Page 13546
1 Thursday, 4 July 2002
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 [The witness entered court]
5 --- Upon commencing at 2.17 p.m.
6 JUDGE LIU: Call the case, please, Madam Registrar.
7 THE REGISTRAR: Good afternoon, Your Honours. This is case number
8 IT-98-34-T, the Prosecutor versus Naletilic and Martinovic.
9 JUDGE LIU: Good afternoon, Witness. We will not keep you long
10 this afternoon.
11 THE WITNESS: Thank you, Your Honours.
12 JUDGE LIU: Yes, Mr. Krsnik.
13 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Your Honour, on behalf of the
14 Defence,
15 I would like to congratulate our American friends. Their biggest holiday,
16 the independence day. That's all from us.
17 JUDGE LIU: Thank you. Yes, Mr. Scott. You may proceed.
18 WITNESS: ANTE MARKOTIC [Resumed]
19 [Witness answered through interpreter]
20 Cross-examined by Mr. Scott: [Continued]
21 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Mr. President, my thanks to counsel as well
22 for those good wishes.
23 Q. Sir, if you -- let me see. Few questions following on from where
24 we left off yesterday in terms of your report. Sir, I'm hesitating, sir,
25 because I'm going to try in the course of the afternoon just to move
Page 13547
1 rather quickly, if possible, and maybe doing some, if you will, editing of
2 my own notes as we go. So ...
3 If you have your -- the stack of exhibits from yesterday, if you
4 don't have those, perhaps the usher can assist in putting those in front
5 of you again, the ones, the various charts and maps, starting with Exhibit
6 403, please.
7 Can we start please, if you'll direct your attention to Exhibit
8 407 in that stack? I'm not sure whether on direct or cross-examination we
9 spent much time looking at that yesterday. Yes, that's it. I see you
10 have it there.
11 Just primarily, sir, so that I can understand the exhibit and
12 hopefully the Judges as well, as I understand, in looking a bit at this
13 diagram, since yesterday, or map, this represents where the various places
14 where the Croatian population was located in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the
15 colour coding indicating concentration of the Croat population in
16 Bosnia-Herzegovina as of 1991. Is that -- do I understand that correctly?
17 A. Yes. You understand correctly, not a different -- not the
18 different density, but the share of this population in the total number of
19 inhabitants in Bosnia and Herzegovina. For particular municipalities, of
20 course.
21 Q. All right. So, for example, to use a municipality that we are all
22 more or less familiar with, Mostar, it is one of the -- whatever you like
23 to say, brightest red or darkest red colours indicating a high
24 concentration or at least a high number, excuse me, a high number of
25 Croats living in that area as opposed for instance we looked at yesterday,
Page 13548
1 Foca, which is completely yellow. Correct?
2 A. Correct.
3 Q. But this map, just so again, so we can properly consider it in the
4 future, this map says nothing about ratios or percentages but simply gives
5 absolute numbers of Croats in these areas; is that right?
6 A. That is correct. I did not have the same ambition that you have
7 for this map. This is just a representation of some sizes. If the
8 municipalities were different, then the map would also look different. So
9 it is not sufficient to use a map and just a map as argument for --
10 Q. All right. Very well.
11 A. From the demographic point of view, of course.
12 Q. Now, sir, you were telling us yesterday about some of the issues
13 involved with demographic data for various municipalities, in particular
14 Mostar, and the city of Mostar and you were raising some issues about
15 that. Now, do I understand correctly that it's also true that there is no
16 separate 1991 data for what might be called the old city, the Stari Grad,
17 or the central district of Mostar, specifically? Is that true?
18 A. In the table that I showed you yesterday, that I would have to
19 search for, I have forgotten my glasses, but I understand your question
20 very well, and I'll try to answer it. The city of Mostar, like any other
21 city, grows all the time. That is why the territorial scope of any city
22 has to be changed. The statistics were lagging behind in monitoring the
23 development of the city of Mostar, and it lagged behind by almost 50
24 years. It is very possible, and very easy to obtain the data based on the
25 census of population for every family, every household, every part of
Page 13549
1 every village for a cluster of villages, in our jargon we used to call it
2 local communes. However --
3 Q. Sorry, let me just take you back do my question. Again as in
4 yesterday by question sometime maybe more -- my ambitions may be more
5 basic than yours, if you'll allow me. I'm just simply asking you if
6 you know, and if it's not something you looked at you can just tell us
7 that, but just again looking at the Mostar city demographics or
8 statistics, can you confirm is it correct that there is also no separate
9 set of figures, as opposed to the overall city as previously defined.
10 There is no separate figures for the central city or for what some people
11 would call the old city, primarily Muslim part of the city? Is that true?
12 A. I assume that when you say Stari Grad, you refer to five
13 neighbourhoods that have composed that part since 1953. Such data can be
14 found for 1953, 1981 and 1993 in the yearbooks that were published after
15 the censuses in 1953, 1981 and 1993. I have quite a lot of professional
16 objections to the 1991 census, but I do accept such data as better than
17 any other data that were collected in that state after the year 1991, so
18 it is possible to find the data in the yearbook, and I can provide you
19 with the number of that yearbook, and I could find the data with the grain
20 of doubt as to the credibility of the census as a whole, because the
21 census was prepared by one government and carried out by a different
22 government, is not complete because it did not follow through the legal
23 procedure. It can be used but all the sources relative to that census
24 have to be compensated upon in the way I have just commented upon them.
25 Q. All right, sir, if I could have the usher's assistance, I'd like
Page 13550
1 to have you handed and to distribute in the courtroom what was previously
2 marked and used in previously in the trial as P109.1 and P109.2. I'll
3 tell the courtroom just, sorry for any confusion, the numbers are on the
4 B/C/S original versions of the documents and not on the top pages. So
5 actually I've just been shown there is also a marking on the English
6 version as well. So I'm corrected on that. You might also see a bigger
7 number on the B/C/S version so if I could have the usher's assistance give
8 one of these to the witness and then distribute them to the Chamber and
9 the Defence, please.
10 Q. Sir, if I can direct your attention first, please, to 109.1, an
11 excerpt of statistical compilation related to the 1991 census, 109.1 and
12 if I can direct your attention to what would be page 300 --
13 JUDGE LIU: Yes, Mr. Krsnik?
14 THE REGISTRAR: We were short.
15 MR. SCOTT: There should have been at least one for the Judges,
16 one for the registry and one for each Defence team I thought, but if a we
17 miscounted, my apology. I'm sure it was my fault.
18 Q. The question, in any event, counsel, will be I think short, I
19 think. Looking first of all to 109.1, sir, page 300, I'll represent to
20 you that these are the listings in the left column are municipalities, and
21 you will see here in about roughly halfway down the column, the
22 municipality of Mostar, and you will see the breakdown of the principal
23 ethnic groupings, the first being -- the first number -- there is a total
24 number then the first number being Croats and then Muslims and Serbs. And
25 below the number, the first number in that line then there is another
Page 13551
1 number below would you agree with me that that is a percentage, so that,
2 for instance the total population in Mostar according to the 1991 census
3 was approximately 126.628, the Muslim -- excuse me, the Croat population
4 was approximately 43.037, the Muslim population was approximately 43.856,
5 and the population -- and the percentages below there being Croat, 33.99,
6 and Muslim 34.63. That's the same basically, even though the issues,
7 excuse me, despite the issues you've raised about the 1991 census, those
8 are essentially the same figures that you've used, correct?
9 A. Absolutely correct. There were no other sources but the
10 reservations remain. Not only reservations but the practice, the
11 procedure, used during the census which followed the recommendations of
12 the population commission of the United Nations, this commission has
13 provided for the recommendations to be followed for one's national census
14 to be complete, final, or in other words, official, because these
15 recommendations are binding upon member states in order to be able to use
16 the census data for demographic and other analysis.
17 Q. Let me next take you to the next of the charts that were just
18 given to you, 109.2, page 182. Now, if you have page 182, you will see
19 toward the upper part of the page, in the far left column, the heading,
20 "Mostar." Which I hope you will agree with me that is the municipality
21 of Mostar. And then below that, the series of names below that, are
22 towns, cities or villages in the municipality of Mostar, so if you go
23 toward the end of that column you will find, fourth from the bottom, the
24 city of Mostar. Do you see that?
25 A. Yes, I can see that.
Page 13552
1 Q. All right. And these pages would have originally been laid out
2 continuously across a bigger page or -- well, bigger or smaller but in any
3 event, one continuous page, so if you turn to the next page, 183, you will
4 see then again the fourth line from the bottom, the 1991 figures, again
5 specifically for the city, as opposed to the municipality of Mostar, and
6 what would be line, I believe line 39, 21.795 Croats and 25.929 Muslims,
7 correct?
8 A. That is what it says here, but in my expert study, I dealt with
9 this problem. If you wish, I can give you the whole story about this data
10 that you have just shown me because I actually was the one who helped
11 these data being published, so that everybody can have them.
12 Q. Professor let me just, I'm sorry?
13 JUDGE LIU: Yes?
14 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I apologise, Mr. Scott,
15 for my interruption. I believe that with regard to the last thing that
16 the professor said, that he helped for this -- for the data to be
17 published, I believe that it would be very useful for the Honourable
18 Chamber to hear what the professor has to say, because the professor
19 wanted to say that these data are not correct.
20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] This is what I said yesterday.
21 JUDGE LIU: Witness -- witness, in your testimony you said that
22 "because I actually was the one who helped this data being published, so
23 that everybody can have them," right?
24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.
25 JUDGE LIU: We just want to hear how you helped this data being
Page 13553
1 published.
2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In the settlements that were covered
3 by the statistics, to which settlements I added seven more settlements and
4 then the data for these seven settlements were also published. I was
5 talking about the methodology, I was talking about somebody's omission,
6 either intentionally or unintentionally. I was talking about an omission,
7 according to which only some data were published, and some were not. If
8 we add one set of figures to another set of figures, the picture is
9 completely different. This is what the signatories of these data know.
10 One of them is professor Jakov Gelo, who is the director and now working
11 in Zagreb and Hasan Zoric, the other one, an expert, my colleague, whom I
12 both asked and told them that it would be very valuable for us in
13 Bosnia-Herzegovina to publish the data on the national breakdown per
14 settlements because that would be useful for many people. It would dispel
15 the one picture on the mononational structure of Bosnia and Herzegovina
16 because if the -- if the picture is different, then it is less danger that
17 it will be distorted. So if you agree, I can illustrate that with a
18 picture, and I can use the same example that we have been using so far.
19 MR. SCOTT: Mr. President --
20 JUDGE LIU: Well, Witness, if the Prosecutor needs the data in
21 your hands, he will ask you to put it on the ELMO and show us.
22 Mr. Scott, you may continue.
23 MR. SCOTT:
24 Q. Professor I think I do understand. I don't pretend to be a
25 demographer, but I think I do understand the point you were making
Page 13554
1 yesterday and it's not necessary for you to repeat it again. Your view
2 is, as I understand it, that the number that I just referred you to -- the
3 numbers that I just referred you to would be substantially different if
4 other -- if different boundaries of the city of Mostar were used. I
5 understand that point. And again, my questions to you are much more basic
6 than that. These numbers, these statistical numbers --
7 A. Not municipal.
8 Q. In the city, sir. In the city. Again my ambitions are more basic
9 than yours. The Chamber has seen some of these statistics before and I
10 just wanted to make sure that whether you agree with them or not we were
11 starting at least could start from the same base. That those are the
12 numbers I've just shown you Exhibit 109.1 and 109.2 come from the 1991
13 census and subject to the issues you've raised, those are the numbers that
14 basically you and all other demographers have essentially used, correct?
15 A. Correct. Again, I repeat with some reservations as to the
16 objectivity of the census, which was not completed, but these data are the
17 best there are available but what you are reading now is just one part of
18 the city. Those who look at the figures don't have to be demographers,
19 not to agree with the set of data that you're showing us because the city
20 is five times bigger than it is represented by these figures, and the
21 statistics covered only one fifth of the city. I believe that I've made
22 myself clear.
23 Q. I think you were clear before, sir, thank you. Let me ask you,
24 however, on that very point, isn't it your testimony, sir, that the
25 phenomenon, if I can call it, that that you've described or the error that
Page 13555
1 you claim existed, that goes back to sometime before 1960, doesn't it?
2 This error or as you called it, occurred in the 1961 census, the 1971
3 census and again in the 1981 census, correct? Assuming there was an
4 error, it also occurred in those other censuses?
5 A. Yes, that's exactly what I said yesterday and I repeat it today.
6 Q. So this situation, sir, is a result of a structure and system that
7 was put in place some 30 plus years earlier by the prior communist
8 government and was not something that was put in place by the government
9 of Bosnia-Herzegovina after the referendum in 1992, was it?
10 A. That is what you said. I did say that it was a mistake. Whose
11 mistake it was, I don't know, and why.
12 Q. So we can agree, can we -- can't we, that assuming again that
13 you're correct that this error was made, this was not a manipulation made
14 by any what might be called a Muslim government but was something that had
15 been occurring for many decades under the prior administration, correct?
16 A. I don't know what is correct, but if the errors are abused or used
17 by the people who do not understand them, then these people will use them
18 in any way they want, in political, social or any other terms. That is
19 why the errors of this nature, which carry some national attributes have
20 not been helpful for the city of Mostar, and hence their possible
21 manipulation.
22 Q. All right. Well, sir, on that -- in that regard, let me go to the
23 three sources of -- if I understood you well, the three sources of data
24 that you said you used for post-1991 comparisons and if I heard you
25 correctly, the first one you made reference to was a refugee office and
Page 13556
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Page 13557
1 could you give us a bit more specifics on what refugee office that was?
2 A. If you will allow me I just need to find this, because I wanted to
3 quote exactly the thing that I said yesterday. This is the office for
4 refugees whose full name is the Croatian Republic of Herceg-Bosna, the
5 refugee office in Mostar.
