. In the text entitled "Muslims
11 in Yugoslavia
12 War II endangered the spiritual survival of Muslims. And then towards
13 the end, they said that they view the Islamic revolution in Iran as their
14 own revolution and as a true revival. And then later on, towards the
15 Iraq-Iranian conflict and the Iranian revolution, and the victory of the
16 Islam and Iranian resolution carried out by the corrupt regimes in
17 surrounding countries, would represent great encouragement to the Muslims
18 of Yugoslavia
19 Do you consider --
20 JUDGE KWON: Yes. What is your question?
21 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
22 Q. Do you consider that that was, indeed, the reason for the Serbs'
23 concern?
24 A. I can imagine that an exaggerated concern from the Communist
25 government would result from reading anything to do with a religious
Page 1581
1 nature. As we all know, Communist regimes were officially atheistic, by
2 law, and in fact, so any religious declaration was bound to agitate them.
3 Whether it was significant or not is another matter.
4 Q. Thank you. Now may we have the next page displayed, please.
5 Next page, yes.
6 Now, Alija Izetbegovic, Omer Behmen, and Ismet Kasumagic, that's
7 the title. And then:
8 "In the summer of 1982 in Sarajevo, Alija Izetbegovic and
9 Omer Behmen agreed, with the help of Teufik Velagic, a member of the
10 hostile emigre organisation in Vienna
11 democratic alternative, to contact the Iranian ambassador in Vienna
12 order to make a copy of 'The Islamic Declaration' available to the
13 Iranian authorities and seek support for the positions set out in it, as
14 well as to establish contact with the representatives of Iran's religious
15 and political authorities with a view to seeking assistance and support
16 for implementing the positions set out," et cetera.
17 So is this not politics, too, in addition to being religion?
18 A. Yes, it's politics. Of course, it represented, as you know,
19 Dr. Karadzic, and I know, a wing of the SDA party that was by no means
20 the majority wing.
21 Q. Thank you, Ambassador. This was in the 1980s. In the 1990s, the
22 same group formed the party, and we'll come to that in due course.
23 Now, on page 12 of the Serbian text - may we have that
24 displayed? - it says that from the beginning of 1979 to 1980 --
25 JUDGE KWON: Could you wait until the Ambassador can follow in
Page 1582
1 English.
2 If Mr. Karadzic is not following the Serbian version in the
3 e-court, how about using only English so that the ambassador can see them
4 easily and expand. Could you help find --
5 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I agree, yes.
6 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you. Yes, I'll try and
8 identify it in the English version.
9 It says here as follows, number 5:
10 "From the beginning of 1979 until 1983," et cetera,
11 "Alija Izetbegovic asserted that Islam must be a state system or social
12 system in all Muslim countries, in all countries where the population is
13 Muslim, and that the necessary conditions should be created to turn
14 Bosnia and Herzegovina into an Islamic republic with Islamic laws in the
15 future."
16 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
17 Q. Now, my question to you, Ambassador, is the following: You met
18 Mr. Izetbegovic several times, according to your note-books. During
19 those meetings, did he disclose to you his intentions, that is to say,
20 that Bosnia
21 A. He did not say that, nor did the other Muslim leaders who we
22 dealt with frequently; Haris Silajdzic, for example, and others, who were
23 completely secularised in their behaviour. Ejub Ganic, as we already
24 mentioned, turned out to be a Muslim, after running and being elected as
25 a Yugoslav in the 1990 elections. He was thoroughly secular in his view.
Page 1583
1 Zulfikarpasic, one of the founders of the party and one of the funders of
2 the party, was a very wealthy businessman, and he was entirely secular in
3 his view. And Fikret Abdic, the SDA candidate who received the most
4 votes in the 1990 presidential election, was also entirely secular in his
5 view. So you are going into a lot of detail which is, of course,
6 interesting from the historical point of view, but does not represent the
7 state of affairs in the SDA.
8 Q. Thank you very much. You will see that it does, actually.
9 Did you trust them when they portrayed themselves as secularised
10 and secular? I'm talking about Izetbegovic and his group. I'm not
11 talking about Zulfikarpasic and Silajdzic. Do you know they were frank
12 and honest with you?
13 A. Izetbegovic never had -- never hid his religiosity, nor did our
14 president, George W. Bush, who was often accused of this kind of stuff
15 because he was a self-described born-again Christian. These are not
16 unusual events in countries.
17 Q. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. Number 3 now in Chapter 5 says --
18 I think that you need to move on to the next page in English. It's
19 probably the next page. Number 3:
20 "In the summer of 1982 in Pazaric," at somebody's summer home,
21 "he said that our imams should be armed and that they should interpret
22 and apply Islam following the example of Iran's Shiite imams."
23 Do you see that?
24 A. Yes.
25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Could we please have page 16,
Page 1584
1 Chapter 7; pages 13 and 14 in e-court, that is, in the English version.
2 It's this document.
3 And now on page 14 -- now on page 14, because Chapter 7 only
4 begins on page 13 -- could I please have page 14 now? It's the next
5 page. A bit further down, the bullet points, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
6 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
7 Q. The fifth bullet point or paragraph that:
8 "An Islamic revival begins --"
9 What is being referred to here is Hasan Cengic, one of the most
10 important members of that group. You probably met him as well. It says
11 here -- and he pointed out that an Islamic revival begins with a
12 religious revival and is brought to a successful conclusion with a
13 political revolution and the establishment of an Islamic government.
14 The next paragraph:
15 "That the goal of the Islamic revolution in our country is the
16 creation of a unified Islamic state comprising the area of
17 Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sandzak, and Kosovo."
18 Do you agree that in that period of time from 1977 until 1981,
19 Sandzak and Kosovo were in Serbia
20 as well; isn't that right?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Thank you. Next paragraph, please:
23 "That Jihad should be pursued to its final outcome in order to
24 exterminate the enemy and the infidels."
25 And what is particularly highlighted is the following:
Page 1585
1 "We should not wait for a challenge or a provocation. Muslims
2 must invent a challenge. They must be the ones who produce the
3 challenge, and the goal will then come by itself."
4 Is that a cause for a concern among the non-Muslim population of
5 Bosnia
6 A. Well, it could be if these people had power or represented a
7 majority inside their party, neither of which was the case. So I don't
8 think it could be of much concern. Every country has its lunatic fringe
9 of the right, or of the left, or of this or that religion.
10 Q. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. However, you would agree
11 that if such people were to come to power, it would be very dangerous?
12 A. If they had full power and if they still believed this, it could
13 be. But in the case of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1990 and 1991, which is,
14 after all, the subject matter of this discussion, the Muslims did not
15 have an army, they had nothing, like any military force whatsoever. They
16 were outnumbered by the Bosnian Croats and the Bosnian Serbs, both of
17 whom were more highly organised and had their countries behind them.
18 We've already discussed that in discussing the goals. So the chances of
19 them ever putting this fanciful dream into action were nil. That, of
20 course, is my opinion.
21 Q. Thank you, thank you very much.
22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Page 16 now in e-court. Can we go
23 on? Sorry, page 15 in English. Page 15 in English, Chapter 7. Could we
24 please have the English version. I think that should be it.
25 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
Page 1586
1 Q. We are continuing with the positions of Mr. Hasan Cengic as an
2 important person within that group, that Muslims have to confront all
3 non-Muslims and Communists.
4 Paragraph 2:
5 "They should be -- they, the Muslims should be prepared for
6 self-sacrifice to achieve their goals."
7 And then two paragraphs down, in the middle of the paragraph that
8 starts with "The Koran iyet":
9 "All believers -- do not take an infidel as your friend. Do not
10 be friends with your fathers or your brothers if they favour the absence
11 of our faith."
12 He emphasised that marriages to non-Muslims should not take place
13 because this leads to the assimilation and destruction of the Muslim
14 nation.
15 And then the next paragraph, that:
16 "A Muslim woman should not nurse the children of a non-Muslim
17 woman, and vice versa. A Muslim cannot receive the blood of or give
18 blood to a non-believer. Muslims must be superior to all others, and
19 every effort should be made to create an environment in which everyone
20 will be of pure Muslim blood."
21 Do you agree that this is hate speech, even speech based on
22 racism?
23 A. Well, it is a form of millenialism. There are, of course,
24 extreme views in every religion. This is not pleasant to read, but one
25 would have to know what it represented in reality: Paper, as Stalin --
Page 1587
1 [Overlapping speakers].
2 Q. Thank you. We'll get to reality.
3 JUDGE KWON: Please do not interrupt the Ambassador's answer.
4 Hear him out.
5 Yes, the next question.
6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I'm concerned about the time I
7 have.
8 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
9 Q. So Hasan Cengic is a religious person, but you think that this is
10 not hate speech? He is involved in politics, after all --
11 A. Well, he emphasised that marriages to non-Muslims should not take
12 place. Many Christians, Jews, Hindus, believe that sort of thing. I
13 don't believe it's hate speech.
14 Q. What about this, Mr. Ambassador: Do not greet infidels, kill
15 infidels, and infidels are those who are not Muslims. What would you
16 term that?
17 A. It surely is an extreme statement.
18 Q. And what do you say to this: that an environment should be
19 created that would be of pure Muslim blood?
20 A. Well, as I said, I think it's a millenarian kind of document that
21 I wouldn't take seriously.
22 Q. I wouldn't agree, Mr. Ambassador. He is not speaking of the
23 collapse of a Muslim world. He wants to see a collapse of all other
24 worlds. He sees the victory of his Muslim world and the decline of all
25 others. Don't you agree to that?
Page 1588
1 A. Well, he certainly is a Muslim nationalist. On the other hand,
2 there are statements that are purely nonsensical in here. For example,
3 if we look at the last paragraph of the document you have put forth, I
4 quote:
5 "That the economic situation in our country is a specific
6 expression of God's wrath ..."
7 Well, if you believe that, you're capable of believing anything.
8 Q. Thank you.
9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretaiton] I'd now like to call up 1D94.
10 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Tieger --
11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Could the previous document please
12 be admitted into evidence, the judgement of the Court. Actually, it's
13 not final yet.
14 JUDGE KWON: 34. Mr. Tieger.
15 MR. TIEGER: No objection, Your Honour, although, well, I mean,
16 the weight is another story. But in terms of the admissibility, no, no
17 objection.
18 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
19 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit D73.
20 JUDGE KWON: Thank you.
21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I'd like to remind the
22 Trial Chamber that this is a judgement, a judgement of the trial chamber
23 of the District Court in Sarajevo
24 1D94 is the next document that I'd like to have, please.
25 I would like to remind the Chamber that the president of that
Page 1589
1 trial chamber was a Muslim, and that most of the judges were Muslim, and
2 also most of the witnesses called were Muslims.
3 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
4 Q. Mr. Ambassador, I'm grateful to you for your observation to the
5 effect that this would not be that dangerous had this man not had power.
6 However, this document from the 14th of December, 1993, shows what kind
7 of power was given to that man. So this is the headquarters of the
8 Supreme Command of the Armed Forces, and it says here in this order:
9 "In war service in a unit of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia
10 and Herzegovina
11 following appointment is made:
12 "In the Main Headquarters of the armed forces in the Sector for
13 Logistics.
14 "Cengic, father's name Halid, Hasan, at the establishment
15 position of the deputy chief of the sector."
16 Is the situation somewhat different now, Ambassador?
17 A. No, I don't think it's any different at all. The date of the
18 document is December 12, 1993. At that point, the SDA party, as a party,
19 and, if you will, the Muslims inside the government, had hardly any armed
20 forces. It is a well-known and established and indisputable fact, that
21 70 to 90 per cent of the front-line was occupied by Croatian forces, and
22 as of this date, Bosnian Serb forces occupied 70 per cent of the country,
23 so they gave this man some kind of propaganda position. There is nothing
24 in this document that indicates he had a position of any power.
25 Q. Thank you. We'll get to that later. Let's just clarify one
Page 1590
1 matter.
2 You are right, up to a degree, that there was a significant
3 secular line within the SDA. However, Ambassador, let me remind you that
4 that line abandoned the SDA even before the elections in 1990.
5 Zulfikarpasic, Filipovic, Lamija, and others, they left the SDA and they
6 established the Muslim Bosniak organisation that ran in the election, and
7 I think that they won between two to four MPs. Do you agree with that?
8 A. Yes, they left the party, and Zulfikarpasic set himself up
9 comfortably in Switzerland
10 very strong secular streak, a secular aspect, to the SDA. And as events
11 have shown since the period we're discussing, the secular aspect has come
12 forward, actually.
13 Q. Thank you. You will see that that's not the case, actually. And
14 may I remind you that Mr. Zulfikarpasic said that he left the SDA for the
15 following reason: He claimed that the secret hardcore of the SDA,
16 consisting of Young Muslims, is working in a conspiratorial manner behind
17 the back of the party and the people, and that no one can oppose them.
18 We'll deal with that tomorrow, since you've raised the subject.
19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] And now I would like to have
20 document 1D34. Actually, 1D94, Excellency, can we have that admitted
21 into evidence?
