1 Wednesday, 19 March 2003

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 --- Upon commencing at 9.12 a.m.

5 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Good morning. Please be seated.

6 May we call the case, please, and at the same time ask the usher

7 already to escort the witness into the courtroom.

8 THE REGISTRAR: Good morning. This is Case Number IT-97-24-T, the

9 Prosecutor versus Milomir Stakic.

10 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Thank you. And the appearances, please, for the

11 Prosecution.

12 MS. KORNER: Good morning, Your Honours. It's Joanna Korner, Ann

13 Sutherland, assisted by Ruth Karper, case manager.

14 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Thank you. And for the Defence.

15 MR. LUKIC: Good morning, Your Honours. Branko Lukic, John

16 Ostojic, and Danilo Cirkovic for the Defence.

17 [The witness entered court].

18 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Just one very brief question because it has to

19 be answered during the next break, we would have the possibility to change

20 from afternoon to morning the 24th of March and the 7th of April. In the

21 past, it was not agreed, but there was strong opinion that it would be

22 better if possible to sit in the morning. Any objections to this

23 rescheduling?

24 MS. KORNER: No, Your Honour.

25 MR. LUKIC: Only, Your Honour, if we can be advised what is on the

1 7th of April.

2 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: We are still in the phase, as you can see from

3 our calendar, rebuttal/rejoinder. And then it will be followed by the

4 closing arguments. But at this point in time, we can't say yet what about

5 the last remaining witness.

6 MR. LUKIC: We don't have objections.

7 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Okay. Then we'll sit the 24th and the 7th of

8 April in the morning.

9 Then let us continue with the cross-examination of Mr. Trifkovic

10 immediately, please.

11 WITNESS: SRDJA TRIFKOVIC [Resumed]

12 THE WITNESS: Before we start, Your Honour, I have some documents

13 that you asked me to provide.

14 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Please.

15 THE WITNESS: In this bundle here, first we have a copy of the

16 first report on voluntary contributions by states from August 1994, which

17 indicates that Malaysia contributed 2 million, and Pakistan 1 million

18 dollars, for a total of 94 point some per cent of 3.2 million that had

19 been contributed.

20 The second item is an article by Alfred Rubin, the distinguished

21 professor of international law that I mentioned yesterday whose article

22 was the basis for my comments in my 1996 article. And the third article

23 is the actual copy of the 1996 article as printed in chronicles, and

24 that's the only one I can really usefully comment upon. Because the

25 website article, as I indicated yesterday, is an added amalgam of two

1 articles which I didn't add it myself. So...

2 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: May it first be shown to the Defence first, and

3 then to the Prosecution.

4 THE WITNESS: That's the same bundle, yes. They are all the same.

5 In addition, if I'm allowed to offer another one-sheet document,

6 it is a sample of US commentary on my work on Islam. I'm deeply concerned

7 about some of the comments that were made yesterday about my writings on

8 the subject. And I hope that this will simply offer supplementary

9 evidence that at least on the other side of the Atlantic ocean, my writing

10 is considered neither extreme, nor eccentric, nor belonging to the

11 political or ideological margins. It includes the National Review, which

12 is one of the most prominent political magazines in the United States;

13 Investor's Business Daily, which is the second most prominent business

14 newspaper; Jewish World Review; Conservative Book Club; Book List, which

15 is the biggest library trade magazine.

16 I think overall, on a general note, we are witnessing the

17 beginnings of a kind of cognitive -- of the difference between the

18 discourse in the United States and Europe on crucial issues concerning the

19 future of our common civilisation that is not for us to comment today.

20 But for what it's worth, I like to offer this comment as an illustration

21 of where we stand.

22 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: In this Tribunal, it could only be offered by

23 one of the parties. And therefore, in the moment, nothing has to be said

24 until we have the request by one of the parties that the document be

25 tendered.

1 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, it's of course for Your Honours to draw

2 your conclusions as to what you think of Dr. Trifkovic's work. But I have

3 no objection if he wants to put in what he says the United States thinks

4 of his work.

5 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: I think we shouldn't lose any minute in this

6 case. It's a case, again, on the individual responsibility of Dr. Stakic,

7 and this has nothing to do with the United States. There is nothing like

8 "the United States." There are opinions here and there, also on the other

9 side, the fundamental point made yesterday is the clear lack of tolerance,

10 the poor basis of facts relying on secondary instead of primary sources.

11 And not going into details, we discussed some examples yesterday. This is

12 clear.

13 But as I said yesterday, this has nothing to do with Dr. Stakic

14 being the accused here in this Tribunal. And it was making me absolutely

15 hesitant from the beginning of this case to go too much into details of

16 so-called history, because everybody has, no doubt, his own view on

17 history. And this is the good right of everybody. But we have to

18 concentrate on the case against Dr. Stakic, and no inference should be

19 drawn by those articles we were confronted with yesterday.

20 So, please, proceed.

21 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, what I'm going to do is look at what we

22 have been handed over the break and maybe come back to it after that.

23 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Yes.

24 Cross-examined by Ms. Korner: [Continued]

25 Q. Dr. Trifkovic, what happened to the second article, the one that

1 you did write in March 2000?

2 A. I'm afraid I couldn't find it on the website. It was also

3 published in a magazine, but it wasn't published on the website. What we

4 have in the early 2000 is the amalgam of two published articles which was

5 concocted. Basically, I will be happy to supply it subsequent to my

6 testimony. But that one dealt primarily with the Kosovo situation. I

7 don't have it.

8 Q. I'm sorry. I know that you managed to get this from the actual

9 issue of chronicles itself, the original 1996 article. Why weren't you

10 able to get the 2000 article?

11 A. I had a total one hour and 45 minutes use of Internet time

12 courtesy of the lady who's -- Isabel. And during that time, I did

13 searches of all of my articles that I could get hold of, and that one, the

14 1996 article, was available from a third source. The 2000 article was

15 not. Not all articles published in chronicles are posted on the website.

16 Q. All right. I want to go back, before I continue with your report,

17 to two matters that you dealt with yesterday. At page 3, this was your

18 evidence in chief. When you were asked about Dr. Stakic by Mr. Lukic, you

19 were asked to describe Dr. Stakic's role at page 2 of the LiveNote. And

20 then you said at page 3: "In the period after the spring of 1992, I think

21 particularly poignant is the interview, or rather sorry, the report that

22 we had on the occasion of the bishop's visit to Prijedor."

23 Now, this was a document that was provided by the Defence. And I

24 want to ask you whether it's the one that you're referring to.

25 MS. KORNER: Your Honours, it was Document 87 in the bundle that

1 the Defence provided to us. I'll give you the original. And if Your

2 Honours can't find it, I'll have the English put up on the ELMO.

3 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Thank you. You are making reference to line 18

4 through 20 of --

5 MS. KORNER: It starts at 17 on my copy, Your Honour, but yes.

6 Q. Is that the article dated the 9th of October, 1992 --

7 A. Yes, it is indeed.

8 Q. "Interethnic relations should be nurtured on mutual trust."

9 Now, the first thing, it's hardly spring of 1992, is it?

10 A. I believe I used the term "in the aftermath of the events of

11 spring 1992."

12 Q. "In the period after the spring of 1992," so I mean it didn't

13 occur to you to say autumn of 1992?

14 A. Well, I used the spring of 1992 as the cutoff point which is the

15 dramatic rupture of the city of Prijedor, if you will, and that even in

16 the aftermath of those events, the public discourse of Dr. Stakic

17 continued to contain appeals for mutual trust and reconciliation.

18 Q. All right. You told us also yesterday, and this was at page 22,

19 Your Honours, of the LiveNote, that you'd explained to Mr. Ostojic that

20 you don't have much interest, to use the colloquial term, of the

21 "nitty-gritty of who did what to whom" in the municipality of Prijedor.

22 Do I take it from that that you have never looked at the actual detail or

23 at all of what actually happened in Prijedor between May and July of 1992?

24 A. No, the "nitty-gritty" referred specifically to the question which

25 I believe was asked about whether I had looked at the minutes of the

1 Prijedor Municipal Assembly sessions in the period leading up to the

2 spring of 1992. And even though the colloquial term "nitty-gritty" may

3 have been more judiciously chosen, under the circumstances, it

4 specifically referred to the question whether I had actually looked at the

5 verbatim minutes of those meetings of whose existence I wasn't even aware,

6 but I was aware in the course of your question yesterday.

7 Q. Sir, you are aware, are you, of the massive scale of - and I use

8 the term in its wide as possible sense - ethnic cleansing that took place

9 in Prijedor during that period?

10 A. I'm aware of the massive dislocations of population during that

11 period, and I assure you that the term "nitty-gritty" referred to the

12 minutes of the assembly meetings prior to those events and not to the

13 events themselves.

14 Q. All right. And so you're aware, are you, of as you put it the

15 dislocation, which involved incarcerating something in the region of 3.000

16 people in the Omarska camp?

17 A. Yes, I'm aware of the incarceration of close to 3.000 people in

18 the Omarska camp.

19 Q. You're aware of the attacks that took place on the various

20 villages?

21 A. My brief was specifically to leave the political and historical

22 analysis of the events at the point where military events pick up, and I

23 was not under the impression that I was to comment in detail on those

24 unless they, of course, pertained to the broader global picture. But in

25 this particular instance, all I can say is that I'm also aware that the

1 actual initial shots in the Municipality of Prijedor were fired at

2 Hambarine and that they were the result of a confrontation between a

3 Muslim barrier and a Yugoslav army convoy.

4 Q. All right. Do I take it that that in your view is justification

5 for the shelling of Kozarac and Hambarine which took place after that?

6 A. I'm sure that a military expert will be better qualified to answer

7 what is appropriate response to that kind of provocation.

8 Q. All right. You see, your report is actually headed "The Events in

9 Prijedor, 1991 to 1992." Didn't you think, if you were going to produce a

10 report on the events in Prijedor, that you ought to know what those events

11 were?

12 A. Well, I do not deny that I have a fairly accurate picture of what

13 those events are. It is one thing to have that accurate picture or at

14 least relatively detailed picture; it is another to be asked to comment on

15 what I can only describe as a question appropriate for the military expert

16 to answer, like what is the appropriate military response to the

17 confrontation at Hambarine checkpoint.

18 Q. I'm not asking you for an opinion as a military expert. I'm

19 asking you for an opinion as a human being who says he knows what

20 happened.

21 A. As a human being, I believe that it is very important to consider

22 the effect of the initial shots being fired in an electrified situation.

23 It is tantamount to screaming "fire" in a crowded movie theatre.

24 Q. You told us yesterday that you didn't read the minutes either of

25 the SDS club or the assembly because you felt that that didn't tell you

1 more than, for example, the articles.

2 A. And also that I was operating under certain time restraints, that

3 had I been given the brief that would entail a greater number of hours

4 that could be devoted to this issue, I assure you that I would have been

5 able to devote myself both to these primary sources and to the production

6 of a more detailed and better footnoted report.

7 Q. Equally, I think -- sorry, I have been warned already about

8 question and answer.

9 Equally, I think you told us that to some extent, it was your

10 opinion that the speeches and the things that were being said were with an

11 eye to the future as it were.

12 A. This is the point that I made in reference to frankly all three

13 ethnic sides in the Bosnian dispute, that from the early fall of 1991, on

14 all sides, there is a great deal of posturing where ostensible reasons for

15 actions and statements are on one side, and substantive hidden agenda on

16 the other. And this is not the monopoly of any one side in these

17 proceedings, and that's why I wanted to imply that there is sometimes less

18 than meets the eye in the primary documentary evidence.

19 Q. I just want to ask you this: Did it ever occur to you, when you

20 looked at this article, that by the time Dr. Stakic and Bishop Komarica

21 were meeting, that there were almost [Realtime transcript read in error

22 "also"] no Muslims to worry about in the Prijedor Municipality?

23 A. It is one thing to emphasise the facts of the changed ethnic

24 picture at the period under consideration in this article.

25 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Mr. Lukic.

1 MR. LUKIC: Your Honour, if Ms. Korner is testifying, that's

2 okay. But if she asked a question, she should present to the witness the

3 documentation on which she is basing her statement "no Muslims in Prijedor

4 area at that time." That's simply not true.

5 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I said actually "almost." I see it says

6 "also," but I actually said "almost."

7 Look, if Mr. Ostojic wants to make the objection, he can make the

8 objection. Two people doing it is not on.

9 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: I don't think --

10 MR. LUKIC: According to the demographer of the Prosecution who

11 testified here, this statement is not true.

12 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: I think we can agree on a limited number from

13 both sides. Okay. Please, proceed.

14 THE WITNESS: The changed ethnic picture in Prijedor at the time

15 under consideration does not alter the fact that in his public

16 pronouncements, Dr. Stakic continued to appeal on ethnic reconciliation.

17 This is something that I think was the primary focus of your initial

18 question. And my reply is that if, regardless of the circumstances, there

19 is one constant in these unfortunate times from the fall of 1991 to the

20 fall of 1992, it is Stakic's continued insistence on ethnic reconciliation

21 and the mitigable absence of what could colloquially be termed "hate

22 speech" in his discourse.

23 MS. KORNER:

24 Q. Did it ever occur to you that Dr. Stakic was making these

25 statements for public consumption?

1 A. If Dr. Stakic was merely making these statements for public

2 consumption, then he is both notably disingenuous, because that means that

3 he had been making similar statements merely for public consumption even

4 at the time when other members of nationalist parties, Serbs included,

5 were making far less tolerant statements. And I'm talking about the fall

6 of 1991 and the winter of 1991/1992. On the basis of the continuity of

7 those statements from the period when he was under no compulsion to make

8 statements for public consumption only, I believe that these statements

9 reflected his inner most convictions rather than public posturing.

10 Q. But you don't know Dr. Stakic from Adam. You've met him twice for

11 about two hours.

12 A. What I insist is that if we look at the continuity of public

13 statements, as reflected in the published sources such as Kozarski

14 Vjesnik, they point out Dr. Stakic as a notably conciliatory person as

15 compared to other people in the SDA, HDZ, or SDS establishments of the

16 period. I'm simply making this statement regardless of whether I know him

17 or not. Even without ever meeting Dr. Stakic, I would have stated the

18 same because I looked at six or seven different statements spread from

19 November and December of 1991, and January and February of 1992, on to

20 October of 1992.

21 Very different to what was coming out from less responsible

22 members of the political leaderships of the other two parties or even

23 Dr. Stakic's own party in some instances.

24 Q. All right. I just want one final question on this topic: Is it

25 your -- is it not your experience that public figures have said something

1 in public and done quite the opposite?

2 A. Yes, that is almost invariably the case with seasoned professional

3 politicians. It is, however, my impression on the basis both of

4 documentation and the brief personal encounter on two different occasions

5 that far from being a seasoned and cunning politician, Dr. Stakic was an

6 eminent political novice quite possibly out of his depth in the whirlwind

7 of circumstances beyond his control.

8 Q. That's your impression, is it?

9 A. That's my impression.

10 Q. All right. Can we go back, please, now to your report, then.

11 We left off yesterday at page 8. I was asking you about the

12 numbers of Bosnian Muslims in German uniform. You footnoted at footnote

13 13 "Professor Donia's willingness to cite without comment a Partisan

14 claim," et cetera. That's your comment, is it, on what was in his report?

