1 Monday, 24 September 2007

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 --- Upon commencing at 2.14 p.m.

5 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Registrar, could you please

6 call the case.

7 THE REGISTRAR: Good afternoon, Your Honours. This is case number

8 IT-04-74-T, the Prosecutor versus Prlic et al.

9 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. So this Monday, 24

10 September, we are starting again our hearings this week. I greet

11 Mr. Scott and the counsel and the accused and all people in this room,

12 this courtroom.

13 As we know, we have this week a witness who is coming to bear

14 testimony for three days. I will be obliged to leave around noon if the

15 examination does not end because there is a Plenary of the Judges for the

16 mission of the president of the Tribunal, so it would be Judge Prandler

17 who will preside over this Chamber in the afternoon Wednesday day, next

18 Wednesday. That is what I wanted to tell you.

19 I understand that Mr. Karnavas wishes to take the floor.

20 MR. KARNAVAS: I do, Mr. President. Good afternoon Mr. President;

21 good afternoon, Your Honours; good afternoon everyone.

22 My remarks concern the upcoming witness, Mr. Miller, or Professor

23 Miller. I am somewhat concerned, and I want to bring something to the

24 Court's attention at this point in time. My remarks will primarily deal

25 with the second part of his -- the second so-called report that he

1 prepared dealing with post -- you know, the persistence of Herceg-Bosna

2 after Washington Agreement and Dayton.

3 Now, I look at the decision that was rendered by the Trial

4 Chamber, and the Trial Chamber indicated that it would hear the witness's

5 testimony and then determine the relevance and probative value. That's

6 the very last part. Now, we've been at trial for 17 months. The

7 indictment is rather comprehensive. We know that it ends sometime in

8 1994. Now the gentleman is going to be talking about events that occurred

9 in 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, all the way to the present time, I presume, and

10 it would seem to me that in the past when an accused such as -- or a

11 counsel for an accused has stood up to go into areas which were outside

12 the scope of the indictment, the Trial Chamber rightfully pointed out that

13 one need not go into those areas because they were not relevant. They

14 were outside the indictment.

15 Now, we filed a joint response on July 3rd. Preceding that, the

16 Stojic Defence on the 20th of June had non-opposed but then later on

17 3 July they joined with the joint opposition to this particular report and

18 to the relevancy of this matter.

19 Here's my concern, Mr. President and Your Honours, that by going

20 into this area, and I am perfectly happy to go into it if we have several

21 weeks. We're going to be turning this trial into some kind of a symposium

22 on post conflict reconstruction in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Anyone who has

23 worked in Bosnia-Herzegovina since Dayton knows that you have countless

24 NGOs. You have the office of the High Representative, you have the UN,

25 the OSCE, you have all these folks that are -- they are trying to make

1 sense of that country. You have laws being passed in every canton to

2 every -- to the entities, you have impositions of laws, and so on and so

3 forth. And it seems to me that you cannot judge this era and say that the

4 Croats are doing this or that without looking at everyone, and I'm talking

5 everyone, starting with the UN, starting with the office of the High

6 Representative, starting with what the Republika Srpska is doing, what

7 Bosniaks are doing, as well as the Croats. And so while it might be a

8 fascinating seminar since 2005 after 10 years of Dayton there have been

9 attempts to modify the constitution of BiH because they have concluded

10 that Dayton was good to stop the war but was terrible for the peace in the

11 sense of getting this country going. This is an ongoing process, and I

12 fear that if we hear this sort of evidence, you will in essence be opening

13 up a Pandora's box.

14 Now, I don't -- I don't mind spending a few days with this

15 particular historian here, but I need to know concretely at what point in

16 time will the Trial Chamber make its determination as to whether this

17 evidence, whatever it might be, is relevant to the case and whether it has

18 any probative value, but relevance in particular is what concerns me,

19 because if you are going to wait until the conclusion of the trial, you

20 are forcing the Defence to in essence mount a defence on post-Dayton

21 reconstruction in BiH. And it's not enough to say don't, Well don't

22 worry, we're professional Judges. We know what to do. That is not an

23 answer, because we are entitled to know what it is that we are defending

24 against. Are we defending against the indictment, or are we defending

25 against everything and anything no matter what the time or place, and

1 that's why I need some guidance.

2 Will we know at the end of the testimony whether the Trial Chamber

3 will find it relevant because then we will need to re-evaluate how we're

4 going to proceed at some point. But I dare say it is a gross error for

5 this Trial Chamber to be going into a time period into matters that are

6 outside the scope of the indictment. It is unfair to the Defence. It

7 might be interesting, but it's terribly unfair to the Defence and it's not

8 what I consider a proper usage of time.

9 If the Trial Chamber, as it has indicated, is concerned for the

10 well-being of the accused, especially as far as the time it takes to try

11 this case, and it has noted on several occasions that we need to have

12 expedited and efficient usage of time in court which is why sometimes the

13 cross-examination time is curtailed. If that is the case, then I think

14 that this is one instance when the Trial Chamber should refrain from

15 wasting a whole weeks of time hearing testimony that is not relevant

16 because you can just see from the dates, you know.

17 And getting back to one other point which is connected to this, we

18 have still to hear from the Prosecution there are answer as to whether we

19 need to defend against Ahmici. Mr. Scott stood up at one point and said

20 he needed to consult with Mr. Stringer, and I want to bring to the Court's

21 attention that at the time that this case was started or at the time that

22 the indictment was drafted, during the pre-trial phase, during the

23 beginning of the trial, Mr. Stringer was not there. He had nothing to do

24 with the indictment. So why all of a sudden we need to get Mr. Stringer's

25 advice as to whether something that's in the document or maybe not in the

1 document is something that the Defence has to defend against. Maybe

2 Mr. Mundis can help Mr. Scott. I don't care, but I think this goes --

3 this ties in with what I'm saying today.

4 We need clear guidance. What is it are we defending against? Is

5 it against the entire post Dayton events in Bosnia-Herzegovina? Because

6 there are a thousand different opinions. It depends on where you are and

7 who you talk to. And you're opening up a Pandora's box. So I would like

8 some guidance.

9 I think the Trial Chamber can provide some guidance especially

10 before we hear the direct examination, but I certainly think it would be

11 terribly unfair to say let's wait until the end of the trial to decide as

12 we did with Donia when 5th century history is relevant because then you

13 force us to call witnesses and to mount a defence against 5th and 10th

14 century history that has nothing to do with the events from 1991 and 1994.

15 So these are my remarks, Mr. President. I trust that and I would

16 hope that you would consult with your colleagues and perhaps give us some

17 guidance. I understand the decision, but I think it's one thing to say

18 I'm going to hear the evidence and then determine what weight, if any, to

19 give to it. But when it comes to relevance that's something that we need

20 to know right up front. I don't think we need to hear the entire

21 testimony to determine whether events 1997 or 1998 or events concerning

22 Mr. Jelavic, who is not even over here, have something to do with this

23 particular case. I don't think we need to do that.

24 Thank you.

25 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] On which you've just mentioned,

1 the Chamber has discussed the matter starting with the report of the 9

2 pages report, and 28 footnotes in particular, the persistence of the

3 Herceg-Bosna and -- after the accords of Dayton and Washington he drafted

4 9 pages which are directly linked to paragraph 26 of the Prosecution's

5 briefs in July 2007 in which the Prosecutor wrote this which I'm going to

6 read slowly: "The second report of Mr. Miller concerns also directly the

7 thesis of the Prosecution according to which Herceg-Bosna was not an

8 association or a group of citizens which was of provisional character but

9 which had been established either in order to have a permanent state

10 opposed to the government of Sarajevo or as a victor of a great Croatia,

11 federated to the Republic of Croatia, or being part of it. The

12 admissibility of this evidence doesn't depend on what the Prosecution

13 thinks. The non-dissolution of the Republic of Herceg-Bosna long times

14 after Washington and Bosna Accords destroys all argument according to

15 which it was -- it would have been a temporary association having no

16 sinister intention against the sovereignty of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Other

17 evidence such as confidential minutes confirm that republic of

18 Bosna-Herceg was still part of the same plan and posed problems, permanent

19 problems, for the international community and had as a consequence a

20 climate of violence in the region."

21 So this is the approach of the Prosecution on this matter which

22 was detailed at paragraph 26 of its motion of July 27 -- 2007. This is

23 directly connected with the second part of Mr. Miller's report which takes

24 up nine pages.

25 So the Chamber which has understood all these problems and your

1 opposition has made a decision, and indicated in this decision that

2 because of this testimony of the witness the Chamber will appraise the

3 probative value and the relevance and will decide on the question to know

4 whether these reports can be admitted. Maybe what is said by the

5 Prosecution in paragraph 26 is completely false or wrong but we will only

6 know that after having heard Mr. Miller and after having heard the

7 cross-examination.

8 This is all we can say now. So, Mr. Karnavas, this question has

9 been studied and debated by the members of the Chamber at length, because

10 we were expecting the Defence to contest this, take issue on this.

11 So we are now going to have the witness. Please, usher, will you

12 introduce Mr. Miller.

13 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, well, first of all good

14 afternoon to everyone and to the Trial Chamber. While -- or, rather,

15 before the witness is brought in --

16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Can you hear the English? Can

17 you hear the English?

18 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation] Good afternoon to everyone in the

19 courtroom, especially to the Trial Chamber. Your Honours, while we're

20 having the witness shown in may I just table a request for prolonging the

21 deadline to a response to the Prosecution submission of the 20th of

22 September, because they requested the introduction of a documentary, a set

23 of documents, 539 documents in all linked to Herceg-Bosna, and the topic

24 is the HVO as the political military and administrative structure, and I'd

25 like to tell the Trial Chamber that that means more than 4.000 documents

1 which means a lot of hard work for the Defence teams, and according to the

2 deadlines from the rules of evidence we are supposed to reply by the 4th

3 of October. But Your Honours, may we be given a 10 to 15 days' grace

4 period for us to be able to review that? So could you extend the

5 deadline? You know that we are inundated with many documents and this

6 would be an additional burden and at the 65 ter Conference let me just

7 remind you the Prosecution was very fair in informing us about the plans,

8 its plans, and this helped us in our own planning, but this particular

9 submission was not planned, at least not in that volume. It's a very

10 serious submission. We have reviewed it preliminarily and within reason

11 we would need another fortnight to look through the documents and then

12 respond.

13 So please could you extend that deadline, and we shall be

14 responding all together, all the Defence teams together, and of course

15 this is a question that we have is to consult our clients with because

16 some decisions just can't be made without our clients. Through.

17 MR. SCOTT: If I might -- if I might --

18 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Scott.

19 MR. SCOTT: Thank you if I might respond ever so briefly. Your

20 Honour, first of all Your Honour to jump to the --

21 JUDGE TRECHSEL: I'm sorry, technical point. On line 24 of page

22 7, Mr. Kovacic is having spoken of more than 4.000 documents, should it

23 rather not be more than 4.000 pages?

24 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation] Yes, pages. That's right, Your

25 Honour. The -- I quoted name of the document 539 documents and these were

1 pages, yes.

2 JUDGE TRECHSEL: Thank you.

3 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Mr. President, Your Honours. Just very

4 briefly just to jump to the bottom line the Prosecution does not object to

5 the request of additional time, number one.

6 I just do want the record to be clear, however, I'm not

7 attributing anything -- any ill will other than perhaps faulty memory

8 which I'm increasingly prone to my self, this was the plan filing as the

9 transcript excerpt that we provided to the Chamber some days ago. We had

10 indicated in July the filings that we would make between that time and the

11 end of September, and this filing was one of the specific filings

12 discussed. The only thing that's different about it is we substantially

13 reduced the number of total documents that we expected to tender. But the

14 transcript is quite clear. The Court may remember that at one point the

15 Prosecution thought that we could make such a filing immediately following

16 the recess on approximately the 16th of August if we were granted relief

17 from one of the guideline requirements. The Chamber did not grant us that

18 relief, and we did the additional work and we said at the time in July

19 that if the -- that relief weren't granted that filing would be made

20 approximately the end of September or early October, and we indeed filed

21 it on the 20th of September. So just so the record is clear, it was

22 planned -- it was specifically anticipated and planned, and we did better

23 than expected. Thank you.

24 MS. ALABURIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, good afternoon to

25 everyone in the courtroom. A small request. Today is the deadline for

1 responding to the Prosecution's request to introduce certain documentary

2 evidence from the Vares municipality area. All six Defence teams are

3 preparing a joint respond but that response is composed in 3.709 words.

4 So with your permission we would like to be allowed to respond with more

5 words. The number is -- let me it right in the transcript. The total

6 number of words is 3.709. 3.709. Yes that's correct thank you.

7 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] These are two requests for the

8 number of words. The Chamber will allow Ms. Alaburic's request for the

9 number of words edited for the directive.

10 Secondly, as for the time to answer the 539 documents, the Chamber

11 is minded to give 15 supplementary days.

12 We are now going to have the witness in the courtroom.

13 I will give the floor to the registrar who will give us certain

14 number of -- who will give us certain numbers for the exhibits.

15 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, several of the parties have

16 submitted lists of documents to be tendered through Witness C. The list

17 submitted by 2D shall be given Exhibit number IC 666, the list submitted

18 by 3D shall be given Exhibit number IC 667, the list submitted by 4D shall

19 be given Exhibit number IC 668, and the list submitted by 5D shall be

20 given the Exhibit number IC 669.

21 [The witness entered court]

22 WITNESS: NICHOLAS J. MILLER

23 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] [No interpretation] Thank you.

24 If you hear what I in English please say you understand what I

25 have you've said.

1 THE WITNESS: I understand.

2 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Please give your name, first

3 name, and birth date.

4 THE WITNESS: My name is Nick Miller I was born on 6 October 1963.

5 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] What is your profession today?

6 THE WITNESS: I'm a professor of history.

7 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Where?

8 THE WITNESS: At Boise State University in Idaho in the United

9 States.

10 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Have you already testified in

11 court on the facts which happened in ex-Yugoslavia or is it the very first

12 time you come to bear witness?

13 THE WITNESS: This is my first time here.

14 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Would you please read the text

15 of the solemn declaration aloud.

16 THE WITNESS: I solemnly declare that I will speak the truth, the

17 whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

18 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you very much. You can

19 take a seat.

20 So, sir, a few explanations about this hearing, which not surprise

21 you since you are an historian and American citizen. Common law procedure

22 is known to you. You will first of all have to answer to the questions of

23 the Prosecution, Mr. Scott, which you probably have already met during the

24 weekend, and Mr. Scott will ask questions from you on the two reports

25 which you have drafted for the Chamber.

1 At the end of this examination chief -- in chief for about three

2 hours, the counsel of Defence which are on your left-hand side, there are

3 many of them but each of them represents one of the accused, possibly also

4 the accused themselves may also ask questions for you -- from you during

5 your cross-examination, what we call the cross-examination.

6 The four Judges of the Bench which you can see, I know that in

7 your country it's rather exceptional to hear a Judge asking questions in

8 criminal proceedings, but here our Rules of Procedure enable us to do so.

9 We may also ask questions from you in order to understand better or

10 enlighten some of your answers. As a rule we prefer to wait for the end

11 of the examination of both parties or cross-examination, but since we have

12 the documents here in order to save time we follow up and we then can

13 avoid to have to do -- search documents in future.

14 If at any time you don't feel well or you wish to have a break

15 don't hesitate to tell us. And since you will answer in English to

16 questions asked by Mr. Scott or by the Defence teams in English, please

17 pause between the end of the question and the beginning of your answer so

18 that the interpreters may have the time to translate into French and B/C/S

19 for the accused what you will have answered.

20 If at any time you wish to ask a question from the members of the

21 Chamber don't hesitate. We can also countenance them and answer.

22 Broadly this is how this hearing will go on, which is supposed to

23 go on for three days.

24 Mr. Scott, you have the floor.

25 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Mr. President, and once again, good

1 afternoon to all the Judges and to all those in and about the courtroom.

2 Examination by Mr. Scott:

3 Q. And also good afternoon, Mr. Miller.

4 A. Good afternoon.

5 Q. In the course of the day I may refer to you as Dr. Miller. I know

6 I just said Mr. You'll forgive me if I'm not completely consistent on

7 that point, but we will cover here just momentarily a bit of your

8 educational and professional background for purposes of your testimony

9 here today and in the next few days.

10 In that regard, is it correct that you received a master's degree

11 in history from Indiana University in 1987?

12 A. Yes, it is.

13 Q. And a doctorate or Ph.D. from the same university in 1991, also in

14 history?

15 A. Yes, that's true.

16 Q. And as I understand it, you have been employed teaching history at

17 the Boise State University since 1993?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. And I understand and congratulate you that since the 1st of August

20 this year you are the Chair of the history department; is that correct?

21 A. That's correct too.

22 Q. Can you tell us within the field of history what are your

23 particular areas of work or expertise?

24 A. Sure. I was trained at Indiana in the history of the Balkans,

25 broadly. But in graduate school we're compelled to focus ever more on

1 smaller and smaller pieces of the puzzle. So at this point on I teach

2 courses on the Balkans on former Yugoslavia on nationalism in Europe. My

3 research focus has been on Croatian and Serbian history. Over the past 20

4 years I've have travelled throughout the country, where it's the parts of

5 the former country, but my expertise is generally Yugoslav.

6 Q. Is it correct Dr. Miller that you have taught a number of courses

7 on -- as you just indicated eastern Europe, history of Yugoslavia,

8 European nationalism, history of the Balkans and such courses as those?

9 A. Yeah. Those courses are part of my primary teaching focus. I

10 teach them regularly.

11 Q. And in addition is it correct that you have written and published

12 extensively on the former Yugoslavia?

13 A. Yes that, true too.

14 Q. Just one thing that I noticed in your CV, and I'm certainly not

15 going through all the details, but I believe everyone in the courtroom

16 would have seen it previously as part of the filings that were made. You

17 indicated that in 1988, 1989, you were involved with something called the

18 International Exchange Board Research Fellowship to Yugoslavia. Can you

19 tell us briefly what that involved?

20 A. Yeah. IREX or the international exchanges and research board is

21 an organisation that once funded doctoral and post-doctoral research to

22 eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. And so in 1988 and 1989 I went to

23 former Yugoslavia to work on my dissertation and spent six months in

24 Zagreb, five or six months in Belgrade.

25 Q. Now, we're going to move fairly quickly, hopefully. And without

1 further introduction I would like to turn to the two reports that you have

2 prepared in connection with this case, and I assume you probably have

3 those in front of you.

4 A. I do.

5 Q. I'm showing you first of all -- if the binder -- if the exhibits

6 could be provided to the witness it might as well be now I suppose.

7 I am afraid that there are three binders and bundle altogether,

8 although some of the documents -- a number of the documents we won't in

9 fact be focusing on.

10 MR. SCOTT: My thanks to the usher for the assistance.

11 Q. Dr. Miller, just to start, and I see you have one there and it may

12 be easier for you to use the loose one, if I can say that, rather than

13 what's in the binder for these particular purposes. But your report that

14 is titled "The Characteristics and Patterns of the Balkan Conflict as

15 Widely Known and Reported by the Latter Part of 1992," that has been given

16 the Exhibit number P 10239, and you have that report in front of you, sir?

17 A. Mm-hmm, yes, I do.

18 Q. And you then prepared a second report which is titled: "The

19 Persistence of Herceg-Bosna after the Washington Agreement and Dayton"; is

20 that correct?

21 A. Yes, it is.

22 Q. And that has been marked as Exhibit P 10240. And do you also have

23 that in front of you?

24 A. Yes, I do.

25 Q. Now, these reports I think that were finalised and dated on the

1 7th of June, 2007. Can I just ask you, do you continue to stand behind

2 the content and observations of those reports today?