22 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Tieger?
23 MR. TIEGER: No objection, Your Honour.
24 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
25 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honour, that will be Exhibit D74.
Page 1591
1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] D34 --
2 JUDGE KWON: We are going back to that judgement. What page?
3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] In the Serbian version, it is 78
4 and 79, and then 140. Seventy-eight and 79 in the Serbian version.
5 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
6 Q. What is confirmed is that out of 63 witnesses called in the
7 trial, 58 were --
8 JUDGE KWON: English page. Is it 140?
9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I'm going to identify it now,
10 Excellency. 65 in English.
11 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
12 Q. Mr. Ambassador, in the lower part of the page we see that out of
13 63 witnesses called in this trial, 58 were Muslims. And then the next
14 page deals with that as well. All the witnesses are listed, all
15 witnesses who testified about the organisation of the Young Muslims that
16 continued to operate in a different way. However, now there was this
17 document, "The Islamic Declaration," as a basis for their activity.
18 And now could I please have number 140 in Serbian, and now we're
19 going to see which page it is in English.
20 JUDGE KWON: What is your question about this to the ambassador?
21 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
22 Q. Are you denying this, Mr. Ambassador, that out of 63 witnesses,
23 58 were Muslims?
24 A. No. No, I don't know it for a fact, but I'm certainly not
25 denying it. I've never seen this document before.
Page 1592
1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you. Page 140, I'm going to
2 read it in Serbian, that particular part. The judgement says, "In our
3 situation --" soon you're going to see the text on your screen:
4 "In our situation, consistently advocating this kind of ideology
5 means going back to a fratricidal war, denying our independence and our
6 non-aligned policy. There is no doubt that this kind of policy of
7 nationalism --" actually:
8 "... ethnic divisions and the establishment of an Islamic state
9 in Bosnia
10 happen in a socialist self-management Yugoslavia in an environment that
11 is the so diverse, from an ethnic and religious point of view, that if
12 any individual group were to prevail, that would be inconceivable, unless
13 it were to be --"
14 JUDGE KWON: Have you to indicate the English page number so that
15 the others could follow.
16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you. We'll attend to it. We
17 have problems, too, Your Excellency, just like Mr. Tieger.
18 Much, much later, much later, after this statement of the
19 witness, it's at least 50 pages beyond that.
20 The English page we have now -- I mean, in the Serbian version,
21 it's 79 and we're moving on to 140, so it's at least 50 pages further on.
22 JUDGE KWON: If he has the ERN number -- or can you follow it?
23 What's the ERN number of the B/C/S page? No. You found it?
24 [Trial Chamber and Registrar confer]
25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] We have it on our screens now.
Page 1593
1 Now, let's just find it. Now, where's the beginning in our
2 setting, in our situation? Is that not the right page? Here it is, yes,
3 towards the middle. Yes. Yes, that's it, that's it. You see, so it's
4 around the middle, "Pan-Islamic ideology":
5 [In English] "... ideology in a domestic version, according to
6 the authors of the declaration and their sympathisers, seeks to adapt
7 itself to the changed circumstances and to modest conditions. Such an
8 ideology, which has basically run its course in the region where once it
9 could have had certain socio-political motives and real religious
10 influence, has emerged again in circumstances of socialist
11 self-management.
12 "There is no doubt that such ideology, national and religious
13 separation, the establishment of an Islamic state in Bosnia
14 system based on Islam, et cetera, could not come into being in a
15 socialist self-managed Yugoslavia
16 and religiously so mixed that the predominance or total domination of one
17 of the existing national groups is simply unimaginable, unless it were
18 based on terror or even on foreign intervention and the use of coercion."
19 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
20 Q. Ambassador, do you know that the Muslim side, throughout the
21 conflict, coveted and openly asked for foreign intervention?
22 A. Yes. Since they [Realtime transcript read in error "you"] were
23 losing, and you occupying most of the country and ethnically cleansing
24 their population, they were desperate.
25 Q. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador, but we'll prove to you that that was
Page 1594
1 not the case. The important thing is that from the very beginning, that
2 is to say, from the beginning of 1992 - and do you agree with
3 this? - that already in April, May, June, a requested foreign
4 intervention?
5 A. Excuse me. Before I answer that, could I call attention to the
6 screen which has my previous answer incorrectly written?
7 JUDGE KWON: Yes, please.
8 THE WITNESS: It reads on the screen "since you were losing," and
9 what I said was "since they were losing."
10 JUDGE KWON: Thank you, Ambassador.
11 THE WITNESS: Yes, they were quite -- as I said, since they were
12 losing, they were desperate for foreign intervention, just as the
13 Croatians hoped for foreign intervention in 1991. In neither case did
14 they get it. But that the losing side wants help, I don't find that
15 surprising.
16 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation] Thank you.
17 Q. Now, when do you pin-point the time when they begin losing?
18 A. They began losing much earlier than the opening of hostilities in
19 March 1992. Because already in the fall of 1991, the JNA was
20 distributing weapons to Serb paramilitaries, and in certain opstinas,
21 particularly along the Bosnian side of the Drina River
22 organising themselves, as they had previously in Croatia, into SAOs, that
23 is to say, Serb Autonomous Oblasts. This was reported at the time and
24 known at the time. So the Bosnian Serbs, with the help of the JNA, were
25 already preparing for something in the fall of 1991. That's not
Page 1595
1 surprising, since war had already broken out in Croatia, but it does
2 indicate some alertness on the part of the Bosnian Serbs and the JNA, and
3 certainly no one would consider it a peaceful measure.
4 Q. Thank you, Ambassador. You're giving me more work, but there's a
5 certain amount of satisfaction in that, too.
6 Now, when do you pin-point the beginning of the Muslim
7 preparations -- the SDA preparations for war?
8 A. They hoped to avoid war because they were occupying the
9 Presidency. As we've discussed, and I won't go into this, they had
10 gained the support of the Bosnian Croats on the referendum of
11 February 29-March 1, 1992, and they were joining the three other Yugoslav
12 republics which had opted for independence. That they were actively
13 preparing for hostilities, I didn't see any evidence of that. Indeed, as
14 I've said, it was all on the other side, because when we first looked
15 into this situation and became aware of it, they had hardly any men under
16 arms at all.
17 Q. Thank you. Now, if I tell you, Mr. Ambassador, that
18 Mr. Izetbegovic, who, ex officio, as president of the Presidency, was the
19 president of the Council for National Defence of the whole republic with
20 all three communities in it, already in February 1991 formed a secret
21 alliance for the defence of Muslims, if I put that to you, would you deny
22 that?
23 A. I don't know. It's either way, so I can't deny it, I can't
24 confirm it. I hear you say it.
25 Q. And if I tell you that this alliance or council already in the
Page 1596
1 following month, on the 31st of March, took the decision to form the
2 Patriotic League, what would you say to that?
3 A. If you say so.
4 Q. And if I tell you further that the Patriotic League was formed
5 already on the next month, that is to say, the 30th of April, what would
6 you say to that?
7 A. What year are we talking about, Dr. Karadzic?
8 Q. 1991, immediately after the elections. The elections were in
9 November. The government formed in December -- or the Assembly in
10 December; the government, December and January; February, the secret
11 committee; March, the decision to set it up; and, April, the
12 establishment of it. 1991 is the year.
13 A. Well, that's possible.
14 Q. And if I tell you, furthermore, Ambassador, that Halilovic, later
15 the commander of the BH Army, Sefer Halilovic, I mean, and then
16 afterwards Hasan Cengic too, already by the summer of 1991, in 103
17 municipalities, had their commands and units of the Patriotic League and
18 Green Berets, what would you say to that?
19 A. Well, I would say that they were responding to the creation of
20 the SAOs, the Serb Autonomous Oblasts, which had begun in 1991, as I
21 indicated, and they were surely responding to the fact that war in
22 Croatia
23 protestations of neutrality, was clearly taking the side of the Serbs in
24 Croatia
25 this, from their point of view, as a small defensive measure, since,
Page 1597
1 after all, they had no armed forces.
2 Q. Thank you. That's why I like your note-books much more than your
3 subsequent thinking.
4 But let me ask you something else: With that answer you have
5 confirmed that it was legitimate to take countermeasures; somebody takes
6 a measure and then it's legitimate to take a countermeasure; is that
7 right?
8 A. Well, that would depend on the nature of the countermeasure.
9 I think that's all one could say about that.
10 Q. Thank you. Now, do you consider that political measures -- that
11 you can take military countermeasures to the political measures that have
12 been taken in a country, as was ours?
13 A. Well, that would depend what the political measure was. If it
14 were the case of a person or a coup occurring in a country, a coup
15 d'etat, which would be most political and military, one might take
16 countermeasures against that. We see examples of this every day, today
17 on television; in Bangkok
18 difficult question and depends very much on the individual situation.
19 Q. Thank you. You have now given an answer to the legitimacy of the
20 JNA action in Slovenia
21 going to show and prove that the formation of the SAOs was a political
22 response to the political measures taken by the Muslim government, the
23 Muslim section of the government.
24 And now you say that the formation of the Patriotic League,
25 itself, so early on, in all mixed environments, was a legitimate response
Page 1598
1 to the political proclamation of the SAOs, which did not have any
2 function, they were just proclaimed as a protection from the violent
3 secession of Bosnia-Herzegovina; is that right?
4 A. No, that's not correct. I said the SAOs were protected
5 earlier -- excuse me, were projected earlier, and I also said that given
6 the history of the SAOs in Croatia
7 suspicious of SAO activity, along with that of the JNA. That was my
8 answer.
9 Q. Thank you, Ambassador. Now, do you know when the decision was
10 taken to establish the SAOs, and when did the SAOs actually start
11 operating?
12 A. I don't know when the decision was taken. I know that we first
13 became aware that they were operating around October/November 1991. I'm
14 speaking of the SAOs in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
15 Q. Yes, yes, thank you. Very well. Now, do you believe that of the
16 109 municipalities in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in 103 municipalities there
17 were Serbs -- there were also Serbs, whereas in Western Herzegovina, in
18 the Croatian municipalities, there were less Serbs and less Muslims?
19 A. Western Herzegovina and the Western Bosnia. Certainly, there are
20 very few Serbs in Western Herzegovina. Western Bosnia, there were quite
21 a lot of Serbs.
22 Q. I'm only referring to a few municipalities. Of the
23 109 municipalities, 103 municipalities, in those, Sefer Halilovic,
24 Hasan Cengic, Alija Izetbegovic, formed units which their neighbours, the
25 Serbs, saw already at the end of the spring and beginning of the summer
Page 1599
1 of 1991. Do you challenge that at all?
2 A. I don't know that. I can't answer that question.
3 Q. But if that were true, would your stand hold water then, your
4 position that the Serbs had no reason for concern?
5 A. Well, if it were true that the one side had armed itself, that
6 could be a reason for the opposing side to arm itself, except that we
7 know, and this was unarguable, that in March of 1992, when hostilities
8 began, the Muslims were unarmed, essentially unarmed, and the Serbs, both
9 military and civilian, were well armed.
10 Q. Thank you. Well, this is a good pretext for us to clarify these
11 matters. In fact, it's my task to throw light upon these events for the
12 benefit of the Trial Chamber, but I would be happy if you were to come
13 away with different conclusions rather than the ones that you came in
14 with. And had we met just in the way that you met Mr. Tieger, we might
15 have achieved that earlier on.
16 But, anyway, I'd like to refer to your note-book again now,
17 note-book number 1. The ERN number is 016-3378 to 016-3456, page 38.
18 A. Dr. Karadzic, if you could mention the date, that would help me.
19 Q. Well, I'll give up on that. Never mind, let's move on.
20 Let me ask you this: Did you always believe Izetbegovic?
21 A. I never always believed anybody.
22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] May we now have called up on
23 e-court a Prosecution document, 65 ter 06534, and page 45 of that. It is
24 note-book number 1, your note-book number 1.
25 JUDGE KWON: That's Exhibit 784. [Indiscernible] are in
Page 1600
1 number 1, between 2nd and 13 September, Ambassador.
2 THE WITNESS: Yes, I have it. Thank you.
3 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
4 Q. Here we have one of your entries:
5 "Izetbegovic very disingenuous."
6 As a comment in brackets.
7 A. Yes:
8 "Comment: Very disingenuous," which indicated that I clearly
9 disbelieved him on that occasion.
10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you. May we now have
11 note-book number 5, Prosecution number 65 ter 06538, next, please. And
12 the page is 61.
13 JUDGE KWON: Exhibit 788.
14 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation] It's on the right-hand side --
15 towards the bottom, it says:
16 "I see no reason," Izetbegovic, "I see no reason for --
17 [In English] "I see no reason to sit down at the same table with
18 the Serbs. Only another humiliation for us. Serbs captured the Jajce
19 and Bosanski Brod after ceasefire was signed. Why believe them?"
