Page 27018

 1                          Monday, 4 February 2008

 2                          [Open session]

 3                          [Rule 98 bis]

 4                          [The accused entered court]

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

 6            JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Registrar, call the case,

 7    please.

 8            THE REGISTRAR:  Good afternoon, Your Honours.  Good afternoon

 9    everyone in and around the courtroom.  This is case number IT-04-74-T, the

10    Prosecutor versus Prlic et al.  Thank you, Your Honours.

11            JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] I would like to greet all the

12    people present in the courtroom, the representatives of the Prosecution,

13    Defence counsel, the accused, as well as all the people in the courtroom

14    assisting us.

15            For the purpose of the transcript, I know that Mr. Pusic is not

16    here today.

17            Today we will hear the Prosecution who will reply to the 98 bis

18    procedure.  That said, last week it was the Defence that held the floor.

19    I can see that Mr. Scott is ready.  He's got the lectern in front of him,

20    so I shall give him the floor.

21            MR. SCOTT:  Good afternoon, Mr. President, Your Honours, and to

22    all those in and around the courtroom.

23            May it please the Court, before addressing the Defence submissions

24    in particular the Prosecution will briefly address the standard of course

25    to be used by the Pre-Trial Chamber in its application of Rule 98 bis to

Page 27019

 1    the evidence that has been presented by the Prosecution during its case in

 2    chief.

 3            The current version of Rule 98 bis, which everyone knows by now

 4    focuses on counts rather than charges or offences has been applied in

 5    several cases and most recently in the Milutinovic case in May of 2007.

 6    Rule 98 bis provides:  "At the close of the Prosecutor's case, the

 7    Trial Chamber shall by oral decision and after hearing the oral

 8    submissions of the parties, enter a judgement of acquittal on any count if

 9    there is no evidence capable to support -- capable of supporting a

10    conviction."

11            Of course that Rule is to be applied separately to each of the

12    accused who made a Rule 98 bis submission.  The Prosecution submits that

13    the Milutinovic Trial Chamber correctly set out the test to be applied,

14    and that is:  "The test to be applied is whether there is evidence upon

15    which, if accepted, a Tribunal of fact could be satisfied beyond a

16    reasonable doubt of the guilt of a particular accused on the count in

17    question.  The test is not whether a Trial Chamber would in fact convict

18    beyond a reasonable doubt but, rather, whether it could do so."

19            And that's from the Milutinovic ruling on the 18th of May, 2007.

20            That Trial Chamber went on to say that in applying Rule 98 bis,

21    the Trial Chamber does not engage in an assessment of the credibility of

22    witnesses unless, unless, such evidence is "so incapable of belief that it

23    could not properly support a conviction even when the evidence is taken at

24    its highest for the Prosecution."

25            The Prosecution, Your Honours, respectfully submits that no

Page 27020

 1    evidence tendered by the Prosecution falls into that category, that is any

 2    evidence that would be considered "incapable of belief."  However, in the

 3    alternative, even if the Chamber were to find some piece of evidence that

 4    it considers to fall in that category, if there is any such evidence in

 5    the Prosecution case it is certainly extremely limited and so limited by

 6    its extent and nature as to have no significant bearing on the totality of

 7    the Prosecution's case.

 8            Further, except perhaps again in the most extreme cases, the

 9    Rule 98 bis process does not involve weighing the evidence, that is,

10    balancing the Prosecution evidence against any evidence that the Defence

11    might have introduced through the cross-examination of witnesses.  This is

12    not the time when the Chamber takes the Prosecution case on the one hand

13    of evidence and Defence evidence on the other hand and weighs and balances

14    it out.  That is not the function or process under Rule 98 bis.

15            And finally again, the Rule does not require that the Chamber be

16    satisfied that there be evidence supporting each of the individual charges

17    making up a count as we have discussed in this case over the last few

18    weeks.

19            The Trial Chamber's application of Rule 98 bis is concerned with

20    counts only, even when those counts are themselves comprised of different

21    crime bases or modes of liability.  Moreover, as set out in paragraphs 221

22    to 228 of the amended indictment, these accused are charged with more than

23    one mode of criminal liability.  The Prosecution respectfully submits that

24    the testimonial and documentary evidence adduced in its case in chief

25    compellingly establishes the criminal responsibility of each accused as to

Page 27021

 1    each count charged in the amended indictment.  That is that a broad range

 2    of crimes were committed throughout the territory of the so-called

 3    Herceg-Bosna during 1992 and 1993; that these crimes were directed against

 4    the Bosnian Muslim population as part of a deliberate, widespread and

 5    systematic campaign; that the objective of this campaign was to subjugate,

 6    remove and ethnically cleanse Bosnian Muslims and others of non-Croat

 7    nationality from the territory claimed to comprise Herceg-Bosna; and that

 8    most importantly each of the accused bears individual criminal liability

 9    for these crimes.

10            Mr. President, Your Honours, the Prosecution does not intend to

11    engage in a lengthy and detailed recitation of the evidence proving the

12    many crimes that were committed repeatedly, time after time, starting

13    primarily in October 1992 in Prozor and continuing until late 1993 and

14    even into the early part of 1994.  The methods and means used to achieve

15    the removal of the Muslim population remain consistent throughout this

16    time whether by murder, imprisonment, deportation, destruction, or

17    plunder, the only change that occurs over the period of time is the scale

18    and ferocity with which these crimes were carried out.

19            Mr. President, Your Honours, as we understand them, the accused

20    who have made submissions have essentially, essentially not challenged for

21    purposes of Rule 98 bis we understand that they do not admit or agree to

22    the facts generally or for purposes of ultimate judgement, that we

23    understand the submissions to generally not question the fact of the crime

24    base other than general statements.  For example, as I understand the

25    essence of the Coric argument on rapes, the Defence is not really arguing

Page 27022

 1    that rapes did not occur but denies Coric's responsibility for them on one

 2    basis or another.  For example, they were not reported, I think I heard

 3    last week there was nothing that could be done or what could be done had

 4    been done, et cetera, but not that the rapes did not occur.  And I submit,

 5    Your Honour, Prosecution submits, that on the basis of the Defence

 6    submissions that were made last week, what we call the crime base, if you

 7    will, has generally not been questioned.  And for that reason, largely for

 8    that reason, the Prosecution will not address at any length or detail the

 9    particular crime base evidence in the case except as it relates to

10    particular issues that have been raised by those accused who have made

11    submissions.  Nor will we address anything like all of what might be

12    called the linkage, "linkage" evidence as to each accused who has made a

13    98 bis submission and nor will we address all of the forms or theories of

14    liability.  For Rule 98 bis purposes, the only question is whether each

15    count survives as to each accused on some theory or basis of liability.

16            For this purpose, for 98 bis purposes, the Prosecution will focus

17    our analysis and submissions primarily on the existence and operation of a

18    joint criminal enterprise in forms 1 and 3.  We will not, for example, be

19    addressing the liability of any accused under Article 7(3), because we

20    submit that the Chamber need not reach or need not consider this basis in

21    order to determine that each count survives as to each accused.

22            The Prosecution's submissions, subject of course to the Chamber's

23    guidance will proceed as follows:  First in just a moment, the Prosecution

24    will briefly touch on the joint criminal enterprise language from some

25    Tribunal cases so that the Chamber might have that jurisprudence and

Page 27023

 1    language in mind in considering the Prosecution's further submissions.

 2            Second, we will present to you at some length an overview of the

 3    case, its principal features, and operation of the joint criminal

 4    enterprise.  Again this will not involve a detailed consideration of the

 5    crime base evidence but will provide, and again at some length, an overall

 6    review of the Prosecution case.  Following that overall submission, the

 7    Prosecution will then deal with the particular submissions by the

 8    Petkovic, the Coric, and the Pusic Defence teams.

 9            As to some Tribunal jurisprudence and language concerning the

10    joint criminal enterprise, we would note this from the Krajisnik case:

11    There the Trial Chamber found that the central purpose of the Bosnian Serb

12    leadership, and the Chamber may want to consider whether and to what

13    extent this parallels the purposes and objectives of the Bosnian Croat

14    leadership, but in the Krajisnik case concerning the Bosnian Serb

15    leadership, the Chamber found that the central purpose was:  "To

16    ethnically recompose the territories under its control by expelling and

17    thereby drastically reducing the proportion of Bosnian Muslims and

18    Bosnian Croats living there."

19            It found that the crimes of deportation and forced transfer "were

20    necessary means of implementing the common objective of removal by force

21    of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats from large areas of

22    Bosnia-Herzegovina" and referred to these crimes as "original crimes"

23    which fit under what we might call joint criminal enterprise form 1.

24    That's the Krajisnik trial judgement, paragraph 1097.

25            Beyond these crimes the indictment in the Krajisnik case also

Page 27024

 1    charged the accused with persecution, murder, extermination, deportation,

 2    and forcible transfer.  In assessing whether the remaining crimes fell

 3    into category 1 or 3 of the joint criminal enterprise, the Trial Chamber

 4    noted:  "Whether other crimes were original to the common objective or

 5    were added later is, of course, a matter of evidence, not logical

 6    analysis."

 7            And the Trial Chamber there advocated what it called a "strictly

 8    empirical approach" which does not speculate about the crime profile of

 9    the original JCE objective but conceptualises the common objective as

10    fluid in its criminal means.  Krajisnik trial judgement, paragraph 1098.

11            It explained the means by which the common plan may grow, stating:

12    "An expansion of the criminal means of the objective is proven when

13    leading members of the JCE are informed of new types of crime committed

14    pursuant to the implementation of the common objective, take no effective

15    measures to prevent recurrences of such crimes, and persist in the

16    implementation of the common objective of the JCE.  When this occurs, the

17    Trial Chamber said, "JCE members are shown to have accepted the expansion

18    of means since implementation of the common objective can no longer be

19    understood to be limited to commission of the original crimes."  Krajisnik

20    judgement at paragraph 1098.

21            The Trial Chamber found that with acceptance of the actual

22    commission of new types of crime and continued contribution to the

23    objective comes intent, and such that subsequent commission of such crimes

24    by the JCE will give rise to liability under JCE 1.

25            Applying this standard, the Krajisnik Trial Chamber found that

Page 27025

 1    unlawful detention of civilians, cruel or inhumane treatment of detainees,

 2    killings in detention, sexual violence, inhumane living conditions, murder

 3    of civilians during attacks on towns and villages, extermination of

 4    Muslims, plunder and appropriation of property, destruction of cultural

 5    monuments and sacred sites became part of the common objective of the JCE

 6    over time, because the Bosnian Serb political leadership was aware of

 7    these crimes and did not discontinue its discriminatory forced

 8    displacement programme in light of the increasing number and range of

 9    crimes being reported but, rather, persisted with its territorial conquest

10    and demographic recompositions.

11            There is extensive similar language, Mr. President, Your Honours,

12    from other cases, but already in the interests of time I will not go into

13    those.  The Krstic trial judgement discusses these matters at length, the

14    Kovocka trial judgement discusses similar matters and most recently in the

15    Milutinovic 98 bis decision in May 2007 these matters were discussed.

16            I will pause on the Milutinovic decision to add this additional

17    element in terms of JCE 3.  In that case, in a Rule 98 bis submission or

18    determination, the Chamber said this:  "In light of the evidence discussed

19    herein pertaining to the significance and organised movement of the Kosovo

20    Albanian population and the behaviour of the accused in relation to these

21    events the Chamber could find that a joint criminal enterprise existed at

22    the relevant time, the aim of which was to forcibly displace the Kosovo

23    Albanian population from Kosovo.  Moreover, in the event that some of the

24    specific crimes charged such as rape and murder were not within the common

25    plan, it was nevertheless foreseeable that such crimes might be

Page 27026

 1    perpetrated in the course of the mass expulsion of the population."

 2            With that little bit of jurisprudence in mind, Your Honours, I'm

 3    going to turn to the overview of the Prosecution case.

 4            It is the Prosecution case that the crimes that were committed in

 5    this case, the crimes charged in the indictment, were part of a top-down

 6    leadership-driven geopolitical programme policy and strategy of what can

 7    fairly be called the Tudjman-Susak-Boban-Prlic government, because in

 8    reality that was seamless.  That organisation, the application of power

 9    between Tudjman, Susak, Boban, Prlic and others was in fact a seamless

10    operation from Zagreb to Mostar.

11            The events alleged in the indictment occurred as part of the

12    dissolution of course of the former Yugoslavia.  The Chamber is quite

13    aware of those background facts.  The European Community recognised the

14    Republic of Croatia as an independent state on the 15th of January, 1992,

15    and the United Nations admitted Croatia as a member state on the 22nd of

16    May, 1992.

17            During and in the course of these events, the Croatian Community

18    of Herceg-Bosna declared its existence on the 18th of November, 1991, as a

19    political and territorial entity on the territory of what was then the

20    Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.  As the Chamber knows now,

21    in August 1993, the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna declared itself the

22    Croatian Republic of Herceg-Bosna.  Mate Boban was the president of the

23    Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna from its inception and continued as

24    president of the Croatian Republic of Herceg-Bosna until late 1993 and

25    thereafter.

Page 27027

 1            By various actions taken on the 8th of April, 1992 and the 15th of

 2    May, 1992, various Herceg-Bosna leaders, including Mate Boban, established

 3    the Croatian Defence Council or HVO as Herceg-Bosna's armed forces and

 4    government describing the HVO as Herceg-Bosna's supreme executive,

 5    administrative and defence body.

 6            Now, the joint criminal enterprise is stated in the amended

 7    indictment in paragraph 15 as follows:  "That from on or before 18th of

 8    November, 1991," the date that Herceg-Bosna declared its existence, "to

 9    about April 1994 and thereafter, various persons established and

10    participated in a joint criminal enterprise to politically and militarily

11    subjugate, permanently remove and ethnically cleanse Bosnian Muslims and

12    other non-Croats who lived in areas on the territory of the Republic of

13    Bosnia and Herzegovina which were claimed to be part of the Croatian

14    Community and later Republic of Herceg-Bosna; and to join these areas as

15    part of a 'Greater Croatia' whether in the short term or over time and

16    whether as part of the Republic of Croatia or in close association with it

17    by force, fear or threat of force, persecution, imprisonment and

18    detention, forcible transfer and deportation, appropriation and

19    destruction of property, and other means which constituted or involved the

20    commission of crimes which are punishable under Articles 2, 3, and 5 of

21    the Tribunal Statute.  The territorial ambition of the joint criminal

22    enterprise was to establish a Croatian territory with the borders of the

23    Croatian Banovina, a territorial entity that existed from 1939 to 1941.

24    It was part of the joint criminal enterprise to engineer the political and

25    ethnic map of these areas so that they would be Croat dominated both

Page 27028

 1    politically and demographically."

 2            Now, turning to the territorial aspects of the joint criminal

 3    enterprise.

 4            Croatia's President Franjo Tudjman had long given voice to his

 5    obsession with Croatia's acquisition of certain parts of

 6    Bosnia-Herzegovina.  As included in Dr. Robert Donia's evidence, his

 7    report Exhibit P 09536, as early as 1981 Tudjman in his own published work

 8    described Bosnia and Croatia as "an indivisible geographic and economic

 9    entity."  He publicly supported Croatia's claims to large parts of Bosnia

10    which had been part of the Croatian Banovina.

11            As the Chamber knows, the Hrvatska Banovina was a Croat autonomous

12    region established in about 1939 which continued until approximately 1941.

13    It satisfied most of the demands of the two largest national actors in

14    Yugoslavia, the Serbs and the Croats, at the expense of the Bosnian

15    Muslims, with the addition of sovereign BiH territory to the claimed

16    Croatian lands.

17            What I think the evidence shows and what this Tribunal has seen

18    both in this case and in the cases what we might call the Serb cases, with

19    the dissolution of Yugoslavia both Serbia and Croatia saw opportunities

20    for territorial expansion into Bosnia and Herzegovina.  Discussions aimed

21    toward the division of Bosnia and Herzegovina were held between Tudjman

22    and Slobodan Milosevic at Karadjordjevo in March 1991.  On the eve of

23    Croatia breaking free of Yugoslavia, Tudjman made his ambitions toward

24    Bosnian territory vividly clear at a meeting of the Supreme State Council

25    of Croatia on the 8th of June, 1991, which comes from Exhibit P 00037:

Page 27029

 1    "Also, gentlemen, if we opt for Croatia's independence either within an

 2    alliance or total independence, Croatia's borders such as they are today

 3    are absurd.  They are impossible in the sense of administration and trade,

 4    let alone as regards any kind of protection of these borders of Croatia.

 5    Therefore, from our point of view, no less than from the Serbian, there is

 6    the problem of, there is a need to find an essential solution to the

 7    problem.  Isn't that so?  Because the establishment of Bosnia, the borders

 8    of BiH after World War II are historically absurd."

 9            THE INTERPRETER:  Could Mr. Scott please slow down.  Thank you.

10            MR. SCOTT:  Thank you.  I'll try to do that.

11            That is further confirmed in the important meeting which the

12    Chamber's heard a fair amount about, including from the witness Kljuic,

13    who was a participant in the meeting, the important meeting in Zagreb on

14    the 27th of December, 1991, which is recorded in Exhibit P 00089.

15            During that meeting, Tudjman again said:  "The survival of Bosnia

16    and Herzegovina as an independent and sovereign state, even if possible,

17    is in any case against the interest of the Croatian state and makes

18    impossible the normal territorial establishment of the Croatian state and

19    creates conditions for the disappearance of what remains of the Croatian

20    people in Bosnia and Herzegovina today.  All of history has shown that

21    Bosnia and Herzegovina is no solution for the Croatian people.  Bosnia and

22    Herzegovina should not be taken as something God-given, which must be

23    preserved, and we must especially not forget how harmful it is.  Because

24    of the creation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia has been put in an

25    impossible situation regarding its territory.  Therefore we finally

Page 27030

 1    wanted, and it was no accident that in the preamble to the Croatian

 2    constitution we also mentioned the Banovina of Croatia.  It seems to me,

 3    therefore, that just as we have taken advantage of this historic moment to

 4    establish an independent, internationally recognised Croatia, I believe

 5    that it is time that we take the opportunity to gather the Croatian people

 6    inside the widest possible borders."

 7            What the Prosecution evidence shows beyond this is that and what

 8    really led in a large measure to the conflict was it led President Tudjman

 9    and others and the accused in this case to even make claims on territory

10    in Bosnia-Herzegovina which was not even -- not let alone majority Croat

11    but in many instances not even -- did not even have a plurality of Croat

12    population.  This is illustrated by another one of the statements,

13    statement by Tudjman, when he told a group of the Herceg-Bosna

14    representatives meeting with him in September 1993: "Stolac.  I know the

15    strategic importance of Stolac both as the president of Croatia and, if

16    you will, as a soldier.  I know that Stolac and the entire former

17    Jablanicki Kotar and Konjic were included in the Croatian Banovina in

18    1939.  These are arguments I have upheld since the first day.  However,

19    they say that Stolac was predominantly Muslim and therefore ethnic

20    cleansing has taken place."