3 A. Yes, I do.

4 Q. Would it be fair to say that if I took you in considerably more

5 detail through both reports, more than I actually intend to in court, that

6 the content of those two reports would be your testimony?

7 A. Yes. That's -- that's the case.

8 Q. If we can start with the report which is Exhibit P 10239, "The

9 Characteristics and Patterns of the Balkan Conflict." What I'd like to

10 do, Dr. Miller, is ask you just at various places throughout your report

11 if you can just clarify or perhaps amplify a few things.

12 My first question to you is: If you look at the first page of

13 your report, not the cover, not the title page, but the actual first page

14 of actual text. Let me see if by way of introduction I can state the

15 questions that were essentially posed to you.

16 Is it correct that the first question that you were asked to

17 research or look into, if you will, was to inquire whether any particular

18 characteristics or patterns or might be called features of the conflict in

19 the former Yugoslavia in connection with the dissolution of that country -

20 which you made reference to a couple of moments ago - whether there were

21 such observable characteristics, practices or features? Is that one of

22 the questions that you were asked to look at?

23 A. Yes. That was the first basic question.

24 Q. And the second and related question, were you asked to research to

25 what extent those characteristics, practices or features to the extent

1 that you concluded that there were, were reported in the local, regional,

2 national and international media and other -- by other means would have

3 become known to the general public?

4 A. Right. That was the second aspect.

5 Q. I would like you then to look if you would -- you give us a

6 summary in your report on the first page and just by way of further

7 introduction, if I can ask you to look at what you list as A, B, and C,

8 and could I just ask you to read your -- the three basic conclusions that

9 you've listed as A, B, and C?

10 A. Sure. Conclusion A is that the civilian toll of acts of

11 persecution attacks and forcible population transfers was in fact widely

12 known in Croatia and in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1991 and 1992.

13 B, the second conclusion, the attempt to subjugate populations and

14 take territory.

15 Q. I'm going to ask you to slow down a little bit for the

16 interpreters and the record.

17 A. I'm sorry. The attempt to subjugate populations or take territory

18 was substantially likely to result in violence against civilians,

19 including killings, widespread destruction, forced expulsions, and other

20 criminal acts.

21 And C, that such acts were already manifested during the conflict

22 in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina by and beyond the latter part of 1992.

23 Q. And now the -- immediately following that you indicate that a

24 particular focus then was "the depth and breadth of public knowledge both

25 in the former Yugoslavia and more generally of the characteristics and

1 practices." Do you see that?

2 A. I do.

3 Q. Can you say about what you mean when you say "a particular focus

4 was on the depth and breadth of public knowledge"?

5 A. I was trying to examine how much an average person would know

6 about what was happening in the wars in Croatia and early on in Bosnia.

7 By depth and breadth I meant by how widely knowledge would have spread but

8 also -- well, how in-depth that knowledge would be. So in other words did

9 people just have a superficial knowledge of what was going on or in some

10 cases did they have a more profound understanding. So I was examining

11 those two aspects.

12 Q. Now continuing to the bottom of the first page, you continue to

13 make reference to "Political developments after the death of Tito in 1980

14 made ethnic differentiation and conflict the norm."

15 I would like you to explain, please, something about the political

16 developments that you referred to there.

17 A. Okay. Well, when Tito died in 1980 he left behind a country

18 without -- he had not established a leadership transition so there was

19 nobody in place to, I suppose you could say, guide the country in the way

20 he might have hoped it would be, so there was a vacuum, a leadership

21 vacuum. The economy of Yugoslavia was also getting worse. I guess it was

22 in a shambles already but the standard of living was declining and the

23 politicians who were left to try to solve these problems, it couldn't.

24 And so by the mid-1980s at the earliest we see the emergence of

25 political leaders or potential political leaders who, unable to deal with

1 what I would call real problems, turn to their populations and attempt to

2 mobilise them on a more visceral level and the -- as a result politics in

3 the late 1980s became quite nationalistic, ethnic, if you will. So I

4 guess my general point is that when Tito died having left nothing behind

5 to sort of follow his path, politicians turned to their own ethnic groups

6 for power instead of -- instead of maintaining politics on an all-Yugoslav

7 level.

8 Q. Continuing on with similar questions on the top of page 2, and I

9 believe that you're referring to someone else's work, but nonetheless the

10 phrase is used, "The reduction of political discourse to ethnicity." Can

11 you tell us your understanding of what is meant by that?

12 A. Sure. What is meant by that is that -- let's see. I'll put this

13 in my own words. If -- if there was a problem in Yugoslavia that had a

14 solution, let's say that the economy was failing and there was some kind

15 of economic approach that could be taken, by the end of the 1980s that

16 economic approach would not be taken and instead politicians would blame

17 their own people's or region's economic failures or economic inadequacies

18 is on something ethnic. So we find for instance in the economic sphere by

19 that time that the Croats would blame the Serbs for exploiting the

20 Croatian tourist economy, the Serbs had blamed the Croats for exploiting

21 Serbia's raw materials production. Sorry. And so by reduction of -- of

22 political discourse to ethnicity, I mean that ethnicity became the single

23 key as most Yugoslav politicians understood it. They would reduce

24 everything to that instead of examining -- sorry.

25 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] I have a follow-up question.

1 You said that upon Tito's death, since he had not foreseen transition, the

2 political parties turned to ethnic questions. But another aspect comes to

3 mind, and I have not heard it much discussed during these almost two years

4 of trial. When Tito died, what of the Yugoslav Communist Party? Did that

5 party -- was it not supposed to ensure the transition without having to

6 resort to ethnic issues?

7 THE WITNESS: That would have been, I think, the chosen response.

8 What I meant by Tito not arranging a succession was that -- well, he was

9 quite jealous of his own power. There probably was one chosen successor,

10 a gentleman named Edvard Kardelj, but he died the year before Tito died,

11 and so you know when Tito did die, he left behind a situation that frankly

12 a lot of dictators left behind which is that there was nobody to take his

13 place.

14 MR. SCOTT: Excuse me Your Honour I notice some vocal reaction in

15 the courtroom that I think is entirely inappropriate.

16 THE WITNESS: That's okay. I don't mind.

17 MR. SCOTT: I appreciate that, Doctor, but it's not appropriate.

18 JUDGE MINDUA: [Interpretation] Witness, you said that someone had

19 been designated as a possible successor for President Tito and

20 unfortunately died before Tito, and the Presiding Judge already raised the

21 issue of the Communist Party. My question is well, what did the

22 constitution foresee? Did it not foresee any legal mechanisms to deal

23 with the death of President Tito.

24 THE WITNESS: Okay, yeah. This is all tied up in one question and

25 I'm sorry I didn't finish my answer. What was established before Tito

1 died was a collective Presidency and collective party leadership that

2 would rotate between republics and provinces. So one of them was on a two

3 year rotation one on a three year rotation, I can't recall which one was

4 which. But the idea then was that the party, the League of Communists of

5 Yugoslavia, would provide for a succession on a rotating basis. The

6 problem was that there is a lack of a sort executive power or direction in

7 that type of situation, and so the economy and the political system were

8 basically treading water for five or six, seven years until -- until local

9 politicians decided to exert themselves. And this is where we see

10 Slobodan Milosevic, for instance, after 1988 sort taking the bull by the

11 horns so to speak in Serbian politics to -- but that period after Tito

12 died was one of aimlessness, and I think it's thanks to the solution that

13 was imposed, the collective solution, rotating solution.

14 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Please continue, Mr. Scott.

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

16 Q. Continuing on to the following paragraph, the first paragraph

17 beginning on page 2. Again I'm going to ask you just about a number of

18 terms and phrases that are used.

19 You used the term "particularist nationalisms." Can you explain

20 what that means?

21 A. In this case, "particularist nationalisms" are juxtaposed with the

22 Yugoslav idea in actual quote, and so particular nationalisms would be

23 nationalisms that emphasize the local nations in questions. So a

24 particularist nationalism would be Croat or Serbian or Slovene or others

25 juxtaposed with the Yugoslav idea which is a notion that is

1 supra-national, I suppose, that argues that all of the peoples of

2 Yugoslavia or most of them are actually members of a larger more general

3 nation. The Yugoslav idea was never deeply rooted in Yugoslavia itself.

4 But once Tito died the emphasis on that more particular nationalisms

5 become more and more acute.

6 Q. Going to the bottom of that same page you -- you also make the

7 statement then that in the case of the wars of Yugoslav succession,

8 though, civilians became a particular focus of the attention of warring

9 parties. Could you tell us again more about that and let me just say that

10 it might be suggested that your report is largely saying perhaps not a lot

11 more than that there wars are bad, bad things happen in war, and civilians

12 often get unfortunately have bad things happen to them in war. Is that

13 basically the nature of your paper, or is your paper different and further

14 than that?

15 A. No, I would argue -- I would agree that civilians tend to always

16 be victims in a war, especially 19th and 20th century wars. But in this

17 case -- in this case the purpose of all of the various wars of all the

18 wars in Yugoslavia are to separate people on a national or ethnic basis

19 and when that is one of the goals of the actual warfare, civilians are no

20 longer just occasional or accidental victims. They actually become part

21 of the solution -- I'm sorry I'll try to remember to slow down.

22 As such, in the wars in Yugoslavia, moving civilians around either

23 by killing them or perhaps just forcing them out of the regions in which

24 they live was an actual goal. It wasn't incidental.

25 Q. You also toward the end of that -- excuse me. Maybe no. Let me

1 just -- excuse me. I lost my place. I'm jumping to page 4. I think

2 that's why I lost my place because I was jumping quite a bit over to page

3 4. And toward the bottom of that page you talk about extremist

4 paramilitaries on both sides. The bottom of the page. Extremist

5 militaries on both sides had already begun to move aside the peacemakers,

6 and I was wondering if you could tell the Judges what you observed in

7 preparing your report, if anything, about the phenomenon by which the more

8 extreme elements tended to displace or -- or move out the more moderate

9 elements.

10 A. Well, I think that basically that more extreme elements are able

11 to -- to win out in situations like this because they're willing to use

12 more extreme measures. In the particular case of Yugoslavia, populations

13 had been prepared since 1988, 1989, perhaps earlier to believe the more

14 extreme explanation to any given set of events in which -- I mean so -- so

15 you know, psychologically I think the population was in a position where

16 it would believe the worst, which is -- which plays into the hands of

17 extremists.

18 Q. All right. Going on to page 5 about the first paragraph beginning

19 on page 5. In that sentence you say ethnicity was the fuel of conflict in

20 the former Yugoslavia and territorial and conquest and cleansing was the

21 goal. And I'd like to divide that in two parts. Perhaps you've touched

22 on this already, but when you say "Ethnicity was the fuel of conflict,"

23 what do you mean by that?

24 A. Well, again I just -- I mean that politicians who were governing

25 in the given republics in Yugoslavia, some to a greater extent than

1 others, had grown used to using their ethnic groups to further their

2 political interests. Yugoslavs had grown to thinking in purely local

3 ethnic terms. And the goals of the warring sides even of the warring

4 sides that we don't think of as particularly extremists were ethnic. So

5 Slovenia was trying to establish a Slovenian state that was essentially

6 pure, the Serbs and the Croats were doing the same. So ethnicity, ethnic

7 distrust, or even hatred is the fuel in that sense. And then --

8 Q. Well, the second part you actually just touched on. I thought you

9 had actually moved on to the -- that territorial conquest and cleansing

10 was the goal?

11 A. Yes, all right, I guess I did.

12 Q. Have you anything more to say about that?

13 A. No, I think I did, I think I did answer that.

14 Q. If I could ask you to look at Exhibit in the -- one of the bundles

15 there, Exhibit P 10271. And it may be -- I'm guessing it's in your --

16 it's going to be in the third bundles, the third binder of the ones you

17 have, the smaller of the three binders. Might be able to -- if I can

18 assist people in the courtroom, the first two large binders are primarily,

19 if not all together I believe, presidential transcripts which are -- most

20 of which are not going to be used, and the one or two that will be used

21 will be toward the end of the examination. So it may assist if people

22 don't have to worry about moving these two large binders around for the

23 time being.

24 Were you able to find Exhibit P 10271?

25 A. Yes, I was.

1 Q. If you could just look at that and actually it's a compilation --

2 well, it's a combination of two separate articles. They could have just

3 as easily I suppose have been two exhibits, but they were put together as

4 one.

5 Are these the type of open source or media material that you

6 researched and looked at in preparing your report?

7 A. Yes, I mean, I took what I thought was a very straightforward

8 approach which was to look at the most prominent journals in Croatia and

9 Serbia at the time. This is from Danas which was considered a reliable

10 source for news in Croatia and Zagreb.

11 Q. And the second article is from what publication? In the same

12 bundle. They're both from Danas.

13 A. They're both from Danas.

14 Q. I'm sorry I was looking ahead. My apology. Would you tell me

15 when you looked at that sort of material, and you footnoted those

16 particular articles in your first report, I mean, what did you see in

17 those reports that caused them -- you to think that these were

18 illustrative or gave substance to some of the points that you were seeing?

19 A. Well, I mean, in both cases they are dealing with incidents in

20 Borovo Selo or in Eastern Slavonia in general, and they are both just

21 relatively straightforward recountings of what happened at the time. You

22 could find actually much more blood-curdling accounts of these events but

23 these are not that. These are rather modest and since they both -- since

24 they were published in Danas, and I just took them to be rather basic

25 examples of what the average Croat might know about at the time.

1 Q. These articles were published when? Can you assist the Chamber

2 in --

3 A. In April 1991.

4 Q. So is it fair to say that these articles were published at what

5 might be considered in the overall Balkan conflict quite early in the

6 conflict?

7 A. Quite early the conflict arguably began before the war broke out.

8 Q. And I asked you this, perhaps you've answered this but let me just

9 be clear. I take it from you what you said previously that these didn't

10 stand out as being particularly unique, but did you find those to be

11 essentially representative of the type of media accounts that you saw in

12 the literature during this time?

13 A. They were representative of -- of -- yes, they were. There were

14 more - as I said - there were there were more elaborate descriptions of

15 what happened. I would call these fairly -- fairly down-to-earth

16 descriptions.

17 Q. I'm going to page 7 of your report. On the top of that page when

18 you get it -- by this part in the report you're beginning to on some

19 extent focus on different types of conduct or behaviour or phenomenon if

20 you will. At the top of page 7 you say "The barbarous treatment of

21 captives was another common theme of the press coverage of the Croatian

22 war." Is that correct?

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. And in that regard can I ask you to look at if you can find

25 Exhibit P 10272. Which is titled -- it's actually referenced in footnote

1 13 of your report entitled "The Army is Washing its Hands." Can you tell

2 us briefly what that is an account of if you will or report about?

3 A. This particular account comes from Vreme which was I guess to put

4 it generally a Serbian counterpart to Danas in that neither of those two

5 magazines were in the hands of a political party. They both were sort of

6 generally accepted as providing a -- a relatively balanced view.

7 In this case the author is describing the actions of a couple of

8 paramilitary organisations based in Belgrade which were rather busy in

9 Eastern Slavonia again -- I don't know how to put it, doing horrifying

10 things to civilians. The fact that this is Serbian groups being described

11 by the Serbian press to my mind makes it at least on the surface a -- a

12 believable account. There was plenty in the press attributing the most

13 horrifying acts to other ethnic groups, but this is a Serbian case

14 describing Serbian actions.

15 Q. And this was an article written in March 1992 but in fact about an

16 event that apparently occurred in October 1991; is that right?

17 A. Right.

18 Q. For purposes of staying on this same topic of captives or persons

19 who have been detained or detentions, I'd like to jump to page 15 of your

20 report please and we'll come back.

21 By the time you've reached page 15 of your report, at the top of

22 that page you say: "Whereas nearly all of the behaviour reported by

23 Mazowiecki and his informants replicated behaviour from the Croatian war

24 during 1991, two aspects of the Bosnian situation differed. First, the

25 widespread existence of detention camps," and then there's a

1 parenthetical, "and second the use of rape as a systematic tool of warfare

2 by all sides."

3 Now I'm not focusing on the second part by now, but in connection

4 to the widespread use of detention camps, I wonder if you can tell the

5 Judges whether based on again the open-source literature at the time it

6 was reported that there were camps at this time not only operated by the

7 JNA or the Serbs but camps or detention operations or facilities being

8 operated by all three of the principal ethnic groups.

9 A. I believe that these two articles one from Danas, another from

10 Vreme, both note publicly that there were Serbian camps being operated as

11 well as Croatian camps on the territory of Herceg-Bosna.

12 Q. When you refer to -- I'm sorry.

13 A. Off the top of my head, I'm not sure if any of these are Muslim

14 camps, but nonetheless.

15 Q. All right. Now when you referred -- I'm sorry. You referred just

16 now to the articles -- you're referring to those that we can find in your

17 text on page 15?

18 A. Right. The article from Danas is called "Teror pasa I cuvara" and

19 the article from Vreme, "To Each his own Camp."

20 Q. Can I ask you to look at Exhibit P 10276?

21 A. Mm-hmm I have it.

22 Q. Is that the article called in English "To Each his own Camp"?

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. I'll give everyone in the courtroom a chance to find that. In the

25 first full paragraph of text under the headings and the bold print, in the

1 middle of that paragraph it says "The International Committee of the Red

2 Cross, ICRC, whose representatives have visited over 4300 prisoners of all

3 sides in the conflict since the organisation resumed its activities in

4 Bosnia and Herzegovina, certainly know about the camps; although, 'The

5 ICRC has not been permitted to visit many detention centres scattered all

6 over the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina.'"

7 And then down in the next paragraph about five lines down you'll

8 see the language it says, "Proves that camps exist only all sides." And

9 as part of your research would you be able to say that that is consistent

10 with what the various reports that there were camps being operated on all

11 sides as far as you understood it?

12 A. By August of 1992? By the time of this writing?

13 Q. Yes.

14 A. Sure, yes.

15 Q. In you report going on to the next page of the article, at least

16 in the English translation, there are references to camps and prisons

17 being in Mostar, Ljubuski, Livno, and Capljina. Did you come to

18 understand some of the camps that were being operated in 1992 were being

19 operated by Bosnian Croats?

20 A. I would -- I would assume that those camps that were on territory

21 controlled by the HVO were controlled by Croats, and I think that's the

22 understanding that we see in the article and in other sources.

23 Q. Can I ask you to go to the second article that you also mention

24 which is Exhibit P 10277.

25 A. Okay. I have it.

1 Q. And is that an article that appeared in the San Francisco

2 Chronicle on the 15th of August, 1992?

3 A. Yes, it is.

4 Q. Titled "Serbs Also are Victims in Bosnian War/Croats Holding

5 Children, Women in Detention Camps."

6 A. Mm-hmm, yes.

7 Q. And just briefly looking down at that can you make reference to

8 the camps that were being discussed primarily in this article?

9 A. The camps described in this article again are Ljubuski, looks like

10 Capljina. In other words, on territory of Herceg-Bosna.

11 Q. Now, I said I skipped quite a bit ahead. Let me go back to page 7

12 of your report, please. In the second paragraph on that page I'm turning

13 now we've touched a bit on detentions and camps, and I'm touching a bit

14 now on question of refugees. And in the second paragraph you say: "By

15 December 1991, it was common knowledge throughout the region that refugees

16 had become an element in ethnic competition."

17 Can you tell us a bit about what you mean by that and perhaps

18 amplify on that statement for us?