20 [Interpretation] And your comment was:
21 [In English] "This is false. Jajce and Bosanski Brod fell in
22 October. Cease-fire was signed November the 10th, 1992."
23 Q. [Interpretation] Is that right?
24 A. Excuse me. I haven't found the passage yet. Forgive me.
25 Q. It's on the screen.
Page 1601
1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] If we zoom down, then the
2 Ambassador will be able to see a page of his own diary. May we pan down.
3 MR. TIEGER: Your Honour, perhaps it's helpful to note that it's
4 a meeting of December 17th, 1992, commencing at what appears to be --
5 I've actually got that blocked out, but it looks around 12.00 a.m.
6 THE WITNESS: Yes, I have it now. Excuse me, Dr. Karadzic. I'm
7 very sorry.
8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can we scroll down, please. Thank
9 you.
10 THE WITNESS: What Izetbegovic was pointing to here was that by
11 December 1992, in fact much earlier, the war was going so badly for the
12 Bosnian Muslim side that they were very reluctant to sit down and talk
13 with your side because of the war and because of the extensive ethnic
14 cleansing that had already been carried out.
15 In fact, it took a great deal of persuasiveness on the part of
16 Mr. Vance and Lord Owen and myself to get them to come to Geneva in the
17 first place. This is not unusual. Parties often don't wish to talk to
18 each other. We saw that in the Greek-Macedonian dispute. We see it now
19 in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. So he was very reluctant to talk to
20 your side because he was losing, and he couldn't expect to get much at
21 the negotiating table. That's why he said, It would only be another
22 humiliation for us. That's clearly what he was referring to. And he
23 says:
24 "Serbs captured Jajce and Bosanski Brod after the cease-fire was
25 signed. Why believe them."
Page 1602
1 And I note right after that, note B, note bene to myself, that
2 the above is false; that Jajce and Bosanski Brod fell in October. So
3 I think that shows we were aware of the situation and that we certainly
4 didn't play partisan politics with the situation. We were dealing with
5 Izetbegovic and yourself and your colleagues and the Croatians on a
6 completely honest and open basis. And when one or the other side said
7 something that wasn't true, if we were aware of it, we took it on board
8 and we took it into account.
9 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation] Thank you.
10 JUDGE KWON: If it is convenient, we'll have a break now for 20
11 minutes.
12 --- Recess taken at 10.24 a.m.
13 --- On resuming at 10.48 a.m.
14 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Karadzic.
15 THE ACCUSED: May I?
16 JUDGE KWON: Yes, please.
17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.
18 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
19 Q. Mr. Ambassador, the point I was making was that you had written
20 down that Mr. Izetbegovic was saying something that was incorrect. I
21 would like to draw your attention to the middle of the page where it
22 says: "MA," and I don't know who you designated as MA:
23 [In English] "Bosnian Serbs are ready. No, they must return
24 territory. Let us not --" I can't read it right. "Let us not --"
25 MR. ROBINSON: "Argue."
Page 1603
1 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
2 Q. "Argue," thank you. Sorry, who is MA?
3 A. MA is Mate Atasari. He was our man who worked specifically on
4 the treaty for Bosnia-Herzegovina.
5 Q. Thank you. Yes, yes, he was the president of the Subcommittee
6 for Bosnia-Herzegovina within the conference in the former Yugoslavia
7 isn't that right?
8 A. Yes, within the Working Group.
9 Q. Thank you. The same document, diary 5, on page 62. Page 62,
10 could we please have that on our screens?
11 This is what you wrote down:
12 [In English] "Izetbegovic says look at Sarajevo. Serbs break
13 cease-fire."
14 [Interpretation] The comment you wrote down, your comment, is:
15 "Untrue, per UNPROFOR."
16 Then -- actually, is this correct?
17 A. Yes, that is correct. What he said was not correct, and you
18 notice the next entry says that Atasari angrily excoriated Izetbegovic's
19 attitude.
20 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Tieger.
21 MR. TIEGER: Sorry. Just to keep the record straight,
22 Your Honour, I noted that the recitation from the diary is not complete
23 and, therefore, not accurate. So if we're going to have the appearance
24 that it's incorporated into the record in its entirety, I think the
25 entirety of the excerpt from Mr. Izetbegovic's comments should be
Page 1604
1 included, and then moving on to Mr. Atasari's comments.
2 JUDGE KWON: We have the diary now in evidence, and then if
3 there's some supplementary comment needed, I believe Ambassador Okun can
4 deal with it. And at the end of the cross-examination, you can deal with
5 it during your redirect. So let's move on.
6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Excellency. That's
7 precisely what I wanted to say, something along similar lines, but it
8 certainly would not have been put as well.
9 Diary number 7. 06540 is the Prosecution number, page 28. This
10 is what you wrote --
11 JUDGE KWON: Exhibit P790.
12 MR. KARADZIC:
13 Q. [In English] "Izetbegovic: Terrible shelling of Sarajevo
14 night, worst in three months. Member of Presidency report cannot believe
15 military."
16 [Interpretation] Wilson
17 [In English] "According to our data, last night was a quiet night
18 in Sarajevo
19 this information and changes the subject."
20 [Interpretation] Do you remember that?
21 A. Yes, of course.
22 Q. What I'm trying to say to you is that that was our experience as
23 well. Whenever we'd catch him out in something like that, he would just
24 change the subject and he would not explain anything. Thank you.
25 Now I would like to draw your attention to your testimony in the
Page 1605
1 Krajisnik case on the 22nd of June, 2004. The page is 4360. This is
2 what you stated then:
3 [In English] "The Muslim goal was to have a state of B and H
4 within its current borders, internationally recognised, for the state to
5 be unitary, have a central government, and for a secular democratic
6 state."
7 [Interpretation] Do you remember having stated that?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Do you believe that Mr. Izetbegovic gave up on his
10 "Islamic Declaration" and everything that he had been convicted for six
11 years before that?
12 A. I think a lot of water had passed under the bridge between the
13 earlier period that you're referring to and this period of 1991, 1992,
14 1993. He was by no means the only person in the SDA. There were other
15 people who counted. He was the president of the Presidency, as you,
16 yourself, pointed out yesterday, not the president of the country. And
17 perhaps most important of all, his side was losing a very serious war,
18 and his capital city was being shelled on a daily basis by your troops,
19 and so that the situation really had changed quite a lot.
20 Q. I hope, Mr. Ambassador, that we won't have to call you back
21 again, because in your answers you are making my work even more
22 extensive. You're giving me more work. However, we see here that the
23 international community realised even before the war that Bosnia
24 Izetbegovic wanted a different Bosnia outside Yugoslavia
25 that the international community realised that, that it would be secular,
Page 1606
1 unitary, but that it would be a democratic state; isn't that right?
2 A. Bosnia-Herzegovina joined three other republics in declaring
3 their independence from Yugoslavia
4 Q. Thank you. I'm just asking whether what you stated was the way I
5 quoted it. Do you remember -- you were following our crisis already and
6 you were involved as a mediator on Mr. Vance's team. Do you remember
7 that in the autumn of 1991, I asked Mr. Izetbegovic to say publicly that
8 the "Islamic Declaration" was not his political and state programme? I
9 asked him to renounce it, but he didn't do that. Do you remember that?
10 A. Yes, I remember that.
11 Q. Thank you. Apart from the Serbs, did other non-Muslim
12 politicians -- actually, I beg your pardon. Could you tell us, what was
13 the stream within the SDA that was opposed -- successfully opposed to
14 Izetbegovic's fundamentalist policy? What was that secular streak within
15 the SDA?
16 A. Well, I've already mentioned that both Haris Silajdzic and
17 Ejub Ganic, who were very influential in those days -- Silajdzic is now
18 president of Bosnia
19 then foreign minister - that they were secularist, and there certainly
20 were others. The military men that we met from the BiH Army, and there
21 were not that many because we often didn't go to the front-lines, but
22 they also, when we saw them at the negotiation -- at the negotiating
23 table, were thoroughly secular in their outlook. So I think it's fair to
24 say that there were different views within the SDA on the point of
25 religion and state.
Page 1607
1 Q. Thank you. May I remind you of the following: that these groups
2 that were secular left the SDA, established their own parties, and became
3 marginal; the MBO that was headed by the secularists, Zulfikarpasic and
4 Filipovic, had only two or three members in Parliament. Silajdzic left
5 the SDA and established his own political party for Bosnia-Herzegovina,
6 likewise a minor party with a considerably smaller number of seats in
7 Parliament than the SDA; whereas Fikret Abdic, during the war, proclaimed
8 that Izetbegovic had turned all of Bosnia
9 the party as well. Do you agree with that?
10 A. Well, there's no question that Fikret Abdic was a political
11 opponent of Alija Izetbegovic inside the SDA. I mentioned that -- we've
12 mentioned that here. And he was, no doubt, more of a secularist, and
13 Izetbegovic was more of a religious type, but that did not change the
14 situation on the ground.
15 Q. Thank you. But it is a fact that all of them lost the elections
16 in relation to the SDA; that always won more votes than they did, right?
17 A. Yes, the SDA was the established party, and particularly at this
18 point did well.
19 Q. Thank you.
20 A. But there were not many elections during the war, actually.
21 Q. May I remind you of your diary number 4, Prosecution number 65
22 ter 06530, page 50. In e-court, it is page 24.
23 JUDGE KWON: Exhibit P777.
24 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
25 Q. Before that appears on our screens, Ambassador, may I ask you the
Page 1608
1 following: Do you know what kind of relations we had with the MBO and
2 Fikret Abdic? I mean the secular Muslims.
3 A. No, I don't know that specifically. I would assume they were
4 pretty good.
5 Q. All right. We'll go back to that. That's what you assume. But
6 when you got involved in our crisis as a mediator, we had reached a
7 historic Serb-Muslim agreement with the MBO; that was July and August
8 1991, and we'll go back to that. And during the war, we signed a peace
9 agreement with Abdic and supported each other. Do you agree with that?
10 A. That's a very complicated question, Dr. Karadzic, because by
11 reaching an agreement with Abdic, you clearly were seeking to undermine
12 the central government. The question then arises: Was Abdic committing
13 treason against the government? I wouldn't say he was, but I wouldn't
14 say he wasn't. What you were doing, and it's understandable, was seeking
15 to exploit any division on the enemy side. And you also, as we know very
16 well, co-operated with the Bosnian Croats while the fighting was going
17 on. It was, after all, a three -way fight, not a two-way fight.
18 Q. Thank you. We'll go back to this page. You say in this diary:
19 "Karadzic: Izetbegovic wants a Muslim republic."
20 Did you report that to your team, to Mr. Vance's team, Mr. Vance
21 and the others, that is?
22 A. Of course.
23 Q. Thank you. Could we now please have Prosecution number 65 ter
24 06533, diary number 7, your meeting with Adzic and Milosevic, dated the
25 15th of April, 1992, one week into the war, that is.
Page 1609
1 In the meantime, can you recall that the General Adzic was Chief
2 of General Staff; right?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Chief of General Staff of the Yugoslav Army, yes.
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Page 33 of this document, in the diary itself. Diary page 33,
7 that is. E-court, 18, page 18. Adzic says:
8 [In English] "Adzic: Izetbegovic wants absolute power in
9 B and H."
10 [Interpretation] Further on, Milosevic tells you the following on
11 page 40 of this document --
12 JUDGE KWON: Let's look at the correct page.
13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] 22 in e-court.
14 Q. What you wrote down, that Milosevic had said --
15 President Milosevic:
16 [In English] "It's typical Islamic fundamentalism."
17 A. That was his view.
18 Q. [Interpretation] All right. Did you report that to the UN, or
19 perhaps to the USA
20 A. This was all reported to the UN Security Council and to the
21 Secretary-General.
22 Q. How about the United States?
23 A. We weren't working for the United States.
24 Q. Thank you. Now I would like to call up your diary number 1. The
25 Prosecution 65 ter number is 06534. What you describe is your meeting
Page 1610
1 with Mate Boban on the 9th of September, 1992. You do remember who
2 Mate Boban was; right?
3 A. Yes, I remember.
4 Q. He was the leader of the Croat people in Bosnia-Herzegovina at
5 that point in time; right?
6 A. Yes, and during the entire period he was the leader of the
7 Bosnian Croats.
8 Q. Thank you. On page 38 of this document, this is what you wrote
9 down. In e-court, it's the same page. This is what you wrote down:
10 "Boban --"
11 JUDGE KWON: Could you wait until we have it. Yes.
12 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
13 Q. [In English] "Boban: The war started when Izetbegovic rejected
14 the Conference on Yugoslavia
15 a state for only one people. State of three communities. Even
16 Communists recognised that."
17 [Interpretation] Do you remember this meeting and this
18 conversation?
19 A. Yes, very well.
20 Q. I avoided describing our situation in religious terms, but you
21 said that Serbs and Croats constitute a majority in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
22 And if you look at the religious component of our conflict, can we say
23 that Bosnia
24 A. No party, none of the three ethnicities which were, for all
25 intents and purposes, the same as the religions, had a majority. About
Page 1611
1 44 per cent of the country was Muslim, about 31, 32 per cent Serb, about
2 19, 20 per cent Croat. So if you add the Serb and the Croat together,
3 you would get a slender majority.