6 Q. All right, sir, that was partly the question that I wanted to ask
7 you. That was the first source you indicated. The second source you
8 gave, and forgive me if I didn't get exactly everything accurate in my
9 notes, but I believe you said the municipal welfare office in Mostar for
10 data in 1994 and 1995, and then the third source that you gave was the
11 department for social welfare in Mostar through a series of dates you gave
12 us in 1994. And my question to you, sir, is just simply this: All those
13 sources or agencies or sources of the government of the Croatian Republic
14 of -- either the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna or the Croatian
15 Republic of Herceg-Bosna, correct?
16 A. I don't know what is correct, but I can show you what I used.
17 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... all those agencies, all those
18 sources were agencies of the HVO government, correct?
19 A. It seems that you are right.
20 Q. Now, before we leave -- I think we are about to finish with these
21 diagrams but if I could direct your attention to Exhibit 409, and the
22 three rows of charts --
23 A. Allow me, please.
24 Q. Of course.
25 A. Thank you.
Page 13558
1 Q. Sir, looking it at the last row, the multi--- if you will, the
2 multicoloured row from the 1961, 1971, 1981 and 1991, sir, whatever else
3 we have talked about in the last two days, would you not agree with me
4 that at the very least, what this document clearly shows is that at no
5 time since at least 1961, was the municipality of Mostar or the city of
6 Mostar -- let me stop there. Do you understand this to be the city or
7 municipality of Mostar?
8 A. Of course, I have to go back to what I have already said, and that
9 is what I deem very important. My first sentence was that
10 Bosnia-Herzegovina regarded today as a state follows the national
11 division.
12 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... please.
13 JUDGE LIU: Yes, Mr. Krsnik?
14 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I would kindly ask my
15 learned friend not to be impatient. The professor is not used to talking
16 in front of a Chamber, and he is not allowed to give his full answer. I
17 would kindly ask the Chamber to allow him to provide his explanations and
18 I don't see any reason for this impatience. The professor has to be
19 allowed to give his explanations.
20 JUDGE LIU: Witness, I believe that the Prosecutor asked you a
21 very simple question. Do you understand this to be the city or the
22 municipality of Mostar? This is also what we want to know, the answer to
23 this question. You answer that question first. If you need some
24 explanations, you could do that. And if the Prosecutor wants more
25 information in this area, he will ask for more information from you. We
Page 13559
1 just want to hear what is relevant to this case.
2 Yes. You may answer this question, Witness.
3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] My answer is in the title and in the
4 caption beneath every figure.
5 MR. SCOTT:
6 Q. Well, I apologise, sir, regretfully I don't read your language and
7 these were not provided in translation. If you can just assist us,
8 please, when the Mostar that is referred on Exhibit 409 or I should say
9 D1/409, does that indicate the city of Mostar or the municipality of
10 Mostar? Just please help us with that.
11 A. These are districts and municipalities, depending on the year. On
12 the other hand, this is Mostar in Austro-Hungarian times, in Yugoslav
13 times and in the present time. How can I answer your question in simple
14 terms the way you expect me to answer?
15 Q. Well, let me -- all right. Let me try to make it even simpler
16 then, sir. Directing your attention only to the last row of figures,
17 starting with 1961. We won't look at the others above that for now. As
18 to that row of figures, can you just please tell us, is this chart
19 depicting the municipality of Mostar, the opstina of Mostar, or the city
20 of Mostar?
21 A. Municipality of Mostar.
22 Q. Let me go back to the question that I began to put to you before,
23 and my apologies for needing to clarify it in somewhat mid-sentence I had
24 to ask for your clarification but, sir, won't you agree with me that
25 whatever else we may argue about, at least since 1961, there has clearly
Page 13560
1 been no substantial Croat majority in Mostar at any time?
2 A. It is clear in this illustration so what you're saying is correct.
3 Q. Sir, both in your -- sorry, forgive me again. To finish up on the
4 maps and I think we will be done with the maps, if I could have the
5 usher's assistance please to distribute what's been marked as P947 both to
6 the witness, please, and to counsel, and the Chamber? Sir, if you can
7 look at that for a moment and I'll represent to you, sir, for the record
8 and tell the Chamber and of course of additional evidence has to be
9 presented on this, I will, this has been prepared by the Office of the
10 Prosecutor and make that very clear to you, and I'll also tell you that --
11 how the map on the right was prepared. Just so know that but I think when
12 you compare I think when I put my question to you I think you'll see that
13 it's a relatively straightforward --
14 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Your Honour?
15 JUDGE LIU: Yes.
16 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] I would like to thank my learned
17 friend, I'm sure he expected my question so I would kindly ask my learned
18 friend to tell us what the source of these maps is, who compiled these
19 maps.
20 JUDGE LIU: I think Mr. Prosecutor has already said that. He said
21 that this has been prepared by the Office of the Prosecutor. Do you have
22 more information to furnish to the Defence counsel?
23 MR. SCOTT: I can provide a bit more. The Office of the
24 Prosecutor is fortunate enough to have some in-house demographic
25 expertise. There are I believe if I'm not mistaken two people on the OTP
Page 13561
1 staff who are demographers and I can represent to the Chamber that the map
2 on the left side of the page has been prepared from exactly the same 1991
3 census data that we have talked about for the last two days. The map on
4 the right side of the page for 1997, since there is no census data after
5 the war, is based upon voter registration information. Clearly not the
6 same as a census. No attempt to so indicate. But it is some data that's
7 available across all the three main ethnic groups, in terms of voter
8 registration information.
9 Q. Now, again sir, my question is a very basic one, if you can pull
10 out your Exhibit D1/406 and maybe just put those -- these two exhibits
11 side by side, looking at your Exhibit 406 and the map on the right side of
12 Exhibit 947, with a few differences sir would you not agree with me that
13 they are roughly quite similar?
14 A. It depends on the quantity and quality of the sources which were
15 used.
16 Q. Of course it does, but if you look at the bright blue colour, for
17 instance, on Exhibit 947 for 1997, you look at that bright blue
18 information and compare it to your whatever you like to call it, red or
19 bright orange, dark orange information on your 406, don't those areas look
20 quite similar?
21 A. There is another difference that you haven't mentioned. One is
22 1996 and the other is 1997. My map was made in 1996 and yours was made in
23 1997. When I was interpreting my map yesterday, I told you that the one
24 from 1996 is -- does not reflect the current situation. I mentioned
25 Bosansko Grahovo and Glamoc and Vrdar municipalities and I referred to the
Page 13562
1 return of the refugees and I said that they probably are coloured
2 differently. I'm sure they are not red, though. Another thing that would
3 be useful --
4 JUDGE LIU: Witness, I don't think you understand the question put
5 to you by the Prosecutor.
6 Mr. Scott, you may repeat your question again.
7 MR. SCOTT:
8 Q. Sir, I'm simply asking you, and again my question is very basic, I
9 think. If you look at the two maps side by side, your Exhibit D1/406 and
10 the map depicted on the right side, P947 are quite similar, aren't they.
11 The bright blue areas, the Croatian areas in 1997 and in the one map are
12 very, very similar, not identical but very, very similar to the orange
13 areas in Exhibit D1/406, correct?
14 JUDGE LIU: Yes, Mr. Krsnik?
15 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I do not pretend I can
16 talk about demography because I'm not an expert, but I'm afraid that my
17 learned friend is -- knows exactly as much as I do about demography. What
18 I have learned in the past two days from the professor is when you ask a
19 demographer whether things are similar, a demographer cannot say yes, it
20 is similar. He has to talk about things with precision. In the previous
21 answer, he answered just in the way a demographer can, because if one
22 municipality changes over a period of one year, he can not say that things
23 are similar. He has to be mathematically precise. We cannot deal with
24 these subjects by using terms, "Roughly similar" or "roughly identical."
25 That's why I believe we should all have patience and listen to what
Page 13563
1 the professor has to tell us.
2 JUDGE LIU: Well, I think the witness could answer this question
3 first by saying in a layman's eyes, those pictures are roughly identical,
4 but there is something like this, rather than come into the explanations
5 first, so that we could not know where we are.
6 MR. SCOTT: I'm sorry, Mr. President, just to move us along, I
7 think -- I was not trying to state -- I wasn't trying to state the
8 obvious, Mr. President, but I think everyone in the courtroom can compare
9 the two maps and they speak for themselves. Let me follow up with this
10 question.
11 MR. KRSNIK: No, no, no.
12 MR. SCOTT: Mr. President --
13 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I would ask this
14 question to be answered. If this is not done, I will ask it once again in
15 my redirect. A question was asked. I would ask my learned friend to
16 either withdraw his question or let the witness answer it, or else I'll
17 have to put it in my redirect. And with your permission, to continue,
18 Your Honours, this argumentation is in fact futile. Everybody agrees that
19 these are similar maps to a certain degree, to a lesser degree, but then
20 why are we guessing when we have the expert witness here who can tell us
21 whether the maps are similar, how similar, et cetera, et cetera.
22 MR. SCOTT: Mr. President?
23 JUDGE LIU: Yes.
24 MR. SCOTT: Counsel just indicated that the point that I just made
25 a moment ago. Everyone in the courtroom can see that they are quite
Page 13564
1 similar, so I withdraw my earlier question.
2 JUDGE LIU: Yes.
3 MR. SCOTT:
4 Q. Sir, looking at both of these maps, both your D1/406 and Exhibit
5 P947, wouldn't you agree with me, sir, at the area marked on your map in
6 bright orange on the -- along the border of Croatia in Herzegovina and
7 what is similarly marked in the bright or the dark blue colour in 947
8 would you agree with me, sir, that those boundaries look extremely similar
9 to something called the Croatian banovina?
10 A. I haven't got a clue how the Croatian banovina looked like. I
11 never had a map of the banovina, and I wonder whether anybody ever had a
12 map of it.
13 Q. Well, sir, we have had maps in this courtroom. Are you telling
14 us, sir, that why your professional career as a demographer, you've never
15 seen a map of the banovina?
16 A. I can't remember ever seeing it.
17 MR. SCOTT: I'll move on, Mr. President.
18 Q. Sir, in both your direct examination, your direct testimony, and
19 in your report, there seems to be -- you seem to make some point of the
20 fact or the assertion that a number of Muslims in fact lived and continued
21 to live in West Mostar, the HVO controlled part of Mostar, during the war;
22 is that correct?
23 A. Yes, that's correct.
24 Q. My question to you, sir, if you can assist the Chamber with this,
25 what do you suggest -- what do you suggest these Muslims living in West
Page 13565
1 Mostar should have done? They were cut off from the outside world, were
2 they not? In terms of getting to what might be called ABiH-controlled
3 territory? Isn't that true?
4 A. I can only think aloud about it but I don't think I have been
5 invited to do it here.
6 Q. Well, sir, let me just maybe abbreviate the questions this way:
7 You're not suggesting, are you, that they should have gone into East
8 Mostar, which is being shelled and was short of food and water and
9 medicine, and that should have gone from West Mostar voluntarily to East
10 Mostar, do you?
11 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Your Honours, this expert witness is
12 not a fact witness here. My learned friend had such witnesses before, and
13 everybody knows it seems to me, for what purposes this expert witness was
14 invited to come here.
15 JUDGE LIU: Yes. In this aspect, I agree with Defence counsel.
16 MR. SCOTT: Let me just point out to the Chamber that I submit to
17 you that there is an attempt in his report and in his testimony to make
18 somehow make some point that -- and I assume it's that well, things
19 couldn't have been so bad in West Mostar because many Muslims remained
20 living there during the war, and I simply am cross-examining on that
21 point. I'm move on and I submitted to the Chamber that it's not clear
22 exactly what the suggested alternatives were. But I'll move on.
23 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Your Honour --
24 JUDGE LIU: Well, Mr. Prosecutor has agreed to move on.
25 MR. SCOTT:
Page 13566
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Page 13567
1 Q. Sir, in several of the delegations or bodies that you were
2 involved in during your time in -- roughly the 1992, 1994 time period, on
3 several occasions, you were working closely with a man named Anto Valenta;
4 is that correct?
5 A. Only once.
6 Q. You didn't work with him first during late 1992 and in early 1993
7 and then later again in 1994?
8 A. Only once.
9 Q. All right. Well --
10 A. I never heard about him before, and after that I saw him, and I
11 heard him, but only on television or on radio.
12 Q. Sir, wasn't Mr. Valenta one of the vice-presidents of the Croatian
13 Community of Herceg-Bosna? And a close associate of Dario Kordic?
14 A. I can provide no reliable answer to that, under any circumstances.
15 Q. Do you recall that Mr. Valenta published a book in 1991 titled,
16 "The partition of Bosnia and the struggle for integrity this," in which
17 he argued that the solution to the ethnic problems in Bosnia-Herzegovina
18 was a partition of Bosnia along ethnic lines?
19 A. At the time, when, on this single occasion I worked with him, I
20 saw the book.
21 MR. SCOTT: All right. Mr. President, if I could for the record
22 purposes the title of the book ends with integrity, I just notice there is
23 the word "this" in the quotation mark. The title is, "The Partition of
24 Bosnia and the Struggle for Integrity." Full stop.
25 Q. Sir, you had worked with him at least on this one occasion and you
Page 13568
1 had seen the book at that time; is that correct?
2 A. That's correct. On a single occasion, while we were working
3 together, preparing the Vance-Owen Plan. I thought this needed to be
4 added.
5 Q. And did you ever use that book as a basis for any of the work you
6 did?
7 A. No, never.
8 Q. Sir, I'd just like to return to your background for a few
9 minutes. You've stated in your -- the report that was provided to us as
10 part of the background, you had published, I think you said it again
11 yesterday, you had published -- you've published several books and studies
12 and approximately 130 scientific and professional works; is that correct?
13 A. That is what it says in my CV, and I insist on that to be correct
14 information.
15 Q. You also state that you have edited a large number of books,
16 anthologies and magazines. Is that also correct?
17 A. I was editor -- now, what is large number of books, of course, is
18 a relative term.
19 Q. When you acted in a role as editor, for example, what kind of work
20 did you do? What was your work or role as an editor in the occasions when
21 you -- perhaps it's different for different people but in the times when
22 you've told us you edited a large number of books, anthologies and
23 magazines, what did you do?
24 A. I did something that is typical for an editor all over the world.
25 Q. And please describe that to us.
Page 13569
1 A. Which specific example should I use?
2 Q. Whichever one you'd like to, sir. Do you recall any of the
3 particular books that you published or, excuse me, edited and any of the
4 particular authors that you worked with?
