1 Thursday, 11 May 2006

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 [The witness entered court]

5 --- Upon commencing at 9.05 a.m.

6 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Registrar, will you please

7 call the case.

8 THE REGISTRAR: Thank you, Mr. President. Case number IT-04-74-T,

9 the Prosecutor versus Prlic and others.

10 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you. Let me greet

11 everybody in the courtroom. Mr. Registrar, you wanted to speak because

12 you have some correction to make regarding the numbers we got yesterday.

13 You have the floor.

14 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.

15 [In English] Just to clarify the record for the exhibits admitted

16 yesterday with Witness Donia, I shall read them very slowly. The

17 following exhibits are admitted: P 00002, P 00013, P 00031, P 00089, P

18 00116, P 00117, P 00132, P 00152, P 00187, P 00192, P 00302, P 00505, P

19 01043, P 08060, P 09276. The following documents are marked for

20 identification: P 08630, P 08632, P 09537, P 09538, P 09539, P 09540, P

21 09541, P 09542, P 09543, P 09544, P 09546, P 09547. Finally, the

22 following exhibit is still pending: P 09536. This is the report of

23 expert Donia. This completes the list. Thank you very much,

24 Mr. President.

25 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you. Mr. Karnavas, you

1 have the floor.

2 WITNESS: ROBERT DONIA [Resumed]

3 Cross-examination by Mr. Karnavas: [Continued]

4 MR. KARNAVAS: Good morning, Mr. President, good morning,

5 Your Honours. Good morning everyone else.

6 Q. And especially good morning, Mr. Donia?

7 A. Good morning, Mr. Karnavas.

8 Q. I might be skipping from topic to topic because we are trying to

9 condense four days into the next few hours so let me pick off where we

10 left, and we are going to rapidly go subject to subject. I probably won't

11 touch on the banovina since my colleague, Mr. Jonjic, will cover that and

12 other areas, hopefully.

13 Voltaire once noted that conflicts of opinion create problems for

14 historians, especially if those opinions belong to principal figures in a

15 historical account. Would you agree or disagree with that?

16 A. I'd agree.

17 Q. Wise man, that Voltaire. Now, as I understand it from listening

18 to you yesterday and correct me if I'm wrong, in general, historians

19 abstract and select data from descriptions of the events since they were

20 not witnesses to those events themselves, right?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. And before we go into the next area, I just want you to make an

23 observation on this particular quote, or it's a paraphrase but it's an

24 observation made by Peter McClelland in Causal Explanations and Model

25 Building in History, Economics and New Economic History. He notes that

1 like journalists, UN observers, social scientists, and diplomats,

2 "historians explain the behaviour of an agent by using statements by the

3 agent, statements by others about the agent, and the actions of the agent

4 as well as their own knowledge, beliefs, and experience, including

5 introspection, making causal explanation in history inherently subjective.

6 Would you agree or disagree with that observation?

7 A. I would agree with the observation.

8 Q. Okay. And with that agreement on that particular observation, off

9 we go. First, let's set some ground rules and decide which areas you are

10 qualified or not qualified. As I understand it, in testifying before this

11 Tribunal on previous occasions, you've indicated you're not a political

12 scientist.

13 A. That's correct.

14 Q. You're not a political theorist?

15 A. No, I'm not.

16 Q. You're not a journalist, though you have written some journalistic

17 pieces?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. You're not a constitutional lawyer or a constitutional scholar?

20 A. That's correct.

21 Q. All right. It would be a fair to say that you're not a

22 ethnographer?

23 A. No, nor demographer.

24 Q. Okay. All right. And in light of these limitations, may I ask:

25 Did you, in preparing this report or other reports, or in preparing your

1 works, did you ever sit down and analyse the jurisprudence of the HZ HB,

2 the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna?

3 A. The jurisprudence of it?

4 Q. Yes.

5 A. No.

6 Q. By that what I mean is the Statute and all -- so you could be able

7 to at least explain to us how it was set up?

8 A. Well, I have in fact both used and cited the statute. The -- what

9 I've called the founding documents of the HZ HB.

10 Q. Okay. Well I'm not asking you whether you've cited it. I'm

11 asking you if you've analysed it.

12 A. Well, I've reviewed it and I can read it, see what it says, and

13 concluded what from that is significant to include in the discussion.

14 Q. Okay. All right. And did you look at any other jurisprudence,

15 rules, regulations, anything that was generated by the HZ HB?

16 A. Yes. I can't specifically recall. I looked at several of the

17 statutes that were published in the Narodni List, the Official Gazette.

18 Q. All right. And did you note that in your -- did you use that for

19 your report?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. Okay. And that was, I take it, provided to you by the Office of

22 the Prosecutor?

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. All right. Now, did you -- can you explain to us, for instance,

25 how the HVO was structured?

1 MR. SCOTT: I'm going to object, Your Honour. This is beyond the

2 scope, completely beyond the scope of the expert. Didn't talk about the

3 structure of the HVO except for a very limited introduction to its

4 establishment, and other witnesses are going to be called on this. It's

5 beyond the scope. Mr. Donia was not asked to opine on this or to review

6 or prepare for this.

7 MR. KARNAVAS: Your Honour, I'll take that objection to mean that

8 the gentleman is not competent to answer any questions regarding the HVO,

9 then.

10 MR. SCOTT: No, I didn't say that, Your Honour. I said he was not

11 competent. My objection is what it was. My words -- I used my words, not

12 Mr. Karnavas's words. This expert is not here -- did not prepare a report

13 on that topic. It wasn't tendered for such purposes and he can talk --

14 Mr. Karnavas can ask him questions about everything, talk about the colour

15 of the moon if he wants to, that was not the purpose for which this

16 witness was brought. He has not looked at that. He was not asked to look

17 at this. Mr. Tomanovic and other people will be addressing these matters

18 for which they have specifically been named on our witness list and the

19 Chamber is aware of them.

20 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] I note that in the written

21 expert report, within the table of contents, there is a -- the HVO, the

22 Croatian Defence Council, page 39. Let me take page 39. And what do I

23 find there? The HVO was created on the 8th of April. The executive,

24 military, and political powers are concentrated in the hands of this sole

25 institution which has -- is responsible before the HZ HB. So please

1 continue, Mr. Karnavas, if you want to put questions to this witness about

2 pages 39 and 40. You are free to do so because you can cross-examine on

3 the written statement by the witness, although Mr. Scott pointed out quite

4 rightly that we will have an expert speaking about the HVO, but a

5 historian usually has a wide scope of competence, even though he may not

6 be a demographer, specialist in political sciences, as a historian he has

7 to deal with specific sectors. He spoke about the HVO in his written

8 report. It is therefore quite normal that a question should be put about

9 the HVO. If he doesn't know, he'll say, "I don't know." Please continue.

10 MR. KARNAVAS: Thank you, Mr. President. I don't want to go into

11 too many details about the HVO.

12 Q. But generally, well, were you asked in Blaskic, back then, this

13 was 1997, who created it and you indicated you did not know. This was on

14 page 848 to 849 of the transcript. Does that -- do you stand by that

15 answer today?

16 A. No. One of the benefits of being a historian is that there is a

17 constant process of discovery that goes on and so I've noted somethings

18 that I didn't know about in 1997 which I really -- may or may not have

19 been available at that time but I was not aware of them.

20 Q. All right.

21 A. I think the conclusion that I've drawn which Mr. President has

22 just read represents the essence of my understanding of the formation of

23 the HVO and its fundamental structure.

24 Q. All right?

25 A. I don't have a copy of the report in front of me so I can't tell

1 you.

2 Q. All right. Do you know how the Presidency of the Croatian

3 Community of Herceg-Bosna was structured?

4 A. No.

5 Q. Who composed it? Who were members of it?

6 A. I don't know.

7 Q. All right. Do you know who the president of the Presidency of the

8 HZ HB was?

9 A. When?

10 Q. Well, let's see, 1992, 1993.

11 A. Mate Boban.

12 Q. Okay. And other than that, you can't help us out on the HZ HB,

13 the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna, the president of the Presidency,

14 the Presidency of the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna?

15 A. I hear four different questions there. Which one would you like

16 me to address?

17 Q. Other than naming Mate Boban and telling us that he is the

18 president of the Presidency, other than that, you're not able to provide

19 us any more details about the Presidency of the Croatian Community of

20 Herceg-Bosna?

21 MR. SCOTT: Object to the form of the question.

22 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Let me interrupt you.

23 Mr. Scott. I didn't hear you, sorry.

24 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, I object again to the form of the

25 question. What the examiner put questions to the witness, specific

1 questions to the witness about, can you tell us anything else or I take it

2 you can't tell us anything else. Let him ask specific questions of the

3 witness not just open-ended -- so I assume you can't tell us anything

4 else. Mr. Donia may be able to say other things but the examiner lass to

5 put proper questions to the witness, Your Honour.

6 MR. KARNAVAS: Mr. President I don't mean to be giving a lecture

7 but yesterday when the Prosecutor should have been asking direct questions

8 he was asking cross-examination questions and yet today he's telling me

9 how to do cross by way of asking direct questions. I merely stated or

10 asked a question, if the gentleman doesn't -- can't answer the question he

11 can say so. I haven't prevented him from not expanding, go ahead and give

12 explanations.

13 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Fine. Fine. We are not going

14 to waste any more of our precious time. You asked the witness whether he

15 was in a position to provide you with other names of members of the

16 Presidency. He answered that he could not. So please move on to another

17 question. He mentioned Mate Boban but apart from him he wasn't aware of

18 any other names, so please continue.

19 MR. KARNAVAS: All right.

20 Q. With respect to the Presidency and the HVO, do you know what that

21 relationship was, if any?

22 A. If I had reference to the document creating it, I could tell you

23 exactly what it is. And my -- I'm not really prepared to speculate based

24 on my recollection of that document. It's something that I looked at in

25 the course of the preparation of the report. I spelled it out in the

1 report. It is there in black and white, and I'm sure if I had reference

2 to the report, I might be able to say something more.

3 Q. All right. Now you say the document. Are you referring to the

4 document of the establishment of the HZ HB and the HVO or are you saying

5 your report? Which of the two or both?

6 A. The two documents that would be relevant to this are the document

7 creating the HZ HB and the document creating the HVO, and the additional

8 documents which expand the functions and jurisdiction of those two bodies

9 which I have addressed in the report.

10 Q. All right. Now, I don't mean to press you on this one but if we

11 had those documents, could we not read them for ourselves? Do we need a

12 historian to tell us what those documents say? Do we need an expert to

13 come here and testify as to those legal documents?

14 A. Well, I would argue that, yes, you do. I think that putting them

15 in a context is what is important in terms of my function or role here.

16 There is, I think, a level of analysis, let's say a legal analysis, which

17 I don't pretend to address and which is indeed something that is -- that I

18 willingly leave to others but I think that the developmental picture

19 that's presented in these documents is worthy of historical note.

20 Q. All right. And again I don't mean to press you nor do I mean to

21 be -- to put you in a bad light but you testified in Blaskic in 1997, then

22 you were in Kordic, I don't remember the date, I think it was 1999 or

23 2000, then I take it before coming here you met with the Prosecution to

24 proof for this presentation, correct?

25 A. Yes.

1 Q. In fact you probably spent the whole day with them before you came

2 here?

3 A. No.

4 Q. No, just a few hours?

5 A. Yeah, maybe three, four hours.

6 Q. Okay. Three, four hours. And you read your report before you

7 came here to meet with the gentleman, Mr. Scott?

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. Okay. And I take it in writing the report, you probably sent them

10 a draft and he might have asked you to add some things or correct some

11 things?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. Okay. So he had an opportunity to review the report and ask you

14 to supplement it. So, again, I don't mean to be pressing you but how is

15 it after all these years, being an expert, you say to us today that you

16 need to look at these documents in order to put them into a historical

17 context when in fact you would have had to have looked at them, analysed

18 them, absorbed them, synthesised them, in order to come up with the

19 conclusions which you have in your report? How is that?

20 A. You've again distorted my words.

21 Q. Okay.

22 A. And I used those documents to create a brief narrative in the

23 section on the HZ HB, and on the HVO. I put them into a historical

24 context. I think I've at least started to put them into a historical

25 context here and that context is a developmental one.

1 Q. Okay?

2 A. It begins with the creation of the HZ HB in November 1991,

3 proceeds to an expansion of its powers in a series of constitutional

4 changes, I believe in April and June of 1992, the creation of the HVO as

5 a -- as I said fused, synthetic organisation or body in -- on the 8th of

6 April 1992, and proceeds from there to further strengthen its competencies

7 on the basis of its self-proclaimed constitutional changes, and its

8 jurisdiction over its territory.

9 Q. Okay. All right. Now I just want to hit a couple of high points

10 or quick points and then we'll move on. Yesterday you noted to us when

11 you were asked about the various parties, one in particular the SDA, that

12 was the Muslim national -- I prefer to use that term as opposed to

13 nationalist and we will have a discussion on that but that was the Muslim

14 national party, right?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. Okay. And when you came to that point, you had indicated that

17 there was some disagreement as to what sort of name to choose and that's

18 why they went with SDA. Do you recall that?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. All right. And for the record that can be found on page 65, lines

21 9 through 14. You say -- you know, I just want to be precise, "the

22 meetings resulted in the formulation of a party platform and the decision

23 to give the party a non-national name. That is, the term Bosnian Muslim

24 or Bosniak does not appear in the name party of the democratic action

25 party because leaders couldn't agree on exactly how to formulate the

1 party's desired constituency in terms of nomenclature that they would all

2 accept." You stand by that answer that you gave yesterday?

3 A. Mr. President, I think it's inappropriate for the cross-examining

4 attorney to have a copy of a document that I wrote when I don't have it to

5 refer to.

6 Q. This was your statement yesterday. This was your statement

7 yesterday. Just calm down. Please get this gentleman his notes. You

8 know, I didn't tell you not to come in with your notes, your report. You

9 had it there yesterday. If the Prosecutor would like to help the

10 gentleman?

11 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, It was provided through the Registry

12 yesterday and perhaps -- I assume what happened is that someone collected

13 it from the witness stand last night. I'm sure we can obviously get

14 another copy but if it's not -- there is not one immediately available

15 from the Registry we will collect another one.

16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes, yes. Mr. Donia, you need

17 your report in order to refresh your memory. Because there are points

18 that need to be looked into, right? And you need to examine the report to

19 do so.

20 JUDGE TRECHSEL: There may be a misunderstanding. Mr. Karnavas is

21 not quoting your report. He is quoting the transcript of what you

22 deposited, what you said here and that you can probably find on the screen

23 and maybe they will then show you.

24 THE WITNESS: That would be most help so that I know that he's not

25 taking it out of context.

1 MR. KARNAVAS:

2 Q. Well, I just read it to you sir, but again it's on page 65. I can

3 even provide the -- we are going to talk about taking things out of

4 context, but it can be found on page 65, lines 9 through 14. I can read

5 the full question and answer if you would prefer that, sir.

6 THE INTERPRETER: Kindly slow down, Mr. Karnavas, please.

7 MR. KARNAVAS: I apologise.

8 Q. Would you like me to read the full question and the answer, sir?

9 Would that help you?

10 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Karnavas, please read out

11 page 65, lines 9 to 14, because the witness does not have yesterday's

12 transcript before him. So please remind him of his statement. If you

13 want to do so you have to read it out. Please go on.

14 MR. KARNAVAS: Thank you, Mr. President I'll start with line 1.

15 [French translation coming over English channel.

16 MR. KARNAVAS:

17 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... Nationalist party of the

18 Bosnian Muslims. Its origins may be found in some meetings that took

19 place between Alija Izetbegovic, who, like Tudjman, was a dissident, who

20 had been imprisoned in socialist Yugoslavia and in fact released only

21 months before the party was formed, and other Bosnian Muslim leaders,

22 including Adil Zulfikarpasic who was living at the time in Switzerland.

23 The meetings resulted in the formulation of a party platform and the

24 decision to give the party a non-national name. That is, the term Bosnian

25 Muslim or Bosniak does not appear in the name Party of Democratic Action

1 partly because the leaders couldn't agree on exactly how to formulate the

2 party's desired constituency in terms of nomenclature that they would all

3 accept.

4 Do you recall giving that answer yesterday?

5 A. Yes, I do.

6 Q. Okay.

7 A. Congratulations on your pronunciation of Zulfikarpasic.

8 Q. It's taken sometime, trust me. Now I looked at your -- I read

9 your statement. We have been referring to it as an expert report. And on

10 page 21, under the section Party of Democratic Action, SDA, you state

11 here, and I'll start with the first paragraph, "Bosnian Muslim organisers

12 taking the first step toward create ago political party convened an

13 initiating committee on March 27, 1990, defining their party ambiguously

14 as political alliance of citizens of Yugoslavia who belong to the Muslim

15 culture, historical circle, they chose a name the Party of Democratic

16 Action, SDA," I won't even bother to read the B/C/S -- Bosniak or Bosnian

17 language "so as to circumvent the legal ban on parties based on a single

18 religion or nation."

19 So the name, according to your report, was chosen to circumvent, I

20 underscore that, to circumvent the legal ban, not because they could not

21 agree on a particular name. Would you not agree with me that those are

22 two different answers?

23 A. No. If you'll refer to my answer in testimony yesterday, I used

24 the word "partly."

25 Q. This is the other part?

1 A. Let's see, that's the -- right. The -- in my verbal testimony

2 yesterday, I used the word "partly" to indicate that that was one of the

3 reasons that they -- they could not agree on a name and the reason they

4 could not agree on the name was that the best known proponent of the

5 Bosniak name for the group was in fact Mr. Zulfikarpasic who was at that

6 time really one of the two key leaders of the party. The ultimate

7 decision to make a -- to choose the name certainly involved this effort to

8 circumvent the ban on parties based on historical or -- I'm sorry,

9 national or religious grounds, and it isn't totally clear to me in going

10 through the documentation which was the more important or which was the

11 first consideration that they entered into but clearly both considerations

12 played a role in awarding the name to the party.

13 Q. Okay. Of course, we have to take into consideration that at the

14 time, as you noted yesterday, there was a law in place, was it not,

15 banning such parties?