21            On the 8th of June, 1991, Tudjman indicated that in reality the

22    Muslim leadership in Bosnia and Herzegovina would have to accept Bosnia

23    and Herzegovina's division.  Tudjman:  "I think we shall achieve it

24    because this is equally in the interest of Serbia and Croatia, while the

25    Muslim component has no other exit than to accept this solution, although

Page 27031

 1    it will not be easy to find the solution but essentially that is it."

 2            Even by October 1993, much later, the quote that I just gave you

 3    was Tudjman in June 1991, even by October 1993, Tudjman was still talking

 4    about to fight in Bosnia-Herzegovina was a fight over the borders of the

 5    Croatian state.  In Exhibit P 06012, Tudjman says:  "Several months ago, I

 6    told you about the situation, and I gave task to minister of defence

 7    Mr. Susak and General Bobetko regarding our help and our engagement -- our

 8    engagement in Herceg-Bosna.  I told them that this was where the future

 9    borders of the Croatian state are being resolved.  That is when I pointed

10    out that it was very important that they defended the positions and the

11    territory the HVO was holding there.  It was the Novi Travnik, Vitez,

12    Busovaca, Mostar line and the problems of Gornji Vakuf and Bugojno needed

13    to be solved as soon as possible."  Tudjman speaking, October 1993.

14            Now, the Chamber's assisted in this because the question of

15    Croatia's and Tudjman's territorial aspirations have been well established

16    by adjudicated facts which this Chamber has found and I'll refer to some

17    of them here.

18            "President Tudjman aspired to partitioning this neighbouring

19    country, Bosnia-Herzegovina," adjudicated fact number 73 by the Chamber's

20    decision on the 7th of September, 2006.

21            "Franjo Tudjman's nationalism and his desire to annex a part of

22    Bosnia-Herzegovina were apparent to Lord David Owen to whom

23    President Tudjman staked his claim that 17.5 per cent of Bosnian territory

24    should revert to a republic with a Croatian majority."  Adjudicated fact

25    number 75.

Page 27032

 1            "President Tudjman as the leader of the HDZ, sought to promote a

 2    Croatian identity by appealing to Croatia as a distinct and historically

 3    continuous entity."  Adjudicated fact number 77.

 4            Multiple reference to the "natural borders of Croatia" can be

 5    found in Tudjman's speeches.  Adjudicated fact number 79.

 6            "The view that President Tudjman harboured territorial ambitions

 7    in respect of Bosnia-Herzegovina despite his official position to the

 8    contrary, part of his two-track policy, he harboured these ambitions

 9    despite his official position to the contrary is strengthened by reports

10    of discussions held between Tudjman and Milosevic against the backdrop of

11    the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, Yugoslav Federation, in 1991."

12    Adjudicated fact 81.

13            These aspirations for a partition were furthermore displayed

14    during the confidential talks between Franjo Tudjman and

15    Slobodan Milosevic in Karadjordjevo on 30 March 1991, on the division of

16    Bosnia and Herzegovina.  Adjudicated fact 82.

17            Excuse me, Judge Prandler.  Thank you.

18            "Following Karadjordjevo, Franjo Tudjman opined that it would be

19    very difficult for Bosnia to survive and that the Croats were going to

20    take over the Banovina plus Kazim, Kladusa and Bihac."  Adjudicated fact

21    number 84.

22            "Franjo Tudjman also said there would no longer be a Muslim region

23    within the former Yugoslavia, that it would constitute only a small

24    element of the Croat state."  Adjudicated fact 89.

25            "The agreement entered into by the Serbs and Croats on the

Page 27033

 1    partition of Bosnia was reportedly confirmed by a meeting between the

 2    Bosnian Serb and the Bosnian Croat political leaders Radovan Karadzic and

 3    Mate Boban in Graz in Austria on 6th May 1992."  Adjudicated fact 90.

 4            The aspirations of Franjo Tudjman to annex "Croatian regions of

 5    Bosnia persisted throughout the conflict."  Adjudicated fact number 88, et

 6    cetera.

 7            And there is more that I won't take the time to read.  All of

 8    those come from previous ICTY cases, and based upon the Trial Chamber's

 9    rulings on adjudicated facts in this case.

10            I will not take the time to look at the maps now, but the Chamber

11    will recall the books of maps that the Prosecution has provided to the

12    Judges in the course of this case, and the Prosecution respectfully

13    submits that one -- all one has to do is look at those maps and map after

14    map after map is consistent with a goal to establish the Banovina borders.

15    It was no coincidence that the outlines, the borders, of Herceg-Bosna were

16    largely co-extensive almost exactly, in fact even a bit more territory,

17    were almost co-extensive with the Banovina borders.  Every peace map

18    whether it was Cutileiro, Vance-Owen, every map ever proposed by the Croat

19    side was consistent with establishing the Banovina borders.

20            Now, what have some of our accused said about this aspect of the

21    case?  The plan, the Banovina borders, what the joint criminal enterprise

22    was all about.  Let's take some of our accused one by one.

23            Mr. Prlic in his statement, Exhibit P 09078, said:  "The plan

24    proclaimed and supported by Zagreb, which was also the political centre of

25    power, was, first, to establish the Republic of Croatia's internationally

Page 27034

 1    recognised borders.  The secondary political goal was to integrate a part

 2    of BiH into the Republic of Croatia.  Connected to that is the

 3    relationship between the HV and the HVO and between the government of the

 4    Republic of Croatia and the authorities of Herceg-Bosna.  The HDZ in

 5    Croatia and BiH were also using the opportunity to address the public and

 6    say to the public that everything was being done and all the preparations

 7    were being done to defend Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was only partly

 8    correct."  I'm quoting, quoting from Prlic's statement.  Partly true.

 9    They said to the public all of these preparations were for the defence

10    exclusively.  However, between themselves, they created another plan which

11    was adopted and proclaimed and supported by Zagreb, which was also again

12    the political centre of power.

13            So the goal and the main point of that plan was to defend the

14    territory and possibly also "attach it" to the Republic of Croatia.  I

15    have to clearly state that this idea was supported by the majority and

16    most of the people in Herzegovina so was not just a conspiratory plan of

17    one group.

18            Another statement by Mr. Prlic:  "Zagreb wanted to integrate a

19    part of Bosnia and Herzegovina into the Republic of Croatia if

20    Bosnia-Herzegovina falls apart."  And again at transcript -- the

21    transcript of his statement, page 65:  "Most Croats in Herzegovina

22    supported the plan to attach Herceg-Bosna to Croatia."

23            What about -- how did Mr. Slobodan Praljak characterise the plan?

24    Well, actually, it was one of his own exhibits, Exhibit 3D 00482, which

25    was a note of a meeting of Croatian army General Anton Tus and

Page 27035

 1    Slobodan Praljak with a French delegation on 13 January 1993.  The record

 2    of the meeting introduced by the Defence describes Slobodan Praljak as:

 3    "Major General Slobodan Praljak, assistant of minister of defence of the

 4    Republic of Croatia."

 5            Mr. Praljak's statements from the meeting are reported in relevant

 6    part as follows:  "The Croatian position has been clear from the very

 7    beginning.  The territory that belongs to the Croats matches the borders

 8    of the Banovina Hrvatska from the 1939 division of Yugoslavia synchronised

 9    with the 1981 census (the 1991 census is not valid).  The Croats stand for

10    Bosnia-Herzegovina as integrity, a state, as well as for the rights of

11    Croats as constitutive nation.  The problems among Croats and Muslims are

12    results of a variety of goals within the political fights.  The Croats

13    fight for the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina with the autonomy for Croats

14    while the Muslims fight for the civil state."

15            Now, granted in part of that statement it refers -- Mr. Praljak

16    talks about fighting for the State of Bosnia-Herzegovina, but he also

17    talks about establishing the Banovina borders, and other statements and

18    other evidence, of course, broaden that statement.

19            What did Mr. Stojic say about the goals of the Bosnian Croats,

20    Tudjman, Boban, and others?  Exhibit P 00185 is a recording of a telephone

21    conversation on the 5th of May, 1992, between two Bosnian Croat leaders,

22    Bruno Stojic and Branko Kvesic, and two Bosnian Serb leaders, Bosnian Serb

23    minister of interior Momcilo Mandic, and actually another defendant before

24    this Tribunal, Mr. Mico Stanisic, concerning the Croat's and Serb's

25    territorial claims in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the need for the Croats

Page 27036

 1    and the Serbs to sit down and agree their claims together.

 2            Of additional interest, it turns out, the conversation occurred

 3    only one day before the Graz Agreement on the 6th of May, 1992, which is

 4    Exhibit P 00187.

 5            THE INTERPRETER:  Could the speaker please slow down.  Thank you.

 6            MR. SCOTT:  In the conversation, Stojic plainly indicates that the

 7    Croat desired borders are those of the Banovina of 1939.  Now, the

 8    conversation goes on for some time, and I won't take time to read all of

 9    it although reading all of it is quite interesting and makes all of it

10    have more sense, but in the interest of time Stojic and Mico Stanisic are

11    talking, and Stanisic says:  "Listen.  Karadzic too wants a deal, to sit

12    down and work out a deal, but once it gets started it keeps going."

13            "Bruno:  Stop it already what's wrong with you."

14            "Stanisic:  Well, let us you give some initiative to have

15    somewhere --"

16            "Bruno:  Both you and us.  This makes no sense."

17            "Stanisic:  We'll give you over here we'll give you Visoko, Vares,

18    Kakanj, and Zenica.  We'll give that to you."

19            "Bruno:  You can't give us what's ours.  You can't give us what's

20    already ours.  That is the Banovina of 1939.  So what's going on up there?

21            Continuing on in the conversation a couple of minutes later

22    they're talking about the Neretva and Stojic says to Stanisic:  "Give up

23    those pipe dreams.  What Neretva?   You hold on to the Drina."

24            Stanisic says:  "There's not a soul for 50 kilometres on either

25    side of the Neretva.  I swear to God.  Do you agree with me?"

Page 27037

 1            "Bruno:  But this makes no sense with aeroplanes."

 2            "Stanisic:  Let's get it started.  You give up some, we give up

 3    some so we can mark those natural borders and that's it."

 4            "Bruno:  What natural ones?"

 5            "Stanisic:  Well, these."

 6            "Bruno:  There is the 1939 one and none other.  I'm dead serious."

 7            "Stanisic:  We need to see what is realistic there and sit down

 8    and make a deal."

 9            "Bruno:  Only the 1939 borders and no bargaining.  Ha, ha."

10            "Stanisic:  Don't screw with me.  In '39 you didn't even have a

11    state.  Ha, ha."

12            How about the accused Mr. Petkovic.  In an interesting report on

13    the 26th of June, 1992, which is Exhibit P 00279, just a few weeks after

14    this telephone conversation with Mr. Stojic, Milivoj Petkovic addressed

15    HVO commanders and municipal leaders on the recent HVO military successes

16    in Herceg-Bosna and the remaining work to be done in order to achieve his

17    stated goals, and this is what Mr. Petkovic wrote in his 26 June 1992

18    document:

19            "1. Operative and tactical situation.  Through offensive

20    activities in the entire area of South-east Herzegovina, HVO forces with

21    assistance of considerable HV forces and equipment have achieved success

22    that astonished us all and legal authorities were even taken by surprise.

23    Today we have under control almost the entire area of Croatian

24    municipalities, Neum, Ravno, Stolac, Capljina, Ljubuski, Citluk,

25    Siroki Brijeg, and Mostar.  Admittedly, there is still part of the

Page 27038

 1    territory, mostly in Mostar and Stolac municipalities, that are not under

 2    control of HVO forces.  Therefore, we have four main tasks in front of

 3    us."

 4            "One, to put under control the remaining area of Croatian --

 5    Croatian municipalities.  Two, to secure and fortify the achieved line.

 6    Three, to carry out reorganisation of the existing HVO forces and, four,

 7    to establish Croatian rule over all municipalities."

 8            That was the programme in June 1992.

 9            It is the Prosecution case that the HDZ BiH, the party,

10    Herceg-Bosna, and the HVO, instruments used by Tudjman, the Tudjman

11    government, and the Herceg-Bosna HVO leadership, including these accused,

12    to pursue a Greater Croatia based largely on the Banovina borders by

13    securing certain BiH municipalities either within Croatia's own borders or

14    in a Croat mini-state which would be closely aligned or identified with

15    Croatia.

16            The problem became, Your Honours, that once it became clear that

17    the Muslims were not going to go down that road voluntarily, it required

18    an escalating series of steps of escalating violence, escalating

19    strategies to do what it took, whatever it took, to achieve the political

20    programme, the geopolitical programme, that I have described to you based

21    on the evidence in the last few minutes.

22            Just as the ICTY Chambers have found the existence of Tudjman's

23    and the Tudjman government's aspirations toward Croatia, there have been

24    extensive adjudicated facts on the control of Croatia over the HVO and

25    Herceg-Bosna establishing the element of an international armed conflict

Page 27039

 1    and Croatia's control of the Croat entity.

 2            I'm going to again cut through some of the material that I had

 3    prepared because I think, really, I can take you straight again to some of

 4    the adjudicated facts that this Chamber has already found.

 5            "Aside from the direct intervention by HV forces, Croatia

 6    exercised indirect control over the HVO and the HZ HB."  Adjudicated fact

 7    504.

 8            "There is no doubt that the Republic of Croatia enjoyed a strong

 9    connection with the Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina."  Adjudicated fact

10    461.

11            "There is no doubt that the Republic of Croatia and the HZ HB were

12    pursuing the same ultimate goals, namely the incorporation of Croatian

13    provinces of Bosnia-Herzegovina into a single Croatian state."

14    Adjudicated fact number 91.

15            "Ties between President Tudjman as head of the HDZ in Croatia and

16    the leadership of the HZ HB were strong throughout the conflict."

17    Adjudicated fact 94.

18            "For Mate Boban, the HDZ was the Bosnian branch of the party

19    founded by Franjo Tudjman."  Adjudicated fact 45.

20            "Delegations from the Bosnian HDZ regularly went to consult

21    President Tudjman."  Adjudicated fact 98.

22            "There were regular meetings with President Tudjman and the

23    Bosnian Croat leaders appointed by Croatia or with its consent continued

24    to direct - excuse me- and the Bosnian Croat leaders appointed by Croatia

25    or with its consent continued to direct the HZ HB and the HVO well after

Page 27040

 1    June 1992."  Adjudicated fact 99.

 2            "Croatia was thus directly involved in the control of the HVO

 3    forces which were created on 8 April by the HZ HB Presidency."

 4    Adjudicated fact 471.

 5            "The Republic of Croatia took part in the organisation, planning,

 6    or coordination of military operations conducted in the context of the

 7    conflict between the HVO and the ABiH."  Adjudicated fact 474.

 8            Your Honours, it's the Prosecution's position that that degree of

 9    control itself, without even getting into the specific instances of direct

10    HV Croatian army participation on the ground, even if we don't get to that

11    evidence, the extent of Croatia's utter control of Herceg-Bosna, the

12    Herceg-Bosna leadership and the HVO establishes the existence of an

13    international armed conflict, and the Prosecution does not anticipate

14    directly addressing the more direct military aspects for purposes of this

15    98 bis submission unless the Chamber has questions, but the evidence of

16    that participation is itself also extensive, down to the exhibits which

17    identify the particular Croatian brigades and units operating on the

18    territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

19            Going back to the chronology of the -- some of the chronology of

20    the events in relation to Herceg-Bosna, we go back to the 12th of

21    November, 1991, even before it was -- about six days, in fact, before it

22    was declared on the 18th, and there was a meeting of the two major HDZ

23    Regional Committees, one the Herzegovina branch, if you will, led by

24    Mate Boban, and the Central Bosnia community led by Dario Kordic, met in

25    Grude and concluded at that meeting, and the records of that meeting are

Page 27041

 1    Exhibit P 00071:  "The Herzegovina regional community and the Travnik

 2    regional community stand by their conclusions reached at earlier separate

 3    meetings that the Croatian people of these regions continue to uphold the

 4    unanimously accepted decisions and conclusions adopted during

 5    consultations with the president Dr. Franjo Tudjman on 13 and 20 June 1991

 6    in Zagreb.  Proceeding from the conclusions of the above-mentioned

 7    meetings and consultations in Zagreb and the special conclusion of 15

 8    October 1991 in Grude and 22 October 1991 in Busovaca and this one on 12

 9    November 1991, these two regional communities have jointly and unanimously

10    decided that the Croatian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina must finally

11    carry out a decisive, a decisive and active policy which should lead to

12    the realisation of our centuries' old dream, a joint Croatian state."

13            In order for this -- continuing in the record:  "In order for this

14    historical goal to soon become our reality, these two regional communities

15    request the commencement of activities to formulate and issue legal and

16    political documents (the proclamation of a Croatian Banovina in

17    Bosnia-Herzegovina) and a referendum on accession to the Republic of

18    Croatia, et cetera, as the first stage on the road to the final settlement

19    of the issue and the creation of a sovereign Croatia in its ethnic and

20    historical (now possible) borders."

21            Mr. President and Your Honours, the evidence of these matters go

22    on and on and on, and already it's clear that it would take more than the

23    time all of us probably want to take to go through it all, but over and

24    over again, especially in the presidential transcripts, which the Chamber

25    has, which have been admitted, you will see these discussions over and

Page 27042

 1    over and over again.

 2            Exhibit P 000699, the meeting on the 3rd of November, 1992, often

 3    involving a number of our accused, this one including Mate Boban, Jadranko

 4    Prlic, and Bruno Stojic.  Again talking about in order to -- Susak was at

 5    that meeting.  This one I have to mention because some of our accused were

 6    there and Susak says:  "Furthermore, in order to ensure a better

 7    understanding of general policy in the entire Bosnia and Herzegovina, we

 8    called a meeting of the wider region of June -- 20 June 1992, including

 9    municipalities.  And they got some instructions then.  And on the 19th of

10    August, 1992, the following persons were called and present at the meeting

11    in the ministry of defence, Mate Boban, Neven Tomic, Jozo Maric, Bruno

12    Stojic, president --" and this is quoting, "president of the defence

13    department of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Jadranko Prlic, president of the HVO

14    of the HZ HB."  And Susak is complaining here:  "So it's not true as

15    stated in this report that they didn't know what was Croatian policy

16    regarding Croats in Bosnia-Herzegovina and what were the guidelines."

17            THE INTERPRETER:  Could the speaker please slow down.  Thank you.

18            MR. SCOTT:  Your Honours, they go on.  Exhibit P 01622, 8th of

19    March, 1993.  P 02099, 26th April 1993.  P 02122, 27th of April, 1993.

20    Exhibit P 03112, 2nd of July, 1993.  Exhibit P 05498, the 30th of

21    September, 1993.  Exhibit P 06581, 10th of November, 1993.  All go on

22    discussing in an ongoing way accomplishing the programme, accomplishing

23    the plan.  And the Chamber will, if we don't do it today, and I could

24    stand here and read these to you of course for hours, but I submit that

25    the Chamber -- I invite the Chamber at its leisure to review the

Page 27043

 1    presidential transcript material at length, because it is indeed a

 2    treasure trove of evidence in this case.