4 Q. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. I was not speaking along ethnic
5 lines, but I was speaking in terms of religion. If you have an
6 "Islamic Declaration," or, rather, "The Islamic Declaration" as the
7 foundation for a future system, is it possible, either democratically or
8 by force, to materialise the objectives of the Muslim minority in
9 relation to the Christian majority? I'm not talking along ethnic lines
10 now. It is a fact that Serbs and Croats are both Christians; right?
11 That is a fact. And it's also a fact that the Serbs and Croats were
12 against a unitary centralised Bosnia-Herzegovina; isn't that right?
13 A. Yes, I've already testified to that effect.
14 Q. Would you then find it plausible that insisting on the SDA
15 programme for a unitary Bosnia-Herzegovina is political violence, as it
16 were?
17 A. No, I think that's a statement too far. The desire for a unitary
18 state, as I've already testified, was a basic principle, a fundamental
19 tenet of the goals of the Bosnian Muslims. They could not achieve that
20 either on the battle-field or with the negotiators. The negotiators did
21 not give them that, which is why the Vance-Owen Peace Plan called for a
22 highly decentralised country, a democratic one. But there was no
23 possibility that this goal of the Muslims could be achieved, short of a
24 military victory, and it was never achieved, not in 1991, not in 2010.
25 Q. Thank you. You certainly remember this position of Boban's and
Page 1612
1 his insistence that Bosnia
2 recognised by the Communists; right?
3 A. His position, yes, on that point, was virtually identical to
4 yours, as we have already discussed several times. Neither the
5 Bosnian Croats nor the Bosnian Serbs accepted the idea of any form of
6 centralised state. Each one had its own -- excuse me. Each one had its
7 own self-proclaimed unit. You had the Republika Srpska, and Mate had the
8 Community of Herceg-Bosna, and both of you wished to divide the state
9 into what was variously referred to as a federal state, a confederal
10 state, a cantonised state. You'll recall you often used the term
11 "composite state." That is three statelets within the boundaries of
12 Bosnia
13 Q. Do you remember, Mr. Ambassador, that we, the Serbs, gave up on
14 remaining in Yugoslavia
15 Bosnia-Herzegovina on condition that inside it be transformed, and that
16 we called Bosnia and Herzegovina "South Switzerland
17 A. I don't remember "South Switzerland," but I do remember a formal
18 acceptance of the situation by your people. But in reality, you never
19 accepted it. The Bosnian Serbs never accepted at any time the Government
20 of Bosnia-Herzegovina. After all, that's what the war was about.
21 Q. Thank you. Now, do you deny that my and our official position
22 was not division, but transformation of Bosnia-Herzegovina? That was the
23 position taken by us publicly and advocated by us during the negotiations
24 with the international mediators and the other two parties in Bosnia
25 isn't that so?
Page 1613
1 A. No, it's not so. What you've just said, Dr. Karadzic, division
2 was -- and transformation, you make a contrast there, you say it was not
3 division, but transformation; that is a distinction without a difference,
4 because what you called transformation was, in fact, division. So I
5 can't agree with you on that point.
6 Q. Do you consider that Belgium
7 country?
8 A. No.
9 Q. Do you consider that Brussels
10 city?
11 A. No. But, on the other hand, if I may, there is no, quote,
12 "Flemish republic" like the Republika Srpska, and there's no, quote,
13 "French republic," like the Community of Herceg-Bosna. Your goals and
14 the goals of Mate Boban were much more drastic than the linguistic
15 divisions of Belgium
16 Q. Well, Mr. Ambassador, I agree with you, because Belgium
17 monarchy, so you can't have republics within a monarchy. But what would
18 those units be called or entities be called if Belgium were a republic?
19 A. Well, we would probably call them a linguistic unit, which is, in
20 fact, what they are. One is French-speaking, the other is
21 Dutch-speaking. Otherwise, the laws of the country are country-wide.
22 There is no division on 95 per cent of the issues in Belgium, except the
23 linguistic one. Your goal and the goal of Mate Boban was to have your
24 own self-ruled area.
25 Q. Something like Catalonia
Page 1614
1 A. Catalonia
2 officially. They would like to see it used more broadly, but it's not.
3 Again, I would say that both Mate and your views at the time, and your
4 stated goals, actually, were much more extreme than what we see in
5 Catalonia
6 probably would be close to the Bosnian Serb and Bosnian Croat position,
7 but that's an arguable point.
8 Q. Well, it would be an arguable point, but we don't have time to go
9 into that. However, let me remind you we accepted to remain in Bosnia
10 The Basques did not accept remaining within Spain. We accepted it under
11 the conditions imposed by the European Community, or, rather, supported
12 by the European Community. But let me ask you this, Mr. Ambassador: The
13 Flemish, would they agree to us -- that we give them the name of a
14 republic to avoid the ethnic name and anything referring to Flemish, but
15 to say "the Flemish linguistic unit" or something like that, or would
16 they name themselves and give themselves a name?
17 A. I don't think that matters very much. But if I could come back
18 to a point you made a moment ago, Dr. Karadzic. It's important that the
19 Court know that in all of this period that Dr. Karadzic and I are
20 discussing, that the Bosnian Serb side insisted on having a veto power
21 over any residual central government that would exist in
22 Bosnia-Herzegovina. Dr. Karadzic has not mentioned that when he says
23 that they were willing to live in Bosnia-Herzegovina, but it's an
24 important point because this would have meant that the central government
25 existed only on paper.
Page 1615
1 And you'll recall, Dr. Karadzic, that when we discussed the
2 constitutional principles, in particular, around
3 September/October/November of 1992, you asked to have the veto power of
4 the Bosnian Serbs even apply to the constitutional principles. I'm sure
5 you remember that. I hope you do. It was a strong position. Yes, you
6 said, There can be a Bosnia-Herzegovina as long as we have a veto power
7 over any step the government takes. Of course, we could not agree with
8 that.
9 Q. And did I exclude the same right or did I -- was I against the
10 others having the same right, the Muslims and the Croats, or did I say
11 that each of the three communities should have the power of veto, and
12 instead of the power of veto, you allowed three-quarters or four-fifths
13 of a community -- you said they must vote for one unit? Did I ask for
14 the power of veto only for the Serbs?
15 A. No, of course not. You were delighted that the other communities
16 have the power of veto, because that would further viscerate any power
17 that a central government, presumably a Muslim government, would have.
18 So you were delighted to have everybody veto everything.
19 Q. Thank you. Now, do you think -- first of all, you said yourself
20 that the starting standpoints in negotiations are always extreme ones, so
21 do you think it's not legitimate to demand that the power of veto or
22 qualified majority you use to fight the over-rule of people in a
23 community, legitimately or not?
24 A. It is not illegitimate. And under the constitutional principles
25 that were developed at the International Conference on the former
Page 1616
1 Yugoslavia
2 matters, issues that were of deepest concern to the communities, but that
3 ordinary acts of the government were not veto-able. That's the fourth
4 principle, and those are the exact words, "not veto-able," and that's
5 what your side objected to. You'll recall you introduced eight
6 principles of your own at one point during the conference, which was very
7 useful to us because you stated forthrightly what Republika Srpska
8 wanted, except it was an impossible situation because it would have
9 de facto dissolved any kind of Bosnian state.
10 Q. Does that then mean that the United States of America do not
11 exist, because states within the United States of America have their own
12 police force, their own constitutions, and their own autonomy, to a
13 certain extent, and a whole range of issues which they are able to
14 determine sovereignly, excepting the legislation at the level of the
15 federal state, but, except for the FBI and other federal executive
16 organs, the executive organs and authorities lie in the states of the
17 United States of America? Does that mean that the United States of
18 America
19 A. Of course not. But, Dr. Karadzic, if you'll excuse me, you've
20 mis-described the situation. The United States is a federal government,
21 consisting of 50 states. We all know that. They all have certain powers
22 devolved to them. And according to our Constitution, Article 10, any
23 aspect that is not explicitly given to the federal government may be
24 devolved to the states.
25 Now, in the Vance-Owen Peace Plan, that principle was applied to
Page 1617
1 the 10 provinces. They were given police power, they were given all of
2 the items you've mentioned, because the Vance-Owen Peace Plan called for
3 a decentralised -- highly decentralised state with many powers given to
4 the provinces, of which you had three majority provinces, and that would
5 have left you, the plan sought, in a good position, just what you've
6 described. But as you know, you rejected the plan.
7 Q. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. Did we reject the plan because of the
8 constitutional principles or because of the maps?
9 A. You rejected it in toto, but your major concern was the map, I
10 would think, particularly the issue of the corridor, Belgrade to
11 Banja Luka, and other geographic areas; Popovo Polje, the Ozren
12 Mountains. You're, of course, more well aware than I am of your
13 positions.
14 Q. Yes, thank you. But let me remind you that we accepted the
15 constitutional principles before the maps had been completed, and then we
16 went on further.
17 Now, do you remember that in Athens
18 conditionally accepted the Vance-Owen Plan on the assumption that the
19 National Assembly accept it? So could you tell me that, and if you could
20 give me yes-or-no answers, that would be useful. Do you remember that in
21 Athens
22 and on condition that the Assembly also gave a positive view?
23 A. You signed the plan under the heaviest pressure. It was done
24 very reluctantly. Koljevic and Krajisnik were in tears, almost, when you
25 signed. And everybody knew that when you took the plan to the
Page 1618
1 Serb Assembly, it would be rejected.
2 Q. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. But isn't -- don't all countries
3 foresee that all such plans be ratified in their parliaments and
4 assemblies? And, once again, may I ask you to give me yes-or-no answers
5 wherever possible. Is it customary for plans of that kind to be ratified
6 by the parliaments of the countries in question?
7 A. Yes, but Republika Srpska was not a country.
8 Q. And why would Bosnia
9 A. Because it was recognised internationally, because it was a
10 member of the United Nations, because it had all the attributes of a
11 country, and Republika Srpska had none.
12 Q. Well, I think that this is debatable, and we don't have time to
13 go into that discussion. But let me remind you that an attribute of a
14 state is the territory, the people, and effective power. Did Bosnia
15 territory, a peoples, and effective power over the whole of its
16 territory? No, it did not. Whereas the Republika Srpska did; right?
17 A. By force of arms and conquest, Republika Srpska did exist as a
18 reality.
19 Q. Thank you. We'll come to that. Thank you, thank you. Now,
20 you're the right person for me to quote this following example to.
21 You will remember that our priority was to retain Yugoslavia.
22 The next priority was for Bosnia
23 place, we had that the Serb parts of Bosnia should remain within
24 Yugoslavia
25 Yugoslavia
Page 1619
1 constituent unit.
2 Now I'd like to ask you: Do you know, Mr. Ambassador, how
3 West Virginia was formed? Or, rather, let me shorten that question.
4 During the Civil War, Virginia
5 Virginia
6 Virginia
7 President Lincoln decided that they had every right to that. And when
8 the war ended, West Virginia continued to exist as a state; isn't that
9 right?
10 A. You made that point frequently during the negotiations, so I'm
11 well aware of your contention.
12 Q. Mr. Ambassador, would it be simple in Northern Ireland, for
13 example, to decide for Northern Ireland to be attached to the Republic of
14 Ireland
15 territory be a simple thing to implement, to put into practice? You can
16 once again give me an answer taking into account Flanders and that part
17 of Belgium
18 attached to Holland
19 would they have the right to do that?
20 A. If it were done peacefully, if all parties agreed to observe the
21 results, one could imagine that happening. With respect to the north of
22 Ireland
23 actually, since the republic gained its independence.
24 All of these issues are complicated, Dr. Karadzic. What is not
25 complicated is that the use of force of arms and ethnic cleansing be
Page 1620
1 utilised to create pure majorities within a certain area.
2 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Karadzic, Ambassador Okun hasn't come here as an
3 expert. I allow such lines of questioning to go because those topics
4 might have been subject of the conversation at the time, but please come
5 to our issues, facts at the time. Thank you.
6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Excellency. I was
7 just guided by the fact that the Ambassador, during the
8 examination-in-chief, answered many questions put to him of an expert
9 nature by Mr. Tieger, and those answers worry me because they can't stand
10 without being clarified. But I will take your advice and return to
11 material matters.
12 May I have 65 ter 06538 next, please, called up on e-court. It's
13 note-book number 5, where you describe the meeting with
14 President Tudjman, the president of Croatia - right, Tudjman - on the
15 28th of November, 1992. And when that comes up on our screens, I'd like
16 us to go to page 5 of that document, where President Tudjman informs you
17 of the following --
18 THE WITNESS: Excuse me. Is that a question to me?
19 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation] No, no.
20 Q. The question is: You say that President Tudjman said:
21 [In English] "Muslims want a Jihad, getting billions from Arabs."
22 [Interpretation] Did you take President Tudjman seriously?