15 A. That is my comment which I don't think is crucial to the main body

16 of the report but which is nevertheless worthy of passing note which is

17 why it is in the footnote and not in the main body of the text.

18 Q. The only question I want to ask you about that is you say: "It is

19 typical of how foreign observers of the Bosnian scene have often been

20 willing to take as fact what they wanted to hear."

21 Is it your opinion that the only people who are able to comment on

22 the Bosnian scene are people who come from there or come from the former

23 Yugoslavia?

24 A. No, what I meant to say is that when it comes to the period of

25 World War II, in particular, outsiders have been prone to accept what one

1 could only term "parallel myths" on different sides at something

2 approaching face value. In the case of Great Britain, one could mention

3 the proponents of the partisan myth such as the late Professor William

4 Deakin and the late brigadier Fitzroy McLean or the exponents of the

5 Mihailovich myth such as the late Captain Michael Lees.

6 I mention them simply because there is a tendency to look at the

7 romanticised, beautified narrative of one or the other parties in these

8 proceedings and achieve personal identification with them that goes beyond

9 the critical faculties of a strictly detached academic observer.

10 Q. See, you don't qualify this at all. You say how foreign

11 observers, full stop. Are you actually saying all foreign observers or

12 some?

13 A. No, some, definitely some. It would be absurd to say all because

14 we have excellent foreign observers who have been able to look beyond the

15 smokescreen of parallel historiographies with axes to grind. But in this

16 particular case, simply to claim that many, is the term used, I believe,

17 is very vague and not helpful, and not accurately descriptive of the

18 situation on the ground in 1941.

19 Q. I really don't want to spend too long on this. But you don't say

20 "many," you make an assertion that foreign observers. If you look at

21 your footnote page 8, please.

22 A. No, when I say "foreign observers of the Bosnian scene," I

23 specifically meant a number of academics who have taken sides vis-a-vis

24 the civil war in Yugoslavia and with particular reference to the war in

25 Bosnia. I mentioned some of them in the British context. I could go on.

1 I don't think it's of particular importance to the report itself. Suffice

2 to say that for about 50 years after the end of World War II, in

3 Yugoslavia there had been something of an internus [phoen] in warfare

4 going on in the Western academia on the subjects of Tito, Mihailovich, the

5 Allied policy, the aborted landing in the Balkans, Churchill's peripheral

6 strategy versus Eisenhower's direct strategy and so on.

7 This is a long subject, and I use something as a shorthand in my

8 footnote without for a moment implying that it meant all, but it means a

9 considerable number of academics who without necessarily having flawed

10 personal motives, wholeheartedly identify with a given narrative in the

11 Yugoslav civil war saga.

12 Q. I say I don't want to spend too much time. This next page,

13 please, page 9, a further footnote there criticising Robert -- Professor

14 Donia who you assert is not a Second World War historian. Would you

15 describe your second as a Second World War historian?

16 A. I would describe myself as a historian and political scientist who

17 has taken particular interest in Second World War. My Ph.D. was on the

18 subject of World War II, and my post doctoral research at Hoover

19 institution was also on the subjects of World War II and Yugoslavia.

20 Q. You go on to allege, "has accepted of the Titoist myth-making at

21 face value. His suggestion, Prijedor report op.cit. p. 3, that 'each side

22 suffered thousands of casualties...' is wrong and misleading."

23 Do you have Dr. Donia's report there?

24 A. No, I don't.

25 Q. I wonder if you could be given a copy by the Defence. They must

1 have it I take it. It's also an exhibit, I'm told. Dr. Donia's report on

2 Prijedor.

3 Now, can you look, please, at page 3 where Dr. Donia says that

4 each side suffered casualties. I'm told it's SK42. Thank you very much.

5 You'll see it's in the second paragraph, after the footnote 6: "The badly

6 outnumbered partisans fought valiantly, and each side suffered thousands

7 of casualties in the battle for control of Mount Kozara." And he

8 footnotes his source for that as Mr. Enver Redic. Have you read that

9 book?

10 A. No, I have not. What I have --

11 Q. Wait, just a moment. I'll come on to the next question.

12 A. Okay.

13 Q. You are saying you haven't read that book.

14 A. No.

15 Q. You then go on to say in your footnote: "The Germans took some

16 casualties (several dozen), and the Partisans suffered hundreds of dead,

17 but not thousands. The thousands that perished were Serb civilians."

18 What is your source for asserting that?

19 A. Okay. As far as the German casualties are concerned, there is the

20 war diary of the -- German high command. It's the widely available

21 source, the original is in the [German spoken] militare archive. And it

22 is under signature OKWKTB. The several dozen is correct. The several

23 thousand does not apply even if you include the Ustasha casualties and the

24 Domobran casualties, even if you factor them in addition to the Germans,

25 you're looking at hundreds not thousands.

1 In the same way, if you look at the Zvornik Dokumenata, which is

2 the standard source, primary source collection for partisan historiography

3 of World War II which is in Serbo-Croat called Zvornik Dokumenata O

4 Narodnooslobodilackom. The annals of documents on people's liberation

5 struggle, they have also fairly detailed evidence of the losses of

6 individual partisan units in the Kozara region. And also, they have not

7 so detailed, rather rough, estimates of the number of Serbian civilians

8 from Kozara foothold villages who were deported in the aftermath of the

9 collapse of partisan resistance in the area, and that number goes, of

10 course, into the many thousands.

11 Q. Can I stop you, Doctor.

12 MR. LUKIC: Objection, Your Honour. We were never allowed to

13 interrupt the answer of any answer of any of the Prosecution witnesses.

14 So please let the witness finish the answer.

15 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I'm merely trying to move this along.

16 But I'm quite happy, if the witness wants to say something more, he may.

17 THE WITNESS: No. What I'm trying to emphasise is my comments in

18 this footnote reflect factual state of affairs. Why didn't I elaborate

19 any further? Well, because I didn't believe that it was particularly

20 important to this report. I wanted to keep the historical review

21 reasonably succinct, but nevertheless give the proper historical context.

22 The plain facts of the case are as follows: The German regular

23 army suffered relatively minor casualties in the Kozara operation in

24 1942. It was by the way, again, this is part and parcel of the partisan

25 myths, a regular occurrence all over the former Yugoslavia. In Serbia

1 proper, for instance, it was for the killing of 26 regular German soldiers

2 that thousands of hostages were shot at Kraguljevic. The partisan

3 resistance was very effective in causing counter measures which served

4 Tito's purpose of having as many recruits into his ranks as possible. But

5 the Partizan resistance certainly until 1943 was not very effective in

6 inflicting large casualties on the regular German army. In the clashes

7 between partisans and German regulars, it was the Germans who had the

8 upper hand.

9 MS. KORNER:

10 Q. You've finished. Doctor, why didn't you footnote your sources for

11 the assertions?

12 A. It would have been a footnote within a footnote. I believe that

13 the claim that I'm making here is so well known to the professionals that

14 it was almost superfluous. As far as the losses of respective sides in

15 World War II are concerned, at least for as efficient a bureaucratic

16 administrative command and control machinery as the Weimarch, there is no

17 dispute.

18 Q. You do understand the reason, don't you, as a historian, for

19 footnoting the source for the assertions that you make, so that people can

20 check it.

21 A. True.

22 Q. So it is possible to check the source of Dr. Donia's; it is not

23 possible to check a single word of what you've said today without

24 considerable research.

25 A. Well, it is unfortunate that in particular, the footnote that

1 Dr. Donia provided for the claim about thousands of casualties was worse

2 than no footnote at all because it referred to a work that I have not

3 seen, but that plainly contains inaccuracies because if his footnote is

4 sourced to that particular book that you mention, and it claims that each

5 side suffers thousands of casualties, which is patently not true, then

6 it's really preferable to stick to what I would call well-known facts.

7 Q. Do you really want to say that a book you've never looked at,

8 never read, have no idea what the author is, must be inaccurate?

9 A. If the book claims that there were thousands of casualties

10 inflicted on both sides of the German partisan divide in 1942 in the

11 Kozara battle, I claim without looking at the book that it is totally

12 inaccurate.

13 Q. All right. Can we look, please, at the next page, page 10, where

14 we have another footnote correcting Professor Donia's innocent

15 recapitulation of partisan myths, et cetera. You say: "The Serbs in the

16 area of Prijedor far from having a master plan and strategy were confused

17 and worried." On what do you base that?

18 A. What I base that on is the obvious lack of self-confidently

19 triumphant tone in different articles and editorials from the Kozarski

20 Vjesnik. And since I do not know people from Prijedor personally, I

21 haven't been to the area, this is the only source that I can go by. Some

22 of them are definitely nostalgic for the old order. The Vjesnik in the

23 fall of 1991 is full of articles invoking the socialist legacy and full of

24 pronouncements by the veterans' association or by the movement for

25 Yugoslavia.

1 At other times, you will have readers' letters rhapsodising

2 nostalgic about the period of ethnic harmony, peace, and tolerance. And

3 at the same time nervous voices expressing alarm at the violence going on

4 next door in Croatia, expressing concern about the plummeting living

5 standards and the collapse of municipal services that were supposed to be

6 provided by the commune.

7 There is no sense, and I am now not referring to any particular

8 article per se, there is no sense of a vibrantly self-confident, strong

9 and assertive community on the march to its clearly defined objectives.

10 Q. You've told us that you never read any of the documents that the

11 Serbs themselves produced during and before the relevant time, how can you

12 assert that this wasn't planned and organised?

13 A. Well, if we are talking about the documents that the Serbian

14 democratic party, the SDS, produced, we are talking about one segment of

15 the Serbian opinion in Prijedor. In the footnote under consideration and

16 in response to your question, we are talking about the Serbs

17 collectively. And I will submit to you that the Serbian democratic party

18 in Prijedor was not the sole expression of the Serb opinion, that

19 certainly the Serbs as a collective did not have a united voice in what

20 they want; if anything, they had a -- just about the only thing they had

21 in common was what they did not want, which was to be taken out of

22 Yugoslavia against their will.

23 Q. Can we move, please, then --

24 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: May I just, that we need not come back to this.

25 What is the source for you coming to this conclusion?

1 THE WITNESS: Sorry, which particular conclusion, Your Honour?

2 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: The last conclusion you made, that -- "I submit

3 to you that the Serbian democratic party in Prijedor was not the sole

4 expression of the Serb opinion, that certainly the Serbs as a collective

5 did not have a united voice in what they want."

6 How can you come to this collation, based on what?

7 THE WITNESS: Well, as I indicated earlier, based on the cross

8 section of articles that were not directly political in the Kozarski

9 Vjesnik which deal with issues such as the conditions in the municipality,

10 the state of education, the state of supplies, the problem of the influx

11 of refugees from Bosnia, the dislocation of families, the problems caused

12 by the absence of reservists belonging to the two units from Prijedor sent

13 to Slavonia in the summer and fall of 1991, all of which -- and again, if

14 I were to expand on this, if I had time, it could be an interesting

15 exercise in social anthropology. But --

16 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: I just asked about the source and I take it from

17 your answer that your mere and sole source was Kozarski Vjesnik --

18 THE WITNESS: Yes.

19 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: -- A well-disputed and contested newspaper even

20 by witnesses of the Defence, telling us that this to a certain extent and

21 on concrete examples is not a reliable source. And you, as an expert, as

22 you sit here, believe that's enough for an expert testimony - and I put

23 the same question of course to Mr. Donia as well - to rely on these

24 secondary sources instead of going into details of the archives? I

25 understood that you have never been in Prijedor, that you never tried to

1 go to archives in Prijedor or Banja Luka, that you never tried to get

2 access to other sources, being not only minutes, but reports on the

3 meetings of the Serbian Assembly, of the Municipal Assembly, of Crisis

4 Staff, and so on.

5 THE WITNESS: Well, Your Honour --

6 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Therefore, my question: Is it in fact true you

7 relied on these articles and merely you received from the Defence, or did

8 you try to investigate yourself on the basis of other articles, other

9 newspapers available at the time in the area?

10 THE WITNESS: Your Honour, first of all, I preceded my statement

11 about my impression about the overall state of affairs, and I'm talking

12 about nonpolitical aspects of the life in Prijedor. I preceded it by

13 saying that it was based on my comprehensive reading of the collection of

14 this newspaper which I believe in the period of late 1991 was not

15 necessarily unreliable because it was under multiethnic management and

16 editorial control.

17 Also, I believe that I emphasised, again in the preamble to my

18 previous statement, that it is within the inherent limitations of that

19 sourcing that I'm making this assessment. And that assessment concerns

20 the mood of the people as a whole and not of the political class, not of

21 the political activists and political decision-makers in the municipality.

22 The question from the Prosecution concerned my statement in the

23 footnote, that the Serbs, far from having a master plan and strategy, were

24 confused and worried. If you want to get the impression of self-confident

25 and vibrant and strident community that knows which way it's heading, and

1 that it has firm marching orders to clearly defined objectives, I'm afraid

2 you certainly will not find it in this source as an illustration of the

3 Serbian collective frame of mind in Prijedor in late 1991 and early 1992.

4 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: The Prosecution may proceed, please.

5 MS. KORNER:

6 Q. Can we go, please, to page 13. Sorry. Can we go to page 13,

7 please, of your report. In the third paragraph, you say: "Even without

8 the vividly remembered trauma of the Second World War, they reacted in

9 1991-1992 just as the Anglophone citizens of Texas or Arizona might do if

10 they are outvoted, one day, in a referendum demanding those states'

11 incorporation into Mexico."

12 How did you come by that analogy?

13 A. The analogy is clearly aimed at implying that --

14 Q. I understand what you're saying. I'm sorry to interrupt. But we

15 may get on quicker. I'm just asking how you came by that analogy, Texas

16 or Arizona. I understand you come from Chicago.

17 A. Texas and Arizona happen to be the states in which the Latino

18 plurality is likely to turn into majority before the end of this decade.

19 Of course, most Latinos are enthusiastic to be Americans. They move north

20 across the Rio Grande to get away from Mexico, not to move Mexico with

21 them. So the illustration had purely the purpose of making a parallel

22 that doesn't have necessarily immediate political relevance.

23 Q. All right. Is this an original thought by you? That's what I'm

24 asking.

25 A. The point has been made that the shifting balance in the far

1 southwest of the United States may cause some Latino activists to demand

2 what they are calling la Republica Del Norte or to redeem the lands lost

3 in the Mexican war of 1848/9. But -- so I don't think the notion is

4 altogether original, but it is something that could have its equivalence

5 in other places.

6 Q. Isn't it taken directly from an article in chronicles by somebody

7 called David Hartman, who I believe is head of your Rockford Institute?

8 A. As I say, the notion is not original. I'm not aware of David

9 Hartman having used it, but it is something that has been considered by a

10 number of analysts what will happen if the shifting population change in

11 the far southwest results in demands for constitutional changes.

12 Q. Mr. Hartman, do you remember Mr. Hartman writing an article called

13 "Reflection on a Texan's Visit to Mexico"?