 3            Let me just jump to one much later just with the benefit of

 4    looking backwards.

 5            By February 13th of 1994, still within the period of the

 6    indictment, in Exhibit P 07856, Jadranko Prlic is in a meeting with

 7    Tudjman and reports to Tudjman the following:  "We have created a state in

 8    Herceg-Bosna with all systems including customs and finance.  People are

 9    born and die with Herceg-Bosna documents.  I think we should weigh all the

10    elements carefully.  Absolutely no solution is acceptable without a

11    Croatian Republic of Herceg-Bosna.  In other words, a Croatian republic,

12    and the borders should encompass as many areas as possible in the whole of

13    Central Bosnia.  I believe we can achieve this by military means if

14    necessary in order to make sure that things are developing the way they

15    are developing."

16            One final exhibit on this point and I'll move forward.

17    Exhibit P 08288, 31 May 1994.  This is after the Washington Agreement, but

18    this reveals, Your Honours, that the plan was not dead, the vision was

19    alive, and it was going forward.  31st of May, 1994.  Tudjman tells the

20    assembled Herceg-Bosna leaders, including Jadranko Prlic, Dario Kordic,

21    and others:  "We must pursue our policy in such a way as to take control

22    of Bosnia without --"

23            JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Scott.

24            MR. SCOTT:  Yes.

25            JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] When you're quoting something,

Page 27044

 1    does it appear on the screen, does the evidence or does that particular

 2    document appear on the screen so that we can see it very quickly?  Did you

 3    ask the clerk to do that for us?

 4            MR. SCOTT:  Well, we have not -- again in the interests of time if

 5    I was really doing the full show, I would have all that organised for you.

 6    We have not had time to do that, but perhaps sometime in the future we

 7    can.  The Chamber will have to of course check when I give you the exhibit

 8    number, and certainly correct, verify my statements, but if I say

 9    something is a quote, Your Honour, it's not my word, it's being taken out

10    of the exhibit.  I do anticipate hopefully some day perhaps in the closing

11    arguments to be able to perhaps make a fuller presentation on these

12    points.

13            But Tudjman says:  "We must pursue our policy, and we will conduct

14    a smart policy.  We have to be seen, we have to be seen as siding with the

15    Muslims, but we don't want them to create their Muslim state and that

16    poses a problem."  And Tudjman assured the Herceg-Bosna leaders to get the

17    Muslims to declare themselves "Croats of Muslim faith."  "Get down to it

18    right now.  We have no other choice."

19            Your Honour, then as you -- on that basis the establishment of

20    Herceg-Bosna, the establishment of the HVO itself in April of -- in April

21    and May of 1992.  The Chamber will also recall the testimony of witnesses

22    such again as Stjepan Kljuic, Milivoj Gagro.  They talked about the

23    political developments in 1991 and to the end of that year, again leading

24    up to the important meeting in Zagreb on the 27th of December, 1991, a

25    meeting which Kljuic attended and gave us his own personal account of and

Page 27045

 1    how that was essentially the final big showdown between the moderate arm,

 2    if you will, of the HDZ party in Bosnia and the more extremist arm led by

 3    Mate Boban, Dario Kordic, and others.  And at the end of that meeting it's

 4    clear that the moderate arm has lost the day and the extremist and the

 5    hard-line arm has won the day, and Tudjman endorses that and again makes a

 6    number of final pronouncements in that meeting.

 7            In fact, at the conclusion of that meeting again, Exhibit P 00089,

 8    Tudjman after hearing all the sides voicing their positions, Tudjman says:

 9            "Why not accept offer of demarcation when it is in the interest of

10    the Croatian people, because I do not see a single reason, a serious

11    reason against it.  In the event of demarcation, Croatia would not only

12    get those two communities, Herceg-Bosna and the Posavina, but also for

13    geopolitical reasons Cazinska and Bihacka Krajina which would satisfy

14    almost ideally the Croatian national interest and to create a statelet,

15    therefore out of the remaining part around Sarajevo where mostly Muslims

16    and some Catholic Croats would stay which would resemble the small

17    historical land of Bosnia.  It would, therefore, be a buffer zone in the

18    demarcation of Serbia and Croatia and in such conditions it would have to

19    rely on Croatia to a large extent.  From that viewpoint not even some sort

20    of cannonisation with the continuing existence of Bosnia and Herzegovina

21    would mean for us the solution, which is the solution of demarcation."

22            We then have, Your Honour, a series of exhibits and a series of

23    evidence which talks about and establishes what the Prosecution calls in

24    the indictment and you have heard discussed in the case as the

25    two-track -- two-track policy or approach and that was essentially this:

Page 27046

 1    That on the one hand some of the meetings and some of the transcripts that

 2    we've already referred to have mentioned this, that there was a very

 3    deliberate policy announced by Tudjman, confirmed by others, again if we

 4    had the time we could go through transcript after transcript, where

 5    basically the policy is this:  On the one hand we'll be publicly saying

 6    that we support a sovereign Bosnia-Herzegovina, we'll say that we support

 7    an undivided Bosnia-Herzegovina, but in reality we have another agenda.

 8    In reality, that's the agenda we will be pursuing.

 9            At the famous 27 December 1991 meeting there is one example of

10    this.  Perica Juric says:  "At the diplomatic level our people in Sarajevo

11    can continue swearing they are in favour of a sovereign Bosnia-Herzegovina

12    as we have done so far -- as they have done so far."  And Tudjman himself

13    articulated this policy in a meeting with Bosnian Croat leaders in March

14    1993.  This is in Exhibit P 01594.  Although the diplomatic climate

15    required that they pay lip-service to a "sovereign BiH" Tudjman made it

16    clear that this was not a permanent situation.  "So for the time being,

17    the West is opting for an integral Bosnia-Herzegovina but with a political

18    system that will probably lead to a final solution and few in the world

19    believe that it is possible.  If Yugoslavia could not survive, how could

20    Bosnia and Herzegovina survive?"

21            Even months -- that was in December 1991, and even by July 1993,

22    July 1993, in the middle of the core period of this case, in Exhibit

23    P 03195, Tudjman's saying to his assembled leaders, his -- the inside

24    group:  "We will not be saying even now that we are openly in favour of

25    dividing Bosnia, just as we recommended in -- to the Croats of

Page 27047

 1    Bosnia-Herzegovina to vote in the referendum when the Serbs had already

 2    broken away."

 3            But there follows then, Your Honours, and I'm going to summarise

 4    very quickly some pages and pages of exhibits and testimony, but by the

 5    spring of 1992, the HVO has been established and the Chamber will recall

 6    the evidence from various municipal leaders who have told the Chamber

 7    about how in municipality after municipality there was the HVO taking

 8    power, seizing power, excluding the Muslims from the governments, from

 9    businesses.  Oh, perhaps there would be a few Muslims that would be left,

10    a few.  And how there was the policy of Croatisation.  There's got to be

11    Croat curriculum in the schools.  The Croatian language has to be used.

12    Croatian currency has to be used.  Change the name of street signs to

13    Croatian names.  No longer refer to Prozor as Prozor but call it Rama, et

14    cetera, et cetera.  And this process goes on throughout 1992, and there's

15    a number of exhibits on that and documents and testimony of the witnesses

16    who talk about that.

17            And again here, and I'm selecting only a few things, but going

18    again to the adjudicated facts, facts that the Chamber can take as a

19    foundation point.  "Croat nationalism and discrimination against Muslims

20    was on the increase in Central Bosnia in 1992, 1993."  Adjudicated fact

21    104.

22            "Mostar was politically dominated by the BH Croats."  Adjudicated

23    fact 223.

24            "A provision adopted by the Republic of Croatia gave to all

25    members of the Croatian nation the right to citizenship."  Adjudicated

Page 27048

 1    fact 106.

 2            "Another law authorised all Croats to vote in the elections in

 3    Croatia thus allowing the Bosnian Croats with Bosnian nationality to vote

 4    in the parliamentary elections in the Republic of Croatia."  Adjudicated

 5    fact 107.

 6            "BH Croats could with ease could obtain Croatian passports, enjoy

 7    Croatian nationality and vote in elections in the Republic of Croatia."

 8    Adjudicated fact 108.

 9            "There was a split between Croats and Muslims in 1992."

10    Adjudicated fact 41.

11            Again we saw various aspects of this process in 1992 at work,

12    including taking control of the media.  I guess we all know by the first

13    part of the 21st century that one of the first things one tries to do in a

14    situation like this is get control of the media.  That was done.  The HVO

15    took over the radio station, changed its name to Croat Radio Mostar, et

16    cetera, et cetera.

17            Again by 1994, Jadranko Prlic could report to Tudjman in Exhibit

18    P 04759.  "Mr. President, every Croat in Bosnia-Herzegovina is a paid

19    Croat.  Everyone is on the salary of the Herceg-Bosna budget except for

20    the part that is in Serbian territory."

21            There has been discussion in the case and various evidence --

22    various evidence concerning the question of the element of Serb and Croat

23    cooperation in the areas and at the times most relevant to the indictment

24    in this case.  I'm going to cut through most of what I had prepared to

25    give you one, I think, example of that that tells the story, if only one

Page 27049

 1    piece of evidence could be considered, and that is again a meeting

 2    involving Mr. Tudjman and Slobodan Praljak and others, which is Exhibit

 3    P 05096, in late September 1993.

 4            The scope and nature of the Croat-Serb cooperation and the extent

 5    to which it had actually become a critical part of the HVO military

 6    process can be seen in that conversation when under international pressure

 7    the possibility of peace with the Bosnian Muslims was being considered by

 8    Tudjman and his senior advisors, including Praljak, serious concerns were

 9    expressed and addressed in that meeting as to how a changed relationship

10    with the Muslims would affect the Croats' good cooperation with the Serbs.

11             "Praljak:  The relations between the Croats and the Serbs have

12    improved, especially on the military plane, because our whole units depend

13    on cooperation with the Serbs.  In BH this agreement with the Muslims will

14    aggravate that a lot therefore Zepce, Kiseljak and thus Vitez the

15    battalion below Konjic and Vares, it will now be difficult for us to

16    provide them with supplies."

17            And then Tudjman intercedes and says:  "Well that may be the case,

18    Praljak, but we've got to do a deal with the Muslims here."  Praljak

19    argues that it's going to take time to adjust to this new situation.

20            "Praljak:  It will stop," that the fighting with the Muslims will

21    stop, "but this is going to be different.  A year ago, we thought we could

22    not hold talks with the Serbs at all, but we have received some agreement

23    with the Serbs --"

24            THE INTERPRETER:  Mr. Scott is kindly asked to slow down, please.

25            MR. SCOTT:  My apologies.

Page 27050

 1            "And now we should start a war against them in order to ease the

 2    tension with the Muslims, and it will probably take time to turn things

 3    around psychologically."

 4             "We have to change our thinking.  We've been cooperating with the

 5    Serbs and now we have to completely change our way of doing things.  Some

 6    of our units depend on their relationships with the Serbs in Vares, in

 7    Kiseljak and other areas."  That's what Slobodan Praljak said about

 8    cooperation with the Serbs.

 9            I then want to address, Your Honours, an element -- a broader

10    element as we go forward in this overview, and as we turn to the fall of

11    1992, what is the environment, what is the context in which these things

12    have all been happening?  The war in the former Yugoslavia has now already

13    been going on for some time, and the Prosecution believes that it is

14    important for the Chamber to note that these armed conflicts,

15    persecutions, ethnic cleansings, and mass detentions in the former

16    Yugoslavia didn't just begin in 1993 with this indictment.

17            By August 1992, as reflected in Exhibit P 05096; the UN Security

18    Council had already repeatedly expressed its "grave alarm at the

19    widespread violations of international humanitarian law in the former

20    Yugoslavia," including "mass forcible expulsion and deportation of

21    civilians, imprisonment and abuse of civilians in detention centres,

22    deliberate attacks on non-combatants, impeding the delivery of food and

23    medical supplies to the civilian population, and wanton -- excuse me --

24    devastation and destruction of property."  It -- the Security Council

25    "strongly condemned" any violations of international humanitarian law

Page 27051

 1    including those involved in the practice of what was already by August

 2    1992 being called "ethnic cleansing."

 3            Much of this information in this particular aspect I will

 4    summarise it this way, Your Honours, and there is a lot of this evidence

 5    in the record, there's extensive documentation of the UN, Resolution after

 6    Resolution, report after report establishing what even by mid-1992 had

 7    already occurred and already characterised the conflict in the former

 8    Yugoslavia.  The Chamber may recall that Dr. Miller summarised much of

 9    this evidence in his report, Exhibit P 10239, titled "The Characteristics

10    and Patterns of the Balkan Conflict as Widely-Known and Reported by the

11    Latter Part of 1992."  Dr. Miller concluded in his report, which I think

12    aptly summarises substantial body of evidence on this, but we don't have

13    time to go through it all this afternoon:  "Throughout 1991 and by the

14    summer and autumn of 1992, the dominant characteristics of a conflict

15    based on ethnicity and the practices and patterns of behaviour involved in

16    such conflict became and were widely reported, publicly recognised, and

17    well-understood.  Attacks on civilians, forcible population transfers, and

18    large-scale detentions were already a known part of what was already

19    called 'ethnic cleansing'."

20            Dr. Miller went on to conclude:  "Any moderately informed person

21    living and working in the former Yugoslavia could not but have known of

22    these developments and reports and the characteristics and practices

23    involved in the Balkan conflict.  The actions of the warring sides through

24    the middle of 1992, illustrate clearly that killings of civilians, forced

25    expulsions and widespread destruction would ensue, would ensue should any

Page 27052

 1    ethnic group try to subjugate another in Bosnia-Herzegovina.  The ethnic

 2    nature of the conflict was clear before it ever began as the violence in

 3    Plitvice, Borovo Selo, and Pakrac demonstrate.  The likelihood of violence

 4    against civilians was made clear by events in Dalj, Tenja, and literally

 5    dozens of other individual cases examples of which were examined above" in

 6    his report.

 7            That is the knowledge environment or the information environment,

 8    if you will, that already existed by mid-1992, before any of the

 9    significant crimes in had this case had been committed.  And in fact that

10    takes us up to October of 1992 and the first major breakout of Muslim and

11    Croat fighting at Prozor and Novi Travnik at the end of October of 1992.

12            In light of what Dr. Miller summarised for us and in fact and as

13    Boban himself predicted, most Bosnian Muslims did not, would not, accept

14    HVO control even when it was thrust upon them.  By the latter part of

15    1992, it was clear that Tudjman's and the Herceg-Bosna's leadership

16    Greater Croatia project could not be achieve only by political pressure or

17    what might be called the softer forms of persecution.  It was clear that

18    more forcible action would be required with ethnic violence, armed

19    conflict, and forcible involuntary transfers.  In fact, the Croatian and

20    Herceg-Bosna leadership were already preparing for the conflict even just

21    a few weeks before the outbreak of fighting in Prozor in October.

22            Again, in a meeting on the 11th of September, 1992, Exhibit

23    P 00466, Slobodan Praljak told Tudjman and Susak:  "War with the Muslims

24    can be anticipated."

25            And Susak answers Praljak:  "We have been aware of that for over a

Page 27053

 1    week now, and we have made preparations on what needs to be done."  11

 2    September 1992, Prozor, 23 October 1992.

 3            In that same meeting the conversation continues:

 4            "Tudjman:  Gentlemen, gentlemen.  Let's not or generality -- we

 5    have nothing to conquer.  Let's defend those Croatian --"

 6            And Praljak jumps in:  "Nowhere, Mr. President.  It is impossible

 7    to pass further.

 8            "Tudjman:  And let's get ready."

 9            11th of September, 1992.

10            "Let's get ready to cleanse them out of Croatia.  As I said, do

11    not get involved in conquering Bosnia."

12            "Praljak:  No, Mr. President, believe me, the attacks have been

13    stopped."

14            "Susak:  Nothing out of the Banovina.  We did not trespass, not

15    even one metre."

16            "Praljak:  Believe me, we would be there within 12 hours, in the

17    empty Nevesinje, Trebinje, without any problem."

18            "Susak:  There is no problem for us to enter tomorrow.  We can't

19    because that's how it is."

20            "Tudjman:  Don't, because -- listen, we have to be -- let's be

21    realistic.  We have hardly escaped both the Islamic government and the

22    world to have sanctions imposed on us because we are allegedly also

23    aggressors in Bosnia, those who are conquering Bosnia.  Accordingly don't

24    do it."

25            That is, don't go one step beyond the Banovina.

Page 27054

 1            Susak responds:  "President, we are disciplined to the maximum."

 2            In a second meeting a few days later involving many of the same

 3    participants, on the 26th of September, 1992, so again only a short time

 4    prior to Prozor, on the 26th of September, 1992, in Exhibit P 00524,

 5    Slobodan Praljak warns Tudjman and Susak of the danger presented by the

 6    influx of Muslim refugees in the parts of Herceg-Bosna, in parts of

 7    Herzegovina claimed by Herceg-Bosna.  And Praljak gives his advice to

 8    Tudjman and Susak:  "Better to deal with the situation now during a time

 9    of war because it would be difficult to expel them later."

10            Exhibit P 00524 at pages 17 and 18.  Praljak talking:  "There were

11    some talks in the government that the refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina

12    should be allowed to enter Croatia in anyway and at any price since these

13    refugees are already on the territory where the Croatian people are.  Then

14    from Croatia under the pressure of the international community they should

15    be sent to the border and to hell with them.  As it seems now, and due to

16    the people settling on the territory from Travnik and below, I am afraid

17    our chances will be bad at the moment when the war is over.  There's been

18    a great change in the ethnic structure, and to solve that with them by

19    war, the civil, international rights," the conversation is a bit, sporadic

20    but "the civil, international rights et cetera, it will be difficult in

21    any form to expel those people from there and without expelling those

22    people we will not have a majority."  Praljak in September 1992.

23            As so often happens the case, I realise we are coming up to the

24    time for the break, but what see also, what the evidence shows again and

25    again, Your Honours, is a -- the delivery of an HVO and HDZ demand or

Page 27055

 1    ultimatum rejected by the Muslims and then followed up by action, force by

 2    the HVO.  And that's exactly what we saw in Prozor in October 1992, what

 3    we saw in Gornji Vakuf in January 1993, what we see in Central Bosnia and

 4    in Sovici Doljani in April 1993, over and over and over again the same

 5    pattern repeats itself.

 6            On the 23rd of October 1992 in Exhibit P 00628, just days after

 7    the conversations between Praljak, Tudjman and Susak we've talked about in

 8    the last few minutes, the HVO leadership in Prozor insist that the Muslims

 9    accept the HVO political and military structures, and in that document

10    they say this, they make these demands on the Muslims:  One, we demand an

11    urgent and unconditional cessation of all military operations.  Two, we

12    insist on an urgent dispatch of all your soldiers to bring up to strength

13    the units at the first combat line towards the Chetniks, of course.