5 A. I was editor, for example, of a proceedings of works published as
6 a follow-up of a scientific meeting held towards the end of 1994 in the
7 town of Neum. The meeting was called, "Croats in Bosnia-Herzegovina,
8 Objectives and Possibilities." This conference was participated by around
9 250 intellectuals who discussed a variety of topics there.
10 Q. Sir, my point is a current -- is not to get into a discussion of
11 that conference, but I simply ask you to describe to the Chamber your role
12 as an editor and you said you wanted a specific example, but can you just
13 assist us please in the role that you played? Did you collect
14 information? Did you verify information? Did you what we might call
15 spell check? What did you do as an editor?
16 A. Just as usually, whenever scientific conferences are held, people
17 are invited to attend who have their scientific contributions to make.
18 Usually at such a conference you submit your contribution or paper. Then
19 the paper is exposed to a debate and it -- at the end, the editor needs
20 to, together with a board, to make sure that the papers and the results of
21 the discussion are published in a proceedings and of course, must make
22 sure that the works are edited, are examined scientifically, and then the
23 proceedings are published and sent to the scientific public at large. The
24 editor usually participates in the scientific and technical preparations
25 for the meeting concerned, as well as is put in charge of drafting such
Page 13570
1 proceedings, as is usual in international conferences. So in the course
2 of this war, it was easier to be an editor than it had been before the
3 war.
4 Q. All right, sir, well let me just build on that to ask you this:
5 Did you consider important in that role as an editor, did you consider it
6 important that the material that you prepared, and ultimately edited and
7 in some sense approved, that that was accurate and reliable information?
8 A. Mr. Prosecutor, in science, everybody is held accountable for
9 whatever they did, they wrote, and thought, and obviously, I'm also held
10 responsible for sometimes for what I think.
11 Q. Let me just ask it this way: Would you lend your support or give
12 your name to a publication as either an author or an editor if you felt
13 that information or publication was unreliable or false in some way?
14 A. It is usually the author who is responsible for his publication.
15 I'm not a know-it-all to be able to judge everybody. We know in terms of
16 standards what are the responsibilities of the author, of the reader, the
17 scientific reader, and the editor. Therefore, all mistakes or unreliable
18 or false statements made are to be accounted to the author.
19 Q. All right. Well let me ask -- let me direct your attention to a
20 particular author, do you recall working for a time with a man named Karlo
21 Rotim, R-O-T-I-M?
22 A. I can recall the first and the family name, but not the man that I
23 worked with.
24 Q. Do you know what kind of work Mr. Rotim is involved in?
25 A. Mr. Rotim, I've noticed it from his books, of which I was the
Page 13571
1 scientific reader, two of them I read and approved as a scientist, well,
2 he is a student and a researcher of social circumstances. He is an author
3 of orthographs, of tourist guides and similar publications and during the
4 war, he collected information and facts and published them in the manner
5 which he chose to be appropriate.
6 Q. Did you consider him to be a conscientious and reliable author or
7 producer of works, as far as you know?
8 A. Well, you could put it that way. My experience with him is only
9 with these two books, and they both have the same title, as far as I can
10 remember, the title was, "The Defence of Bosnia-Herzegovina."
11 Q. And what was your opinion or assessment as editor of the
12 reliability of those works?
13 A. I'm afraid, once again, that notions are here a problem. In fact
14 I was not the editor. I was the scientific reviewer of the text. The
15 editor is usually appointed by the publishing house. I was usually just a
16 scientific reviewer to -- and my responsibility was to scrutinise the
17 methodological concept of the publication offered and suggest for
18 publication.
19 Q. Excuse me for using the wrong terminology. In your role as a
20 scientific reviewer, did you find Mr. Rotim's work to be reliable?
21 A. I was able to establish that Mr. Rotim prepared a series of
22 documents that have to do with a specific period of time and a specific
23 territory, area. I thought that he, in his capacity as a historian, who
24 had published a few books before, had both the need and felt the need to
25 publish the documents that he was able to compile and that he was able to
Page 13572
1 publish. He thought that these documents should be conveyed to further
2 generations. Of course, the documents he chose, he chose on the basis of
3 his own criteria. But I can tell you that he is a very solid compiler of
4 information and documents.
5 Q. All right. I'd like you to turn to page 2 of your report, if you
6 have it there in front of you. I'm afraid I'm going to have to refer I'll
7 be referring to the pages in the English version. But if you turn to page
8 2, or -- sir, there is a statement in that -- on that page, and at least
9 on the English version, it's toward the bottom -- it's at the bottom of
10 page 2. And your report says this: "There is no internal stability
11 either, following an unfinished war, parenthesis, not the first time in
12 this area, close parenthesis, which was ended by an imperfect peace.
13 Indeed the 'torture by Dayton' of this international protectorate
14 continues." What do you mean, sir, and can you assist the Chamber in
15 explaining what you mean by a "unfinished war"?
16 A. Very simply, this simile, metaphor can be construed that this war
17 was interrupted by a peace agreement. Fortunately, I'd add.
18 Q. Well, were you suggesting at all that the war was unfinished in
19 the sense that it was not allowed to go to certain conclusions that
20 perhaps might have been more favourable to the Croatian side?
21 A. I have just told you my opinion, and I insist on this opinion.
22 Fortunately, this is how it was. I was never thinking along your lines,
23 the lines that have also been indicated through your other questions.
24 Q. All right. Can I ask you to look, please at page 9 of your
25 report? And in the first paragraph that begins on that page, you state
Page 13573
1 that "thus according to the 1991 census, 317.923 persons born in
2 Bosnia-Herzegovina were registered as permanent residents of the Republic
3 of Croatia and among them were 193.346 Croats or 25.4 per cent of the
4 total number of Croats in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1991." Can you tell us
5 the significance of that information? By including that in your report
6 for the purpose of giving it to the Judges in this case, it wasn't clear
7 to me the point you were trying to make about the fact that so many of
8 these people were registered as permanent residents of the Republic of
9 Croatia as opposed to Bosnia-Herzegovina.
10 A. Mr. Prosecutor, unfortunately, I cannot find that page, but I can
11 still answer your question.
12 Q. Thank you.
13 A. May I be allowed to tell you what demography and a demographer are
14 interested in? If you allow me to do that, then obviously in every
15 population covered by demography, we will notice shifts which are due to
16 natural causes, such as deaths and births. Then migration, that is
17 immigration and emigration, and unfortunately, also due to sporadic, and
18 talking about my country, this happened three times in the past century,
19 they have a major impact upon population shifts, particularly the three
20 wars I have just referred to. Direct, indirect impacts, demographic,
21 non-demographic impacts, because after all, the war causes casualties,
22 causes demographic injuries as well, through refugees, killed persons,
23 displaced persons, et cetera, and a war ravaged territory is certainly not
24 an area in which demography could have the fortunate role of studying
25 these population shifts. As mentioned yesterday, when trying to answer
Page 13574
1 the question how and what impacted upon the development of the population
2 in the -- in Bosnia-Herzegovina, whereby averages have to be ignored, I
3 tried to find out what happened to the total population there, and to the
4 individual three peoples. In this context, the sources that are available
5 are very few, because official statistics are not always published in
6 terms of the population in its own country, let alone in the other
7 countries. So this statement illustrates my conclusion that the Croats,
8 whose number in the 1991 census was as mentioned before, in fact show that
9 this country was ethnically cleansed in peace through national migrations
10 in which both Croats and Serbs participated. So did the Muslims but not
11 to such a high degree. Being a demographer, I was able to procure a lot
12 of inputs for other scientific disciplines to study these phenomena should
13 they be interested in them. My way of thinking, however, is the one you
14 have just heard. After all, demography is a subject taught at faculties
15 and departments of sociology in American universities. This is why I
16 included this in my report, and it's quite possible that the figures
17 contained have relevancy to other questions and issues as well.
18 Q. All right, sir. I won't pursue that further, given the time, but
19 if I could direct your attention to page 11 of your report --
20 A. I have certain difficulties. It's very difficult for me to
21 compare the pages of both versions in front of me.
22 Q. I appreciate that.
23 A. Your pagination is different than mine.
24 Q. I appreciate that, sir. I'll read it. That's one of the reasons
25 I'm reading it out loud. I'm sure if I read something incorrectly from
Page 13575
1 your report, that someone in the courtroom would correct me. But on page
2 11 of your report, sir, you say this: About the middle of the page: "In
3 other words the Croatian demographic ebb was simultaneously balanced by
4 the Muslim demographic flood. Thus without this type of approach, it is
5 impossible, within the stated biodynamic course of Bosnia-Herzegovina, to
6 establish the correct diagnosis which reveals in this country's biological
7 life biological energy of the Muslims and the depletion of the Croat
8 population already falling behind biologically, the most affected by
9 emigration." I'll stop there. I know we are coming up to break time,
10 Mr. President, I believe, but I'll try to finish on this one particular
11 item.
12 Can you tell the Judges, sir, what you mean by -- in reference to
13 the Muslims having biological energy? What does that mean?
14 A. I must admit that my colleagues, demographers, sometimes have
15 problems with my very colourful style of writing. Every person has his
16 own style, every person has his own method. I'm not very happy with your
17 translation into English, because it is indeed very difficult to translate
18 my words, my language, into English, because my language requires more
19 poetic expression. I'm used to living in a multi-ethnic environment and I
20 am always very aware of all the differences. I have selected relatively
21 acceptable demographic terms and notions in order to give some colour to
22 very boring statistics, and the boring statistics show those components
23 which affect the changes in the overall population are portrayed in a more
24 romantic way but still accurately. The differences in the growth of
25 population which result from birth rates, mortality rates, immigration,
Page 13576
1 emigration an unfortunately wars, result in the differences in demographic
2 trends, which in turn work in new quantitative relations, and exert
3 influence not only on birth and mortality rates but on the overall social
4 system, including the economic, political, social, psychological systems,
5 and that's why I thought we should look at all the different trends, which
6 in such very sensitive -- demography is a social science and its social
7 purpose is to respond to the question whether there are any collisions on
8 those grounds.
9 Q. Sir, let me -- I'm trying to finish up here before the break on
10 this point. Let me also, then, as you did, use different terminology,
11 perhaps less romantic, perhaps more layman's terms but is your observation
12 or assertion here, sir, that the Muslims were having -- were and are
13 having more children than the Croats? Is that what you mean by
14 "biological energy"?
15 A. Absolutely, but that is not the result of either religious,
16 national or other reasons. I do not support Malthusian theory. I support
17 the theory of demographic transition which puts the development of the
18 population into socioeconomic context, and in the context of historical
19 changes. We are talking about the national structure of a country struck
20 by sufferings based on the 1991 census and we forget everything that
21 happened ten, 20 or 30 years before that, not to mention the things that
22 happened long time ago. That is why it is very important to put
23 demography within the context of social development, because the data, the
24 percentages, will not speak for themselves. They have to be interpreted
25 by demographers. If statistics were enough, demography would not exist.
Page 13577
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Page 13578
1 The demography and statistics would not exist without economics. Economy
2 would not be necessary if -- if people could live just from the air that
3 they breathe.
4 MR. SCOTT: Mr. President, we can break there, if you wish, and I
5 would tell the Chamber that hopefully with some cooperation from the
6 witness, I would expect to finish well within the next session.
7 JUDGE LIU: We will break until 4.00.
8 --- Recess taken at 3.35 p.m.
9 --- On resuming at 4.04 p.m.
10 JUDGE LIU: Yes, Mr. Scott.
11 MR. SCOTT:
12 Q. Sir, if I could ask you to turn to -- again, I realise it's
13 difficult to have the page references, I don't even have, to be clear,
14 sir, I don't have a Croatian language version so I can't even direct you
15 to it if I could. Otherwise could.
16 But on page 17, again I'll read it to you. Top of page 17 of your
17 report, it says, "All those who intend to supply an 'even simpler
18 formula,' for this tragic corner of Europe through its 'integrity,'
19 'unity,' 'cantonisation' as such, without a quote multi-, multi-,
20 multi-, are engaged in an useless pursuit."
21 Now, can you tell the Chamber, sir, please what did you mean by
22 those who pursue something along the multi-, multi-, multi-? Why was that
23 an useless pursuit?
24 A. I absolutely refuse that my text has purported to do something
25 like that. As individual, as an intellectual, I believe in the
Page 13579
1 possibility just opposite to the one that you have just read to me. But
2 looking at the specific society, I find in it a lot of reasons for what I
3 have written. I believe that a society is not a summer cottage that you
4 will build overnight. It takes time. When I was giving my testimony
5 yesterday, and when I mentioned that half of the population in Bosnia and
6 Herzegovina were illiterate at the beginning of the 1950s, of the last
7 century, I also mentioned that at the time half of the people in this
8 country was illiterate and heavily encumbered by the tragedy of the Second
9 World War and that the way this society had been built had to be based on
10 different considerations, because the tragedy that struck the country in
11 the 1990s was not innate only to these people and only to the country from
12 which I come. That would be my shortest possible answer to your
13 question. What it says here is correct, but this is the way I understand
14 what is written.
15 Q. Sir, if the witness could please be shown Exhibit -- excuse me,
16 because I'm skipping over a few things -- Exhibit P940? Sir, this appears
17 to be an article that you wrote or published titled, "The demographic
18 Cascade of the Croatian Archipelago in Bosnia-Herzegovina, To Stay or To
19 Go." And again, I only have what was off the internet, English version,
20 let me direct your attention, I'll read a particular portion to you,
21 please, on page -- it's on page 6 of the English version. I'll make sure?
22 MR. KRSNIK: Your Honours?
23 JUDGE LIU: Yes?
24 MR. KRSNIK: Sorry to interrupt. [Interpretation] I don't know
25 whether there is a Croatian version. We only have an English version. I
Page 13580
1 do not object. I just want to say that my learned friend said English
2 version. Is there a Croatian version? If there is, can we have it? If
3 not, I do not object. I just want to be clear.