14 A. Frankly, no.

15 Q. Would you like to have a look at the excerpt?

16 A. Is it relevant?

17 Q. I'm asking why you don't give him credit for this --

18 A. Because I assure you that the parallel between the issue of

19 self-determination and the shifting ethnic balance in a locality

20 concerning border lands of the United States is neither original nor

21 remarkable, that it is something that if we were to do a Google search,

22 I'm sure we could come up with dozens of authors discussing similar

23 issues.

24 Q. All right. Can you turn, please, to page 16. You say there,

25 again, this time it's criticism of Noel Malcolm, it's your footnote 27

1 where I think you're dealing with -- yes, you're dealing with the

2 Izetbegovic declaration. And you state there that: "he accepts the

3 'achievements" -- this is at the top of page 16 -- "of Euro-American

4 civilisation' but only in the area of science and technology... we shall

5 have to accept them if we wish to survive." And you criticise there Noel

6 Malcolm for failing to mention that Izetbegovic specifically defined the

7 acceptable achievements of western civilisation. Is that right?

8 A. That's right.

9 Q. I'd like, please, to it -- forgive me for one moment. I just want

10 to find... I just want to jump ahead for a moment, please, to page 27.

11 You quote a book by Messrs. Burg and Shoup, I think it's pronounced.

12 Shoup, Shoup. Right, your footnote 62, and then 63, where you assert

13 that: The HDZ ostensible support for a sovereign Bosnia and Herzegovina

14 was but so much lip service, however, because in the same month the HDZ

15 set up a 'Croatian Community of Herceg Bosna' in western Herzegovina and

16 central Bosnia, as well as a 'Croatian Community of the Bosnian Sava

17 Valley.'" And that comes from them, does it? You're giving your source

18 there.

19 A. By the way, when it comes to the activities of the HDZ, both in

20 western Herzegovina and Central Bosnia and in the Sava River valley, we

21 have again a plethora of documents from Croatian sources which have been

22 made available to me subsequent to the preparation of the report.

23 Q. All right. I'd like you to have a look, please, at page 47 and 48

24 of their book and tell me where you see that particular phrase that you're

25 referring to.

1 A. Here, "One cannot help but be struck by the hard and crude

2 documents produced in the course of the debate. Documents that address

3 the most delicate of all questions in Bosnian politics in a highly

4 provocative language," page 79.

5 Q. Sorry, no, no. 47 and 48, please. I'm so sorry. I misled you.

6 It's marked you will see. You have got a quote under 62, 79, and then for

7 63, ibid, 47 to 48, which it refers to, as I understand it, "the same

8 month the HDZ set up a 'Croatian Community of Herceg Bosna' in western

9 Herzegovina and Central Bosnia as well as a 'Croatian Community of the

10 Bosnian Sava Valley.'"

11 A. Just a second.

12 This was a mistake for which I apologise. It was Kumar's, ibid,

13 because of the vagaries of my word processing system in the editing

14 remained as ibid which ostensibly relates to Burg and Shoup. In fact, it

15 relates to Kumar's book which is referenced on the previous page as

16 footnote 58, page 49; footnote 61 should be referenced Kumar, pages 47 to

17 48. My mistake.

18 Q. All right. Well, can we go back to, please, page -- the one we're

19 looking at, which was page -- I've forgotten the page now. 16.

20 A. Mm-hmm.

21 Q. Tell me something, Dr. Trifkovic: Do you know somebody called

22 Professor Kecmanovic?

23 A. I know of Nenad Kecmanovic. I have not met him in person, or if I

24 have, I'm not aware of it.

25 Q. Ever read anything he's written?

1 A. I have read a number of his articles in the form of personal

2 reminiscences in the Knin weekly, the Belgrade weekly, in the period after

3 his transfer from Sarajevo to Belgrade in the mid-1990s.

4 Q. All right. I'd like you to have a look, please, at a report

5 written by him. Have you ever seen that report before?

6 A. No.

7 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, this report was put in for the purposes,

8 I think, and I'm now pretty sure but I'll check that, for the Bosanski

9 Samac case, Simic and others. And Ms. Sutherland who can recognise an

10 indictment number just like that assures me that is in fact the Simic

11 case.

12 Q. I'd like you, please, to turn to page 6 of that report. Could you

13 read, please, paragraph 10 of that report.

14 A. "In a revealing sentence, Izetbegovic discusses the status of

15 non-Muslims in countries with Muslim majority: 'The non-Muslims

16 minorities within an Islamic state, on condition that are they are loyal,

17 enjoy religious freedom and all protection.' However as" --

18 Q. Just pause. That's all I need. Thank you. Now, can you look,

19 please, at the middle of the paragraph of the top paragraph, page 16,

20 after the footnote 27.

21 A. Mm-hmm. "In a revealing sentences Izetbegovic discusses the

22 status of non-Muslims in countries with Muslim majorities: 'The

23 non-Muslim minorities within an Islamic state, on condition that they are

24 loyal, emphasis added, enjoyed religious freedom and all protection.'"

25 Q. It's actually identical word for word, isn't it?

1 A. Except that the quote is mine because it comes from my own article

2 on Izetbegovic's Islamic declaration that was published -- I don't know

3 what is the date of this report. But I will be happy to furnish the

4 reference to the particular --

5 Q. So he has copied from your article without giving you any credit

6 for that? In the words -- word for word, "in a revealing sentence..."

7 A. I'm not at liberty to comment whether he has done so or not. What

8 I can assure you most emphatically is that this particular formation in my

9 report is mine and mine alone.

10 Q. You see, you told us that the footnote, in a typical distortion,

11 footnote number 27, "In a typical distortion, Noel Malcolm writes in this

12 connection..." Et cetera, et cetera. Now, look at Professor

13 Kecmanovic's, footnote 11.

14 A. Mm-hmm.

15 Q. Are you saying that he copied that from you?

16 A. Sorry, look at what?

17 Q. Look first of all, your footnote 27 which you said was your

18 comment on Noel Malcolm. "In a typical distortion, Noel Malcolm writes in

19 this connection..." and so on and so forth. Now have a look at the

20 footnote 11 on Dr. Kecmanovic's report at page 6.

21 A. Well, as it happens, the comment on the typical distortion of Noel

22 Malcolm is neither Kecmanovic's nor mine. The notion of typical

23 distortion comes from a comment that was made, and I am now quoting from

24 memory, at a conference on Noel Malcolm's book "Bosnia, Short History" by

25 Jovan Zametica.

1 Q. I'm sorry, Dr. Trifkovic. I understood and I asked you this quite

2 carefully that these comments, these footnotes, were your comments. Are

3 you now saying they are neither yours nor Professor Kecmanovic's, but

4 somebody else's?

5 A. No. The notion of typical distortion in particular. But what I

6 would add is my article on the Izetbegovic Islamic declaration is

7 available, and it clearly antedates whatever may be the date of this

8 report.

9 Q. This report is dated December 2002. Your report, as I understand

10 it, was handed in in February of this year.

11 A. I assure you that my article dealing with Izetbegovic's Islamic

12 declaration antedates 2002.

13 Q. All right. I'll ask you one last time. How is it that both of

14 you in identical words refer to Mr. Noel Malcolm's book?

15 A. Because in the particular footnote that both of us use, we have

16 referred obviously to the same source, which is the proceeds of a

17 conference on Noel Malcolm's book held at the Serbian Academy of Science

18 in Belgrade in, I believe, late 1990s.

19 Q. So quite by chance, both of you picked on that --

20 A. That's right, yes.

21 Q. Pure coincidence, that's what you're telling us?

22 A. I would say so because I assure you, one, that I have never seen

23 this report and, two, that I would not knowingly copy from this, but at

24 the same time the formulation offered in that particular round table

25 discussion was very felicitous and obviously appealing to both of us.

1 Q. Let's move on, then, shall we.

2 Okay, could we move to page 19 in your report, please. Do you see

3 in the middle of the first paragraph the sentence beginning: "Inevitably,

4 these events were bound to have profound consequences on Bosnia and

5 Herzegovina, which 'had survived, despite its history of ethnic violence

6 and social conflict'..." et cetera, et cetera.

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. And you cite for that Burg and Shoup again.

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. Could you have a look, please, at the bottom of page 8 of

11 Professor Kecmanovic's report. And in paragraph 15, do you see the

12 sentence beginning: "Inevitably, what was happening in the rest of

13 Yugoslavia was bound to have profound consequences on Bosnia and

14 Herzegovina which was often described as Yugoslavia in miniature."

15 Do you agree almost identical, the odd word changed here and

16 there, to what you wrote?

17 A. Can I ask one more time, what exactly is the date of the

18 Kecmanovic report?

19 Q. The date of the Kecmanovic report is I believe, and I'll check

20 that, September -- sorry, this is in fact the report -- I should add the

21 report was actually written in Serbo-Croat, and the translation, if we

22 look at page 60, was on the 19th of September 2002.

23 A. I would like to ask Mr. Ostojic to confirm that the draft of my

24 report, which contained this very formulation, was handed -- when does he

25 to the best of his recollection remember my giving it to him.

1 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Mr. Ostojic can't testify.

2 MS. KORNER:

3 Q. Let's go back and look at what you said.

4 MS. KORNER: Would Your Honour forgive me while I --

5 Q. Because I asked you this at the beginning of cross-examination

6 yesterday.

7 Right. What you said yesterday was that, at page 23 of the

8 LiveNote: "I prepared the first draft of the report shortly after

9 Christmas. In fact, in the first week of the new year." And then I asked

10 you how long had it taken you. And then you said: "My report was

11 completed in the second week of February."

12 A. No, what I meant to say is the first draft which wasn't the report

13 itself, and this is something that I will obviously have to get to the

14 bottom of. Having circulated the salient points that I intended to

15 include in the report via the Internet with a number of my contacts

16 around. I don't know Dr. Kecmanovic, but without wanting to implicate

17 anyone in willful plagiarism, all I can say is that this language is mine,

18 not his. What I have done is in the preparation of the report was to send

19 Internet messages to a number of colleagues, inviting their commentary and

20 opinion on certain points that I wanted to raise in my reports. Some of

21 them seem to have been passed on without my authorisation.

22 Q. I want to understand what you're telling us. You are asserting

23 that Professor Kecmanovic, whose full report was translated in September

24 2002, so we can take it that he must have written it sometime before that

25 in Serbo-Croat --

1 A. What time --

2 Q. Just let me finish -- has somehow or other acquired your exact

3 language - and believe you me, Mr. Trifkovic, we're going to come to a lot

4 more fuller similarities later on - but somehow or other, he has

5 plagiarised a report that you hadn't written. Is that what you're really

6 telling --

7 A. No. What I'm saying is it is common and established practice

8 among academics in certain fields to circulate drafts of their papers and

9 to circulate ideas for either reports or scientific submissions and invite

10 comments. What I'm telling you now is that I had no access to this report

11 at the time of writing my own report, and I had no knowledge of its

12 existence. I do not know if and when it was actually made available

13 either on the Internet or in hard copy or circulated to members of the

14 public. Could you elucidate me on that?

15 Q. I'm sorry. I can't help you often that, at least not at the

16 moment. But I just want to read to you what you said about this

17 yesterday, Dr. Trifkovic. I asked you -- I apologise to the interpreters.

18 I know I'm jumping in. "Dr. Trifkovic, when were you instructed to first

19 prepare this report?" Page 21 of the LiveNote. At first you said: "I

20 was not instructed to prepare it. I was approached by Mr. Ostojic who I

21 had known personally for some years, with a view to my potential role as

22 an expert witness for the Defence. After a number of rather sporadic

23 meetings at several weeks' distance, being the period of September,

24 October, I think that we clarified the shape and the terms of the report

25 sometime in November of last year 2002."

1 Now, are you saying now that you had been circulating on the

2 Internet by September, before you had clarified the shape of the report

3 with Mr. Ostojic --

4 A. No, I'm not saying that.

5 Q. -- the language that you were going to use?

6 A. No, I was circulating it later. What, however, is apparent is

7 that many formulations which, by the way, are often contained in different

8 writings, specifically we referred earlier to Izetbegovic's Islamic

9 declaration, is not necessarily original writing in that particular

10 instance prepared purpose-written for the report but picked up from

11 different previously published or unpublished materials.

12 What I am particularly insistent is that the reference to the Burg

13 and Shoup has already been contained in my papers presented elsewhere. I

14 do not want to comment on the second quote that you have just given

15 because I would need to verify that. I once again want to emphasise that

16 I have never seen this report, and once again ask when was it made

17 public. When was it circulated?

18 Q. Well, I don't know the answer. I mean, I don't suppose to answer

19 your questions, Dr. Trifkovic. But I have no idea whether it was made

20 public or what. But that's not the point, is it?

21 A. It is the point, because if you're implying that I had access to

22 this report and was making use of Professor Kecmanovic's formulations in

23 the preparation of mine, then the obvious implication is that I had access

24 to the report which I now claim and assert under oath that I did not. And

25 therefore it is a perfectly legitimate question for me to ask is when and

1 how was it made available to the members of the public?

2 Q. Or unless you were given it by somebody.

3 A. Again, I submit to you that this wasn't the case, that I do not

4 have access to this report and this is the first time I've seen it.

5 Q. We'll go through it. I want you to look, now, please, your

6 paragraph, page 19. Second paragraph: "In the Bosnian context an early

7 omen was the non-Serbs parties' refusal to constitute the Council for

8 Questions of Equality of Nations, the projected constitutional linchpin of

9 the multi-ethnic Bosnia-Herzegovina. In 1990 Amendment 70 of the

10 Republic's Constitution provided for the formation of this body of sixty

11 deputies, twenty each from the three constituent nations, which would

12 decide - strictly by consensus - on all questions referred to it by at

13 least twenty deputies in the lower house of the Assembly..." and so on.

14 You've no footnote for this. Where did you get that from?

15 A. Well, the amendment 70 of the constitution is a matter of public

16 record. And I was not under the impression that it's necessary to

17 footnote public documents are generally accessible.

18 Q. All right. Fair enough. Did you look at it before you wrote this

19 paragraph?

20 A. I looked at the amendments to the 1990 constitution some years

21 ago. I had notes about the amendment 70 in particular, which was by the

22 way a matter of great debate and disputation at the time.

23 Q. So the answer to the question is no you didn't look at.

24 A. I didn't look at it specifically in preparation of this paragraph.

25 Q. All right. Can you have a look, please, at a copy of the Official

1 Gazette of the socialist Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina. We'll give you

2 the B/C/S. And therefore, Dr. Stakic has a copy as well.

3 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: One question for the Prosecution that we don't

4 lose the order: Do you want to tender the two pages of the book you

5 referenced to earlier this morning? Is it necessary?

6 MS. KORNER: No, Your Honour, I don't think it's necessary. He

7 said it's not there. It's an error.

8 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Then you want to tender the report by Professor

9 Kecmanovic?

10 MS. KORNER: I do.

11 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: That would be then S414A. And I take it that

12 it's available in B/C/S also for Dr. Stakic?

13 MS. KORNER: I'll check that, Your Honour. I imagine it must have

14 been for the purposes of the case.

15 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Because it was written in B/C/S.

16 MS. KORNER: Yes.

17 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: So provisionally marked as 414. And the

18 Official Gazette as of 31 July 1990 is already 65 terred or even admitted?

19 MS. KORNER: I don't know. I don't think it is, Your Honour.

20 Ms. Karper checked and I don't think we have put this in before.

21 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Let's provisionally mark it as S415A, B

22 respectively.