23 A. I always took President Tudjman seriously. But like all leaders,
24 he was given to exaggeration and sometimes to prevarication. It was also
25 no secret that the Arab states were helping the Muslims in
Page 1621
1 Bosnia-Herzegovina. One had only to look at Haris Silajdzic's travel
2 schedule. I think he earned quite a many frequent flyer miles between
3 Sarajevo
4 Q. Thank you.
5 A. Excuse me.
6 Q. You can do anything, Mr. Ambassador.
7 A. On this point, Dr. Karadzic, if you'll notice, directly before
8 President Tudjman makes a point about a Jihad, both he and
9 Gojko Susak - that's the "GS" - talked about the, quote, "Posavina
10 agreement," and he called that a fabrication by the Serbs, it never
11 happened. Now, you had told us about an exchange - I'm sure you'll
12 recall - of Kupres for the Posavina; Kupres to the Croats, the Posavina
13 corridor to the Serb side. He said it never happened. You said it did
14 happen. I cite this as an example of different parties telling different
15 stories to the negotiators. That's part of our job, to sift out the
16 various claims and decide which one is true or which one is not. Now,
17 perhaps you'd care to tell us whether Kupres and Posavina agreement
18 really happened. But I cite that in a -- not in a jocular vein, but to
19 point out that in a negotiation that all the sides will say things that
20 they believe support their position. That's not unusual.
21 Q. Thank you. You are a born and incorrigible diplomat, but
22 unfortunately we can't turn this trial into our negotiations, the kind
23 that we conducted, although I'd be happy to do that.
24 Now, do you know, Mr. Ambassador, that I am the accused -- that I
25 am accused of intending to expel a group, an ethnic group, and that you,
Page 1622
1 on time, received information according to which Alija Izetbegovic and
2 his group wanted to expel us not only from the federation but from the
3 whole of Bosnia-Herzegovina? Did you receive and did the other American
4 officials receive -- or mediators, UN mediators and American mediators,
5 receive information telling them that the Muslim plan was to expel the
6 Serbs from the whole of Bosnia-Herzegovina; yes or no?
7 A. We were aware that in certain areas, which were very small, Serbs
8 were maltreated more by Croats than by Muslims, but that this went on.
9 We were also aware of the overwhelming nature and the overwhelming
10 difference between the Bosnian Serb actions and the Bosnian Muslim
11 actions. And we have already introduced -- that is to say, the
12 Prosecution has introduced statements by the president of the
13 International Committee of the Red Cross, Dr. Sommaruga, and his chief
14 delegate in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Thierry Germond --
15 Q. May I ask you, Mr. Ambassador --
16 A. -- so we were aware of the actions people took on the ground.
17 The policies that they had held or the views that they had held a decade
18 earlier were taken into consideration, but as we say with the English
19 proverb, actions speak louder than words, and we were interested in
20 action.
21 Q. Thank you. I would be very ready to debate this with you, but I
22 see you have already taken the Prosecution's position, and I'm concerned
23 about that, and that in your opinion this trial is superfluous.
24 Now, let's go back to my question. You received information
25 telling you that the Bosnian plan was to expel the Serbs from the whole
Page 1623
1 of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and that is to be found in note-book number 6,
2 Prosecution 65 ter 0639, page 53, when you describe the meeting of the
3 12th of January, 1993 - 06539 is the number - with a delegation of the
4 Bosnian Croats.
5 Now, do you remember Mile Akmadzic, whom you mentioned? Was it
6 during the examination-in-chief or my cross-examination? I'm not quite
7 sure.
8 JUDGE KWON: Before that, Mr. Ambassador: You were said to have
9 taken the position of the Prosecution. Do you have any comment on that?
10 THE WITNESS: Well, yes, I do have a comment. The position I
11 expressed was mine. I know time is short, so we don't have time to go
12 into it more deeply. I could certainly expand on what I said to you, but
13 I've told you what I believe. And you are asserting that the Bosnian
14 government held a formal position to expel all Serbs from Bosnia
15 not believe that.
16 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
17 Q. Mr. Ambassador, let us see how you wrote down the words of
18 Mile Akmadzic. I would like to remind you that this is the time when the
19 negotiations were held concerning the Vance-Owen Plan, and Akmadzic is
20 expressing concern as well as doubt as to the possibility of a peace
21 agreement being reached.
22 Have we found this page, Akmadzic, on the left?
23 JUDGE KWON: This is Exhibit P789.
24 MR. KARADZIC:
25 Q. [In English] "Akmadzic against all four Muslim radicals wants to
Page 1624
1 rid BH of Serbs.
2 "Ganic, Silajdzic, Halilovic and Rusmir Mahmutcehajic, we have
3 told them that if they try this, they will also drive out Croats."
4 [Interpretation] Mr. Ambassador, did you report those who had
5 delegated you about these drastic findings?
6 A. These were not findings. These were assertions by the
7 Bosnian Croats. They were not accurate. I've already reported to the
8 Chamber that in many aspects the Bosnian Croat position and the Bosnian
9 Serb position was congruent, was parallel, sometimes even identical.
10 This is one of those positions where both the Bosnian Croats and the
11 Bosnian Serbs were claiming that the Muslims wanted to eliminate them.
12 It should be noted that at this time, January 12th, 1993, the
13 Bosnian Croat Army was engaged in the heaviest ethnic cleansing in
14 Central Bosnia
15 testified, is about that. So one has to judge these statements about the
16 horrific things that were supposed to be done to the Croats, was not
17 happening, where what was really happening was that the Croats were
18 cleaning up the Muslims in Central Bosnia. Of course, I wrote down what
19 Akmadzic said. I thought it was important. I underlined it, I put an
20 asterisk next to it, and it indicated to me at the time, and I've not
21 changed my view, that the Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats indeed held
22 identical positions to dismember Bosnia-Herzegovina.
23 Q. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. We will have to refute that, because,
24 indeed, it is not correct, and we're going to prove that it is not
25 correct.
Page 1625
1 Do you know that Mile Akmadzic is a Croat, not a Serb, and that
2 Mile Akmadzic was at the very source of information, as secretary-general
3 of the Presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina, who had insight into everything
4 that was going on? Is that not the case?
5 Please, wherever possible, let's have a yes-or-no answer,
6 because, indeed, we are wasting a lot of time with lengthy answers.
7 A. And lengthy questions.
8 JUDGE KWON: Yes.
9 THE WITNESS: Mile Akmadzic was the prime minister of the
10 Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina. We dealt with him frequently on a
11 routine basis, so of course I knew who Mile Akmadzic was.
12 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
13 Q. But you are not denying that from the elections in 1990, until
14 the begin of the war, he was secretary-general of the Presidency of
15 Bosnia-Herzegovina; isn't that right?
16 A. That's correct.
17 Q. Thank you. Mr. Ambassador, are you telling us that both Serb and
18 Croat politicians presented a fundamental fear to you; namely, that the
19 Muslim side, headed by Alija Izetbegovic, that is to say, this type of
20 Muslims, not Abdic, Zulfikarpasic, and the others, but these Muslims,
21 rather, have the intention to set up a unitary Islamic Republic of Bosnia
22 and Herzegovina
23 Croats?
24 A. We believed that the Bosnian Muslim sought a unitary state. We
25 did not believe and there's no evidence, no serious evidence, to prove
Page 1626
1 that they wanted an Islamic Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the
2 period of the war. All the statements you have cited come from one or
3 two decades -- 10 or 20 years before the war.
4 Q. Mr. Ambassador, do you know that the "Islamic Declaration" was
5 republished in 1990 and that it was sold freely and distributed freely?
6 Izetbegovic signed it as its author, so he thereby confirmed his
7 authorship.
8 A. Yes, I'm aware of that.
9 Q. Do we agree that he was tried for the materialisation of "The
10 Islamic Declaration" in 1983, so that was only seven years before that,
11 not 20 years before?
12 A. He was tried in 1983, and the documents you cited, some of them
13 were from the early 1970s.
14 Q. But the reprint was there in 1990, thereby confirming his
15 authorship.
16 You also confirm that you remember that in order to have an
17 easing of tensions in the political situation in the autumn of 1991, I
18 asked Izetbegovic to renounce "The Islamic Declaration," to state
19 publicly that that would not be his state and political programme, and
20 you recalled that he did not actually do that; isn't that right?
21 A. In the autumn of 1991, that happened, and you also walked out
22 very ostentatiously on October 14th, 1991, from the Bosnian Assembly.
23 And you said, I'm sure you remember, that if Bosnia declared itself
24 independent, that would lead the parties to hell, particularly the
25 Bosnian Muslims. Do you remember that?
Page 1627
1 Q. That's not the way it was, but we'll get to that.
2 Mr. Ambassador, you said a few moments ago that if the quality of
3 the state of Belgium
4 communities, that would not be legitimate. What about the Serbs in
5 Bosnia-Herzegovina? Why did they not enjoy the same right, to be asked
6 about drastic changes in the state status of Bosnia-Herzegovina? The
7 question of the Assembly on the 14th of October, 1991, is precisely that.
8 Why are you denying the Serbs the right to have a decisive say of that
9 kind if there is a drastic change in the federal -- in one of the federal
10 units of the SFRY?
11 A. Nobody denied the Bosnian Serbs the opportunity to speak.
12 Indeed, it was a self-denial because a referendum was held - we've
13 discussed this already - on February 29 and March 1, 1992, on the
14 question of independence, and the Bosnian Serb party chose not to
15 participate in that referendum. So it was a self-denial, Dr. Karadzic.
16 Q. Thank you. You will see that that was not the case and that on
17 the 24th and on the 25th of January, we proposed the following and agreed
18 with Muhamed Cengic, not Hasan Cengic, and we did this in public, in the
19 Assembly, that the government carry out a regionalisation and that then
20 the Serbs would take part in the referendum. Regardless of how they
21 would vote, they would vote in the referendum.
22 You raised quite a few issues here, but now I would like to take
23 you back to document 1D167. It has to do with the well-known
24 "Islamic Declaration," which from its very inception in 1970 to the
25 present day remained the basis for the future Bosnia-Herzegovina under
Page 1628
1 the domination of the SDA, or, rather, the Muslims. Page 30, 29 in
2 e-court. The English version is 29 in e-court. Yes, on the first page
3 you saw that it was authored by Alija Izetbegovic, and we are looking at
4 the reprint of 1990.
5 And now page 29 in e-court, on the document itself, on this page:
6 [In English] "First and foremost on these conclusions is
7 certainly the incompatibility of Islam with non-Islamic systems. There
8 can be neither peace nor co-existence between the Islamic religion and
9 non-Islamic social and political instructions. The failure of --"
10 [Interpretation] I can't see the rest.
11 All right. Do you see this, Mr. Ambassador? This was published
12 at the point in time when we were establishing the first democratic
13 government, a coalition government, in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Do you disbelieve this? If you did not believe the Serbs and
16 Croats, do you disbelieve Izetbegovic as well when he writes this?
17 A. I believe that he wrote this earlier and signed it later. I also
18 believe it had no practical effect within the SDA, neither then nor to
19 this present day.
20 Q. Thank you. I would now like to call up page 46 in e-court, the
21 same document.
22 While we're waiting for that to appear: I now have to envy
23 Mr. Izetbegovic. What an advocate he has in you. So even in the other
24 world, he must be feeling good.
25 A. I doubt that. As you know, the Bosnian Muslims refused to sign
Page 1629
1 the Vance-Owen Peace Plan, along with you. It -- that was in January
2 1993. It took several months, until March 25, 1993, before Izetbegovic
3 signed the peace plan, and then he only did so after the map had been
4 changed to ensure Bosnian Serb rejection, because the corridor was cut by
5 a Muslim province. So that I don't think it's fair to say that
6 Izetbegovic, whether he's looking down on us or up at us, thinks he has
7 an advocate in me.
8 Q. Thank you. Now I would like to call up -- oh, actually, we have
9 the page. Now, let us have a look at this:
10 [In English] "... a rebirth, we are not announcing an age of
11 peace and security, but one of unrest and trial. There are too many
12 things crying out to be destroyed. There will not be days of prosperity,
13 but of self-respect. A people which is asleep can be awakened only by
14 blows. Whoever wishes our community well will not try to spare its
15 struggle, danger and misfortune."
16 [Interpretation] This position of Mr. Izetbegovic, does it not
17 state that rebirth does not announce peace and security, but rather
18 unrest and trial, and that whoever wishes well to the Islamic community
19 should not spare it of suffering, danger, and misfortune? Were you aware
20 of that position?
21 A. On the whole, yes. I was not aware specifically of "Women and
22 the Family," Chapter 14, but we knew that Izetbegovic was on the -- was
23 on the religious side of the SDA.
24 Q. In the Prlic case which you referred to, yourself, on the 4th of
25 February, 2007, on transcript page 16866, you said:
Page 1630
1 [In English] "It's incorrect to say that Izetbegovic wasn't
2 concerned about the well-being of others."