14    Three, withdrawal of all armed units from the town.  Four, passage for the

15    military police units coming from outside our municipality on their way to

16    their final destination as per their combat task.  And five, and most

17    importantly for this purpose, we insist on an urgent and instant

18    acceptance of the civilian and military structure of the HVO HZ HB in

19    which Muslims' representatives will also be -- will also participate

20    proportionally they say.

21            Instant acceptance of the civilian and military structure of the

22    HVO.  Well, the Muslims again say no, and then we have the fighting in

23    Prozor on the 23rd and 24th of October, 1992.

24            Now, there couldn't have been much of a fight because by the 24th

25    of October, 1992, in Exhibit P 00647, the HVO operative zone commander

Page 27056

 1    Zeljko Siljeg reports up the HVO chain of command:  "The town of Prozor

 2    and Rama Lake are under the control of the Prozor HVO.  These two areas

 3    are ethnically pure.  The Muslim population has been detained or has

 4    fled."  As of the 24th of October, 1992.

 5            I'm looking at the clock and my outline.  That would be a good

 6    time to break if that's agreeable to the Chamber.

 7            JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] We'll break for 20 minutes.

 8                           --- Recess taken at 3.43 p.m.

 9                           --- On resuming at 4.08 p.m.

10            JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Scott, you have the floor.

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

12            Just before we leave Prozor, October of 1992, we of course do not

13    want to leave Mr. Coric out of the picture, and Exhibit P 00956 is

14    Mr. Coric's report on the work of the HVO military police covering really

15    the period from its foundation in April 1992 to the end of the year 1992.

16    The report itself dated the 26th December 1992.  And I might just invite

17    the Chamber to  -- it's one of those few exhibits that covers the entire

18    period from the formation of the military police to the end of that year.

19    That is a source of a great deal of information should the Chamber wish to

20    peruse it.

21            In that report, Mr. Coric says about Prozor:  "On 23 October,

22    1992, there was an armed clash between members of the BH army and the HVO

23    in Prozor and military police units intervened.  Within a short time, the

24    town was under the control of the military police.  On the military police

25    side, one member was killed and five were wounded.  At the same time,

Page 27057

 1    there was a clash in Gornji Vakuf and Bugojno."

 2            At the same time, and to put this in a broader context, in that

 3    same report Mr. Coric reported on the 21st of October, 1992, regarding a

 4    worsening situation in Central Bosnia, a complete blockade of the town of

 5    Mostar was achieved.  Five hundred military policemen took part in that

 6    operation.

 7            So the HVO military police were also at work under Mr. Coric's

 8    leadership.

 9            By the end of 1992, which we've now arrived at, and early 1993,

10    there are - excuse me - the developments of the Vance-Owen peace proposals

11    and discussions.  While neither the Serbs or Muslims had agreed to the

12    Vance-Owen proposals by mid-January 1993, and, yes, there were some pieces

13    that some agreed to, sometimes there would be part of the map or some part

14    of the plan.  So there's no confusion on that.  There were times when

15    certain parts would be accepted but never the entire plan.  And while

16    neither the Serbs nor the Muslims had agreed to the plan, by mid-January

17    of 1993, Tudjman, Susak, and the Herceg-Bosna HVO leadership, including

18    the accused, found the Vance-Owen proposals as they envisioned and as they

19    interpreted them much to their favour.  Once again essentially by the

20    borders of the Vance-Owen provinces 3, 8, and 10, essentially giving them

21    the Banovina borders.  The problem being again this despite the fact that

22    many of the areas included within those borders had majority or at least

23    equal Muslim populations but not agreed or consented to be part of

24    Herceg-Bosna.

25            Indeed, the Vance-Owen proposal appeared to give the Croats, who

Page 27058

 1    at that time comprised approximately 17.5 per cent of the overall BiH

 2    population, approximately 28 per cent of BiH's overall territory.  Tudjman

 3    himself later stated in June 1993, in Exhibit P 02613, that the proposed

 4    Vance-Owen provinces 3, 8, and 10 were in fact "roughly what in 1939

 5    became part of the Banovina of Croatia."

 6            It was because of this apparent favourable treatment that the

 7    Croats received under the Vance-Owen discussions, again at least as

 8    interpreted by them, that the saying began circulating in Zagreb in BiH

 9    that HVO stood for "Hvala, Vance-Owen."

10            By mid-January 1993, the Herceg-Bosna HVO leadership was so eager,

11    in fact, to implement their vision of the Vance-Owen proposal that they

12    refused to wait for the Muslims and Serbs to accept their interpretation

13    and instead took unilateral action to implement it.

14            At a meeting in Zagreb again on the 15th of January 1993, which is

15    recorded in Exhibit P 01158, Tudjman, Susak, and Boban failed to convince

16    Bosnia-Herzegovina's President Alija Izetbegovic - this is also a meeting

17    attended on the record by Alija Izetbegovic - failed to convince

18    Izetbegovic to accept their views.  The 15th of January, 1993.  And then

19    immediately set out to implement their plans in any event.

20            Izetbegovic complained during this meeting that the Herceg-Bosna

21    HVO authorities had disenfranchised the Muslims of Mostar, who comprised

22    half the city's population and that the HZ HB and HVO authorities had

23    elsewhere dissolved legal governments.  Izetbegovic also drew attention to

24    the fact that Tudjman, Susak, and Boban were interpreting the Vance-Owen

25    Plan as a green light to force the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina to

Page 27059

 1    withdraw from the three regions of Bosnia and Herzegovina that the Croat

 2    leaders considered theirs.

 3            Izetbegovic makes it very clear in this meeting -- read the

 4    transcript, and he makes it very clear on the 15th of January that's not

 5    his position, that's not his view.

 6            "Izetbegovic:  That's not how I understood the papers, and I don't

 7    know whether this was the intention of these documents, because I do not

 8    see that they define who has what territories, whose armies these are, you

 9    know.  So I'm afraid what is now going on in Gornji Vakuf may have been

10    caused by a misunderstanding of this item of these agreements."

11            Izetbegovic goes on:  "I don't think this was foreseen in any of

12    these proposals.  It was not foreseen that the army of Bosnia and

13    Herzegovina should leave either the Travnik province or Mostar.  That's

14    not how I understood these papers."

15            On the same day, 15th of January, 1993, notwithstanding

16    Izetbegovic's unequivocal position reject being the HVO position, the HVO

17    President Jadranko Prlic signed a decision that "all units of the army of

18    Bosnia and Herzegovina which at this moment are stationed in provinces 3,

19    8, and 10, which have been declared Croatian provinces in the

20    Geneva Accords, shall be subordinated to the command of the Main Staff of

21    the HVO armed forces.  The deadline for implementing this decision is

22    hereby set at five days starting from today, 15 January 1993."  And that

23    is Exhibit P 01155.

24            Now, Your Honours, we see in this instance a full demonstration of

25    the HVO chain of command, because first it starts with the decision that I

Page 27060

 1    just quoted by Jadranko Prlic, P 01155, and immediately following on that

 2    the defence minister or department head Bruno Stojic issues his order,

 3    Exhibit P 01140, specifically referencing the Prlic decision, which then

 4    is followed in turn, just as you would expect it, president, Ministry of

 5    Defence, top military professional or soldier followed by the

 6    corresponding order of the chief of the HVO Main Staff Milivoj Petkovic,

 7    which is Exhibit P 01139.  Issued up and down the chain of command all on

 8    the 15th of January, 1993, with Petkovic's order again specifically

 9    referring by description and number to the Prlic decision and the Stojic

10    order.

11            Once again, the core of these facts is established, at least in

12    part, by the adjudicated facts.

13            "Mate Boban, the leader of the HDZ BiH immediately agreed to the

14    terms of the Vance-Owen Peace Plan as it promised huge gains in territory

15    for the Bosnian Croats."  Adjudicated fact 126.

16            "Mate Boban signed the Vance-Owen Plan on behalf of the BH Croats

17    on 2 January 1993.  Neither the BH Serbs nor the BH Muslim representatives

18    had signed the plan at this stage."  Adjudicated fact 128.

19            "Despite knowing that the other parties had not signed, but filled

20    with confidence that they had the world's opinion behind them, the BH

21    Croats attempted to implement the Vance-Owen Plan unilaterally."

22    Adjudicated fact 129.

23            Despite the fact that neither the president of Bosnia-Herzegovina,

24    Mr. Izetbegovic, nor the international peace negotiators had agreed to the

25    unilateral implementation of their views of the Vance-Owen proposals, the

Page 27061

 1    HVO authorities and forces with the passage of the deadline set in the

 2    Prlic decision took military and violent actions to enforce the ultimatum,

 3    attacking and pressing the Muslims at a number of locations including at

 4    Novi Travnik, Gornji Vakuf, as charged in the indictment, and Busovaca.

 5            In his regular report to the HVO Main Staff on the 16th of

 6    January, 1993, a day after the Prlic-Stojic-Petkovic orders, the operative

 7    zone commander for the north-west operative zone Zeljko Siljeg reported:

 8    "Tonight at Gornji Vakuf, Colonel Siljeg and Colonel Andric negotiated

 9    with BH army representatives.  There were no results.  Unless there is an

10    agreement -- unless there is an agreement, Gornji Vakuf southern

11    strongholds will be taken and our line strengthened.  General Praljak sent

12    them a message that they will be annihilated if they do not accept the

13    decisions of HZ HB."

14            Indeed as the 20 January deadline approached and passed, the first

15    major armed conflict between the HVO and Muslims since Prozor in October

16    1992 broke out again, as I've said, in Gornji Vakuf and other parts

17    primarily in Central Bosnia.

18            The international observers on the ground saw clearly that the

19    confrontations were caused by what they called in their own words:  "The

20    HVO's premature and imperfect grab for control."  That's at Exhibit

21    P 01285, an UNPROFOR headquarters report on the 24th of January, 1993,

22    stating in fuller measure:  "Since the Geneva talks in early January,

23    tensions have steadily increased between elements of both the Croat HVO

24    and the principally Muslim army of BH in central and Southern BH.  Over

25    the past week the political and military leaders of the Croatian Community

Page 27062

 1    of Herceg-Bosna have begun to implement their understanding,"

 2    understanding in quotation marks, "their 'understanding' of the proposed

 3    settlement.  This premature and imperfect grab for control of provinces 3,

 4    8, and 10 has resulted in high tensions and heavy fighting."

 5            "Coincidental --" skipping down further in the report, the same

 6    UNPROFOR report, "Coincidental with the recent preparations for a return

 7    to Geneva, HVO units from the clearly Croat-dominated southern opstinas

 8    have been moved into central BH.  More disturbingly, UN source reports of

 9    soldiers wearing patches identifying them as members of the Croatian army

10    units in this area have been received.  The role of these soldiers is not

11    clear, but the sightings tend to correlate to areas where HVO units from

12    southern opstinas are in position."

13            On the 25th of January, 1993, in Exhibit P 01297, Tudjman again

14    makes it clear there's no misunderstanding that Izetbegovic has not agreed

15    in any way to this course, and Tudjman specifically recognised

16    Izetbegovic's contrary position not endorsing the HVO view as posing upon

17    the plan.  Tudjman says:  "Izetbegovic's position on Bosnia's future did

18    not agree with the Croatia's state interest and with the interest of the

19    Croatian leaders in Bosnia-Herzegovina."  A clear reference to Boban and

20    company.

21            On the 27th of January, two days later, in Exhibit P 01325, during

22    the ongoing conflict in what now has broken out and the fighting in

23    Central Bosnia, Gornji Vakuf, Busovaca, Novi Travnik, while that's going

24    on, Susak reports in a meeting with Tudjman he had received updates from

25    Stojic and Kordic on the fighting in Busovaca and said that Praljak and

Page 27063

 1    Stojic had "organised everything they could down there in the south."

 2    Praljak and Stojic had organised everything.

 3            By 1 February 1993, UNPROFOR reported:  "The HVO continues to show

 4    strong resolution to control the future 'Croat provinces' 8 and 10.

 5    Without the prospect of a near-term settlement, the basis for the HVO's

 6    assertion of control over proposed provinces 3, 8, and 10 is seriously

 7    diminished.  Their premature grab for power clearly displayed to all

 8    concerned the Croatian Community's intentions."  And that's Exhibit 09516.

 9            Now, although local cease-fires were then established by late

10    January and early February of 1993, Tudjman, Boban, and the others had no

11    intention, of course, of giving up the Greater Croatia project.  On the

12    8th of March, 1993, as reflected in Exhibit P 01622, Boban said to

13    Tudjman, Susak, and a group of Bosnian Croat leaders assembled:  "If

14    Bosnia and Herzegovina exist at all, we shall have a border.  We know

15    exactly how.  We have a plan prepared in advance.  Herceg-Bosna will never

16    cease to exist.  Even within the framework of anything else, it will still

17    be Herceg-Bosna."

18            In another meeting a day later, on the 9th of March, Tudjman once

19    again -- this is Exhibit P 01452, and I'll have to check the date of that

20    Your Honours, there may be a mistake, it may be the 9th of February, but

21    it is Exhibit P 01452, and as I look at it now it occurs to me the date

22    may be wrong.  But in that exhibit Tudjman does say:  "The continuing

23    problem was that the Muslims did not agree with Croat authority being

24    established in the provinces designated as Croatian."

25            Susak states during this meeting:  "Izetbegovic must turn up with

Page 27064

 1    a statement that provinces between Croats and Serbs are indisputable and

 2    that must be a prerequisite."

 3            While tensions remained high and there were local skirmishes,

 4    major conflict between the Muslims and Croats was primarily avoided,

 5    essentially avoided until the end of March 1993.

 6            And I'm told, Your Honour, that the date is in fact the 9th of

 7    February, Exhibit 1452.  Thank you.

 8            While there was a period of no major conflict until the end of

 9    March 1993, at that time, on about the 26th or 27th of March, Izetbegovic

10    does sign most of the Vance-Owen Plan for the first time provisionally

11    accepting the plan but a number of important items still not resolved.

12    First, conditioned on -- that the Serbs also agree to the plan, which they

13    never did; and two, with certain military aspects and disposition of

14    forces still to be resolved.

15            In this regard, it's important for the Chamber to recognise, and

16    this is in the documents, the Vance-Owen Plan signed by Izetbegovic did

17    not, did not, provide for the subordination of ABiH units in provinces 8

18    and 10 to the HVO but expressly stated, and this is in Exhibit P 01398,

19    it's a part of the Vance-Owen papers, it's a sub-annex called "Withdrawal

20    of forces," and on that annex it says:  "Both Bosnian army and HVO forces

21    shall be deployed in provinces 5, 8, 9, and 10 under arrangements agreed

22    between them."

23            Once again we're assisted at this time at this part of the

24    chronology by some adjudicated facts.

25            "The negotiations around the Vance-Owen Plan continued in February

Page 27065

 1    and March 1993."  Adjudicated fact 151.

 2            "President Izetbegovic signed the Vance-Owen Plan on behalf of the

 3    BH Muslims on 25 March 1993.  The BH Serb representatives still did not

 4    agree to the plan."  Adjudicated fact 152.

 5            "On the 3rd of April, 1993, the HVO leadership met in Mostar to

 6    discuss the implementation of the Vance-Owen Peace Plan."  Adjudicated

 7    fact 155.

 8            I submit to Your Honours that there are at least two documents

 9    around this period of time that are absolutely critical for the Chamber to

10    review in full.  Actually, three.  One, again, the Chamber won't be

11    surprised is another presidential transcript P 01737, on the 27th of

12    March, 1993.  In another meeting with, yet again, with Izetbegovic,

13    also -- and others, Tudjman pressed Izetbegovic in this meeting, which you

14    can read, told Izetbegovic to meet with Slobodan Praljak and to issue a

15    joint statement agreeing, agreeing, to the HVO takeover of the so-called

16    Croat provinces and the removal or subordination of the BH army in those

17    provinces.

18            Remember what I said a moment ago?  There was this annex.  There

19    had been no agreement on the disposition of the HVO and ABiH forces.  That

20    was yet to be agreed.  And on the 27th of March, Tudjman is urging

21    Izetbegovic, Meet with Praljak and reach a further agreement.

22            At the same time -- that's Exhibit P 01737.

23            At the same time, Boban puts forward his proposed 2 April 1993

24    "joint statement," which is Exhibit P 01792, and another very important

25    document which the evidence shows Izetbegovic never did sign.  It was a

Page 27066

 1    joint statement in name only, prepared -- drafted and prepared by the HVO,

 2    signed by Mate Boban, never signed by the Muslim side, which again then

 3    set another deadline, just as in January, setting a deadline of the 15th

 4    of April, 1993, for the ABiH to subordinate its units to the HVO in

 5    provinces 8 and 10 or to withdraw.  Now, remember the date 15th of April,

 6    1993.

 7            One of the two documents -- two or three documents that I

 8    indicated a moment ago that I urged the Chamber to consider in this part

 9    of the case, because if there is one particular meeting of a number of

10    people that says this is how we're going forward next with the plan is

11    reflected in the -- in the minutes of the Herceg-Bosna HVO meeting on the

12    3rd of April, 1993.

13            On that day -- and that's Exhibit P 01798.  And it's unusual,

14    among other things, because Mr. Boban rarely attended the meetings of the

15    HVO government that were chaired by Mr. Prlic as president of the HVO

16    government, but on this occasion Boban also was there.  And those present

17    include Jadranko Prlic, "chairing the meeting," the president of the

18    Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna Mate Boban, Bruno Stojic, and a host of

19    other senior HVO officials.

20            Making reference to the proposed joint statement, the one that

21    Izetbegovic never signed, setting a 15 April 1993 deadline, the HVO

22    minutes state:  "The HVO HZ HB," that is the body over which Jadranko

23    Prlic presided, the government of the HVO, "The HVO HZ HB hopes that

24    because of the enormous importance of the statement Mr. Alija Izetbegovic

25    will sign this document because it is yet further evidence of a desire for

Page 27067

 1    peace which everybody wants.  At this meeting, the HVO HZ HB adopted the

 2    position that if the aforementioned statement is not signed by the leaders

 3    of the Muslim delegations in provinces 3, 8, and 10, then the basic

 4    premise in the peace plan which states that all ethnic armed forces have

 5    to withdraw to their domicile provinces should apply."

 6            I'm still quoting the minutes.

 7            "If the joint statement is not implemented, the appropriate

 8    military and other authorities of the HVO HZ HB shall implement this

 9    provision of the basic document of the peace plan in regions number 3, 8,

10    and 10."

11            And I won't take the time again to quote all of it because we'll

12    be here longer than probably everyone wants to be but the document goes

13    on -- the same minutes go on to say:  "Since the powers of the future

14    central authorities and the authorities in the provinces have been clearly

15    and separately defined by the basic document and the agreement on the

16    provisional organisation, the HVO HZ HB will prevent all attempts to

17    install various organs appointed by the current one-sided Presidency and

18    the government of the RBH Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina."

19            And the minutes conclude in that part by saying:  "It was also

20    agreed at the meeting that in the next couple of days members of the HVO

21    HZ HB should visit all municipalities in the provinces numbers 3, 8, and

22    10 in order to explain to the authorities the essence of the Vance-Owen

23    documents and the conclusions of this meeting."