19 A. Well, aside from what I've already said which is that refugees

20 from various ethnic groups were an obvious and logical product of warfare

21 that was designed to draw clear borders between ethnic groups, we also

22 have examples of ethnic -- excuse me, of refugees who are coerced to leave

23 territory, even their own -- by their own side. For instance, we have

24 examples of deals that were cut in the background perhaps which resulted

25 in the creation of refugee problems where one might not have been in order

1 to -- I don't know how to put it, trade populations to settle particular

2 territorial dilemmas.

3 Q. In fact, in the part of your report which I just referred you to,

4 just a couple of lines down below the language I just quoted, you go on to

5 say: "Refugees not being allowed to return even by members of their own

6 ethnic group."

7 A. Right. Well, we see two related phenomena, I suppose. There's --

8 there's the phenomenon of a particular government or military settling its

9 own refugees on territory abandoned by others. So the refugee becomes a

10 tool for establishing a claim to an area. We also have the occasional

11 example of a given group moving its own people out of a territory that is

12 considered insecure, perhaps, and moving them away. This is often as the

13 result of a political side deal. I'm not sure if I'm making sense here,

14 but it's a rather cynical process that we saw especially later on in the

15 war in Bosnia but also in Slavonia.

16 Q. In taking first of all the earlier time period again if I could

17 ask you to look at Exhibit P 10273.

18 A. Okay.

19 Q. Do you have that?

20 A. I do.

21 Q. This is an article in the Washington Post dated the 25th of

22 November, 1991. It's again quite -- quite early, titled: "Serbia Begins

23 Resettlement of Croatian Region; Displaced Serbs Moving into Abandoned

24 Homes."

25 Can you tell us again what that article is basically about and how

1 that fits into the observations made in your paper?

2 A. Well, the article describes -- describes two phenomena I suppose

3 that work together. One is that there were plenty of Serbian refugees

4 from -- from other parts of the -- of the region at war, and Serbia had

5 also conquered territory and driven Croatian families, refugees, off of

6 the land. And so the Serbs were simply settled in previously Croatian

7 homes.

8 In this case it's describing that process in the Eastern Slavonian

9 Osijek region.

10 Q. Just as a further example of that if in the text of this

11 particular article before moving on, if you look -- and looking at the

12 English version, page 2, the third paragraph on page 2. It says in

13 connection with what you've said in your report it says, "Resettlement of

14 occupied land is emerging as a fundamental tactic of the Serbian war

15 effort against Croatia whose secession from the six Republic Yugoslav

16 Federation in June prompted outrage among its large Serb minority and

17 sparked the bloody war. Serbia, which is openly backed heavily armed Serb

18 insurgents in Croatia, said it has no intention of allowing tens of

19 thousands of displaced Croats and ethnic Hungarians to return to their

20 Baranja, forgive me if I mispronounce that, homes, and force out Serbs

21 such as Dusan Tulem." Again, that is part of the -- phenomena which the

22 one -- you're saying one group would then move -- once the people were

23 displaced they would move their own people or refugees into that area?

24 A. On the ground this is why all the wars were fought. I mean, this

25 is -- this isn't just part of a specific phenomenon. This is actually

1 what was driving much of the military action. There were other -- other

2 aspects to it of course but, yeah, this is exactly what I'm describing.

3 Q. If I could ask you next to go to Exhibit - excuse me - 10243. I

4 think that -- well, I think it will still be in the small binder.

5 A. Mm-hmm. Right. I have it. Okay.

6 Q. This is a letter from a Catholic church official in Sarajevo,

7 Puljic, to Franjo Tudjman, the president of Croatia on the 31st of

8 October, 1993. And I'd like to direct your attention, please, to the

9 third paragraph on that page which starts with the words "a commander in a

10 municipality in Central Bosnia." Could you just read that paragraph to

11 yourself, please.

12 A. Okay.

13 Q. Can you tell us whether you would find that account consistent

14 with what you saw more generally and for example the earlier article from

15 1991?

16 A. Well, I would call this -- an example of a much more cynical, I

17 mean, what was already a cynical situation and cynical phenomenon. Here

18 we have a Croat reporting back to Monsignor Puljic that he has been tasked

19 with provoking the Muslim side to drive the Croats, his people, in other

20 words, out of a particular area as part of a deal by which other territory

21 would be given to the Croats. So this is obviously an escalation of the

22 process but still, sure, it's part of the same continuum, I suppose.

23 Q. All right. On page -- going on to page 9 of your report, bottom

24 of page 9, and carrying over to page 10 you have the statement:

25 "Journalist and politicians widely and publicly discussed the likelihood

1 that such intercommunal violence would engulf the Croatian communities of

2 Bosnia and well. The partition of Bosnia-Herzegovina remains a

3 particularly divisive issue among Croats in Bosnia-Herzegovina and

4 Croatia."

5 Now, I can probably tell you, Dr. Miller, that the Chamber has

6 heard quite a bit about conflict and these issues being divisive between

7 Croats and the Muslims for example. But can you say a bit more about why

8 was this issue also divisive among Croats themselves? That is within the

9 same ethnic group.

10 A. Mm-hmm. I say a couple of reasons come to mind. One is that

11 there were actually Croats who probably sincerely supported the unity of

12 Bosnia and Herzegovina in Croatia as well as in Bosnia, but also within

13 Bosnia there were different populations of Croats that were separated in

14 space and also separated I would say by -- by history, you know, the

15 Croatian population of Herzegovina was probably guided by a set of

16 interests that weren't always the same as the interests of the Croatian

17 population of Central Bosnia or the Posavina region to the north, and so

18 you know, I suppose that we like to think or perhaps they like to think

19 that ethnic groups think monolithcally but that's, of course, never

20 actually the case.

21 Q. In that regard if I can turn your attention to Exhibits -- well,

22 first of all P 0 -- excuse me, P 10241.

23 A. Okay.

24 Q. And this appears to be another letter from a Catholic church

25 official Andjelovic dated the 25th of September, 1993. In light of what

1 you just said about there being different views even within you might say

2 among the Croats living in the country of Bosnia-Herzegovina, I would like

3 you to look at paragraphs 1 and 2 of that -- numbered 1 and 2 of that

4 letter and just if you can tell the Judges, does that illustrate the point

5 or some of the points you made in your paper and in fact you just

6 addressed a moment ago?

7 A. I think it illustrates the basic point which is that -- which is

8 that events which had come before foretold in -- in the words of this

9 gentleman, killings, ethnic cleansings, rapes and other types of violence.

10 So again this is just an example of somebody whom I presume was reading

11 the press that I was looking at and probably also witnessing a lot of

12 this. In item number 2 he says, "This division is a historic catastrophe

13 for Bosnian Croats because it means a final disappearance from Bosnia." I

14 believe that he's writing as a Bosnian rather than a Herzegovinian Croat

15 as its title implies and that he fears that what's happening in Bosnia is

16 going to abandon let's say the central Bosnian Croatian population to

17 their own devices.

18 So again a more specific variation on the phenomenon.

19 Q. And could I ask you next to look at Exhibit P 10242.

20 A. All right. I have it, yes.

21 Q. And I believe if I'm not mistaken this is another letter from the

22 same Mr. Puljic or, excuse me, Monsignor Puljic that we looked at a few

23 moments ago, this one dated the 11th of February, 1993. Do you see that?

24 A. Yes, I do.

25 Q. And this again just for the record is referenced or addressed to

1 Franjo Tudjman, president of Croatia. If I can ask you to look at

2 paragraphs numbered 2 and 3 on the second page. Just ask you the same

3 questions or similar questions to the ones I asked you a few moments ago,

4 how -- how does what is written in paragraph -- on paragraphs 2 and 3

5 relate to the observations you made in your report.

6 A. I'm going to quickly scan paragraph 3 if that's all right.

7 Q. Yes, please.

8 A. Okay. Well, Puljic is turning to Tudjman obviously in Croatia,

9 not in Bosnia, in an appeal to not pursue policies that would contribute

10 to division between the Croatian populations of Herceg-Bosna and the rest

11 of the Croats of Bosnia. I believe the -- the underlying theme here is

12 that he fears that the Tudjman government is supporting Herceg-Bosna and

13 is betraying some willingness to abandon the Croatian populations in

14 Bosnia outside of Herceg-Bosna again to their own devices.

15 Q. Just in paragraph 3 before moving on, when you talk about these

16 other Muslims outside of Herceg-Bosna, Monsignor Puljic makes reference

17 to, he says: "Conflicts and insufficient tactfulness towards Muslims

18 bring 40 per cent of BiH Croats who will stay out of envisaged Croatian

19 units in a difficult position." Is that what you're referring to?

20 A. Well, I guess that's a specific example to which referring to.

21 Insufficient tactfulness I suppose means potentially aggressive or

22 actually aggressive actions towards Muslims in those regions in which

23 Croats are not a majority is -- so in other words, I would extrapolate

24 that the authorities in Herceg-Bosna are doing things once again that are

25 going to result in hostility from the Muslim population towards the Croats

1 of Central Bosnia.

2 Q. Now, beginning to finish up on your first report we've focused

3 primarily or often so far on the local and regional media on papers such

4 as Danas and Vreme. Did you also look, however, at more of the

5 international press and what was being also being reported in

6 international organisations?

7 A. Yes, I did.

8 Q. And I think just by way of a quick review you can see that

9 starting on about page 16 of your report and following particularly you

10 talk about the Mazowiecki reports and various UN Resolutions and reports;

11 is that correct?

12 A. Yes. Mazowiecki starts on 13.

13 Q. All right.

14 A. And -- yes.

15 Q. Thank you. And just in finishing up this first report, then, if I

16 could direct your attention to the top of page 19. You make the statement

17 although -- it's actually above what you then -- the section -- the title

18 conclusions, it seems to me is a fair summary of what you've said in the

19 previous 18 pages. "Thus by mid-1992, a pattern of violence purposely

20 focused on civilians as a means of compelling them to abandon a given

21 territory had emerged and was widely reported and known locally,

22 regionally, and internationally."

23 Is that your conclusion?

24 A. In a nutshell, yes, it is.

25 Q. Now, you do appear to make on the very last page of your report,

1 paragraph 20, you do appear to make some exception or put one type of

2 conduct, I'll put it that way for now, as distinct from some of the others

3 you've mentioned, and I believe you say that it might not have been -- if

4 I can characterise it this way: By mid-1992, it might not have been

5 forecast to what extent rape or sexual assault might have become a feature

6 of the conflict. Is that a fair reading of what you say?

7 A. Yes. You can see from the report that there are actual examples

8 of reports of a pattern of rape, but most of them are framed speculatively

9 and so I guess I'm just demonstrating an excess of caution here, perhaps,

10 but I don't think that rape or sexual violence rises to the same level of

11 obviousness as other phenomena described in the report.

12 Q. Up until the point of the middle of 1992.

13 A. Right.

14 MR. SCOTT: Mr. President, that concludes my questions on the

15 first of the two reports, and it might be a time for a break or if there

16 are particular questions the Chamber might have on the first report it

17 might also be a time for that or we can have the recess.

18 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. We will now have a

19 break of 20 minutes.

20 --- Recess taken at 3.35 p.m.

21 --- On resuming at 3.58 p.m.

22 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Before I give the floor to

23 Mr. Scott, and studying the second report, I would have a follow-up

24 question to ask, Witness. We have seen that you have researched in

25 particular in the American press. So there are two articles, two stories

1 of the Washington Post and of the San Francisco Chronicle, but in your

2 research in your university where you teach, did you also study the

3 European press, European newspapers. At the time the European press, had

4 it also reported a certain number of things which were happening on the

5 ground? Did you yourself research anything in the British press or in the

6 French press or anything else, Swiss press, for instance, in stories which

7 were drafted in 1991 or 1992 on this phenomenon?

8 THE WITNESS: I didn't make a study of the European press part of

9 this, no. But I have read the European press in the past, and I don't

10 think its coverage differs much from the US press in that regard. If

11 anything, it was more in-depth.

12 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Last question. Did you look at

13 agency dispatchers at the time, Reuters, AFP, or other world news agencies

14 which were supposed normally to report on what was happening? Have you

15 studied these reports or news from the news agencies?

16 THE WITNESS: I have a -- not -- not specifically. I mean, I have

17 an enormous stack of material that didn't make its way into this report

18 that includes wire reports. I actually chose to use signed articles

19 because I view them as more credible on that basis, but -- so, yes, but I

20 didn't include them.

21 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very last question: The State

22 Department declassified certain documents, probably concerning this

23 period. Have you yourself consulted such documents in the department of

24 state to know what were the interesting or relevant documents which would

25 have given an account of the events.

1 THE WITNESS: I haven't, but I actually don't personally think

2 that State Department dispatches addresses the question that I was

3 addressing. I mean, a state department dispatch that has recently been

4 open to the public is not going to be something that reflects for the

5 public in 1991 and 1992 what was going on. I mean, I very purposely stuck

6 as much as possible to the widely available open-source materials because

7 the question was how much would people have known was going on at the

8 time. But I also haven't looked at the state department dispatches even

9 for any other purpose. Frankly, I'm not sure that we can take it for

10 granted that anything from the state department has been declassified at

11 this point, maybe, but that's just me.

12 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Mr. President, and just to follow up on

13 something the president --

14 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you very much.

15 MR. SCOTT:

16 Q. -- asked you about. You just mentioned and perhaps I should have

17 asked you myself, the material that is footnoted in your report, is it

18 fair to say that it does not exhaust -- or does not indicate or reflect an

19 exhaustive listing of all the material that you consider in the course of

20 preparing your report?

21 A. No, it's not exhaustive at all.

22 MR. KARNAVAS: Your Honour if that is the case, then we do need an

23 exhaustive list because we're at a disadvantage. How am I to know what

24 this gentleman looked at. That was one of the things I was going to be

25 asking the gentlemen. Did he prepare a list of what he considered, what

1 he did not consider so that we at least know. Now we know that he says

2 there is an exhaustive list. Where is the list? What did you consult,

3 sir? Provide that to us. I would ask that it be provided to us before

4 the cross-examination be conducted. We're at a distinct disadvantage if

5 we're going to be shooting in the dark at this point. This gentleman is

6 supposed to a Ph.D. from a fine university. I'm relying on his footnotes.

7 His footnotes are second and third sources. Now he's saying that he

8 considered other stuff. Where is that other stuff?

9 MR. SCOTT: Mr. President, if I might briefly respond, please. I

10 think that the state of affairs is this: I think that the witness quite

11 properly responded to your question, Mr. President, on various other media

12 sources that in the course of preparing a report he would have looked at

13 more material that in fact is reflected in the footnotes to his report.

14 Frankly I don't think that comes as much of a surprise. I don't think

15 anyone would -- I wouldn't have thought anyone conducting a report of this

16 nature would list everything they possibly looked at over the weeks or

17 months that they conducted their research.

18 The bottom line and clearly what the Chamber will have to decide

19 is not what other material was or was not considered, but whether the

20 material as reflected in the report and as supported by the witness in his

21 testimony and has explained, the Court considers that to have provided

22 probative value to the Court and not how many other documents may or may

23 not have been provided.

24 MR. KARNAVAS: If I could just -- if I could just bring to the

25 Trial Chamber's attention we had one particular witness. He was an expert

1 as well. He was on sniping. He was rather different. And I made the

2 point of pointing out that in that particular instance the gentleman had

3 been provided with a letter or a memorandum where he was asked

4 specifically what his tasks would be. The letter listed what information

5 he was to look at and also there was a caveat towards the end indicating

6 that if there was anything else that he needed to consult as an expert to

7 do so and keep track of it, and I made a point of noting it on the record

8 because I wanted to bring it to the Trial Chamber's attention because that

9 is generally the way things are done with expert witnesses. Something

10 that wasn't done with, say, Mr. Donia, and we went through that route with

11 Mr. Donia as to what exactly he was provided.

12 Granted the Prosecution in this instance it would appear simply

13 asked the gentleman to answer one particular question, and then left it up

14 to the gentleman to decide what sources he would look at, what sources he

15 would consider in order to answer that particular question. That's fine.

16 What I'm saying, however, is this: If I am to cross-examine and

17 confront this witness based on some of the conclusions that he's reached,

18 I'm entitled to know exactly what he looked at, what was available to him,

19 what he looked at, what he considered, what he did not consider, and from

20 there to go on. But at this point all I have are the footnotes. So I'm

21 going -- I'm under the impression at least that when he's making an

22 assertion we see that he cites a particular source. In one instance he

23 cited a book, a textbook. I believe it was this book over here by

24 Mr. Burg and Mr. Shoup, and when you go to it it's a footnote citing an

25 another text. So he's citing a text that cites another text. Of course

1 we don't see that. But at least there there's some sort of transparency.

2 So we know exactly. So I can, you know, I know whether he's actually

3 relying on first-hand, second-hand, third-hand. So I'm entitled to know

4 exactly what the gentleman did.

5 Now, I can handle this on cross-examination, and I'm perfectly

6 willing to do so. However, before I go into any substantive

7 cross-examination, I do believe based on the representations made by the

8 gentleman that I'm entitled to everything, to at least the list of

9 everything that he considered, because there maybe something that he

10 should have considered but did not consider and that also goes to

11 confrontation. And I believe my colleague, Mr. Murphy, wished to chime in

12 on this one.

13 MR. MURPHY: Your Honour, I just wanted to add one brief point. I

14 think the force of Mr. Karnavas's point lies in this really, that the

15 witness has been called to deal with the state of public knowledge or

16 public opinion, and since that is the expressed goal of his paper, it is

17 really relevant to know the extent of the published literature and

18 publications that he looked at because otherwise we don't know what

19 potentially the state of public opinion was. I think Mr. Karnavas is

20 right for that reason alone. I think if a student in one of the witness's

21 classes had submitted the paper in that state it probably would rate a B

22 minus but not very much more.

23 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Now, Witness, the observations

24 of the Defence could have been integrated in cross-examination, but

25 independently from that inasmuch as myself I have asked a few questions

1 asking you what you relied on to do your study. It seems that in your

2 first report this is a series of references with their footnotes, and I

3 suppose that the conclusions of your report are supported by the documents

4 which are mentioned in the footnotes, but off-the-cuff from memory you

5 said so, you admitted there are other documents, other stuff which you

6 studied to -- in order to analyse the question of the expertise you had to

7 conduct.

8 Could you tell us, just by memory, if it's not asking too much,

9 what were the other documents or sources to which you referred and which

10 you did not mention in footnotes so that Defence may know exactly what you

11 have read and studied if it's possible. If not, you just tell us. Tell

12 me that you can't and you have only quoted the main books, texts. So can

13 you complement what you've seen or read or what are the databases,

14 newspapers you have used for your study, what documents and so on? Would

15 you be in a position to give a complete list of what you have actually

16 used for both reports?

17 THE WITNESS: When I responded to Mr. Scott that this was only

18 part of what I could have used, what I meant was that out of the sources I

19 did look at, there were many more articles that I could have used as

20 examples; meaning from Danas, from Vreme, from the various western press

21 organisations that I used.

22 You know, philosophically I'm not used to court practice, but I do

23 know as an historian when I do something or when any historian does his

24 work or her work, we actually presume that they've done their work

25 faithfully, and that what they've produced is a representation of what

1 they actually saw. So in other words, I don't think that -- you know,

2 what I've done is tried to capture the essence of the public -- public

3 knowledge through these various press organs at the time. What I've

4 looked at, I mean, I don't really know what you mean. If you mean can I

5 give you a list of all the articles that I've read? At this point I can't

6 do that. But I can tell you that, you know, what I drew from is

7 represented in the footnotes to this paper and that there was nothing, for

8 instance, that would act to somehow mitigate the conclusion. I think it's

9 fairly impossible to -- I can't imagine that there's some sources out

10 there that I didn't look at that would have somehow mitigated the

11 impression that it was general knowledge that the type of warfare that was

12 being waged was in fact being waged.