3 [Interpretation] It is other peoples or ethnic communities that
4 are referred to. And I'm telling you, Mr. Ambassador, that Izetbegovic
5 did not care about the well-being of the Muslim people, let alone the
6 well-being of the Serb and Croat people. What do you say to that?
7 A. I say that's a debatable point.
8 Q. Thank you. Now I would like to call up page 55 in e-court of the
9 document, itself. In e-court, it's 55, but it says "46." Let us see
10 where this is. In the middle, in the middle, and it says:
11 [In English] " ... should not -- should again start to take over
12 power as soon as it is morally and numerically strong enough to be able
13 to overturn not only the existing non-Islamic government, but also to
14 build up a new Islamic one. This differentiation is important ..."
15 [Interpretation] Are you denying that these are instructions for
16 a political coup by non-democratic means, not when they have a Muslim
17 state, in terms of percentage, but when they simply feel strong enough to
18 carry this through?
19 A. Well, we can parse the language in different ways, but it says
20 "numerically strong enough," so I'm sure that means at the ballot box.
21 In any case, as we agree, taken together the Bosnian Serb population of
22 Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Bosnian Croat population outnumbered the
23 Bosnian Muslim population, so their having a numeric majority against
24 both the Bosnian Croats and the Bosnian Serbs was impossible. And since
25 you and Dr. -- you and Mate Boban had good relations - recall the
Page 1631
1 meetings in Graz
2 met in Austria
3 and Mate Boban's Croats really was nil.
4 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Karadzic, do you have more questions about this
5 "Islamic Declaration"?
6 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Just one question.
7 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
8 Q. But you're not denying the fact that if they had a chance to do
9 this, that they would do it against us?
10 A. That's precisely what I am denying, Dr. Karadzic. You're reading
11 into what is a manifesto, with very little chance of being realised in
12 reality, you're reading a whole series of actions into it. I don't think
13 that's justified.
14 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you. We'll show after the
15 break that things developed exactly as stated in
16 "The Islamic Declaration." Thank you.
17 JUDGE KWON: Unless it is objected to, this
18 "Islam Declaration --"
19 MR. TIEGER: No, Your Honour.
20 JUDGE KWON: -- will be admitted --
21 THE REGISTRAR: As Exhibit D75.
22 JUDGE KWON: -- as Exhibit D75. Thank you.
23 We'll have a half-hour break.
24 --- Recess taken at 12.07 p.m.
25 --- On resuming at 12.40 p.m.
Page 1632
1 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Tieger.
2 MR. TIEGER: Your Honour, I just have one scheduling inquiry to
3 make. I can do that now or do that at the end of the session, but I just
4 wanted to have an opportunity to raise a query with the Court about
5 scheduling.
6 JUDGE KWON: Thank you. We will hear from you at the end of this
7 session.
8 Mr. Karadzic, please go on.
9 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation] Thank you.
10 Q. Mr. Ambassador, you knew quite a bit about the activities of the
11 UNHCR, particularly with respect to supplies, supplying the population
12 with humanitarian food stuffs and medical items; isn't that right?
13 A. Yes, that's correct.
14 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone for the Ambassador, please.
15 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
16 Q. Is it true that all three ethnic communities depended, to a great
17 extent, on the aid and assistance given by the UNHCR?
18 A. Yes, it's true in varying degrees, and it would take too much
19 time to go into which geographic sections were better supplied than the
20 other. But as a general proposition, that is accurate.
21 Q. Well, let me help you out. Perhaps it was only Herceg-Bosna that
22 was in a slightly better position, because Croatia wasn't under
23 sanctions, and Serbia
24 from Serbia
25 Muslims and Serbs, needed the UNHCR assistance and the assistance of the
Page 1633
1 Red Cross; isn't that right?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Thank you. Now, we saw earlier on, when we were looking at the
4 judgement to Alija Izetbegovic and his group, which in the 1990s won the
5 elections, and on pages 140 and 141 of the Serbian version, we saw that
6 the judge, whose name was Hodzic -- or, rather, the chamber concluded
7 that the realisation of Izetbegovic's goals was only possible in three
8 ways: With a fratricidal war, terror, or a foreign intervention.
9 I'd like now -- well, my case is, and I'm going to prove and show
10 that here, that Mr. Izetbegovic wasn't satisfied with just a fratricidal
11 war and terror, but needed foreign intervention, and this judge saw this,
12 but he was modest and mentioned each of these three components as being
13 able to bring about those goals. He was sort of clairvoyant. And now he
14 had this third point, foreign intervention.
15 Now, the SDA leadership, was it very persistent in asking for and
16 expecting international military intervention? Just yes or no, please,
17 and then we can move on.
18 A. No.
19 Q. Very well, thank you. I'd now like to draw your attention to
20 your notebook, notebook number 5, which is Prosecution 65 ter 06538,
21 page 35, dealing with your meeting with General Morillon on the 12th of
22 December, 1992.
23 So I'd like to have that document called up, please, notebook
24 number 5, Prosecution 65 ter 06538 document.
25 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Karadzic, in the future when you cite the
Page 1634
1 exhibit, please use the exhibit number instead of 65 ter number. This is
2 Exhibit P788.
3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Excellency.
4 Well, we prepared it this way because of the Ambassador's
5 statements, and we found the need, in the course of these proceedings,
6 during the trial, to introduce new elements.
7 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
8 Q. Mr. Ambassador, here General Morillon -- well, this is what you
9 recorded:
10 [In English] "Mr. Izetbegovic and the radical wing of the
11 Presidency wants to provoke foreign intervention."
12 [Interpretation] And then Morillon:
13 [In English] "Foreign intervention. The B and H government was
14 very unhappy when the UNHCR convoy got through to the Muslim town of
15 Srebrenica."
16 [Interpretation] So I now put it to you that we have sufficient
17 proof and evidence to show that the SDA abused the sufferings of its
18 people in order to bring about the sympathies of the international
19 community and thereby a military intervention against the Serbs. Do you
20 exclude that or deny it?
21 A. It is the case that the Bosnian government desired foreign
22 intervention, since, as we mentioned earlier, they were losing the war,
23 they were being ethnically cleansed, Sarajevo was being shelled on a
24 daily basis since April 1992. Indeed, it was shelled for three solid
25 years. But you asked earlier whether they expected foreign intervention;
Page 1635
1 not just that they hoped for it, did they expect it. And the answer to
2 that is, no, they did not did not expect it because they were realistic
3 and they could see that neither the United States, nor the
4 European Community, was about ready to do that.
5 Now, you ask about good faith, did they want to attract the
6 sympathy of the world. And they did. And, in fact, it was easy -- you
7 made it easy for them, particularly by the shelling of Sarajevo
8 recall that Lord Owen said that to you directly on more than one
9 occasion. He asked you why did you continue shelling Sarajevo when it
10 was giving you such a bad public press, and you never answered him.
11 But they -- yes, they all -- all the parties took advantage, to
12 the degree possible, of UNHCR food deliveries.
13 Q. Mr. Ambassador, now with respect to Sarajevo and everything else,
14 we're going to show what the real truth was here, but let's focus on this
15 now: Did the Muslim side abuse the sufferings of its people, of its own
16 people, in order to win over -- in order to -- well, did they
17 persistently ask for foreign intervention and didn't they abuse the
18 sufferings of their own people to win over the sympathies of the
19 international community and bring about a foreign intervention, in view
20 of what General Morillon informed you of?
21 A. I would not say they abused it.
22 Q. But General Morillon says here that the Muslim government was
23 unhappy because the convoy had, indeed, reached Srebrenica. How do you
24 explain that and interpret that?
25 A. You have to go to the previous page, Dr. Karadzic, where he says:
Page 1636
1 "Izetbegovic and the radical wing of the Presidency want to
2 provoke foreign intervention."
3 As we have discussed here today on numerous occasions, a point
4 I've made to you frequently, and I don't think you disagree with it, was
5 that the SDA was not united. It had wings of the party. So he's talking
6 about one group, but he's not saying that this was the position of
7 everybody.
8 Q. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. But General Morillon here is not
9 referring to the SDA, but the Bosnian government. And on that same page,
10 you can see and you recorded that:
11 "Ganic yesterday told Morillon that --"
12 [In English] "Confidence conditions needed to be imposed by
13 force."
14 [Interpretation] So there was no doubt that everybody was united.
15 But let's stay with this. General Morillon did inform you that the
16 government was unhappy because the humanitarian aid had reached
17 Srebrenica; yes or no?
18 A. Well, it's in my note, so the answer is yes.
19 JUDGE KWON: If you could explain to us in what context he said
20 so, Ambassador.
21 THE WITNESS: Well, the government was difficult in that respect.
22 They sought -- they were desperate. This was early December. They'd
23 been at war since March. They were losing all the way through, and
24 losing on every front, so they tried to gain sympathy as much as they
25 could. And Morillon, a very capable and good man, understood this. But
Page 1637
1 it would be inaccurate to draw the conclusion that somehow they had
2 started the whole thing or they were expecting to profit from it, because
3 the mere fact that they were losing so decisively clearly shows that they
4 were not prepared for this war. I mean, after all, the Yugoslav Army,
5 the JNA, an army of several hundred thousand well-armed people, had,
6 already in May of 1992, taken the non-Bosnian soldiers away, but left
7 their equipment, most of their men, their machinery, and the army then
8 declared itself the Army of the Republika Srpska, the VRS, so that there
9 was just no comparison between the sides, militarily. And by this time,
10 December 1992, more than a million people had been displaced and
11 ethnically cleansed, most of them Muslims. Again, President Sommaruga of
12 the ICRC, in August of 1992, used the figure several hundred thousand,
13 and this was already three months later, during the heaviest period, so
14 that it is not a surprise to see that this desperate party tried to take
15 desperate measures.
16 On the other hand, it should be pointed out that the convoys got
17 through, Srebrenica was resupplied, Bratunac was resupplied. People
18 expected that the winter of 1992/1993 would see one million deaths -- one
19 million deaths in Bosnia and Herzegovina. That was widely predicted by
20 the press and by governments. And UNPROFOR and UNHCR, and the ICRC to a
21 lesser degree, above all UNPROFOR, which was given the mandate of
22 protecting the humanitarian supplies - that was the mandate, it was not a
23 fighting force - they did a superb job and nobody died in the winter of
24 1992/1993, not on the Bosnian Muslim side, not on the Bosnian Croat side,
25 not on the Bosnian Serb side. I think that has to be taken into account.
Page 1638
1 JUDGE KWON: Thank you, Mr. Ambassador.
2 Please go on.
3 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
4 Q. Mr. Ambassador, and where did the other armies come from, where
5 were they created -- what were they created from? Where did
6 General Delic come from, for instance? What about the JNA reservists;
7 did they make up the Patriotic League, and so on? Do you want to say
8 that the JNA only belonged to the Serbs, came to belong to the Serbs in
9 Bosnia
10 Yugoslavia
11 A. Well, to say that the JNA was the basis for all the armies is
12 completely inaccurate. The overwhelming force of the JNA supported the
13 Bosnian Serbs because, after all, even after it stopped being the
14 Yugoslav People's Army and became the JA, the Yugoslav Army, it was
15 essentially the Serb army. After all, Croatia and Slovenia
16 Macedonia
17 the Serb army, and it was the best equipped. Not only that, with respect
18 to Dr. Karadzic's army, namely, the VRS, the Army of the
19 Republika Srpska, it received supplies. There was no surprise about
20 that. We could observe it. The UNPROFOR could see the supplies coming
21 across the Drina
22 troops in the Republika Srpska Army were paid from Belgrade.
23 So, Dr. Karadzic, when you say everybody participated in the JNA,
24 I mean, that's really not accurate. Your side got 98 per cent of the JNA
25 help.
Page 1639
1 Q. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. But none of what you said is true or
2 correct. It's not true that the salaries for the army came from
3 Serbia
4 would otherwise have their salaries had they sat around cafes in
5 Belgrade
6 money. It's not that Serbia
7 was officers who inherited from Yugoslavia
8 whether they were in Belgrade
9 side.
10 The topic is this and the answer is this: Did the Muslim
11 government abuse the sufferings of its population in order to provoke
12 foreign intervention?
13 And let me take you back to "The Islamic Declaration" and the
14 judgement of 1983, which is Defence Exhibit 1D34, page 17 of the Serbian,
15 where it says that the Muslims must be ready to sacrifice themselves in
16 order to achieve their goals, self-sacrifice in order to achieve their
17 goals.
18 We don't have to go back to that, but do you remember it? It was
19 up on our screens, that page. Or, for example -- yes, thank you. Or
20 1D167, page 146, where he says:
21 [In English] "Prosperity which is asleep can be awakened only by
22 blows. Whoever wishes our community well will not try to spare its
23 struggle, danger, and misfortune."
24 [Interpretation] Do you see ideological consequences in the
25 behaviour and conduct of the Muslim government towards their own people,
Page 1640
1 that they were -- they weren't arbitrary, but they were deeply founded on
2 a belief, on a philosophy, political philosophy, that the people should
3 suffer a great deal in order to return to Islam; yes or no? I accept any
4 answer, yes, or no, or any other answer.