24            A very thought out plan.  We need to get out.  We need to get out

25    there among the people.  Let's get out in the municipalities.  Let's tell

Page 27068

 1    them what's happening, tell them what the plan is.  That's in the minutes.

 2            And in fact we know from another document, in fact even prior to

 3    this meeting, on the 2nd of April, the day before, Slobodan Praljak and

 4    Valentin Coric had already started preaching the gospel and had gone into

 5    Central Bosnia on that occasion and met with the -- with Dario Kordic,

 6    Tihomir Blaskic, and the assembled HVO military leaders in Central Bosnia.

 7    Slobodan Praljak, Valentin Coric.  This is that minute.  That meeting is

 8    reflected in Exhibit P 01788.

 9            Praljak chairs the meeting again with Blaskic and Kordic there and

10    gives a report and a rundown to the people in Central Bosnia.  The

11    document says:  "General Praljak opened the meeting by informing those

12    present about the arrival of five or six commissioned officers from

13    Herzegovina.  He briefly reported on the signing of the plan and pointed

14    out that UNPROFOR would be staying for another three months."  Probably a

15    bit optimistic.  "This declaration establishes the immutability of the

16    borders of the Republic of Croatia.  No way to change them any more

17    peaceably or by force.  The Republic of Croatia can now itself sign

18    treaties with international organisations.  This declaration represents a

19    great victory and we must have patience."

20            He goes on to say:  "The Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina,

21    Alija Izetbegovic's option, is finally out of the question.  He has

22    signed."

23            Well, he signed it to the extent that I described earlier.

24            The minutes go on, and I'm going to address them at length because

25    I think they are telling, the minutes go on with Slobodan Praljak giving a

Page 27069

 1    report and a pep-talk to those in Central Bosnia:  "The Croatian Community

 2    of Herceg-Bosna will remain.  It will have its own Assembly and the

 3    provincial government will rule the country.  The central government will

 4    have nothing.  The Sarajevo province will not stay the way you see it now.

 5    The West is not interested in history but in the number of Croats in these

 6    parts.  There would only be 1 per cent of Croats left in the whole of

 7    Bosnia and Herzegovina due to moving out and the population of the Muslims

 8    and Serbs.  Salvation lies in protecting the population and enhancing the

 9    birth rate.  Our population outside these provinces will have a hard life.

10    The Muslims are not aware of their losses.  You must be patient with them.

11    All those who came will be refugees.  Croats will be able to come to their

12    own provinces from wherever they want and in whichever way they want.  The

13    Muslim provinces will be overpopulated, religious fanaticism will emerge

14    in them.  That is inevitable.  There will be moving out and resettlement,

15    and the population will homogenise."

16            The minutes continue:  "You should separate the two, day-to-day

17    policy from the national policy.  There may be quarrels, as there will be,

18    but our global national interest is not in jeopardy.  National and state

19    policy is a different thing.  The Republic of Croatia and the HZ HB has

20    its own road.  We are making good progress along that road.  Stay on it."

21            And if the Chamber may recall from the maps and when you have a

22    chance to look at the Vance-Owen Plan and the maps that were signed at the

23    end of -- end of March, excuse me, you will see there was this ongoing

24    concern about whether Vares would be included in the Croat territory or

25    not.

Page 27070

 1            So after those opening comments and report by Mr. Praljak, the

 2    minutes go on:   "Colonel Tihomir Blaskic opened the discussion with the

 3    commanders.  Borivoje Malbasic asked a question about Vares.

 4    General Praljak responds:  'There is no policy that can enable us to have

 5    everything.  If you think there is, tell us.  There's no policy that can

 6    enable us to have everything.'"

 7            And then the follow-up question:  "But what will happen if they

 8    ask for other municipalities.  Through our policy we took everything we

 9    could.  The negotiations, well, something must be signed.  The fastest way

10    for Croatia to go down is to have a state territory extending all the way

11    to the Drina.  We have never got anything out of that nor ever would.  In

12    such a Croatia around 49 per cent Croats have nothing to seek.  That is a

13    classical piece of stupidity.  There is no state without a nation, and in

14    that state where would we be?  Now we've got what we want.  The

15    homogenisation of our population continues.  We can fence off what is ours

16    and build there our own space and our own state.  It is all as clear as

17    noon on a spring day."

18            As the Chamber knows by now, the 15th of April deadline did pass.

19    The Muslims didn't agree.  Izetbegovic never signed.  And on the 16th of

20    April and following, we have a series of attacks and some of what we now

21    know to be some of the most notorious crimes of the conflict, including on

22    the 16th of April, the attack in Ahmici, which is established again as

23    adjudicated facts in a number of the Tribunal cases.

24            In this case, we have the attacks, we have the fighting around

25    Sovici, Doljani on the 17th of April, and the Parcani, Lizoperci and

Page 27071

 1    Toscanica, on the 17th and 19th of April, all as charged in the -- and

 2    mentioned in the indictment.

 3            15th of April deadline.  The deadline passes.  HVO attacks.

 4            Numerous reports from international observers including the

 5    United Nations, UNPROFOR and the ECMM made it abundantly clear that the

 6    HVO attacks and war crimes committed in Central Bosnia and Herzegovina in

 7    mid to late April were a continuing part of the Herceg-Bosna HVO's efforts

 8    to implement their view of Vance-Owen.  There's a number of those.  One

 9    would be Exhibit P 01981, but I'm not going to go through all those now.

10            It's interesting for the Chamber to note for historical interest,

11    I think, that it was on the 17th of April, 1993, two days after the

12    passage of the HVO ultimatum and then the attacks in Ahmici, Sovici,

13    Doljani, et cetera, on the 17th of April the UN Security Council adopted

14    Resolution 820, reaffirming that any taking of territory by force or any

15    practice of "ethnic cleansing" was unlawful and totally unacceptable and

16    calling on the Secretary-General to submit a report on the establishment

17    of an International War Crimes Tribunal at the earliest possible date.

18    That is, of course, this Tribunal.

19            In a meeting on the 24th of April, 1993, which is Exhibit P 02059,

20    Izetbegovic once again stated that Tudjman's vision of a solution for

21    Bosnia and Herzegovina with each ethnic group having its own territory was

22    not, at least in his view, the Bosnia and Herzegovina of the Vance-Owen

23    Peace Plan.  Izetbegovic again makes it clear, he says, that the Croatian

24    leadership interpreted the provisions of the plan in a completely

25    erroneous manner.

Page 27072

 1            Izetbegovic says in this meeting, again P 02059:  "The conflict

 2    erupted because only Croatian authority began to be implemented in the

 3    Mostar and Travnik provinces.  You know that we were very cooperative and

 4    tolerant when the borders of these provinces were being established.  We

 5    accepted the promise that people there would be equal, that the Vance-Owen

 6    Plan was a whole containing a large chapter on human and national rights

 7    which was also being signed and that participation in government would be

 8    secured.  We tolerated the fact that 10 large Muslim municipalities

 9    remained in the Travnik and Mostar provinces.  We're feeling we have been

10    deceived."

11            A Security Council mission to Bosnia-Herzegovina in late April

12    1993 included an inquiry into the HVO massacre of Muslims in Ahmici on the

13    16th of April, and I'll just -- that's reflected in Exhibit P 02150, a

14    report of the Security Council mission.  And I will just summarise it by

15    saying there was extensive discussion of the developments in Central

16    Bosnia during that time with Tudjman and Boban, both essentially admitting

17    that crimes had occurred and promising that steps would be taken to

18    identify the perpetrators and bring them to justice.  Unfortunately, in

19    fact, none of that was ever done.

20            During the same time, on the 27th of April, 1993, Boban, Tudjman,

21    and Izetbegovic did sign a joint statement in Zagreb calling for a

22    cessation of all hostilities between the Croat and BiH government forces

23    in Bosnia-Herzegovina "which have caused many casualties and serious

24    violations of international humanitarian law."

25            Once again, the statement condemned "most severely all violations

Page 27073

 1    of the rules of international humanitarian law" and admitted that both

 2    sides, including the Croats had violated -- "had violated such law based

 3    on the available information."  Boban and the others undertook to

 4    "urgently initiate joint and individual inquest concerning each instance

 5    of violation of such rights and immediately examine personal

 6    responsibility for the conflicts and crimes perpetrated against the

 7    civilian population."

 8            By the 1st of May, concerning these developing -- continuing

 9    events, developing events, the head of the ECMM mission covering Central

10    Bosnia and Herzegovina reported on -- reported in Exhibit P 02168 on this,

11    and this is quoted from the report:  "The latest meetings of the

12    authorities of Herceg-Bosna in Citluk on the 30th of April has revealed

13    the political side of the last military events, and it is time now or

14    never to express the common clear feeling of the 23 ECMM monitors of

15    Bosnia and Herzegovina."

16            "One, the Bosnian Croats continue to complain that they are

17    attacked by the 'Muslim forces' on all fronts despite the evidence that

18    they are entirely responsible for the opening of the conflict on the 14th

19    of April and largely for its continuation.  The fighting began without

20    doubt on the initiative of the HVO, claiming that it was only answering a

21    systematic anti-Croat attitude.  It was obviously an attempt to seize and

22    secure the 'Croat provinces.'"

23            There is another important ECMM document from around this time

24    which I'm not going to take the Chamber's time to review at length, but I

25    ask the Chamber to consider Exhibit P 02787, which the Prosecution submits

Page 27074

 1    sets out a very detailed and accurate analysis of what was happening on

 2    the ground at that time.  P 02787.

 3            I'll quote only one small part of it indicating that:  "The HVO

 4    aims appear to be:

 5            "(c).  Cleanse provinces 8 and 10 of Muslims in pursuit of their

 6    dream of Herceg-Bosna."

 7            Just proceeding chronologically, it's important, we think, for the

 8    Prosecution to note that it was in April of 1993 that in Mostar there was

 9    the passage of an administrative decree, the April 1993 decision which led

10    to the denial of humanitarian assistance for roughly 10.000 needy persons

11    who were then in Mostar.  By the way that the rule worked, it

12    disproportionately affected by a huge factor, primarily the Muslim

13    refugees and displaced persons that had gathered in Mostar, in the Mostar

14    area around that time, and there was one of the international

15    organisations, I won't mention the name because it was a protected

16    witness, who said that this decision was nothing less than a form of

17    ethnic cleansing by administrative decree.

18            Indeed, after the decision was issued, international humanitarian

19    organisations reported that Muslims had been given yet another deadline,

20    this time the 9th of May, to leave abandoned apartments in Mostar, any

21    abandoned apartments that refugees, Muslim refugees, had moved into.  The

22    deadline to abandon those apartments by the 9th of May.  The Chamber may

23    want to remember that date, the 9th of May.

24            To follow the chronology, during this same time, on the 6th of

25    May, the Bosnian Serb Assembly voted 51 to 2 to 12 against ratifying the

Page 27075

 1    Vance-Owen Peace Plan, and so there was no question by this time, by the

 2    6th of May, Vance-Owen was dead.  There was no more Vance-Owen.  The Serbs

 3    had categorically rejected it.  Vance-Owen was dead.

 4            Just talking a bit about the overall HVO strategies and practices.

 5    The systematic nature of the step-by-step removal of Muslims from

 6    Herceg-Bosna's claimed territory is evidenced also by the imprisonment of

 7    much of their intelligentsia.  Throughout the spring of 1993 there was a

 8    series of arrest and imprisonment of the religious, political and

 9    intellectual leadership, even before the events in May, that is the attack

10    on Mostar.

11            In early 1993, the HVO imprisoned in fact roughly 100 Muslim

12    intellectuals.  In April, May, and June 1993, any Imams who could be

13    captured by the HVO were arrested, and dozens -- a dozen, excuse me, were

14    taken prisoner at that time.  Underscoring that Muslim intellectuals were

15    singled out for special treatment is the fact that they were largely

16    gathered and confined in one particular location, and that was the HVO

17    prison at Ljubuski.  And you heard evidence about that, and there's

18    evidence in the record about some of the men who were taken to that

19    location and held for a long, long time.

20            Ethnic cleansing moved forward during the summer of 1993, of

21    course, as all Muslim men of military age were arrested despite

22    international warnings to the Croat authorities that this was against

23    international humanitarian law.

24            In his statement admitted as -- again as Exhibit P 09078,

25    Jadranko Prlic had stated that he had very close contacts and

Page 27076

 1    communications with the Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granic who had

 2    influence over Tudjman and told Tudjman what was happening in Herzegovina.

 3    Granic informed Prlic, according to Prlic, about crimes being committed in

 4    Herceg-Bosna which resulted in Boban and Susak being told that -- that all

 5    of the things had to stop, and if these things were not stopped, they were

 6    endangering "all goals of the fighting that went on and also all things

 7    that you are aware of like non-selective imprisonment and so on."  And

 8    that's at Exhibit P 09078, transcript pages 124, 125.

 9            Prlic also indicated that the consequences of the Croat-Muslim war

10    were not only prisoners of war but also cases of non-selective

11    imprisonment of people who could be hardly described or called prisoners

12    of war.  His statement, transcript page 86.  When asked who in the HVO

13    committed the war crimes, Prlic said, "Now, who committed the crimes?  It

14    is quite clear.  The HVO military units.  Members of the military units

15    committed the crimes, and therefore military authorities were

16    responsible."  Transcript page 74.

17            "The military should be held responsible for the crimes

18    committed."  Jadranko Prlic, transcript page 82.

19            At the same time, Prlic rightly recognised that the war was fought

20    by political leaders through the HVO Main Staff through the military

21    organs.  Transcript page 85.

22            And I think that most of us all know that wars are ultimately

23    fought by the politicians, not by the generals, and Mr. Prlic himself

24    recognised that.

25            In terms of the people responsible for war crimes, quoting Prlic:

Page 27077

 1    "I told you today that hundreds of murderers are still today walking in

 2    the streets of the town," being Mostar.  "But such a decision, it was

 3    carried out by the military, by the army, but they had to be backed up by

 4    the politics, by the politicians.  They," that is, "the army itself, could

 5    not have issued such a decision itself."  Transcript page 128.

 6            Indeed Prlic himself was involved in such discussions and strategy

 7    decisions.  In another meeting with Tudjman, Boban, Slobodan Praljak, we

 8    almost get them all on this one, Tudjman, Boban, Slobodan Praljak,

 9    Milivoj Petkovic, and Jadranko Prlic, on the 5th of November, 1993, which

10    is Exhibit P 06454, Tudjman gave the assembled Herceg-Bosna leadership

11    direct instructions on what they were to do.  That starts at pages 1 to 4

12    of that particular transcript.

13            "Tudjman:  Gentlemen, let us begin with the meeting.  It has been

14    organised on my initiative because of the present, I would say critical

15    situation both in Herceg-Bosna and in the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina,

16    and its possible negative impact on Croatia, particularly after the events

17    in Stupni Do."

18            Remember, this conversation takes place on the 5th of November, a

19    few days after Stupni Do on the 23rd of October.

20            "Apart from these concrete issues, we must also discuss other

21    important questions such as the strategic and political interest of

22    Croatia regarding the conduct of the Muslims and the events that we have

23    lately borne witness to."

24            Tudjman again:  "The problem of Bosnia and Herzegovina is the

25    problem of the Croatian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but it is also a

Page 27078

 1    problem of the Croatian state and its future.  This is, of course, a very

 2    knotty issue.  When trying to solve it, we have taken some very concrete

 3    measures and have made some proposals.  We have always begun from the

 4    reality that had existed prior to the war or was created during the war.

 5    By doing so, we have always kept in mind the strategic interest of

 6    importance for the future of the Croatian people and Croatia in general,

 7    including the question of its borders."

 8            And then there's a long discussion, various people taking part,

 9    Boban, Praljak, Prlic, and then Tudjman toward the end of the meeting

10    comes back and says, and this is on pages 80 to 85 of that particular

11    transcript which again is P 06454, and Tudjman says:

12            "Gentlemen, we could go on like this for days on end.  The picture

13    is indeed as you are presenting it.  It is critical, but let's be

14    operationally active.  There's a war going on, and in spite of all these

15    shortcomings which are in a way -- in a way even worse than we have said,

16    we therefore recognise the Croatian Republic Herceg-Bosna.  Still, we've

17    got such a solution in all this chaos from the point of view of the

18    Croatian people as a whole and the Croatian state.  The problem then boils

19    down to our securing in border, in the sense of borders, the Republic of

20    Herceg-Bosna as favourably as we can.  What I have read out to you about

21    western Bosnia, Bihac, the Cazin Krajina, it will likewise be a part of

22    the Croatian state.  This part of the people will not be in it, will have

23    to understand that no people in the world, not even the biggest people in

24    the world can provide for all of its members to be within one state."

25            And at that meeting Tudjman specifically gives instructions to

Page 27079

 1    Petkovic to break through with HVO forces from Kiseljak to Busovaca.  Now,

 2    remember that evidence, because remember the evidence of -- about Vares

 3    and what happened after Vares and the directions of the HVO commander in

 4    Vares.  We can't punish these soldiers right now because they're needed

 5    for a breakthrough operation.  We have to break through from Kiseljak to

 6    Busovaca.  We have to do that, and we're going to use the same troops, the

 7    same people that went into Stupni Do, because we need them and we need

 8    them now.  And on the 5th of November, Tudjman tells Petkovic:  "Transfer

 9    what remains of the troops from Vares to Kiseljak and push through to

10    Busovaca."  Pages 49 to 62.

11            At this same meeting, Prlic also addresses the military situation

12    in Bosnia and Herzegovina.  Pages 30 to 39.  "I think that at this moment

13    a military victory is necessary to restore both the situation and the

14    state of mind.  I think that it is clear and does not need to be explained

15    at all.  Whether it is Mostar, whether it is Vakuf, or this action that is

16    being planned up there to connect Kiseljak with Busovaca, we must move

17    closer to rounding off territories.  As a government last spring, we

18    defined -- as a government, last spring we defined both the proposals and

19    the conclusions even with regard to moving certain brigades from some

20    areas which would include moving the population from those areas and

21    concentrating it in certain directions that we think could become and

22    remain Croatian areas.  We would like this solely in the pragmatic sense.

23    I know that the efforts are directed towards every Croat remaining and

24    living where he is now, but there is pragmatism.  There is a concentration

25    of forces.  There is everything else."

Page 27080

 1            It can also be noted in the context of the events in -- from the

 2    late spring and summer and fall of 1993 that the HVO actions typically

 3    followed a pattern time after time, whether it was in Prozor, Stolac,

 4    Capljina, other areas.  First, most of the Muslim military-aged men,

 5    sometimes described as between 60 -- 16 and 60, they would be rounded up,

 6    arrested and detained at various HVO prisons and concentrations leaving

 7    the women, the children and the elderly in the villages unprotected by

 8    adult men.  Then with most of the Muslim men removed, the HVO took control

 9    of the towns and villages, systematically rounded up Bosnian Muslim women,

10    children, and elderly and then either deported them or sent them off in

11    other directions to perhaps ABiH controlled territory.  The Chamber will

12    recall instances where they were taken by truck so far, told to get off

13    the trucks, walk toward Gornji Vakuf, walk toward Jablanica, but move on.