16 A. Yes. That law was passed, as I said, in February of 1990.

17 Q. And at that time, the other parties, the HDZ and the SDS, had not

18 been formed; is that correct?

19 A. They were furiously organising at that point.

20 Q. Okay. Organising but had not been formed. You have different

21 dates. The first one is to form themselves and organise themselves into a

22 party was the SDA, correct?

23 A. The -- again you're using the founding assemblies as the critical

24 event in the formation. I looked at the long string of conferences,

25 meetings, formations of provisional committees as a part of the organising

1 process and therefore in all three cases, far predating the passage of

2 that law.

3 Q. All right. Another point, maybe very quickly we can get at,

4 yesterday you had indicated that there was a rift within the HDZ and there

5 were two factions and as a result, two particular individuals were canned,

6 were sacked, one of them being Mr. Lasic. Do you recall that?

7 A. I didn't testify yesterday that Mr. Lasic was sacked. We have the

8 statement from Mr. Karadzic in the Bosnian Serb assembly that he was

9 removed from the delegation to the Cutileiro talks.

10 Q. Okay. I'm going to have to find your statement from yesterday to

11 make sure I get it right. Franjo Boras do you know him?

12 A. I don't know him personally, no.

13 Q. But do you know of him?

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. And who exactly is he?

16 A. He was the -- one of two Croatian members of the Presidency of

17 Bosnia-Herzegovina elected in November of 1990.

18 Q. Okay. And I believe it was Mr. -- I'm told, I don't have it

19 present with me but I'm told that Mr. Boras in his book indicates that

20 Mr. Lasic was indeed at Cutileiro, and this would have been back in March

21 1992. Could you possibly be wrong on that?

22 A. My testimony was that Karadzic said that Lasic had been removed

23 from the delegation.

24 Q. Okay. That's what Karadzic. But you know, the OTP is running

25 around trying to find him. We don't know where he is to question him.

1 Other than Karadzic, what he said, do you have any other information?

2 A. It's -- yes. I -- Mr. Lasic was on a list of people who attended

3 at least one of the sessions of the negotiating process.

4 Q. Okay. So in spite of that rift, and in spite of having a

5 disagreement, and we are going to get to that December 27, 1991,

6 presidential transcript, in spite of that, he participated a few months

7 thereafter in one of these talks, correct?

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. And if we look at the map that was generated from Cutileiro -- I'm

10 getting ahead of myself again but if we looked at that map, that was

11 pretty favourable to the Muslims, was it not, as far as land?

12 MR. SCOTT: Which map -- which of the four maps are we talking

13 about, Your Honour?

14 MR. KARNAVAS: The Cutileiro.

15 MR. SCOTT: There are four maps in the exhibit.

16 MR. KARNAVAS: I'll get to this point later on.

17 Q. All right. Now, again, sticking with Mr. Lasic, and I have it --

18 I'm looking at a document here, agreement of 3 March 1993 between Alija

19 Izetbegovic, Haris Silajdzic, Mate Boban, and Mile Akmadzic. You know all

20 these gentlemen, you know their names?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. Okay. And it indicates that Mr. Lasic was being proposed, okay,

23 that they have submitted the following six names to serve in the interim

24 Presidency, Fikret Abdic, Mile Akmadzic, Franjo Boris, Ejup Ganic, Alija

25 Izetbegovic, and Miro Lasic. This would have been in 3 March 1993. Do

1 you have any knowledge about that?

2 A. I can't -- I'm not looking at the document. I can't -- can't

3 comment on it.

4 Q. Okay. Do you know whether Mr. Lasic was proposed to be on the

5 interim Presidency in 3 March 1993, yes or no?

6 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour if the examiner is going to put questions

7 to the witness about a document, I ask that the document be shown to the

8 witness. That's a fundamental fairness, that the document be shown to the

9 witness.

10 MR. KARNAVAS: I have no objections to showing the document. I'm

11 asking from his memory whether he knows that, yes or no, back in 1993, 3

12 March. Do you know whether he was proposed, yes or no? I'm trying to

13 save some time as opposed to showing documents.

14 Q. Do you know whether he was proposed to be on the interim

15 Presidency, yes, no, maybe?

16 A. Well, you just told me and I believe you.

17 Q. So you don't know then. From your independent knowledge and

18 experience and all this research you've been doing, you don't know?

19 A. As I walked in here this morning, I did not have that specific

20 date and document in my head, no.

21 Q. Okay. Assuming that he was proposed, okay, would that cut

22 against, again, your argument or your assertion yesterday that somehow

23 because he voiced a separate opinion or a different opinion than others on

24 27 December 1991, that he was still within the fold, the family, of the

25 HDZ?

1 A. I can't answer that question without seeing that document and

2 knowing perhaps even more about the background to that. I think it's

3 worth remembering that the Presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina included

4 Stjepan Kljuic for almost all of that time. I believe he resigned in -- I

5 don't remember the date but it was somewhere in either late 1992 or early

6 1993, under pressure from the HDZ and then resumed that position later on.

7 Q. Okay. Now -- and this is the only gentleman that you -- that

8 you've interviewed?

9 A. No. That's not true. And again you've misrepresented what I said

10 in earlier testimony.

11 Q. All right. Well, I can name some names. Of all the Presidencies,

12 of all the individuals that served on the Presidencies, did you interview

13 Boris, let's just say?

14 A. No.

15 Q. Akmadzic?

16 A. No.

17 Q. Okay. Who of the presidents of the Presidency or members of the

18 Presidency did you interview?

19 A. Mirko Pejanovic.

20 Q. Okay. So that -- anybody else?

21 A. Not from that period, no.

22 Q. Okay. Now, speaking of Mr. Kljujic and speaking of the minutes --

23 speaking of the presidential transcript, I take it you've read that, this

24 is the one of the 27th of December 1991.

25 A. Yes.

1 Q. Okay. That's a fairly lengthy one, is it not, it's about 70

2 pages?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. All right. Did you read it more than once?

5 A. I read portions of it probably a dozen times. Other parts perhaps

6 twice or three times.

7 Q. All right. I had anticipated spending about an hour to two hours

8 with you on that but we don't have that time so perhaps with few questions

9 we might get through. Fair to say this was a meeting where a lot of

10 individuals participated?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. Okay. Do you recall about how many?

13 A. I at one point counted about 40.

14 Q. Okay. And it seems that everyone or many of them are voicing a

15 particular opinion or have statements to make?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. Be fair to say that you have to read the entire document, the

18 entire document, as opposed to taking out one sentence or part of a

19 sentence or a phrase in order to get the full flavour and context of what

20 exactly was happening at that particular meeting, correct?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. We might also say that you might even have to look at other

23 events, what was happening in Croatia, what was happening in

24 Bosnia-Herzegovina, what was happening in Serbia, what was happening in

25 the international community, to also try to get a flavour and an

1 understanding, the contextual background, of some of the topics that were

2 being discussed during that meeting, correct?

3 A. Certainly.

4 Q. All right. And would it be fair to say that if we go through that

5 document, and I'm prepared to do so but I don't think we are going to be

6 sitting past 1.45, though I'm perfectly willing to do so, just in case

7 Mr. President has changed his mind, it would be fair to say that many

8 individuals had different opinions, different proposals, with respect to

9 Bosnia and Herzegovina on the issue of the Croatian question, if I can put

10 it so pedestrian?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. Okay. And Tudjman, the late President Tudjman, as you well know,

13 was a historian, was he not, in his previous -- before he came a

14 president, he was a historian. We will talk a little bit about his life?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. Okay. He has a pretty good grasp of the past history of the

17 Croatian peoples and Croatia?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. All right. And, of course, there are times when he's asking

20 questions during this presidential transcript?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. I mean he's chairing the meeting, more or less, correct?

23 A. He is chairing most of it, at least, and is clearly a dominant

24 figure in the room when he's in charge.

25 Q. And if we look at the meeting, you can almost get a sense that

1 there was a little tension in that meeting?

2 A. I would call it a great deal of tension.

3 Q. Okay. Well, all right. Certain personalities had different views

4 and they were clashing?

5 A. There was a distinct clash of views. It was very personalised by

6 the various parties directed mainly against, but not exclusively against,

7 Kljujic.

8 Q. All right. And would it be fair to say that Tudjman throughout

9 this meeting that he's chairing, at times would ask a question but in the

10 question may you may walk away with an impression of what he's thinking

11 about?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. But fair to say that there is one consistent thread throughout

14 this discussion with respect to the late President Franjo Tudjman and that

15 is that he's urging those the next to go back to Bosnia-Herzegovina and to

16 speak with the two other main interlocutors, and that is Karadzic and

17 Izetbegovic, correct?

18 A. No.

19 Q. No? Okay. That's -- you didn't see that anywhere?

20 A. I answered your question --

21 Q. Okay. I'll break it up?

22 A. -- that there was one consistent thread throughout this discussion

23 and the answer is no.

24 Q. All right. Does he not urge the parties to go back and talk to

25 Alija Izetbegovic and Karadzic and try to find some negotiated settlement?

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. Okay. In fact, he says it more than once?

3 A. Yes, he does.

4 Q. Okay. Now, with respect to Kljujic, since you mentioned him, at

5 that point in time he was the head of the HDZ in Bosnia-Herzegovina,

6 correct?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. Lived in Sarajevo?

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. All right. And is this -- is this meeting before or after the

11 referendum?

12 A. The referendum on independence?

13 Q. Yes.

14 A. It's about two months before the referendum.

15 Q. All right. There is a -- now, Mr. Kljujic has his points of views

16 as well. Do you recall him saying, on page 2, I'm just going to read it,

17 you could just tell me if you agree or disagree with having read it, since

18 you've read it and analysed it, he says "We stated our position clearly a

19 year ago that we were for a sovereign Bosnia-Herzegovina, as long as there

20 was a shred of a chance that it may come to pass."

21 I have an extra copy if you would like to see it, to follow along.

22 If I could have the assistance --

23 And I believe this is P 00089.

24 We are just going to cover a couple of these things. I don't --

25 you would find it where it starts with the paragraph, "For us and for the

1 HDZ, there were no dilemmas in this respect because this was our party's

2 platform as well and we stated our position clearly a year ago, that we

3 were for a sovereign Bosnia-Herzegovina as long as there was a shred of a

4 chance that it may come to pass." Do you see that?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. Okay. Now, if we go to the next page, page 3, where it begins,

7 the paragraph says, "Finally," I don't want to read it but there is a

8 discussion there with respect to currency, correct?

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. The dinar. That would have been the dinar that was coming in from

11 Belgrade?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. There was a problem that they were facing in Bosnia-Herzegovina at

14 the time, correct?

15 A. There was a problem facing essentially all of the former

16 Yugoslavia at the time, and that was the weakness and effectively

17 devaluation of the dinar.

18 Q. Right. But the currency, the Serbian dinar being used in

19 Bosnia-Herzegovina was one of the issues, and I believe, and maybe you can

20 help me out here, that the Croats at that time saw that perhaps with the

21 use of the Serbian dinar, Bosnia-Herzegovina could be going closer and

22 closer to the Serbs?

23 A. Yes. That was one, let's say, bell weather indicator that they

24 were watching to see let's say the direction in which particularly the

25 Bosnian Muslim leadership might move.

1 Q. All right. Now, had Croatia been attacked by the JNA by there

2 point?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. All right. So that might be one reason why they might have some

5 suspicions and fears, or at least what was happening from Belgrade, what

6 Belgrade was doing, correct?

7 A. Well, they had been at war for essentially most of the year,

8 certainly for six months, so yes.

9 Q. And by this point, I take it, that incident in Ravno would have

10 happened?

11 A. The incident in Ravno was in, I think, October 4th or 5th of 1991.

12 Q. Now, and that was a Croatian village?

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. I believe there was another incident prior to that, I believe it

15 was in May 1991, a smaller incident but nonetheless it involved Croatians,

16 that's in Uniste [phoen]? If you don't recall, that's fine, or if you

17 don't know.

18 A. I don't recall the specifics of that.

19 Q. But fair to say, and I'm sure you might know this, that the JNA

20 was using Bosnian territory from which to launch attacks against Croatia?

21 A. Yes. It was -- you could characterise it as a -- the major JNA

22 staging area for the war in Croatia.

23 Q. Of course, Izetbegovic did nothing to prevent that, did he?

24 A. No, I wouldn't say that.

25 Q. Okay.

1 A. There was action by the Presidency, the critical issue for the JNA

2 at that point was manpower, massive desertions, and the Presidency of

3 Bosnia-Herzegovina urged its -- the citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina to

4 disregard the mobilisation of reservists.

5 Q. Sir, is it not a fact that the president of the Presidency, Alija

6 Izetbegovic, who was proclaiming to be the president for all peoples of

7 Bosnia-Herzegovina, did nothing to prevent the JNA from using Bosnian

8 territory to attack Croatia? Yes or no.

9 A. No.

10 Q. Okay. Do you recall him saying, this is not our problem? This is

11 not our war?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. Okay. And the war he meant, the war that was going on in Croatia,

14 right?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. The same war where the belligerent army was using his territory in

17 order to attack another country, Croatia, right?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. And the Croats that were living just over the border in

20 Bosnia-Herzegovina, you could consider them as, in a sense, co-nationals,

21 since they shared the same national identity?

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. History, culture, literature, language, religion, right?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. And at least one might walk away thinking, you know what? Maybe

1 this president is not looking after our interests. Maybe he's not

2 protecting us, especially when a Croatian village is demolished, people

3 are killed, they are Croatian by origin and the response of the president

4 is, not our war?

5 A. That was not the response of the Presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina

6 to the Ravno incident.

7 Q. I said the president. I didn't say the Presidency?

8 A. Well, the president of the Presidency was Alija Izetbegovic, and

9 he and other members of the Presidency dispatched a delegation to Ravno to

10 investigate what had happened and come back, make recommendations. So

11 again I insist it is not the case that the Presidency, nor the president

12 of the Presidency, did nothing. I'm not happy that they didn't do more,

13 myself, but your flat statement that they did nothing is false.

14 Q. By this point, was the SDA arming itself, their military wing, the

15 Patriotic League?

16 A. What time?

17 Q. By this time, you know, Ravno time.

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. Okay. And that was an army, so to speak, by Muslims for Muslims,

20 was it not?

21 A. Well, I'd call it a paramilitary.

22 Q. Okay. Paramilitary. All right. You also had the TO, the

23 Territorial Defences, right?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. Okay. And depending on where they were located because they were

1 usually by design they were -- they came under the municipalities, you

2 know, there may be a mixture depending on the municipality, right?

3 A. I'm not sure I understand your question.

4 Q. Okay. All right. Do you know how the Territorial Defences were

5 structured?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. Okay. All right. And was there Territorial Defence for the

8 entire country at Sarajevo that was their headquarters or was it -- we

9 have an objection?

10 MR. SCOTT: Excuse me, Your Honour, could we have some timeframes

11 for these things? These things were changing day to day, week to week.

12 During this time period, there was the JNA TO Territorial Defence, later

13 there was the Bosnia-Herzegovina Territorial Defence. So could we have

14 timeframes, please, for these questions.

15 MR. KARNAVAS: Your Honour --

16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes, indeed.

17 MR. KARNAVAS: The time frame for my learned friend, had he been

18 listening, is the Ravno time. That was the previous questions were for,

19 the Ravno time. We've already established that Ravno happened September

20 or so in 1991. Where is the dilemma that Mr. Scott is having other than

21 trying to eat up my time?

22 Q. Now, with that period of time, 1991, in September, could you tell

23 us how the Territorial Defences were structured?

24 A. The Territorial Defence was a republican-level organisation. It

25 existed in all republics of the former Yugoslavia, and reported jointly to

1 the JNA command, and to the Ministry of Defence of the individual

2 republics. In effect, many Territorial Defence units at this time were

3 under the control of municipal authorities.

4 Q. Right.

5 A. In many municipalities, that meant essentially no change from the

6 time that they had been operating as a kind of a standby or reserve force

7 which was a very wide -- there was widespread participation in it. In

8 some other instances the Territorial Defence units were under the control

9 of municipal authorities of a particular national party. In some cases,

10 the HDZ, in some cases, the SDS, and in relatively few cases, the SDA.

11 Q. All right. The SDA also had -- well there was these Green Berets,

12 they were also Muslim fighters, were they not?

13 A. Both the Green Berets and the Patriotic League were really at this

14 time in the beginning stages of being formed. Neither one of them really

15 took off until the war in Croatia started to cause many Muslim

16 participants in the JNA to desert, come back to Bosnia, and volunteer for

17 these forces.

18 Q. Okay. Might one say that they volunteer for these forces because

19 they saw the winds, you know, changing, was switching direction, that

20 perhaps they would be next, in other words Bosnia-Herzegovina might be

21 next on the attack list by the JNA?

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. Okay. So it would make sense, for instance, for these communities

24 to organise themselves, right?

25 A. Which communities are you speaking of it.

1 Q. Well, communities within Bosnia-Herzegovina.

2 A. What communities are you referring to?

3 Q. Well, let's just say the municipalities. Would it be fair to say

4 that the municipalities should become more actively engaged in mobilising

5 themselves, in preparation for war?

6 A. Well, I thought that was a republican function, and there were

7 some municipalities who did undertake that, but by and large under

8 leadership of their political leaders based in Sarajevo.

9 Q. But the establishment of the Patriotic League, that was not a

10 republican function, was it?

11 A. No.

12 Q. All right. If we could go back to Mr. Kljujic, at some point, I'm

13 just going to because we are eating up quite a bit of time here, on page

14 7, it's still Mr. Kljujic, if you look at page 6, and then you go to page

15 7, he says here, middle of the page, "Gentlemen I think everything is

16 clear to someone who adopts language like that." He's referring to

17 Karadzic from the previous sentence, and he says, "I think it would be

18 acceptable to have a sovereign Bosnia-Herzegovina divided into cantons

19 which would guarantee human rights to all, et cetera."

20 A. I'm sorry, I'm not following you where you are.

21 Q. Page 7?

22 A. Page 7, okay.

23 Q. I'm sorry, I just wants to make sure that we're still with

24 Kljujic. "I think that it would be acceptable to have a sovereign

25 Bosnia-Herzegovina divided into cantons which would guarantee human rights

1 to all but to partition Bosnia according to the Serbian recipe would put

2 us in a minority position as we constitute over 50 per cent of the

3 population in 14 municipalities while in five municipalities we have a

4 plurality."