4 MR. SCOTT: Counsel, if I misspoke, I apologise. The only version
5 that I found on the internet that we found on the internet was the English
6 version. I did not have a Croatian version. If I did, I certainly would
7 provide it to you. At least it wasn't.
8 JUDGE LIU: Mr. Scott, you may read that paragraph to the witness
9 so that the interpreter could help you.
10 MR. SCOTT:
11 Q. Well, just so I'm not inconsistent, Mr. President, let me just
12 note, and I see it now, frankly for the first time myself, that at the end
13 of this document, internet, there seems to be a Hrvatska Budnica -- some
14 sort of connection, interlink, internet connection so I may be inaccurate
15 on that, frankly that's the first time I've seen that, but I will read the
16 one passage, the single passage that I will put to the witness is on page
17 6. It says, "These interests --," I'm looking at the first full paragraph,
18 starting on page 6. "These interests include securing, geographic
19 transit, economic, cultural denominational, traditional and other relevant
20 presumptions in order to transform unfavourable conditions to favourable
21 conditions."
22 Sorry, my apology. "To transform unfavourable conditions to
23 favourable conditions for living in one's own historical domain." I'm
24 going to skip a part of it in a moment but it goes on to it say, "We must
25 also consider the fact that these Croat areas benefit," et cetera.
Page 13581
1 Mr. President I'm now going towards the end of the paragraph, last couple
2 of sentences from the end of the paragraph, where it says, "We must know
3 and understand our destiny and take it into our own hands." Sir, what did
4 you mean when you said here that the Croat people in Bosnia-Herzegovina
5 should take destiny into their own hands?
6 A. Mr. Prosecutor, I must say that what you have given me, as far
7 as -- allow me to show you. My first name, my last name, and the title of
8 the work, I know. But the rest of it, I see for the first time. The
9 Croatian version exists here in the courtroom. We can, if need may be,
10 take it and give it to the Honourable Chamber. In the book --
11 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Mr. Professor, if we have it, can you
12 please tell us where it is? We will give it to the interpreters so that
13 they can read it. Take the contents of the book and look at the
14 demographic cascade. Are you referring to this book here?
15 A. Yes, the Croatian demographic cascade in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
16 in brackets,"To Stay or To Go." This was published. It is written in
17 pencil in 1993 or 1994.
18 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Can I please ask the usher to assist
19 me and give the professor the book so he may locate the paragraph he will
20 probably find it easier than me. Thank you very much, Your Honours.
21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you very much. Yes. I've
22 found it. The chapter is called, "Persecutions and the allusion is to the
23 political schemes which always in any war end up in a tragedy." And my
24 concern is reflected in the title, but my title more poetic and speaks
25 about the people who is also my people. This was published in the --
Page 13582
1 journal "Croatian Song," in Mostar in November, 1994. I repeat, in this
2 book, you can find it, and as far as I know, I've learned from the
3 Croatian cultural society, Nopridak, from Sarajevo, you can also find it
4 on their internet page. Allow me, if I may, to refer to question, Mr.
5 Prosecutor. You were interested in my opinion on the text that you have
6 read to me. I was thinking about the answer, so unfortunately I did not
7 hear the number of the page so that I could now locate the quoted
8 paragraph. It is not going to be very easy because, again, the
9 translation does not reflect my style of writing, but still, I would have
10 to locate that paragraph in order to be able to answer your question,
11 because in addition to the solemn declaration that I took here, I also
12 have an obligation as a scientist to explain the things that I have
13 written.
14 Please assist me.
15 MR. SCOTT:
16 Q. Sir, I can't assist you with the Croatian language version because
17 I do not have one, nor could I read it. It is on page 6 of the English
18 version. It is in a section that's numbered, it's immediately above a
19 section number 3, "War and Croats." So perhaps if you could find the
20 section number 3, "War and Croats," you can use that as a mark. And then
21 go further up the page until you see that language.
22 A. [In English] Okay, okay, okay. [Interpretation] That's the last
23 paragraph in the previous chapter.
24 Q. That's right.
25 A. Can I take some time to read this paragraph? You would help me by
Page 13583
1 allowing me to do this. I would find it easier to concentrate. This is
2 nothing new. This has been before the general public for a long time, but
3 I have forgotten it. This was some seven or eight years ago.
4 Q. Well, I don't want to cut you short, sir, but because of the
5 interests of time, let me direct your -- let me direct you to one other
6 part of that document, which, given the choice of time, I'd rather direct
7 your attention to, please, because I can see it's going to take a long
8 time to deal with that paragraph. If you --
9 A. This is not a document. This is just my scientific contribution
10 which was published in a professional paper, and then republished in this
11 book in two languages, the Croatian and the English. This is my
12 scientific point of view, my position, as a scientist.
13 Q. All right. Thank you for clarifying that this is your position.
14 If I could direct your attention to part 4 of this report, publication,
15 whatever word you'd like to use, part number 4, first paragraph, this is
16 the paragraph that starts in the English translation "through an awareness
17 of the strategic, it says -- I'm assuming "goals," but I don't want to
18 interpret. But it's that paragraph, in any event, "Through an awareness."
19 Do you find that, under heading 4? Do you have that, sir?
20 A. Yes, I can see it, but my subtitles are not numbered. So that.
21 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... move on.
22 A. Whoever published it on internet --
23 Q. In the second sentence starting in that paragraph, sir, says
24 this: "If Muslims do not understand that the life of the Federation of
25 Bosnia and Herzegovina is connected to the Republic of Croatia by an
Page 13584
1 umbilical, then there is no room to question whether Croats, in
2 parenthesis, Croatia, end parenthesis, lost Bosnia. In this case, the
3 main objective becomes connecting the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina to
4 the Republic of Croatia, a system of tasks that must be accomplished," et
5 cetera. Was it your position, sir, you've just told us this paper states
6 your position, that the federation that resulted from Dayton, the
7 Muslim-Croat part of Bosnia-Herzegovina should in fact be joined to the
8 Republic of Croatia?
9 A. Mr. Prosecutor, my version, in my own language, is completely
10 different. If I can remember the Dayton Accords did not take place in
11 November, but December, of 1994, and this was written and submitted to the
12 magazine in July or in August of that same year.
13 JUDGE LIU: Well, Witness, you claim that your version, in your
14 own language is completely different. Would you please read that
15 paragraph and let the interpreters help us to understand how different it
16 is?
17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honours, with pleasure. "This
18 that is so --" that's the second sentence of the second paragraph, "then
19 we would have to reprogramme the interests of the then Croatians of the
20 Republic of Croatia and of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. What
21 we are dealing here --"
22 MR. SCOTT: Mr. President, excuse me [Previous translation
23 continues] ... perhaps that's the problem.
24 JUDGE LIU: Yes.
25 MR. SCOTT:
Page 13585
1 Q. Sir, I'm looking at the first paragraph under item number 4, if
2 your heading isn't numbered, do you have the heading that says, "How to
3 raise the floodgates to prevent the Croat departure"? Do you have that
4 heading?
5 A. Yes. It's right in front of me.
6 Q. Skipping the first sentence starting with the words in English,
7 "Through an awareness," the second sentence of that paragraph, I'll just
8 read the first couple of words again to see if we are on the same
9 paragraph then I agree with Mr. President that that's the way we should
10 proceed, "If Muslims do not understand," now, can you find those words?
11 A. Is that the second sentence? "If Muslims accept that the life of
12 the federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina," it is not "understand" but
13 "accept".
14 Q. As the President directed you, sir, read that sentence out loud so
15 that the interpreters can translate it to us in English so that we can see
16 if there is in fact any material difference in what we have in front of
17 us.
18 A. "If Muslims accept that the life of the Federation of Bosnia and
19 Herzegovina is connected by an Umbilical cord and depends on the Republic
20 of Croatia, then there is no reason to doubt or to question whether Croats
21 or Croatia have lost Bosnia. In that case, there is a -- one main
22 objective and that is to join the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina to
23 the Republic of Croatia, and create such a system of tasks which have to
24 be carried out, and instruments by which they will be implemented."
25 Q. All right. That's as far as I had read to you. If I can just ask
Page 13586
1 your assistance one last time, in the beginning of that paragraph -- the
2 beginning of that sentence, just the first five or six words I'm not sure
3 we were once again following the same passage. "If Muslims," can you just
4 start with that first part?
5 A. "The awareness of the strategic role of Croats in Bosnia and
6 Herzegovina, especially in the area where they are more densely present,
7 is the most natural background for a long-term establishment of the
8 geopolitical stability of the Croatian state."
9 Q. Would you read the next few words as well? In the next sentence?
10 A. "Again, as again, in that case, there is a main objective, to join
11 the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Republic of Croatia
12 and --"
13 JUDGE LIU: I think the next sentence is, "If Muslims do not
14 understand," at least according to my English version. I think you read
15 something like, "If Muslims accept that the life of the Federation of
16 Bosnia." Would you please read this sentence, please?
17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] You are right, Your Honour. "If
18 Muslims accept that the life of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina
19 is connected by an umbilical cord and really depends on the Republic of
20 Croatia, then there is no room to question whether Croats, as a whole,"
21 that's what I would add now, "And the Republic of Croatia have lost
22 Bosnia."
23 Q. All right, sir, and the question that was based on -- based on all
24 that or connected to it all that long process was: It is your position
25 that it was then the main objective or should be the main objective of the
Page 13587
1 Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina to become connected to the Republic of
2 Croatia? And that was the position you stated in 1994. Is that correct?
3 A. Mr. Prosecutor, this is the position that I have taken over from
4 the Washington Agreement which served to stop the war between the two
5 peoples, that later on were joined in the federation.
6 Q. Sir, and again I'm cutting -- Mr. President I'm cutting -- I can
7 tell the Chamber through a substantial amount of -- out of material. But
8 let me ask you this, sir. In your report you repeatedly used the
9 terminology that we talked about earlier this afternoon such as
10 biological, forgive me I don't want to misquote you. Biological energy,
11 the Muslim demographic flood, and let me put it to you, sir, isn't that
12 rhetoric very similar to the rhetoric that, for instance, the Serbs and
13 Bosnian Serbs used to incite racial strife and violence against the
14 Muslims, that there was a demographic time bomb and these Muslims were
15 going to take over the country? Isn't that exactly the same rhetoric that
16 was used by the Serbs?
17 A. Mr. Prosecutor, I have tried to explain how I perceived these
18 notions, these terms, and I told you that it never occurred to me, and I
19 reinforce that message, that it never occurred to me to purport something
20 like that, because as a human being, as a member of one people, as a
21 person who has lived there for a long time, I have my own pride for not
22 having any such thoughts. There may be an error in the language, in the
23 understanding, in the style, but my intention was never the way you
24 portrayed it. I would like to be able to speak in shorter terms but this
25 is not part of my profession. I'm a demographer and I have to seek to
Page 13588
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Page 13589
1 present the boring statistics in a more acceptable and a more
2 understandable way. Every people has its own biology. People are born,
3 people die, within a social context. Facts only make sense if they are
4 put within a context. And that is also true of the sentence that you have
5 just read to me.
6 Q. If I could have the usher's assistance to distribute to the
7 witness and to the courtroom Exhibit P927/2? Sir, I've just handed to you
8 an excerpt of one of the books by Karlo Rotim that you say that you
9 assisted with, you said you worked with him on two books. Two books.
10 It's correct that it was two volumes, sir?
11 JUDGE LIU: Yes, Mr. Krsnik?
12 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] I apologise to my learned friend for
13 interrupting him. The witness has been explaining for half an hour to the
14 Prosecutor what his task was in connection with this book, and he was very
15 clear in stating that he had nothing to do with the accuracy of these
16 texts and now the Prosecution is submitting these texts and is wasting our
17 time. Perhaps we are even going to read these texts, for which the
18 witness, in advance, emphasised that he had nothing to do with them, and
19 he at great length explained what the role of a scientific reviewer was.
20 MR. SCOTT: Well, Mr. President, I disagree with counsel's -- the
21 testimony will certainly speak for itself. The think the role indicated
22 by this witness, and -- and his view of the author as being a reliable
23 producer of such work, is more substantial than counsel just indicated.
24 JUDGE LIU: That all depends on what kind of question you're going
25 to put to this witness.
Page 13590
1 MR. SCOTT: That's correct, sir.
2 Q. So, sir, you've indicated that you were involved with Mr. Rotim
3 concerning two books, and they were -- it was a two-volume set, number one
4 and number 2, titled, "The Defence of Herceg-Bosna." Wasn't it?
5 A. Mr. Prosecutor, I did not work with Mr. Rotim. I worked on my
6 own, reviewing this book. Mr. Rotim himself, and on his own, prepared his
7 book.
8 Q. And on the -- you can direct -- you can certainly direct your
9 attention, if it assists you, to the Croatian version attachment but you
10 are listed on the first page or what would be perhaps the beginning cover
11 pages, internal cover pages of the book that most of us would be familiar
12 with as one of the reviewers, professor doctor Ante Markotic, correct?
13 A. We heard about this before the break, yes. This is what I said,
14 and I can repeat it.
15 Q. And you're listed as reviewer and other people are listed as
16 language editing and proofreading, somebody else is interested or other
17 persons, excuse me, are listed as computer layout, and you're listed as
18 reviewer, correct?
19 A. Absolutely correct, for the third time.
20 Q. Now, I'm only going to take your attention to a couple of
21 passages, of course the Chamber can look at the document more widely, but
22 if you turn to the -- what would be for you, sir, the third page of the
23 Croatian language version under the heading, "Professional units," and
24 below that, "Convicts Battalion."
25 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Your Honours, the Prosecutor has been
Page 13591
1 using the cross-examination for something he has been confirmed 100 times
2 so far. Namely that the reviewer has nothing to do with the text and the
3 author who is only an exclusively responsible for it. This is now being
4 read out and submitted to sort of abuse cross-examination. For 100 times,
5 this witness had explained it to you. Your Honours, the Prosecutor cannot
6 interrupt me while I'm talking, with your permission, of course. This is
7 a classic abuse of --
8 MR. SCOTT: [Previous translation continues] ... Mr. President, I
9 don't have any choice. Let's excuse the witness. We can't have this
10 discussion in front of the witness and then ask the witness about it.