14            There were a number of practices, in fact, all the -- those

15    involved in this joint criminal enterprise followed and used.  There was

16    the use of force, intimidation and terror.  In the course of the mass

17    arrest and evictions, Bosnian Muslims were killed, severely injured,

18    sexually assaulted, robbed of their property, otherwise abused.  Identity

19    papers and similar documents were routinely taken from them placing them

20    at various risk of not having the proper papers, limiting their freedom of

21    movement.  In attacks on Muslim towns, villages, and areas, and in the

22    siege of East Mostar, there was regular and widespread shelling and

23    sniping of Muslim civilians.

24            There was also a pattern of appropriation and destruction of

25    property.  Herceg-Bosna authorities and soldiers forced Bosnian Muslims to

Page 27081

 1    abandoned their homes, often to actually sign them over, leave the keys.

 2    Money, cars, and personal property were often taken or looted.  Muslim

 3    dwellings and other buildings including public buildings and services were

 4    appropriated, destroyed, severely damaged, together with Muslim religious

 5    buildings, schools, and mosques.

 6            The Prosecution submits that much of this destruction was again

 7    for a specific purpose, and that is to make it impossible or at least

 8    very, very difficult for Muslims to return to an area where all their

 9    property and their cultural centres had been destroyed.

10            The Herceg-Bosna HVO authorities appropriated public property

11    belonging to the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.  We see that even in

12    the decrees of the government that you'll find in the Narodni List.  We

13    hereby seize and take over appropriate all public property formerly

14    belonging to the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, that is the

15    internationally recognised state of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

16            The Chamber will know well by now all of the evidence about the

17    use of the major HVO prison camps, prisons and camps, the Heliodrom, the

18    Ljubuski prison, Dretelj, and Gabela.  We will come back to that in a few

19    moments.

20            And the Chamber's heard by now about the forcible transfer and

21    deportation of Bosnian Muslims, either forced to other parts of Bosnia

22    not -- not called or not claimed, excuse me, by the Bosnian Croats but go

23    over there again, go over to the Muslim-controlled areas, or to be

24    deported out of the country.  And I'm going to leave most of that

25    particular discussion to the considerations of the Coric and Pusic

Page 27082

 1    submissions, because in the Prosecution's view and the submissions that we

 2    will make, both of those two accused feature very substantially in the

 3    deportation, the use of letters of guarantee, transit visas by which the

 4    Muslims were systematically moved out of not only Herceg-Bosna but out of

 5    the country to other areas.

 6            The Chamber also heard extensive evidence about the denial and

 7    blockage of humanitarian aid as a means -- essentially as a -- as a weapon

 8    of war.

 9            We're not going to dwell on that for these particular 98 bis

10    purposes, which would make these submissions even longer but the

11    Prosecution notes and the Chamber will recall extensive evidence by which

12    humanitarian convoys were blocked, looted, humanitarian aid was blocked

13    from entering towns and cities, in particular Mostar, in which there was a

14    siege and in which no humanitarian aid was able to enter the city for

15    approximately a two-month period, until the 25th of August, 1993, when the

16    Chamber heard from various witnesses a final convoy -- or a convoy was

17    finally able to enter into Mostar at the end of August.

18            In terms of the movement of both people and aid, in fact, that is

19    the passage of people and aid through Herceg-Bosna, Mr. Praljak has

20    confirmed to the Trial Chamber that is he, Mr. Praljak, Bruno Stojic,

21    Milivoj Petkovic and others controlled the passage of people and aid.  And

22    that's in the trial transcript, page 19331 to 19332.

23            There was the widespread -- there was the widespread practice of

24    forced labour.  Again, won't go into the details of that now.  I think the

25    Chamber has heard extensive evidence.  You have the documentation, you

Page 27083

 1    have the journals, you have the documents by which on a daily basis

 2    prisoners were taken, for example, from the Heliodrom for labour at the

 3    Mostar confrontation line and other places.  Highly systematic over a long

 4    period of time.  Hardly can be explained by the conduct of rogue units, of

 5    rogue individuals.  Highly systematized record-keeping, journals, books

 6    every prisoner who was taken back, every prisoner who came back, some of

 7    them who didn't come back or were killed or wounded.

 8            Turning to the events around Mostar on the 9th and 10th of May,

 9    1993.  Ultimately, Your Honours, I'll just say ultimately it doesn't

10    really matter.  We've heard a lot of evidence and a lot of argument about

11    who started it.  Now, it is -- the Prosecution submits it's the weight of

12    the evidence and the reports of every single international observer

13    without exception, every single international monitor, observer indicated

14    it was the HVO who initiated this action; but even if it wasn't, it

15    doesn't change anything.  Because there's no question what happened on

16    those days in terms of the mass arrests and expulsions of Muslims from

17    West Mostar, either pushed over into East Mostar or taken to the Heliodrom

18    where they were kept at least for -- initially for a period of some days.

19    Many were then released and then many imprisoned again later.

20            So we need not spend too much time on deciding necessarily,

21    although it is the Prosecution position that the HVO initiated it.  Who

22    fired the first shot on the 9th of May determines really nothing because

23    we know what happened on that day.  The evidence is clear.  Women and

24    children were taken to the Vales football stadium.  They were rounded up,

25    they were put on buses, and they were taken to the Heliodrom.

Page 27084

 1            Soon afterwards we had again, once again, the UN Security Council

 2    Resolution strongly condemning what had happened in Mostar.  That is

 3    Exhibit P 02274.  The council demands that the attacks against the areas

 4    of Mostar, Jablanica, and Dreznica cease forthwith, that Bosnian Croat

 5    paramilitary units withdraw immediately from the area and that all parties

 6    strictly comply with their previous commitments as well as the cease-fire

 7    agreed to today between the government of the Republic of

 8    Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Bosnian Croat party."

 9            The Security Council also expresses its deep concern that the

10    UNPROFOR battalion in the area," we know that to be the Spanish Battalion,

11    "has been forced under fire to redeploy as a result of this latest

12    offensive and condemns the refusal of Bosnian Croat paramilitary units to

13    allow the presence of United Nations military observers, in particular in

14    the city of Mostar."

15             "The Security Council calls upon the Republic of Croatia in

16    accordance with the commitments under the Zagreb agreement of 25 April

17    1993, to exert all its influence on the Bosnian Croat leadership and

18    paramilitary units with a view to ceasing immediately their attacks,

19    particularly in the areas of Mostar, Jablanica, and Dreznica."

20            "It further calls on the Republic of Croatia to adhere strictly to

21    its obligations under Security Council Resolution 752, including putting

22    an end to all forms of interfering -- interference and respecting the

23    territorial integrity of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina."

24            I'll just note here in terms of the -- going back to the topic of

25    international armed conflict in the control and presentation of -- or the

Page 27085

 1    control of the Croatian government presence of Croatian forces in

 2    Bosnia-Herzegovina.

 3            The witness Galbraith, Peter Galbraith, the former US ambassador

 4    said it well when he said that everyone knew that what was happening in

 5    Herceg-Bosna was controlled by Zagreb.  His lines were and I didn't

 6    specifically look it up but it's very close to this:  "It was an open

 7    secret verging on being no secret at all."  That was one of the better

 8    lines of testimony in the trial so far.  "It was an open secret verging on

 9    being no secret at all."  If you wanted to have something done in

10    Herceg-Bosnia, if you wanted to have Mate Boban, Jadranko Prlic or

11    Slobodan Praljak do something in Herceg-Bosna, you pushed the buttons in

12    Zagreb.  And Galbraith testified to that as have other witnesses.  And in

13    this case we see it -- and the reason I mention it now is because we see

14    it here in the Security Council Resolution.  Why because of the fighting

15    in Mostar does the Security Council call on the Republic of Croatia to

16    stop the fighting?

17            I've been told that the reference to that testimony by

18    Mr. Galbraith is at transcript page 6471, line 5.

19            On the 11th of May, 1993, after the second day of the Croat

20    assault on Mostar, Tudjman met again with senior Croatian government and

21    military officials and once again confirmed his understanding that

22    Izetbegovic's provisional acceptance of the Vance-Owen Plan was not an

23    admission by Izetbegovic that provinces 3, 8, and 10 were to become

24    "Croatian."  And that is in Exhibit P 02302.

25            Tudjman admits in that meeting:  "When the Muslim leadership

Page 27086

 1    accepted the Vance-Owen Plan, they did it only formally.  Izetbegovic

 2    never accepted that Vance-Owen Plan, because these provinces should have

 3    been Croat."  Franjo Tudjman.  Izetbegovic never accepted the Vance-Owen

 4    Plan.

 5            On the 20th of May, 1993, in Exhibit P 02466, Tudjman reports that

 6    he told Izetbegovic that:  "Croats surely cannot agree to lose some areas

 7    that used to be part of the Banovina, even though 140.000 of refugees are

 8    accommodated in those provinces out of what number of Muslims is a hundred

 9    thousand."  "Croatia as a country cannot accept the change in the

10    demographic structure of those areas."

11            By June of 1993, the HVO forces had commenced a siege against East

12    Mostar, a veritable siege.  Yes, there was a mule trail over the

13    mountains, a very difficult trail, that some people could go and come from

14    Mostar, but certainly not a four-lane highway.  There was a siege, there

15    was shelling, there were snipers.  There was the deprivation of food,

16    humanitarian aid, medical treatment.  There was the shelling and sniping

17    that the Chamber has heard so much about.  And I would note in this

18    context another exhibit, Defence Exhibit of Mr. Praljak, 3D 00482.  This

19    is a note from a meeting of Croatian army General, again, Anton Tus - it's

20    the same record that we talked about earlier - with a French delegation on

21    the 13th of January, 1993.  Also including again Mr. Praljak.

22            Praljak says:  "The Serbs have predominance in artillery, which

23    is, however, not decisive.  Artillery is used for destruction of towns

24    without military goals.  They never hit the first combat lines.  The same

25    is going on in Sarajevo, Mostar, Jajce, Bosanski Brod, Slavonski Brod, and

Page 27087

 1    elsewhere.  Their tactic is to destroy the defence by using dead children,

 2    women, and elderly."

 3            I leave it to the Chamber to decide whether that same language

 4    what Mr. Praljak attributes to the Serbs and the artillery shelling of

 5    towns could be applied to the HVO shelling of East Mostar.

 6            After an ABiH attack on an HVO camp in the northern part of Mostar

 7    on the 30th of June, and there's no doubt about that, the Prosecution has

 8    never questioned and will not question, will never question that there was

 9    a war going on.  There was fighting between combat elements on both sides,

10    and there was indeed an ABiH attack on the northern barracks in Mostar, on

11    the northern part of Mostar on the 30th of June.  No question about that.

12    Soldiers on soldiers.  Military on military.

13            That results in a statement, a decision and order being issued by

14    Jadranko Prlic and Bruno Stojic on the 30th of June.  That is Exhibit

15    P 03038.  And in that document, again over the names and signatures of

16    both Prlic and Stojic, there is a proclamation stating that now Croat

17    civilians are being exterminated.  The very existence of Croats in Bosnia

18    and Herzegovina was in extreme and imminent danger, that Mostar was and

19    would remain a Croatian town.  And again in -- to put it in the broader

20    context, on the 2nd of July, just two or three days after the 30th of

21    June, of course, excuse me, Franjo Tudjman told Susak and others meeting

22    in Zagreb that it was "important to put pressure on the Muslim units on

23    the Neretva front."

24            Here again we have an absolutely, well, as close to perfect as I

25    suppose we can get, of an instance of the HVO chain of command at work. In

Page 27088

 1    January, you will remember, we had the Prlic decision, the Stojic order

 2    and the Petkovic order all implementing the January 15th, 1993, ultimatum.

 3    Here we have the issuance of the Prlic-Stojic decision and order.  Again

 4    that's P 03038, followed by a communication, P 03039, a communication by

 5    Zeljko Siljeg, commander of the north-west operative zone who is already

 6    transmitting the Prlic and Stojic order and it's in the document by

 7    number, it's exactly the Prlic-Stojic order, transmitting that down his

 8    chain of command in the north-west operative zone in P 03039.

 9            On the same day, in P 03019, General Petkovic issues his order,

10    same day, and says:  "In units where you still have Muslim soldiers,

11    disarm and isolate them.  Isolate all able-bodied men in Muslim inhabited

12    villages in your area of responsibility and leave women and children in

13    their homes or apartments."

14            That's the order of Petkovic following the order and decision by

15    Prlic and Stojic.

16            At the bottom of that Petkovic order is the next order by

17    Miljenko Lasic, the operative zone commander for the south-east operative

18    zone which includes Mostar, and what Lasic has done is he's written on the

19    bottom of the Petkovic order passing it on down his chain of command,

20    forwarding the Petkovic order to the HVO 2nd and 3rd Brigades.  Then you

21    have on the same day, the 30th of June, P 03035, the order in fact by the

22    HVO 3rd Brigade, now we're down to the brigade level, implementing the

23    referenced Miljenko Lasic order:  "In units which still have fighters of

24    Muslim nationality, disarm and isolate.  In places with Muslim population

25    within the area of responsibility isolate all able-bodied men.  Women and

Page 27089

 1    children are to be left in their houses."  Almost quoting the Petkovic

 2    order.

 3            Next we have in P 03075, the next day, 1 July 1993, again, we

 4    don't want to leave the military police out, we have the report from the

 5    3rd Company, 3rd Battalion, HVO military police for the 30th of June and

 6    the 1st of July, 1993.  "On the 30th of June at 0900 hours, a group of 17

 7    military policemen went on a mission to Mostar on orders of the military

 8    police administration.  A general mobilisation of the remaining members of

 9    the company was carried out.  As a result, one platoon was engaged in

10    collecting persons of Muslim faith in Stolac, and the other performed the

11    regular duties of securing facilities and manning the check-points.  The

12    platoon in Neum also performed its regular duties and in addition to those

13    collected, collected, the above-mentioned persons.  The platoon on

14    stand-by escorted, received, and secured the apprehended persons.  So far

15    about 1.300 persons have been apprehended and brought in from the

16    municipalities of Stolac, Capljina, Mostar, and Neum on 30 June and 1 July

17    1993."  Thirteen hundred.  "Apprehending and bringing in were carried out

18    in cooperation with the Capljina Ministry of the Interior police brigade

19    and the 1st Knez Domagoj Brigade."

20            Also on the same day, 1 July 1993, we have another -- a second

21    Petkovic order, P 03082.  To all HVO operative zones and brigades:

22    "Undertake vigorous measures toward each HVO member who does not carry out

23    his duties extremely conscientiously and responsibly.  No arbitrariness,

24    superficiality or irresponsibility in work on anybody's part may be

25    tolerated any more.  Six, it must be clear to everybody that only Croats

Page 27090

 1    will defend the HZ HB."

 2            On the 2nd of July 1993, we have Exhibit P 03128, still another

 3    Petkovic order, this time also signed as -- by Bruno Stojic as indicating

 4    his agreement to the order to all HVO operative zones and units, again up

 5    and down the line "with the aim of eliminating the Muslim armed forces and

 6    carrying out a final showdown (mopping up the Muslim armed forces defence

 7    forces.) Including the HVO military police and also civilian police and

 8    Home Guard Units.  You are given all authority over military and civilian

 9    organs."

10            And in fact goes on to say:  "Until the assigned tasks are

11    completed, you are directly subordinated to the HVO General Staff."  Until

12    all these units -- until this is accomplished, you are directly

13    subordinated to the HVO general or Main Staff.

14            On the 6th of July, 1993, we have Exhibit P 03234, an order by

15    Zeljko Siljeg, the commander of the north-west operative zone:  "In

16    accordance with the current situation in the area of Rama, Prozor

17    municipality, I hereby order arrest and detain all Muslim men aged between

18    16 and 60.  The following are responsible for carrying out of this order:

19    The military police and the SIS, the Security Information Service, of the

20    Rama Brigade."

21            Those are just six or seven of the orders from the 30th of June,

22    1st of July, 2nd of July, and the 6th of July, all indicating and

23    initiating the mass arrests, that the Chamber knows from the evidence, the

24    mass arrest of Muslim men and imprisonment of them starting in July 1993,

25    taken to the various camps, whether it be Heliodrom, Ljubuski, Dretelj,

Page 27091

 1    Gabela, or otherwise.  Top down.  Orders from the top down to the brigade

 2    and company level.

 3            On this question in terms of where we're talking about military

 4    orders and the chain of command, there appears to be no question, of

 5    course, about the commanders at the top of the HVO military during the

 6    spring of 1993 and continuing until November 1993.  Prior to Mr. Praljak

 7    becoming head of the HVO military in the latter part of July 1993,

 8    Mr. Petkovic was the head of the HVO armed forces in terms of being the

 9    chief military officer.

10            After Mr. Praljak took the top position, as he has told us

11    himself, and I'm quoting from the trial transcript at page 24 -- 24314:

12    "So the commander of the Main Staff, that was me, and the deputy

13    commander, well, can we set that straight and determine who was who, what

14    was what, the commander and the witness can say whether this was right or

15    not, the commander of the Main Staff was Slobodan Praljak.  The deputy

16    commander of the Main Staff was General Milivoj Petkovic.  The Chief of

17    Staff, General Tole.  The deputy chief of the Main Staff was

18    General Matic."

19            And we should also review in discussing these senior HVO military

20    commanders the expert report and testimony of General Pringle.  His expert

21    report is Exhibit P 09549.

22            What were some of General Pringle's key points?  First of all, HVO

23    was not started from scratch.  There was prior preparation and existing

24    doctrine from the JNA giving both Petkovic and Praljak the tools to

25    command and impose disciplinary standards, including quite extensive

Page 27092

 1    training and materials, manuals on the International Law of War, et

 2    cetera, which General Pringle covered extensively in his report.

 3            Number two, Pringle assessed that:  "The HVO documentation

 4    enshrined the concept of political control over the military, as one would

 5    expect."

 6            That's at page 6 and 7 of his report.

 7            General Pringle discussed with the Chamber the important concept

 8    of command climate, the atmosphere created by a commander and is set by

 9    example -- which is set by example and not just rules and regulation.  He

10    talked about -- he gave the example of a commander talking about the

11    opposition in "derogatory and dismissive ways, such as using the term

12    'balija,' as sending a message to the troops and those, your

13    subordinates, about appropriate attitudes and treatment toward them."

14            I'll finish on this point, Your Honour.  I think I can finish in

15    two more minutes about General Pringle's testimony.

16            General Pringle did tell us also that the more confused the

17    situation the greater the commander's responsibility.

18            Now, again no one has ever said that there isn't confusion in the

19    war situation.  The Prosecution's never said to the contrary.  But what

20    General Pringle told us was the more confused the situation, in fact the

21    greater the commander's responsibility.

22            General Pringle of course told us that military discipline is

23    important.  The failure to impose discipline will be taken as an

24    acceptance and even approval of such behaviour and such actions that are

25    not disciplined or not punished, such actions will become "commonplace."