5 So at least from this statement it appears, does it not, that Mr.

6 Kljujic is suggesting or he's -- he's accepting the possibility of cantons

7 in Bosnia-Herzegovina?

8 A. Yes. I think he did, and virtually everyone in the top political

9 leadership, even social democrats, accepted the possibility that cantons

10 would evolve from the negotiating process, and the SDA leaders, for

11 example, who were in principle opposed to that division, nevertheless came

12 up with maps for the creation of cantons. They didn't like the name of

13 the game that they were playing but, forced to play it, they were

14 determined to play it well. And this is what I take to be Kljujic's

15 feelings about the matter here.

16 Q. All right. So -- and what is ultimately proposed or being

17 discussed at Cutileiro looks like cantons, does it not?

18 A. Well, it looks like a division into ethnic, I would say, enclaves,

19 and the problematic part of this for all parties was the lack of

20 continuity within the Cutileiro plan. It chopped these territories up

21 into two, three, four units per group, making communication and

22 compactness of territory, to use the words of the Graz agreement,

23 impossible.

24 Q. All right. But nonetheless, the Croats were willing to accept

25 their lot and sign off on it, right?

1 A. It is not clear that they signed off on -- I'm quite sure that

2 they did not sign the Cutileiro agreement.

3 Q. All right. But is there not -- there is a principle agreement

4 that all three parties initially come to terms with, right?

5 A. No. I --

6 Q. I stand corrected. The Croats agreed, correct, and so does

7 Izetbegovic?

8 A. No. I --

9 Q. All right. Help me out here, then.

10 A. Well, if you look at the statements made by the leaders of the

11 three parties as they emerge from the talks, if you look at the post-talk

12 commentary on the talks at the time of the London Conference in August of

13 1992, everyone seems to agree that there was never anything specifically

14 agreed to. They only accepted verbally the map as a basis for further

15 talks.

16 Q. Okay. All right. I misstated that. And after accepting the map

17 for further talks, did anyone change their mind?

18 A. That's a good question. They all refused to, let's say, proceed

19 on that basis, and engaged in a game of mutual blame throwing right up

20 until the time of the independence recognition, April 7th.

21 Q. All right. Now, the Cutileiro plan itself, it's sort of was based

22 on three constituent units, was it not?

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. Okay. Based on national principles and taking into account the

25 economic, geographical and other criteria, right?

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. And that Bosnia-Herzegovina would continue to have its existing

3 borders, right?

4 A. I think you're reading something. I'm not too sure what you're

5 reading.

6 Q. I'm asking you a question. I mean, you're the expert, you're

7 telling me that you analysed these documents. Isn't that what the

8 Cutileiro plan provided for, not the carving up of Bosnia. It would have

9 its existing borders?

10 A. That's in -- in principle, what the Cutileiro plan proposed, yes.

11 I don't want to be held to the specific wording.

12 Q. Right. But I think at no time did it propose that it break up

13 into three different countries?

14 A. Formally, that's correct.

15 Q. What do you mean formally? Did -- informally they were to break

16 up into three different countries?

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. That's your interpretation?

19 A. I use the term formally in the same sense that President Tudjman

20 did in the December 27th meaning nominally.

21 Q. All right. But again, did we not -- I thought we had an agreement

22 that you had to look at all of the -- his entire, that entire meeting that

23 70 pages, in order to come to some kind of a conclusion as to what his

24 position is?

25 A. I think his position is clear.

1 Q. Okay. All right. Now, I am going to read from the document. And

2 it's -- it would be 1 D 00398. If we could go to the page 24 of the -- I

3 guess it would be at the bottom of the page, 1D 190034. Perhaps it would

4 be easier to put it on the ELMO since I just want to make some quick

5 points. Thank you.

6 All right. Are you familiar with this document, sir?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. Okay. And under item 1 it says, three constituent units, right?

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. And those three constituent units, by the way, those were already

11 guaranteed in the BiH constitution, were they not?

12 A. No, not to my knowledge.

13 Q. Okay. I misspoke. The nations -- there were three constituent

14 nations in the BiH constitution, correct?

15 A. There were three constituent nations in the BiH constitution

16 without any assignment of any territorial division among them.

17 Q. But there were three nations?

18 A. Three constituent nations.

19 Q. Okay. All right. And sorry, here we have three constituent

20 units. Now you go to number 2, Bosnia-Herzegovina would continue to have

21 its existing borders, nothing about carving up, and the government of

22 Bosnia-Herzegovina nor the governments of the constituent units, that

23 would be the Croat, the Serb and the Muslim, will encourage or support

24 claims to any part of its territories by neighbouring states, all right?

25 That's under number 2?

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. Okay. And then number 3, sovereignty resides in the citizens of

3 the Muslim, Serbs and Croat nations, and other nations and nationalities

4 who realise it through their civic participation in the constituent units

5 and the central organs of the republic, all right? And now they seem to

6 be making a distinction between nations and nationalities?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. Okay. And we are talking about nations, you know, this -- we said

9 that the constitution guaranteed three nations, it's a little bit

10 different than a nationality, isn't it?

11 A. Yes. In Yugoslav legal theory a nation was one which had a

12 constituent status in a republic. A nationality was typically a people

13 whose corpus was principally outside Yugoslavia but had a representation

14 of population within it, such as, for example, Hungarians, Albanians in

15 Kosovo, Italians in Slovenia.

16 Q. Now, for the Croats, at least in Bosnia and Herzegovina, that was

17 rather important because by demographics, they only composed about 17.5 of

18 the population?

19 A. Well, to parse the statement, I think the notion of each -- for

20 each group, the status of constituent nation was critically important.

21 The disagreement came on whether that sovereignty would be realised

22 through the constituent units --

23 Q. Okay?

24 A. -- In whole or in part, or whether it was in fact a function of

25 the republic.

1 Q. All right. Even at the -- at the national level, Yugoslavia, that

2 was kind of an issue that was coming up, that had come up, at least, with

3 free elections?

4 A. Which issue?

5 Q. The issue of nations?

6 A. Certainly.

7 Q. All right?

8 A. It's a critical [indiscernible].

9 Q. And yesterday you touched upon it a little bit, about unitary

10 government, that issue. I believe Mr. Scott asked you a question or two

11 about that.

12 A. What's your question?

13 Q. Okay. That was just the preface. Do you recall, have you ever

14 heard the term unitary government?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. Okay. And in this particular context, did it not mean one person,

17 one vote?

18 A. That's a different concept completely.

19 Q. Okay. At that time, was it not -- isn't it a fact that for the

20 Croats, they opposed the principle of one person, one vote, on a general

21 basis?

22 A. Some of them did.

23 Q. Okay. Some. Are you saying 5 per cent, 10 per cent?

24 A. I don't know.

25 Q. Okay. That was not one of the main issues because of their --

1 they were only 17.5 per cent?

2 A. The issue of their percentage of the population was that -- and

3 continues to be a critical -- of critical concern to Croatian leaders,

4 nationalist and non-nationalist.

5 Q. Was that an issue for the Croats and the Slovenes during the

6 Yugoslav days as Milosevic was grabbing and amassing power?

7 A. A little bit different. The situation of the Republic of Croatia

8 and the Republic of Slovenia, and their relationship to the Socialist

9 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was a constitutional one at the republican

10 federal level, couldn't quite touch on these issues of sovereignty within

11 Bosnia-Herzegovina.

12 Q. Needless to say, the Croatians were worried about their vital,

13 national interests, Croatians in Bosnia-Herzegovina, because of their

14 percentage?

15 A. Everyone was concerned about their vital, national interests.

16 Q. I didn't ask you about everyone. I asked you about the Croatians.

17 If you can answer me, answer my question. We will talk about the others

18 afterwards.

19 A. The Croatian in Bosnia-Herzegovina were definitely concerned about

20 their status, if you will.

21 Q. And when you look at those numbers, they are pretty low?

22 A. They are the lowest of the three.

23 Q. All right. And would it be fair to say that when the Croats voted

24 for the referendum -- during the referendum, for independence, that was

25 more of a vote against being part of Bosnia-Herzegovina being part of

1 Yugoslavia or what was left of it?

2 A. I think that's a fair characterisation of the leadership of the

3 HDZ's understanding at that time. I think that aptly captures their

4 motivation. You know, what the individual voter of Croatian nationality

5 was thinking is hard to know. I think there were probably as much as

6 anything a desire to follow the party leadership in whatever call they

7 made, and a general sense of in many cases a feeling that

8 Bosnia-Herzegovina ought to be an independent republic.

9 Q. All right. But the Serbs objected to that, right, they wanted to

10 stay within Yugoslavia and that's why they went off on their own?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. All right. And -- okay. Now, to your knowledge, maybe you can

13 help us out here, did Alija Izetbegovic ever state a position, and, if so,

14 where, as to how he envisaged protecting the vital national interests of

15 the Croatian people within Bosnia-Herzegovina, how he would exactly do

16 that, other than promoting the one person, one vote, which would always

17 give them the majority?

18 A. Well, I am not in a position to give you a specific quotation, but

19 there are hundreds, probably thousands of times in which Izetbegovic stood

20 by the principle of the equal rights for every constituent peoples.

21 Q. Okay.

22 A. And therefore, of the Croats.

23 Q. Now, equal rights but he also maintained a consistent policy of

24 one person, one vote?

25 A. Yes.

1 Q. Okay. And that was sort of an issue, a burning issue in Iraq,

2 with the Shiite, they wanted that one person, one vote, because they had

3 60 per cent of the population with the Shiite being only 20 per cent and

4 the Kurds another 20 per cent, they would always be outvoted. So in that

5 context one might say one person, one vote would not necessarily promote

6 at least to the Croatian satisfaction their vital national interest.

7 Would you agree with me on that?

8 A. Boy, I've -- I lost you there, I'm afraid.

9 Q. Okay. All right. Can't answer that question? Too complex?

10 A. If you can repeat it, I can answer it.

11 Q. Okay. All right. Are you following the events in Iraq where they

12 are trying to draft a constitution?

13 A. Sir, they are not trying to draft a constitution. They drafted a

14 constitution.

15 Q. Okay. That's right. And the first proposal that was on the table

16 was one person, one vote, which the Shiite were promoting. Bush didn't

17 count on it, on promoting democracy, but they were insisting one person,

18 one vote, 60 per cent, they win every time, and that was one of the main

19 stumbling blocks, was it not, for the Kurds and the Sunni?

20 A. Let me go to the one part of your question which perhaps isn't --

21 the answer hasn't been made completely clear. In the voting for the

22 Presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina, there was a system which was backed by

23 the SDA and Izetbegovic which was not strictly one man one vote. It

24 assured the Croats equal participation with Serbs and Muslims in terms of

25 the two representatives on the Presidency.

1 Q. Right. With the third one going to the other, being a Muslim who

2 claimed to be a Yugoslav?

3 A. The voting for the category of other was available to any

4 candidate who declared himself something other than those three groups.

5 Q. But that's at the party leadership. Going down, in other

6 positions, did they have a formula to ensure at the lower ranks within the

7 bureaucracy, that that would -- that formula would be adhered to, if you

8 know?

9 A. It's a complex question, that was very much respected at the --

10 you know, in the, say, early to mid-eras of socialism.

11 Q. We are talking now. We are talking now. I don't want to talk

12 about socialism. We are into democracy now. So let's not backtrack. I'm

13 talking about at this point, because you mentioned it. What about other

14 organs in the assembly in the municipalities, did they have a formula

15 throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina so that they would protect the vital

16 national interests of the Croatian people who were 17.5 of the population?

17 A. Well, as I indicated, there was a formula in effect in the

18 Presidency, that is not a party organ, that is a state organ of the

19 Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The interparty agreement which was

20 reached on the eve of the voting in November of 1990, assured

21 participation to all groups according to a formula, as I indicated

22 yesterday, that applied in every municipality and was in fact implemented

23 in the first six months of 1991 in most municipalities of

24 Bosnia-Herzegovina. So it's not a simple matter of one person, one vote,

25 versus a single formula. There were multiple formulas and changes going

1 on in the bureaucracy that resulted in, in some cases more Croats coming

2 into certain bodies, in other cases fewer. The point I was trying to make

3 is that as, particularly professional organisations under socialism,

4 developed criteria for hiring which were not national. When the

5 democratic elections took place in November of 1990, in many cases the

6 national parties came along and attempted to establish an ethnic balance

7 according to formulas agreed upon which overrode the professional

8 principles of selection of these various organs.

9 Q. Is that your full answer?

10 A. Would you like more?

11 Q. Sir, is it not a fact that the term unitary government and one

12 person, one vote, was a burning issue, particularly for the Croats, during

13 that period of time?

14 A. I would say for many Croats, it was.

15 Q. All right. And in part, it was because of the reasons that I

16 stated, this they were concerned about their vital national interests,

17 right?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. All right. One might even say that there was a vital national

20 interests and how they were going to be protected, could be seen in the

21 manner in which the president handled the Ravno incident, and him allowing

22 Bosnia-Herzegovina territory to be used as a staging ground for a

23 belligerent army to attack a nation which was occupied by co-nationals

24 that shared the same culture, the same history, the same language, so when

25 you put all of it together, you can understand how the Croats might have

1 been concerned in that particular time, correct?

2 A. That's your testimony, not mine.

3 Q. All right. Fair enough. Now, we have about five minutes before

4 the break. Perhaps we could just touch upon one quick issue, switch to a

5 different topic. Yesterday you talked about the Croatian constitution and

6 you mentioned that the banovina was mentioned in the preamble of the

7 constitution, correct?

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. All right. And I noticed you stopped there. You stopped at the

10 banovina. You didn't go on. Now, perhaps we could look at that document

11 and in fairness to you but also in fairness to President Tudjman and all

12 the other drafters, in order to put it in context I think it would be good

13 to look at it. This would be is 1D 00400. I'm sorry, it's actually

14 already in as P 8532. Perhaps it might be easier as well to have it on

15 the ELMO. I don't know, whichever is most convenient. If it's going to

16 take some time I do have a copy. If we could just look at that, just --

17 and you have to -- can we zoom down so we could see the whole -- a little

18 bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more. Of course, you can't read

19 it now but if you look at that, that first part, it talks -- it's titled,

20 "historical foundations," if I can read it correctly. Is that what it

21 says?

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. Now, if you look at that, it sort of covers an entire period of

24 the Croatian people's history, does it not?

25 A. Yes. I would say the Croatian people and state.

1 Q. And state. Okay. And so naturally there was one period within

2 their history where the banovina came into, right?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. All right. But they don't stop there. It continues, does it not?

5 A. Yes, it does.

6 Q. All right. So if we look at this in context, in context, it's not

7 highlighting the banovina, it's merely referencing, referencing, the

8 banovina, as part of the Croatian history of the peoples and of the

9 territories of the Croatian peoples, right?

10 A. Well, it's highlighting about what's the seven or eight

11 particular -- I counted them once, I think it's more than that, I think

12 it's nine or ten, significant events in the history of the Croatian state

13 and people.

14 Q. All right?

15 A. Of which the creation of the banovina is one.

16 Q. Right. And so if you were going to read the constitution for the

17 very first time, if you were a Croat in a period where for the first time

18 at least in modern history they have what they believe is a free and

19 democratic society, reading that part of the Croatian constitution, be

20 they Croat or somebody else, at least would put them into the picture of

21 what it means to be a Croat and what is the basic Croatian foundational

22 history, right?

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. All right. And so even if we just take the banovina out and

25 highlight it, are we not taking it out of context?

1 A. Well.

2 Q. Just yes or no?

3 A. No, no.

4 Q. If you just take out, no?

5 A. No, I don't think we are because the broader context of this

6 document --

7 Q. You answered the question.

8 A. -- of course, that the Croatian state was not simply made up of

9 Croats.

10 Q. Sir --

11 A. It was made up of 600 and some thousand Serbs. It was made up of

12 other nationalities. And so the broader context of this is that when we

13 talking about the history of the Croatian state --

14 Q. Okay?

15 A. -- that's one thing. But when we go into the history of the

16 Croatian people and make the history of the these highlighted items, the

17 history of the Croatian people, that excludes a certain population, and

18 the banovina was particularly egregious in this respect. So in my view

19 that's what makes this an important I would say key element of this. I

20 would say -- I would agree that the ideal way to present this is in fact

21 to give you the entire constitution and note that this is one of the

22 provisions for it.

23 Q. And I put to you, sir, that that answer is somewhat of a

24 confabulation, and that in fact you took it out of context and you drew it

25 to our attention not because they failed to mention a particular peoples

1 but rather you are pushing the Prosecution's agenda?

2 MR. SCOTT: I object to that, Your Honour. It's not even a

3 question, it's purely a statement.

4 MR. KARNAVAS: I'm putting my case to the witness, he can answer

5 yes or no.

6 MR. SCOTT: I still object to it. I don't care if he's putting

7 his case.

8 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Scott, objection, right?

9 MR. SCOTT: Yes, Your Honour.

10 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Why?

11 MR. SCOTT: Because this is purely -- all this is, is Mr. Karnavas

12 arguing his case and not only arguing his case but taking it completely

13 out of context. There was no effort to put an isolated sentence in front

14 of the Chamber. The claim has the entire constitution. That was given to

15 you and the only testimony that's been about that is that one part of it

16 makes reference that the banovina is mentioned in the Croatian

17 constitution, a point that appears to be not in dispute. It's mentioned

18 in the Croatian constitution and that's the only point and the rest of it

19 is argument. The rest of it is purely Mr. Karnavas making argument.

20 MR. KARNAVAS: We can take our break.

21 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Indeed. Just before we have our

22 break, Mr. Karnavas, you were asking a question of the witness about the

23 fact that the banovina was omitted or was taken out of the constitution,

24 but as was pointed out by Mr. Scott, as I note myself, in the historical

25 foundation, mention is made of the banovina in 1939. So I fail to quite

1 follow you in your argument.