5 A. You're saying, Dr. Karadzic -- you're implying and you're saying
6 that: A, the Muslim people were suffering; B, they were suffering
7 because the Muslim government wanted them to suffer. Now, that's not
8 true. The reason they were suffering, the reason they were in detention
9 centres and concentration camps, is that the Bosnian Serbs kicked them
10 out of their houses, used force, intimidation, and violence, up to and
11 including death, to expel them, and -- [Overlapping speakers]
12 Q. Shall we stop there? I'm going to challenge that.
13 A. What you're doing is comparing the words of a decade earlier,
14 that were re-signed in 1990, with the reality on the ground, and I think
15 that's really not fair.
16 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Karadzic, your question warranted a long answer.
17 Otherwise, you can give evidence on your own later on. So let's proceed.
18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes, thank you.
19 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
20 Q. What I'm interested in now is this, and you say yes or no: Now,
21 whether the Serbs expelled the Muslims from their homes, that's a subject
22 that we'll come back to. We won't leave that uncovered and not dealt
23 with. But let's stick to what we're discussing here and now.
24 Do you know that I am being accused of exercising terror over the
25 citizens of Sarajevo
Page 1641
1 situation in Sarajevo
2 did you happen to follow my opening statement in this courtroom on the
3 1st and 2nd of March, or do you know about the substance of my opening
4 statement here in court?
5 A. I neither followed it nor do I know the substance of it.
6 Q. Thank you. Now, as to my opening statement, did you discuss that
7 with the Prosecutor when you attended your proofing session for your
8 testimony here?
9 A. Well, I'm not sure that the proofing session shouldn't remain
10 confidential. But, in fact, the answer is, no, I never discussed it with
11 the Prosecutor.
12 Q. On the 11th of April of this year, did you give the Prosecutor
13 some of the additional information which had not previously been
14 contained in your statements and testimony?
15 A. No.
16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] May I have document 1D287 next,
17 please.
18 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
19 Q. This is a document which we were given by the Prosecutor, and it
20 contains additional information that you gave to them; isn't that right?
21 A. This was an expansion of the discussion concerning the actions.
22 It was not new in that sense. I regard this as an expansion of previous
23 information. And the information is accurate.
24 Q. That means that you received information that Izetbegovic's
25 government forces opened fire from the grounds of the main hospital in
Page 1642
1 Sarajevo
2 Republika Srpska; is that it?
3 A. It's accurate as so stated in the document dated 11 April.
4 Q. I'm interested here in the word "occasional." What did you mean
5 was only occasional, how many times; monthly, yearly, or however?
6 A. It was very rare. Our information, of course, came from the
7 UNPROFOR troops who were stationed in Sarajevo.
8 Q. And that is according to UNPROFOR and what it established. How
9 do you know it wasn't more frequent, or how do you know the major
10 incidents weren't carried out by the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina?
11 A. Well, that's two questions. As to the first question you asked,
12 the reason we know it wasn't more frequent is that the UNPROFOR soldiers
13 in Sarajevo
14 hundreds of them, and they had very accurate observation points all
15 around the city. Particularly, they had to do that to correctly assess
16 the damage that was done by the Bosnian Serb shelling of the city. So
17 they had good knowledge of what was going on all over the city. That's
18 the answer to your first question.
19 And as to your second question, they checked out very carefully
20 the charges which were made at the time by the Bosnian Serb side, and
21 specifically occasionally by Dr. Karadzic himself, that the Bosnian
22 Serbs -- excuse me, that the Bosnian Muslims were firing on their own
23 people. The Bosnian Serbs also maintained that occasionally the
24 Bosnian Muslim soldiers dressed up in Bosnian Serb uniforms, or JNA
25 uniforms, in order to fool the rest of the world into thinking that the
Page 1643
1 Bosnian Serbs were attacking them. None of this fooled UNPROFOR, and
2 they were very careful to give us their considered judgement; namely,
3 that the Bosnian Serb shelling -- and they even gave us a shelling count.
4 Every day, we received a number of the Bosnian Serb shells that landed in
5 Sarajevo
6 I think we were correct in believing them.
7 Q. Thank you. When did you receive this information from them about
8 the provocations by the BH Army?
9 A. Well, you made that accusation steadily through the negotiation,
10 Dr. Karadzic.
11 Q. But I'm asking you, Mr. Ambassador, about this piece of
12 information, this expansion of your statement that you gave on the
13 11th of April. When did you receive it from the observers?
14 A. I don't recall exactly when it was. I'm sorry, I just simply
15 don't recall.
16 Q. Certainly, during the time that you were there; right?
17 A. I'm not sure of that. I may have learned of it when I saw the
18 Secretary-General's letter to Izetbegovic. That's possible. I just
19 can't be certain of that.
20 Q. But during the war, that's certain; right?
21 A. Yes, during the conflict.
22 Q. May I ask you why you didn't mention that in any of your
23 statements or during any of your testimonies so far?
24 A. Well, I've tried to answer all your questions. I've said --
25 perhaps you've forgotten, but I've said that with regard to the
Page 1644
1 mistreatment of people, whether it was ethnic cleansing or just general
2 abuse, that it was reported to us by the International Committee of the
3 Red Cross and by UNHCR that all three parties to the conflict abused
4 prisoners, that the quality of the treatment was pretty much the same,
5 but that the quantity, the amount of abuse, the amount of torture, the
6 amount of coercion and expulsion, was overwhelmingly Bosnian Serb. I've
7 already reported that and so stated during my testimony.
8 In addition to that, Dr. Karadzic, you've had the benefit, as you
9 should have, of my journals, which are over 2.000 pages in length, and
10 I'm pleased to see that you read them carefully and that you understand
11 that they are honestly meant and objective and neutral; criticising
12 Izetbegovic, for example. So I've not in any case held anything back
13 from this Tribunal. That I recall something after 18 years I don't think
14 is surprising. Many people forgot things after 18 years.
15 JUDGE MORRISON: Mr. Ambassador, can I go back to one thing,
16 while I'm thinking about it.
17 In your journal, you talk about the BiH government being upset
18 that a humanitarian convoy got through to Srebrenica, and that's been a
19 aligned to provoking international intervention, in the sense that if the
20 convoys weren't getting through, it would be more likely that there would
21 be foreign intervention. First and foremost, is that the connection?
22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I think that's the direction in
23 which the question wanted to take the Chamber.
24 JUDGE MORRISON: Right. And, secondly, you were there at the
25 time. What's your assessment of the realpolitik? Would a failure of
Page 1645
1 humanitarian aid getting through at that time have provoked foreign
2 intervention or was there reluctance to intervene overwhelming.
3 THE WITNESS: The reluctance to intervene was overwhelming.
4 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Karadzic, please continue.
5 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you. I'm just waiting for
6 the interpretation to finish.
7 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
8 Q. Mr. Ambassador, did you find out or hear from UNPROFOR, or from
9 the Western media, or from UN reports that had not been made public, that
10 the Muslim forces in Sarajevo
11 presented them as victims of Serb shelling; yes or no?
12 A. We were aware of your statements to that effect. We never
13 received information of that nature from UNPROFOR.
14 Q. Do you preclude that possibility? Do you rule out the
15 possibility of such UNPROFOR reports and reports coming from other
16 foreign observers and authorities? Do you rule that possibility out,
17 that that's the way it was? It can be either three "no"s or three
18 "yes"s.
19 A. Well, you say the Muslim forces killed their very own citizens.
20 I would -- I'm not asking you, but in order to answer that I'd have to
21 know what you mean by that. For example, you could say they put their
22 own citizens in the line of fire, or they sauved their own citizens. I'm
23 not certain what that question means. I don't think it's true, but I
24 don't want to be definitive when the question, itself, was so indefinite.
25 Q. Thank you. The question was whether you knew about it, either
Page 1646
1 from officials or from the Western media, but you have given your answer.
2 Thank you.
3 Can we now look at document 1D486.
4 While we're waiting for it, I will give a brief explanation. It
5 has to do with a report of the Security Administration of the
6 Supreme Command of the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
7 Now let us see whether there is an English version. If not, I'm
8 just going to read out a small portion of it. In Serbian, we can move on
9 to the next page ending with numbers 228. This is what it says, the
10 report of the Muslim Intelligence Service:
11 "The Military Security Service reached new information to the
12 effect that citizens of Serb ethnicity at Dobrinja are being treated as
13 second-rate citizens and that pressure is being exerted against them so
14 that they would move out of that locality. In effect, a reliable source
15 stated that there are cases of physical mistreatment, unlawful arrests,
16 and even denial of humanitarian aid to persons of Serb ethnicity, which
17 causes revolt and fear among the citizens."
18 He mentioned the example of a person who has not been receiving
19 humanitarian aid for a few months already only on account of the fact
20 that the person is a Serb. The son of that person was physically
21 mistreated several times by armed individuals, without any cause, so he
22 sustained grievous bodily injury:
23 "What is indicative is the killing at Dobrinja a few months ago
24 of a certain individual by the name of Mercep, although the authorities
25 presented it as death as a result of shelling. Actually, the guilt of
Page 1647
1 the killed Mercep was allegedly because he did not return to Dobrinja on
2 time, after he was allowed to go to town in order to take his wife into
3 hospital."
4 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's note: Could we please have the
5 next page.
6 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation] "On the other hand, threat were
7 made to the effect that they shouldn't tell anyone about it."
8 Q. Do you trust the military security of the Army of
9 Bosnia-Herzegovina?
10 A. In what respect are you asking the question? I don't understand
11 the question.
12 Q. Well, you see, the person is registered as being a victim of the
13 shelling, whereas he was killed because he just arrived late.
14 A. Well, you quoted from a document that says that, and I have read
15 the document. That's all I know about it. That does not really have any
16 bearing on the three-years-long shelling of Sarajevo by the Bosnian Serb
17 forces under General Mladic's command. We've already said and
18 established, and I assume you agree, that all three sides committed
19 abuses. That's in the record. So finding this or that case,
20 unfortunately, is not very difficult because it was an ugly war, and
21 there are other indicators of who received most of the abuse. The fact
22 that there were over a million Muslim -- [Overlapping speakers]
23 Q. [No interpretation]
24 A. -- refuges expelled from Bosnia
25 indication of the numbers involved, and I think, Dr. Karadzic, we really
Page 1648
1 do have to bear that in mind.
2 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
3 Q. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. However, that is not correct. You
4 mentioned December 1992. That is exactly when it was published in the
5 "Jerusalem
6 refugees put together. Are you denying that?
7 A. It's false. That is totally false and demonstrably false. We
8 have the account from the ICRC. They took the refugees out. The
9 "Jerusalem
10 It can barely cover Israeli events, much less events in
11 Bosnia-Herzegovina.
12 Q. Thank you. Mr. Ambassador, I'm afraid we won't have time to deal
13 with everything, and that I will have to ask for additional time. You
14 have opened different issues, and you are resorting to tu quoque. As for
15 ethnic cleansing, we are going to do a separate cross-examination.
16 1D337 is the document I'd like to deal with now. This is also a
17 document from the Security Administration of the Main Staff of the
18 Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and I would like to ask you not to confuse
19 issues. The topic we're dealing now is what the Muslims are doing to
20 their very own people, with the intention of leading to an international
21 intervention by blackening the name of the Serbs. You said that you do
22 not believe that. Now I'm giving you proof of that.
23 JUDGE KWON: Mr. Karadzic, are you minded to tender the
24 Ambassador's supplemental information sheet, which is actually a proofing
25 note?
Page 1649
1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes, Excellency; not only that, but
2 also the document --
3 JUDGE KWON: We'll come to that.
4 If there is no objection, that will be admitted as what number?
5 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D76, Your Honour.
6 JUDGE KWON: And, Mr. Tieger, how about the BiH document about
7 the killing of civilians allegedly by a shell, yes, 486?
8 MR. TIEGER: Two quick issues, Your Honour.
9 Number one, it wasn't translated, so we would certainly need an
10 opportunity to review it. Number two, I have no objection to that, in
11 principle. I would also note, however, that that is not one that
12 directly each merges from this witness, but is a submission by
13 Dr. Karadzic in support of his point. But mainly the issue is that we
14 received no translation whatsoever, so we do need to look it over.
15 JUDGE KWON: We'll mark it for identification, pending
16 translation, with what number?
17 THE REGISTRAR: As MFI
18 JUDGE KWON: Very well. Let's move on.
19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Excellencies, in relation to what
20 was stated just now, I would like to say that it is the Prosecutor who
21 made all this possible for me, or, rather, led me to do this, because he
22 raised a great many issues with this witness. And the witness, himself,
23 made assertions that go beyond the scope of the direct examination, so I
24 simply have to deal with that.
25 JUDGE KWON: Let's proceed.
Page 1650
1 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation] Thank you.