11 JUDGE LIU: We will not debate on this very issue. In my
12 jurisdiction, an expert witness should be unbiased witness. That is he
13 only comes here to testify on specific technical or scientific issues
14 which is in his field of expertise. Mr. Scott, we understand this witness
15 came here as a demographer. That is his field. So if you are going to
16 ask some questions about some population statistics in this book, you are
17 allowed, but as to the contents of this book, we believe it has nothing to
18 do with this witness.
19 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, the witness, if I can respond, to make a
20 record on this, the witness has indicated extensive involvement in
21 publications, something like 130 articles, he's acknowledged working with
22 Mr. Rotim on this book, contrary -- I respectfully submitted to the
23 Chamber that contrary to what counsel was saying a few moments ago, he
24 indicated much more greater involvement and responsibility for this work,
25 and I'm happy to go back and pull up the transcript if we need to. That
Page 13592
1 it was a responsibility of every person, I think, was very close to his
2 words, every person involved in such a project, to be -- take steps or be
3 as sure as possible, reasonably possible, that a work is accurate and
4 reliable, to put your name to it associate your name with it and I
5 specifically asked him would you associate your name with any work that
6 you did not find to be reliable or problematic or fraudulent in some way
7 and he said of course not. Now, further --
8 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Excuse me.
9 MR. SCOTT: Excuse me, Mr. President, let me finish making my
10 record on this. In addition to that, Rule 90(H)(2) Provides specifically
11 this: I'll wait for you to find that, Mr. President, (H)(2), in the
12 cross-examination of a witness who is able to give evidence relevant to
13 the case for the cross-examining party, counsel shall put to that witness
14 the nature of the case, to the party for whom that counsel appears, which
15 is in contradiction of the evidence given by the witness. That's one
16 point. That's one step.
17 There is also, Your Honour -- excuse me, Mr. President, my
18 apology. There is another part of the rule, Mr. President, and I admit
19 that at the moment, I'm not going right to it, but clearly in examination
20 of witnesses, the rules provide, I hope to find it in a moment, that also
21 when a witness is present, has come to The Hague and is able to give
22 relevant testimony on something beyond the scope of his perhaps direct
23 examination, he may be allowed to do so. And I would indicate to the
24 Chamber, if we are not allowed to do this while Mr. Markotic is in The
25 Hague on this occasion, then we will seek to call him as a Prosecution
Page 13593
1 witness. We will call him back on this subjects. This is highly
2 relevant. I know that counsel apparently wants to object to this
3 evidence but this witness has shown a strong connection to this
4 publication and it is appropriate to put simply a couple of questions to
5 him, and if we are not allowed to do it now we will seek to recall him as
6 part of the Prosecution rebuttal case.
7 JUDGE LIU: Well, Mr. Scott, as I understand the rules, Rule
8 90(H)(2) is applying to the ordinary witnesses, not to the expert
9 witness. I believe that an expert witness is called and his testimony
10 should be limited to the fields he's familiar with, he's an expert in that
11 field. I quite understand that the document you showed is relevant to
12 this case. We have no doubt about it. But at this moment, this witness
13 is not going to testify on that issue. It is so decided.
14 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Mr. President, then as I say, we will seek
15 to recall him.
16 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Your Honour --
17 JUDGE LIU: We are not going to debate on this issue. This Court
18 has made a ruling already.
19 MR. SCOTT: Mr. President, may I simply inquire, then, is the
20 Court satisfied that the record has been made that, in fact, this
21 professor, Ante Markotic is the same professor who did act as the reviewer
22 of this publication?
23 JUDGE LIU: Of course, we have already noted that and this witness
24 gave testimony in this aspect. It has been registered in the transcript.
25 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Mr. President.
Page 13594
1 JUDGE LIU: If you want to tender this document, we would like to
2 consider it.
3 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Mr. President. I will move on. I
4 appreciate the Court's ruling and of course I will abide by it.
5 Q. Sir, my final question or two to you is this: Isn't it true, sir,
6 that you have been and are for, at least as of 1999, were for a separate
7 Croat entity in Bosnia-Herzegovina?
8 A. Mr. Prosecutor, in a variety of your non-demographic questions, I
9 tried to establish a demographic context. Of course, I have always been a
10 major advocate of Bosnia-Herzegovina when others were advocates of
11 Yugoslavia. I also was a major advocate of the fact that the victims
12 should not go through the conflict, and yet they went through it.
13 Yesterday, I stated that I had a premonition that the war would break out,
14 that I was against it and that I participated in the effort to stop it.
15 This is what I'm personally very proud of. For these reasons, a country
16 with such a sensitive fabric needs a more careful approach. Throughout
17 the war, and the postwar period, it turned out that the internal
18 territorial political structure of this unfortunate land has become a
19 crucial, a key, problem. This is why I thought, and I still hold this
20 belief, that this sort of a concept that I respect, because I'm an
21 intellectual, will not give any fruit, and neither in the report nor now
22 have I tried to conceal my views. But these are my views and my views
23 alone.
24 Q. Isn't it your view, sir, that the two cultures, the Muslim culture
25 and the Croat culture are incompatible and they cannot exist on the same
Page 13595
1 territory?
2 A. This is not my culture, nor is it my view. I have been discussing
3 the territorial structure.
4 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... 803.02? 803.02? Sir, this
5 purports to be from an interview that you gave on the 21st of December,
6 1995, the Croatian version is available to you there if you'd like to
7 refer to it. For the Court room, I would direct in the English version to
8 the second page of the English version, and to the paragraph -- on the
9 second page there is Mr. Markotic begins talking and then there is the
10 first paragraph and it there is the second paragraph. It says these
11 words: "The federation of Croats and Muslims but not the territory on
12 which they live together seems to be the embryo of destabilisation of the
13 Croatian national being. Those two cultures are incompatible and they
14 could hardly be joined by the common territory." Isn't that what you
15 said, sir, in December, 1995?
16 A. Mr. Prosecutor, on the basis of what you have shown to me here,
17 yes, but if I may add, science attributes to a newspapers as sources of
18 secondary nature. A journalist who quoted me here could have quoted me in
19 many other terms and ways.
20 Q. Sir, I'm going to ask you specifically, do you affirm these are
21 your words or not? Was it your position as stated in December, 1995,
22 that the Muslim culture and the Croat cultures were incompatible?
23 A. In 1995, I don't think I have put it in these words, but of
24 course, anybody can write whatever they want here because this is not what
25 I believe and I hope that through everything I said so far, I was able
Page 13596
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Page 13597
1 convince this Trial Chamber of the contrary, but of course people have the
2 right to write whatever they want and in whichever manner they feel. But
3 of course, I was not the reviewer of this text. But what sort of
4 compatibility or incompatibility is being referred to here, of course, is
5 a matter that can be debated for days, for months and for years.
6 Q. If I can have the usher's assistance, please in showing the
7 witness 851.2? Is it not in your bundle?
8 JUDGE LIU: It seems to me that it's not in the bundle.
9 MR. SCOTT: If it isn't, sir, my apology. It was an error. Could
10 you please put that on the ELMO? Mr. Usher, there is apparently some
11 additional copies. I'm told, Mr. President, that the Defence and the
12 booths have been provided copies, I hope.
13 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] The Defence hasn't got a copy.
14 MR. SCOTT: Then please, we will get extra copies, if it can be
15 placed on the ELMO, please, Mr. Usher?
16 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I insist on having a
17 copy in my hands. I can not follow the text through an ELMO.
18 JUDGE LIU: Yes it's a legitimate request. I think Judge Diarra
19 will let you have hers.
20 MR. SCOTT: Thank you Judge Diarra.
21 MR. KRSNIK: Thank you, Your Honours.
22 MR. SCOTT:
23 Q. Sir, again I only have this at the moment in English, but there is
24 only one passage I'd like to direct your attention to. Sir, this appears
25 to be another interview with you on the 8th of March, 1999, and were you
Page 13598
1 not asked about the question of the situation of the Croats in
2 Bosnia-Herzegovina -- excuse me, Mr. President, I see counsel on his feet
3 so I won't finish my question.
4 JUDGE LIU: Yes, Mr. Krsnik?
5 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour. I apologise
6 to the learned friend. These again are new documents. We do not know
7 their sources, where this was written, where this was published, where the
8 interview took place, foundations must first be laid before the question
9 is being put to the witness. This is not the way to work. Whichever
10 paper drops from heaven into this courtroom should then be considered as
11 an exhibit. Who participated in the interview? Who was the interviewer?
12 When it took place and so on, please.
13 MR. SCOTT: Mr. President --
14 JUDGE LIU: Yesterday we were provided with a list, and this list
15 is listed this document. Unfortunately we don't have the contents in that
16 bundle. This says Radio Bosnia-Herzegovina programme featuring the
17 witness. Then in this document, it seems to me that it is the BBC summary
18 of the broadcasts. That's the question I want to ask the Prosecutor to
19 explain.
20 MR. SCOTT: Yes, Mr. President --
21 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Your Honours, no --
22 JUDGE LIU: Let us hear the Prosecutor first.
23 MR. SCOTT: Mr. President, the Chamber is at this point in these
24 proceedings seen a number of these documents. The BBC as the Chamber may
25 know better than me, the BBC provides a service by which it monitors and
Page 13599
1 follows broadcasts around the world and provides summaries or publications
2 concerning those broadcasts. This particular issue, if you will, was put
3 out on the 10th of March, 1999. The source was a radio interview, radio
4 broadcast from Radio Bosnia-Herzegovina in Sarajevo, in the Serbo-Croatian
5 language at 2.00 Greenwich Mean Time on the 8th of March, 1999 and it
6 purports to be an interview with the Witness, and if he doesn't recall
7 these words or denies that they are his words, then he can certainly do
8 that.
9 JUDGE LIU: Thank you. Yes, Mr. Krsnik?
10 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Your Honours, yes, yes. Radio
11 Bosnia-Herzegovina does not exist. I will prove it to you by way of
12 hundreds and thousands of evidence, pieces of evidence. There is no such
13 radio station that would be called Radio Bosnia-Herzegovina.
14 JUDGE LIU: Well --
15 JUDGE CLARK: Could we all calm down for a moment and let's do
16 this thing properly. Mr. Scott isn't allowed to give evidence any more
17 than the defence is allowed to give evidence. But Mr. Scott what you
18 should have done in my view and in my humble opinion is that you first of
19 all should have asked this witness does he have any recollection of an
20 interview on such and such a date, with such and such a person, and lay
21 the foundation properly that way. It isn't right to, in my opinion, to
22 present a document and then to purport to give evidence as to its source.
23 This witness must first be given an opportunity to say, "Never in my life
24 have I ever had an interview with anybody from the BBC or on Radio
25 Bosnia-Herzegovina or I have frequently given interviews and I recall it."
Page 13600
1 That's the time-honoured way to introduce a document.
2 MR. SCOTT: Judge Clark, I appreciate your guidance on that. I
3 don't disagree with you, of course. The only reason I gave the answers
4 that I gave was in response to the direction of the President based on the
5 issue raised by council. Had that not happened I would simply have
6 put it in front of the witness and asked about the conversation without
7 having gone into all that. But I appreciate your guidance. I'll simply
8 ask him that.
9 Q. Sir, do you recall giving an interview on a radio station in
10 Bosnia-Herzegovina sometime in 1999, around the 8th of March, 1999?
11 A. Since August, 1992, I never gave any interview to Radio
12 Bosnia-Herzegovina.
13 Q. So you simply deny that this interview took place at all? Is that
14 your position?
15 A. I do not know at all what interview you're referring to.
16 Q. Well, this purports to be -- and again I don't want to give
17 evidence either, as Judge Clark says, this purports to be a record of an
18 interview you gave and all I can ask you, as the Chamber has guided me,
19 is, is it just simply your position that no such interview ever took place
20 in which you talked about the need for a separate Croat entity?
21 JUDGE LIU: Yes.
22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Not to Radio Bosnia-Herzegovina, no.
23 JUDGE CLARK: Mr. Scott, can I help you this way? If one reads
24 the document, it actually describes who was there at a round table
25 discussion.
Page 13601
1 MR. SCOTT: Of course.
2 JUDGE CLARK: So perhaps if you put to this witness, does he
3 remember giving a radio interview at which the following people were
4 present and the interview took place in Sarajevo around the 8th of March,
5 1999, he may object to the name of the station, as Mr. Krsnik clearly
6 does.
7 MR. SCOTT: Yes.
8 Q. Let me make certain, simply going from working from this document,
9 and I'd certainly do not profess to have any information different than
10 what's -- I can simply read. Sir, do you recall being involved in a
11 conference in Sarajevo around March, 1999, where a number of people were
12 present, including the Croat member, the then Croat member of the Bosnian
13 Presidency, Ante Jelavic, other people were the mayor of Mostar at that
14 time, Ivan Prskalo, other people, another person was Jusuf Muslimovic, at
15 which there were discussions apparently of various issues concerning
16 Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Dayton agreement at that time? Do you remember
17 attending such a gathering in Sarajevo in approximately March, 1999?
18 A. I remember great many things that have to do with Sarajevo because
19 I've been living in Sarajevo for 30 years but this is simply not true. In
20 Sarajevo, I never ever, after the year 1992, said in an interview, I had
21 an opportunity to give an interview, I've been invited to give them, but
22 no.
23 Q. Let me ask you, apart from this document, sir, in 1999, was it
24 your position, you told us a few moments ago that you were candid about
25 your views, was it your position that without a Croat entity, a Croat
Page 13602
1 identity or the survival of Croats in Bosnia-Herzegovina is not possible?
2 Was that your view in 1999?
3 A. Not the way you have put it, but in essence, yes, and this is true
4 even today, because a nation who lost half its members in the course of
5 the war, whose birth rates have been dropping, who has been emigrating
6 over 50 years, well, you can statistically calculate that should this
7 trend continue, will have disappeared sooner or later. And this is the
8 whole truth. How people can understand it, of course, is a matter of
9 manipulating the facts and statements. And of course, I am a familiar
10 person in Bosnia-Herzegovina. I can't say that people haven't been
11 manipulating with my statements, views, et cetera. It's very easy to
12 claim that and Anto Markotic said something in connection with that.