2 MR. KARNAVAS: Mr. President, the argument made by the Prosecutor

3 in response, their objection, actually drove the point home and I accept

4 what they just indicated the objection to be. If it was just mentioning

5 the banovina, that's fine. And I think now we have some clarification, we

6 can no longer place any more emphasis on that factor since it's merely

7 mentioned. Thank you. In regards to this context of how it was raised,

8 with pointing it out in the constitution. The banovina may play another

9 role in a different context.

10 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. It's now 10.35.

11 Let's have a 20-minute break and we shall resume in 20 minutes' time.

12 --- Recess taken at 10.35 a.m.

13 --- On resuming at 11.01 a.m.

14 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Karnavas, please proceed.

15 MR. KARNAVAS: Thank you, Mr. President. And thank you,

16 Your Honours.

17 Q. We left off on the banovina. As I indicated Mr. Jonjic will cover

18 that but since we were speaking about banovinas, I thought we would touch

19 a little bit on Franjo Tudjman. Yesterday you said that he was quite

20 open, quite frank, and has written extensively on his particular views,

21 the views he held, be they political or historical. Would that be fair to

22 say?

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. All right. And I take it you, being a historian, have read

25 everything that Franjo Tudjman has written?

1 A. I read his books.

2 Q. Okay.

3 A. I can't say I've read every article or speech.

4 Q. Okay. But his primary works, you've read?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. Especially the ones going back when he was a director of the --

7 just know it by the acronym, the IHRPH?

8 A. Yes, the Institute for Contemporary History and -- I think it's

9 Institute for Contemporary History is the name of the institute in Zagreb.

10 Q. He was a director of that after he had left the JNA, as I

11 understand it. He had been a general in the JNA?

12 A. That's correct.

13 Q. He grew up or was brought up through the Partizan movement,

14 prominent member of the Communist Party, purged to some extent, and he had

15 a rather colourful and distinguished career, wouldn't you say?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. And some may even liken him, at least when he began to voice his

18 opinion, back in the -- that period called or known as the Croatian spring

19 and being a reformer?

20 A. Some certainly viewed him as a reformer, yes.

21 Q. All right. We are talking about a communist, not a socialist. I

22 know they use the word socialist but, let's face it, it was a communist

23 system, it may be communist light to some when you compare it to maybe

24 East Germany but nonetheless it was communist, was it not?

25 A. Yes.

1 Q. As you indicated, he went to prison a couple of times in his

2 lifetime?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. Now, yesterday, you shared with us some -- I believe it was from

5 Owen's book, his opinion or at least a little vignette of Mr. -- the late

6 President Tudjman's position, at least with respect to how Owen recalled

7 it. Have you by any chance read what the former ambassador, American

8 ambassador, I believe his name is Herbert Okun, said about his dealings

9 with Mr. Tudjman? Have you come across that at all?

10 A. No, I've not.

11 Q. Okay. Perhaps we can put it on the ELMO or if we have it in the

12 new system, on the ELMO? I apologise for going low-tech but I prefer it

13 this way in some ways.

14 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] It's not very high-tech but it

15 is very useful.

16 MR. KARNAVAS:

17 Q. Now, if you could just give it a quick glance, I assume that

18 you're a quick reader, being an intellectual. And I have the Croatian

19 version, if you want. This is a draft translation. Okay. Have you had a

20 chance to look at it, sir?

21 A. Just give me another minute to ...

22 Q. Okay. All right. This is part we are looking at, by the way,

23 this is 1D 00416, marked for identification.

24 A. Yes, I read it.

25 Q. On the ELMO if we could flip the page so we could see the B/C/S

1 version of it for our B/C/S speakers and also if you could just look at

2 that, do you know this gentleman or know of him?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. Okay. American ambassador, right?

5 A. Foreign service officer of ambassador rank, yes.

6 Q. Okay. And his opinion of Tudjman is rather that he is

7 straightforward, serious politician, kept his word, honest, right?

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. Curt in style, you know, curt style of behaviour, which many,

10 especially journalists of the west misinterpreted. Was that your opinion

11 of Tudjman as well? I know you haven't met him but --

12 A. Many journalists in the west? Yes, I think that's a good

13 observation. Journalists did in fact, I think, misinterpreted most of

14 these leaders in one way or another.

15 Q. Right. And one would expect the ambassador who is having

16 dealings, someone of ambassador rank, if he's having dealings as it would

17 appear that Mr. Okun suggests that they might have a better opportunity to

18 see them and not just formal but also informal settings from which they

19 could draw some opinions and conclusions, right?

20 A. Well, my understanding was that Okun was Vance's notetaker and

21 companion as he was negotiating what became the Vance Plan in January of

22 1992. So he would have had some occasions and perhaps missed others, if

23 those meetings were one on one between Vance and Tudjman but I would agree

24 with your proposition, he had ample opportunity to observe Tudjman and

25 relate to him.

1 Q. All right. Okay. So we at least we get a pretty good picture, at

2 least from this particular gentleman, of his impressions of the late

3 President Tudjman and might you conclude from reading this that they are

4 rather positive and not negative?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. Okay. Now, we can move on. And thank you very much, Madam Usher.

7 Yesterday, I think the -- Mr. Zimmerman came up, the late

8 ambassador Zimmerman, I think his name came up and I believe you have

9 cited him on occasion and obviously I'm sure you're aware of his book?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. All right. He wrote a book called Origins of a Catastrophe:

12 Yugoslavia and its Destroyers, America's Last Ambassador tells what

13 happened and why. In his book, he describes some of the folks that he's

14 met, does he not?

15 A. Yes, he does.

16 Q. Now, I don't have the book with me, unfortunately, in my rush to

17 come here, but I do have the quotes, I'll give the page numbers and I can

18 obviously provide the Court and the Prosecutor with the pages, copies of

19 the pages but let me read you what Mr. Zimmerman says about these leaders.

20 One gets sort of an impression of who Mr. Zimmerman is and what he thinks

21 of the people he's dealing with. With respect to Milan Kucan, and you

22 know who that individual is, right?

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. And who was he, for those of us who don't know?

25 A. He was president of Slovenia.

1 Q. Okay. He calls him squat and a human AK-47, whose lack of

2 responsibility triggered the crisis in 1991. You will find that on pages

3 30 to 42 and on page 142. With respect to Alija Izetbegovic -- now, is

4 that -- do you share that opinion of Mr. Kucan by the way, what you know

5 of him?

6 A. No. I probably don't know enough about him to form an opinion but

7 I wouldn't start out at least by sharing that opinion of him.

8 Q. Okay. I mean a human AK-47. That's rather rough, don't you

9 think? That's like a machine-gun. Whose lack of responsibility triggered

10 the crisis. I always thought the crisis was triggered because they were

11 concerned about their vital national interests, considering that Milosevic

12 there was rigging the game.

13 A. What's your question?

14 Q. This characterisation, that he triggered the crisis. Is that

15 your -- is that your opinion? Do you share that?

16 A. No.

17 Q. Okay. He characterises Alija Izetbegovic as "mild mannered to a

18 fault, overly deferential and perpetually anxious and, like Franjo Tudjman

19 and Vojislav Seselj, a nationalist who had been convicted of sowing ethnic

20 hatred." That would be found on page 39 and 114 and to 115 of Mr.

21 Zimmerman's book. Would you agree with that characterisation of Alija

22 Izetbegovic, that he was convicted for sowing ethnic hatred? I take it

23 that's when he was convicted during the former Yugoslavia days.

24 A. You're reading from a document that I don't have in front of me

25 and I don't know what the full context of it is. Your specific question

1 as to the -- whether was convicted for sowing ethnic hatred, I would

2 disagree, at least from a historian's standpoint. I'm not familiar with

3 the specific charges that were filed in 1983 at his trial, but -- or for

4 that matter in the 1947 trial. So I can't from a legal standpoint tell

5 you that he was -- was or was not convicted of a charge of sowing ethnic

6 hatred. I just don't have that information. But I would not share the

7 characterisation of the purpose for which he was tried.

8 Q. All right. But when he was tried in 83, wasn't it because of a

9 particular publication? Didn't he write something?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. And what was that -- what was the title of it, do you recall?

12 A. The Islamic Declaration.

13 Q. And in that Islamic declaration he expressed certain views which,

14 I guess, the communist authorities at the time thought were sowing ethnic

15 hatred?

16 A. Again, I can't without reference to the specific charges answer

17 that.

18 Q. All right. Can I ask you whether you've read that particular

19 book?

20 A. I have.

21 Q. Okay. All right. And that book, incidentally -- and there are

22 various interpretations of the book, let me just stop with that question.

23 Right?

24 A. There have been a lot of interpretations of individual excerpts

25 from it.

1 Q. Right.

2 A. And varying interpretations of the book itself.

3 Q. Okay. And you know, some see it -- see Alija Izetbegovic as

4 someone who aspires to protect and develop the vital national interests of

5 the Muslim people in that region, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, right?

6 A. I would say one sees that in him, among other qualities.

7 Q. But in that book, but in that book, others see him as a

8 nationalist with a capital N?

9 A. Well, in that book, he never mentions Bosnia-Herzegovina, the

10 Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina, or Yugoslavia.

11 Q. I understand that?

12 A. So your assertion that he would in that book be advancing the

13 national interests of the Bosnian Muslims is not the case.

14 Q. Now, sir, we are going to get into some disagreements here because

15 that's not what I asked you. I'm saying others who have read this book

16 have suggested, you know, from reading the book that he was a nationalist.

17 I'm not saying that he was. I'm not stating an opinion one way or the

18 other. But have others not, after reading that book, have suggested that

19 he was a nationalist and some even have said that he was an Islamist?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. Okay. So I guess my point being is it all depends on where you

22 are from which spectrum -- from which school how you interpret this

23 particular book. You may walk away with any one of those three or maybe

24 even more opinions?

25 A. I think you can walk away from the book with just about any

1 opinion you want to. Most people who opine on it haven't read it.

2 They've read the excerpts which have become famous and widely cited but

3 few people have really bothered to read the full text.

4 Q. Which goes back to my part of the thing I talk about a little bit,

5 my thesis is when you take something out of context, and you just read it

6 and you fixate on it, then perhaps you might reach the wrong conclusion.

7 I'm not saying -- I'm just saying in general now. So -- right? Is that a

8 yes or no or maybe?

9 A. Well, I agree its your thesis, yes.

10 Q. You would agree if you take something out of context based on your

11 answer to the previous question, folks have just read snippets of it, they

12 walk away with all sorts of different opinions without having read the

13 entire book.

14 My apologies to the translators. Give them one minute to catch

15 up.

16 A. Okay. If your question was is it a bad idea to take something out

17 of context, the answer is, yes, it is a bad idea.

18 Q. Okay.

19 A. One cannot help but let's say narrowing context in the course of

20 selecting information but as much context as possible is always, I think,

21 desirable --

22 Q. All right?

23 A. -- in assessing these things.

24 Q. Okay. All right. Well, we won't go on any more with

25 Mr. Zimmerman. He does talk about, describes Milosevic as a baby the

1 baby-faced Milosevic, who was a master of media manipulation. I think we

2 can all agree on that probably?

3 A. I certainly would.

4 Q. Okay. All right. Now, I failed to mention a couple of points

5 that I wanted to drive home on this 27th December 1991 presidential

6 transcript, so I apologise to everyone, especially to the honourable

7 members of our Trial Bench but I need to go back and clarify a couple of

8 points and this can be found on 61, page 61, of the -- of this particular

9 document, which is P 00089. Page 61, you will see it says, Stjepan

10 Kljujic, "Mr. President, with all due respect let me explain things a bit

11 before leaving. I think I have the personal right to explain something to

12 you. First, this is not a competition to see who is a greater Croat. If

13 it were, I would not let anybody be -- we could only be equal. The idea

14 of 13 June was mine. Mr. Vlasic developed it, Mr. Doko and I brought you

15 the papers here, if you remember. Vice Vukojevic [phoen] and Mr. Ramjak

16 [phoen] were present, as well. They were quite a few. Therefore I'm not

17 against it but we agreed to put it into action at a certain moment. In my

18 judgement it was not the right moment."

19 Now, do you see that, sir?

20 A. Yes.

21 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Karnavas, could we clarify

22 something? You mentioned page 161. I have looked at the document --

23 MR. KARNAVAS: 61.

24 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] And I have page.

25 MR. KARNAVAS: It's 61, Mr. President.

1 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] 61.

2 MR. KARNAVAS: In an attempt to meet the time restrictions, I had

3 to labour over night --

4 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] But we don't have this page in

5 our bundle.

6 MR. KARNAVAS: 61.

7 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes.

8 MR. KARNAVAS: I apologise. We can put it on the ELMO,

9 Mr. President. We can put the particular page on the ELMO. I apologise.

10 I assumed that the entire document had come in so we would have the full

11 context of this presidential transcript. But we could place on the ELMO

12 page 61. Perhaps Madam Usher could assist us with the -- or somebody.

13 It's on the e-court. Okay. Again my apologies. All right. Now we see

14 at the top of the -- rather, at the top of the page, Stjepan Kljujic and

15 that's the section that I read where he talks about the idea of 13 June

16 was mine.

17 Q. Correct? Do you see that?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. All right. Now, June 13 was a -- was a significant day in that

20 that's when they set they had a meeting and they set the HDZ policy, joint

21 policy?

22 A. I have not looked at that document recently and.

23 Q. That's June 13, 1991?

24 A. That's my general understanding of what took place at that

25 meeting. It was the first or maybe second meeting of the Croatian

1 leadership subsequent to the meeting that Milosevic and Tudjman had at

2 Karadjordjevo and therefore may have involved some discussion of the

3 appropriate behaviour of the HDZ, BH, Bosnia-Herzegovina, in the wake of

4 that discussion.

5 Q. Okay. But it says here, Stjepan Kljujic is saying the idea of 13

6 June was mine. Mr. Vlasic developed it, Mr. Doko and I brought it,

7 brought you the papers here. If you remember, and then he goes tonne and

8 on. So it would appear, would it not, that the idea was Kljujic's?

9 A. That's what he states here, yes.

10 Q. Okay. And in part, and again we have to read all 71 pages of

11 this, but if your memory serves you right, would it not be fair to say

12 that the principal discussion during this meeting with all these folks had

13 to do with the Croatian question in Bosnia-Herzegovina?

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. Okay. And if we flip to page 70 of this document, and if we could

16 get it on the ELMO or on the e-court,. I apologise, I know that the folks

17 in the Registry work very hard and Mr. Registrar is extremely efficient,

18 as everyone else is. 70, page 70, could you put it on the ELMO? Maybe

19 you could help us out here, Mr. Donia?

20 A. You want the --

21 Q. Yeah. Maybe Madam Usher could help us out here. Page 70. We

22 will get it right by the ends of this trial, Your Honour, I assure you

23 that we are going to be working smoothly through this system. Okay. If

24 we could look at this, and it's just a short -- it's -- this is towards

25 the end, as I indicated, the document is only about 72 pages actually, to

1 be correct. Here on page 70 they talk about setting up a commission. The

2 president, we are talking about the late Franjo Tudjman, all right. Let's

3 go. We said Kljujic, Boban, Vlado Santic, Iko Stanic, Udovicic, Lazic,

4 and who else? Then you have Dario Kordic, that makes seven. And then he

5 goes on again, Kljujic, Boban, Vlado Santic, Iko Stanic, Udovicic, Lazic,

6 Kordic. Let's vote. So you see that, at least from here, that President

7 Tudjman is setting up a commission, is he not?

8 A. Yes. This is at the very end of the meeting.

9 Q. Yes. And he's saying that these people must -- further down, he

10 says at the end of the page, "These people must be in Sarajevo. You

11 cannot have negotiations if people are coming and going. There may be

12 intense negotiations lasting for two, three, four, or five days with the

13 Muslims and then with the Serbs, if one person is from" -- and then it

14 goes on. But basically, is it not at least if we look at this -- at the

15 end of this meeting, as it would appear, since this is page 70 of a

16 72-page document, that the conclusion is that Tudjman is setting up a

17 commission which includes, not excludes, Kljujic in order to negotiate

18 with folks in Sarajevo, and by that it would be Izetbegovic and his team

19 of advisers?

20 A. I think the flow of the meeting is kind of important to

21 understand. Tudjman convenes this meeting to hear the viewpoints of these

22 various players and there is an extensive discussion in which people put

23 forth their claims, their understanding, and Tudjman sort of hangs back,

24 doesn't pronounce a decision on things, until he has heard all of these

25 view points. And then I think about two-thirds of the way through the

1 meeting, he decisively casts his opinion, which I think probably was known

2 by many people there already, in favour of a territorial solution. The

3 remaining problem is how to keep the party together, and I think this is

4 really an effort to bring people back together. At least in one body, and

5 bestow upon them the privilege of participating in the delegation, and I

6 think Tudjman has -- you know, makes clear here that he wants to hear

7 everybody out and earn their continued participation in the party even

8 though Kljujic here is very transparently pleading for his job on the

9 citation that you used earlier. He knows that the wind is not blowing in

10 his direction, and so he goes back and reminds those present of the good

11 things that he did, that is moving -- taking some initiative in the areas

12 of protecting these -- at least having a discussion about the territories

13 before he pleads for, you know, as he pleads for his job.

14 Q. Okay, well, party politics?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. I mean, might be -- we might soon be seeing that in England, you

17 know, or the UK, with Tony Blair pleading for him to stay as Prime

18 Minister with the backbenchers trying to get him to set a date so he can

19 move along, right? It's party politics.

20 A. Yeah.

21 Q. All right. Now, but you know, when we read this and I'm sure we

22 are going to did do this several times throughout the course of this

23 trial, it would appear that what Tudjman is pushing for is a negotiated

24 process, not a military one, but he wants the folks to sit down and try to

25 find a negotiated solution?

1 A. That is one important conclusion one can reach from reading this.

2 Q. All right. Now, one of the things I want to touch on, and again I

3 know I'm going back and forth on various issues, and I apologise but I'm

4 trying to live within the time limits, I want to touch on this -- on the

5 European Community Conference that took place between 1991 and 1992. I

6 think that you're aware of it. I'm going to show you a document. And

7 this would be 1D 00417. And have you seen this document before, or a

8 variation of it. It says, we can see at the top it's the editor's note?