13 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] In order to make some headway,

14 it seems that you have examined newspapers of ex-Yugoslavia. You

15 mentioned two, Danas and Vreme. And have you also read other weeklies or

16 daily newspapers in -- of ex-Yugoslavia, except Danas and Vreme?

17 THE WITNESS: I looked at --

18 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] At Danas.

19 THE WITNESS: Right. I looked a bit at Nin, which is a Serbian

20 weekly, and at a Croatian weekly that was called Hrvatski Tjednik. In

21 both cases I considered and I think most people who are familiar with this

22 field would agree that those two weekly magazines were in 1991 and 1992

23 unreliable, and in this case they were more likely to provide more

24 horrifying accounts of warfare than the other two, and I kept them out of

25 my report because I don't think they're reliable, but they're unreliable

1 to -- you know, in the direction of making things seem worse than they

2 were. If the Serbian or Croatian public were relying on them I think the

3 picture they received would be even more extreme than the one I've

4 proposed.

5 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you for this precision.

6 Concerning the American press by memory, what did you consult as

7 daily newspapers or weeklies of the American press?

8 THE WITNESS: I actually consulted the American press less overall

9 than I did the Yugoslav press because I felt that the Yugoslav press was

10 more likely to be giving a picture to the people of Yugoslavia but,

11 nonetheless, I looked at the Washington Post, The New York Times, the San

12 Francisco Chronicle, the St. Louis post dispatch, I believe, Chicago

13 Tribune, Los Angeles Times. I'm not sure if all of them wound up in my

14 footnotes or not but those were all -- well, okay.

15 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Right. In the footnotes there

16 are several books which you quote. Are there any which are specifically

17 important or of a medium importance and which you didn't quote? Would you

18 remember any now? Could you tell us now?

19 THE WITNESS: Books that I've consulted? You know, I consult

20 books as a way of -- as a way of life, and so, you know, using the

21 Burg-Shoup book for instance, it's just a book that's part of what I do.

22 There are other books that I mention, actually, in the report by people

23 like Andrew Wachtel, Sabrina Ramet and others, again is only a fraction of

24 the books that I make my living using, frankly. So again I guess to

25 produce some type of list of the books that I consulted would be difficult

1 and extraordinarily time-consuming. With the exception off the top of my

2 head of the Burg book and a book by a person named Sumantra Bose dealing

3 with Mostar, those would be the only two books that I specifically

4 consulted in the process of doing these reports.

5 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes, Mr. Kovacic.

6 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation] If you've finished I'd like to seek

7 clarification regarding the record on page 45, lines 17 and 18 in response

8 to your question, the witness says that he followed the Yugoslav press

9 because he considered that the Yugoslav press would give a better picture

10 to the people of Yugoslavia, et cetera. Now, since the term Yugoslavia

11 until 1991 referred to one entity and after 1991 some people colloquially

12 speaking who weren't well educated incorporated here the independent

13 republics which stepped down from Yugoslavia, perhaps that could be

14 clarified. Did he follow one press, the Yugoslav press, up until the

15 independence of these states or did he follow the press in the other

16 republics after independence except for the two that he mentioned, two

17 periodicals he mentioned?

18 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] You've heard the question. When

19 you speak of Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia disintegrated and there were several

20 republics which came into being. So when you speak of the Yugoslav press,

21 are you mentioning newspapers of Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia,

22 Montenegro, and so on or what?

23 THE WITNESS: I've mentioned the four that I looked at, and I

24 apologise for colloquially using the term Yugoslav when I should have said

25 Serbian and Croatian. Vreme, Danas, Nin, and Tjednik, were the four

1 formerly Yugoslav press organs that I consulted.

2 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. So, Mr. Scott, let's

3 now proceed and try and make some headway.

4 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Mr. President.

5 Q. Dr. Miller, as I indicated before the break we've completed the

6 direct examination on the first of your reports unless -- unless something

7 were to come up, perhaps supplemental, but I would like to turn now to the

8 second report which again we indicated earlier was Exhibit P 10240, titled

9 the Persistence of Herceg-Bosna After the Washington Agreement and Dayton.

10 And just as I did with the first report, if I might just by way of

11 introduction would it be a fair -- would I fairly state the question that

12 was put to you if I indicated that you were asked to research and present

13 information indicating whether an entity known as Herceg-Bosna, first as

14 the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna, the Chamber's heard, established

15 in November 1991, and then what became the Croatian Republic of

16 Herceg-Bosna in August 1993, but I'll just refer to those as Herceg-Bosna.

17 Did you research and then prepare a report on whether Herceg-Bosna

18 continued to exist and operate after the Washington and Dayton Agreements?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. And that is the report that we're obviously looking at now?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. In footnote 1 of your report you make reference, we're back to

23 again to the media we were talking about to some degree, and you referred

24 to a New York Times article. Could I ask you please to look at

25 Exhibit P 10278.

1 A. Okay.

2 Q. If you have that, on the bottom of the article, it says after

3 introductory a couple of words it says: "Put simply, the Bosnian Croats,

4 like Bosnian Serbs, still want part of Bosnia for themselves. For these

5 Croats, Western Mostar is the capital of their designated state of

6 Herceg-Bosna and is central to their vision of a Greater Croatia."

7 And on the last page of that article, before I put a couple of

8 questions to you, in the fourth -- excuse me, I believe the fifth

9 paragraph on that page 4 it says after the -- excuse me, after the first

10 sentence of that paragraph: "But it is hard in Mostar to escape the

11 conclusion that the Croats of Herceg-Bosna are working for a Greater

12 Croatia."

13 Now, I just point out those to you as -- as an introduction to

14 your paper. What did you find generally? What did the literature

15 indicate to you about the continued existence and operation of

16 Herceg-Bosna after Washington and Dayton? Perhaps you could just give us

17 an overview.

18 MR. KARNAVAS: Before that can we know what literature we're

19 talking about? What is the literature? I'm not talking about Roger Cohen

20 who is writing -- who is a famous journalist who writes opinions for the

21 news papers. I'm asking exactly what literature is he talking about?

22 MR. SCOTT:

23 Q. Once again Dr. Miller have you relied principally on the materials

24 that is cited in the footnotes to your report?

25 A. Yes.

1 Q. And if you could state by way then of overview what your research

2 showed in terms of the continued existence and operation of Herceg-Bosna.

3 A. My research shows that the government of Herceg-Bosna, even

4 following the Washington Agreement and the Dayton peace agreement, the

5 collective members of that government, Croatian leaders of that region,

6 have been very reluctant to see the structures of that government

7 disappear. In other words, it persists.

8 Q. In the -- at the end of the first paragraph of your report in fact

9 you quote an article, quoting one of the accused in this case, Mr. Prlic,

10 and at the end of that paragraph it says this is in your report now page

11 1: "According to the president of Herceg-Bosna at the time the Washington

12 Agreement was negotiated, Jadranko Prlic, speaking in February 1995,

13 Croats 'had no interest in a unitary government in Bosnia and are only

14 interested in federal institutions and confederation with Croatia.'"

15 And is it correct that you took that from the Roger Cohen article

16 that we were just looking at?

17 A. Yes, I did.

18 Q. And just for the record can we find that the next to last

19 paragraph on page 2 of the news article.

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. Let me just so the record is very precise, the quoted language,

22 and I'm quoting Mr. Cohen's article, Mr. Prlic was described as the

23 president of Herceg-Bosna. Were you aware that he was the prime minister

24 of Herceg-Bosna in 1993 and 1994?

25 A. Yes. The term is "Predsednik Vlade," "prime minister." President

1 of the government, I suppose, literally.

2 Q. Now, on page 2 of your report and other places as well, you refer

3 to a man named Ante Jelavic whose name may have come up in these

4 proceedings so far but perhaps not any particular way. Could you just say

5 briefly what you understood Mr. Jelavic's role to be during the conflict

6 in question and focusing on the period 1992 to 1994? What did you

7 understand his position or role to be?

8 A. During the war he was in charge of or assistant to the person in

9 charge of procurement. He was the head -- excuse me. Which meant that he

10 played a very important role in bringing war materials and other important

11 things into Herceg-Bosna primarily from Croatia. He was a supply officer,

12 I suppose, on a much higher level.

13 Q. Well, just so there's not a misunderstanding, a supply officer

14 could mean a number of things.

15 A. I'm sorry yes.

16 Q. What rank or position did you understand Mr. Jelavic to be

17 operating at that time?

18 A. Rank in the military?

19 Q. If you recall.

20 A. Actually, I don't recall his rank in the military, but he was

21 assistant to the person who was the head of procurement, though.

22 Q. In the HVO?

23 A. In the HVO.

24 Q. If I can ask you to look at Exhibit P 10279. And can you just

25 tell us is this one of the documents that you referred to and in light of

1 the question of what documents you referred to is this one of those?

2 A. Yes, it is.

3 Q. And again just to be -- in light of the questions that have been

4 raised, I'd like to point you specifically to a couple of examples. Could

5 I ask you, if you go to page 1 of the report. Not the preface page --

6 prefatory pages that are marked with small Roman numerals, but if you go

7 to the first page of the actual text under the section introduction. Do

8 you have that?

9 A. Mm-hmm.

10 Q. And toward the bottom of that page there is the language, there is

11 the paragraph that says: "Since 1994, the HDZ leadership in cooperation

12 with HVIDR-A (Croatian war veterans and invalids association and power for

13 Herzegovina economic interest) has repeatedly blocked not only

14 internationally community efforts to reunite Mostar but also the

15 implementation of the federation agreement and the Dayton Peace

16 Agreement."

17 Is that what you cite in, for example, footnote 2 of your -- of

18 this, the second report? You can verify that if you wish by looking at

19 your report.

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. Let me ask you to go to - and I'm not going to take you through

22 all the passages in that report that you've looked -- that you've cited

23 but others may - but let me next ask you to look at Exhibit 10280.

24 And this is a document that is titled -- well, it was apparently

25 produced by the European stability initiative and it's the title of this

1 document is "Reshaping international priorities in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the

2 end of the Nationalist Regimes and the Future of the Bosnian State 22

3 March 2001." Is that another of the documents that you relied upon in

4 your report?

5 A. Yes, it is.

6 Q. Again by way of example, if I can ask you to go to page 9 of that

7 document, of the exhibit. And if I can direct your attention, for

8 example, to paragraph number 3 on that page.

9 When you -- the language at the end of that paragraph which says

10 "The Croat national Congress voted to withdraw from the federation

11 constitutional structure until such time as full constitutional and

12 genuine equality of the Croat people in Bosnia and Herzegovina is

13 provided."

14 And do you cite that in footnote 14 of your report?

15 A. Yes, I do.

16 Q. Again I won't go through all the other passages, but can I next

17 ask you to look at Exhibit P 10281. This is another report put out by the

18 International Crisis Group. Their report number 39, it says, 13th of

19 August, 1998, titled "Changing course. Implications of the divide in

20 Bosnian Croat politics."

21 Again, is that one of the documents you relied on for purposes of

22 preparing your second report?

23 A. Yes, it is.

24 Q. In page -- on page 2 of your report, the end of the paragraph

25 beginning on that page you make the statement that as late as August 1999,

1 "The Croat side does not support a unified army in BiH because they did

2 not want to create another mini former JNA, et cetera."

3 Can you tell us just in general - and we'll show you a couple of

4 documents in a moment - but what did you see in the context of researching

5 this report as to whether the role of Herceg-Bosna if you will, and

6 whether there was a general effort to combine what was the HVO into the

7 national or the army of the federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina? Strike the

8 word national and say the federation.

9 A. I think the consensus of the sources that I consulted would be

10 that the HVO -- excuse me, the government of the Herceg-Bosna -- the

11 Croats of Herzegovina, I suppose at this point, did not want to see the

12 HVO totally dissolved. Perhaps -- apparently dissolved while maintaining

13 structures that existed before in order to sustain them under cover, if

14 you will, but I think the general sentiment is that they did not want the

15 HVO to be totally subsumed by the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

16 Q. Can I ask you please in that regard to look at Exhibit P 01267.

17 A. Mm-hmm. Okay. I have it.

18 Q. Again, it's a rather long and complex document, but can you give

19 us an overview -- I'll point you to a couple of passages but perhaps while

20 I'm looking for that you could -- can you give us any sort of overview of

21 the -- what this document says and, if you will, bottom line in terms of

22 the integration of the HVO into the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina?

23 A. All right. Well, this is a document produced by the -- by Ante

24 Jelavic in 1998, and the general sense of the document is that the --

25 the -- the HVO or the Croatian army at this point should not be allowed to

1 be totally subsumed by the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina again. It's

2 sort of a page by page example of the fact that this -- that the Croats

3 did not -- did not wish to see the HVO disappear. Aligning -- aligning

4 the interests of the HVO with the army of the Republic of Croatia, for

5 instance, as opposed to the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

6 Q. Can I ask you in a particular as an example to go to page 16 of

7 this document, the exhibit.

8 In paragraph number 4 on that page and this particular item is

9 referring to integration of the armed forces but at levels both either

10 above the corps level or below the corps level, and in the second half of

11 that paragraph they're talking about integration below the corps level of

12 organisation, and if I can ask you at the -- toward the end of that

13 paragraph does it say: "At no cost will we ever allow this. For the

14 total merger into a single army other qualities would slowly be lost which

15 characterise us as member of the Croatian people otherwise it leads us to

16 the creation of some kind of a'Bosniak nation.'"?

17 A. Well, I -- it reflects a generalised fear I suppose among Croats

18 of that region and the HVO leadership that allowing their military to be

19 merged with that of Bosnia and Herzegovina would eventually sort of

20 institutionally contribute to the disappearance of Croats themselves in

21 Bosnian.

22 Q. If I can ask you to go to -- sorry, go ahead.

23 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, could my colleague

24 clarify with the witness something? There's either a technical mistake or

25 a mistake in the transcript, but I seem to feel that he said P [Realtime

1 transcript read in error"1267"] 10267, that the document was signed by

2 Ante Jelavic, although this does not follow from the document. So I'm not

3 quite clear on this.

4 Perhaps the document is a compilation of a number of documents and

5 one of the documents and the only one which in fact has a signature was

6 signed by General -- Colonel-General Stanko Sopta, and that is addressed

7 to Ante Jelavic. So what is in the transcript does not correspond to what

8 we have in the document. So there's no point in clarifying this during

9 the cross-examination. It would be a better idea to clarify it now.

10 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] First of all, there is a

11 mistake. It's 10267. And indeed there are about two documents. One has

12 18 pages and after that there is a letter sent to Ante Jelavic on 29 June

13 1998. And then there is -- there are also other letters sent to Miljenko

14 Delic, 26 June 1998. And then other pieces of correspondence, letters.

15 So maybe we could sort of clarify this.

16 MR. SCOTT: Yes, Your Honour. Thank you. I think that the

17 Court's --

18 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation] I apologise to my learned friend but

19 for the record once again yes you provided the correct number of the

20 document. It is 10267, 10267. That's what I'm speaking about. The first

21 18 documents and the tables attached I think belong to that document,

22 although that is guesswork too, and that wasn't signed by anyone. So we

23 actually don't know what that document is at all. And then we have the

24 two letters that are signed and are indeed addressed to Jelavic. But to

25 put them all in that same basket and say that is a document from Ante

1 Jelavic I don't think that has any grounds at all. So perhaps it would be

2 a good idea if you could tell us the source. We see that the document was

3 procured from the Croatian archives by the OTP. So did the OTP provide

4 the witness with it, the expert witness, or did the expert witness get it

5 himself from the archives in view of the fact that in early 2000 the

6 Croatian archives said that any physical person who could have had -- who

7 could show proof of scientific interest could have had access to the

8 papers.

9 Now, papers compiled by Croats in Bosnia up 1993, as far as I'm

10 concerned, have never seen them, so I'm not quite clear.

11 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, if I can attempt to clarify and then I'll

12 let the witness certainly speak for himself in terms of -- he may be able

13 to correct himself on the signature, but to answer counsel's question,

14 you'll notice on the first page that there is in fact a stamp of the

15 Croatian state archives which the Chamber has probably -- has seen before.

16 This is a bit of a different format than usual but indicates on the front

17 page they may have changed their stamp more recently. But it comes from

18 the archive. This particular collection came from documents that had

19 existed at the office of the president, and on the -- I'm looking now on

20 the translation for those working in English. On the front page it

21 indicates stamped for receipt, Republic of Croatia, office of the

22 president of the republic, 22 October 1998.

23 It's -- Your Honour, it's simply the -- this is the form which the

24 document came that was provided by the archive. We didn't combine them in

25 any way. At the time the document was found it existed in this

1 compilation, and we simply took the document as it was.

2 Q. Witness, you might want to -- in light of questions that have been

3 raised, you might want to look at the document and you may, if you feel,

4 want to correct yourself whether which parts are signed by various

5 persons. If you might be allowed to do that, Your Honour.

6 A. Well, obviously I erred. The whole document was not authored by

7 Ante Jelavic, and that's about -- that's about the extent of my

8 explanation. I understood that it was presented to Ante Jelavic, but

9 that's okay.

10 Q. Let me just a couple of other examples --

11 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I see that my colleague

12 is moving on. This is quite obviously a relevant question, whether the

13 expert witness came by this report -- this document when he wrote his

14 report and used it as a source or whether he was provided it by the

15 Prosecution, because what my learned friend just asked him, I gather that

16 he got it from the archives. Now, who took it out from the archive? And

17 I think that this is a relevant question because these are two different

18 situations. So I request that the Prosecutor ask the witness.

19 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Did the -- did you receive the

20 document from the archives or did the Prosecution give it to you?

21 THE WITNESS: I received it from the Prosecution.

22 MR. SCOTT: Yes, that's correct. I asked -- yes, Your Honour. I

23 was about to say that. In the process of reviewing documents and as the

24 Chamber will recall, the Chamber is constantly encouraging us to put as

25 many documents to witnesses as possible. When we saw this document which

1 was obtained fairly recently, which we then felt possibly related to what

2 the witness had addressed in his report, it was shown to the witness for

3 the purposes of asking him exactly that. "If you had seen this document

4 or showing you this document, how did that fit into the observations made

5 in your report?" And that's what I've asked him to do.

6 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, with your permission.

7 In view of the fact that we have here a witness who is an expert, and we

8 received his expert opinion, his expert report which we received at the

9 end of June, and along with the document already at that time we had the

10 footnotes, and when we read, all of us, the expert report, we read the

11 footnotes, too, and we read the literature which we considered to be

12 important, that could be found if public records. And the Prosecution

13 said that it was not duty-bound to disclose all the sources because they

14 are publicly accessible material, and most of the material which the

15 expert witness quotes in his footnotes we were able to come by, that's

16 true.

17 Then the OTP over the past two or three weeks before the witness

18 came in, out of courtesy I assume, really did provide us with all the

19 material from the footnotes, all the material on the basis of which the

20 expert witness founds his expert report, along with a number of other

21 documents too.

22 Now, is the position this: Is the OTP saying that after the

23 witness wrote his report and statement that there are indeed other

24 documents which confirm what the witness, the expert witness, has said?

25 Now, the witness wrote what he thinks and what he said, and he told us the

1 sources on the basis of which this was done and he filed it. So I see no

2 reason why we should expand the circle of information that we received

3 there the expert witness, especially not the circle of sources.

4 And if I might warn the Trial Chamber of the following: This

5 document that we're discussing now, a question that we're talking about

6 due diligence here, it says due diligence, because the Prosecution -- the

7 material that came from the presidential office into the archive, and

8 we've just heard that they were documents from the presidential office,

9 they arrived in the archives in 2005, and they were not disclosed to us.