13 Yesterday, in my testimony, I said that I am Ante F. Markotic. And this
14 is how I have been signing all my publications and all my books, because
15 there are other persons by the name of Ante Markovic -- Markotic, sorry,
16 with the same academic titles. I do not want to harm any one of them.
17 However, I also do not want to be held responsible for their omissions.
18 That is the reason.
19 Q. Sir, just to be clear, then, and this is I think my final question
20 to you: You said just a moment ago, and I'm looking at line 23 of page 51
21 of the transcript, "in essence, yes, this is true even today." That's
22 your position, correct, sir?
23 A. What are you asking me about?
24 MR. SCOTT: Mr. President, I have no further questions. However,
25 I would feel the need to tell the Chamber -- and I apologise for not
Page 13603
1 having a rule. I was off by one. I'm afraid when I referred the Chamber to
2 H, the Rule 90(H) sub-Roman numeral ii, I should have been referring the
3 Chamber at least in part to H (i), which simply provides that
4 cross-examination shall be limited to the subject matter of
5 evidence-in-chief and matters affecting the credibility of the witness and
6 where the witness is able to give evidence relevant to the case of the
7 cross-examining party to the subject matter of the case. I'm not
8 arguing with the Court's ruling but I couldn't find that before and I'm
9 just simply pointing it out. Thank you, Mr. President.
10 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much. Re-examination, Mr. Krsnik?
11 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour, I'm glad that the
12 Prosecutor has read this H (i) And I wish he had been sticking to that
13 rule while he was cross-examining my 35 witnesses.
14 Re-examined by Mr. Krsnik:
15 Q. [Interpretation] Professor, I know that you have been here for two
16 days and you're finding it difficult.
17 A. No, I'm not.
18 Q. Thank you for your understanding. I'm trying to understand your
19 profession, I'm trying to understand your colourful style, and now I
20 understand how important it is when you are interpreting boring figures to
21 the lay persons, how important it is to be interesting and colourful. I'm
22 going to give you this map number P947, and I'm going to ask you one
23 question. If this is scientifically valuable, if the map has not been
24 made according to the rules of demographic profession, in order to provide
25 this Chamber with an accurate answer, I'm going to ask my learned friend
Page 13604
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Page 13605
1 to give us the name of the person who has authored this map, not just the
2 Prosecution, but the name, the first and the last name, of the author of
3 the map.
4 I assume that this may be Mrs. Ewa Tabeau, that is my assumption
5 but I would like confirmation of that from my learned friend.
6 MR. SCOTT: I believe that would be true, Mr. President, either
7 her or people working directly with her. Off the top of my head, I
8 couldn't be more specific than that.
9 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.
10 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] In that case, Mr. Prosecutor.
11 Q. Mr. Witness, I'm sorry, of this map, and I know a lot about
12 Mrs. Ewa Tabeau. My question to you is as follows and I'm asking you for
13 a very concise answer, please focus on the essence and then give us the
14 explanation. If such a map does not follow the rules of science, the
15 rules of the United Nations, can such a map be valid? Does it have any
16 value?
17 A. You are putting me a very professional question, and I'll try to
18 be as brief as possible. My maps lack a lot. This map lacks a lot. But
19 I have to ask all of you not to read the fate of a state or of a people
20 from simplified, colourful maps. They will not tell you anything about
21 the destiny, about the history, culture and relationships amongst
22 peoples. They are just a methodological simplified procedure which
23 reveals the complexity of the structure of any one society. They cannot
24 suffice, they are not enough, what I usually say to my students is this:
25 What you cannot explain well enough, try to represent it graphically, in
Page 13606
1 simplified ways. Another rule: What you draw, you don't have to explain,
2 and what is clear does not have to be drawn.
3 Q. Professor, can you give me a specific answer, if possible? It
4 says on the map, 1997, as the year of its publication. If such a map did
5 not respect the rules of the profession in 1997, would this map have any
6 value?
7 A. The value of this map would be relative but that is the same thing
8 that applies to my map dating from 1996, because it was based on
9 non-official data, which have not been checked.
10 Q. Professor, these maps serve to determine the destiny of people in
11 this Court. Can you please establish a connection between that map and
12 the map that I'm going to ask the usher to give to you? This is P1899.
13 What is the connection between these two maps? And before that, have you
14 ever seen the demographic map of the so-called banovina?
15 JUDGE CLARK: He answered that quite clearly, he's never seen a
16 map of the banovina. Also, you seem to be almost cross-examining your
17 witness, Mr. Krsnik. He said to us that the map from the OTP and his maps
18 are both illustrative, they are not intended to be used as anything
19 else except to show people who are less clever than he is, his point.
20 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour Judge Clark. I'm
21 using the style of cross-examination. I thought maybe this would guide
22 professor better. I would help him. I would help him to give me concise
23 answers. But --
24 JUDGE CLARK: Mr. Krsnik, I think you should know your expert.
25 Like a lot of professors, he's not easily influenced.
Page 13607
1 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I will be very happy if
2 the professor gives me an opportunity to become his acquaintance, if not
3 his friend, because I've learned a lot from him. What I'm trying to say,
4 Your Honour, is there is a huge difference between the map from 1996 and
5 1997. And this 1997 map is used to determine the destiny of some people
6 in this court, and still there is a huge drastic difference between these
7 two maps. This is what I'm trying to say.
8 Q. Tell me, please, look at the second map and tell us whether there
9 is any connection, any link, between the map that I have just given to you
10 and the map that you had before?
11 A. I did not want to say anything when I saw the resemblance between
12 this map and my map. What I'm trying to say is that none of them can
13 serve to prove anything for the other, no matter what from what direction
14 you approach it.
15 Q. No. This is not what I meant. Is there any connection between
16 the map of the so-called banovina and the so-called demographic map?
17 A. You can make anything with Lego bricks. What I'm saying is that
18 maps of this kind are not a stable source.
19 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Can we please check some transcripts
20 from some other cases? Because now the counsels have started joining
21 forces. Our opponent is very strong, has databases, has computers, so
22 I'm going to offer you one transcript to illustrate how the Prosecution
23 in some other cases claims and asserts very different things and I'm going
24 to show you how they conflict each other from one case to another. I've
25 just received an expert's letter from another case, and I believe that it
Page 13608
1 will be very important that you read it in this case as well.
2 JUDGE LIU: Yes, Mr. Scott?
3 MR. SCOTT: Mr. President, again, let me explain. I don't like to
4 interrupt counsel and I try not to do that but again we get to these
5 situation where we are having these discussions in front of the witness
6 and there is no choice. Once the words are said, it's too late. So
7 counsel, subject to the Chamber's direction, counsel can certainly
8 submitted whatever he wants to you, subject again to your views but we
9 don't need to have this discussion in front of the witness. Thank you.
10 JUDGE LIU: Yes. Yes. I don't think it is wrong for Mr. Krsnik
11 to raise this issue after the witness has left this courtroom.
12 Do you have any other questions, Mr. Krsnik?
13 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I feel the need to
14 apologise. I just wanted to say that I believe that I have the same
15 rights as the -- my learned friend. Never has the Prosecution witness
16 left this courtroom when we had similar discussions before, but I do
17 apologise if I have made a mistake or if I have been rude. I have another
18 question, Your Honour. We are approaching the break time, and if this
19 courtroom will allow me, I will put that question to the witness.
20 JUDGE LIU: Yes, please proceed.
21 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] I wanted to ask you to have the break
22 first, to allow me to concentrate on that question and then to put the
23 question to the witness after the break, if I may suggest that.
24 JUDGE LIU: Well, if you prefer, it seems to me that you ask very
25 complicated questions. Then we will break.
Page 13609
1 JUDGE CLARK: I just want to ask a couple of questions, professor
2 Markotic so that my question may then subsequently become the subject
3 matter of the other questions at the break. And the President has given
4 me leave, and if you don't mind, Mr. Scott, and Mr. Krsnik, this document
5 which has caused us all to become quite cross, indicates, professor
6 Markotic that was reviewed by professor doctor Ante Markotic. Before we
7 go into any discussion which will happen later, can I just establish that
8 that is you?
9 WITNESS: [interpretation] Absolutely, yes.
10 JUDGE CLARK: Well, this is the question which has since the
11 document has been produced has caused me to be very curious. Why would a
12 scientist of your standing, professor Markotic, an expert in demography,
13 review a paper on military history? I'm curious about that.
14 WITNESS: [interpretation] Thank you for your question, Your Honour.
15 Luckily enough today we can communicate by e-mail so you don't have to see
16 the person whose text you're asked to review. Where I come from, things
17 are different. I graduated from a university but in my village, there is
18 no electricity. People lived like they do. And an old -- and a grammar
19 school teacher asks somebody to be his reviewer if they hold him in high
20 esteem and another part of the story could be educational. Many texts,
21 unlike previously, have been written about this war and published about
22 this war. There are no standards. There is no protection of copyright.
23 There is no possibility to correct the mistakes or correct the opinions
24 for which at one point, I thought that it was my interview given in
25 Sarajevo in 1999. Similar things after the end of the war, and especially
Page 13610
1 during the war, were ample, and many. It is possible to answer your
2 question in different ways. Now, I believe I share your views. When I
3 reviewed this book, I thought differently. Now I'm closer to your views.
4 Obviously at that time I thought that somebody who collected documents
5 that these documents should be kept for posterity. Any kinds of
6 documents. And you may well know that these books contain a lot of
7 material which lend themselves to further research and today, research has
8 not been completed. Even for the Second World War. The Second World War
9 is still being researched and investigated. And these documents are
10 covering the events that took place in the past war, in the war in Bosnia.
11 The motive that I had at the time was, "let's preserve the documents and
12 it is the responsibility of the author for the documents that he has
13 placed in that book." For example, the victims of the war, you have
14 certainly heard here that some people testified although they were "rest
15 in peace" before that, a long time before that, so that would be my reason
16 for signing the review, together with the other reviewer of this book. I
17 spoke sincerely and in the way I feel it. Maybe I have used too many
18 words for the brief -- for the short question that you have asked me.
19 JUDGE CLARK: Could we say, then, professor Markotic, that you
20 reviewed the documents and the -- obviously the papers before they were
21 published, to lend your name to something that you approved of, which was
22 the preservation of facts arising out of a period of turmoil?
23 WITNESS: [interpretation] My first task as a reviewer was to -- was not to
24 analyse either the author or his text. He himself analysed the text.
25 Maybe I or somebody else would have done something else with the same
Page 13611
1 documents, but this is the author's choice to do whatever he wants to do
2 with the documents, to present them in any way he wants.
3 JUDGE CLARK: Thank you. I think that gives both parties food for
4 thought over the break, and they may wish to ask further questions.
5 Mr. Krsnik clearly doesn't. But I'm very much assisted by your answers.
6 Thank you.
7 JUDGE LIU: We'll resume at ten minutes to 6.00.
8 --- Recess taken at 5.21 p.m.
9 --- On resuming at 5.53 p.m.
10 JUDGE LIU: I did not see Mr. Scott in this courtroom.
11 MR. PORIOUVAEV: Your Honour, he's somewhere around. He's
12 coming.
13 JUDGE LIU: So we'll wait for him for a few minutes, just to be
14 fair.
15 MR. KRSNIK: Absolutely, Your Honour.
16 JUDGE LIU: Thank you for your cooperation.
17 Yes, Mr. Krsnik?
18 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour.
19 Q. Professor, I don't want to keep you much longer. I just want to
20 ask you two questions, if possibly clever questions, if I know how to do
21 that. The first question -- let's say that Dayton borders, from 1995,
22 Bosnia and Herzegovina, prior to the Dayton and after the Dayton, what
23 kind of a scientific research should be done with regard to the fact that
24 you said that there was -- there hasn't been any census since 1991? What
25 kind of a scientific research should be carried out in order for such a
Page 13612
1 scientific research to be credible in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in any of
2 its municipalities, the issue of that scientific research would be were
3 there any persecutions, ethnic persecutions in any municipality in
4 Bosnia-Herzegovina? Which scientific research would answer that question
5 with a high degree of credibility?
6 A. Once the census is carried out, it will not provide you with an
7 answer to the question that would have a high degree of credibility for
8 each and every case. And what I'm saying is that each and every case is
9 similar to any other case, and also similar to the persecution of a
10 whole. Given the fact that we do not have that, we use the usual methods
11 and those methods are scientific studies or expertise. Obviously, one
12 person is always limited. Two are less limited. If there is five
13 scientists, their findings will be better. A scientific research, like a
14 case study, would provide a more -- most credible picture. But even then,
15 without certain documents, without certain scientific research on a
16 certain sample, I cannot explain here what a sample is, what a case study
17 is, so such a research would provide you with a better assessment, given
18 the fact that you do not have everything that is necessary for such an
19 assessment to be made. So without specific studies, that would cover
20 every house, every apartment, there will always be ample room for asking
21 yourself whether your data are accurate and how accurate they are. If
22 this answers your question in principle, I would end with that.
23 Q. Thank you. This was just an introduction to my next question.
24 Let's take the example of Mostar, where you carried your research. Did
25 you use this methodology, in addition to the written sources? Did you
Page 13613
1 have associates? Did you go from one house to another? How scientific is
2 your analysis of Mostar?
3 A. I believe that I answered that question yesterday. Today I have
4 repeated some things. I was on my own. I used with whatever was
5 available at the time. And that is what I quoted in my study. I
6 admitted, before this Honourable Chamber, that this method leaves a lot to
7 be desired, and I said that I did what I did on the basis of what I
8 quoted, and I also claimed that what I had established may be denied, may
9 be questionable, and may be improved by some other findings. For as long
10 as these other new findings are not available, I will believe that I am
11 the most credible, subject to verification. I said that there are
12 different cases and that these cases cannot just be regarded
13 statistically.
14 Q. Thank you very much, professor. And my last question: I have in
15 front of me a document that the Prosecutor has used for his
16 cross-examination. The number is P100.01. What I'm going to ask you is
17 whether on the 17th of August, in 1991, did you sign a pro memoria for the
18 salvation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in Sarajevo? And who else was there as
19 the signatory to this document?