Page 27093

 1            He even assessed, General Pringle in his testimony, transcript

 2    page 24059, Praljak seemed to show he had the character to impose

 3    discipline if he wanted to.

 4            General Pringle also said a commander must be aware of what troops

 5    under his command are doing.  The Chamber may remember his two up, two

 6    down analysis.  You must know what your subordinates are doing and be

 7    informed, keep yourself informed.  You have an obligation, a duty to keep

 8    yourself informed.  Commanders must follow up orders to ensure they are

 9    carried out.  The Chamber heard General Pringle say a number of times,

10    giving the order is the easy part.  Making it happen is more difficult.

11            General Pringle also indicated when large numbers of people were

12    detained, the commanders - at that particular time it was Mr. Petkovic in

13    the top position - should have been aware of the logical issues

14    involved -- excuse me, the logistical issues involved, food, water

15    shelter, et cetera.  And again, General Pringle's position was also a

16    pragmatic one.  He says well, of course, maybe on the first day, maybe on

17    the second day you're going to have a problem.  You can't fix everything

18    at once.  But what General Pringle said was by day ten, he should have

19    been asking how all these detainees were being accommodated and fed and

20    taken care of.

21            And I'll conclude, Your Honour, with this from General Pringle:

22    He concluded his report, again Exhibit P 09549:  "The HVO faced a

23    significant challenge," and he said that. "The HVO faced a significant

24    challenge.  Setting up the community of Herceg-Bosna, forming and training

25    an army, and drawing up all the regulations and laws to underpin the HZ HB

Page 27094

 1    whilst engaging in an actual conflict, first with the Bosnian Serbs and

 2    then with the Bosnian Muslims."  All this would have presented enormous

 3    difficulties.  That said, much of the documentation that I have been

 4    presented with by the Office of the Prosecutor indicates --

 5            THE INTERPRETER:  Mr. Scott is kindly asked to slow down.

 6            MR. SCOTT:  My apologies.

 7            That said, much of the documentation that I have been presented

 8    with by the Office of the Prosecutor indicates in my opinion a working

 9    governmental system with a military answerable to the civilian leadership

10    and with orders and instructions flowing down the chain of command from

11    the Presidency via the department of defence and the Main Staff to the

12    operational commands.

13            A working army subject to laid-down military code of discipline

14    was plainly in existence.  It relied heavily on poorly trained, locally

15    raised forces and suffered from a lack of trained regular military

16    manpower.  This would have placed considerable demands on the training

17    system and on officer corps, many of whom were not fully trained

18    themselves.

19            That said, there are doctrinal documents, particularly those

20    pertaining to compliance with the international laws of war, that had they

21    been followed would have resulted in reasonable military behaviour.  The

22    onus on commanders to set a proper example and insist on proper standards

23    of discipline was great, particularly the ex-regular officers of the JNA

24    who would have received a proper and conventional military training.

25            I'll stop there, Your Honour.

Page 27095

 1            JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Twenty-minute break.

 2                           --- Recess taken at 5.39 p.m.

 3                           --- On resuming at 6.00 p.m.

 4            JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] We have resumed our hearing.

 5            MR. SCOTT:  Thank you, Mr. President, Your Honours.

 6            Before I continue on, I have to make one correction.  I've been

 7    told that I referred to an exhibit by number P 01737 today on page 48 of

 8    the transcript, line 8, and it should have been Exhibit P 01739.

 9            Continuing on, Mr. President, again I come to a part of our

10    submission where the Chamber can be assisted by the adjudicated facts that

11    it has found in connection with not only Mostar but what was happening in

12    Herzegovina during this time, the summer of 1993.

13            "There was a widespread and systematic attack against the Muslim

14    part of the civilian population in the area relevant to the indictment.

15    This campaign had a specific aim to transform the formerly ethnically

16    mixed area in and around Mostar into BH Croat territory to be populated by

17    an ethnically pure BH Croat population."  That is adjudicated fact 156.

18            "Thousands of Muslim civilians were forced to leave their homes in

19    Sovici, Doljani, and West Mostar."  That is adjudicated fact 157.

20            "The campaign against the BH Muslim population in the area reached

21    a climax after the attack on Mostar in early May, 1993, when following the

22    hostilities, the BH Muslim given population was forced out of West Mostar

23    in concerted actions."  Adjudicated fact 158.

24            "The harassment of BH Muslims by forcing them out of their

25    apartments and detaining them became common and widespread from 9 May

Page 27096

 1    throughout the autumn of 1993."  Adjudicated fact 159.

 2            "BH Muslim religious sites like the mosques in Sovici and Doljani

 3    were systematically destroyed."  Adjudicated fact 160.

 4            "Detention facilities for the BH Muslim part of the population

 5    were established all over the area."  Adjudicated fact 162.

 6            "Prisoners were moved around between places and detention centres.

 7    For example, the ABiH soldiers who surrendered or were captured in Sovici

 8    and Doljani were brought to the Ljubuski prison on 18 April 1993, and were

 9    later moved to the Heliodrom."  Adjudicated fact 163.

10            "Detained BH Muslim civilians and BH Muslim soldiers out of combat

11    were often subjected to humiliating and brutal mistreatment by soldiers

12    who had unfettered access to the detection facilities."  Adjudicated fact

13    164.

14            "Many Muslim civilians and prisoners of war were beaten and

15    otherwise severely mistreated in various detention facilities and the

16    soldiers who engaged in this came from various military units."

17    Adjudicated fact 165.

18            Now, continuing on, in the summer of 1993 we have further

19    indications or evidence of the accused Bruno Stojic in connection with the

20    course of the events especially concerning the Muslim population in Mostar

21    which was confirmed at a dinner meeting with international observers in

22    mid-July 1993, which the Chamber just heard about again recently in some

23    of the last evidence in the Prosecution case where Mr. Stojic talked about

24    a "final military solution" to what he considered or to what was

25    considered the "Muslim problem."

Page 27097

 1            "The strategy," and this is coming from Exhibits -- Exhibits all

 2    reporting on this same meeting, P 03530, P 03545, P 03547.  And it's

 3    reported:  "The strategy is to take over East Mostar through an HVO/HV

 4    offensive from the south.  To facilitate this military offensive

 5    Bruno Stojic is proposing that UNPROFOR to evacuate the entire Muslim

 6    civilian population from East Mostar."  It was during this time on the

 7    17th of July, 1993, that Stojic said:  "It may take 20 more days but at

 8    the end of it it will be either us or them."  And that's reflected in

 9    Exhibits, again, the ones I just referred to, also Exhibit P 10367, and

10    the testimony of Witness DZ.

11            In his statement, again which was admitted as Exhibit P 09078,

12    Jadranko Prlic said that the first expulsion of Muslims happened just

13    after 9 May 1993.  The second time that Prlic received information about

14    the expulsion of Muslims he said was in July 1993, after which he says he

15    offered his resignation to Mate Boban because he, that is Prlic, was

16    against the expulsion of citizens of Muslim ethnic origin.  That's at his

17    statement, transcript pages 124 to 126.

18            It is interesting that this was around the same time as

19    Bruno Stojic's statements about resolving the Muslim problem once and for

20    all in Mostar.  Prlic said he offered his resignation because -- excuse

21    me, no goals of fighting of any nation or any person could justify the

22    behaviour or the actions that were taking place in Mostar.

23            Referring to information that Mr. Praljak has provided to us in

24    the course of the trial, he confirmed in fact that Gornji Vakuf and

25    Prozor, or Rama as he calls it, using the Croatian word, cannot be

Page 27098

 1    separated, that is Vakuf and Prozor, and that in Prozor "things happened

 2    there such as the expulsion of Muslims."  And that can be found in the

 3    transcript at page 22249 to 22250.

 4            I want to turn now for a few minutes to more about the operation

 5    of the HVO prisons and detention camps.  And for purposes of these

 6    submissions, Your Honours, the part that I'm going to focus on is not so

 7    much what happened in 1993, although that again will be covered largely in

 8    the submissions concerning Mr. Coric and Mr. Pusic, but I think it's

 9    important and helpful for the Trial Chamber to recall the evidence of the

10    establishment and operation of these camps in 1992, for indeed these HVO

11    camps and prisons had been not just of recent vintage, they had already

12    been administered and used in one war, that is with the Serbs in 1992.

13    Indeed, again, in his statement P 09078, Jadranko Prlic indicated that the

14    HVO detention centres were established and formed during the war with the

15    JNA in 1992.

16            One of the many important documents in this respect is Exhibit

17    P 00292, which is the decree on the treatment of persons captured in armed

18    fighting in the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna, dated 1 September

19    1992.  The Chamber may recall testimony about this document and the

20    document itself which states at Article 2:  "The head of the justice and

21    administration department, in cooperation with the head of the defence

22    department and the head of the department of interior, shall designate the

23    locations where prisoners shall be kept in accordance with the provisions

24    of the aforementioned convention in Article 1 of this decree."

25            Article 3 of the same document says:  "The defence department

Page 27099

 1    shall be in charge of the facilities stipulated in Article 2 of this

 2    decree."

 3            And indeed Exhibit P 00452 is -- is the decision issued by

 4    Bruno Stojic as head of the HVO defence department establishing the

 5    central prison at the Heliodrom in September of 1992.

 6            From the moment that he was appointed chief of the military police

 7    administration in April 1992, Valentin Coric took an active part in

 8    establishing and administering HVO prisons or prison camps including the

 9    Heliodrom, which Mr. Coric also directly participated in setting up in

10    September 1992.  In fact, it was his recommendation that had gone to

11    Mr. Stojic, and you can find that in Exhibit P 00513, also Exhibit

12    P 00515.

13            Exhibit P 00916 is an order dated the 16th of December, 1992, from

14    the commander of the 3rd Company, 3rd Battalion, HVO Military Police,

15    indicating that the HVO Military Police, under the command of Valentin

16    Coric, was in charge of the Heliodrom in that particular order, ordering

17    that all detainees must be referred to the Heliodrom military prison.

18            As I mentioned earlier this afternoon, Exhibit P 00956 provides a

19    very good overview and summary in connection with the operations of the

20    military police from April through December 1992, including the

21    establishment of the various HVO prisons and camps.  It is

22    Valentin Coric's own report over his name and provides extensive

23    information for the Chamber's consideration.

24            Let me just pick out a few of the items that the Chamber may wish

25    to review.

Page 27100

 1            In that report, first of all, it indicates that on the 13th of

 2    April, by a decision of the president of the HZ HB, that is Mr. Boban,

 3    Mr. Valentin Coric was indeed, this is in the report itself, his report,

 4    was appointed assistant commander of the security and information service

 5    and all existing military police units were placed under his, that is,

 6    Coric's command.

 7            The document also informs us that at this time a military

 8    investigation prison in Capljina was established, the fourth in the

 9    territory of the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna.  However, the

10    military police administration attempted to establish a central military

11    prison because the existing military investigation prisons had poorly

12    appointed premises and were not able to receive the required number of

13    prisoners of war.

14            It goes on to say:  "In early September by the decision of the

15    defence department, the central military prison was established in

16    Mostar."  And again going full circle back to the orders by Mr. Stojic and

17    Mr. Coric to establish the Heliodrom.

18            It then goes on in a specific section of this long report on the

19    military police, and there's a section titled "Detainees and prisoners."

20    "By the end of June 1992, due to the needs of the HZ HB, the military

21    administration established three military investigation prisons in

22    Ljubuski, Mostar, and Livno.  All prisoners of war and detainees, HVO

23    soldiers who have committed a misdemeanour or an offence, and civilians

24    who have committed a misdemeanour or an offence against HVO members were

25    placed in them."

Page 27101

 1            It goes on to talk about, again, the establishment of the central

 2    military prison in Mostar.

 3            THE INTERPRETER:  Could Mr. Scott kindly slow down again, please.

 4    Thank you.

 5            MR. SCOTT:  Yes.

 6            In that report, and I'm skipping over certain provisions because

 7    of time, but specifically it is mentioned the treatment of prisoners and

 8    prison conditions are in accordance with international conventions as

 9    confirmed by the representatives of the International Organisation for

10    Human Rights Protection, the Helsinki Watch, during their visit on 24

11    October 1992.  Long before 1993 prisons were being operated, international

12    standards were being discussed, inspections were taking place.

13            Mr. Coric's report goes on to say:  "The military police is

14    involved in the exchange of prisoners of war through its representatives

15    on negotiating committees for exchanges and in conducting actual

16    exchanges.  In the military police administration, the necessary records

17    are kept on our imprisoned defenders and the prisoners of war from the

18    enemy side."

19            The -- on the report on the detainees in the prisons it ends with

20    this statement, which, again, I think the Chamber should consider in terms

21    of what happens in 1993:  "The military police has also set up required

22    cooperation with municipal organs as well as with international

23    organisations and institutions, ICRC, ECMM, UNPROFOR."

24            Exhibit P 00677 is another important document.  It is a report

25    again from Valentin Coric as chief of the military police reporting to

Page 27102

 1    Bruno Stojic, his superior, as head of the HVO department of defence,

 2    dated 31 October 1992.  Among other things, this document again shows that

 3    the HVO's Livno, Mostar, and Tomislavgrad prisons were under HVO military

 4    police administration.  Again, indicating Coric reporting to Stojic.

 5            I invite Your Honours to take a close look at that report and

 6    listen to it and thinking -- this is a report that's been given in October

 7    1992, not October 1993, but it might sound very similar, but this is

 8    during the time when primarily Serbs were being held, not Muslims.

 9            In that report Mr. Coric says:  "Pursuant to an agreement reached

10    with the ICRC, EU observers, and UNPROFOR, and the order issued by the

11    chief of the defence department on the 28th of October 1992, all war

12    prisoners were unconditionally released from the military remand centres

13    in Livno, Mostar, and Tomislavgrad on 30 October 1992.  The ICRC

14    representatives have carried out a survey among incarcerated prisoners in

15    which they express their preference about whether or not they wish to go

16    to so-called Yugoslavia."

17            It goes on at length about that, where certain prisoners wanted to

18    go, didn't want to go in conjunction with the EU and ICRC representatives.

19            It goes on to say:  "So on 30 October 1992, the order to release

20    prisoners from the military remand centres in Livno, Mostar, and

21    Tomislavgrad were carried out.  In all, 363 prisoners have been released

22    in the presence of ICRC and EU representatives."

23            Exhibit P 00740 is an HVO security and information service, what

24    the Chamber has heard referred to as SIS, a report dated the 13th of

25    November, 1992, concerning prisoners taken from the Heliodrom for labour

Page 27103

 1    at various HVO locations, including at the front lines.  In this report,

 2    November 1992, the deputy warden at the Heliodrom, Josip Praljak,

 3    confirmed that they had recorded every instance when prisoners were taken

 4    out to work.

 5            The document goes on to say:  "Up until 27 October 1992, the

 6    process of taking out prisoners to work involved certification of the

 7    request by one of the individuals in charge of logistics and verbal

 8    notification of Valentin Coric, chief of the HZ HB military police

 9    administration.  According to the sources," I'm still quoting from the

10    document, "according to the sources, they complained about this manner of

11    taking out prisoners as a result of which Valentin Coric issued a decision

12    announcing that no one was allowed to take out prisoners without his

13    signature."

14            Now, taking that bit of evidence about the camps in 1992, we can

15    connect that to again referring back to Dr. Miller's report on the

16    characteristics of the Balkan conflict, and that again is Exhibit P 10239

17    at page 15.  And once again Dr. Miller reports that already by mid-1992,

18    "the widespread existence of detention camps, which serve also as places

19    of organised killing and organised rape, was a known phenomenon."

20            "Regarding the infamous camps that dotted Bosnia during the war,

21    one of the best known Manjaca, near Banja Luka, had been used as a

22    prisoner of war camp during the first year of the war in Croatia."

23            Then he goes on to refer to:  "In July 1992, Red Cross

24    representatives visited camps and prisons in Mostar, Ljubuski, Capljina,

25    Bosanski Brod, Zenica, and Bjelica ..."

Page 27104

 1            "And in that year -- and in the year since the conflict began

 2    violations of humanitarian and human rights have been committed by all

 3    sides in the conflict and have become a practice, particularly as far as

 4    the civilian population is concerned.  By August 1992," I'm still

 5    referring to Dr. Miller's report.  "By August 1992, the existence of HVO

 6    camps at Ljubuski and Capljina were known as were the Serbian camps as

 7    well."

 8            Finally on this before a couple of final comments on the camps,

 9    again we have the assistance of Mr. Praljak who has indicated that he had

10    authority over the HVO prison camps or at least the Dretelj camp in 1992

11    during the time that Serbs were being detained there.  According to what

12    Mr. Praljak has told us at transcript page 1624, it was Mr. Praljak who

13    closed the Dretelj camp in 1992.

14            I will just make reference to the fourth report of the UN Special

15    Rapporteur Mazowiecki, his fourth report which is in evidence, it is

16    Exhibit P 04822, and it goes on at great length at --

17            JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Praljak.

18            THE ACCUSED PRALJAK: [Interpretation] I would like it -- the

19    record to read Josip Praljak so that when reading the record people don't

20    think that that is me.

21            MR. SCOTT:  No, Your Honour.  I'm specifically referring to

22    Slobodan Praljak.  At transcript page 1624, Mr. Slobodan Praljak told us

23    in court that he was the one who closed Dretelj camp in 1992.  But I'm

24    sure we can refer to the transcript and check that.  Perhaps Mr. Praljak

25    forgot.

Page 27105

 1            Your Honour, in the fourth report by Mr. Mazowiecki, it goes on at

 2    length about the operation of the camps, and I think when the Chamber has

 3    a chance to read that about Heliodrom, Dretelj, Gabela, you will see that

 4    it dovetails completely with the first-hand evidence that the Chamber

 5    received from a number of people who were held in these terrible camps and

 6    the UN special report confirms that.

 7            The point, Your Honour, that the Prosecution makes in this

 8    particular part of its submission and the Chamber may say, well, why talk

 9    about 1992, because, Your Honour, the establishment and operation of the

10    camps was nothing new in 1993, and when there was the mass arrests of

11    Muslim men in the early July 1993, they had to put them somewhere.  They

12    had been in the business of operating camps in 1992.  They had been in the

13    business of having international observers in the camps in 1992, and they

14    knew the standards that were required.  They'd been down this road before.

15            Just briefly on forced labour.  Again we've already touched on

16    that only briefly, but the record indicates in this case, Your Honour,

17    that this was a widespread and systematic practice.  Again it couldn't be

18    more systematic.  Books and records of the prisoners being taken on a

19    daily basis for forced labour, some of them not coming back because they

20    were killed on the confrontation line.

21            Just two quick examples on that.  Exhibit P 03474.  On the 15th of

22    July, 1993, Mr. Petkovic ordered HVO units throughout the south-east

23    Herzegovina operative zone to "organise immediately the fortification and

24    barricading of defence lines reached and at depth in the zone by engaging

25    engineering equipment, prisoners, and detainees."

Page 27106

 1            And a few days later, on the 20th of July, 1993, in Exhibit

 2    P 03592, Petkovic ordered again in connection with the engineering of

 3    defence works, "Engage the prisoners and available machinery in the

 4    completion of this task."