23 MS. KORNER:

24 Q. Do you see that it's headed: "Decision on the Proclamation of the

25 Amendments 59 Through to 80 of the Socialist Republic of

1 Bosnia-Herzegovina Constitution"?

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. Can you please go to item number 10. "A Council for issues of

4 achieving equality among peoples and nationalities of Bosnia-Herzegovina

5 shall be formed in the SRBiH Assembly. The Council shall comprise an

6 equal number of representatives of the peoples of Bosnia-Herzegovina,

7 Muslims, Serbs, and Croats, and the appropriate number of representatives

8 from other peoples, nationalities and groups living in

9 Bosnia-Herzegovina. And the Council shall make its decisions based on

10 agreement of the members of all the peoples and nationalities."

11 Now go back to what you wrote. Paragraph 19: "Amendment

12 70...provided for the formation of this body of sixty deputies, twenty

13 each from the three constituent nations..." Where does it say that?

14 A. It doesn't say in the amendment 70 itself, but in the debates

15 concerning the formation of this body in the period after the constitution

16 of the multiparty assembly following the November 1990 election, it was

17 suggested that because this specific number was not mentioned in the

18 amendment, that this would be, indeed, the scope of the body.

19 When I say "suggested," I admit that this wasn't contained in the

20 amendment itself; it was a matter of suggestion from parliamentary floor

21 subsequent to the multiparty election.

22 Q. So that's an error? The way you state it is an error, isn't it?

23 A. It is a formal error insofar as it's referenced to the amendment

24 70. There was no serious dispute -- there was the dispute over the

25 formation of the body itself. There was no serious dispute that if and

1 when it were to be constituted, it would not be larger than 60 MPs because

2 otherwise it would unwieldly and there is no need for a bigger body.

3 Q. It is an error which you could have avoided had you checked by

4 looking at the amendment.

5 A. Had I looked at the amendment itself again, yes.

6 Q. I'd like you to have a look, please, at page 14 of Professor

7 Kecmanovic's statement, paragraph 26. And do you see the words: "In

8 1990, amendment 70 --"

9 A. "To the constitution, provided for the formation..." yes.

10 Q. Identical words to you with the identical error.

11 A. Indeed, yes.

12 Q. How do you explain that?

13 A. One more time: Since I have circulated some drafts of my elements

14 of this report to different addressees, I would have to check on the

15 origin of -- is this translation done in-house in The Hague, the

16 translation of Dr. Kecmanovic's report?

17 Q. I have to tell you that I'm not supposed to answer your

18 questions. But the answer is I believe not. I believe it was done by

19 someone on his behalf. There's a name given. Belgrade, it was done.

20 A. Mm-hmm. I have some clear idea of -- that may explain this, but I

21 would prefer not to state it in open court without checking the facts of

22 the case first.

23 Q. Well, I'll give you every opportunity, Dr. Trifkovic, to provide

24 this Court with an explanation as to how two reports, one written in

25 September and one only produced in February, or certainly not before

1 autumn, have identical wording and identical mistakes. Do you want to

2 offer any further explanation before the break?

3 A. Not at this stage. What I would like to emphasise is that the

4 vagaries of electronic communication of our time and age allow for all

5 kinds of strange things to happen. If you were able to assure me now that

6 the translation of this report was effected by the in-house translators

7 here at The Hague, I would be totally at a loss to explain what was going

8 on.

9 In view of the fact that some the elements of my writings not

10 directly related to this report have been widely circulated and are

11 around, I would have to explore several things. One, is who is the

12 translator of the Kecmanovic report; two, to what extent was the material

13 I had circulated prior to the submission of the report passed on by the

14 recipients to third-party addressees. It may be a heck of a job, but I

15 assure you that I have every intent of getting to the bottom of this.

16 Q. Do you mean you've made this mistake about the amendment 70 in

17 your writings before?

18 A. No. What I mean to say is that the notes that were used in the

19 preparation of this report have been circulated in different forms and in

20 different contexts over a period of years, not necessarily only since

21 September or October of last year.

22 Q. As a matter of interest, what difference does it make if it was

23 translated in The Hague or it was translated in Belgrade?

24 A. Well, I'll tell you exactly what difference it does make. It

25 makes a great deal of difference indeed. If it was translated in The

1 Hague, then there is no explanation for the possible cut and paste misuse

2 of third-party material by the person adopting the material or creatively

3 translating it. If on the other hand it was done in Belgrade, then there

4 is every possibility of what one might call creative use - and again this

5 is no comment on Dr. Kecmanovic, more on the translator, and I would

6 greatly appreciate the details of this, because it is obviously a matter

7 of my personal prestige and reputation, and I do not intend to leave it at

8 that.

9 What I may also add is that I have faced problems with student

10 plagiarism in the use of unattributed quotes in essays in the course of my

11 university career, and it is very easy on the basis of the signature that

12 Word for Windows leaves in the creation of documents if one is

13 forensically minded in this respect to establish the sequence of events

14 and the precise steps leading to one or another source of attached

15 documents. And in this case, I am talking about attached Word for Windows

16 documents.

17 Q. Well, maybe you better --

18 MS. KORNER: Well, Your Honour, can I just finish this.

19 Q. What you're suggesting, Dr. Trifkovic, is this: Dr. Kecmanovic,

20 having plagiarised your articles, whatever was on the Internet, translated

21 from the English into Serbo-Croat, and then had it translated back again

22 into English for the purposes of the proceedings?

23 A. Oh, no. Not at all. What I'm suggesting is that certain segments

24 of this report have been obviously used by both Dr. Kecmanovic and me from

25 the same source that authorised its use.

1 Q. What source would that be?

2 A. Again, this is something that I would like to check before I

3 disclose in open court, that in this particular case, that --

4 Q. Where do you suggest, Dr. Trifkovic, that you and Professor

5 Kecmanovic obtained what was erroneous information about amendment 70?

6 A. From Dr. Jovan Zametica of Herceg Novi in Montenegro who acted as

7 my research assistant for the background of the amendment 70 situation in

8 the Bosnian assembly.

9 Q. And when was that?

10 A. That was in September of 2002.

11 Q. But I'm sorry. I thought you told us a minute ago, Dr. Trifkovic,

12 that you hadn't checked on the amendment because you looked at your notes.

13 A. I hadn't checked on the amendment because I relied on the notes

14 that I specifically went to the location in order to enlist the help of

15 this expert - I regard him as a highly qualified expert - who prepared the

16 notes for me on the background of amendment 70.

17 Q. All right.

18 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, that's a convenient moment for the

19 break.

20 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: The trial stays adjourned until 5 minutes past

21 11.00.

22 --- Recess taken at 10.38 a.m.

23 --- On resuming at 11.14 a.m.

24 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Please be seated.

25 May I ask the Prosecution, would it be possible to conclude within

1 the next 90 minutes that we can give the Defence the possibility - I don't

2 know what time is needed from your perspective in the moment - that we

3 really can conclude the witness today.

4 MR. LUKIC: For now, not more than half an hour, Your Honour.

5 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Okay, then I invite the parties to do their very

6 best.

7 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, it depends. I can conclude if I leave

8 out a lot of the stuff that I intend to ask. But it --

9 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Let's try to proceed as soon as possible. I

10 can't say any more.

11 MS. KORNER:

12 Q. Dr. Trifkovic, let's just finish off, please, your page 19. You

13 say under lost opportunities for peace: "The three ruling parties in

14 Bosnia-Herzegovina (SDA, SDS, HDZ,) managed in the first half of 1991 to

15 cooperate quite smoothly in the power-sharing exercise." Could you look,

16 please, at page 9 of Professor Kecmanovic's report.

17 A. Before we proceed, I have tried during the break to reconstruct

18 the exact sequence of events, and it was as follows -- and because of the

19 importance of the issue, I would like to state this on record. I made a

20 specific trip to Montenegro in late September of 1992 in order to consult

21 with Dr. Zametica on some of the issues pertaining to the period in

22 question. It is quite common in the preparation of similar reports to

23 rely on research notes of colleagues in the field.

24 On that occasion, he has supplied me with some of his notes which

25 he specifically assured me had been neither published nor circulated,

1 which is why I made the specific inquiry as to whether this material

2 incorporated in Kecmanovic's report had been circulated elsewhere or

3 translated in-house here at The Hague or in Belgrade. Obviously, had I

4 been aware that the material supplied to me with the assurance that these

5 were background notes I'm free to use as I deem fit, being published, and

6 especially being incorporated in another report that was being presented

7 to this Court, I would not have used them. In fact, I had no great

8 overriding need to use them either, but because I respect Dr. Zametica's

9 experience and judgement in this field, and especially since on that

10 occasion he also supplied me with a number of useful newspaper articles

11 from the period in question, I had no reason to believe that there was

12 indeed an overlap.

13 I am stating this for the record now, and I intend to clarify the

14 matter with him and other parties concerned, that I was given the

15 background notes of the elements of my report that overlap with

16 Dr. Kecmanovic's report from Dr. Jovan Zametica with the assurance that

17 these were unpublished, uncirculated research notes which I am free to use

18 and incorporate as I deem fit.

19 Q. All right.

20 A. I will be more than happy to continue comparing the two sets.

21 What I wish to assure you once again most emphatically is that this is the

22 sort of confusion that may only result from the dual use of the same set

23 of notes of which I had not been aware at the time of their presentation

24 to me.

25 Q. First of all, where are those notes?

1 A. Excuse me?

2 Q. Where are Dr. Zametica's notes?

3 A. In the form of a computer diskette at my home in Chicago.

4 Q. So you haven't got them here?

5 A. Oh, no.

6 Q. Why didn't you ever say, for the purposes of this report, that

7 Dr. Zametica had provided the notes?

8 A. Because he specifically requested not to be named in the

9 proceedings. He prefers not to advertise his contribution to the

10 proceedings. I don't think he wanted either glory or certainly the

11 arrangement was amicable and not pecuniary in any sense.

12 Q. You told us yesterday, and I believe before, that you had written

13 this report.

14 A. It is perfectly common practice in the preparation of reports of

15 academic kind to rely on the assistance of research -- of research aides.

16 And in this context, I don't think that my report contains more than 8 or

17 10 per cent of his contributions. Those notes were given to me with the

18 assurance that they were in no sense circulated prior or used by anyone

19 else prior to their presentation to me. Otherwise, of course, it would be

20 simply ridiculous to rely on the same set of background notes as someone

21 else had done before. But all I can assure you is that I have a suspicion

22 that both reports relied on the same set of notes. I have no reason to

23 believe that Dr. Zametica had lifted his notes from Dr. Kecmanovic's

24 report and passed them on to me.

25 Q. Can we just make this clear. You said September 1992. You mean

1 September 2002?

2 A. Sorry, September 2002, yes.

3 Q. So you're now saying that this Dr. Zametic --

4 A. Zametica.

5 Q. Must have provided sometime before he gave them to you his notes

6 to Professor Kecmanovic?

7 A. I'm afraid that's the only inference I'm forced to make at this

8 moment because I haven't been able to contact him and explore the facts of

9 the case. I assure you that what I am giving you now is not only the

10 whole truth, but nothing but the truth, that there would have been no

11 earthly reason for me to rely on notes which I had any suspicion had been

12 used, let alone used in this particular institution, especially since, as

13 I emphasise, the practice of relying on background research by either

14 formal or friendly assistants is neither remarkable nor unknown.

15 Q. What do you mean by "notes"?

16 A. What I mean are references to certain elements of the developments

17 between the constitution of the multiparty assembly in November of 1990

18 and the collapse of -- basically the aftermath of the referendum of

19 February 29th/March 1st. When I say "notes," I specifically mean

20 references to constitutional and third-party comments on constitutional

21 developments.

22 Q. That's what I'm trying to understand. You're talking about notes

23 referring no doubt to sources, to constitutional aspects and the like.

24 A. That's right.

25 Q. Not narrative.

1 A. The narrative itself in this case, which you mentioned

2 specifically, concerning the 60 deputies, of course, is overlapping, and I

3 assure you it comes from that same source.

4 Q. All right. Well, we could go on forever doing this in the report,

5 but I want to take you then to the most glaring example now, please,

6 straight away. Can you go, please, to page 33 of your report. The

7 section headed "One Last Chance for Peace: The Cuteleiro Plan." The

8 narrative there I take it was written by you whether or not based on notes

9 from Dr. -- whatever his name is.

10 A. Zametica.

11 Q. Is that right?

12 A. This is largely based on his background notes, yes.

13 Q. Based, but did you write this narrative?

14 A. I would need to check it against the original file in order to

15 verify that.

16 Q. Why don't you look now at page 25 of Professor Kecmanovic's

17 report. Paragraph 52 headed in his report: "The Cutileiro Plan."

18 Paragraph 52 is identical in every single word I suggest to paragraph 1 on

19 page 33. Paragraph 53 is identical in every single word to paragraph 2 on

20 page 33.

21 Paragraph 54 is identical word for word to the third paragraph on

22 your page 33. Paragraph 55 identical word for word to the fourth

23 paragraph on page 33. On paragraph 56, if you go to page 27 -- I'm sorry,

24 paragraph 56 in the professor's report, top of page 34 of yours, the only

25 difference is "nevertheless" in Professor Kecmanovic's report, and you

1 simply start, "The agreement seemed promising at first."

2 A. This whole page is obviously Dr. Zametica's, and I would emphasise

3 that in the context of 40 pages of my report, a total of about three pages

4 that were included from the notes given to me as originals, free for use,

5 without reference and without attributation, is neither original nor

6 remarkable, that it is indeed normal practice in the context of

7 preparation of scientific papers to rely on inputs from associates and

8 collaborators. Had I been made aware of the fact that the same material

9 was shared by others, I would not have used them.

10 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: What would you do with a student when you

11 identify in two similar works such an identical part, page by page, word

12 by word, the same wording? What would be your reaction?

13 THE WITNESS: My reaction would be to institute an investigation

14 and find out why did the overlap happen. In this case I am again assuring

15 Your Honour that this was due to my honest -- being honestly misled into

16 the belief that the background notes provided by an associate who

17 volunteered to share this material with me and to use it as I deemed fit

18 was given on the understanding that it was neither circulated nor

19 published, nor indeed made available to any third party.

20 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: As we are all academics in this courtroom, don't

21 you regard it as a fundamental mistake not to quote this source you used?

22 THE WITNESS: With one proviso, Your Honour, and it is if the

23 source is not published but a research assistant or associate or

24 collaborator who specifically asks not to be quoted. In other words,

25 let's put it this way: If you are preparing a scientific paper, and you

1 rely on a team of associates or just one or two of them, and they cover

2 certain aspects of an issue -- a discussion, if you use their material,

3 you will not footnote their input if that input is specifically created

4 for the purpose of that paper.

5 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Wouldn't it be then a question of academic

6 honesty to mention those assistants, if they don't want to disclose their

7 identity, by making reference in the beginning or the end of the report,

8 as we normally do it, by thanking those additional sources for their

9 assistance in preparing the report? I can't find anything like this in

10 your report.

11 THE WITNESS: I would have been more than happy to do so were it

12 not for the fact that the aforementioned Dr. Zametica specifically asked

13 me to refrain from doing so in his case.