9 A. No.

10 Q. If you could just take a look at it, it says editor's note, "the

11 efforts of the European Community Conference chaired by Lord Carrington,"

12 and then it has the treaty provisions for the convention of 4 November

13 1991. And it says here, at the end of the editor's note, "the text of the

14 draft convention as of November 1991 is reproduced below."

15 A. Okay. I see it.

16 Q. Okay. Now, if you can just -- if you could look at the document a

17 little bit, just to verify whether you've ever come across this particular

18 document?

19 A. No.

20 Q. Okay. Now, if we look at just Article 1, we are not going to go

21 through all of it but it says the new relations between the republics will

22 be based on the following, and then there is a list, A, B, C, D, E, F. Do

23 you see that?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. Okay. By the way, Lord Carrington, I believe his name came up

1 yesterday, been around for -- was around for a long time, you know of him,

2 correct?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. Okay. And you know of meetings that he chaired in trying to find

5 some sort of a solution for -- during the time when Yugoslavia was

6 breaking up?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. Okay. Now, if we could go to page -- it would be page 15,

9 Madam Usher, numbered page 15. Item 3. It says there, let's rest our

10 eyes a little bit, give everybody a chance to focus. It says -- it says

11 there, number 3, "the republic shall guarantee to persons belonging to a

12 national or ethnic group the following rights." And then I'll skip the

13 first one, go to the second, "the right to be protected against any

14 activity capable of threatening their existence." You see that?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. Okay. All cultural rights. That would be number 2. We don't

17 have to go through all of that, that bullet. Then the next one is

18 protect -- "protection of equal participation in public affairs." Right?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. And then at the bottom it says, "the right to decide to which

21 national or ethnic group he or she wishes to belong." Pretty democratic,

22 right?

23 A. Doesn't have much to do with democracy but it has to lot to do

24 with human rights.

25 Q. Human rights, okay. I stand corrected. Human rights. I guess I

1 kind of tie that one together but I guess as we are seeing in some places

2 in the world, they don't co-exist sometimes.

3 All right. If we flip the page and go to page 16, under the

4 section of special status, again, let's rest our eyes a little bit. Give

5 the folks time to catch their breath. Number 5 it says, "in addition,

6 areas in which persons belonging to a national or ethnic group form a

7 majority shall enjoy a special status of autonomy. Such a status will

8 provide for, A, the right to have and show the national emblems of that

9 area." B, is deleted. "C, an educational system which respects the

10 values in each of that group." D, little i, "a legislative body." Next,

11 "an administrative structure, including a regional police force, and

12 third a judiciary responsible for matters concerning the area which

13 affects the composition of the population of the area." And E,

14 "provisions for appropriate international monitoring."

15 Sir, in your research, have you ever come across, not this

16 document, as you've indicated, any other documents that at least covered

17 what was in the draft convention as we see it here today on this

18 particular document?

19 A. Well, that's a very broad question.

20 Q. All right. Were you aware of what was in this document before

21 coming here today and me showing you a document which you had not seen,

22 that is this treaty provision for the convention of 4 November 1991?

23 A. No, I would just observe it was -- it's dated as sort of the

24 height of the war in Croatia, the JNA assault on Croatia.

25 Q. Okay.

1 A. And it may very well be intended to lay the foundation for the

2 United Nations protection areas, the Serb areas within Croatia. I don't

3 know that. I can't tell from the document and I don't have the context

4 here to relate to it other than the fact that it provides these things,

5 and I don't know also who may have drafted it, who accepted it, who

6 opposed it, whether -- I'm quite confident it never became law and never

7 became an international agreement.

8 Q. Okay. I'm not suggesting that it did. It says draft convention.

9 But if we were to take the editor to heart, the editor's note, okay, and

10 we can provide the full volume of where all these documents are contained,

11 it says, "the efforts of the European Community Conference chaired by Lord

12 Carrington were focused on a draft convention containing articles dealing

13 with," and it goes on. So let me ask you this: Did you ever study the

14 documents generated from the negotiated efforts by the European Community

15 and in particular Lord Carrington?

16 A. I haven't looked at the documents that pertain to the 1991

17 negotiations. I'm more familiar with some of the documentation from 1992,

18 as the ECCY was moving toward the Bosnian independence and ultimately

19 joined with the UN in August of 1992.

20 Q. All right. But it's fair to say, though, based on your knowledge

21 of that period, that what is contained in this document, the sort of

22 issues, the burning issues of the day within the former Yugoslavia as it

23 was breaking apart, you know, the -- I'm speaking about human rights in

24 particular?

25 A. It was designed to address those issues, yes, clearly, m'hm, yes.

1 Q. Okay. And -- all right. Do you know when the Croatian Community

2 of Herceg-Bosna was established?

3 A. As I testified yesterday, that was November 18, 1991.

4 Q. Okay. And depending on this draft convention, it could have come

5 either before or after the decision?

6 A. Well, the draft convention is clearly 4 November.

7 Q. Okay.

8 A. So it's before the proclamation of Herceg-Bosna.

9 Q. Okay. So we would have had this particular document and then we

10 would have the decision on the establishment of the Croatian Community of

11 Herceg-Bosna?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. Okay. Okay. That will be enough for this issue. Thank you very

14 much.

15 Now, a couple of -- some other issues I need to just touch on a

16 little bit. Probably going back to what we were just discussing, and that

17 is the issue of nations, nationalities and what have you. And it would be

18 fair to say that it's a rather complex issue, at least for some of us who

19 come from places like the United States?

20 A. I think it's complex for everybody.

21 Q. And pretty difficult to think about having a nation or three

22 nations within a territory or within a republic, whatever it may be. It's

23 just the sounds of it, nation, is a little bit different, difficult to

24 conceptualise except perhaps as Americans we are thinking of the Navaho

25 nation, the Cherokee nation, at least that's how I see it.

1 A. Yes. As I pointed out in the report, I think the word nation,

2 which is literally translated people, is understood by most people in

3 English to be an ethnic group or an ethno-national group or a nationality.

4 All of which terms are unacceptable in their direct translation into B/C/S

5 for native speakers but I think the point you make is well taken. The

6 term nation as we view it in the Bosnia-Herzegovina context is -- requires

7 a little bit of a conceptual leap to understand what they mean by it.

8 Q. I guess when we are talking about nations and looking at

9 Bosnia-Herzegovina because it had three nations, as Yugoslavia is breaking

10 apart, that issue might become rather more important than it had been?

11 A. Well, it was true in every republic except Slovenia. There were

12 communities in Macedonia, in Croatia, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and certainly

13 within Serbia which faced the same issue in one variant or another.

14 Q. Now, I'm not an expert in this area but I've tried at least to

15 come to understand it or try to come to understand it, that the -- excuse

16 me, that during the Yugoslav communist days, that was a rather significant

17 issue and they made a distinction between nation and nationality?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. Okay. And if I can -- if I understand it correctly, that nation

20 referred to -- it's the homeland, but nationality is somebody else's

21 homeland, they are living within somebody else's homeland?

22 A. The concept of a nationality in, say, Yugoslav political thought,

23 was that the major corpus of the people of that group lived in another

24 polity outside Yugoslavia, so as I mentioned before the Hungarians of

25 Vojvodina would look to Hungary as the homeland, if you will. The

1 Albanians of Kosovo would -- the bulk of their corpus being in Albania but

2 the concept guaranteed to these peoples something like equal rights --

3 Q. Right?

4 A. -- within the Yugoslav and republican political systems.

5 Q. Right. Now there was also -- excuse me, there was also what was

6 termed as a minority as well?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. And if you could just help us out, what did that entail?

9 A. Well, throws were groups or members of groups that were -- didn't

10 reach the status of either a nationality or a nation, would include, for

11 example, Roma, Jews is a little bit problematical because they at one time

12 had a different status but -- so there were Slovenes, for example, in

13 Bosnia and Romanians, Germans, the whole complex of peoples with

14 relatively small numbers who did not reach the status of either a nation

15 or nationality.

16 Q. Right. And when you said that the -- you said that the Jewish

17 people had a different status at one point, picking up from that, it

18 wasn't until sometime in the 70s that the Muslims had a different status

19 within this question?

20 A. Actually go to the 1960s, but it was in the 1960s that the Bosnian

21 Muslims achieved recognition as a nation on a par with Serbs, Croats,

22 Macedonians, Slovenes, and so on.

23 Q. But whether was it codified in the constitution? I always thought

24 it was 1974.

25 A. I think it was before that. There were constitutional amendments

1 I think in 64 or 68 because it was in effect -- I believe that's correct.

2 I would have to consult it to ...

3 Q. And if I understood you correctly, at the turn of the century,

4 there was a national awakening, at least for the Muslims, where they began

5 at some point to see themselves as a nation. I might have it wrong.

6 A. The national awakenings really go back into the late 18th, early

7 19th century for the Serbs and Croats. I date the national awakening of

8 the Bosnian Muslims to the 1960s, so much later than the other groups.

9 Q. Okay.

10 A. Now it should also be clarified that they had their own political

11 organisations, culture, all, let's say, the trappings of a nation as for

12 back as the late 19th century, but did not, I would say, assert themselves

13 through this national awakening process until roughly the 1960s.

14 Q. Okay. Now, I don't pretend to know much about ethnography, as I

15 understood it, when the Ottomans came to that region, a lot of folks

16 converted into Islam.

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. Okay. And so would it be fair to say that the Muslim people in

19 that region, in Bosnia-Herzegovina today, are some, if not most, or all of

20 the people that converted into Islam?

21 A. I'm sorry I missed your question there.

22 Q. Well, if those people converted and became Muslim, okay? Would it

23 not stand to follow that the people that converted there must have been

24 Serb or Croat before they converted, right?

25 A. Well, their identity at that time was principally religious so in

1 converting from, let's say, Catholicism to Islam which was the most common

2 source of those conversions, they joined a new community. It's simply not

3 possible to draw those sharp lines around a racial group which would say,

4 these folks are Croats, and therefore their lineage for six, eight

5 generations down are also Croats. That kind of, say, determination is

6 simply impossible to make, and it appears that the primary source of

7 identity for people in those times was religious.

8 Q. Okay. All right. Now, with that particular issue, because if you

9 look at -- if you go to the library you find a variety of opinions on, you

10 know, who was where and who came from what period and there is a lot of

11 controversy as far as, you know, who are the Croats, who are the Serbs,

12 and who are the Muslims, at least in that particular -- in what is known

13 commonly today as Bosnia-Herzegovina?

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. Where they originated, how long they had been there, and so on and

16 so forth?

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. So it would be fair to say that your interpretation is one of many

19 that are held by historians such as yourself?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. All right. Now, the language, Serbo-Croatian, seems to reflect

22 that at one point there were two languages. There was Serbian and

23 Croatian, albeit they might have -- for all intents and purposes might

24 have been the same language in a sense for some dialect differences but

25 two distinct languages, right, Serbian and Croatian?

1 A. As we -- I mentioned yesterday, the -- in the 19th century, there

2 were efforts by both Croatian intellectual leaders and Serbian

3 intellectual leaders in the first half of the 19th century to codify the

4 language of the South Slavs, both of them interestingly based on dialects

5 that were spoken in, principally, Herzegovina.

6 Q. Okay.

7 A. These codifications for the Croats were principally in service of

8 the notion that the people who we were talking about were Illyrians, and

9 then subsequently when they discovered that these really were not

10 Illyrians but South Slavs they moved to a more Yugoslav orientation. The

11 Serb codification of the language was -- kind of rejected this Yugoslav

12 orientation at that time, so you had essentially two rival groups, if you

13 will, of intellectuals trying to postulate different languages out of the

14 same fundamental base of speech. So the -- there were many efforts over

15 many years to bring these two languages into congruence, and the term

16 "Serbo-Croatian" was convenient in the socialist period to -- communist

17 period, if you will, to capture the fact that these languages were so

18 close, but in the main, used different alphabets and used somewhat

19 different but mutually intelligible terminology.

20 Q. But so if I -- if I may paraphrase you, make sure that I

21 understand the concept, Tito comes along and fuses the two languages and

22 calls it Serbo-Croatian?

23 A. No, I wouldn't -- I think it was a much more, let's say, extensive

24 grassroots process than that.

25 Q. All right?

1 A. I don't view it as a -- a Titoist diktat if you will.

2 Q. Okay, I don't want to cast dispersions on, you know, Marsal, who's

3 not here to defend himself. But nonetheless we had two different

4 languages, now it's called Serbo-Croatian because, I assume, before that,

5 the Serbs were speaking Serbian and the Croats were speaking Croatian?

6 A. Depending on when you go out and take the pole and ask them what

7 they are speaking. That sense of speaking that national language

8 certainly strengthened particularly in let's say the first quarter of the

9 20th century.

10 Q. Would it be fair to say that at that particular time there was no

11 Bosnian language?

12 A. Well, that would -- many people would contest that as well and

13 point out that there was a Bosnian language that was specific to that --

14 the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina. In fact a grammar was published in

15 1908, I believe, and they cited the specific variant of the Cyrillic

16 alphabet spoken in Bosnia which is called Bosancica, and cited documents

17 going back many centuries that used this language. So certainly there was

18 at least in the minds of many people a distinct language called Bosnian.

19 Q. And that's what was being taught at schools?

20 A. For some time, yes, m'hm, in the Austro-Hungarian period

21 essentially.

22 Q. All right is that the same licensing that they brought back, now

23 called Bosnian, because that was something that was negotiated at Dayton?

24 A. No it wasn't negotiated at Dayton.

25 Q. Wasn't that part -- wasn't that injected into the constitution

1 that there would be three languages --

2 A. No.

3 Q. -- spoken in Bosnia-Herzegovina, known as Serbian, Croatian, and

4 Bosnian, not Bosniak, you know?

5 A. Yes. That's the case.

6 Q. Okay. Thank you.

7 A. Just to be clear, they are all south Slav languages and derived

8 from essentially the same corpus of people and territory.

9 Q. Right. Right. Okay.

10 MR. KARNAVAS: If I may, just a moment, Mr. President.

11 Well, I think that concludes my cross-examination at this point in

12 time, to meet with Your Honour's time limitations. I would have liked to

13 have more time and develop it more but in deference to my colleagues also

14 that want to pose some questions.

15 Thank you very much, Mr. Donia.

16 Thank you, Your Honours.

17 And I thank Mr. Scott for his patience.

18 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Karnavas, as to your

19 documents, do you have a list of them? What do you plan to do.

20 MR. KARNAVAS: Normally I like to go at the end so as not to take

21 the time from my colleagues but since there are only three documents, I

22 can do it right now. 1D 00398, 1D 00417. 1D 00416. These were marked

23 for identification. If I'm wrong, I'm sure I will be corrected by

24 Mr. Registrar.

25 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Registrar?

1 [Trial Chamber and registrar confer]

2 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Karnavas, you want them to

3 be admitted or just marked for identification? We usually have them

4 marked for identification when there is no translation yet.

5 MR. KARNAVAS: Okay. I guess then they would have to be marked

6 for identification until there is a translation. I'm still learning the

7 process, Your Honour, but yes. Thank you.

8 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Registrar?

9 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President. [In

10 English] The following exhibits are therefore marked for identification,

11 1D 00398, 1D 00416, and 1D 00417. Thank you, Mr. President.

12 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you.

13 Next counsel?

14 MR. JONJIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President. I will try

15 to stay within the time limits. Mrs. Nozica asked me to leave perhaps

16 five minutes for her at the end and perhaps even General Praljak will put

17 a question or two, with your permission.

18 Cross-examination by Mr. Jonjic:

19 MR. JONJIC: [Interpretation]

20 Q. Good afternoon, Mr. Donia. My name is Tomislav Jonjic and I will

21 be putting questions to you on behalf of Mr. Valentin Coric.

22 Since we have only five or six minutes before the break, it seems

23 that we will only be able to get to the introductory part. Initially I

24 would like to check this. Can we agree that the writing of history is not

25 just a mere chronology of events but that the task of historians is to

1 establish not only the time when something happened but also the reasons

2 for it happening, to show that human society, just like nature, does not

3 make illogical leaps?

4 A. I would agree with the first part of your statement, that a major

5 purpose of history is to do something more than simply create a

6 chronology, but to explore the origins of reasons for something happening

7 or not happening. Whether history makes illogical leaps or not is very

8 much contested. I think there are so many things that happen against

9 logic and you can even find people who would argue that logic is a very

10 poor guide to follow in anticipating behaviour of human beings.

11 Q. Thank you. I didn't use this word logical, it was something

12 inserted by the interpreters, and this prompted your reaction. Let us

13 move to something else.

14 Yesterday when answering Mr. Karnavas's questions, you agreed and

15 said that it is possible, and rather that it frequently happens, that

16 there are different interpretations of events, namely that historians very

17 often differ when they interpret certain events?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. Thank you. As we know, based on your evidence yesterday, you

20 mostly researched the Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia-Herzegovina from

21 1878 to 1918 or perhaps 1914. Does this mean that you do not consider

22 yourself to be an expert for the entire history of Bosnia and Herzegovina

23 or do you believe that you are an expert? It seems that the OTP believes

24 you to be an expert for the entire history of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

25 A. It's no longer the case that I have only done research on the

1 Austro-Hungarian period. In preparation for my Sarajevo book, I've looked

2 into all periods from the beginning of the Ottoman period up until, as I

3 say, about 2000. I think one should let's say be cautious in the use of

4 the word "expert" because if expert imply that is someone has examined

5 every document and every source, I don't know that there is an expert on

6 anything, but I have certainly spent time investigating, researching and

7 writing upon every period of the history of Bosnia-Herzegovina and to some

8 degree neighbouring lands, since the 15th century, not -- I really don't

9 consider myself a medieval specialist.

10 Q. If that is the case, then I will put some questions to you which

11 are related to the previous period, the period prior to the events in the

12 indictment. We will not go into early medieval history, but due to lack

13 of time, we have less than an hour and a half for us, I would like to turn

14 to details which are more relevant for my client and other accused in

15 terms of the indictment. I try to be as brief and specific and I would

16 like to ask you to do the same.