20 A. Can you please repeat the date?
21 Q. 17 August, 1991.
22 A. I must say that I know of that aide-memoire, but if you are asking
23 for an explicit answer, then I can say that I did not sign that
24 aide-memoire, and I can add to that this document, I have subsequently
25 learned, so that this document was allegedly signed by some dozen
Page 13614
1 intellectuals who, as far as I can remember, were all Croats. At the time
2 on that day, I was in Herzegovina, in Neum. I remember very well. But I
3 do not remember the date. I was with my wife, and I was talking to one of
4 her authors, Milan Stojic, who read several paragraphs to me and explained
5 the rest, and if you will allow me to finish, I can say that today I would
6 sign that part that was read to me. But then later on, when I read the
7 integral text, I saw one part that says, more or less as follows: In case
8 of a conflict, of a war, between Croatia and Serbia, i.e. between Serbia
9 and Croatia, Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina must remain neutral. And
10 for that reason, I wouldn't sign this document. And the rest you know.
11 Q. By the way --
12 A. You should ask its other signatories whether they would sign this
13 document. You should ask its authors whether they would draft it in this
14 way.
15 Q. Professor, I respect your answer, but I have to tell you that we
16 lawyers do not use metaphors and poetic language in either indictments or
17 in courtrooms. Here it says for a fact that you signed this document.
18 A. I did not. I've signed a hundred others.
19 Q. But look at the second page.
20 A. I am one of those people who have learned from newspapers that
21 they had signed this document. I have just explained that I didn't and
22 why I didn't.
23 Q. This is all I wanted to ask you. We have dealt here with all
24 sorts of documents, with all sorts of signatures. And with all sorts of
25 people. Thank you very much.
Page 13615
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Page 13616
1 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] I have no further questions.
2 JUDGE LIU: Any questions from the Judges? Yes, Judge Diarra,
3 please?
4 Questioned by the Court:
5 JUDGE DIARRA: [Interpretation] I thank you, Your Honour.
6 Professor, I apologise for going beyond the scope of demography, of
7 demographic science. Given the information that you have presented to us
8 about the relationship between the underdeveloped economy and the tensions
9 between the three peoples, not for a single moment did I hear you
10 mentioning the term "citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina." You have been
11 referring to the three constituent peoples in this state. Following your
12 logic, and according to your opinion, every form of government must
13 undergo the judgement of all the three constituent peoples, or are you
14 maybe implying that some day it may be resolved in the way that all the
15 citizens, all the inhabitants, of Bosnia-Herzegovina may decide that? I
16 accord to lot of importance to your answers and I would be very interested
17 in hearing what you think on that.
18 A. Your Honour, I'm very glad that I have heard somebody speaking
19 French. This is my second language. I trust your trust. Very many times
20 I have mentioned the things that you have quoted. It is not my personal
21 opinion, it is not my personal view, when I say how a state should be
22 organised. It is not up to me to believe or not believe in what you have
23 said. But yesterday and today, I have tried to concentrate in as much as
24 I can do it as a demographer and a native of that area, as a professor and
25 as an intellectual, on something that I believe I should spread as my
Page 13617
1 mission. I said that it is the most intimate right of any individual to
2 have its attitude towards himself, his origin, his culture, his people,
3 his religion. Yesterday, I said, and I repeat it today, that you cannot
4 expect from any one people to skip centuries in just one generation. You
5 cannot expect somebody who believed in God only yesterday to say today
6 that there is no God. Illiterate people can do little. Semi-literate
7 people can do something. Literate people can do a lot. However, the
8 problem does not lie in the way I think -- see things. When a family is
9 poor, and when that same family has a lot of children, they will all get
10 little. It will be the mother who will cut the bread and will give to
11 each child as much as she can. In any one society, in any village, town,
12 municipality, things cannot be the same as they are in a family. When you
13 have little, and when you give a lot to ones and little to others, then
14 problems arise. And then we get -- arrival at a situation in which
15 illiterate, literate and very literate people behave differently. The
16 large masses, masses of the population, felt the injustice. You're
17 signalling me to finish. Thank you very much.
18 JUDGE LIU: Any questions out of Judges' questions? Yes, Mr.
19 Scott?
20 Further cross-examination by Mr. Scott:
21 MR. SCOTT: Mr. President, as I've done before I'm going to be
22 perfectly transparent with the Chamber and will only go forward based on
23 the Chamber's guidance. Before the break, Judge Clark indicated, asked
24 some questions about the witness's involvement with this publication by
25 Mr. Rotim. If that's considered within the scope of Judge's questions,
Page 13618
1 then I would have -- then I do have questions about that.
2 JUDGE LIU: Yes, please.
3 MR. SCOTT:
4 Q. Sir, do you remember --
5 JUDGE LIU: Yes, Mr. Meek?
6 MR. MEEK: Mr. President, I have to object. Back on page 44, when
7 this issue arose, you made a ruling at that point in time, and it started
8 at line 2 on page 44, and it ended at line 8. And you said "at this
9 moment, this witness is not going to testify on that issue. It is so
10 decided." Then, on page 59, after you had denied Mr. Scott, my learned
11 colleague, and properly so because this expert is on demographics, and
12 I will never object when a Judge asks a question while they are asking a
13 question, but it seems to it me that on page 59, Her Honour Judge Clark
14 asked the same questions that you denied Mr. Scott to ask concerning that
15 document. That's the way I read the transcript, Your Honour. That's the
16 way I see it. I believe in this Tribunal that the Prosecutor has a job,
17 the Defence counsel has a job, and Your Honours have a job. You're the
18 triers of fact, you're the triers of law. And I don't believe that my
19 client can get a fair trial when the Judges start doing the Prosecutor's
20 job. And it just appears that that has been happening sometimes, and I
21 believe this is a good example, because, Your Honour, Mr. President, page
22 44, you told the Prosecutor that this witness is not a proper witness to
23 ask about this document because he's an expert on demographics. He was
24 stopped from that line of questioning but it came back up on page 59. I
25 want it make a record on it and that's all I'm doing. Thank you
Page 13619
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Page 13620
1 very much.
2 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.
3 JUDGE CLARK: Mr. Meek, I think that you do me an injustice in
4 your criticism. I did not ask this witness anything whatever about the
5 content of the document. I asked him why would a demographer and a
6 scientist review a paper on military history. And at no stage was he
7 asked about the content. I asked him first of all, did he actually edit
8 it? Because he said that he signed his name differently. And secondly,
9 if he did, if he said, "well, I didn't edit it," there is no point asking
10 the question. What I wanted to know is why would a demographer, a person
11 who is presented here as an expert in demography, edit what is clearly a
12 book on military history. Nobody asked him about the facts.
13 MR. MEEK: Your Honour. I thank you very much and I appreciate
14 what you say, but I'm looking at page 59 and specifically I'm looking at
15 your comment starting on line 14 where you asked the witness, "Obviously
16 the papers before they were published, to lend your name to something that
17 you approved of," and here is where I think it's important, "Which was the
18 preservation of facts arising out of the period of turmoil." When you
19 asked that question about facts, preserving facts, to me that means the
20 facts that were contained in that document. Whatever they might be.
21 That's my concern, Your Honour.
22 JUDGE CLARK: If you look at the response, Mr. Meek, that the
23 witness made to my question, it was that this man was somebody who was
24 interested in preserving documents and facts. And he thought that that
25 was important. And all I was doing was trying to summarise and to
Page 13621
1 understand why he endorsed. Somebody of his standing gave his name to
2 this person, in order that he would endorse what he was doing. That is
3 preserving facts for posterity. Which is what the response that he gave.
4 I think is what he said.
5 MR. MEEK: But my point is, Your Honour, and perhaps I've misread
6 or misconstrued this but with the question of preserving the facts that
7 indicates to me that Your Honour feels the facts or whatever facts may be
8 that document are true. We don't know who the author is. The author is
9 not here. The author hasn't been brought. This is a demographer. He's
10 not a military expert. The providing Judge Liu said he couldn't go into
11 this these questions and now Mr. Scott wants to go back into this question
12 about this document and we object.
13 JUDGE LIU: No, no, no. Well, we allowed Mr. Scott to ask a
14 question within the scope of the questions raised by the Judges, which
15 does not mean that we allowed Mr. Scott to go into the content of this
16 document.
17 MR. MEEK: Thank you, Your Honour. I guess we will wait and see
18 what the questions are.
19 JUDGE LIU: Yes.
20 Yes, Mr. Scott.
21 MR. SCOTT:
22 Q. Sir, in light of what's just been said, I presume you've heard all
23 this, I'm not asking -- the question I'm about to ask you -- I'm not
24 asking you about anything in the content, in the text of the book, if the
25 main portion of the book or either book as it there were two volumes, but
Page 13622
1 sir, not only does your name appear, is it correct, in the front binder of
2 the book as the reader or reviewer, but in fact, in volume 1, sir, you and
3 your co-reviewer, Mr. Maric, wrote a two and a half page what we might
4 call forward to the book, didn't you?
5 A. Correct. I signed Maric's two pages. I did not write them
6 myself.
7 Q. Well, that's interesting in other ways, sir, because we have had a
8 lot of testimony in this case about signing documents. So in other words,
9 your testimony here is, under oath, that you didn't write the forward on
10 pages 17, 18 and 19 of the book, but you simply signed your name to
11 something that Mr. Maric wrote? Is that what you're telling us?
12 MR. MEEK: Could we have 17, 18 and 19? I don't believe they have
13 been given to the Defence.
14 JUDGE LIU: Yes.
15 MR. SCOTT: I'll be more than happy to. If I can have the usher's
16 assistance, please. If I could have the usher's assistance, please.
17 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Your Honour, a misunderstanding
18 here. The gentleman has just said that he did not sign these two pages,
19 and I am not -- sorry, he did not write. He did not author these two
20 pages. So I couldn't care less what it says in the text. What matters
21 here to Mr. Scott is for you to get the document and read it. This is the
22 game that Mr. Scott has been playing a lot of times. That's why we get
23 just excerpts from documents in the binders and the rest you will get
24 later on. That's the game that my learned friend is -- has been playing.
25 MR. SCOTT: Here they are. We'll give him the whole book.
Page 13623
1 JUDGE LIU: Well, Mr. Krsnik, I think the Prosecutor distributed
2 those documents at the request of Mr. Meek. Since we are talking about
3 this document, I think better that we have it for reference.
4 Yes, Mr. Scott. You may proceed.
5 MR. SCOTT: Mr. President, as I said at the very beginning I've
6 been as transparent about it as possible.
7 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Your Honour, please -- please --
8 JUDGE LIU: Yes?
9 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] This is an insult for my intellectual
10 integrity and my knowledge that I have acquired over the past 20 years
11 all over the world. I'm not a child. Maybe the transcript is wrong.
12 Mr. Prosecutor is trying to get this, to get to you. He wants you to read
13 it. He is not interested in the witness's answer. There is no other way
14 for this document to reach you. This is the only thing that the
15 Prosecution is interested in. This is inadmissible because we already
16 said that this witness cannot talk about this.
17 JUDGE LIU: Well, Mr. Krsnik, I understand what you're saying.
18 The document we are provided in Croatian, so we are not able to read it.
19 At least at this moment. What we are interested in is only the signature
20 on the last page of this document. If this Trial Chamber considers that
21 it's out of the scope of the testimony of this witness, we will certainly
22 return this document to the Prosecution without reading it.
23 Yes, Mr. Scott. You may proceed.
24 MR. SCOTT:
25 Q. Sir, if the document requested by counsel has been provided to
Page 13624
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Page 13625
1 you?
2 MR. SCOTT: Mr. President, I know this is going to provoke further
3 outcry by counsel but I don't know of any way to handle a document in the
4 courtroom without it being marked for the record, especially given the
5 disputes that have been raised now, so I'm going to ask that document
6 which was just handed out a few moment ago to be marked, please, at 927/4.
7 There will be no dispute in the record in the future of what we are
8 talking about.
9 Q. Sir, if you have that document, I assume that you do, so I'm now
10 going to refer to it for the record purposes as 927/4. On page 19, sir,
11 your name appears along with Mr. Maric's name; is that correct?
12 A. Yes, that is my name.
13 Q. I want to be very clear that I -- if we understand your testimony
14 a few minutes ago, are you saying that you did not write any of the text
15 above your name, starting on page 17 of the book -- excuse me, yes, page
16 17, page 18 and the top half of page 19 that appears over your name? Is
17 it your testimony that you did not take any part, play any role, in
18 preparing that text or any part thereof?
19 A. Absolutely correct. However, I was read out this text in --
20 before proofreadings were carried out, when it was printed by a printing
21 machine, and not in the manner in which it has been put in front of me
22 now, not in the manner in which the book was eventually printed. I must,
23 however, admit that I did not follow the destiny of these two pages, which
24 I did not author, but having been read these two pages to me by Mr. Maric,
25 I signed them. Whether this is the same or a different text, I really
Page 13626
1 couldn't be the judge of that, but the possibility is there that the other
2 names, that the names were left but the text had been changed. Something
3 else: In both versions, in the first and in the second volume, I was the
4 second mentioned in the text. It is namely customary that for a
5 professional review or the reading of somebody else's manuscript, be done
6 by the first professional reviewer. I was not the first professional
7 reviewer, but in both volumes, as I can see it now, I was put as the first
8 name.
9 Q. Well --
10 A. To your earlier question --
11 Q. All right. Please go ahead.
12 A. To the earlier question of the Honourable Chamber, I answered in
13 the following manner. I did what I did, but I'd like to add now, on the
14 basis of what I can see here, that the book did not undergo the usual
15 procedure which any public publication should go through. For example, I
16 see no numbers concerning the degree -- decrees passed by the Ministry of
17 Culture. I don't see the ISBN number, and so on. So this was my
18 additional view and statement.
19 Q. Sir, you said a moment ago and I'll read it back to you in the
20 transcript if you wish me to, that it was the person listed first who had
21 the principal reviewer's role and I'd like you to be shown, please,
22 Exhibit 8927/2, the one previously marked, 927/2 was the excerpt before.
23 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Your Honour, may I put a question to
24 you, Your Honours? Please instruct me. Do we really have to lose so much
25 time on something for which this witness hadn't been invited here in the
Page 13627
1 first place so that the Prosecutor will push through a text that he wants
2 you to read?