 5            I want to spend, Your Honour, a couple of minutes talking about

 6    what's been referred to in this case as reverse ethnic cleansing and the

 7    Prosecution submits this is particularly interesting and important because

 8    it truly shows the systematic nature and deliberateness of this plan, a

 9    plan and a strategy that involve not all -- ultimately not only involving

10    Muslims but involving moving Bosnian Croats also.  Indeed in a scheme in

11    which Witness BF in one of his reports that the Chamber is familiar with

12    described this practice as being truly Machiavellian.  By a number of

13    means Croats from other parts of Bosnia were prodded or "encouraged to

14    leave their homes in order to establish or consolidate a Croatian

15    population majority in the municipalities more at the core of the Banovina

16    and Herceg-Bosna."

17            The Prosecution submits that this part of the Greater

18    Croatia-Herceg-Bosna programme had at least three important goals.  First,

19    it was clear to probably anyone who looked at it with any sort of

20    intellectual objectivity that some municipalities and areas claimed by

21    Herceg-Bosna were more Croat than others and with some of the areas on the

22    fringes more toward the east, more towards Central Bosnia not having a

23    strong Croat majority or even plurality.  A judgement was made, we submit,

24    or evolved over time that it was ultimately more important to

25    Herceg-Bosna's long-term success to move the Croat population from the

Page 27107

 1    more marginal areas or on the edges, if you will, to the core areas where

 2    the Croat majority could thereby -- which could thereby be reinforced or

 3    consolidated.

 4            Tudjman himself recognised the benefits to be gained from moving

 5    Croats out of their homes even though difficult.  In Exhibit P 06485,

 6    Tudjman says:  "Of course it is painful.  Apart from that, 200.000 Croats

 7    have already been driven out of their areas.  There will probably be

 8    another 100.000 of them.  It is awful for them, but even looked at

 9    historically, you know, we shall have these 100.000 to 200.000 Croats will

10    firm up the Croatian territory here from Istria to Baranja, you

11    understand, when we finish that and so on.  So every bad thing is not just

12    bad, but we have to make use of it here."

13            As a second reason, as a matter of political, military, and

14    economic practicalities and part of the ultimate what I will call horse

15    trading with the Serbs and the Muslims, Tudjman and the Herceg-Bosna

16    leaders recognised that they might have to give up or trade away some of

17    the areas furthest from the core Banovina territory.  Perhaps the best

18    example of that, Your Honours, is Vares, the eastern-most territory

19    claimed by Herceg-Bosna, virtually surrounded by Serb and Muslim areas.

20            Third and equally important and as already mentioned, relocating

21    Croats from other parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina and moving them into houses

22    and flats which had been seized from or abandoned by Muslim families or

23    Muslim families which have been expelled would make it more difficult, if

24    not impossible, for the Muslims to return to those areas, their houses

25    having been taken over by Croats.

Page 27108

 1            Once again Tudjman said in September 1993, and this is in

 2    Exhibit 52 -- 5255:  "I, too, have told our people, please settle these

 3    refugees in those areas, Tasovcici, Stolac et cetera, to be Croats, so

 4    that Croatian people are present there."  At the same meeting Tudjman told

 5    his Herzegovinian followers not to fall prey to the idea that the left

 6    bank of the Neretva River would become part of the Bosnian republic but do

 7    the opposite and to quote Tudjman "settle in those areas Ravno, Capljina,

 8    Neum, Stolac, and then we shall insist on it."

 9            In addition to the internal record that we have of HVO documents

10    and presidential meetings, we also have the observations of the

11    international observers.  Representatives of the international

12    organisations such as Witness BA and Witness DZ testified how the issue of

13    population transfers of large groups of Bosnian Croat displaced persons

14    was a recurring topic of conversation with the HVO leadership from at

15    least mid-1993 forward, including specifically conversations and meetings

16    with Mate Boban, Jadranko Prlic, Bruno Stojic, and others who requested

17    international organisations to assist in what was being called the

18    "evacuation" of tens of thousands of Bosnian Croats from Central Bosnia

19    into the Herzegovina region.

20            That can be seen in part in Exhibit P 09712, P 02714, P 02872.

21            Referring more to Witness BA who knew from colleagues in Central

22    Bosnia that most of the Croats in Zenica were not in fact experiencing

23    serious problems, at least not as reported to the international community,

24    even though there was an ongoing armed conflict, they were confirmed that

25    these people, most of them, did not in fact want to move from that area.

Page 27109

 1            In general, it was the policy of that organisation, the

 2    humanitarian organisation of which Witness BA was a part, to assist in

 3    evacuations only in situations where civilians were seriously at risk, and

 4    it was the assessment of that organisation that that was not the case

 5    concerning the Croats in the Zenica area.

 6            Likewise, Witness BC interviewed Bosnian Croat displaced persons

 7    who spoke about the circumstances of their departure, and many of them

 8    reported to Witness BC that they were manipulated or coerced by HVO

 9    soldiers into getting onto buses.  Many of them didn't want to leave he

10    told us.  The typical modus operandi would be the soldiers would come into

11    the village, say something to the effect, We're withdrawing from this

12    area.  The Mujahedin are on the way, and you better leave while you can.

13            Many of the Bosnian Croats in fact were very angry later because

14    they didn't want to leave their homes and didn't feel that they really

15    needed to, but nonetheless were given no choice.  The use of fear, as I

16    just mentioned, was often combined with the promises of better housing or

17    better conditions somewhere else in Herzegovina or elsewhere, which

18    unfortunately often didn't turn out to be the case for the Croat displaced

19    persons themselves, who indeed were also victims of this programming

20    strategy.  Not just the Muslims but Bosnian Croats as well.

21            JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Scott, just one small

22    precision.  What you've just told us, how is this compatible with what

23    happened in Guca Gora where the Mujahedin in fact did come?

24            MR. SCOTT:  I think, Your Honour, the evidence on that was not

25    quite so clear, because I think the testimony of the witness was that the

Page 27110

 1    situation in Guca Gora, while there had been some very bad things happen

 2    there, were not accurately reported.  But be that as it may, again let me

 3    be very clear about the Prosecution position, we have said since the

 4    opening statement in this case that there were indeed times when there

 5    were crimes and atrocities committed by the Muslim side and there indeed

 6    were some instances of that.  There's no question about that.  But what

 7    the witnesses in this case have established, we submit, over and over

 8    again, and what the international documents show, is that apart from that,

 9    apart from some genuine instances that there was a plan, strategy, a

10    manipulation to move many -- by the Bosnian Croat leadership to move many

11    Bosnian Croats from Central Bosnia to Herzegovina and we believe, we

12    submit, that's what the evidence shows.

13            Witness BA -- I'm sorry, Your Honour, I was going on when you

14    asked your question.  I think we covered that already.

15            Witness Peter Galbraith testified how Mate Boban, in July 1993,

16    told him that the HVO and Croatia wanted to move a large number of Croats

17    from the Vares area to Croat-controlled areas, presumably Herzegovina.

18    What Galbraith thought was striking, what he told us in court, what he

19    thought was striking was that Boban did not seek international assistance

20    to protect the Croat population in place, that is leave them in Vares and

21    protect them there, but what Boban wanted to do was to move them out of

22    Vares.

23            We also have the report and the written account of Witness DE,

24    which is Exhibit P 080865 -- I think there's a mistake in that by the

25    numbers.  Your Honour, I'll have to double-check it.  That's too many

Page 27111

 1    numbers.  It may be P 0 -- I'll have to check on that, Your Honour, my

 2    apologies.

 3            But in the written account in connection with Witness DE he said

 4    this and I think he encapsulated it as clearly as anyone did:  "I accuse

 5    the highest level of Croatian politics of betraying Croatian interest in

 6    Central Bosnia, especially in Vares where I was born.  Many things are now

 7    clear about the fall of both Travnik and Kakanj.  It was all done

 8    according to a premeditated scenario.  I accuse them of unprecedented

 9    exodus of the Croats from Vares, of their suffering and ordeal.  You have

10    done everything to drive us out of our centuries' old homes.  What is the

11    area you have allocated to us for our future life?"

12            I'm told it is P 08086.

13            And I'll finally return to this where I started on this topic, and

14    that is the ECMM report dated the 19th of July, 1993, which is Exhibit

15    P 02849 that was authored by Witness BF who testified recently.  He gave

16    the following striking and I think evocative assessment of this situation:

17    "It seems Machiavellic, but it is only Balkan.  And everybody who has met

18    regularly the top Bosnian Croat leaders Boban, Stojic, Kordic, Valenta, in

19    various situations and on various subjects where their paranoia and their

20    extremism was not hidden can easily believe it."

21            JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] There must be a mistake on line

22    20 -- oh, it's corrected now.

23            MR. SCOTT:  Thank you, Your Honour.

24            Coming to the end of this overview, Your Honour, we're now into

25    the fall of 1993.  Not surprisingly, the continued illegal forced transfer

Page 27112

 1    and imprisonment of civilians led the international community to place

 2    increasingly great pressure on both Croatia and on the Herceg-Bosna

 3    leadership.  As a result, on the 6th of September, 1993, the HVO cabinet

 4    or government held a special meeting to deal with these problems having

 5    become alarmed again at the political and public relations damage being

 6    done both locally and in Zagreb, and this can be found in Exhibit P 04841.

 7            After trying to pretend that the HVO cabinet was not responsible

 8    for the human rights violations in the very camps that they had

 9    established, enlarged and administered, they arranged for a few limited

10    improvements but made no immediate efforts to close the camps.  The camps,

11    after all, still had a reason to exist as long as Muslims remained in

12    them.  Only when most of the Muslims had already been expelled or moved to

13    other locations were camps, or most of them, closed at the end of 1993,

14    although some in fact were not closed until 1994.

15            The Herceg-Bosna HVO campaign of attacks and ethnic cleansing

16    carried out by the HVO military under direction of the Herceg-Bosna

17    political leaders continued into the latter part of 1993 as demonstrated

18    once again by the 23 October 1993 attack on the Muslim village of

19    Stupni Do.  I'm not going to, for these purposes, go into detail on that

20    particular event, but I think the Chamber has heard extensive evidence

21    about that and rather compelling evidence from -- including people on the

22    HVO side.

23            After discussions in Zagreb of what to do concerning the HVO

24    officer who the Chamber will know, who commanded the Herceg-Bosna forces

25    involved in the killings at Stupni Do, senior political and military

Page 27113

 1    leaders engaged in what Franjo Tudjman himself described as a "game."  The

 2    Chamber has heard about all the efforts to conceal and cover up the crimes

 3    committed under the leadership order of Ivica Rajic.  The giving of a

 4    false name; how Ivica Rajic became Viktor Andric.  How he was supposedly

 5    fired and the new person Viktor Andric put in his place.  It was one and

 6    the same person as Ivica Rajic.  All the manoeuvering that went on and

 7    truly what must have been one of the biggest cover-ups of the Balkan wars.

 8    And what Tudjman himself described and there are several presidential

 9    meetings where Stupni Do, it was discussed at length and in fact

10    Mr. Petkovic participates in some of these meetings, and Mr. Tudjman's own

11    word for what was being done was to call it a game.

12            The international community was told in fact that Rajic had been

13    removed when in fact he had changed his name, remained in essentially the

14    same position.  And the very troops that went into Stupni Do, they then

15    turned around days later and used -- attempt to break through from

16    Kiseljak to Busovaca.  The very breakthrough that Tudjman said on the 5th

17    of November, gave instructions to Petkovic and said, Push on to Busovaca.

18            In the Resolution adopted on 20 December 1993, the General

19    Assembly condemned the indiscriminate shelling of civilians and murder of

20    non-combatants, specifically singling out the Bosnian Croats.  The ethnic

21    cleansing perpetrated by any side, particularly the Bosnian Serb forces

22    who have used such tactics as a matter of policy and Bosnian Croat forces.

23    Once again in the same Security Council or in this instance General

24    Assembly action, and that can be found at P 07268, the General Assembly

25    once again urged the government of Croatia to use its influence "with the

Page 27114

 1    self-proclaimed Croatian authorities in Bosnia-Herzegovina to bring the

 2    practice of ethnic cleansing to an immediate end and to reverse the

 3    effects of that practice."

 4            The sixth report of Mazowiecki, the Special Rapporteur appointed

 5    by the UN, the sixth report which is Exhibit P 07917, once again provides

 6    a lengthy report and factual statement of what had happened in Herzegovina

 7    during this time period.  I won't take the time now to read the quote from

 8    it.  The Chamber will have it.

 9            As a result of the Herceg-Bosna HVO campaign of persecution and

10    ethnic cleansing, the Bosnian Muslim population in many parts of

11    Herceg-Bosna was substantially reduced and likewise the Bosnian Croat

12    percentage of the population was substantially increased.  Those Muslims

13    who remained were plainly dominated by the Herceg-Bosna HVO authorities

14    and forces as planned and intended, indeed, by the joint criminal

15    enterprise.  By the late fall of 1993, the cleansing of Muslims from many

16    parts of Herceg-Bosna was largely completed, and there was little

17    continuing need for the camps.  While in September, just in September of

18    1993, there had still been 8.000 Muslims in Stolac and 14.000 Muslims in

19    Capljina, by November only one month later, by November there were no

20    Muslims left in Stolac, and out of 14.000 that had been in Capljina the

21    month before, there were only 3.852 left.

22            The full extent of -- and the success of their efforts to move the

23    Muslims out was clearly known to the HVO leadership.  In one meeting, the

24    convicted war criminal and Bosnian Croat vice-president Dario Kordic

25    reported that "about 75.000 Muslims have been expelled by the HV."  Maybe

Page 27115

 1    that's a typo.  Maybe it should be the HVO.  We want to give them the

 2    benefit of the doubt, but that can be found in Exhibit P 08597.  About

 3    75.000 Muslims have been expelled.

 4            Zoran Maric bragged to Tudjman, bragged to Tudjman in a meeting

 5    already in March 1993, at the moment there are very few Muslims in

 6    Busovaca.  Many wish to return, but "we put Croats in their homes."

 7    That's Exhibit P 01622.

 8            In a remarkable meeting on 21 September 1993, which is Exhibit

 9    P 05237, the HVO's Andjelko Markovic proudly informed Tudjman:  "Today

10    there is not a single Muslim in Stolac.  We have populated Stolac with our

11    refugees from Bosnia."

12            Tudjman responded:  "Andjelko, I know all that.  You're not

13    telling me anything I don't already know."

14            Pero Markovic of the Capljina HVO reported to Tudjman, another

15    Markovic, in the same meeting:  "When it comes to the territory south of

16    the Buna down to Stolac and back to Capljina, this is an area of

17    approximately 250 kilometres square, there is not a single Muslim there.

18    Croats live there, and we have brought 3.000 Croats from Kakanj, from

19    Travnik, too, and Croats from Konjic.  All the houses that are sound are

20    full.  There are priests that followed in their steps too."

21            "Tudjman:  Wait.  I said that the containers too, and that too.

22            "Markovic:  We have about a hundred cottages.  We have already

23    filled the Stolac area to capacity."

24            Tudjman said he had given instructions for Croats to settle in

25    these areas.  I actually quoted that earlier.  "I, too, have told our

Page 27116

 1    people, please settle these refugees in those areas so Croatian people are

 2    there."  Exhibit P 05237.

 3            The work of the Prosecution witness Dr. Tabeau showed the

 4    following based on what she described as statistically conservative

 5    analysis.  She studied the population movements in eight of the

 6    Herceg-Bosna municipalities and among her conclusions were the following:

 7    The studied Herceg-Bosna population became divided along ethnic lines

 8    during the 1993 Croat-Muslim conflict.  Probably wouldn't surprise any of

 9    us.  Going on though, approximately 43.2 per cent of the pre-conflict

10    population of non-Croats in eight Herceg-Bosna municipalities were not

11    living at their 1991 place of residence by 1997, 1998.  43.2 per cent had

12    been displaced.

13            49 per cent of the pre-conflict population of Muslims in the eight

14    Herceg-Bosna municipalities were not living at their 1991 residences in

15    1997 -- by 1997, 1998, specifically Muslims.  49 per cent.

16            While each ethnic group suffered, and again the Prosecution will

17    always say all groups suffered, Serbs, Croats, and Muslims, while each

18    ethnic group suffered, the highest number of internally displaced persons

19    and refugees were the Bosnian Muslims, a minimum, again being

20    statistically conservative, a minimum of 26.663 to 40.266 internally

21    displaced persons or refugees or 43.4 per cent of the total of all

22    internally displaced persons and refugees were Muslims.

23            Looking at some of the areas covered by our indictment, in

24    comparison to the ethnic percentages between 1991 and 1997, 1998, Prozor

25    went from being 62.2 per cent Croat to being 93 per cent Croat.

Page 27117

 1    Mostar-Jug went to from being 49 per cent Croat to 96.1 per cent Croat.

 2    Mostar-Jugozapad - forgive my pronunciation if I don't have it correct -

 3    went from being 47.9 per cent Croat to being 78.2 per cent Croat.

 4    Mostar-Zapad went from being 41.6 per cent Croat to 75.2 per cent Croat.

 5    Capljina went from being 53.8 per cent Croat to 92.3 per cent Croat.  And

 6    Stolac, Stolac went from being 48 per cent Muslim in 1991 to being 95.5

 7    per cent Croat after the conflict.

 8            Any Muslims who still remained after all of this active HVO

 9    cleansing or those who might return would have to change their national

10    identities according to Tudjman.  Tudjman told various Croat leaders, and

11    this is in Exhibit P 08288, "Start working on it right now to get them to

12    declare themselves Croats of the Muslim faith.  Get down to it right now.

13    We have no other choice."

14            That, Your Honour, really brings us to the Washington Agreement in

15    March of 1994, and the end of the principal period of the amended

16    indictment.  Even by -- even then, the plan was still going forward.  Even

17    then Tudjman was urging his soldiers on, not to give up on Herceg-Bosna,

18    that Herceg-Bosna would always exist, would never go away.  And I would

19    just close with the words of Witness DZ, who the Chamber heard recently,

20    who put in his report, which is Exhibit P 08167, that many of the Croats

21    that he was -- that he was dealing with in the spring of 1994, before he

22    left the area described Washington -- the Washington Agreement as nothing

23    other than a dictated marriage for a better divorce.

24            Mr. President, that concludes our overview of the case, and

25    Mr. Stringer and I tomorrow would specifically address some additional

Page 27118

 1    arguments, submissions put forth by the Coric and Pusic Defence teams.

 2            JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Fine.  You've used four hours

 3    roughly.  I'm not going to count the number of missing seconds or minutes.

 4    Let's say that tomorrow you have four more hours.  It would be good if you

 5    could complete your submissions tomorrow.  Of course in our decision we

 6    had granted you nine hours, but you might be able to complete your

 7    submissions tomorrow.

 8            As you know, tomorrow we'll work in the morning at 9.00 a.m.  So

 9    I'll see you tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.

10                           --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 6.56 p.m.

11                          To be reconvened on Tuesday, the 5th day

12                          of February, 2008, at 9.00 a.m.

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