10 And the Prosecution hasn't seen them either. It was only in 2007, and

11 that's what they say when they ask for the introduction of the

12 presidential documents, it was only in 2007 in reviewing documents from

13 the Croatian archive which arrived there from the presidential office and

14 in connection with another trial at this Tribunal, the Gotovina trial,

15 found that there were indeed interesting documents in those piles and

16 piles of documents which have to do with this case too. And now in a

17 submission they ask that they be subsequently introduced.

18 Now, nothing was done for two years, and then two years later they

19 say, Ha, we have new documents. That is not due diligence.

20 And then furthermore he provides this expert witness with them.

21 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] You know, I understand quite

22 quickly what one is trying to say.

23 Mr. Scott, your colleague is apparently saying that some of the

24 documents that we have before us, in particular 10267, suggesting that you

25 have had this document for a certain time already but have not disclosed

1 it or had not disclosed it to the Defence during that time and that

2 recently; namely, in the context of the Gotovina case, you realised,

3 discovered, that those documents could be of interest in this case.

4 Is that true or not? What do you have to say on this matter?

5 MR. SCOTT: That is basically correct, Your Honour, and that's

6 what I was wanting to try to explain further and just so there is no

7 misunderstanding. We've been -- I think it's sometimes an overused word,

8 entirely transparent about that at least in two ways; that is, one as is

9 normally, the case we provided a list of potential or proposed preliminary

10 exhibits to all the Defence teams two weeks ago in which this document and

11 others were listed. So it's not a surprise today but consistent with past

12 practice a number of documents were put on that list --

13 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] And why was this document not

14 disclosed initially to the Defence?

15 MR. SCOTT: It has -- it has been disclosed Your Honour, and

16 that's why I said we were transparent in two ways. I told you one and now

17 I'll tell you the second one; and that is that we filed a motion seeking

18 the addition of I think something like 26 or 28 new documents obtained

19 from the office of the president for the reasons stated therein, and I can

20 tell the Chamber that the Office of the Prosecutor for years, for

21 literally years, into at least 2000 and actually well before that, have

22 tried to collect as much relevant documentation from the government of

23 Croatia as possible and has made many trips to the archive.

24 However, over the years, in our experience, various materials have

25 been added to the archive as the years have gone by and materials that

1 were there in 2005 or 2007 might not have been there in 2000 and 2001. In

2 the context of an admission --

3 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Let me quote a particular

4 example that is not in the English translation because I'm working more

5 and more from the B/C/S version because it makes it possible to discover

6 interesting things.

7 For example, in 562, that in B/C/S is the last page, 562061111562,

8 it's not very well written, I note the following: Apparently when the

9 army of the federation was set up, the elements of the HVO and the ABiH

10 were included, and I note, I find this somewhat odd, that with regard to

11 the tanks we note that the M-60, the HVO had 22 and the ABiH 23, the MX-30

12 HVO had 10 and the ABiH 40, the T-55 the HVO had 7 and the ABiH 14 and so

13 on and so forth. Whereas in other evidence we've spoken of tanks and

14 helicopters, because here we see helicopters as well that are listed. We

15 also have the number of helicopters, Bell UH-1H. There were 15, five for

16 the HVO and 10 for the ABiH.

17 So your a military analyst, because apparently according to what

18 I've read in a number works the OTP has military analysts. So your

19 military analyst must have realised and been aware of the content of this

20 page. And if this was not disclosed to the Defence then it should have

21 been. So you recognise to some extent that it's only very recently that

22 you discovered the importance of these documents and that you filed the

23 motion for the admission of new documents. Is that what you're saying

24 Mr. Scott.

25 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Mr. President,.

1 I certainly can't get into the number of tanks that have been

2 allocated to various sides. I would note that this, however this

3 information, at least as I see it at quick -- on a very quick glance

4 relates to states of affairs in 1998, not 1993, but let me be very clear

5 and I'm sorry if I have not been clear so far, this document was first

6 received from Zagreb on about the 27th of June this year. 27th of June,

7 2007. As we say in our motion, the related motion that I referred to a

8 few moments ago, as soon as the documents were processed and identified

9 we -- they were disclosed and have been disclosed to the Defence I think

10 at the earliest possible opportunity. The Chamber will understand that

11 when documents come in to the building they have to be processed. They're

12 given numbers. They have been translated. They have to be some idea or

13 at least a cursory, someone looks at them for the purposes of what they

14 are. It does take some days. It doesn't come in one hour and go out the

15 next. The fact of the matter is that this document was first collected on

16 the 20 -- or received on the 27th of year and then disclosed.

17 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, if I might, a

18 correction for the record. There seems to be a misunderstanding, maybe

19 through the interpretation or translation. I'm not challenging the fact

20 or objecting to the fact that the Prosecution disclosed this document or

21 others or -- or found the documents two or three weeks ago and that they

22 are documents which the Prosecution obtained in June 2007. Quite the

23 contrary. I give them full recognition. From June to September they

24 dealt with that very quickly so that's not something that I'm criticising

25 or objecting to. However, the Prosecution in the spring of 2005 was

1 informed from the office of coordination in the Croatian government for

2 cooperation with the ICTY, informed the -- the Defence because we had a

3 request there, we wanted to obtain some presidential documents as well, I

4 don't have the letter now to show you, but we were informed that all the

5 documents which the presidential office was ready to make public were

6 transferred to the national archive, and we were told, "Gentlemen," and

7 this was equally said to the Prosecution and the Defence, "you can go to

8 the national archive, you're free to go and look for the documents that

9 you need."

10 And I just have to give you a bit of history here, Your Honours.

11 This happened previously, from the beginning of 1990 -- 2002, in fact,

12 when all the HVO documents which reached Croatia by one channel or another

13 were also placed in the archive and everybody went there, both the Defence

14 and the Prosecution.

15 So my thesis is this: The Prosecution from the spring of 2005 was

16 informed by the government and the presidential office that the documents

17 for which the Prosecution was interested in based on the descriptions sent

18 out were to be found in the archive. So they say, "Gentlemen, go to the

19 archive and you can find them and take them."

20 Despite that information the Prosecution did not go to the archive

21 because it decided not to spend its resources on that and not to go to the

22 archive and it was only in 2005 as my colleague said a moment ago, 2007, I

23 meant to say, 2007, when they received a large package of documents which

24 the investigators of the OTP took from the archive, and they looked for

25 documents for the Gotovina trial, and then they came across other

1 documents as well. It was only in June 2007 as my colleague said that

2 they did disclose them to us very quickly, and I commend them for that.

3 However, for two years they undertook nothing at all. So where is

4 due diligence there, I ask you. I don't think it's fair that after two

5 years of sleeping on it --

6 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Scott, do you have a

7 response and then will move on.

8 Mr. Kovacic is saying that you were not diligent enough since as

9 early as 2005 you could have had these documents, whereas, in fact you

10 only had them in your possession in June 2007. So we can say that you

11 didn't really take off as quickly as you could have.

12 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, I hope the Chamber -- my apology. Your

13 Honour, I hope the Chamber knows by now that I try not to engage in

14 overstatement or make promises that I can't keep or statements that I

15 can't support. I certainly can't know what we might have found if we'd

16 made another two or three trips between 2005 and 2007 to the archive. I

17 do know that the Office of the Prosecutor has gone to the archive many,

18 many occasions since these documents -- various parts of these documents

19 first became available in 2000.

20 It's like going into a large library, Your Honour. I suppose if

21 one walked into -- I hate -- I'm sorry to use an American example, but if

22 one walked into the Library of Congress and said, you're now charged with

23 everything in here, you're now on notice and are responsible for knowing

24 everything that's on the -- how many floors of the building and how many

25 stacks of documents, and now you're going to be held responsible for

1 what's in the building, I'm not sure that's really a fair way to proceed.

2 We're talking about hundreds of thousands of documents --

3 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes. I know the Library of

4 Congress. I've actually been there. But if you ask someone where to find

5 something, you will be given guidance. So I imagine when you go to the

6 Croatian archives, and you say these are the documents I would need, for

7 example, documents regarding the HVO and military aspects, someone will

8 surely tell you this is where to find them.

9 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, I think on that point, I think

10 Mr. Kovacic would probably agree with me that the state organisation is

11 certainly dramatically improved since 2000, but it's still -- it can be a

12 hit or miss project again, as you can understand, that documents have been

13 collected from various sources that might not have been exactly filed in

14 the most appropriate folder at the time.

15 I know from working very closely with the people who have

16 conducted various of these missions, that while they have I think

17 exercised great diligence trying to locate as many relevant documents as

18 possible, these -- this particular document and several -- a number of

19 others had never been seen prior to June of 2007. Your Honour, I have to

20 leave it at that.

21 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] The Trial Chamber has taken good

22 note of what Mr. Kovacic said and we'll rule on this issue later. I think

23 it's best for you to continue with your examination-in-chief.

24 JUDGE TRECHSEL: Mr. Scott, I have also looked at this document

25 before this morning. It has no signature, no indication of the author.

1 It has no date. It has no addressee. One does not know to whom it was

2 destined.

3 I -- I fear this is a bit -- a paper which may be interested for

4 the contents but it's hanging in the air, and it would be really helpful

5 if it could be tied down to earth in some way or the other.

6 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Your Honour. I'm going through it now, and

7 I think that that is -- I also don't want to get bogged down frankly in

8 this one particular document, but if I could have one more minute -- I

9 think there are a number of signatures in the document, if I recall. I

10 think the first part of the document -- I think the first part of the

11 document was apparently prepared at least under the guidance of someone

12 named -- an officer named -- sorry, I just lost it.

13 JUDGE TRECHSEL: I was only talking about the 18 pages.

14 MR. SCOTT: Ah, the first 18 pages. Yes, Your Honour. I think

15 that you're absolutely right. In the English translation it doesn't

16 indicate that, but I'm looking at the briefs of the Croatian original. I

17 think you're right, Your Honour. I'm looking at ERN page 06110552, which

18 appears to be -- I -- your point is taken, Your Honour, and on that one I

19 see that there are other names associated in the document, but again I

20 hate to take the -- Stanko Sopta on one of them, Mr. Jelavic on another

21 one, Miroslav Grubesic on another one, but I agree on the first 18 pages

22 there doesn't seem to be a name.

23 Your Honour, it answers the questions raised and I don't think

24 it's -- and I don't think it's an absolutely essential document to the

25 gentleman's analysis and again it wasn't, but I think not to belabour this

1 too much longer, it wasn't included in his report but was presented to him

2 as a document subsequently found that he might -- he might be able to

3 comment on in the context of his report. So in any event, it was not a

4 document that relied on in reaching the conclusions in his report.

5 Q. Having taken all the time to do that, if I could ask you to

6 Exhibit P 10282.

7 A. Okay.

8 Q. I'm turning now to the latter part of your report, the second half

9 roughly, I mean it's a short report but starting around page 4 and

10 continue on about various developments concerning Mr. Jelavic and then

11 later on in page -- starting on page 6 is when you include in your report

12 the language that we quoted from a few minutes ago. The first paragraph

13 on page 6. On 3 March 2001, the HDZ dominated the Croatian national

14 assembly, the HNS, in Mostar, announced the formation of an illegal

15 parallel Croat mini state in Bosnia combining two predominantly Croat

16 populated cantons. The HNS sent an ultimatum to the international

17 community saying the new "entity" would leave Bosnia in two weeks unless

18 controversial changes to legislation governing election of deputies to the

19 state parliament's Upper House were reversed.

20 And when I ask to look at P 10282 is that one of the sources, and

21 you see several in the ongoing footnotes, that you cited in connection

22 with this part of your report?

23 A. Yes, it is.

24 Q. Can I ask you to also then go to Exhibit P 10283. And is that

25 again an article -- well, let me ask you to look at that and also let me

1 ask you to look at Exhibit P 10284. Perhaps we can talk about them

2 together.

3 A. Okay.

4 Q. Can you simply confirm that those are additional documents that

5 you cite in your report in that part of the report about the developments

6 concerning the removal of Mr. Jelavic in 2001?

7 A. Yes, they are.

8 Q. Now, in connection with the -- the conclusions or observations

9 that you make in your second report, I would like then next to direct your

10 attention to two final exhibits, and that -- the first of those is

11 Exhibit 8448. And that -- those -- now, we may have reached a point where

12 they will be in one of the other binders. I think binder number 2 for

13 those who are working with the binders. Binder -- I'm told now binder 1.

14 Excuse me.

15 A. Okay.

16 Q. Sir, the Judges in this case have heard before about -- or have

17 seen a number of transcripts, records of conversations or meetings which

18 we've come to refer to as presidential transcripts. This is one from the

19 2nd of September, 1994, and I would like you to please turn, if you will,

20 to page 18 of that document, and it should be that those working in B/C/S

21 should be able to find it also on page 18 of that version, but English

22 page 18. Just in context this is a meeting involving a number of people,

23 including Dario Kordic, President Tudjman, Mr. Susak, and at the bottom of

24 that page Susak says: "Or if we allow the Muslims to somehow cut us off

25 on Neretva." Then going on to page 19. Jadranko Prlic: "Their official

1 stance is that Herceg-Bosna has never been stronger." Again I refer to

2 this as March -- excuse me September 1994. "Herceg-Bosna has never been

3 stronger because they consider that to be a sabotage on the part of the

4 Croats towards. There are many implications in that respect. I even

5 think that these two even today, the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in

6 its internal organisation is Herceg-Bosna and then what they were two

7 months ago."

8 President Tudjman intervenes and says, "Let's get this straight

9 but formally. Do not point out the Croatian occupation. Keep it up and

10 strengthen it in practice but go for the creation of the federation."

11 And I would like to draw your attention to one other passage

12 before I ask you questions about both of those. Can I ask you then next

13 to go to page 38 of the same transcript. And again on page 38 you have

14 first Mr. Kordic speaking, then the President Franjo Tudjman, and then

15 Mr. Prlic again.

16 Mr. Prlic says: "Mr. President, every Croat in Bosnia-Herzegovina

17 is a paid Croat. Everyone is on the salary of the Herceg-Bosna budget

18 except for that part that is in the Serbian territory. He is getting a

19 salary as a soldier, a policeman, man who works in education, medicine, a

20 hundred thousand people are supported by the Herceg-Bosna budget with

21 pensions and everything together with everything else. There are not very

22 many left without a salary.

23 "President: All right, but it is a problem. The second problem

24 that Dario has just mentioned.

25 "Jadranko Prlic: This is the most important problem. They can

1 have between three and five times better living conditions than the

2 Muslims. This is the most important issue.

3 "Susak: At the same time they're leaving. They have better

4 living conditions somewhere else and they leave.

5 "Tudjman: That is why you should be thinking about something

6 else. Brajkovic told me that Muslims are already applying for dual

7 citizenship."

8 "Interruption."

9 Tudjman continues: "There are no dilemmas here. Today they will

10 receive a passport. Tomorrow they will have a glass of wine with you and

11 eat meat. In 10 years they will be Croats of the Muslim persuasion. Do

12 you understand?"

13 Can you tell the Judges in terms of the discussion of Herceg-Bosna

14 how that fits into your conclusions that Herceg-Bosna continued to exist

15 and operate after Washington and Dayton?

16 MR. KARNAVAS: Excuse me, Mr. President. If he could go on and

17 read the rest of the portion of it, because apparently it's quite telling,

18 because they don't -- because Mr. -- because President Tudjman talks about

19 not having the Muslims go along with Alija's fundamentalism, and I think

20 that becomes important because at this stage, remember, Iran is playing a

21 role as well as other Mujahedins are playing a role in Bosnia-Herzegovina,

22 and there is quite a bit of fundamentalism being bandied about, even at

23 this stage of the game.

24 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Scott, would you read the

25 rest of the sentence concerning Mr. Tudjman.

1 MR. SCOTT: Yes. I'm happy to, Your Honour, I just don't know

2 what it has too do with the continued existence of Herceg-Bosna but I'm

3 happy to do so.

4 "I have said this to my own and to you, we have to be indulgent

5 here regardless of the reason they do it for today. In that way we can

6 take them out of their formations. At least they will not go along with

7 Alija's fundamentalism. Apart from that, there will always be some people

8 doing it for whatever reasons."

9 And I think, Dr. Miller, I put the question to you before the

10 interruption which hasn't yet been answered, and I'll just read it back

11 you. Can tell the Judges in terms of the discussions of Herceg-Bosna in

12 this transcript that we've just read, how that fits into your conclusions

13 that Herceg-Bosna continued to exist and operate after Washington and

14 Dayton?

15 MR. MURPHY: Your Honour, just before the witness answer that

16 question could it be just be made clear for the record whether these

17 presidential transcripts were documents that the witness considered in

18 writing his paper whether they were provided to him by the Prosecution,

19 and whether he found them on his own research? And I refer to all the

20 transcripts, not just this one.

21 MR. SCOTT: Sorry, Your Honour --

22 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Miller, this document, this

23 presidential document, did you have this document before or are you just

24 discover it now?

25 THE WITNESS: I didn't have it in preparing my report.

1 JUDGE TRECHSEL: I have also a question. Pages 40 to 58 are

2 blank. There's a number for the page, but they're blank. Is there an

3 explanation for this?

4 MR. SCOTT: Yes, Your Honour, there is. The reasons for that is

5 that in order to keep -- because of the translations of the excerpts that

6 have been made and the entire -- first of all, let me back up. The entire

7 B/C/S original transcript has been provided to the Defence some time ago.

8 In preparing translations, some of the translations were only done

9 of certain excerpted material, thinking that it was not wise to burden the

10 translation resources of this institution with 30 or 40 pages of

11 irrelevant material. In order to keep the pagination exactly the same

12 between the English version and the original B/C/S, the page numbers

13 were -- were inserted.

14 JUDGE TRECHSEL: Thank you.

15 MR. SCOTT: I wonder if the witness might be allowed to answer

16 question that's now been put to him twice, Your Honour.

17 THE WITNESS: Yeah. I think that in these passages we see a

18 concern, especially -- I would point to the concern over the -- of the

19 standard of living of the Croatian population, and I -- I read this to

20 mean that the -- that the government of Herceg-Bosna is concerned to

21 maintain a higher standard of living for the Croats of the region. When

22 Mr. Prlic says, "Every Croat in Bosnia-Herzegovina is a paid Croat," that

23 obviously refers to the fact that they're all employed. They're all doing

24 well. And I think that -- it seems to me it's clear that what they're

25 trying to do is make sure that there is no cause for the Croats of the

1 region to look any place else for sustenance, political or otherwise. I

2 would leave it at that, but I think it shows clear signs that they're

3 focused on the Croatian population, and disinterested at best in the

4 overall Bosnian question.

5 MR. SCOTT:

6 Q. Could I ask you please to then go to the final exhibit in the

7 Prosecution's examination, that is P 08545, which is an another

8 presidential transcript. P 08545. Apparently in the second binder.

9 Thank you, Your Honour.

10 If you have that, Dr. Miller. And this is a transcript from again

11 a meeting on the 27th of March of 1995. And if I could once again please

12 direct your attention to the bottom of page 14 and just indicate that is

13 Mr. Prlic talking at this point. And then continuing over to page 15,

14 second sentence -- well, the first full sentence beginning on that page:

15 "At this moment those three areas of the federation function as two state

16 entities and as two completely separate states within its internal

17 structure. They are the Croatian Republic of Herceg-Bosna and the

18 Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Therefore, these are territories

19 controlled by the republic of BH army. Why do I say two states?

20 According to all the constituent elements, these are two completely

21 different states." And he refers and talks about, for example, the

22 customs procedures.