14 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Isn't it true that in this case, you would

15 mention this person in the form of a pseudonym or circumscribing that

16 there was indeed an assistance from a third side instead of just giving

17 the impression that this would be your own work?

18 THE WITNESS: If I were indicate the assistance of the third

19 party, I would have opened myself to the full disclosure of the identity

20 of the person which would have been the betrayal of trust. Now,

21 unfortunately that trust has been betrayed not due to my own choosing, but

22 due to the fact that obviously the same material was used by another

23 person.

24 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Thank you. Please proceed.

25 MS. KORNER:

1 Q. Not only the same material, but a full narrative account

2 apparently this very obliging doctor wrote for you and assistant wrote for

3 you and Professor Kecmanovic. This isn't a note, this is a full narrative

4 account.

5 A. We are talking about one page out of 40. We are also talking

6 about two paragraphs in one instance, and one paragraph in another. I

7 would like to stress that in the context of the fullness of the report

8 including a rather complex attempt to present in a very concise space the

9 roundup of the historical and political sweep of many years and decades,

10 this is not either the main body or the crux or the crucial and essential

11 part of it.

12 Q. Well, I can, and I will, if you insist, take you through all the

13 other pages where there is word for word paragraphs the same. But I just

14 want to know this: Why didn't the doctor want his name mentioned?

15 A. That is not for me to comment. I would, since the cat is out of

16 the bag about the research assistance I enjoyed in this respect, I will

17 have to -- yeah, I have a good mind not only to make inquiry of that, but

18 also to make inquiry as to how did it come -- how did the material come to

19 be circulated prior to my use? I wish to assure you once again that had I

20 been not only aware but half suspecting that the access to the material

21 had been made available to another author of expert testimony, I would not

22 have touched it with a barge pole.

23 Q. Just one last question on this: Are you proposing to give any of

24 the fee you're going to claim for this report to this doctor?

25 A. The doctor has specifically assured me that my use of the material

1 is on the strictly friendly basis, and that he neither asks nor expects

2 any remunerative package.

3 Q. All right. We were on page 19. I'm just going to indicate,

4 Doctor, for the benefit of anybody who wants to look at it, there is a

5 passage at the top of "Lost Opportunities for Peace" which is almost

6 identical to that in the professor's report at page 9. The bottom

7 sentence, "once the war broke out in Croatia..." is also identical to part

8 of his report at page 10 and goes over to page 20.

9 Can we go to page 21, please.

10 A. Mm-hmm.

11 Q. Your reference in the sentence "In February 1991," to Izetbegovic,

12 "I would sacrifice peace for a sovereign Bosnia-Herzegovina..." et

13 cetera. And then, "To the Serbs 'this was a war cry...,'" exactly the

14 same quotes appear at page 9 of the professor's report. Now, can we go

15 please, to page 24. In your footnote number 53 on that page, you say --

16 is that your footnote or the professor's -- the doctor's, I'm sorry.

17 A. No. This is my own footnote, yes.

18 Q. "OTP expert witnesses have remarkably little to say about the way

19 events in Prijedor were pushed along by Muslim-Croat initiatives." Which

20 witnesses were you referring to?

21 A. The military and Professor Donia in this particular case.

22 Q. "Were pushed along by Muslim-Croat initiatives from Sarajevo, and

23 this has the unfortunate effect of masking the strictly reactive quality

24 of SDS responses." And that is your opinion, is it, based on your

25 research, your assistant's research and whatever, that the SDS was

1 reacting?

2 A. If you look at the sequence of events in Prijedor in the period

3 after June of 1991, the first signs of tension were due to the failure of

4 the SDA to accept appointment of the Serb head of the public security

5 station in Prijedor. That was in the summer of 1991. Followed by the

6 tensions in the aftermath of the memorandum on independence vote in the BH

7 assembly. In both cases, the initiatives came from without, in the former

8 case from the MUP headed by Delimustafic and in the hands of the SDA top

9 brass in Sarajevo, and in the latter case, again, as a result of the vote

10 in the republican parliament in Sarajevo. These were not Prijedor

11 initiatives; these were not locally-generated proactive moves.

12 Q. I appreciate that. What you're saying is that everything that

13 happened, either at the republic level or the local level in Prijedor, in

14 each case, the Serbs are reacting to actions taken by either the Muslims

15 or the Croats, or a combination of both?

16 A. And this is indeed unsurprising because --

17 Q. I don't need a further explanation. I just want to know that's

18 your position.

19 A. It is my opinion that in most important events, the Serbs seem to

20 take the reactive rather than proactive stance.

21 Q. Right. I want to have a look at one of these reactions that you

22 describe now. Page 27, please, of your report. Now, we looked at this in

23 terms of your footnote from Burg and Shoup, and you say that you made a

24 mistake. It should have been Kumar.

25 A. On 61.

1 Q. Yes. Well, 63, in fact.

2 A. 63, no. 63 is the quote of Simo Miskovic from Kozarski Vjesnik.

3 Q. Are you looking at page 27 of your report?

4 A. Yes.

5 Q. If you look at footnote number 63 --

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. -- it refers to the setting up of the Herceg Bosna.

8 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: It was your testimony earlier this morning that

9 there was a mistake, instead of ibid, 63, it should be related to Kumar

10 quoted on footnote 60.

11 MS. KORNER:

12 Q. Page 27 of your report.

13 A. Page 27, yes.

14 Q. Would you like to give us your report, the one that you're looking

15 at. We went through this, and I don't know to go through this again.

16 Yes. Well, you must have made some changes I see here, because

17 the copy that we have is not the same footnote. But it matters not

18 because it's your footnote 61, and I'm somewhat curious as to how we have

19 footnote 63 here, which refers to pages 47 to 48, "after the Croatian

20 community of..."

21 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Sorry, but then we have to go into some details

22 which is the final report in order that we don't have admitted into

23 evidence a wrong report by the expert.

24 MS. KORNER: As I understand it, what has been admitted is the one

25 that was filed on the 3rd of March, 2003. However, what Dr. Trifkovic has

1 now showed me is indeed that page, but the footnote is different. It says

2 61. And what we've all got says footnote 63.

3 Q. Did you make any changes to this report?

4 A. Not since it was submitted. I had this printout from before my

5 trip to the Middle East, which was exactly a month ago today.

6 Q. Well, I'm not at the moment proposing to go through, unless Your

7 Honour --

8 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: No, it's for the Defence to clarify this issue,

9 maybe based on a comparison that this report we have before us now ends at

10 page 38 and footnote 101. Apparently some changes have been made in the

11 meantime, and we have to go through this later, but not waste the precious

12 time of the expert. Please continue.

13 MS. KORNER:

14 Q. Regardless of whether it's 61 or 63, we dealt with this part. It

15 is a wrong reference. It should not refer to Burg and Shoup. That's what

16 you've just told us.

17 A. The pages 47 to 48 from memory, I can say, refers to Radha Kumar's

18 "Divide and Fall."

19 Q. Yes. Now would you have a look, please, at page 15 of the

20 Professor's report, where we see that part, the lip service in paragraph

21 29.

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. And he footnotes it like you, but he gets the right book.

24 A. Because the sequence was changed. There was an inserted footnote

25 in front of the one that came in my use of the Zametica note for the

1 footnote following the plebiscite quote by Miskovic -- or rather, before

2 the plebiscite quote by Miskovic.

3 Q. Now, let's look at the assertion that both you and the professor

4 make, that "In the same month," you say, "the HDZ set up a Croatian

5 community of Herceg Bosna." What month are you referring to?

6 A. To the month of October of 1991.

7 Q. Where do we see that?

8 A. If you look at --

9 Q. No, no. Where in your report do we see the month of October?

10 A. The reference to "everything that was being done was contrary to

11 the constitution of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina that was then

12 in" --

13 Q. Pause, Doctor. I'm not asking you what was done. I'm asking you

14 where we can find in this paragraph the month "October," because you say

15 "the HDZ ostensible support for a sovereign Bosnia and Herzegovina was but

16 so much lip service. However, because in the same month..."

17 A. The month refers to the same month when "In this, 'the most

18 delicate question of Bosnian politics,' the outcome of the Assembly

19 session 'hardly reflected the kind of consensus necessary,'" et cetera,

20 which is month of October when the vote on memorandum of independence took

21 place.

22 Q. But you don't give a month in that paragraph, do you?

23 A. But the reference to the vote in the assembly was made on the

24 previous page, "on the night of October 14th, 15th, when the SDA and HDZ

25 voted on the memorandum on independence."

1 Q. All right. So you're saying in October, the HDZ set up the

2 Croatian community of Herceg Bosna, and then the SDS responded by

3 organising on November 9th to the 10th a plebiscite of its own?

4 A. The SDS response was not to any action by HDZ per se. The SDS

5 response was primarily to the assembly vote by the SDA and the HDZ of

6 October 14th.

7 Q. All right. So you're saying that this -- the response on November

8 10th, we should not read in conjunction with the community -- I'm sorry,

9 with the HDZ setting up the Croatian community?

10 A. No, it should read: "In conjunction with the vote of the assembly

11 of October 14th, 15th."

12 Q. Because you know perfectly well, don't you, that the Serbs

13 couldn't have reacted by the plebiscite of 9th to the 10th, to the setting

14 up of the community of Herceg Bosnia, or Bosna --

15 A. Which predated -- sorry.

16 Q. Yes, it did, didn't it?

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. The plebiscite came before the setting up?

19 A. Absolutely. I am referring to the Serb response as the response

20 to the most delicate of questions of Bosnian politics. In other words,

21 the end of the paragraph referring to the HDZ action is not the one that

22 prompted the Serbian response. The Serbian response in paragraph 2 on

23 this page refers to the SDA/HDZ vote on the memorandum.

24 Q. Yes, but you told us a moment ago that when you said "the same

25 month," you meant October 1991. Because in the same month, the HDZ set up

1 a Croatian community of Herceg Bosna. And that was wrong, wasn't it?

2 A. This was a mistake of the month, yes.

3 Q. And funnily enough, Professor Kecmanovic made the identical

4 mistake.

5 A. Yes, I readily admit that the end of this paragraph is entirely

6 the research notes given to me by Dr. Zametica with the assurance that

7 they had been neither circulated nor made public, nor in any way

8 accessible to third parties.

9 Q. So it's totally wrong for anybody to conclude that you copied

10 blindly what the professor had written?

11 A. No, I was not copying blindly. I was in this respect referring,

12 again looking at the continuation of the sentence, it is very easy to

13 mistake the context of the month. And what I meant to say with the HDZ is

14 the month -- the same month when the Serbs had their plebiscite. The

15 order of the argument should have been reversed. What happened in the

16 month of November are both the Serbian plebiscite and the HDZ declaration.

17 Q. But it was the HDZ, as you call it, which responded to the

18 plebiscite held by the Serbs, wasn't it?

19 A. The Croatian decision was not solely the response to the Serb

20 plebiscite. It is also the result of a long-standing policy that was

21 agreed by the Tudjman -- by Tudjman himself and his leadership at a

22 meeting with the Croatian politicians from Bosnia-Herzegovina in Zagreb on

23 10th and 17th of June of 1991.

24 Q. All right. I would like you to have a look, please, at a

25 newspaper article from -- this is another one I have difficulty with.

1 Oslobodenje.

2 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: While we are conducting this research, may I

3 ask, Doctor, what is your exact time of departure scheduled for today?

4 THE WITNESS: Unfortunately, in view of the likelihood of the

5 proceedings continuing until the end of the day, I postponed my departure

6 for tonight, and my departure from London for tomorrow morning. So don't

7 feel restrained as far as today's proceedings are concerned. Just I have

8 the request that we don't go beyond the end of the day.

9 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Then we would -- sorry to interrupt, but we have

10 to make this scheduling. We have three options. Either we proceed until

11 1.45, and then from 4.15 to 5.30. This would be the late solution. I

12 think may be better, but it's for the parties to decide. Until 12.30 now,

13 and then continue from 2.00 to 4.30. Or continue now until 1.30, and then

14 from 3.00 to 4.30.

15 Any strong feelings against a solution continuing now until 12.30,

16 and then restarting at 2.00 to 4.30?

17 MR. LUKIC: No objections to this proposal.

18 MS. KORNER: No objections, Your Honour.

19 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Then we continue now until 12.30, and restart at

20 2.00 until 4.30. Thank you.

21 MS. KORNER:

22 Q. Now, have you got the original article there, Doctor?

23 A. Not the original, but the translation.

24 Q. I'll show you the original so you can confirm that it's...

25 Headed 20th of November, 1991, Self-organisation of Posavina and

1 Herceg Bosna. "Croatian community Bosanska Posavina was founded on the

2 12th of November, and Croatian community of Herceg Bosna was constituted

3 on the 18th of November in Bosnia-Herzegovina. As it was said yesterday

4 at the regular press conference of HDZ/BH, these are actions of

5 self-organisation of Croatian people, and be it a concrete answer to the

6 formation of the Serb autonomous regions." And I don't think we need to

7 bother about the rest.

8 A. But on the other hand, in the entrefilet, formation of interests

9 of the Croatian people, we have "from Mate Boban himself, the opposite

10 view." And I quote: "This is not a reaction to the Serbian plebiscite,

11 but the result of policy articulated by the Croatian democratic

12 community," which is exactly the point I made a minute ago about the

13 policy agreed with Tudjman at the two meetings in Zagreb in June of 1991.

14 Q. So the fact that it happened approximately a week, in one case two

15 days, after the Serb plebiscite, and in the other case a week, still shows

16 the Serbs reacting against what was initiatives taken by the HDZ. Is that

17 really what you're saying?

18 A. What I am saying is that the Serb plebiscite cannot be taken as

19 the prompt for the HDZ to act in this way because the plebiscite had a

20 purely informal character of ascertaining the wishes of the plurality of

21 Serbian people without constitutional and legal consequences. In that

22 sense, plebiscite differs from referendum.

23 If one were to give an evaluation of these two apparently

24 contradictory articles, I would say that Mate Boban is probably right when

25 he says that this is not a reaction to the Serbian plebiscite, but the

1 result of a pre-existent Croatian democratic community policy, but that on

2 the other hand, Stjepan Kljuic or whoever issued the other statement may

3 have found it prudent to contextualise the decision with the aftermath of

4 the Serbian plebiscite, and thus to give added justification for something

5 that had been on the cards in any event.

6 Q. So again, it would be wholly wrong to suggest that you agree with

7 Mate Boban because it fits in with your Serb theory of the events?

8 A. Excuse me, quite the contrary. I think that Mate Boban was

9 probably stating the real state of play when he declared that this was not

10 a reaction to the Serb plebiscite, but the result of the pre-existent HDZ

11 policy.

12 Q. Which was a reaction to the autonomous regions which had been

13 created some time earlier. That's what the article says.

14 A. Well, if we look at the formulation of interests of the Croatian

15 people article, Mate Boban is specifically denying that this is the

16 reaction of Serbian plebiscite and asserting real, legitimate, and

17 democratic power of the Croatian community in the BH, which really fits in

18 it with the long-standing position of Mate Boban, that as one of the three

19 constituent nations in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Croats should establish and

20 preserve and if possible enhance their political -- collective political

21 individuality.