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. I have prepared some ten to 15 books here, and about 100 excerpts

19 but it seems that we won't be able to show any of these documents in view

20 of the lack of time. However, we do have the books available here if we

21 need to go into any details. You are don't need to worry. These are not

22 samizdat or exotic books. These are elementary works and authors that you

23 must be familiar with.

24 You concluded that discussion with Mr. Karnavas by talking about

25 the language, about the name and use of the language in Bosnia-Herzegovina

1 and in the former communist Yugoslavia. But you're not a linguist, you're

2 not a language expert, are you?

3 A. No. My approach to the language issue is one of a historian.

4 Q. But despite of that, you said, yesterday on page 19 to 21 of the

5 transcript, that the language spoken by Serbs, Croats, and Muslims is the

6 same language called Serbo-Croatian or Croato-Serbian, and that the theses

7 on the differences in the language is a very contentious one. That's what

8 you said. And then you gave this explanation to Mr. Karnavas: "So I

9 presume that we can move from there on. We don't need to wait for you to

10 confirm my interpretation of your words."

11 Therefore, I would like to ask you this: Do you know in what

12 languages the Official Gazette of the SFRY was published, which was the

13 official publication in which official regulations were published?

14 A. I believe it was published in Serbo-Croatian.

15 Q. But however you don't know? You are just presuming this, is that

16 right?

17 A. That's correct, yeah.

18 Q. Thank you. For your information, it was published in Croatian,

19 Macedonian, Serbian, Slovenian, not in Serbo-Croatian or Croato-Serbian.

20 Yesterday we saw that without any difficulties, you are able to read the

21 language you yourself call Serbo-Croatian and that you understand it in

22 writing.

23 A. Let me be clear. I don't call it Serbo-Croatian today. One, I

24 think, has to restrict the use of that term to characterise the language

25 to prior to 1990. And I actually refer to it most conveniently as "the

1 local language." But when I am reading a Cyrillic text by a Serb, I will

2 refer to it as Serbian. When I'm reading a Croatian text by a Croat or a

3 Latin text by a Croat, I'll refer to it as Croatian, and Bosnian. I try

4 to make those distinctions, not always possible to make, but I'm not

5 standing on insisting that the language today be called Serbo-Croatian.

6 Q. If we have a couple of more minutes, I would like to ask --

7 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] You have until 12.30. Please go

8 ahead.

9 MR. JONJIC: [Interpretation] I apologise, then. I misinterpreted

10 the amount of time left to us. Could we then, please, ask the usher to

11 put a document on the ELMO for us?

12 Q. While we are waiting for that to be done I will follow up on what

13 you just now said, Dr. Donia. You said that up until 1990 there was a

14 single language and that it was only recently that we saw that the

15 language started splitting and that there were attempts to try to make the

16 language be different. Now, we are going to see a sentence which I

17 believe it to be quite a simple one and that everybody uttered this

18 sentence in elementary school before 1990 or after 1990. And this is the

19 sentence. Kitchen salt is a chemical compound of sodium and chlorine.

20 The first line is in Croatian, the second line is the same sentence in

21 Serbian, and then in the third line we see the same sentence in English.

22 Serbian should have been written in Cyrillic but we didn't have Cyrillic

23 font. Can we agree that all three sentences have the same meaning, that

24 that neither of them has archaic words or any newly invented words, newly

25 invented as a result of attempts to put in differences into the language

1 after the 1990s' events?

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. Thank you. But it seems that there are some certain differences

4 between Serbian and Croatian and that they are not only lexical but also

5 differences in syntax. However, we are not going to go into language

6 debates here. I'm just interested in a detail that you as a historian

7 must be aware of it. You must know that Bosnian Catholics and Bosnian

8 Muslims, and I'm now referring to them as a religious group, speak

9 Ikavian, they speak Ikavian dialect of Stokavian [phoen] language. Let me

10 digress. For example, in the Bosnian church, the head was called Dik

11 [phoen] and that this is an illustration of Ikavian that they spoke there.

12 A. The head of the Bosnian church was the Dijed [phoen]. I would

13 only -- I would agree but only say that the difference between the

14 dialects is not purely a matter of national identity but also a matter of

15 regional residence, or at least it was prior to say 1990 -- 1992. So you

16 had neighbours in Mostar, for example, who spoke essentially the same

17 dialect in the terms that you've just spelled out, who were from all three

18 constituent nations and for that matter, could include members of

19 minorities as well. So with the qualification that this was not strictly

20 a national divide, I'd agree with you.

21 Q. Yes. I agree with you there, absolutely. But let me first

22 correct the translation. In line 25, on page 76 it should be Ikavian with

23 an I, not Ekavian with an E. So I fully agree with you that the process

24 of standardisation and mass media led to a situation where the language

25 was somewhat standardised in urban situations but I'm interested in the

1 language spoken by farmers, villagers in Bosnia, 30 or 40 years ago, and I

2 would like you to confirm this, namely that Catholics and Muslims spoke

3 Ikavian, and that orthodox residents whom we identify as Serbs nowadays,

4 did not speak Ikavian.

5 A. No. I wouldn't -- I mean, that's very difficult thing to know in

6 my view because of the time frame you've put on it. But I think the

7 gravitation of Bosnian Serbs to Ikavian actually was a function of wartime

8 and you had a lot of Serbs who were speaking different variants of this,

9 depending on residence.

10 Q. Very well. Then let us turn to a different topic. It seemed

11 important for me to discuss the language issue because the common dialect

12 spoken by Catholics and Muslims was one of the arguments invoked by

13 Croatian integrational ideology in 18th and 19th century who believed them

14 to be an integral portion of Croatian nation. This ideology was naturally

15 a public one because it needed to be announced publicly, otherwise it

16 would have had no purpose. This ideology was definitely formulated in the

17 teachings of Dr. Ante Starcevic from the second part of the 19th century?

18 A. I agree it was an ideology that asserted that this was the common

19 language of the Catholics and Muslims of Croat nationality, if you will.

20 That was the argument. That was the ideology.

21 Q. Thank you. Given that this ideology was popularised and spread

22 from Zagreb and from Croatia, there were attempts to spread it into Bosnia

23 as well. Without paying attention to the latest period, starting from the

24 1990s and on, prior to that, there was never any kind of an armed conflict

25 between Croats and Muslims in Bosnia, isn't that right? I'm referring to

1 the end of 19th century and the first and Second World Wars?

2 A. That's -- that's a -- there were situations in which there may

3 have been Croats on one side and Muslims on the other of a struggle, for

4 example in the Partizan conflict during the Second World War, but if you

5 state the proposition that, you know, vast majority of Croats were at war

6 with the vast majority of Muslims, I would agree with your proposition,

7 and in fact there was remarkably little armed conflict up until the 1990s.

8 Q. That's correct. Thank you. So the majority of Croats and the

9 majority of Muslims in both world wars fought under the same flag and same

10 coat of arms.

11 Now that we've touched upon flags and coats of arms, let's look

12 into this. You said yesterday on page 19 of the transcript something

13 about use and abuse of national symbols, and in that context, you spoke

14 about the spreading of Croatian national symbols in Bosnia and

15 Herzegovina. I don't think we need to go into in depth heraldic

16 discussions but we have definitely agree that the Croatian coat of arms is

17 easily recognisable because it has in its central portion a chequerboard,

18 isn't that right?

19 A. Yes.

20 MR. JONJIC: [Interpretation] Could the usher please show us

21 document 5D 01046? 5D 01046.

22 Q. This is an excerpt from a book. We have the translation into

23 English. This is a book by Boza Mimica, Numismatics in the Historical

24 Territory of Croatia, Fourth Century BC to 1918. Can we now see page --

25 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters didn't hear the number of the

1 page.

2 MR. JONJIC: [Interpretation] If we can see the following page,

3 please? It's possible that we have it. These are page 457 and 460. Can

4 we scroll down, stop there, please. That's good.

5 Q. So we have coins here of the king of Bosnia, Nikola Ilocki from

6 the end of 15th century. You said that you started exploring the history

7 of Bosnia from the 15th century onwards so you should know that this

8 coincides with the time when the Turks came to Bosnia and Herzegovina and

9 the fall of Bosnia and Herzegovina, not Bosnia in its modern borders but

10 then borders. On this page, 413, we have a coin. Can we please see the

11 next page? Once again, we have the coins of the same king. So these

12 numismatic information about the material and the size of coins are not

13 important to us but we can see that coins marked 414 to 422 have copies of

14 the text where clearly you can see the word "Bosnia," and if I'm not

15 mistaken we also see a clear symbol of a chequerboard which is to say the

16 Croatian coat of arms. Then if we can go to the next page, please, which

17 I think is the last page, that's right, yes. We see another one on the

18 next page, let us zoom in. On the next page, the last coin is under

19 number 422. There it is at the top of the page. Thank you.

20 Dr. Donia, please tell me, am I right when I say that Croatian

21 coat of arms can be seen in these coins?

22 A. That's what the caption says. It says in the inner circle is the

23 Hungarian-Croatian-Czech coat of arms for the -- number 422 any way. So

24 it's Croatian in part, one presumes. And the same would be true of the

25 other coins. I think it may be an error to conclude on the basis of this

1 that this was a, let's say there was a huge Croatian nationally conscious

2 population at that time. What I think this is, is a dynastic symbol of

3 the time which at that time was indeed Hungarian, Croatian, and Czech.

4 Q. No, Dr. Donia. Could we see the previous page, please? The

5 previous one with coins 417 to 421? Dr. Donia, we are not now speaking of

6 the population and the national awareness of that population. We are

7 speaking of the coat of arms used by the hereditary ruler of the then

8 Bosnia and it can be seen clearly on coins 417 to 421 that there is no

9 mention of any Czech states or any other states, and that this is clearly

10 referred to as a Croatian coat of arms. We are not speaking now of ethnic

11 origin of the population living there but we are speaking of the symbol

12 used by the hereditary ruler of Bosnia at the time?

13 A. Okay. I take the point.

14 Q. Thank you. If we now skip over several centuries, I have to ask

15 you whether you're aware of existence of the Beg family Kopcic. This is

16 one of the most prominent aristocratic Muslim families from the vicinity

17 of Prozor. Have you ever come across that name?

18 A. No.

19 Q. Despite of that, now that we are discussing coats of arms and

20 symbols, I will show you one of the not numerous coats of arms that is

21 included in Fojnica heraldic paper. Can we please see 5 D 01026. It's

22 just an image without any text. All right. So this is the coat of arms

23 of the Muslim family Kopcic from the 18th century, four years after the

24 arrival of Osmani Turks to the area, included in the Fojnica heraldic

25 paper. Can we agree, Dr. Donia that this coat of arms also has

1 recognisable images?

2 A. Well, of course the eagle is very, very widely used in just about

3 every, in one variant or other in about he every family of heraldic

4 symbols. The chequerboard shield is to be recognisable as a symbol of the

5 Croatian king or Croatian state. Could also be a symbol of other things

6 in that area or other areas. So I would want to see what the numismatic

7 people think about what this stands for before I draw a conclusion on what

8 it means.

9 Q. I'm actually asking you this, a Muslim family living near the

10 border of the then Bosnia, and even today, that is only 20 to 30

11 kilometres as the crow flies from the territory of Croatia, so if such a

12 family uses a chequerboard symbol, is it closer to Croatian coat of arms

13 or is it perhaps closer to Mayas and Aztecs text?

14 A. To what?

15 Q. Mayas and Aztecs. The tribes and the people living in central

16 America?

17 A. That's an absurd question.

18 Q. Thank you. The answer is clear. Thank you. Since we have only

19 two or three minutes remaining I'd like to conclude with this topic.

20 Unfortunately we will not be able to show any of the other photographs I

21 have prepared but perhaps you'll be able to confirm this without looking

22 at the photographs. If we skip another two centuries now and come to the

23 beginning of the 20th century. Yesterday you mentioned a meeting held at

24 Siroki Brijeg which means you're familiar with that location, at least

25 from stories you heard. You said yourself, you were in Sarajevo some

1 times. Please tell me, did you see perhaps in Sarajevo, at the building

2 of the Croatian cultural society called Napredak, which is one of the

3 central Croatian national institutions, the building constructed early in

4 the 20th century under the Austro-Hungarian rule. Did you see Croatian

5 coat of arms on that building?

6 A. Absolutely, yes.

7 Q. Did you see perhaps a Croatian coat of arms on the windows of

8 Croatian church which was constructed in Siroki Brijeg precisely at that

9 period of time, if you ever visited the area?

10 A. I was in the area about two weeks ago but I didn't get to Siroki

11 Brijeg so in fact I've never been to Siroki Brijeg so I have not seen that

12 particular structure.

13 Q. Thank you. When passing through Bosnia, did you see monuments

14 erected to celebrate the 1.000 anniversary of Croatian statehood, that was

15 in 1925 in many locations, such monuments were erected and invariably all

16 of them have Croatian coat of arms. Have you ever seen them?

17 A. I've seen a few of them, yes.

18 Q. Thank you. The whole purpose of this discussion is to show that

19 Croatian coat of arms in 1990 or 1991 in Bosnia-Herzegovina was nothing

20 imported, nothing used there in order to illustrate national or state

21 expansion, but rather that it was a normal symbol used by people who have

22 lived there for centuries.

23 MR. JONJIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I think that this would

24 be an appropriate time to conclude before the break because after that I'd

25 like to turn to another topic.

1 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] All right. Then we will have a

2 20-minute break and we will resume at 10 to 1.00.

3 --- Recess taken at 12.30 p.m.

4 --- On resuming at 12.56 p.m.

5 [The witness stands down]

6 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Before we continue with the

7 cross-examination, of course, I'll give additional time to the Defence

8 counsel, Mr. Scott wanted to take the floor to speak about the scheduling.

9 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Mr. President. Yes. I know that time is

10 precious but cannot end the week without talking about scheduling matters

11 for next week and the following week. It may be easier, I think it will

12 be easier, Your Honour, in case something might inadvertently be said

13 about a protected witness if we could go into private session for the next

14 couple of moments.

15 MR. KARNAVAS: Your Honour, I'm going to object to this unless we

16 go past 1.45. This is eating up into the Defence time. They went over an

17 hour and a half yesterday. I think it's outrageous. It is eating into

18 the Defence time.

19 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Karnavas, just before I give

20 the floor to Mr. Scott, I said that the time Mr. Scott was going to take

21 you would get it back. So we are going to count in minutes the time

22 Mr. Scott is going to take and then it will be added to your time. Rest

23 assured. Calm down.

24 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Your Honour, are we in private session?

25 [Private session]

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10 [Open session]

11 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] We are in open session,

12 Mr. President.

13 [The witness entered court]

14 WITNESS: ROBERT J. DONIA [Resumed]

15 Cross-examination by Mr. Jonjic: [Continued]

16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Please go ahead.

17 MR. JONJIC: [Interpretation].

18 Q. Dr. Donia, regardless of the counsel conferring, I would like to

19 proceed, in view of the fact that we have to finish at quarter past 2

20 today if I understand correctly and this means we have less than 45

21 minutes for the Defence of Mr. Coric. For this reason I wish to very

22 briefly touch upon certain issues having to do with your expert report,

23 and I wish to begin with the time period when you originally began dealing

24 with Bosnia. In order to save time, I wish to read to you only two

25 sentences from a book by Dr. Mustafa Imamovic whom you doubtless know of.

1 He is one of the most eminent historians in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He's a

2 Bosniak and a Muslim, and in his book entitled, "the legal status and

3 internal political development of Bosnia-Herzegovina from 1878 to 1914" on

4 page 98 he says the following: "In the time of the Kalaj regime in

5 Bosnia-Herzegovina, for a long time the use of the Croatian name was

6 banned. This was experienced by Stjepan Radic who travelled through

7 Bosnia in 1891. Special attention was paid to prevent the party of rights

8 ideology started by Starcevic from spreading to Bosnia-Herzegovina.

9 Political links were banned, the import of newspapers from the triune

10 kingdom," that refers to Croatia, "to Bosnia, was banned also."

11 Would you agree with me that the Austro-Hungarian regime,

12 especially during the time of governor Kalaj suppressed the Croatian name

13 as well as Croatian propaganda in Bosnia-Herzegovina, as Dr. Imamovic

14 says?

15 A. The Kalaj regime suppressed all national names, including the

16 Croatian name, and forbade organisations with national names. I've

17 actually quoted that extensively in my book on the 1878 to 1918, and it's

18 a well-known, well-established fact.

19 Q. Very well. We agree, then, that the Kalaj regime attempted to

20 create a Bosniak nation, a Bosniak entity, which would be

21 multi-confessional or interconfessional, whatever the correct term may be.

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. This attempt proved to be futile, didn't it?

24 A. Yes, it did.

25 Q. Can we then conclude from this that national identities had

1 already been formed at the time among most of the population of Bosnia and

2 Herzegovina? Otherwise, there would have been no reason for such radical

3 steps to remove the national identification of Bosnia.

4 A. No. I would not agree. I think you can say that the national

5 identities were in the process of formation amongst elites in

6 Bosnia-Herzegovina at that time. And it was due to the opposition of

7 those elites that -- that that would be the principal reason that the

8 project known as Bosnjasno [phoen] failed. I think if you -- and I think

9 it's to look at the Austro-Hungarian approach to things, they were always

10 dealing with elites. They were not engaged at all with the peasantry and

11 even lower urban classes. So I would -- wouldn't say that the most of the

12 population of Bosnia-Herzegovina was nationally conscious at this time. A

13 small stratum was.

14 Q. Thank you. The Bosnian parliament in 1910 was organised on a

15 confessional basis, not a national basis?

16 A. It was both confessional and curial.

17 Q. Can you tell us, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,

18 according to the information in the literature, how did the Muslim

19 intelligentsia declare itself with regard to nationality, university

20 Professors and students, civil servants and so on, not all, of course, but

21 for the most part?

22 A. There were two currents -- three. One which did not want to

23 declare itself at all; one current of the -- you're talking about the

24 Muslim intellectual elite that declared itself Croatian, and a third that

25 declared itself Serb.

1 In this time, I think the pendulum swung in favour of the Croatian

2 identity because so many Muslim intellectuals studied outside

3 Bosnia-Herzegovina, either in Zagreb or in Vienna and the regime

4 prohibited anyone from studying in Zagreb.