23 Going to the next paragraph at the bottom of that same page

24 Mr. Prlic continues and says: "Mr. President, as far as the federation is

25 concerned, nothing has been done so far in the functional sense. Not a

1 single function of the federation has been developed. Therefore, these

2 are all just a few psychological effects. It exists or it does not exist.

3 However, not a single function of the federation has been established ..."

4 And then continuing over on to page 16.

5 Below the middle of the page and Mr. Prlic is continuing to speak:

6 "Mr. President, today we as the Croatian Republic of Herceg-Bosna are

7 working in five to eight separate areas. You can imagine the difficulties

8 in travelling from one area to another, in the movement of goods, securing

9 customs, taxes and everything else. However, a system is in place. We

10 have completed the transformation of the HVO, the police, and health care.

11 We have attained a certain level in the standard of living which Jozo was

12 correct -- corrected after this increase. An elementary schoolteacher

13 will have about 1.100 kuna," which is Croatian currency. "Mr. President,

14 people are being born and dying and die with the Croatian Republic of

15 Herceg-Bosna, it is both their birth and death certificate and the flag

16 under which they are buried. That has infiltrated all the people's pours

17 down there, and therefore people are both emotionally and profoundly

18 connected to this."

19 And if I could then go on to the next page, please. Below the

20 half of the page -- on the bottom half of the page 17, and I'll leave it

21 at this and won't go on to any other parts.

22 Mr. Prlic continues: "Relations with the Republic of Croatia.

23 They are the way they are. They are partially maintained outside the law

24 through private channels, et cetera. I understand that the Croatian

25 Republic of Herceg-Bosna is neither an internationally recognised subject

1 nor can it operate publicly nor can a document be adopted to regulate it.

2 Here I would like to emphasise the exceptionally correct relations with

3 the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Health, and Ministry of the Interior.

4 Therefore, these are exemplary relations with the real integral Croatian

5 identity, at least in my view if I may say so, has reached full

6 expression. Mr. President, often today Herceg-Bosna is used for daily

7 political needs. I do not whose here. I analyse the political scene."

8 And my similar question to you, Dr. Miller, is how do those

9 passages fit into your conclusions that Herceg-Bosna continued to exist

10 and function after the Washington and Dayton peace agreements?

11 A. Well, it's hard not to conclude from these as passages that the

12 government of Herceg-Bosna was more concerned with its relations with

13 Croatia, with maintaining its government functions, securing customs,

14 taxes, movement of goods, everything else I'm quoting. There's absolutely

15 no reference whatsoever to any of these functions fading away. And then

16 of course emphasising things that "people are being born and dying and die

17 within the Croatian Republic of Herceg-Bosna as both their birth and death

18 and the flag under which they are buried that has infiltrated all the

19 people's pours down there" --

20 Q. Slow down.

21 A. Sorry. Okay. "Infiltrated all the people's pours down there."

22 This is just a you know, a fairly fluid way of saying that there is very

23 little intention of seeing Herceg-Bosna dissolved into something that's

24 not totally Croatian. I'm sorry for my fast reading.

25 MR. SCOTT: Thank you very much. Dr. Miller that concludes my

1 examination on behalf of the Prosecution, and I would like to thank you

2 for coming to The Hague and providing your testimony.

3 Mr. President, thank you very much.

4 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] It is actually time to take a

5 break now, so we will take a break of 20 minutes and resume right after

6 the break and the cross-examinations will begin.

7 --- Recess taken at 5.21 p.m.

8 --- On resuming at 5.42 p.m.

9 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] So I now give the floor to

10 Mr. Karnavas.

11 MR. KARNAVAS: Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Your Honours.

12

13 Cross-examination by Mr. Karnavas:

14 Q. Good afternoon, sir. I represent Dr. Jadranko Prlic, and I'll

15 begin by asking you some general questions. More or less we'll start with

16 your second report, the persistence of Herceg-Bosna after the Washington

17 Agreement and Dayton.

18 Sir, in preparation for this report, how much time did you have at

19 your disposal?

20 A. I originally had about -- I suppose a couple of months.

21 Q. Okay. And that was back when?

22 A. That was in the spring of 2006.

23 Q. Okay. And it would be fair to say that you've had plenty of time

24 from 2006 up until today to revise this report if you had decided or if

25 the Prosecutor decided that you should revise it; correct?

1 A. Sure.

2 Q. All right. Now, I've noticed that in the first report you

3 indicate that a question was posed to you. With respect to the second one

4 I don't see you starting off with a question, you know, sort of a mission

5 statement. So my question is: What exactly did the Prosecutor ask you to

6 do concretely? And by that I mean, did they submit to you some sort of a

7 letter, memorandum, or was it just over the phone, a conversation, and

8 then you took it from there?

9 A. In both -- in both cases they submitted a topic for me to analyse.

10 Although the question doesn't appear in the second report, there was a

11 question just as there was in the first report.

12 Q. Okay. Now, when you say a topic, was that orally or written?

13 A. It was written.

14 Q. Okay. And I take it you have that with you?

15 A. Actually, I do not.

16 Q. Okay. Was it a one-sheet page or is it more than one or --

17 A. It was a one-sheet page that had both --

18 Q. Both topics?

19 A. -- both reports were there, and they were very short questions.

20 Q. And I take it would have been up to you, you being the qualified

21 expert, historian, to decide what if any material, resources would you

22 need for that?

23 A. Yes, completely.

24 Q. Okay. Did they provide you with a list of documents that you

25 might wish to consult?

1 A. No.

2 Q. Did they provide you with any documents, physical -- you know,

3 electronically or what have you?

4 A. Are we talking about second report or in general?

5 Q. Second report.

6 A. No.

7 Q. Okay. Did you ask for any documents?

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

9 Q. Okay. You seem like puzzled.

10 A. No, not puzzled about the question I'm just trying to remember if

11 I did.

12 Q. All right. And did you provide more -- did you provide a draft or

13 was this the final version, here it is, take it or leave it?

14 A. This was not the final version but very little was done to it in

15 between first draft and this draft.

16 Q. So this is the second and final draft or might there be a third

17 and a fourth draft. And I'm not talking about commas and, you know,

18 paragraphs. I'm talking about substantive changes.

19 A. Okay. There actually were never substantive changes to this

20 report.

21 Q. Okay.

22 A. So although I suppose technically some things were done to it that

23 rise to the level above commas.

24 Q. All right. Now, at any point in time did the Prosecution ask you

25 to perhaps look at any particular material after they saw your first

1 draft, or were they just happy? And that could be the case.

2 A. I -- I think they did give me one document. It was the speech by

3 Ante Markovic, but I don't believe it made it into the report.

4 Q. Okay. Very well. Now, since writing the report and before coming

5 here to testify, did you review any other documents?

6 A. Since writing the report before coming to The Hague.

7 Q. Right.

8 A. Arriving on the plane? No I did not.

9 Q. So when you did arrive in The Hague, that's when they showed you

10 these newly disclosed newly discovered documents?

11 A. Yes. That's the case.

12 Q. And that included some of the presidential transcripts?

13 A. It did.

14 Q. Did you -- were you aware-- let me rephrase. You -- you do know

15 that there are a large volume of presidential transcripts, that President

16 Tudjman would tape record some of his meetings and that they exist?

17 A. I've known about that for some time, yes.

18 Q. And I take it you've read them?

19 A. Not the entire.

20 Q. Collection?

21 A. Run, no.

22 Q. Okay. Did you ever ask for the Prosecution to provide them to

23 you?

24 A. No, I did not.

25 Q. Okay. Now, the ones that were shown to you today in court, I take

1 it they showed you those transcripts when you were being proofed, prepared

2 to testify?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. All right. Did they show you the entire batch and say, here, look

5 at it, see what you can glean from it, pull out some passages, you know,

6 feed me the question that I might want to ask you, or did they say I'm

7 going to ask you about this passage here, that passage there, and then you

8 go ahead and provide whatever interpretation you wish?

9 A. It was in between.

10 Q. Okay.

11 A. I saw the two -- I saw the two full meeting records that those

12 passages were drawn from.

13 Q. Okay. Now, in my version, because I only read English, a lot of

14 pages are missing, and it was pointed out by Judge Trechsel that we have

15 segments that are just blank pages, but they're numbered in any event.

16 Did you by any chance read those transcripts in their entirety since you

17 read Croatian?

18 A. I had --

19 Q. Go ahead. Go ahead.

20 A. I'm aware. I did not read them in their entirety. I skimmed sort

21 of the Croatian versions in their entirety, and I read significant

22 portions of them.

23 Q. All right. Now, I take it in preparation of your report, the

24 second report that you wrote, you would have looked at the Washington

25 Agreement.

1 A. Sure, yes.

2 Q. Well, you're not -- is that -- is that like a definitive yes or is

3 that like probably yes?

4 A. Are you asking if I looked at it?

5 Q. I'm asking you if you looked at it, if you studied it, if you

6 reviewed it in preparation for this particular report, because we're

7 talking about Washington and Dayton. So did you look at the Washington

8 Agreement?

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. Okay. I take it, you being an historian, you would have been

11 aware of or you researched everything that preceded Washington, the

12 Washington Agreement, that is.

13 A. Everything? I mean, there's --

14 Q. Well --

15 A. A historian and everything, there's an enormous sort of --

16 Q. Okay. We'll play it by a different way.

17 A. Okay, I'm not trying to play games.

18 Q. That's fine.

19 A. Okay.

20 Q. Did you -- did you follow the events that led up to the Washington

21 Agreement?

22 A. Yes, I did.

23 Q. Okay. And there were lots of negotiations, were there not?

24 A. Yes, there were.

25 Q. All right. Now, the reason I point that out is that we're going

1 to get to this one section. In your very first footnote you quote Roger

2 Cohen and you say that -- and first you get Mr. Prlic's title wrong. If

3 Cohen got it wrong, shame on you for getting it wrong because you should

4 know better, but in any event it says here, the quote: "No interest in a

5 unitary government in Bosnia and are only interested in federal

6 institutions in confederation of Croatia."

7 That's in footnote 1 of your second report.

8 Now, that worth unitary -- let me first finish which is -- you

9 then go on to say: "This attitude expressed with this sort of clarity

10 would not diminish until nearly a decade later."

11 Sir, did you ever bother to read the Dayton Peace Accords?

12 A. I've read the Dayton Peace Accords, yeah.

13 Q. And annexed to the Dayton Peace Accords you would find what, among

14 other things? Would you not find the constitution of Bosnia and

15 Herzegovina?

16 A. Okay.

17 Q. Okay. Is that a yes or okay if you're telling me, I'll buy it?

18 Which of the two? This is not a kidding matter. I need to know. Did you

19 read the entire Dayton Peace Accords, because there are lots of annexes to

20 them?

21 A. I have read the entire Dayton Peace Accords. I did not read them

22 immediately before writing this report.

23 Q. Did you ever bother to read the constitution of Bosnia and

24 Herzegovina that's annexed to the Dayton Peace Accords?

25 A. I have read the entire document with its annexes, yes.

1 Q. Okay. Now, when was that? Was that back in 1995 when things were

2 unfolding, slightly thereafter? Did you read it in preparation for this

3 report, sir?

4 A. I did not read it in preparation for this report.

5 Q. Did you read by any chance the other two constitutions that are

6 annexed to the Dayton Peace Accords? And you might -- do you know what

7 other constitutions I'm talking about?

8 A. I read the Dayton Peace Accords about nine years ago and since

9 then I've referred to them but no I don't.

10 Q. Answer my question.

11 A. No.

12 Q. So you did not read the other two constitutions that were annexed

13 to the Dayton Peace Accords. And I'm talking about the constitution of

14 the Federation and the constitution of the Republika Srpska.

15 A. No, I did not.

16 Q. Okay. Now, let's take a step back into memory lane. Before the

17 Dayton Peace Accord we have the Washington Agreement. What was the

18 Washington Agreement about, if you recall?

19 A. The Washington agreement was about making peace between the Croats

20 and the Muslims. It was the brainchild of the US government. I believe

21 that the -- you know, in the big picture, the US wanted Croatia and the

22 Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina to begin to get along better so that

23 they could concentrate on the so-called Serbian aspect of the war.

24 Q. All right. Now, was it just a one sheet of paper agreement or

25 were there aspects to the Washington Agreement that called into place

1 various relationships, let's say? If you recall.

2 A. It's sort of a vague question.

3 Q. Okay. Well, part of the Washington Agreement was there -- was

4 there any special relationship between, say, Bosnia and Herzegovina and

5 the Republic of Croatia?

6 A. It was understood that Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina would have

7 the -- or excuse me, that the Muslim-Croat portion would have a confederal

8 relationship.

9 Q. When you say it was understood, understood what, in the

10 philosophical sense or was it in part of the document?

11 A. I don't recall.

12 Q. You don't recall. All right. Do you recall any details in the

13 Washington Agreement related to details between Herceg-Bosna, the Republic

14 of Herceg-Bosna at that point in time, and, say, the federation, and the

15 government of Bosnia-Herzegovina and in the creation of the federation?

16 A. Do I recall any details?

17 Q. Yeah. I'm asking you this because you're writing a paper about

18 the Washington Agreement, and the reason I'm asking you these questions

19 and I hope the Trial Chamber is picking up on this, and I'm sure they are,

20 is because the Washington Agreement had all sorts of matters to it that

21 needed to be implemented?

22 A. Mm-hmm.

23 Q. And one would think that if you are commenting about the

24 Washington Agreement you would know what it is that the two parties had to

25 implement.

1 MR. SCOTT: Excuse me, Mr. President.

2 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Scott.

3 MR. SCOTT: Excuse me, Mr. President. Not wanting to interrupt,

4 but I don't think that states the proper nature of the witness's

5 testimony, the report that he prepared. He was not asked to study or give

6 a report on the Washington Agreement. The question was a very specific

7 and narrow one. Did Herceg-Bosna continue to exist and function after the

8 Washington Agreement, and I submit to the -- to Your Honours respectfully

9 that to answer that question you only needed to know one thing about the

10 Washington Agreement and that is the date. Did Herceg-Bosna continue to

11 exist after Washington was signed at the end of February 1994, and you can

12 answer that question without knowing word one about the Washington

13 Agreement, and it's a mischaracterisation by Mr. Karnavas to say that this

14 man was asked to write a report or give any views about the Washington

15 Agreement. That is not correct and it's not fair to the witness.

16 MR. KARNAVAS: All right. If I may respond very briefly, Your

17 Honours. And if I had misquoted the gentleman's submission, then I

18 apologise. Obviously he wasn't supposed to write about the Washington

19 Agreement per se. However, one would say time that if he's going to write

20 about the persistence of Herceg-Bosna, one would have to know what is in

21 the Washington Agreement, because -- you're shaking are head Judge

22 Trechsel. Let me finish before you conclude and before you jump to

23 conclusions. You're pre-judging the case.

24 I suggest that if you look at the Washington Agreement it is not

25 like coming into court and switching on that light. Things like that may

1 happen in other parts of Western Europe, but we're talking about a country

2 in transition. We're talking about a place where the space of

3 Bosnia-Herzegovina, most of it have was under occupation and there was a

4 war going on, and I dare say if you read the Washington Agreement and if

5 you look at what was -- what needed to be implemented in the Washington

6 Agreement, it called for the continuation of Herceg-Bosna until the

7 transitional period ended. And that what I want to know --

8 JUDGE TRECHSEL: Mr. Karnavas.

9 MR. KARNAVAS: Yes.

10 JUDGE TRECHSEL: Mr. Karnavas, that is a legal argument. You're

11 talking as a lawyer. The expert here is as a historian and not as a

12 lawyer. He is not -- he was not asked to say whether it was okay if

13 Herceg-Bosna continued to exist. That was not the question. You're

14 telling us it was supposed to continue. That's okay but that's an

15 evaluation which the witness was obviously not asked to give and did not

16 give I think.

17 MR. KARNAVAS: What -- well, if you look at -- if you wish to look

18 at this trial in a vacuum, and you may choose to do so, Judge Trechsel,

19 you may choose to do so, if you wish to look at it in a vacuum we can go

20 on with what the Prosecutor is saying, look at a date and move on. If on

21 the other hand you have to look at the facts and circumstances as they

22 were unfolding in an agreement that calls for a transitional period. One

23 would think if you're talking about persistence, and you're call --

24 calling this person to come in as an historian, you would have to see

25 whether those who were involved in Herceg-Bosna were complying with the

1 implementation of the Washington Agreement given what was available at the

2 time and given what was happening on the ground. The same thing with

3 Dayton. If you are to look at what is happening today in Bosnia, it is

4 still in the transitional phase.

5 So to say that all of a sudden, you know, as of this date are they

6 persisting. Well, the documents say that they have to persist. The laws

7 that were placed in Herceg-Bosna were to continue if they were not in

8 contradiction with the constitution until such time as they were replaced.

9 Now, if the gentleman is going to come in here and opine and to

10 say that the Croats were continuing in some sort of policy, one would

11 think that he would have come here prepared. But obviously Judge Trechsel

12 you seem to be indifferent to this sort of information and that's why I

13 said initially, if we're going to go down this route, we're going to be

14 talking about the implementation of the Dayton Peace Accords. We're going

15 to be talking about post conflict reconstruction in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

16 You've opened up the Pandora's box, I did not. And that's why I have to

17 go in -- and what I'm trying to demonstrate is the gentleman hasn't looked

18 at these vital documents. So to simply look at a date and say are they

19 still persisting in a vacuum is unreasonable.

20 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Now, Mr. Scott.

21 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, first of all, I suggest Mr. Karnavas

22 might want to take a breath.

23 I think it's -- my first objection is to -- the way that he has

24 engaged with Judge Trechsel. I don't think it's appropriate. I don't

25 think counsel needs to raise his voice and to show that kind of emotion

1 and respond to a completely appropriate comment by Judge Trechsel.

2 MR. KARNAVAS: The shaking of the head by Judge Trechsel in the

3 middle of my argument I take it as a prejudgement of the facts, sir.

4 MR. SCOTT: Calm down, Mr. Karnavas.

5 MR. KARNAVAS: I don't need a lecture from you sir.

6 MR. SCOTT: Calm down. Secondly, Your Honour, I join and Judge

7 Trechsel in that regard, did state the point quite correctly, and I join

8 in that to clarify my earlier comments. And if Mr. Karnavas wants to have

9 an argument about the scope of the report, he can have that with me. The

10 witness did what the witness was asked to do, and it was a very narrow

11 question.

12 And as Judge Trechsel properly said, it wasn't -- it was at no

13 time a question of was it justified to continue, was it proper to

14 continue, under what basis? The witness was simply asked to confirm, did

15 it continue to exist and operate after Dayton and Washington and the

16 answer -- the witness's answer is yes. And he was not -- and I want to

17 make it very clear to the Chamber in fairness to witness, the witness was

18 not asked to research either Washington or Dayton and it was not pertinent

19 to the specific question he was asked to address.

20 Thank you.

21 MR. KARNAVAS: I'll move on I'll move on very well very well.

22 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Karnavas.

23 MR. KARNAVAS: [Overlapping speakers].

24 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] You will continue.

25 But actually you were in agreement with Mr. Karnavas. He wanted

1 to know whether you had read the Washington Accords and you answered yes,

2 you have read them, I have read them.

3 MR. KARNAVAS:

4 Q. In the Dayton Peace Accords were --

5 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

6 MR. KARNAVAS:

7 Q. In the Dayton Peace Accords we find the constitution of

8 Bosnia-Herzegovina. Does it call for unitary government, yes, no or I

9 don't recall?

10 A. I don't recall.

11 Q. What do you mean you don't recall?

12 A. Okay. I don't know.

13 Q. So that's the correct answer because there's a difference between

14 I don't recall and I don't know. I don't know means I'm ignorant, I don't

15 know that. I don't recall means I forgot. Which of the two?