3 JUDGE LIU: Well, this issue has been brought up in the
4 cross-examination. Then Judge Clark asked a question about it. I believe
5 it will be fair to both parties to let the Prosecution continue his
6 question.
7 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Your Honour, Rule 20(H)(i) had just
8 been read out and one of the basic principles is that I never was allowed
9 to put this question in my direct examination. If we are talking in the
10 first place about rules and procedures, in direct examination, this was
11 not the subject of any question. This was then done outside the direct
12 examination. And this is Rule 90(H)(i). One cannot go beyond the scope
13 of the direct examination in cross.
14 JUDGE LIU: Well, Mr. Krsnik, we believe that those questions
15 raised in the cross-examination by the Prosecutor have something to do
16 with the credibility of this witness. Because this witness came here as
17 an expert witness, and in the meantime, he also participated in other
18 functions, other works.
19 Yes, you may proceed, Mr. Scott.
20 MR. SCOTT:
21 Q. Sir, if you have Exhibit 927/2 in front of you again, in the front
22 of that book, and if you like you can look at both volumes of the
23 original, you were listed as the first reviewer and by your testimony, the
24 person with the principal responsibility for reviewing the material,
25 correct?
Page 13628
1 A. I said the opposite, but it turned out the way it is printed in
2 the book. However, I see no official decree approving the publishing of
3 this book, which would also give a special significance to my review.
4 With your permission, I'd like to add the following: That this happened
5 in 1994. However, here, I can see the years 1997 and 1998 printed. In
6 other words, a lot of these matters are disputable.
7 Q. Well, sir, did you say that in these materials now, these forwards
8 and parts, beginnings of the book, did you say, well a lot of this
9 material is really not reliable but I'll put my signature, I'll put my
10 name on it any way? Can you tell us please somewhere in that forward that
11 I handed you where you said that?
12 A. According to my recollection, I said that this was written in
13 1994. It was read out to me while I was sitting at a table. I cannot
14 recall it, however, and I don't know either what is written down here now.
15 Q. Well, in addition to what we have just been handed out a moment
16 ago as 927/4, did you not also personally write, in fact over -- under
17 your name also an introduction to the first volume? And I will show you
18 what I'll ask to be marked as 927/3.
19 MR. MEEK: Mr. President, while this is being handed out, I am
20 going for the record to make another objection.
21 JUDGE LIU: Yes, please.
22 MR. MEEK: 30 pages ago, on page 44, you ruled that the
23 Prosecutor, that this was not the proper witness for this Prosecutor to
24 ask questions about. He's a demographer, he's an expert and because on
25 page 59, Her Honour Judge Clark asked two questions about this, now we are
Page 13629
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Page 13630
1 going back into more detail about an issue that you have already ruled on
2 30 pages ago. And we strongly object to this. This expert witness is on
3 demography and now Mr. Scott is trying to turn him into something else and
4 it's just improper and it does not go to credibility whatsoever. That's a
5 guise.
6 MR. SCOTT: Mr. President, I couldn't disagree more. Let me
7 again -- I don't know how any more transparent I could be. Am I
8 interested in this the content of this book yes, I am absolutely. Whether
9 this is the appropriate witness or not separate matter. But it does go to
10 his credibility. He's talked about his role in this book and he's gone
11 back -- I don't want to argue this in front of the witness. I think it's
12 directly relevant to the credibility. It also is exactly the kind of
13 situation that I referred the Chamber to it earlier on (H)(i) and where
14 the witness is able, he's come to The Hague, where the witness is able to
15 give evidence relevant to the case for the cross-examining party, that is
16 here the Prosecution, relevant to the subjects matter of the case.
17 JUDGE LIU: Well, Mr. Scott, we are not going to debate legal
18 issues before the witness. If you ever questions, please ask your
19 questions.
20 MR. SCOTT: I will.
21 JUDGE LIU: We have made that ruling that those questions are
22 related to the credibility of this witness.
23 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Mr. President.
24 Q. If the witness can be shown Exhibit 927/3? Which is a new --
25 that's the one I just handed out, Your Honour. Sir, this is the further
Page 13631
1 introduction or beginning of the second volume of the book starting at
2 page 14 and going over to page 16, another two and a half pages?
3 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Your Honours?
4 JUDGE LIU: Yes.
5 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] We've just been told by the
6 Prosecutor that -- well, in the book it says 1997, 1998. Could, please,
7 we be told where this text comes from? Which book, which year, which
8 volume? Because the Prosecutor was referring to 1994 before. And the
9 witness was talking about 1994 and repeated it time and again. We have
10 just been given a few pages of a text and we would very much appreciate it
11 if we knew where this text comes from. An and then the witness might be
12 able to answer.
13 JUDGE LIU: This is also the question we want to ask. Mr. Scott,
14 would you please furnish us with more information about this piece of
15 document?
16 MR. SCOTT: Yes. 927/4, which was handed out a few moments ago,
17 comes from volume 1 of the two volume set. I'm holding up volume 1 now.
18 It was published in Siroki Brijeg in 1997. It was -- Mr. Markotic is
19 listed as the first reviewer. And the usual -- I suppose the usual kind
20 of publication information that I'm familiar with is included. There is a
21 glossary in the back, there is terms, there is credits for other people's
22 contributions. So that's the book that I'm referring to. For Exhibit
23 927/3, is material from the second volume of the book published in Siroki
24 Brijeg in 1998, again listing Mr. Markotic as the first reviewer, and in
25 that volume, 927.-- Exhibit 927.3, starting at page 14, Mr. Markotic
Page 13632
1 appears under his name, to write a 2 and a half page whatever,
2 introduction, review, forward, to the book. And that's the source of the
3 material.
4 JUDGE LIU: Thank you. You may proceed.
5 MR. SCOTT:
6 Q. Sir, in connection with volume 2, because you said earlier that
7 you wrote -- that the introduction or forward in volume 1, you couldn't
8 remember --
9 A. No, this is not what I said.
10 Q. Well, since I didn't finish my question, perhaps you'd let me
11 finish it. You said, sir, that you did not write that document but some
12 parts of it were read to you and you gave your name to it, correct?
13 A. Right.
14 Q. And in the second -- and in volume 2, in a similar fashion, you
15 wrote a two and a half page or did you write it? That's my question. Did
16 you write and did you give your name once again to two and a half pages of
17 material about volume 2?
18 A. Yes. But that was done much earlier, on a different piece of
19 paper, and then I did not follow the fate of this paper afterwards.
20 Because obviously, what is in front of me, comparing -- comparing it to
21 what I was -- I had in front of me which was a manuscript is quite a
22 different story. It would have been fair and honest from the author to
23 inform me what would be the destiny of the manuscript later on but let us
24 not forget this was during the war. I was a refugee, I didn't have a
25 home. And I already told the Honourable Chamber what were the
Page 13633
1 circumstances, and I still claim that there is no official version of this
2 book. The author and the first reviewer, which is in the first place for
3 reasons explained before, may have been done by the other reviewer, by the
4 author of the text, they could have done whatever they preferred. I
5 didn't have an insight into the later destiny of this text. What was read
6 to me is, as far as I can recall, was different from what you asked me,
7 whether I approved in one of your questions. So I would humbly ask you to
8 be allowed to defend my own credibility, if possible, as an expert witness
9 in front of this Honourable Court.
10 Q. Sir, in the book, and I'll refer back to 927/2, since that's the
11 one that has at least some translation of, it's from the second volume,
12 927/2, again, just to be clear, there is other persons below you and
13 Mr. Maric's name, which are given the roles of language editing and
14 proofreading. There are three individuals given the name excuse me given
15 the role of computer layout. So, sir, can we understand from that that
16 your role had something more to do than computer layout and language
17 editing and proofreading? Your role was much more substantial than that,
18 wasn't it?
19 A. In any event, you don't have to ask me about that. But the
20 publishing house is not mentioned, which was supposed to have received a
21 decree from somebody. This, as far as I can see, is the author's Karlo
22 Rotim's personal publication. The difference in terms of the years of
23 publication is something that I'm trying to point out. What I had been
24 read out was in 1994. These books have the years 1997, 1998. What I
25 signed is something that was printed by a printing machine. What happened
Page 13634
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Page 13635
1 to that text, as I said before, I could not follow. I can't recall it.
2 And I wasn't even interested in it. Because I believe that the reviewer
3 is not responsible for the contents of the text that he did not contribute
4 to. And I am not responsible for the text that you have given to me.
5 Q. Sir, you said yourself that in 1994, the war was still going on.
6 Is it not reasonable to conclude or infer that that material may not have
7 been -- until 1997?
8 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Your Honour.
9 JUDGE LIU: Yes, Mr. Krsnik.
10 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Your Honour, didn't we get 101st
11 answer to one and the same question? Do we really need to proceed? I
12 numbered it. For 20 times, one and the same question was put, and one and
13 the same answer was given. I think everything is clear. And what I am
14 now happy to learn is that this book never was publicly published. I
15 should like to thank the learned friend for raising this issue.
16 JUDGE LIU: Well, Mr. Krsnik, I believe you're giving the
17 testimony yourself again.
18 MR. KRSNIK: No, no, no.
19 JUDGE LIU: You're giving a hint to the witness.
20 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] No, no, no, Your Honour. The witness
21 answered it for 20 times, that this book never was published officially.
22 This is what the witness answered for 20 times, that this is a personal
23 circulation, a personal publication, of the author, for 20 times he
24 answered it, and I don't know what is put in the transcript but that is
25 what happened.
Page 13636
1 JUDGE LIU: We are not discussing this issue at this moment.
2 Mr. Scott, we hope you could wind up your re-examination as soon
3 as possible.
4 MR. SCOTT: I'm finished, Your Honour.
5 JUDGE LIU: Yes, Mr. Krsnik?
6 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Yes. I apologise. Just one clear
7 and loud question.
8 Further examination by Mr. Krsnik:
9 Q. Was this book ever published and made available to the public in a
10 library or in a book shop?
11 A. I do not recall this procedure having been respected, with regard
12 to this book, but as far as I can see it, I think that this is a Samizdat,
13 a self publication by the author and the reviewer's text is usually not
14 taken care of by the author. It is usually submitted to the publishing
15 house and the publishing house obviously decides how to proceed. This is
16 of course, a free market project. People can publish their own private
17 publications. But they differ from the official publications. You can
18 ask me about these details concerning my book, whenever the author has
19 acted the way this author seems to have acted, is indeed not serious. And
20 it is not fair for him to bring me into this position. I don't recall any
21 such thing having been done to any of my books, but of course, this is not
22 my book. This is some other author's book and I couldn't follow
23 everything that went on. And of course, I couldn't check and double check
24 whether the text of my review, which I had written, had also been
25 published. Of course, this is my personal error, my personal omission,
Page 13637
1 but I insist that I am not -- I was not the first reviewer, although I was
2 put on first place in this book. I did not write it, and these are
3 matters of fact.
4 JUDGE LIU: Well, thank you very much, professor. Frankly
5 speaking, I myself benefit a lot from your expert testimony, since I came
6 from a country with the largest population in the world. The usher will
7 show you out of the room, and we all wish you a pleasant journey back
8 home. Thank you very much.
9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you very much.
10 [The witness withdrew]
11 JUDGE LIU: Mr. Meek? Do you have any documents to tender into
12 the evidence at this stage?
13 MR. MEEK: Your Honour, may I put it in writing?
14 JUDGE LIU: Yes, of course.
15 MR. MEEK: I'll have it filed either tomorrow or Monday.
16 JUDGE LIU: Yes, of course.
17 MR. MEEK: Thank you.
18 JUDGE LIU: Mr. Scott?
19 MR. SCOTT: Mr. President, if I may be allowed, I'll do the same
20 thing.
21 JUDGE LIU: Yes. Well, there are three matters I want to say
22 about the proceedings. The first one is that as Defence counsel for
23 Naletilic told us, the next expert witness will be the common witness for
24 both parties, so we will arrange the hearing for the next witness during
25 the course of Mr. Martinovic's case. Is that agreeable, Mr. Par?
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Page 13639
1 MR. PAR: [Interpretation] We agree, Mr. President.
2 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much. And on the 15th of July, we will
3 start Mr. Martinovic's case. And we will start at 3.30 in the afternoon
4 because this courtroom will be used by other proceedings.
5 The last matter is Mr. Par, did your Defence team prepared to
6 deliver an opening statement at the start of your case?
7 MR. PAR: [Interpretation] Yes, Mr. President. On the first day of
8 our opening statements, we will be able to present our case.
9 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much for your information. The opening
10 statement is just a summary of your case, not the process of presenting
11 the evidence. So I hope you could do it in a very concise way.
12 MR. PAR: [Interpretation] Mr. President, we plan to finish the
13 opening statements on the very same day.
14 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.
15 MR. PAR: [Interpretation] One day is all we'll need for the
16 opening statement.
17 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much. So this Chamber will rise until
18 15th of July.
19 Yes, Mr. Meek?
20 MR. MEEK: Mr. President, one thing and we will see you on the
21 15th of July. It's my understanding that we are in the afternoon session
22 in Courtroom I, the rest of July. Is that correct? And in September?
23 JUDGE LIU: Well, 3.30, I think is afternoon.
24 MR. MEEK: I understand, but I understand that the schedule in
25 September because we are sharing Courtroom I and we have to go every
Page 13640
1 afternoon or have night court and I just ask Your Honour to maybe talk to
2 somebody in the Presidency, I do not believe Judge May and his Trial
3 Chamber is any more important in this Trial Chamber and why should he get
4 the morning sessions every morning? We should split it one week and one
5 week. That's my request.
6 JUDGE LIU: Certainly, I will convey your views to the President
7 of this Tribunal.
8 MR. MEEK: Thank you very much.
9 JUDGE LIU: Up to now I haven't received the Court schedule for
10 September.
11 MR. MEEK: Thank you very much.
12 JUDGE LIU: Yes. We will rise.
13 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at
14 6.51 p.m., to be reconvened on Monday,
15 the 15th day of July, 2002, at 3.30 p.m.
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