5 Q. Thank you. I keep looking at the clock. Please tell us when

6 talking about declaration of national identity, when the Kingdom of the

7 Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was established in 1918, how did the Muslim

8 representatives in the constituent assembly declare themselves, or after

9 the first assembly elections?

10 A. The substantial majority of them declared themselves Croats.

11 Some, a few, declared themselves Yugoslav. A few declared themselves

12 Serbs, a few declared themselves other, but I think something like 70, 80

13 per cent declared themselves Croats.

14 Q. Thank you. In the kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, and

15 then in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Svetozar Pribicevic I'm sure you're

16 familiar with that name, you will agree with me that he was one of the key

17 creators of the Yugoslav state, he was the first Minister of the Interior

18 and a prominent politician, and I believe there is no doubt that you read

19 his book, The Dictatorship of King Aleksandar?

20 A. I'm familiar with that, yes.

21 Q. Do you know, then, perhaps, that Pribicevic, as a political player

22 over three decades, and a very prominent player at that, says in the book

23 that the vast majority of Bosnian Muslims felt themselves to be Croats

24 with respect to nationality?

25 A. Yes.

1 Q. Thank you. Yesterday when discussing the creation of the

2 banovina, the Croatian Banovina, you mentioned Mehmed Spaho as the first

3 president of the most numerous and strongest Muslim political organisation

4 in the first Yugoslavia. This was a party called the Yugoslav Muslim

5 organisation. Please tell us whether you know that Mehmed Spaho's

6 brother, whose name was Fehim Spaho, was the editor of the party newspaper

7 entitled Pravda, and that in 1936, he was elected to be the Reis-El-Ulema,

8 which is the religious leader of the Muslim community in the then

9 Yugoslavia?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. As you're familiar with the name of Fehim Spaho, you probably also

12 know that Fehim Spaho also dealt with historical writing, that he

13 published articles in Croatian journals, and that in these articles,

14 without any hesitation or doubt, he declared himself to be a Croat, in

15 terms of nationality. One of these articles, and I wanted to prepare it

16 for today but it has not been translated yet because of its length, it

17 deals with the same topic you deal with, and it's entitled, "Croats in

18 Evlija Celebija's Manuscript." This was published in Hrvatsko Kolo. Do

19 you know that Fehim Spaho declared himself to be a Croat?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. Are you surprised by the fact that the Muslim religious

22 intelligentsia, the religious clerics in the second half of the 1930s

23 elected as their leader a person who felt himself to be a Croat by

24 nationality?

25 A. No. The Muslim intellectual leadership made these declarations.

1 Some people changed their declarations over time. But it -- as Ivo Banac

2 point out in his work over this period, "declaring oneself Croat or Serb

3 never changed the participants' membership in the Muslim organisations.

4 So in terms of behaviour, political behaviour, they continued to be a part

5 of the Yugoslav Muslim organisation and the Islamic religious hierarchy.

6 So I don't find it surprising at all.

7 Q. All right. Yesterday, in the context of the creation of the

8 Croatian Banovina, you mentioned that this coincided with the death of

9 Mehmed Spaho. Are you aware that Mehmed Spaho, who headed the most

10 numerous and powerful Muslim political organisation, the Yugoslav Muslim

11 organisation, was succeeded by Dzafer Beg Kulenovic?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. Are you aware that Dzafer Beg Kulenovic, two years later, became

14 the Deputy Prime Minister or vice-president of the government of the

15 Independent State of Croatia, which was an ally of the Third Reich, and

16 that he succeeded his brother Osman in that post. He had held the same

17 post in the first government, the one from March 1941 --

18 THE INTERPRETER: The one from April, interpreter's apology,

19 1941.

20 A. Yes. I think Osman was put in that post because they couldn't

21 find Dzafer right away so he had, I don't know, a month or two in the

22 position before Dzafer Beg Kulenovic assumed that post.

23 Q. Are you aware that, as you've expressed a certain doubt in your

24 response, that Dzafer Beg Kulenovic, emigrated and that as a political

25 emigre, he was a minister in the emigre Croatian governments?

1 A. No, I was not aware of that.

2 Q. Thank you. Do you know that this Yugoslav Muslim organisation,

3 the most powerful political organisation of Bosnian minimums, collectively

4 joined the Ustasha movement which was a radical nationalist Croatian

5 movement?

6 A. I would disagree. That was not -- if you mean that every member

7 of the Yugoslav Muslim organisation joined the Ustasha, that's not true.

8 Q. Naturally I don't mean every single member. I mean a collective

9 position of the organisation.

10 A. Some -- some did.

11 Q. Would you agree with me that the great majority of Bosnian Muslims

12 were very loyal citizens of the Independent State of Croatia and

13 disregarding the Partizan movement which was started later on, there was

14 no specific Muslim resistance to the fact that Bosnia-Herzegovina joined

15 the Independent State of Croatia?

16 A. There was in fact a great deal of Bosnian Muslim discontent with

17 the Independent State of Croatia, expressed in a series of petitions and

18 protests directed to the Independent State of Croatia leadership, starting

19 in the fall of 1941. Other petitions followed over a long period of time,

20 and in fact, the Bosnian Muslims, many of the Bosnian Muslims became a

21 real problem for the NDH because of the -- their revulsion at the

22 atrocities that were being committed against Jews and Serbs and even

23 dissident Croats in the course of the rule of the NDH. I absolutely can't

24 discount the Partizan movement which was joined in large numbers by both

25 Croats and Bosnian Muslims later in the war, and would also note that the

1 Partizan movement began in, let's say, July of [indiscernible].

2 Q. With your permission, we will get to that later. You mentioned

3 protests and objections of the Bosnian Muslims. We don't have the time

4 now to show the documents. These are well-known Muslim resolutions from

5 late 41 and 42, aren't they?

6 A. Yes. I believe they are.

7 Q. That's right. Perhaps in some other form the Defence will be able

8 to challenge your thesis. I agree with you that these resolutions

9 criticised the conduct of the Ustasha regime but tell me, was there a

10 single resolution that challenged the formal state framework and the fact

11 that Bosnia and Herzegovina was an integral formal part of Independent

12 State of Croatia? Was there a single resolution?

13 A. I --

14 Q. [No interpretation]

15 A. May I answer the question?

16 Q. Yes, of course. I apologise.

17 A. Without having the resolutions in front of me, I can't really

18 answer your question. The resolutions became increasingly critical as

19 time went along, and they were not the only expression of discontent by

20 Bosnian Muslims against the Independent State of Croatia. There were --

21 there was this flirtation with the idea of an independent or autonomous

22 Bosnian state which was pursued with Germans so I would is have to say

23 that that, at least, qualifies as a challenge to the Independent State of

24 Croatia in the terms that you've outlined.

25 Q. Thank you. That's precisely one of the issues that I wish to

1 explore now. Without looking into resolutions, there is no point in

2 discussing them now. Now that you mentioned that some Muslim politicians

3 relied on the Third Reich, I would like to ask you this. You are not a

4 military expert, you are also not a military historian, but do you know

5 that the maximal contribution of a population of a country that can be

6 mobilised into armed forces without inflicting damage to the economy is

7 about 2 per cent? Knowing that, I think it would be useful for us to look

8 at the strength of the 13th SS division, also known as Handschar division.

9 Could we please see document 5D 01041? While we are waiting for the

10 document to come up on the screen, Dr. Donia, I suppose you will agree

11 with me that the 13th SS division, contrary to the will of the then

12 Croatian government, was made up almost exclusively of Bosnian Muslims.

13 The document we are about to see comes from the book of George Lepre,

14 Himmler's Bosnian Division. Perhaps you're familiar with the book. I

15 don't know?

16 A. You've made a number of assertions here which I think are wrong.

17 I don't know where you would come up with the idea that only 2 per cent of

18 population could be mobilised without inflicting damage on the economy.

19 Every war involves the mobilisation of the economy, and provides an

20 economic stimulus in which the more people that enter uniform stimulate

21 the economy, so I look at that as an unsubstantiatable assertion.

22 Q. All right. I agree with you and that's totally irrelevant. I

23 just wanted to say that as ancillary thesis as we were waiting for the

24 document to come up. So this book of George Lepre gives us this document,

25 reflecting the strength of the Bosnian division on the 15th of February

1 1944, some five months after the fall of Italy, when the outcome of the

2 Second World War was pretty obvious. The document was composed in German,

3 in the original. At the bottom we have a key where all key terms have

4 been translated into English. And if we scroll down, we'll see what

5 Gesamtstaerke means and what Sollstaerke means, so all the way to the

6 bottom, yes, yes, that's right. We can see that the total strength

7 Gesamtstaerke, was 18563, so at that point in time, in February of 1944,

8 the 13th SS Division had 18.563 members. And that based on the

9 establishment strength, Sollstaerke, it should have 18.697. So that means

10 that only -- they were only 140 people short. This is a volunteer

11 formation. These were not people who were forcibly mobilised. Isn't that

12 right?

13 A. Again you've asked several questions. The strength of the 13th SS

14 Division on paper was certainly as you say it. It would be another

15 question how many of those people could be brought to engage in battle on

16 any given day, given the deterioration that was taking place in that unit

17 at that time, as you point out the war was coming to an end or let's say

18 its outcome was increasingly obvious. And the Muslim SS division, the

19 13th SS Division which indeed is called Handschar or dagger was formed by

20 the Germans over substantial objections by the NDH authorities and it had

21 as far as I know exclusively German or non-Bosnian Muslim officers, but

22 its enlisted ranks were largely made up, almost exclusively made up of

23 Bosnian Muslims.

24 Q. Thank you. Now in order to be as brief as possible, I'm just

25 going to read out a line from the book of Dr. Enver Redzic,

1 Bosnia-Herzegovinian historian, a Bosniak, a Muslim, who published a book

2 on this topic, and you must be familiar with it. Enver Redzic, in his

3 book, Muslim Autonomy and the 13th SS Division, speaks about to whom these

4 soldiers, 18 and a half thousand of them, gave an oath. You will

5 certainly agree with me that the members of the armed forces of

6 Independent State of Croatia expressed their oath only to the leader of

7 Independent State of Croatia, not a third party. Unlike them, members of

8 the 13th SS Division, this is what Enver Redzic says on page 167, "When

9 joining the 13th SS Division, its members swore loyalty and obedience to

10 Adolf Hitler to their death, but also to loyalty to Croatian state and its

11 leader and to respecting the interests of the Croatian people." With your

12 permission, Dr. Donia, I wouldn't go into the discussion on the reasons

13 for this. I would just like you to agree, if you can agree, that in

14 February 1944 the division composed of predominantly Bosnian Muslims,

15 who -- they were members of the SS formations and at the time they swore

16 their allegiance to Adolf Hitler. I think that it's very important

17 because this is something that in the war propaganda, especially in the

18 1990s, was very frequently used as a argument against Croats?

19 A. Well, disregarding your last sentence, I agree with everything

20 you've said. I don't know where you're -- what you mean by that last

21 sentence but --

22 Q. Thank you. Since we have just a few little bit of time left, I

23 would now like to go back to the creation of the banovina of Croatia, the

24 term that is frequently used in this courtroom.

25 Would you agree with me in saying that the regime of the kingdom

1 of Yugoslavia, the Kingdom of the Serb, Croats, and Slovenes was

2 predominantly oriented towards greater Serbia, that is to say that

3 non-Serb nations in that state had fewer rights than Serbs?

4 A. No.

5 Q. You wouldn't agree with that. Would you then agree with this,

6 that as of autumn of 1918, Croat teachers, university Professors were

7 dismissed from work that as of 1990 political trials, staged political

8 trials of Croatian intellectuals commenced?

9 A. Let me get the years straight here. We may have a translation

10 issue. Do you mean 1918?

11 Q. Yes, 1918. I have in mind the event which took place in a central

12 Croatian square in Zagreb on the 5th of December 1918.

13 A. Okay. Can't deny it is certainly the case that there was

14 retribution carried out against certain Croats when the Serbian army and

15 the Kingdom of Yugoslavia took control. It was the case that the Kingdom

16 of Yugoslavia, by and large, began with a situation of equal rights for of

17 its citizens, and in fact saw the king encourage national expression of

18 Croats, along with Serbs, in the early years of the kingdom. I think you

19 mentioned earlier the immense activity that surrounded the thousandth

20 anniversary of the founding of the Croatian state or the crowning of King

21 Tomislav. And there were many such activities. I can't agree with your

22 proposition that these other peoples had fewer rights.

23 Q. Thank you. Now that we have touched upon the 1.000th

24 anniversary, we are referring to 1925. Prior to that, weren't there

25 persecutions, kidnappings and trials even trials of the prominent leader

1 of the most important Croatian political party, Stjepan Radic?

2 A. There certainly was an effort to suppress Radic's work, yes.

3 Q. Please tell us, was Radic, together with his two party colleagues

4 wounded fatally at the assembly during the assembly session on the 20th of

5 June 1928?

6 A. Yes. And he died in August of 1928.

7 Q. That's right. Shortly after his death, did King Aleksandar

8 introduce a dictatorship on the 6th of January, 1929?

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. In the period of that dictatorship, was it forbidden to publicly

11 announce national names and symbols, except for the Serbian ones, which

12 could be used because the Serbian national symbols were identical to

13 Serbian church symbols, religious ones?

14 A. Yes. Usual now moving into a period where the let's say

15 dictatorship imposes a different situation on the royal Yugoslav state

16 than had existed prior to 1929.

17 Q. That's right. Please tell us, could it be said that the Yugoslav

18 state, the first one, for the most portion of its existence, was actually

19 in a state crisis, a crisis greater than the typical party rivalry?

20 A. I'd agree, yes.

21 Q. Will we also agree, then, that the fact that Hitler came to power

22 in 1933 and Germany became stronger are the facts which affected the

23 relationship or the attitude that Great Britain and France at the time had

24 towards the Belgrade regime, which they had until that time supported

25 unconditionally, that is to say that both Great Britain and France

1 realised that it was time to change something?

2 A. I think I'd have to get a time frame or more specific question to

3 be able to answer that. The -- that attitude was changing -- okay.

4 Q. Yes. I can be more specific than that. Would you agree that the

5 Yugoslav regime in the second part of 1930s showed signs of rapprochement

6 to the axis powers, that is to say Italy and the Third Reich? Is this a

7 yes? Because then I will continue. And that in 1937, Yugoslav Prime

8 Minister, who was a Serb, Milan Stojadinovic signed a treaty with the

9 fascist Italy? That in 1941, the Yugoslav regime led by Serbs, because

10 Prime Minister Cvetkovic and prince Pavle, who was a member of the royal

11 family, and they were leaders of Yugoslavia, that they signed a treaty

12 acceding to the axis powers?

13 A. Well, they signed the tripartite pact, as you know, and that

14 brought royal Yugoslavia into the circle of allies, let's say, of Germany

15 and Italy. It was followed very shortly, as you know, by a rebellion of

16 Yugoslav air force officers that effectively nullified the agreement,

17 brought another regime to power.

18 Q. Thank you. I didn't want to go into these details. I'm rather

19 interested in this: When the Banovina Croatia was established, in your

20 view, did French and British diplomacy play any role in it?

21 A. That's a good question. I don't know.

22 Q. Thank you. The term "banovina" in the administrative structure of

23 the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the first time emerged after the dictatorship

24 and the constitution from 1931, isn't that right?

25 A. It's not the first time. It was a term, let's say, revived from

1 the middle ages. It was based on a term derived from the middle ages.

2 Q. I'm referring to the Yugoslav period.

3 A. Yes, yes.

4 Q. When banovina Croatia was created in 1939, if I'm not mistaken, it

5 was composed of two previously created banovinas, Primorska and Savska,

6 isn't that right?

7 A. Parts of them. It was not just a consolidation of two banovinas.

8 Q. Did both of these banovinas join Banovina Croatia in their

9 entirety or not?

10 A. No. The division of the boundaries were drawn between Cvetkovic

11 and Macek and they were supposed to be subject to a referendum which was

12 to be held on this matter and never was.

13 Q. Please tell us what about Kotars or regions that were annexed to

14 these banovinas, populated by predominantly Croatian populations or was

15 the population of some other ethnic origin?

16 A. Can you be more specific? I'm not --

17 Q. The areas of modern Bosnia-Herzegovina, if you can picture that,

18 so the areas that were annexed to Savska and Primorska banovina which

19 together composed Banovina Croatia, these Kotars from Bosnia-Herzegovina

20 areas, were they predominantly populated by Croats?

21 A. I don't know their population composition. It may have been

22 unknowable since the census at that time was in religion only.

23 Q. Thank you. Since we are running out of time, I have no time to

24 show you any statistics on national and religious composition of

25 population in that area. I will rather turn to some other issues. Please

1 tell me, Cvetkovic-Macek agreement signed in August of 1939, creating

2 banovina Croatia, was signed on behalf of Croatia by Dr. Vlatko Macek, who

3 was a liberal democratic politician, and who in all previous elections in

4 which he participated, regardless of the conditions under which the

5 elections were held, received a -- full support of Croatian people. Would

6 you agree with that?

7 A. The certainly the vast majority supported him, yes.

8 Q. Would you also agree that Dragisa Cvetkovic was a representative

9 of one of the greatest, if not the greatest, Serbian political force?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. Thank you. Would you agree that following the creation of

12 banovina Croatia, to the west of it, there remained Dravska banovina,

13 mostly populated by Slovenes because there were no territorial or other

14 disputes there, and that the entire area to the east of banovina Croatia

15 was supposed to become a territorial entity under the name Serbian lands?

16 A. Yes. That's right.

17 Q. Would you agree that the resistance coming from Croatian side,

18 resistance to Banovina Croatia, came mostly from those who even then had

19 tendencies to Ustasha movement or were perhaps even already members of

20 that movement, and that that movement was a rather marginal force among

21 the Croats at the time?

22 A. I'd say the Ustasha were probably the most vocal in their

23 opposition to it, amongst Croats.

24 Q. Thank you. You also mentioned that among Muslims there was some

25 resistance to this re-tailoring of Yugoslavia which was taking place

1 pursuant to constitution Article 116. Would you agree with me that this

2 resistance was led by the Muslim -- Yugoslav Muslim organisation and its

3 head, Kulenovic?