16 A. Well, I don't recall. At this moment I don't know.

17 Q. Now, the reason I'm asking is because you're talking about --

18 you're quoting Roger Cohen and saying this attitude expressed in the

19 context of the unitary government that Mr. Prlic is quoted. What does he

20 mean by unitary government if you know? What is a unitary government in

21 the context in which Dr. Prlic indicated?

22 A. I would assume that --

23 Q. I don't want you to assume. I want you to tell me whether you

24 know or not. If you don't know we'll move on. Because if you don't know

25 that basic fundamental issue then everything else that flows is false. So

1 do you know in what context he's saying unitary government?

2 A. I would respectfully suggest that having never spoken with

3 Mr. Prlic I can only assume.

4 Q. Okay. Tell me how the term then was used back then during the

5 discussions, and this was an ongoing discussion 1991, 1992, 1993, 2007.

6 So you tell me, Mr. Historian, what is meant here by unitary government?

7 A. A unitary government would be a centralised government, a single

8 government governing all of the parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina presumably

9 without any sort of federal arrangements.

10 Q. Okay. And what was -- what was the whole issue leading up to the

11 Washington Agreement and leading up to Dayton with all the parties with

12 respect to Bosnia-Herzegovina? Wasn't it against having a unitary

13 government?

14 A. Generally the sides were opposed to a unitary government, the

15 Croats and Serbs especially for the most part. There were those who

16 favoured.

17 Q. There were those who favoured it. You said that you looked at all

18 of the peace agreements. As back as 1992 were there not peace agreements

19 on the table that called for three -- there were various proposals, but in

20 essence that all three constituent peoples would be protected within the

21 state but that they would have either their own republics, or they would

22 have certain areas which they would manage depending on the minority

23 status of the population?

24 A. Sure. Yes.

25 Q. Now, when Washington -- when the Dayton Peace Accords were

1 negotiated, did -- did the constitution that was ultimately drafted, was

2 that for unitary government?

3 A. No, it was not.

4 Q. It was for a strong federation and a strong Republika Srpska;

5 correct?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. Okay. Now, can you tell me -- you talk about in page 2, you say

8 social and other services are handled by Herceg-Bosna rather than through

9 BiH government. And then there's footnote number 4.

10 I want to ask you, sir, in 1994 what sort of services did the BiH

11 government provide to its citizens, and I'm talking outside of Sarajevo.

12 A. Probably none.

13 Q. All right. And was it not a fact, sir, assuming you do know what

14 was happening at the time in Bosnia-Herzegovina, was it not a fact that at

15 the local level folks were organising themselves and trying to do the best

16 they could, whether it was having a monitoring system or introducing their

17 own monitoring system or using foreign currencies.

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. All right. Now, when the Washington Agreement comes into play,

20 how much of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina is --

21 is free, liberated?

22 A. When which agreement comes into play?

23 Q. The Washington Agreement.

24 A. How much of Bosnia was free?

25 Q. Yeah. Yeah.

1 A. That actually would depend upon the perspective from which we're

2 talking. I mean, the Serbs felt they had a free zone. The Croats felt

3 they had one. If you're asking me about the Muslim portion of Bosnia, not

4 much, but I couldn't put a percentage on it.

5 Q. When the Muslims and the Croats of Bosnia-Herzegovina formed a

6 federation, how much of that territory are we talking about? And I'm

7 talking pre-Dayton, post Washington.

8 A. How much of it was free?

9 Q. Yeah. How much was it Bosnia-Herzegovina to speak of that was

10 non-occupied by the Republika Srpska forces, the VRS, if you know?

11 A. I don't know precisely.

12 Q. All right. Because you're talking about the persistence of

13 Herceg-Bosna, and I'm wondering if the local government cannot provide any

14 social services as you just admitted, and if at the local level somebody

15 has got to pay for salaries, pensions and so on and so forth. Why is it

16 that it is any surprise that Herceg-Bosna has to continue in providing

17 those services?

18 MR. SCOTT: Excuse me, Your Honour, I just want to note again in

19 light of the comments and questions that have already been raised a

20 continuing objection to these questions. I take it from the continuing

21 direction of the questions that in fact there is no dispute that

22 Herceg-Bosna continued to exist and function after both Washington and

23 Dayton and Mr. Karnavas does not agree -- does not disagree with that and

24 his only argument is that its continued existence and function was

25 justified. But since he only --

1 MR. KARNAVAS: Let me --

2 MR. SCOTT: Excuse me. Since the only reason that the witness was

3 brought to give his second report was to confirm the continued existence

4 and operation of Herceg-Bosna, that is not in dispute. His report is

5 accepted as true in that respect, and Mr. Karnavas only wants to argue

6 whether it was justified to continue operating existing or not which is a

7 separate question which as Judge Trechsel has said, as I've said, is

8 beyond the scope of what this witness was asked to address.

9 MR. KARNAVAS: Let my address the Prosecutor on this and let me

10 disabuse him of any notion. I don't know what Judge Trechsel knows or

11 doesn't know about the Washington Agreement, the Dayton Peace Accords,

12 what's happening in Bosnia-Herzegovina. We do have legal documents. Some

13 documents have come in thus far, and those documents show exactly what the

14 responsibilities are during this transitional period. I'm going from a

15 legal basis, what the documents call for. I'm not going to show them to

16 the gentleman because, one, I don't have time because I don't -- we

17 physically cannot do that; and two, he's not a lawyer. But what I'm

18 trying to show, the point that I'm trying to make, is how deceptively

19 dishonest of the Prosecution is, the office the Prosecution, is trying to

20 say as of this date if Herceg-Bosna continued it must have been -- it

21 must -- all activities were illegal because they had this joint criminal

22 enterprise.

23 And what I'm trying to show is this gentleman at least had two

24 years to prepare a report and could have had and he is an historian and

25 had access to all these documents, would have been able to say at least

1 one, what did this transitional period call for? Two, what was happening

2 during this transitional period? Three, what were the sides doing?

3 Because if we look at the reports that are coming from the International

4 Crisis Group, and of course the gentleman cherry picked, but if you look

5 at them and you look at them completely, you will see that trying to

6 implement the Washington Agreement and the Dayton Peace Accords is a can

7 of worms. It is terribly difficult and complex, and you cannot look at

8 just one thing.

9 For instance, and I'll move on to the military, what were the

10 arrangements as a result of the Washington Accords and even the Dayton

11 Accords? What were the arrangements as far as the defence, the different

12 militaries in Bosnia-Herzegovina?

13 Q. Can you please --

14 JUDGE PRANDLER: Mr. Karnavas.

15 MR. KARNAVAS: Yes.

16 JUDGE PRANDLER: Mr. Karnavas, I'm sorry to interrupt you. I was

17 a bit thinking if I have to take the floor and to mention to you that I

18 really do not agree with your characterisation of the Prosecution as

19 dishonest. I really feel that it is not very good to characterise each

20 other here in this courtroom as dishonest or whatever. You may say that

21 you do not agree with it, you may say that it is not well based, well

22 founded, et cetera, but I think that if we start calling each other's

23 position and view as dishonest, then we cannot go further and we cannot

24 achieve our, in a way, major aim, which is of course to find the just

25 position in between the parties.

1 So I would of course like to say the same thing to everyone, and

2 to the Prosecution as well, and to everyone here in the courtroom, but I

3 really believe that this kind of invectives are not correct to be used.

4 Thank you.

5 MR. KARNAVAS: Your Honour, I take your point, but it is

6 intellectually dishonest, in my opinion, and disingenuous to be saying all

7 you need to do is look at one date in a vacuum without look at what were

8 the implementing documents calling for. That's what I'm suggesting. And

9 if you're going to buy this report without any of that, then it seems to

10 me we're wasting our time.

11 You look at the Dayton Peace Accords, you look at what it calls

12 for what the parties are to do only looking at that can you write a report

13 saying whether Herceg-Bosna was -- continued to exist illegally, because

14 there were certain functions that kept going on by virtue of the agreement

15 and arrangement of the parties. That's what I meant.

16 JUDGE TRECHSEL: Where, Mr. Karnavas, do you take the illegally in

17 the context of this witness?

18 MR. KARNAVAS: I read the report, Your Honour. I read the report.

19 And I don't know what you --

20 JUDGE TRECHSEL: I don't recall seeing the word "illegally" in the

21 report.

22 MR. KARNAVAS: I don't think --

23 JUDGE TRECHSEL: Maybe it's an oversight. I'm not perfect.

24 MR. KARNAVAS: "These illegal structures operated." It's on

25 paragraph 2, Your Honour, middle of the page. It says "In the aftermath

1 of the Washington Agreement, the government of Herceg-Bosna continued to

2 function as it had before the agreement." It's on the second report, Your

3 Honour, page 1, paragraph 2. It did so via institutions it had

4 established before the signing of the Washington Agreement with the

5 assistance (financial and moral) of the government of Croatia. These

6 illegal --"

7 JUDGE TRECHSEL: I see it. Thank you.

8 MR. KARNAVAS: It wreaks with illegality. And what I'm saying and

9 I don't mean to be disrespectful, but having been in Bosnia and worked on

10 this transitional period, it is not like switching on the light switch

11 over there. There is a whole series of processes, and we're going to go

12 through this entire Dayton Peace Accords at some point in light of the

13 testimony that's coming in today and that's what I was trying to avoid.

14 Q. Now, let's get back to the constitution of BiH. What services,

15 sir, did the state retain by virtue of the constitution? Which one did it

16 retain and which one it gave to the two entities?

17 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] I don't want to interrupt you,

18 Mr. Karnavas, but following to what you've requested from the witness on

19 the Washington Accords.

20 Witness, looking at both of your reports I have the feeling that

21 there are two elements which you don't mention and which I find in minutes

22 of the Presidency. It seems that Mr. Kissinger wrote an article in the

23 Washington Post. Did you read this article written by Mr. Kissinger? And

24 also the former American Ambassador, Zimmermann, wrote a book entitled the

25 origins of the catastrophe. Did you also see this book? Did you also

1 consult it or read it?

2 THE WITNESS: I've read the work by Warren Zimmermann as a matter

3 of course. It's my field and so I read it. But I did not read it in

4 preparing this report. Respectfully I don't know which article by

5 Mr. Kissinger you're referring, but I've certainly read articles by Henry

6 Kissinger.

7 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well.

8 MR. KARNAVAS:

9 Q. Okay. Now, for instance, what about defence? How was defence

10 handled in the constitution of BiH as a result of Dayton?

11 A. I don't know. I mean to the specificity that you undoubtedly are

12 looking for.

13 Q. Well, okay. I'm trying to be calm here. What about -- let's just

14 say finance, budget, taxes, administration, customs, collection? Was that

15 handled at the state or was that handled -- given to the entities to do,

16 which of the two?

17 A. I don't know.

18 Q. What about education, science, and culture?

19 A. I don't know.

20 Q. Okay. Well, it seems to me that you're making certain assertions

21 in your report without really knowing what was provided for the entities

22 and what the state was supposed to do, and I -- and the reason -- I'm not

23 trying to pick on you, but you say in here "Social services and other

24 services are handled by Herceg-Bosna rather than through BiH government,

25 BiH government." This is page 2. It's the top of -- and then you have a

1 footnote, and you are citing some report.

2 And one would think that if you're going to make such a bold

3 statement, you would know what sort of social services, for instance, the

4 government of BiH has because of the constitution which Herceg-Bosna

5 supposedly is running and refusing to cooperate with the government as it

6 would appear, my interpretation of what you're saying here.

7 Would it surprise you, sir, that the -- that the constitution of

8 BiH calls for the following: Foreign policy, foreign trade, they have a

9 customs policy, monetary policy, finances, immigration, international and

10 interentity criminal law enforcement, establishment and operation of

11 common and international communication facilities, regulations of the

12 inner entity transportation, air traffic?

13 But if we go to the constitutions for the entities now, we see at

14 the very top, and this is -- it's under Article 5 -- at some point we'll

15 introduce these documents, but at the very top it says "Defence." Is it

16 not a fact, sir, that as a result of both -- of the Dayton Peace Accords

17 you had two armies in Bosnia-Herzegovina because that's what what was

18 agreed, one for the federation and one for the VRS? Isn't that correct?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. And in fact it took many, many years and a lot of cajoling and arm

21 twisting by the internationals in order to merge those armies even though

22 the constitution calls for the defence to be under the entities? Do you

23 know that?

24 A. I don't know that. I take your word for it.

25 Q. Okay. But you agree with me being an historian that thus far the

1 constitution of Bosnia-Herzegovina has not been amended, otherwise you

2 would have had to amend the Dayton Peace Accords because it's annexed to

3 it. Do you know whether it was amended or not?

4 A. I don't.

5 Q. All right. Well, did you look to see whether it had been amended?

6 I mean, don't you think that if you're going to be talking about what sort

7 of services that Herceg-Bosna has retained and refuses to cooperate that

8 you would at least look and see whether it was within their domain in

9 light of the Washington Agreement and the Dayton Peace Accords?

10 A. I wasn't concerned with what was in their domain. I was concerned

11 with the situation as it stood.

12 Q. All right. Would it -- would you agree with me that it would be

13 helpful to at least know about it? We don't need any comments from

14 Mr. Scott otherwise --

15 MR. SCOTT: I object, Your Honour.

16 MR. KARNAVAS: You can object, you can object, but you don't have

17 to give the answer to the witness.

18 THE WITNESS: I didn't hear what he said.

19 THE INTERPRETER: Would the speakers please not overlap. Thank

20 you very much.

21 JUDGE ANTONETTI: Mr. Scott, what do you object to?

22 MR. SCOTT: I note the concerning objection, Your Honour and I --

23 MR. KARNAVAS: Not again.

24 MR. SCOTT: Excuse me, but let me --

25 MR. KARNAVAS: I've heard it.

1 MR. SCOTT: I've made the objection, I've made the objection, and

2 I think the Court needs to give some further direction on the proper scope

3 and direction of cross-examination on this point. I repeat what I said

4 earlier. It appears to me, and I'm just saying it appears to me, and the

5 Judges will each have to make your own.

6 MR. KARNAVAS: Your Honour --

7 MR. SCOTT: No, I'm making my objection.

8 MR. KARNAVAS: You've already made your objection. [Overlapping

9 speakers].

10 THE INTERPRETER: Would the speakers please not overlap. Thank

11 you.

12 MR. KARNAVAS: Now he's made his objection it's a standing

13 objection. A standing objection means it's continuing. It doesn't mean

14 that he gets to stand up every too often -- so often to interrupt.

15 MR. SCOTT: Well, Your Honour, I think it's inappropriate to

16 continue to suggest to this witness wouldn't you have wanted to consider

17 this, don't you think you should have considered this and whether it was

18 justified or not whether when that was not the question that the witness

19 was asked to address and it's just inappropriate. It's just simply in --

20 let's just talk about anything we want to. Let's have no rules

21 whatsoever. Let's have a free for all. The only question the witness was

22 asked to address is did Herceg-Bosna continue to exist and operate after

23 this time? Again what I hear Mr. Karnavas saying is that he agrees that

24 it did but that it was justified.

25 Now that's a separate point and he can call other -- he can say

1 that as much as he wants and he can justify it, but only point was with

2 this witness to respond to a number of things that have been said and

3 suggested that Herceg-Bosna was a temporary organisation. It never meant

4 to be a state. It never did these things, and it now it appears that it's

5 clear that's not the case. And so Mr. Karnavas has changed the issue --

6 MR. KARNAVAS: Your Honour.

7 MR. SCOTT: -- no longer wants to argue about the continued

8 existence of Herceg-Bosna. Now he simply wants to argue that it was

9 justified. That's a different argument and one that this witness was not

10 asked to address.

11 MR. KARNAVAS: Now if Mr. -- Mr. President.

12 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Karnavas.

13 MR. KARNAVAS: If Mr. Scott would like to say it one more time so

14 he doesn't have to interrupt me again. I heard it the first time. There

15 was no need to get up and say it all over again for the second time. You

16 know. Well, Judge Trechsel he's right. I need some guidance from the

17 Court. Either tell me to stop and move on in which case you rule on the

18 objection, you sustain it, or you find that what I'm doing is relevant and

19 I continue. I'm going by his report. His report here talks about, for

20 instance, on page 2, it says here at the bottom of the page --

21 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] What is relevant is what I

22 understand. Mr. Karnavas, you want to show by your questions that the

23 Washington Accords have in some way given an existence to Herceg-Bosna.

24 Is that -- is that what you are trying to show?

25 MR. KARNAVAS: What I'm trying to show, Your Honour, is that in if

1 we're going to introduce this sort of document in, and if you're going to

2 have this sort of expert come in to talk about a subject that is very,

3 very complicated, that one would expect the expert to be prepared for this

4 discussion, and that's what I'm trying to show, that this gentleman here

5 is not qualified. I indicated so when I filed my objection, that he's not

6 qualified to talk about these events. First of all, they're beyond the

7 indictment and second of all and more importantly he needs to have the

8 background.

9 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] My colleague, Judge Trechsel,

10 told you that the expert witness is not a lawyer, is not a jurist. He is

11 a historian. But as a rule, perhaps I'm not in agreement with my

12 colleague, but a historian should have some legal knowledge. In

13 particular, he should know the scope of the constitution or an

14 international agreement to gather some historical conclusions, findings.

15 Therefore, you ask him if the constitution had been amended. He answered

16 I don't know. So continue.

17 MR. KARNAVAS: I will. I will. I don't mean to be obstreperous.

18 It's just I look and see what the gentleman has is cited.

19 Q. Let's look at the bottom of page 2 you say that Miroslav -- I

20 can't pronounce his name Miroslav Prce I think it is. The defence

21 minister of the federation of Bosna-Herzegovina argued as late as August

22 1999 that "The Croat side does not support a unified army in BiH because

23 we do not want to create another mini former JNA."

24 Now, you recall you were asked a question by the Prosecutor

25 regarding this.

1 Now, you say -- over here you quote -- somebody is quoted.

2 Unified army in BiH. So we're not talking about an army that's unified

3 within the federation. We're talking about an army that's unified within

4 BiH; correct?

5 A. Correct.

6 Q. Now, in 1999, do you know whether the RS had its own army?

7 A. Yes, it did.

8 Q. All right. Getting back to the Washington and then post-Dayton.

9 How many international organisations were involved in the implementation

10 of the Dayton Peace Accords, if you know?

11 MR. SCOTT: I object to relevance, Your Honour.

12 THE WITNESS: By number, I don't know. I don't know.

13 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] What is the relevance,

14 Mr. Karnavas.

15 MR. KARNAVAS: I'll move on.

16 Q. Did the Dayton Peace Accords call for a central bank?

17 A. I don't know.

18 Q. Did a central bank exist prior to the Dayton Peace Accords that

19 was functioning in Bosnia-Herzegovina?

20 A. No.

21 Q. What about when -- when the federation is formed, was it formed

22 before or after the Dayton peace accords?

23 A. The Muslim-Croat federation?

24 Q. Well, is there another one?

25 A. Yes, it was.

1 Q. Okay. Now, during that period of time please discuss -- describe

2 to us the transitional process in order to harmonise the laws, the payment

3 schemes, the pension plans, the salaries and so on and so forth.

4 A. I can't.

5 Q. Was there -- did that agreement call for some sort of an

6 implementation programme?

7 A. The Washington Agreement?

8 Q. Yeah.

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. What about Dayton?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. Were the salaries -- were the salaries in BiH uniform as a result

13 of -- immediately after Dayton?