22 Q. All right. Can we go back to what you say --

23 MS. KORNER: Your Honours, could that be made an exhibit.

24 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: The article "self-organisation" would be S416A

25 and, the other 417.

1 MS. KORNER:

2 Q. Can we just look at your report again, please, at page 27. You

3 say: "The plebiscite showed that whoever represented the majority in

4 Prijedor, it was not the SDA." Why did it show any such thing?

5 A. Because the people who joined in the plebiscite were not only SDS

6 voters; in other words, the number of people who declared themselves in

7 favour of staying within Yugoslavia, because that was ultimately the

8 choice presented to the voters, were people who had supported the League

9 of Communists movement for Yugoslavia, people who belonged to the

10 veterans' associations, people who even didn't declare themselves as Serbs

11 but Yugoslavs in the ethnic sense. What you have to bear in mind in the

12 context of the Prijedorian plebiscite is that it was not perceived as a

13 plebiscite for the greater Serbian option, but rather the plebiscite for

14 remaining part of the joint state.

15 Q. The only people, with a few exceptions, who voted in this

16 so-called plebiscite were the Serbs?

17 A. Well, with respect, I would emphasise that according to the census

18 of 1991, a considerable number of the denizens of Prijedor declared

19 themselves as neither Serbs, nor Muslims, nor for that matter Croats, but

20 as Yugoslavs. I do not have the figures in front of me. And many of

21 those so-called Yugoslavs supported the plebiscite as was obvious from the

22 statements and pre-plebiscite proclamations recorded in the Kozarski

23 Vjesnik by the aforementioned organisations that had all Yugoslav rather

24 than ethnically Serb character.

25 Q. I'm sorry, Doctor. Do you accept that in 1991, the Muslims were

1 the majority population in Prijedor?

2 A. According to the census of 1991, yes, I believe the ratio was 51

3 to 49.

4 Q. Right. How is it, then, that a plebiscite voted in by Serbs, and

5 maybe what you call others or Yugoslavs as well, showed that the majority

6 in Prijedor was not represented by the SDA?

7 A. The answer is really quite simple, that at the time of the census,

8 a number of people who did not declare themselves as either Serbs or

9 Muslims or Croats, but Yugoslavs, at the same time voted in the plebiscite

10 in favour of staying with Yugoslavia. I think that for people who called

11 themselves Yugoslav in the ethnic sense, it is unsurprising to choose to

12 stay part of Yugoslavia without necessarily identifying themselves with

13 the SDS cause.

14 Q. Are you able to point to the proportion of people who were Muslims

15 who voted in this SDS plebiscite?

16 A. No, I'm not. I do have a strong suspicion, however, that among

17 the people who had declared themselves Yugoslavs, we had both Serbs and

18 Muslims. The commitment to the preservation of the common state had been

19 quite strong among that segment of the society in Bosnia-Herzegovina that

20 had strong links with partisan veteran affairs and with the old, by that

21 time, defunct communist party.

22 Q. You are aware, aren't you, that there were two different-coloured

23 ballots for those that voted in the plebiscite, one for Serbs and one for

24 others?

25 A. Yes, I am.

1 Q. You are aware that there were two separate questions, one for

2 Serbs and one for non-Serbs?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. All right. Can we move, please, then to -- just a moment. Yes,

5 just a note, please, page 26 of your report, "Sovereignty vs. Legality and

6 National Equality." Page 13 of the Professor Kecmanovic's report starts

7 in the same way, headed "Sovereignty and the Constitution."

8 Now, page 29, please, "Proclamation of the Serb Republic."

9 "The formation of autonomous Serbian authorities, far from being

10 the product of a grand design or of an intricate joint criminal

11 enterprise, can be seen both as a necessary response to an emergency and a

12 stance on which to start bargaining." Who asked you to talk about joint

13 criminal enterprise?

14 A. No one. I am aware of the fact that the proclamation of the

15 Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina on January 9th is regarded as a

16 part of the so-called joint criminal enterprise, and I felt that it was

17 indeed appropriate to bring the term in because I believe that the act of

18 January 9th had, again, both reactive character and not a conclusive

19 character, but the character of staking out a position which could be

20 modified as the result of further negotiations.

21 Q. "The autonomous bodies," that is, the SAOs, "were the result of

22 improvisation is unsurprising, since there had been no agreed SDS master

23 plan of what to do." That's what you assert.

24 A. I'm not aware of an SDS master plan, and I think that the

25 almost-stumbling character of the responses, improvised responses, by the

1 SDS in the period of October, November, December of 1991, and January of

2 1992, indicates rather a hasty and ad hoc attempt to create appropriate

3 responses rather than the following of a long-conceived and

4 well-strategised plan.

5 Q. Did you watch the sentencing of your ex -- I won't say boss, but

6 your ex-associate Mrs. Plavsic?

7 A. No, but I've seen her statement on that occasion.

8 Q. I'd like you to have another look at it, please. I'd like you to

9 have a look, I'm sorry so sorry, the document "The Factual Basis for Plea

10 of Guilty."

11 MS. KORNER: I know Your Honours I think have it, but we have

12 copies here.

13 MR. LUKIC: We would object, Your Honour. If this witness will

14 not be called to testify, how would it be possible for us to question

15 anything said in this statement?

16 MS. KORNER: The point is, Your Honour, is not whether it's what

17 she said, but what his reaction in light of his assertion to what she said

18 is.

19 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: As it was ruled several times since the

20 beginning of this case, it's the right of the parties, whenever they have

21 a sound basis, then this might be put to the witness. And it's not a

22 question whether the author of this document or this statement will ever

23 testify in this Court. As far as we take into account and have as

24 evidence only the reaction by the expert on this. So therefore, objection

25 dismissed.

1 MS. KORNER:

2 Q. Have you read this before?

3 A. Yes, I have.

4 Q. When did you read it?

5 A. It was sent to me through the Internet shortly after -- I believe

6 it was when her plea was -- sometime last fall.

7 Q. So before you actually wrote - if that's the right word for your

8 report - before you compiled this report, you knew what she had said as

9 the basis for her plea.

10 A. The basis for Mrs. Plavsic's plea is her own sense of the events

11 and her own feeling of remorse for what she had taken part in as she

12 perceived those events to be. Her statement does not contain specific

13 reference to documents or positions adopted by the Serbian -- by the

14 Serbian democratic party leadership that would be indicative of the

15 universal acceptance of her plea as an agreed position of the SDS leaders.

16 Q. That was a remarkable sentence if I may say so, Dr. Trifkovic.

17 You assert there is no agreed SDS master plan of what to do.

18 A. No, I am specifically --

19 Q. Just a moment, please. That is what you say in your report at

20 page 29.

21 A. When Mrs. Plavsic says, and this is article -- or paragraph 9,

22 that the "meeting was a significant step in the evolution of the general

23 political strategy and objectives..., in particular the determination to

24 create Serbian ethnic territories in BH." That does not to my mind mean

25 that it was agreed at the meeting in the aftermath of the assembly vote to

1 create BH ethnic territories, that it was her sense that this was indeed

2 the objective.

3 These are two different things. And I'm sure you as a lawyer will

4 appreciate that what the Serbs were definitely striving to do is to create

5 political institutions that would give expression to their determination

6 not to be faced with fait accomplis, and not to be taken out of Yugoslavia

7 against their will. Whether Dr. Plavsic perceived such determination to

8 entail the creation of Serbian ethnic territories, implying cleansing of

9 non-Serbs, is a different issue.

10 Q. Let's look at a different paragraph. Paragraph 10: "The SDS and

11 the Bosnian Serb leadership were committed to a primary goal that all

12 Serbs in the former Yugoslavia would remain in a common state. One method

13 of achieving this goal was by separating the ethnic communities in

14 Bosnia-Herzegovina. By October 1991, the Bosnian Serb leadership,

15 including Mrs. Plavsic knew and intended that the separation of the ethnic

16 communities would include the permanent removal of ethnic populations,

17 either by agreement or by force, and further knew that any forcible

18 removal of non-Serbs from Serbian-claimed territories would involve a

19 discriminatory campaign of persecution."

20 Do you say that that is consistent with your assertion that there

21 was no agreed SDS master plan?

22 A. This is probably the most important question posed today. I would

23 be most reluctant to accept that Mrs. Plavsic's account of Serbian

24 intentions is the one that was universally shared by the SDS leadership.

25 If it were indeed established to be so, I would be most distressed to have

1 been ever associated with any of them. However, I have still some faith

2 in the possibility that Mrs. Plavsic's personal account of those

3 proceedings and her sense of what was intended and what was sought is not

4 necessarily the one that would be shared by other members of the SDS

5 leadership, most certainly not those lower on the ground.

6 Q. So -- I see. You're saying that Mrs. Plavsic made a terrible

7 mistake. All the time during 1992, she was under the impression that

8 there was an agreement in the SDS and the Bosnian Serb leaders to commit

9 these offences but she was totally wrong?

10 A. I'm not saying that she was totally wrong. I'm saying that in the

11 fluent situation in which moves are forced by the march of events and

12 often improvised, assumptions are made, unspoken assumptions sometimes,

13 which unless are reflected in the clear documentary evidence may have a

14 Rashomonian to it in the sense of the same set of statements or events

15 meaning different things to different people. And let me remind you that

16 in the period in question, Mrs. Plavsic did have the reputation of a

17 somewhat more excitable member of the Bosnian Serb leadership, certainly

18 she was perceived as one of the more radical ones. It was due to her

19 considerable evolution later on that she was accepted by the international

20 community as a useful interlocutor.

21 I would not like to speculate on the extent to her mistaken belief

22 that this, that, or the other was the agreed policy. I'm simply

23 suggesting that short of a clear set of documentary evidence that would

24 indicate agreed policy of ethnic persecution leading to ethnic cleansing,

25 which she feels guilty of, it would be very difficult for me to accept her

1 statement as, you know, the conclusive proof that such grand master plan

2 was indeed in existence and was universally agreed upon by different

3 parties in the Serb leadership.

4 Q. That's what I asked you. You're saying, as an excitable member of

5 the Bosnian Serb leadership, she has come away with a totally false

6 impression of the meetings she attended and the instructions that were

7 given. Is that really what you're saying --

8 A. Totally false is a matter of conjunction. I would say that there

9 is no doubt that among the Bosnian Serb leadership, there was an intent in

10 the aftermath of the assembly vote on October 14th to set up political

11 institutions that would give meaning to the political will of the Serbian

12 people in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

13 There is also no doubt that this intent acquired territorial

14 characteristics through, first, the communities of municipalities, and

15 then the Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, but those bodies did not

16 preclude a rearrangement of internal Bosnian Herzegovinian constitutional

17 order that would still allow for the continued existence of the republic

18 as an entity. Whether this also entailed the intent to force populations

19 out, to exchange populations, or to otherwise alter the ethnic picture of

20 those territories, I am not fully satisfied on the basis of Mrs. Plavsic's

21 testimony alone that it is an established fact and that it was universally

22 accepted as such by all elements in the Bosnian Serb decision-making

23 structure.

24 Q. Well, you can't accept it, can you, Doctor, because that would go

25 counter to everything that you have been alleging in this so-called

1 report, the Serbs --

2 A. In addition.

3 Q. Just let me finish, please. The Serbs were reacting to events and

4 that there was no grand strategy?

5 A. In addition, I would say that if we look at different elements of

6 the other parties' power structure, most notably, Abdic and Zulfikar Pasic

7 on the Muslim side, we could equally use their statements as the grounds

8 to claim that the Izetbegovic policy had been duplicitous from the

9 beginning and had sought to deprive the Serbs of their constitutional and

10 to establish political mechanisms for their marginalisation that were both

11 unconstitutional and illegal.

12 Statements by direct participants in ongoing events, unless,

13 again, as I mentioned earlier supported by direct documentary evidence

14 have to be compared against other statements. Other statements referring

15 to the problem of policy towards ethnic minorities do not lead me to

16 conclude that there was an agreed and clearly understood SDS policy of

17 altering the ethnic balance by force.

18 If you believe that Mrs. Plavsic's confession of and by itself is

19 sufficient to establish such claim beyond reasonable doubt, I have to beg

20 to differ.

21 Q. You do understand the difference, don't you, between a public

22 statement in a newspaper and the basis of a plea of guilty for which

23 Mrs. Plavsic you say, quite wrongly, accepted a sentence of 11 years'

24 imprisonment?

25 A. Excuse me, quite wrongly, no. I said this statement undoubtedly

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1 reflects Mrs. Plavsic's heartfelt and sincere impression of those events.

2 What I am saying is that when ascertaining the facts of the case referred

3 to, we have to allow for the possibility that in decisions that often

4 involve implied, not-clearly stated or spelled out or insufficiently

5 clarified elements, we would be on somewhat slippery ground if we took her

6 statement by itself as the clear indication of the existence of a master

7 plan of ethnic cleansing. And I would again submit that I also personally

8 hope that this is not the case; indeed, it is quite possible for different

9 people in the same room listening to the same discussion to have different

10 accounts of that discussion afterwards.

11 Q. Dr. Trifkovic, can I just ask you this: What would it take to

12 convince you that there was, in fact, a conspiracy, a joint criminal

13 enterprise, between the leaders of the Bosnian Serbs? What would it

14 actually take to convince you that this happened?

15 A. This is an interesting question, and the one that even though

16 probably merits more mature reflection, on an ad hoc basis, I would

17 respond by speculating that a similar confession from another member of

18 the top Bosnian Serb leadership would reluctantly force me to accept that

19 indeed there was a hidden master plan of which they alone were aware at

20 the time. In addition, I believe that may be the emergence of a smoking

21 gun document of some kind, but I would be very surprised if indeed there

22 was intent referred to by Mrs. Plavsic that any such intent would have

23 been codified in writing.

24 Q. So paragraphs 12 and 13 of what she said, "the SDS prepared and

25 distributed written instructions to SDS municipal leaders to form Crisis

1 Staffs, proclaim Serbian Municipal Assemblies...," et cetera, et cetera.

2 "The municipal Crisis Staffs implemented these objectives and directives

3 in the field, including ultimately the objective of ethnic separation by

4 force." She is just wrong about that.

5 A. Well, I do not want to mix apples and pears here. We are not now

6 discussing whether she is wrong about the existence of SDS directives.

7 The SDS directives dated December 1991 certainly did exist; so did

8 directives by the other parties, because let us remember, this is the

9 period of the scramble for control. Similar directives existed on the

10 Croatian side preceding the creation of their community. And as far as

11 the SDA side is concerned, the directives issued from the meeting in the

12 police hall in Sarajevo on the 10th of June of 1991 preceding the war in

13 Croatia and Slovenia also had the character of creating parallel power

14 structures, including the political military structures even before -- six

15 months before the events we are discussing right now.

16 So in direct answer to your question, I would say that while it is

17 undeniable that SDS did prepare and distribute written instructions to SDS

18 municipal leaders to form Crisis Staffs, proclaim Serbian Municipal

19 Assemblies, and so on, it did not necessarily follow from this that the

20 intent and the meaning and the purpose of such instructions was as stated

21 in paragraph 10. What I still believe, short of the standard of proof

22 that you have asked me to indicate, is that it is possible that these

23 moves meant different things to different people. And certainly to most

24 Serbs, the intention was not to chase away their neighbours of different

25 ethnicity, but at the same time to remain within the Yugoslav state,

1 either in the Bosnian context, that's end of 1991 and early 1992, or

2 outside that context which was the shift later on in 1992.