2 Q. Mr. Ambassador, do you believe or do you rule out the possibility
3 of the following: when I say that the Muslim Army killed foreign
4 soldiers, UN soldiers, with a view to tarnishing the image of the Serb
5 side?
6 A. That's correct, we knew at the time that it was most probable
7 that the French peacekeepers had been killed by Muslim fire. It's in my
8 journals, and that was something that was widely understood by the UN
9 troops. It was never proved, but it was assumed to be the case. We also
10 knew that Bosnian Muslim elements, mainly criminal elements, in Sarajevo
11 had killed some soldiers of the JNA at the very beginning of the war,
12 when they were withdrawing from Sarajevo
13 recall that. So I think it's fair to say we were pretty well informed or
14 perhaps quite well informed about the goings on inside Sarajevo. One
15 could not say that we knew everything. I don't think that's ever
16 possible. But the troops did a very good job of keeping us and their
17 headquarters informed.
18 Q. Thank you very much. In relation to the beginning of the war,
19 yes, that's the way it was, but I have a document here that pertains to
20 the 26th and 27th of October, 1993; that is to say, a year and a half
21 into the war. And this practice continued nevertheless.
22 Allow me to read that. We actually have a translation of it,
23 that particular section:
24 "The UNPROFOR Command for Sector Sarajevo has information that
25 the shells that fell on the 20th of October, 1993, in Sector Bravo (our
Page 1651
1 unit positions)," that is to say, the Muslim positions, "at elevation
2 930613, in the north-east part of Sarajevo
3 position," also our positions, "at elevation 9162. They informed the
4 UNPROFOR Command in Kiseljak of this. According to information from the
5 SDB, the French Battalion Command is investigating the sniper wounding of
6 one of their soldiers from the FraBat II squadron stationed in the
7 eastern part of Skenderija. In connection to this, Colonel Duburg said
8 that most likely the shot came from close range and assessed that this
9 effectively rules out the Serb from Grbavica. He said that due to this,
10 further investigations will concentrate on the 10th Brigade of the Army
11 of the Republic of BH
12 caused this incident."
13 Do you see that that happened not only in the beginning of the
14 war, but also in October of 1993?
15 A. Yes, I see it.
16 Q. However, you said that it had never been proven. In that case, I
17 would like to see your journal number 2. 06535 is the Prosecution
18 number. I don't know what the exhibit number is.
19 JUDGE KWON: You can give the 65 ter number, five digits.
20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] 06535, page 67.
21 JUDGE KWON: Exhibit P785.
22 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
23 Q. Page 67, on the right-hand side of the screen.
24 Now, Morillon, parentheses:
25 [In English] " ...will discuss this tomorrow with Karadzic and
Page 1652
1 Ganic, wants Ganic to admit that Sandzak killed the two French UNPROFOR
2 soldiers. In break, Ganic has already admitted this privately."
3 [Interpretation] So it was established after all, wasn't it?
4 A. Well, as I said, I reported it in my notes, and you've just
5 confirmed what I said.
6 Q. Yes, but earlier on you said that that had never been proven, but
7 you suspected that, rightly so. And now it seems that it was stated so
8 by the perpetrators, admitted by the perpetrators?
9 A. Dr. Karadzic, earlier on you didn't mention which specific case
10 you were talking about. You simply said "French soldiers." If you had
11 been specific, we would have known that. And I was answering your
12 general question.
13 Q. Thank you. That was my question about the phenomenon, itself,
14 not each and every individual case. I asked whether they did that kind
15 of thing, and now we see they did. Thank you. Let's move on.
16 Now I'd like us to look at your journal number 1, Prosecution
17 06534, on page 33, your meeting with Generals Nambiar and Morillon on the
18 9th of September, 1992.
19 Do we have it?
20 Now, this is what Mr. Nambiar says at that meeting with you, on
21 the right-hand side. I don't know whether Mr. Vance was there as well,
22 but you certainly wrote this down."
23 Nambiar in relation to Sarajevo
24 [In English] "Since third week of August, UNPROFOR is being
25 deliberately targeted by Muslim troops, have protested this to
Page 1653
1 Izetbegovic."
2 [No interpretation]
3 [In English] "Nambiar: Incidents of killing of two French
4 soldiers yesterday was bastardly [sic] act cold-blooded ambush by Muslim
5 force of Presidency. The humanitarian convoy announced in advance, as
6 always, unquestionably 100 per cent certain that French soldiers were
7 killed by Muslim forces."
8 [Interpretation] Do you remember that meeting? And is a greater
9 authority needed than General Nambiar to say that 100 per cent?
10 A. Of course I remember the meeting. Incidentally, the word is
11 dastardly, not bastardly. Excuse me. And you'll notice that the next
12 dash says:
13 "Probable, but not certain, that Italian plane was shot down by
14 Croat forces."
15 An Italian plane had been shot down in that period of
16 September 1992. I mentioned this to indicate what I have said before
17 consistently, that all three sides committed abuses and committed heinous
18 acts, to be sure.
19 Q. Mr. Ambassador, please, do you know what the consequences was of
20 the downing of that Italian plane? Did that lead to a ban on Serb
21 flights?
22 A. There had been discussion since the beginning of the war about
23 air activity over Bosnia and Herzegovina. The only force that had an air
24 force was the Bosnian Serbs. Croatians occasionally over-flew Bosnia
25 but that was very rare. The Muslims had essentially nothing in the air,
Page 1654
1 due to their weakness. So the question arose - Dr. Karadzic is
2 correct - about Serbian air activity over Bosnia and Herzegovina, for the
3 reason I've just mentioned.
4 And to continue, I'm sure this is what he's going to -- where
5 he's going, and it's important to know, that after some time the
6 United Nations Security Council passed a resolution on a no-fly zone,
7 making Bosnia-Herzegovina a no-fly zone, primarily to deter the
8 Bosnian Serb Air Force. And we had many conversations, Dr. Karadzic, and
9 the negotiators and me, on this subject. You'll find them all recorded
10 in my diaries.
11 Q. Thank you, thank you. My question was whether the downing of
12 this plane, and the first allegations in this respect were that this had
13 been done by the Serbs, was that something that triggered the ban on
14 flights, the introduction of the no-fly zone? Just yes or no.
15 A. No.
16 Q. Thank you. We'll prove that later.
17 Mr. Ambassador, as for all of this that was in your journals, why
18 did you not state that at any one of your testimonies up until now?
19 Don't you think that that would have worked in the favour of the accused,
20 Krajisnik, Prlic, and others, had you testified to the effect that there
21 was this phenomenon of committing evil in order to blacken the other
22 side? An impartial witness would rightly be expected to do that; right?
23 A. And I did do that.
24 Q. In which case?
25 A. This case, on numerous occasions. You haven't perhaps been
Page 1655
1 listening carefully enough. And in the Prlic case, I was asked, for
2 example, by the defendants, who were Croats, Were we the only people who
3 committed ethnic cleansing in Central Bosnia in 1993, and my answer to
4 that was, No. In earlier cases, I gave the same answers.
5 I come back, Dr. Karadzic, to what I've said several times, but
6 which you are understandably ignoring; namely, that we were told and
7 understood that all three parties committed crimes of abuse, of ethnic
8 cleansing, and that the overwhelming number of those crimes were on the
9 Serb side.
10 Q. Thank you. I'm going to prove that that is not the case. But
11 now we are dealing with the commission of evil in order to blacken the
12 other side. The highest military authority, UNPROFOR, confirmed with
13 100 per cent certainty that that was done by the Muslims. Did you say
14 that in any one of the cases where you testified, Krajisnik or Prlic,
15 would that have worked in their favour or against them, in those cases?
16 Had you come out saying that, that the Muslim side did that with such
17 intentions ?
18 A. Two points. I always said it when I was asked about it. Second
19 point: We were receiving reports, for example, that the shell count on
20 Sarajevo
21 three -- [Overlapping speakers]
22 Q. [No interpretation]
23 A. I'm sorry, let me finish.
24 JUDGE KWON: Dr. Karadzic --
25 THE WITNESS: 3.000 to 5.000, I mention, because it shows that
Page 1656
1 it's possible, that when one counts 3.000 to 5.000, that one might miss a
2 shell here or two or even be inaccurate about it, because the shelling of
3 Sarajevo
4 they sometimes missed something or sometimes got something wrong, because
5 they got -- the main point was very clear.
6 You may recall that I kept in my office in Geneva, at the
7 conference, a graph on the wall, a daily graph of the shell count of your
8 troops on Sarajevo
9 average, about 300 shots from weapons of lower calibre. So 3.000 against
10 300 gives you an idea of the intensity and who was doing what to whom.
11 I'm sorry, Dr. Karadzic, but I must point this out to the Court.
12 MR. KARADZIC: [Interpretation]
13 Q. Thank you. But, Mr. Ambassador, when asked the question of
14 whether the Muslims obstructed the delivery of humanitarian aid, you have
15 this piece of information where Mr. Nambiar says humanitarian convoys
16 were targeted, and now I'm sticking to one topic, staying with one
17 topic; that the Muslims, in conformity with "The Islamic Declaration,"
18 tried to harm their people, in the humanitarian respect, and that they
19 were ready to kill foreign soldiers for that purpose, and that they
20 wanted to blame the Serbs for the killings and for the lack of supplies.
21 And it says so loud and clear in your notebook, and I ask why you didn't
22 say that during the other trials.
23 A. Well, I'm not sure that I didn't say it. Perhaps I was never
24 asked on that point. But it is clear, and this was known at the time,
25 that the Bosnian Muslim government was desperate for foreign
Page 1657
1 intervention. They said so publicly, and that was no secret since they
2 were losing so badly.
3 JUDGE KWON: Thank you. I think that's it for today,
4 Ambassador Okun. We'll start again tomorrow morning, but before that I
5 will -- Ambassador, you are free to go.
6 THE WITNESS: Thank you.
7 [The witness stands down]
8 JUDGE KWON: Yes, Mr. Tieger.
9 MR. TIEGER: Thank you, Your Honour.
10 JUDGE KWON: Just a second. Do you have any objection to this
11 document, 337?
12 MR. TIEGER: Yes, it's the same situation as the previous
13 document, Your Honour, with respect to --
14 JUDGE KWON: I think we have a translation.
15 MR. TIEGER: Just a very partial translation. I think the
16 Prosecution should have an opportunity to review the remainder of the
17 document to see if any portions are applicable in context.
18 JUDGE KWON: Let me check.
19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] We don't oppose that, but we're
20 just offering this portion because that's the relevant part.
21 JUDGE KWON: I don't see the need to translate the other part.
22 Do you have objection to admit only this part which was translated?
23 MR. TIEGER: No, I don't have any objection, in principle, to the
24 tendering or admission of that portion. I do think it's fair for the
25 Prosecution to have an opportunity to see if any other aspects of the
Page 1658
1 document -- I'm not suggesting getting it translated in toto, but that we
2 should have an opportunity to review it to see if other portions bear on
3 the tendered portion and illuminate that in context. That's my only
4 issue.
5 JUDGE KWON: My question was: Unless it is admitted into
6 evidence, you don't have access to the document, itself?
7 MR. TIEGER: Well, if the Court -- if we -- I have no objection
8 to it being admitted. Should we find that there are other portions that
9 are relevant and we tender it then, that's a fine way to proceed as well.
10 I have no problem with that approach. I'm only indicating that when
11 there's a partial translation of a document, and we have not yet had an
12 opportunity to see if other portions may bear on that submitted portion,
13 that at some point we should have the opportunity to bring to the Court's
14 attention other aspects of the same document that perhaps should be
15 tendered as well in connection with the one excerpt.
16 JUDGE KWON: Okay. I see that that will be admitted as it is
17 now. And then which is the number for it?
18 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, Exhibit D78.
19 JUDGE KWON: And, Mr. Tieger, very briefly?
20 MR. TIEGER: The next scheduled witness, Your Honour, is due to
21 travel tomorrow.
22 As the Court is aware, given the current schedule, if she were
23 not able to begin her testimony, which seems likely, much less complete
24 it, which I think seems even more unlikely, she would have to return home
25 and then come back again. Given the pace of proceedings and the amount
Page 1659
1 of material that appears remains to be covered, and the number of
2 requested hours, I would suggest it may be more fair to that particular
3 witness not to ask her to arrive tomorrow and wait, but to bring her
4 after this week, the following week. But I didn't want to take that step
5 without consulting with the Court.
6 JUDGE KWON: I think that's a more plausible step.
7 But, Dr. Karadzic, how much longer do you have for this witness?
8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, Your Excellency, at least as
9 much as I had asked for. And please believe me, I'll probably need more
10 time, because I'm not sure that the witness is not using too much of my
11 time up. And we can see that through the satisfaction expressed by
12 Mr. Tieger.
13 JUDGE KWON: Well, with that observation, it seems not practical
14 that we start the next witness this week.
15 Tomorrow, 9.00.
16 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.46 p.m.
17 to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 27th day of April,
18 2010, at 9.00 a.m.
19
20
21
22
23
24
25