14 A. I don't know.

15 Q. Well, okay. Let's forget about the RS. What about within the

16 federation. Were there not cantons?

17 A. Yes, there were.

18 Q. How many cantons were in the federation?

19 A. Ten, I believe.

20 Q. Okay. And what were the functions or the responsibilities of the

21 cantons vis-a-vis the federation?

22 A. I don't think I could specify them.

23 Q. All right. Were all cantons on the same payment scheme as far as

24 salaries, pensions, and what have you?

25 A. I don't know.

1 Q. Well, if you don't know, how do you know whether one of side or

2 the other is -- is acting inappropriately or illegally as you put it in

3 here, these illegal institutions, whatever institutions you were referring

4 to?

5 A. Could you -- let me read the question.

6 Q. And it's -- I can rephrase it.

7 A. You don't need to. I just need to read it.

8 I suppose in terms of salaries and pensions I don't know.

9 Q. Well, who was responsible for salaries and pensions? Was it the

10 state? Was it at the local level? Was it somewhere in between at say the

11 entity level?

12 A. I don't know.

13 Q. What about Brcko?

14 A. I don't know.

15 Q. All right. Who is responsible for the universities? Was that at

16 the state level or at the entity level?

17 A. I don't know.

18 Q. Okay. What about the -- the soldiers and the invalids in

19 particular? Who paid for them? You know, post-Dayton. How was that

20 arranged? Was that at the state level, the entity level, or sort of at

21 the nationalistic level in the is sense that if you belong the ABiH, the

22 HVO or the VRS? Do you know anything about that? Who was responsible to

23 take care of them?

24 A. Constitutionally, I don't know.

25 Q. Okay. What about utility services? Was that at the state level

1 or was that at the -- at the entity level or was it further down at the

2 cantonal level? Which of the three?

3 A. I don't know.

4 Q. To what extent was Herceg-Bosna cooperating, say for instance, in

5 trying to make its payments to -- to say salaries, pensions and what have

6 you? Do you know whether they were making those payments? I mean, we

7 read something in the document here. Let's take Mostar, for instance.

8 Who was paying for the salaries of the teachers in Mostar, say the west

9 side?

10 A. I don't know.

11 Q. Well, who was responsible for it?

12 A. I don't know. This is all according to Dayton; right? I don't

13 know.

14 Q. Well, according to Dayton or even the Washington Agreement. What

15 about the army? Who was supposed to pay the salaries of the army?

16 A. I don't know.

17 Q. All right. Now this quote, getting back to the quote on page 2

18 when you talk about that the Croats did not support a unified army in BiH,

19 and you're quoting somebody. If the constitutions call for two separate

20 defences, one for the federation and one for the RS, assuming that you

21 knew that, how then can you adopt this particular statement as being true,

22 accurate and complete? And if you don't understand the question I'll can

23 rephrase it.

24 A. No, you don't need to. It's a quote. It's a quote.

25 Q. You've adopted the quote. You've adopted --

1 A. No, I attributed it to a fellow.

2 Q. But you put it in there as if this is part of your conclusion.

3 You're reading somebody, you're quoting. This gives it authority. So now

4 you have some sort of authority to make this bold statement. This is part

5 of the conclusion of which you want this Trial Chamber to adopt. Correct

6 me if I'm wrong.

7 A. Sure, you're right.

8 Q. Okay. Now, going back to my previous questions, if you hadn't

9 read the constitutions, if you did not know that under Dayton you had two

10 defences and the entities were responsible for the defence, that was the

11 madness of Dayton, you had two militaries pointing inward, okay, how can

12 you then, say, adopt this quote as being accurate simply because it comes

13 out of some -- some other report where it says, the Croat side does not

14 support a unified army in BiH when the constitution itself does not call

15 for a uniform army in BiH in 1999? How on earth can you do that with a

16 straight face under oath in front of these Judges?

17 A. It sounds like we both agree that the comment is accurate.

18 Q. On the contrary, sir. The comment cannot being accurate in a

19 sense because you're saying that the Croat side does not support a unified

20 army. What I'm saying is the constitution, the greatest law of the land,

21 one that the parties negotiated, called for two separate army, one for the

22 federation, one for the RS. So the constitution doesn't provide. So how

23 can you then say here, blame the Croats for supposedly not wanting a

24 unified -- a unified army when in fact the contusion doesn't call for one

25 and neither did the parties negotiate for that at Dayton?

1 A. I didn't blame the Croats. I quoted a gentleman stating what

2 apparently is a fact.

3 Q. Okay.

4 A. And I did it under oath because I am not lying.

5 Q. Did you know at the time, did you know, sir, I want a straight

6 answer here, did you know at the time when you took this quote and you put

7 it into your report, did you know at the time that under Dayton, under the

8 constitution of BiH, under the constitution of the Republika Srpska, under

9 the constitution of the federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, it called for

10 the defences to be under the entities and not, I repeat not under the

11 state; did you know that?

12 A. I did not know Dayton verbatim, but I did know they were supposed

13 to be separate armies?

14 Q. Well why didn't you put that in your report? Why did you just

15 take this quote and put it in your there? What was the purpose of it? If

16 you knew already that constitution of the Croats didn't have to have a

17 unified army because you would have had to have the Serbs and the Muslims

18 and Bosniaks at this point all agree to it?

19 A. It served to contribute to my answer to the question I was given.

20 Q. I see. Exactly. It severed to contribute where you wanted to go

21 with this report.

22 A. That's not what I said.

23 Q. Okay. I'm saying it. All right. Now --

24 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Miller, with regard to this

25 issue of the unified army, while Mr. Karnavas was asking you these

1 questions, I was looking at page 2, what you wrote, and I think that in

2 fact what you write, well, it's a declaration of the defence minister of

3 the federation, Mr. Miroslav Prce who is supposed to have said that. And

4 you quote this declaration, footnote 7, drawn from the report of the 28th

5 of October, 1999. So it -- I get the feeling that it's not your

6 conclusion. You are referring to what was said by the defence minister of

7 the federation, and you have of incorporated it into your report.

8 Now, did you agree with this vision, with this concept, or this

9 way of seeing things? If you quote him, it would suggest that you agree,

10 or do you quote him as an historian might do saying, Well, someone said

11 such-and-such. This is to inform the reader.

12 Do you understand what I'm trying to say?

13 THE WITNESS: I understand what you're trying to say, but I'm not

14 sure I understand the distinction in this case. I mean, it was a

15 statement drawn in support of an argument that the Croats of Herceg-Bosna

16 are reluctant to see their state structures disappear.

17 I don't really view this as something -- it's not a vision or a

18 concept that I agree with or disagree with. It's a piece of evidence in

19 an argument that Herceg-Bosna is not going away.

20 JUDGE TRECHSEL: If I may --

21 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Prlic. With the

22 authorisation of Mr. Karnavas.

23 THE ACCUSED PRLIC: [Interpretation] Okay. Mr. President, since

24 this examination is becoming problematic for the whole process, I think

25 that it is important to focus on the previous part of the sentence. What

1 we're dealing with here in all the questions posed by my Defence lawyer is

2 some -- based on the evidence that is going to be introduced. Before that

3 quotation by the defence minister, there's the observation by the

4 historian which says that the desire for separation extended to virtually

5 all manifestation of statehood. And that quotation just served us to --

6 him to confirm the standpoint already put forward by him.

7 My Defence lawyer is showing clearly that Bosnia-Herzegovina was a

8 state that did not have one army. So it's not a question of statehood.

9 And it is not the object of an expert witness to prove the actions of

10 Herceg-Bosna, and that is why we wanted to challenge every sentence quoted

11 by him, because he clearly indicates the -- his standpoint. Every

12 sentence in his expert report is a problematic one, and that is why we're

13 challenging it through the questions.

14 For example, the first sentence: [In English] "There is little

15 evidence that the Croatian side had any intention of giving up its

16 authority in Herceg-Bosna."

17 [Interpretation] Now, Defence counsel is authorised to challenge

18 this position, and that is what he did.

19 The second sentence: "[In English] Nor did the leadership of the

20 so proclaimed Republic of Herceg-Bosna try to hide its intent to maintain

21 the autonomy of the region and even see it attached to Croatia."

22 [Interpretation] My Defence counsel is quite right in challenging

23 that position, because this exhibit is part of the proceedings.

24 The third sentence -- the expert doesn't know my post, my

25 function, but he has a clear stand when he speaks about the building of

1 the a federation and confederation. He says this attitude expressed with

2 this sort of clarity would not diminish until nearly a decade later.

3 Now, if the position put forward by me is absolutely in conformity

4 with the constitution, then my defence does have the right to challenge

5 this position.

6 The following sentence: "[In English] The government of

7 Herceg-Bosna continued to function as it had before the agreement."

8 [Interpretation] We have the right to challenge the objectivity of

9 that position both through the constitution of the federation and the

10 functions that Herceg-Bosna had and the part that was under BH army

11 control.

12 Now, the next sentence "These illegal structures."

13 [Interpretation] So we have the right to challenge expert says here. On

14 the following page: "[In English] Social and other services rather via

15 Herzeg-Bosna rather than through the BH government."

16 [Interpretation] Once again we have the right to use the

17 constitution because the constitution of Bosnia-Herzegovina does not

18 provide for a single social function to take place at the level of

19 Bosnia-Herzegovina without going any further. And that is why I would

20 like the cross-examination to continue because we wish to challenge each

21 of these statements and that is our absolute right.

22 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Scott, would you like to

23 respond to the comments made by Mr. Prlic?

24 MR. SCOTT: Yes, Your Honour, just in general. I just have to --

25 in light of what's been going on, I think it's only fair for the

1 Prosecution to have a couple of minutes in given all the time that both

2 the Defence and some of the accused have taken.

3 This is what the Chamber has witnessed this afternoon is a

4 complete shift from a position that Herceg-Bosna did not continue to

5 exist, did not continue to function well after both Dayton and Washington,

6 and in the face of this witness's evidence and other evidence in the case,

7 that can no longer possibly be denied. And what we've now shifted is to

8 an attempt to justify its continued existence which is an entirely

9 different position again and not the one that this witness was asked to

10 address and we now -- it's a moving target. It's a moving target, and now

11 we're talking about something entirely different.

12 And I have to suggest, Your Honour, it's entirely unfair to this

13 witness. The witness is brought to address the question A, and then he is

14 criticised for not addressing question R. He was never asked to address

15 question R. He was asked to address question A. And I think it's -- to

16 put the continued questions to the witness for no other real purpose

17 except to embarrass the witness about details of the Dayton agreement that

18 I don't think any of us would necessarily remember off the top of our

19 heads without having the document in front of us, is unfair and irrelevant

20 to what the question -- to what the witness was asked to do.

21 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] But when the Defence asks him

22 questions relating to the B question, the witness says, well, I don't

23 know. So in fact he's only answering in regard to question A about which

24 he is an expert. So it's quite clear.

25 Mr. Karnavas, you may pursue.

1 Mr. Prlic.

2 THE ACCUSED PRLIC: [Interpretation] I want to say that I was

3 misunderstood. I'm not speaking about whether Herceg-Bosna existed or not

4 or whether it should have existed or not. All we're talking about here is

5 that this report should not be accepted and adopted. I'm just talking

6 about this expert report, that it cannot be found acceptable. And the

7 sense of the questions we're asking is to challenge it as an expert

8 report.

9 Now, whether you're going to conclude whether it did exist or not

10 that's your right, but through our questions we wish to say that this

11 expert report is unacceptable, nothing more than that.

12 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Karnavas, you may pursue.

13 MR. KARNAVAS: [Previous translation continues] ...

14 Q. Now, did you ever bother to look at the transitional arrangements

15 that are actually in the -- in the constitution of Bosnia-Herzegovina?

16 And that would be under Article 11. Did you look at those transitional

17 arrangements? Because now since you're talking about a period of

18 post-Dayton, that would be post 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, you know, as I'm

19 sure you can imagine there's some sort of a transitional arrangement, and

20 we see that in Iraq, something that the bush Administration failed to see.

21 They thought they would just take over Baghdad and that would be the end

22 of it and we see that there is a huge transitional period. So did you

23 look at the transitional arrangements?

24 A. No.

25 Q. Okay. Well, under Article 11, it tells us to look at Article --

1 at annex 2, and annex 2 of the BiH constitution says that 1, joint interim

2 commission. The parties hereby establish a joint interim commission with

3 a mandate to discuss practical questions related to the implementation of

4 the constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina and of the general framework

5 agreement and its annexes and to make recommendations and proposals.

6 Now, in your preparation for this report, did you look to see what

7 was happening with this joint interim commission and to see what, if

8 anything, the Croats were doing within that commission in furtherance of

9 the implementation process?

10 A. No.

11 Q. It then goes on to B, just to make sure we know who are in this

12 commission, the joint interim commission shall be composed of four persons

13 from the federation, three persons from the Republika Srpska, and one

14 representative of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

15 Then it goes on under 2 constitution -- I'm sorry, continuation of

16 laws. Continuation of laws. "All laws, regulations, and judicial rules of

17 procedure in effect within the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina when

18 the constitution enters into force shall remain in effect to the extent

19 not inconsistent with the constitution until otherwise determined by a

20 competent government body of Bosnia-Herzegovina."

21 Were you aware of that transitional arrangement?

22 A. Not in that detail.

23 Q. Does it make sense?

24 A. Yes, it does.

25 Q. All right. Now, I assume -- or we could assume that just as the

1 Croats had organised themselves, the Muslims, you know, the Bosniaks, had

2 organised themselves as well. Correct?

3 A. Generally, sure.

4 Q. Okay. Well, you had the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina, but for

5 all intents and purposes during the war you had a siege in Sarajevo;

6 right?

7 A. Right.

8 Q. You had places like in Tuzla where they were self-managing to the

9 extent possible.

10 A. Okay.

11 Q. All right. Now, did you bother to look and see whether there was

12 parity in the services that were being provided in those communities and

13 in those areas vis-a-vis the services and salaries and what have you that

14 were being provided in areas that were under or part of the initially the

15 Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna, later on the Croatian Republic of

16 Herceg-Bosna? Did you look into that?

17 A. No.

18 Q. Do you know whether there were any transitional provisions for the

19 harmonisation of that process and what that process called for?

20 A. I'm sure there were.

21 Q. Okay. So in other words, you didn't know that.

22 A. I assumed it.

23 Q. Okay. Would you -- I take it you would also assume that that's

24 what the international community has been doing since 1995 in Bosnia?

25 A. I know that the international community's been involved, yeah.

1 Q. Okay. That it had been involved, for instance, in trying to

2 establish one, I think they call it, economic space; correct?

3 A. Okay.

4 Q. Are you saying okay because you don't know or -- I don't want you

5 to accept my -- you know, what I'm claiming to be fact, but do you know

6 that? Yes or no?

7 A. No, I don't, but I accept what you say as fact.

8 Q. All right. Do you know up until what time you had different

9 systems with respect to customs? And I'm talking about the RS, the

10 federation, cantonal level.

11 A. No.

12 Q. Do you know whether there were any transitional arrangements for

13 that?

14 A. I don't know that. I assume it.

15 Q. Okay. Who pays for the state government? Where does it get its

16 income from?

17 A. Specifically, I don't know.

18 Q. All right. Now --

19 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

20 MR. KARNAVAS: Yes. Thank you.

21 Q. Just in the time that we have left for the -- for the rest of the

22 time, if you could just help me out here and just please describe what

23 exactly you did in trying to come up with this report, assuming that you

24 wanted to have a report that was fair, balanced, and informative, keeping

25 in mind that you are a Ph.D. from a very fine university where you're

1 taught how to do research. What did you do?

2 A. I did what I was asked to do, which was provide a short, directed

3 report on the nature or persistence or non-persistence, I suppose, of the

4 government of Herceg-Bosna, and I did so as I was asked on the basis of

5 open-source materials, knowing that I was not going to be able to afford

6 to or be supported in going and doing on-site research and --

7 Q. Okay. You're piquing my interest now here.

8 A. Really.

9 Q. The constitution it can be found on -- I have a hard copy from my

10 days in OHR but it can be found on the internet can it not? I mean, just

11 the way you found all these documents from the international crisis group?

12 A. The Dayton Accords can be found on the internet, and like I've

13 told you I have read and understood the Dayton Accords in the past. I do

14 not know them in detail, and I did not go back to study them in the detail

15 because I did not feel - and I do have a Ph.D. and I do know how to deal

16 with source materials and it is a prestigious university - and I did not

17 feel that anything in the Dayton Accords had anything to do directly with

18 the question that I was asked.

19 Q. Okay.

20 A. And I don't think there are value judgements in my report.

21 Q. And I take it the same thing would apply with the Washington

22 Agreement. You didn't think it was necessary to look at the agreement and

23 to see what's in the agreement, any transitional provisions in the

24 agreement to see -- you didn't think that was necessary at all?

25 A. I did look at the Washington Agreement, but I -- but you're right,

1 it doesn't strike me as necessary to answer the question I was asked.

2 Q. All right. Now, I've noticed that you've looked at some reports

3 from the international crisis group, and they have an office in Sarajevo.

4 They've been monitoring the situation there. They've written many, many

5 reports, have they not?

6 A. They've written a lot of reports, yes.

7 Q. Have you read all of those reports or you just skimmed through it

8 to find --

9 A. No, I read all of the reports dealing with Herceg-Bosna and with

10 Bosnia in general when I was preparing this.

11 Q. And with Mostar and what have you?

12 A. Mm-hmm.

13 Q. And I take it in those reports you would also find where they were

14 talking about the dysfunctionality of the international community in

15 Bosnia-Herzegovina as it's trying to implement this peace accords because

16 of inner fighting, differences of opinion on what laws to adopt, agendas

17 and what have you?

18 A. It's a very common theme.

19 Q. All right. With respect to Mostar - that's the last question I

20 have - with respect to Mostar, did you ever come across any documents

21 anywhere that called for Mostar to be the capital of -- for, for instance,

22 the Croats, assuming that an agreement could be reached between the three

23 constituent peoples? In any of the peace -- or any of the negotiations.

24 A. I don't recall reading anything about that, no.

25 Q. All right. Fair enough. What about Okruzis? Did you ever come

1 across that term, "Okruzi"?

2 A. Okruzi?

3 Q. Yeah. Do you know what it is?

4 A. An Okruzi is probably a municipality.

5 Q. Mm-hmm. And do you know how they were formed back then and who

6 formed them?

7 A. Back then being 1993, 4.

8 Q. Yeah, 1992, 1993, 1994, yeah.

9 A. I would imagine they were formed on the local level from the

10 ground up.

11 Q. Okay by whom?

12 A. Don't know.

13 Q. Okay. All right.

14 MR. KARNAVAS: Your Honour, we'll have to leave it at this. I

15 think we can end maybe one minute early today, and I do have some time

16 from my colleagues. I might have a little time left. In total --

17 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Karnavas, you've used up 45

18 minutes. Each of the Defence teams has 30 minutes, so I assume some of

19 your colleagues have given you some of their time.

20 MR. KARNAVAS: Yes, Your Honour.

21 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Who exactly?

22 MR. KARNAVAS: I have the full time from the Coric Defence and the

23 full time from the Pusic Defence. So regrettably you'll have to bear with

24 me for 45 minutes tomorrow, and I'll try and to be a little more organised

25 than today but we've covered the difficult area.

1 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. So, Mr. Miller, as

2 you are under oath, you may no longer have any contact with the

3 Prosecution. As you know, tomorrow the hearing will take place at 9.00

4 a.m., so I would ask you to come back. I would ask everyone here to come

5 back and we will begin at 9.00 on the dot.

6 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 7.00 p.m.,

7 to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 25th day

8 of September, 2007, at 9.00 a.m.

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