3 Q. Does it ever occur to you to qualify these sweeping

4 generalisations? How do you know what most Serbs wanted to do?

5 A. Sweeping generalisations or not --

6 Q. Please answer the question.

7 A. Yes. Sweeping generalisations have a certain quality to them of

8 reflecting an overall reality, which if we lose ourselves in the minutia

9 of the statements by individuals, we lose sight of. Ordinary people have

10 a tendency, and I'm talking not only of Serbs but Croats and Muslims as

11 well, have a tendency to live in peace and to want peace. If we look at

12 the events in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the winter of 1991 and 1992, my hunch

13 is - and I say this in full knowledge that a lot of my personal contacts

14 from that part of world have reiterated the same - that most people would

15 have chosen peace, and were prepared to sacrifice some of their political

16 objectives for the sake of peace. But that political leaderships on all

17 three sides were more radical and more determined to pursue their

18 political objectives even at the risk of sacrificing peace.

19 I believe, and I think that events of the post-Dayton period will

20 indicate the same, that faced with a similar choice, most people in

21 Bosnia-Herzegovina, if given the means of democratic expression of their

22 views, would rather lower the threshold of their political and

23 constitutional expectations than risk the repetition of the nightmare of

24 1992 to 1995.

25 Q. Is the summary of this long answer is you don't know what most

1 Serbs wanted, but you're guessing or speculating?

2 A. It is more than guessing or speculating. It is also supported by

3 the almost universal plea for peace that came from the grassroots in

4 Bosnia in 1991, as the reaction to the war in Croatia and the peace

5 demonstrations in Sarajevo that preceded the collapse into Hobbesian

6 nightmare in 1992.

7 I think it is also a fact well-known in social anthropology that

8 political leaderships, by virtue of being more highly motivated, almost by

9 definition more politicised than the rank and file, also have the

10 exceptions and objectives that tend to be more sharply focussed and more

11 hardline, more extreme, than their rank and file, their overall following.

12 Q. Anything else?

13 A. I am trying to respectfully reply to your questions to the best of

14 my ability. If you believe that this is either irrelevant or otherwise

15 inadmissible, I would welcome your comments.

16 Q. You tempt me, Doctor, but I don't think I will.

17 Can we move or look at your assertions in respect of the

18 October -- I'm sorry, Your Honour. I've dealt with the Plavsic.

19 MS. KORNER: May that be made as an exhibit as well, please.

20 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: I'm hesitant to have this admitted into evidence

21 because, in fact, we don't know what will be the future. And the evidence

22 we have before us is reflected on the transcript and based on your

23 questions. So therefore, I would rather appreciate not to admit this into

24 evidence in the moment --

25 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I'll leave that for a later discussion

1 then perhaps.

2 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Right.

3 MS. KORNER:

4 Q. Doctor, what you said about the meeting of October the 14th, 1991,

5 which you hold responsible for everything that happened thereafter, was

6 that when the debate was adjourned on the evening -- I'm sorry, I'm

7 looking at page 76 of the transcript of the 13th of March - on the evening

8 of October 14th, "Serbian deputies simply left assuming this was the end

9 of the proceedings for the day. But the Croats and Muslims were

10 surreptitiously informed to reconvene, one might say conspiratorially, and

11 in the middle of the night, and to carry the vote by simple majority."

12 You remember saying that?

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. And I believe that the minutes of this meeting is something, one

15 of the few original documents that you've looked at.

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. All right. I'd like you to have a copy, please.

18 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I note the time. It may be before it's

19 handed out.

20 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: I think we can proceed five more minutes. This

21 would be exhibit Number?

22 MS. KORNER: I'm sorry.

23 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Exhibit number, please.

24 MS. KORNER: It hasn't been exhibited before, I don't think.

25 THE REGISTRAR: S418.

1 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Provisionally marked S418.

2 MS. KORNER:

3 Q. This is part of the minutes of this particular session, if you

4 want to look at the B/C/S version, you may, Dr. Trifkovic.

5 We see that there was the continuation of the session on the 11th

6 of October, 1991. After various speakers, Mr. Azra -- maybe it's a woman

7 actually. Azra Idrizbegovic took the floor and proposed the following to

8 the assembly of the socialist republic, and then we see setting out in the

9 following paragraphs what was set out. And quotes the 60th amendment to

10 the constitution, which was an amendment passed under communist times,

11 wasn't it?

12 A. It was the amendment passed in the dying period of communist rule

13 when the already renamed League of Communists had accepted the

14 inevitability of multiparty elections.

15 Q. The amendment, and we quote: "Bosnia-Herzegovina is a democratic

16 sovereign state of equal citizens, the peoples of Bosnia-Herzegovina,

17 Muslims, Serbs, and Croats, and members of other nations and nationalities

18 who live there."

19 It goes on to state, this is the proposed discussion: "Bosnia and

20 Herzegovina shall continue to advocate the survival of the Yugoslav

21 community on new foundations acceptable to all, bearing in mind the ethnic

22 composition of its population, Bosnia and Herzegovina shall not accept any

23 constitutional solution for future Yugoslav community that would not

24 include both Serbia and Croatia..." And so on and so forth.

25 If we go, please, to page 3: "The president of the SRBH assembly

1 Momcilo Krajisnik informed the assembly that the SDS deputies did not

2 agree with the recommendation." And then it was agreed, would you accept,

3 that the assembly -- the session was closed at 23.40. And

4 then -- "continuation of the session on the 14th of October, 1991," if you

5 go, please, to page 4, there were clearly a lot of discussions between the

6 deputies of the various parties, and we see then: "After the break, the

7 chairman informed the assembly that the positions had not been brought

8 into line, i.e., the approaches for decision which were supposed to be

9 adopted at this session were different. Since the positions could not be

10 brought into line, the chairman, Momcilo Krajisnik, closed the session,

11 and the SDS deputies left the meeting." And that was a walkout. Do you

12 agree?

13 A. If the chairman of the assembly, and I quote from what you just

14 said "closes the session," it is not a walkout. It is the end of the

15 session.

16 Q. All right.

17 A. The walkout is when the session is underway, and the aggrieved

18 party or the aggrieved contingent of deputies walk out in protest, and the

19 session is continued. When the chairman of the assembly closes the

20 session, the departure of deputies is not a walkout. It is the departure

21 following the ending of the session.

22 Q. Right. I'm just concerned with your description of this

23 conspiratorial, going back into the dead of night meeting. "Irfan

24 Ajanovic then proposed that the assembly adopt a conclusion authorising

25 the assembly vice-president, Mariofil Ljubic, to continue running the

1 session. Since the assembly president had closed the session against the

2 wishes of the deputies, the conclusion was accepted. Since the

3 representatives of one party had abandoned the session, Mariofil Ljubic

4 called a break of one hour in keeping with Article 112 of the assembly

5 rules of procedure."

6 And then we go on, and as you say, the memorandum was passed.

7 Now, where is the conspiratorial sneaking back into the assembly that

8 you've described?

9 A. First of all, after the departure of Momcilo -- Momcilo Krajisnik

10 closes the session and the SDS deputies leave the meeting. This is not

11 the abandonment of the meeting, this is not the walkout. These people are

12 under the impression that the meeting is over.

13 Q. How do you know that?

14 A. Because of the language used here, "closed the session and the SDS

15 deputies left." Now, I would like to know on what basis do you suggest

16 that they abandoned the meeting for which they thought would go on and

17 would continue, when in fact many of them subsequent to these events

18 specifically said that they were under the impression that the meeting was

19 over.

20 Q. But may I say, I'm not at this stage entering into an argument of

21 the rights and wrongs of the walkout or leaving or whatever. What I am

22 putting to you, Dr. Trifkovic, is that your description of what happened

23 next then is thoroughly -- to this Court is thoroughly misleading.

24 A. No, I think that it is quite crucial to understand that the

25 decision, and this is the paragraph that we went on "Irfan Ajanovic then

1 proposed" and so on, that this is in political substance of the Bosnian

2 crisis, one of those thresholds that however innocuous they look when

3 written down and recapitulated more than a decade later, had the momentous

4 effect of incalculable proportions.

5 I am not alone suggesting that by plunging into the vote of this

6 memorandum in the absence of Serbian MPs, the SDA/HDZ deputies raised the

7 threshold, uped the ante, and increased the risk of violent confrontation

8 in the republic. I don't think that this view is something that needs to

9 be greatly elaborated upon. In terms of the Bosnia-Herzegovinian

10 constitutional arrangements and practice, for two ethnic groups to get

11 together and outvote the third, and worse still to vote on a key decision

12 in the absence of a third was simply entering into uncharted waters which

13 until that moment, at least, had retained the constitutional character and

14 the legality of the proceedings.

15 Q. Can I just ask you finally this: Supposing, as happened, the SDS

16 utterly refused to take any part in assemblies or the vote for the

17 referendum, which I want to come to this afternoon, the vote for the

18 referendum, does that mean that the rest of the other parties would be

19 completely and utterly unable to make a move, in your view?

20 A. Law is the law. And if the constitution of Bosnia-Herzegovina

21 stipulated that consensual participation of the three constituent ethnic

22 groups, or rather their representatives, is required for a key

23 determination influencing the republic's future, the fact that 61 per cent

24 would have favoured a certain option, and that 32 per cent did not, is not

25 by itself sufficient to alter the rule of law. If you, on the other hand,

1 say that in order for the majority to overrule minority, we can and should

2 overlook constitutional niceties, then by the same token, if the Flemings

3 outnumber Vlaamse in Belgium, they may vote to join the Netherlands.

4 If -- you know, examples can go on.

5 The very purpose of the Bosnia-Herzegovinian constitutional

6 arrangement preventing that kind of scenario was to prevent this kind of

7 outcome. I'm not saying whether it was right or wrong or whether it is

8 desirable or to be condemned, I'm simply saying that on the basis of the

9 constitution of 1974, and the amendments of 1990, and the power-sharing

10 agreement on which the political arrangements were made in the aftermath

11 of the November 1990 election, this move was illegitimate, illegal, and

12 unconstitutional.

13 Q. Is the answer to the actual question I asked, yes, they could do

14 nothing if the SDS refused to cooperate? Is that the simple answer?

15 A. They could not do what they sought to do. There are all kinds of

16 arrangements that can be made and reached through negotiations. But if

17 you try to impose your will against the constitution, against the law, and

18 against the spirit of political agreement in a very delicate period in

19 time, and try to justify your decision by the plurality of opinion, that

20 means that the rule of law goes out the window. I am very concerned that

21 you suggest that by virtue of having the plurality of opinion in the

22 tactical HDZ/SDA alliance, the deputies for those two parties were

23 justified in violating the republic's constitution and the assembly's

24 procedure.

25 Q. I am purely putting to you, Dr. Trifkovic, that your description

1 of this conspiratorial meeting is misleading, and the second aspect is

2 whether it is your view that the SDS could have gone on, not just in

3 October, but whatever happened thereafter, refusing to cooperate, and as a

4 result, the majority would have been unable to move? Can you just -- is

5 that your view, please? I do not want a long answer.

6 A. We have two different questions. The first question was whether

7 the two parties would have been unable to move. The second is whether I'm

8 providing a misleading account or not. I don't think I'm providing a

9 misleading account because the Serbs I understand were under the

10 impression that the session would not continue that evening.

11 The substantive issue of the manoeuvreing space is a quite

12 different matter. Had we remained after 14th, 15th of October within the

13 framework of the Bosnian constitution, and the power-sharing agreement,

14 there are all kinds of creative edifices that could have been achieved, as

15 we have seen indeed with the subsequent negotiations both before and after

16 the war. To claim that the only option open at that moment was to pursue

17 outvoting of one party by two other parties is, I think, extremely

18 unimaginative politically and wrong legally.

19 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: I think it's time for a break. The trial stays

20 adjourned until 2.00. But the parties should be advised that we have to

21 impose a time limit that also the Defence has the right to re-examine the

22 expert.

23 We'll meet again at 2.00.

24 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, can I ask, then, how long Your Honour is

25 giving me after lunch? Because obviously I just want to sort out what I'm

1 going to ask.

2 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: About 60 to 70 minutes.

3 MS. KORNER: Thank you.

4 --- Luncheon recess taken at 12.44 p.m.

5 --- On resuming at 2.05 p.m.

6 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Please be seated.

7 Good afternoon, please be seated. And, Ms. Korner, please

8 proceed.

9 MS. KORNER:

10 Q. Dr. Trifkovic, I want to deal with a couple of matters about the

11 referendum. Before I do that, can you tell us, what is the title of the

12 article that you can't get hold of that you wrote about this Tribunal in

13 March 2000?

14 A. No, I didn't write about the Tribunal. The article was about the

15 aftermath of the Kosovo crisis, and the Web site article that you had

16 printed out was apparently an edit -- the amalgam of my 1996 article and

17 my 1999 article on the aftermath of the Kosovo crisis.

18 Q. 2000 article?

19 A. No, I believe the Kosovo article was 1999, late 1999.

20 Q. What's the title of that?

21 A. I really can't remember offhand.

22 Q. All right. Now, I want to ask you about the referendum held by

23 the Serbs, about two aspects of it.

24 A. Can I ask you, is it the plebiscite or the referendum?

25 Q. Whatever the Serbs held, whatever it's called, on the 10th, 11th

1 November 1991.

2 A. It's a very important distinction because the implications of the

3 term are very different, and I believe that the Serbs never pretended it

4 to be a referendum. A plebiscite has more of a character of declaratory

5 opinion expression, rather than legally and constitutionally binding

6 arrangement that the referendum would imply.

7 Q. All right. But your view is that this plebiscite was the response

8 by the Serbs to the actions taken by the Croats and the Muslim population

9 in Bosnia.

10 A. Yes, I believe that were it not --

11 Q. Honestly a yes will do. I've got one hour, Dr. Trifkovic, and I'd

12 like to get through a number of topics.

13 A. Okay.

14 Q. Now, do you know who Mr. Mirko Pejanovic is?

15 A. Yes, he was a member of the presidency in 1992.

16 Q. And he's a Serb?

17 A. Yes, he is.

18 Q. And he remained, did he not, within the presidency of

19 Bosnia-Herzegovina?

20 A. Albeit with the uncertain electoral base. Who he exactly

21 represented as a Serb is frankly a moot point.

22 Q. All right. Have you read his book?

23 A. No.

24 Q. Why not?

25 A. There are literally thousands of titles dealing with all kinds of

1 issues that one is bombarded with on a daily basis. This is not the only

2 subject on earth that I have been dealing with in recent years, and

3 certainly not the one that I have been able to devote my undivided

4 attention.

5 Q. Would it be right to say that you only read and refer to books

6 that coincide with your own views?

7 A. Oh, no. On the contrary. I would be more than happy to take

8 inputs that would try to invalidate my viewpoints. But when it comes to

9 the essential point that we argued about in the earlier session concerning

10 the character of the vote on October 14th, for instance, I haven't

11 encountered --

12 Q. I'm not. Let's not go back to October the 14th. I'd like to talk

13 about the referendum.