4 A. No. The -- I mean the opposition to the idea at the time of the

5 negotiations was led by Spaho, and after his death, and after the

6 conclusion of the agreement, the opposition sort of spread. It was a

7 slow, developing opposition to the -- to the agreement, and came to

8 include many leaders of the Yugoslav Muslim organisation. But actually, I

9 think, Kulenovic was at least initially not critical of the agreement.

10 Q. Thank you. Unfortunately, we don't have enough time to show

11 exhibits and some other material. I have just a few more minutes. I

12 would like now to turn to an entirely different topic, and this is a

13 question that logically speaking should have been tackled in the

14 beginning, and I'm getting to it just now. Could it be said that an

15 expert for some country's history must have clear ideas on approximate, I

16 emphasise approximate, number of its residents, approximate surface of its

17 territory, and must know quite accurate information about its borders?

18 A. Depending on the era one is dealing with, that would be the case,

19 yes.

20 Q. Thank you. Please tell me, did medieval Bosnia have access to the

21 sea, Adriatic Sea?

22 A. Yes, it did.

23 Q. When did it gain that access to the sea, if you can tell us

24 briefly, in one sentence, and how many exits to the sea did it have?

25 A. Well, if you look at the map of the kingdom of Bosnia I think it's

1 from 1378 to 1391 it encompassed much of the Adriatic coast.

2 Q. If I may interrupt you, because of lack of time, in the 19th

3 century, did Bosnia have access to the sea?

4 A. It did in the Austro-Hungarian period, yes.

5 Q. Can you tell us how many access points it had and, if there were

6 more than one, how many?

7 A. I think there was just one during the Austro-Hungarian period,

8 small corridor down to the sea which was in a different location than the

9 present one but nearby.

10 Q. Then I have to reformulate my question. Did Bosnia and

11 Herzegovina have access to the sea in Boka Kotorska the so-called

12 Sutorina?

13 A. I don't know.

14 Q. If we go back to your previous reply, when you said that an expert

15 on the history of a certain country would have to have quite clear ideas

16 about its borders can we say that you are not an expert on the history on

17 that country?

18 A. Well, as I indicated there was one access point, and I just don't

19 recall exactly where it was but it was within the triangular-shaped

20 formation of Bosnia-Herzegovina as an Austro-Hungarian possession. So I

21 don't know that I would want to hang the question whether I'm an expert or

22 not on one single, isolated question of fact.

23 Q. The reason I'm putting it is because of your previous reply but

24 again we are short of time and cannot look at any primary school

25 collection of maps showing that Bosnia and Herzegovina had two access

1 points to the sea. However, I will move on to another topic now. And ask

2 you two or three brief questions pertaining to the period after 1990.

3 Are you aware that in the Muslim political corpus from 1990 until

4 the outbreak of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Muslim autonomous provinces

5 were being created, in parallel to what the Serbs were doing in their

6 autonomous provinces, there were ideas, in other words, about creating

7 such provinces?

8 A. I think a few were actually created but were pretty much dead

9 letters whether they were created and the idea was bandied around by

10 leaders of the SDA. There was certainly a discussion about that. And

11 yes, it was discussed, a few of them, I think there was one created in

12 Banja Luka, a small area.

13 Q. You did not mention these, however, in your expert report.

14 A. They were, really, inconsequential.

15 Q. A special chapter in your expert report deals with the so-called

16 Graz agreement, the Boban-Karadzic talks, that is. Did you know that in

17 mid-1991, about ten months previously, in the middle of Sarajevo and in

18 Belgrade, secret Muslim-Serb negotiations were held and that memoirs to

19 this effect were published by Alija Izetbegovic, who commissioned these

20 negotiations, and Muhamed Filipovic and Adil Zulfikarpasic who were his

21 emissaries in these negotiations? Are you aware of that?

22 A. There were talks between the people that you just mentioned,

23 Milosevic and other members of the Belgrade leadership. They were not

24 secret. In fact, they were very openly admitted or I'd say disclosed at

25 the time to the point that Izetbegovic feared a public backlash if he

1 pursued the negotiations too far. I think the Belgrade initiative, which

2 is what this period of negotiation is usually called, is well known, was

3 well known at the time, and, of course, did not lead to an agreement

4 between those parties.

5 Q. Can you explain why, then, in his memoirs, Zulfikarpasic and

6 Filipovic say these were secret negotiations?

7 A. The specific meetings were not publicly disclosed immediately but

8 the general drift was bandied about in public. In fact there were public

9 rallies that Serbs organised in support of the initiative.

10 Q. In your expert report, however, you did not even mention this in

11 passing. But you devoted quite a lot of attention to the meeting between

12 Boban and Karadzic in Graz, from which a communique was issued which, as

13 we see, was originally written in English. It was written for the public.

14 Why did you consider the Muslim-Serb negotiations and possible agreement

15 as so inconsequential as to be not worthy of mention?

16 A. I devoted quite a bit of -- I thought quite a bit of space to the

17 growth of separate Serbian institutions. There is an entire chapter in

18 that story that went to the relationship between these talks and other

19 talks being sponsored at the time by the international community that

20 certainly could be told. I assessed them as having some significance, but

21 in the context of what I was doing, close not to include the discussion of

22 it.

23 Q. We agree, then, that these negotiations in Graz were held under

24 the auspices of the international community?

25 A. They very clearly were not. They were separate talks held at the

1 time that the European Community was seeking to bring together a

2 comprehensive agreement of all three parties, but were separate and

3 evidently not very apparently not disclosed to the EC until after the

4 agreement had been reached and it had been made public.

5 Q. And my last question, in view of the fact that it's already ten

6 past 2, it follows from your previous reply that the Muslim-Serb

7 negotiations were held under international auspices, or did I

8 misunderstand you?

9 A. The Belgrade initiative talks were not held under international

10 auspices. They coincided with some talks and there was some, let's say,

11 awareness of the international role, but they were not held under EC or

12 international auspices.

13 MR. JONJIC: [Interpretation] Thank you. If I understood His

14 Honour correctly, there are five minutes left, so --

15 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] No, one of the Judges has two

16 questions and Mr. Praljak wishes to put questions. We cannot expand our

17 time. Ms. Alaburic, no, but Ms. Nozica wishes to put a question.

18 MR. JONJIC: [Interpretation] If that's the case, Your Honour, I

19 have completed my examination. Thank you, Dr. Donia.

20 Questioned by the Court:

21 JUDGE PRANDLER: I take the floor at this very late hour but I

22 have indicated my desire already in the break and I am duty bound to

23 mention that the Defence had more than two hours and a half to -- two and

24 a half hours for its disposal in comparison with the Prosecutor's time.

25 I have two questions to ask. The first one is that I found Mr.

1 Donia's book and report rather very well-researched and documented one.

2 Of course, I would have had more questions but I would like to ask one

3 question only.

4 At page 25, page 25, you are -- you are mentioning the Badinter

5 commission and its work. As we all know, Badinter commission took its

6 name from its president, chairman, Robert Badinter, who was a well known

7 French, and he's a well known French jurist and statesman. And also that

8 international group of lawyers who participated in it were quite well

9 based on their own expertise. You do mention the Badinter commission's

10 work but only under -- until one of the -- one of the points of that

11 history, that is about the recognition of both Croatia and Slovenia. My

12 question is the following: What kind of major principles or criteria were

13 established by the Badinter commission, as far as the -- as far as the

14 very preconditions of the recognition of a given state? It is my first

15 question. And second follow-up question is: What the Badinter commission

16 established concerning the recognition of Bosnia and Herzegovina?

17 My second question relates to one of the statements made by

18 Mr. Jonjic and here the discussion was also handled by both of you but I

19 would like to refer that statement which was made by Mr. Jonjic, and I

20 would like to quote at least one part of it. He said, I believe, that

21 "the majority of Croats and the majority of Muslims in both wars, that is

22 I mean the First and the Second World Wars, fought under the same flag and

23 under the same coat of arms." End of quotation.

24 Now, I believe that as far as the First World War is concerned, it

25 is quite obvious that it is almost true that that statement, because they,

1 the Bosniaks, have also been in a way drafted to the Austro-Hungarian army

2 so therefore they fought under one flag, and under one coat of arms. At

3 the same time, concerning the Second World War, there was a rather long

4 discussion on it between you and Mr. Jonjic. I believe that at least that

5 were four flags, four coats of arms, to be fought under those symbols

6 because first of all, that was, in my view at least, that was the Serbian

7 kingdom's army also drafted Bosniaks from that territory and also Serbs,

8 that was also the army of the Independent State of Croatia. There was an

9 army later on also the -- as it was also mentioned, the Handschar division

10 of the German Reich SS Division, and then also, of course, there were the

11 partisans. Therefore my question is would you agree that there were

12 actually four major groups who were fighting sometimes unfortunately

13 against each other and against any other enemy as the case may be.

14 Thank you.

15 A. Thank you, Your Honour. Yes, four groups, and a rather complex

16 picture. The balance of participation significantly shifted over time.

17 If at the beginning of the war, there was a force that was largely Serb

18 and commanded the loyalty of most Serbs, it was the Chetnik -- Chetniks of

19 Draza Mihajlovic. With the formation of the Partizan movement, largely in

20 its first year made up of Serbian volunteers, that monopoly in a sense was

21 broken and the two forces became bitter rivals. With the passage of time

22 the Partizan appeal to the notion of a multi-national concept won many

23 recruits from Croats, Bosniaks, other Serbs, and other peoples. There

24 were -- a huge number of Jews also served in the partisans. And then

25 there was, of course, the various armed forces of the NDH, the Independent

1 State of Croatia. There were also some Croats and as we noted some

2 Bosnian Muslims serving in German units and, of course, the forces of the

3 Chetniks were also there. Absolutely, I think you're correct about those

4 four formations. They were at times bitter rivals.

5 If I can just briefly address the Badinter Commission, you note

6 that I've stopped here on this page with the January 11, 1992, Badinter

7 Commission decision. The other part of that was that the Badinter

8 Commission had also been charged to assess Bosnia-Herzegovina's

9 application. The two primary criteria that they were asked to examine

10 were the will of the populace for independence and, second, guarantees for

11 human and in particular -- particularly minority rights. And when the

12 Badinter Commission received the various documents from Croatia, Slovenia,

13 Macedonia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, they applied what we would recognise as

14 very western human rights concepts which just struck me at the time as

15 clashing with this much more collective national constituent nation idea.

16 But they applied their standards to the constitution of Bosnia-Herzegovina

17 and pronounced themselves satisfied on that point. They pronounced

18 themselves not satisfied that the will of the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina

19 had been established. And with that act, they requested, which amounted

20 to almost a mandate, that a referendum on independence be held. And that

21 was the act then that was passed on January 25th, 1992, by the assembly

22 and subsequently held.

23 Subsequent to that referendum, the Badinter Commission recommended

24 to the EC that Bosnia-Herzegovina be recognised as independent. It also

25 touched off this process of negotiations so that one of the curious facts

1 is that Bosnia-Herzegovina never declared independence in this time. It

2 awaited the European recognition which took place then on April 7th.

3 JUDGE PRANDLER: Thank you.

4 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. We still have five

5 minutes. Mr. Praljak and Ms. Nozica, starting with Ms. Nozica.

6 MR. JONJIC: [Interpretation] I apologise. This is not a question.

7 I failed to tender into evidence the documents put to the witness.

8 Document 5D --

9 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] I thought of that but we had

10 better do that on Monday, next Monday, in order to save time. So you'll

11 have the floor then. Ms. Nozica.

12 Cross-examination by Ms. Nozica:

13 MS. NOZICA: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour. Mr. Praljak

14 has allowed me to speak first. I will focus only on three of my

15 questions.

16 Q. Good day, sir, as my time is very short, I will put to you several

17 very brief quotations and you will have to take my word for it although

18 one should never trust a lawyer in principle but there are sufficient

19 witnesses in the courtroom to confirm I am not misquoting. You spoke

20 about the digs of the constitutional court of Bosnia-Herzegovina from

21 November 1992 declaring unconstitutional the decision on the establishment

22 of the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna. Do you recall that?

23 A. I believe it was September 1992, if I'm not mistaken.

24 Q. Yes. Very well. Thank you. Would you agree with me that the

25 constitutional court is located in Sarajevo? Do you know that?

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. In September 1992, would you agree with me that Sarajevo was

3 completely occupied by Serb forces, that it had been shelled and targeted

4 since April?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. Can you tell me whether you ever found information showing that

7 the constitutional court issued a decision on declaring unconstitutional

8 the decision on the founding of Republika Srpska, the assembly of

9 Republika Srpska, or any body of Republika Srpska and all these were

10 established before the establishment of the Croatian Community of

11 Herceg-Bosna? Have you found any such decisions?

12 A. Just to be clear, the Republika Srpska was not formally founded

13 under that name until August of 1992 and was declared as the Serbian

14 Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina in January of 1992 so that would be after

15 the proclamation of Herceg-Bosna. A constitutional court decision

16 declared -- in very limited language, declared unconstitutional the

17 association of certain municipalities with the community of municipalities

18 of the Bosnian Krajina in -- sometime around May or June of 1991. I don't

19 know of other decisions in regard to either the Republika Srpska or the

20 Assembly of Republika Srpska.

21 Q. Thank you. This is what I wanted to know. Did you ever read or

22 find a document concerning a decision by the constitutional court

23 establishing that the reappointment of Mr. Alija Izetbegovic as president

24 after his first term of office when there should have been the rotation

25 that you spoke of, establishing that this was unconstitutional or illegal?

1 Did you ever find a decision to that effect issued by the constitutional

2 court?

3 A. No.

4 Q. As we are nearing the end, I just wish to point out two mistakes

5 in your expert report. On page 37 of your expert report, you say that the

6 army of Bosnia-Herzegovina was formed in -- was formally created in July

7 1992 without the HVO, without the HVO, as you say. Have you had an

8 opportunity of seeing the decree on the armed forces of Bosnia and

9 Herzegovina from August 1992 promulgated by the presidency of the Republic

10 of Bosnia-Herzegovina and do you know that HVO units existed throughout

11 the war in, for example, Sarajevo, Tuzla, Posavina, together with members

12 of the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina? Are you aware of all this or not

13 because from the sentence of yours, one could conclude that the HVO was no

14 longer participating in the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina after July 1992.

15 A. Your first assertion here that this was August of 1992 -- August

16 of 1992 is indeed correct. The army was created in August, and this

17 statement is in error. It was in August.

18 And likewise, your statement that the HVO was participating in the

19 defence of Bosnia and Herzegovina, together with the army of

20 Bosnia-Herzegovina, in these various locations, Sarajevo, Tuzla, the

21 Posavina, and some other places, is absolutely correct. I don't know the

22 structural dimensions of this. That is, I can't -- I have not seen a

23 document, I haven't seen the document that you referred to establishing

24 the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina, nor the response to that by the HVO.

25 Q. I mentioned the document you referred to, and this was the decree

1 on the armed forces dated the 6th of August 1992, where, in paragraph 1,

2 it is stated that HVO units are an integral part of the army. Therefore

3 they existed both in the legislation and practically on the ground. To

4 move on to my next question, my colleague asked you about autonomous

5 provinces, Muslim, Bosniak provinces. You said you knew there was one

6 around Banja Luka. I found this a little bit confusing. Do you know

7 anything about the western Bosnia autonomous province and the internal

8 conflict among Bosniaks which is very important for a complete assessment

9 of the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina? This conflict lasted for more

10 than a year. It became acute on two occasions and had far-reaching

11 consequences. It's very important for an understanding of the situation

12 in Bosnia and Herzegovina and for an understanding of the decisions made

13 in connection with the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna and the HVO.

14 A. I believe the creation of the western Bosnian autonomous province

15 is beyond the scope that I addressed in my report and, yes, it absolutely

16 was an important part of the picture that developed in Bosnia-Herzegovina

17 in the course of the -- in the course of the war.

18 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Praljak.

19 MS. NOZICA: [Interpretation].

20 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Praljak you have two

21 minutes. We have to finish by 2.30. Mr. Praljak, you have two minutes,

22 unfortunately.

23 Cross-examination by the Accused Praljak:

24 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] You have to make sure that the

25 counsel are more disciplined.

1 THE ACCUSED PRALJAK: [Interpretation]

2 Q. Witness, for any reason, which we will not go into now, for some

3 reason, in Canada, the French waged war against the English majority and

4 the French government helped both sides with weapons, regardless of the

5 fact that many Frenchmen were being killed around Quebec. They sent

6 assistance, trained units, English units attacking the French. Have you

7 found any such possible example of such behaviour in the history of

8 warfare?

9 A. I'm still trying to digest Iraq from previous answers but I don't

10 think it's that uncommon in warfare for aid to be flowing to two sides of

11 the conflict, and there were instances of that in the Second World War,

12 for example, when it was to the advantage of a power to -- to support a

13 resistance and simultaneously support another resistance movement that was

14 being engaged in. I don't think it would be that unusual in the history

15 of warfare. Not common but ...

16 Q. Unfortunately, you misunderstood me. Would it be possible now, in

17 the USA, for the president of the USA, after the twin towers were

18 destroyed in New York, to provide help to al Qaeda or any similar

19 organisation?

20 A. It wouldn't be very likely, no.

21 Q. Do you understand how much political and moral strength Croatia

22 and Franjo Tudjman had to have to help both sides in the conflict in

23 Bosnia and Herzegovina, both the Muslims and the Croats, one against the

24 other?

25 A. I find that relatively unsurprising, that the Croatian government

1 was in fact aiding both sides, in accord with the policy that I mentioned

2 earlier of nominal support for a sovereign Bosnia-Herzegovina and

3 simultaneously support for a separatist faction.

4 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] We have to stop now,

5 Mr. Praljak. You will have other opportunities with other witnesses, and

6 you will be able to tackle those subjects again. I'm so sorry, but there

7 are problems for the interpreters, the security.

8 Thank you very much. We shall reconvene at quarter past 2.00 on

9 Monday.

10 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 2.34 p.m.,

11 to be reconvened on Monday, the 15th day of May,

12 2006, at 2.15 p.m.

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