14 A. Please, then --

15 Q. I'm sorry, the plebiscite.

16 A. Since we are looking at time restraints, let us focus on the

17 issues and not on why I have omitted reading Mr. Pejanovic's book.

18 Q. But the question is: You don't think it's important to read what

19 a Serb who remained in the government of BiH has to say?

20 MR. LUKIC: Objection, Your Honour.

21 MS. KORNER: What's the objection?

22 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Based on what?

23 MR. LUKIC: Mr. Pejanovic didn't remain. He was newly

24 implemented. He didn't remain. He has never been elected. The form of

25 the question is not proper.

1 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Please rephrase the question.

2 MS. KORNER: I'll change the form of the question.

3 Q. You don't think it was important for a balanced objective view

4 that you told the Court you're presenting to have read the memoirs of a

5 Serb who aligned himself with the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina?

6 A . This is exactly the problem that I referred to by saying that

7 Mr. Pejanovic had an uncertain electoral base. In the same way

8 Mr. Milosevic appointed a dutifully obedient Albanian to the Yugoslav

9 collective presidency in 1991, his memoirs probably wouldn't be of great

10 deal of interest the students of the Kosovo crisis. Mr. Pejanovic did not

11 represent anyone but himself. His ethnicity is coincidental in the

12 proceedings.

13 Q. I'd just like you to have a look at something he said, please.

14 Page 49 of his book, for which we have copies.

15 MS. KORNER: We have also copied, Your Honour, page 23, because of

16 the time constraints, I'm not going to go through that.

17 Q. Would you look at page 49, which has been copied, the paragraph

18 which begins: "In the fall of 1991, a delegation of opposition party

19 leaders approached Alija Izetbegovic, then the chairman of the

20 presidency. The SDS had announced its separate referendum on the future

21 of Bosnia held in the form of a plebiscite of the Serb nation. This

22 referendum was held on the 9th and 10th of November, and the results

23 favoured Bosnia's remaining in rump Yugoslavia. Our delegation," and he

24 names them, "talked long and hard with President Izetbegovic. We hoped to

25 persuade him to somehow pre-empt this step by the SDS which we considered

1 an unconstitutional act and defiance of parliament's authority. After a

2 long discussion, however, President Izetbegovic said finally there was

3 nothing left to be done, and that he saw no possibility of taking further

4 steps to prevent the SDS from holding their referendum. He then suggested

5 that we ourselves should try to do something that we finally agreed

6 amongst ourselves that we could do still less. By this referendum, the

7 SDS ensured support for its aim of using force to bind Bosnia to

8 Yugoslavia."

9 Do you agree with that?

10 A. What specifically? Quite a few statements are contained in the

11 paragraph that you have read. First of all, I do not agree that it was

12 the Serb referendum. Certainly the Serbs did not refer to it as such.

13 And as I indicated earlier, the referendum has very different

14 constitutional connotations to a plebiscite --

15 Q. Pause, there, please, he does actually say "held in the form of a

16 plebiscite."

17 A. Well, it is very different to saying "plebiscite." If you say "a

18 referendum held in the form of a plebiscite" is different to calling it a

19 plebiscite.

20 Q. I'll specifically ask you: Do you agree with him that this step

21 by the SDS was an unconstitutional act in defiance of parliament's

22 authority?

23 A. After October 14th, everything is unconstitutional and

24 extraconstitutional, as I said in my own report. But to say this

25 plebiscite is in defiance of parliament's authority and the parliament

1 itself had already violated the constitution and the political agreements

2 through the vote of October 14th is somewhat preposterous. The parliament

3 had effectively negated its authority in the acts of the SDA/HDZ vote on

4 the memorandum on independence.

5 Q. You do agree, therefore, that it is as I understand it, it was

6 unconstitutional, but you disagree with "in defiance of parliament's

7 authority"?

8 A. Correct.

9 Q. Do you agree that "by this referendum, plebiscite," I understand

10 what you're saying, "the SDS ensured support for its aim of using force to

11 bind Bosnia to Yugoslavia"?

12 A. No, this is definitely a statement of opinion and not a fact.

13 There are any number of cutoff points on all three sides which could be

14 retroactively regarded as steps leading to violence.

15 Q. Let us move, then, please to the referendum -- actually called the

16 referendum that was held by the Bosnians. You said in your report, and

17 I'll just find the page, page 31 of your report, the referendum, which by

18 the way I think is another one where you and --

19 A. Overlap because of the resource to the same background study,

20 indeed, yes.

21 Q. You say: "The Serbs boycotted en masse, but the SDS nevertheless

22 made no attempt to block the referendum." Do you mean by that that they

23 made no attempt to prevent Serbs taking part in it?

24 A. It worked both ways. On the one side, the Serbs did not actively

25 try to prevent the voting in the referendum of the other two ethnic

1 groups. On the other side, and specifically in the Prijedor Municipality,

2 for which I looked at the list of electoral places or voting booths,

3 polls, sorry, there was a deliberate exclusion of majority Serb areas, or

4 rather the polls were not even opened in the majority Serb areas. I think

5 that both sides regarded the referendum as a form of plenary declaration

6 of intent by the Croats and Muslims and the one with which the Serbs did

7 not want to be involved.

8 Q. All right. So you're saying that deliberately, a deliberate

9 exclusion from majority Serb areas or polling stations.

10 A. I don't know to what extent it was a general occurrence in Bosnia,

11 but there is a document from the Kozarski Vjesnik that actually lists the

12 voting locations in Prijedor which seems to indicate that not the entire

13 territory was covered, and that there was a correlation between the areas

14 which are more heavily Serb-inhabited, and which did not have open polling

15 places.

16 Q. And I take it you looked at no documents in relation to this that

17 were sent by the SDS?

18 A. No, that is correct, I did not see documents sent by the SDS

19 vis-a-vis the obstruction of the referendum or anything.

20 Q. All right. I'm going to ask you now, please, to have a look at a

21 document from the SDS dated the 19th of February, 1992, and an

22 accompanying document headed "Serbian Democratic Party of

23 Bosnia-Herzegovina, dated the 19th of February, 1992, Sarajevo. To the

24 municipal boards and the regional boards: Subject: Standpoints in

25 connection with the referendum delivery. In the enclosure we send you the

1 conclusions of the assembly." And we have that as the next document.

2 "You are obliged at once to hold an expanded meeting of your municipal

3 board which should be attended by all SDS/BH personnel in municipal organs

4 or authority and also meetings of local boards of the SDS all with the

5 purpose of acquainting the Serbian people with the materials we are

6 sending you.

7 "You are obliged to draw up a plan of action so that any kind of

8 campaign to organise a referendum should be made impossible from the point

9 of view of preventing any possible manipulation of the Serbian people. It

10 should be explained to every adult Serb that not only should he or she

11 refrain from taking part in the referendum as a voter, but neither a

12 member of a municipal or any other commission connected with the

13 referendum. It should be explained to our personnel in municipal and

14 other organs of authority that they are not obliged to provide either

15 materials or any other resources for implementation of the referendum or

16 to be involved in it in any form at all. It can be expected that after

17 the adoption of the constitution of the Serbian Republic of

18 Bosnia-Herzegovina, which will soon be done, the referendum will be

19 illegal on our Serbian sovereign territory, and as such, will not be able

20 to be held."

21 Now, would you say that that was an attempt to prevent Serbs

22 taking part in the referendum?

23 A. An attempt to prevent strictly by political means. I think that

24 the crucial part in what you have just quoted is "you're obliged to draw

25 up a plan of action so that any kind of campaign to organise a referendum

1 should be made impossible from the point of view of preventing any

2 possible manipulation of the Serbian people." It should be explained.

3 In other words, I do not think that in what you have just quoted,

4 there is any implication on the call to coercive, let alone violent

5 measures in order to prevent the holding of the referendum. Strictly

6 persuasion, campaigning, but no, I do not see this as the SDS readiness to

7 resort to coercion and violence in order to prevent it.

8 MS. KORNER: All right. As I say, we have, Your Honour, the

9 actual decision of the assembly to be attached, but I don't propose to go

10 through it, which can be handed out.

11 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: So this would be provisionally marked S420.

12 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, it can be given to everyone, but I don't

13 propose to go through it.

14 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Previously some pages of the book provisionally

15 marked as S419.

16 MS. KORNER:

17 Q. Now I want you to look at another document, please, in respect of

18 no coercion or anything like that. I'd like you to be handed, please,

19 this document. It comes from the SDS in Bosanska Krupa.

20 MR. LUKIC: If the document is from Bosanska Krupa, we think it is

21 outside of the scope of the indictment, and as we know, we tried to

22 introduce a few documents from other municipalities. We are not allowed.

23 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I wouldn't have for one moment gone

24 outside the municipality if it hadn't been for Dr. Trifkovic's assertions

25 in his report and now repeated.

1 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Nevertheless, maybe it's possible for you that

2 we have only the answers by the witness or the expert as evidence that we

3 indeed avoid contradictory decisions on the admission of evidence. Please

4 understand this.

5 MS. KORNER: I didn't know there was a contradictory decision on

6 this. But, Your Honour --

7 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: In the past, several times it was ruled that we

8 should refrain from discussing other municipalities because, no doubt, the

9 actual situation could be and in fact was different from municipality to

10 municipality.

11 Please proceed.

12 MS. KORNER: Yes. Well, perhaps I can just --

13 Q. Dr. Trifkovic, just have a look at this document, would you. In

14 the light of that document, do you want to change your answer that there

15 was no coercion and no threats being made to stop Serbs voting?

16 A. No, I see no reason to change my statement. This is a somewhat

17 clumsily worded and emotionally put together, but pretty much standard

18 statement of the Serb position. In the location of the curse of Lazar

19 obviously has the character of a strong emotional appeal. I do not see

20 that it contains either implied or let alone explicit threat of violence

21 against anyone defying the call for boycott.

22 If this kind of language circulated in Bosnia as it did on all

23 sides in late 1991 and early 1992, it is a reflection of the republic's

24 collapsed social and political structure, not of the specific violent

25 intent of the perpetrators. In addition, you admit yourself that this is

1 the document issued by the municipal board of a particular locality, and

2 not a pan-Bosnian SDS document that followed similar language and similar

3 emotional invocations in trying to prevent the Serbs from voting.

4 Q. Leaving that aside, Doctor, whether this is Krupa or some other

5 municipality, are you saying that in your view the sort of language used

6 here, and the quotation of the curse of Lazar, would not have an effect on

7 your -- the peasant-type Serb who might have been considering voting?

8 A. First of all, you're trying to proceed from the particular to the

9 general, and to say --

10 Q. I'm asking you, would a particular Serb, a peasant Serb --

11 A. No, particular being Krupa in this instance. Now, if first of all

12 we establish that the Krupa leaflet is indeed a typical characteristic

13 illustrative form of appeal on the Serbs not to vote, that was to be

14 encountered all over Bosnia-Herzegovina, I would appreciate if you would

15 really give me the equivalent example from Prijedor. The second part of

16 your question is, yes, it would appeal on the emotional basis and the

17 political basis. I would not see this as a threat to one's physical

18 security if the call was defied.

19 Q. So as far as you're concerned, such a document was not intended to

20 terrify Serbs and prevent them from voting in the referendum?

21 A. The cultural analysis of the language, in particular the curse of

22 Lazar, has the character of shaming them into not voting even if they had

23 considered doing so, which in substantive political terms overwhelmingly,

24 they were not even tempted to do.

25 Q. All right. I would like then --

1 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, if Your Honour doesn't want it made an

2 exhibit, then I won't.

3 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: No, for principle reasons, let us not admit this

4 into evidence.

5 MS. KORNER:

6 Q. All right. Now, can we move, please, to page 32 of your report.

7 Paragraph, third paragraph on that page in the end, 62.68 per cent is --

8 no doubt you've looked at this over lunch -- you'll agree identical to

9 paragraph 51 of Professor Kecmanovic's report?

10 A. As we have already agreed at the beginning of dealing with this

11 section.

12 Q. I'm sorry, I don't think we looked at this section before.

13 A. On the referendum, when we read the previous page and you made the

14 same reference, and I readily conceded that this is indeed so. So short

15 of making another rhetorical restatement of the agreed-upon point, I don't

16 see any reason to dwell on it.

17 Q. Do you see the line, then, in the next paragraph of your report,

18 the last sentence on that page: "But this did not stop the rump

19 government of Alija Izetbegovic from declaring independence on the 3rd of

20 March."

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. And that is taken, according to your report, and --

23 A. Professor Kecmanovic's.

24 Q. -- Professor Kecmanovic's report, it's from Woodward?

25 A. Yes.

1 Q. Woodward gives no source for this assertion. Would you agree?

2 Would you like to look at the book?

3 A. It is not an assertion in -- I believe that it is the language

4 that gives it the character of the assertion. But that, (a), we had the

5 rump government minus the SDS contingent; and (b), that on the basis of

6 the referendum, the proclamation of independence went ahead regardless.

7 Whether it is assertion, whether it's an opinion, whether it is an

8 expression of considered judgement, we may agree to disagree or agree to

9 agree.

10 Q. You're saying that there was a declaration of independence on the

11 3rd of March.

12 A. There was a cocktail in the Bosnian presidency that had the

13 character of the formal enactment of independence in the aftermath of the

14 referendum, and the day has been regarded as the holiday by the -- by the

15 internationally recognised Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina thereafter.

16 Q. You understand the importance of using accurate terms, don't you,

17 to describe events?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. And you have described what happened on the 3rd of March as a

20 declaration of independence by Bosnia and Herzegovina picking that up in

21 Woodward. Is that correct?

22 A. That's correct.

23 Q. I would now like you please to have a look at some of the

24 documents in relation to that so-called declaration of independence.

25 First, can you look at the -- something called the Sluzbeni list.

1 I'm no doubt pronouncing that wrongly. Again, we've got --

2 MS. KORNER: Can we first of all, hand it out. Your Honour, we'll

3 have to put it on the ELMO. My fault. We had a slipup of some of the

4 copying.

5 Q. You can probably tell us what the Sluzbeni list?

6 A. Sluzbeni list, Official Gazette.

7 Q. And does that show that on the --

8 MS. KORNER: It's not working. Is Your Honours' working?

9 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Not in the moment. I'm trying to do my very

10 best. Judge Argibay's is not working as well.

11 MS. KORNER: I don't think any of ours is working.

12 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: So here we are. Please continue.

13 MS. KORNER: Thank you.

14 Q. This is an announcement pursuant to Article 28 of the results of

15 the referendum dated the 6th of March, 1992. Agree?

16 A. Mm-hmm. Yes.

17 Q. Three days after you say there was a declaration of independence.

18 A. Immediately following the closing of the polling booths, there was

19 a celebratory atmosphere in the BH presidency and the declaration that the

20 referendum was a success. If you look at the actual sequence of events in

21 the aftermath of the closing of the booths, the statement in the Official

22 Gazette was only retroactive confirmation of what had already been

23 proclaimed to be a political fact.

24 Q. That's not an answer to the question, and you know it isn't,

25 Dr. Trifkovic. That was not -- whether there was celebrations going on,

1 that was not an official declaration of independence, was that?

2 A. Everybody realised that with the aftermath of the referendum, the

3 rump leadership of Bosnia-Herzegovina had regarded the fait accompli of

4 rounded up. I would really appreciate that instead of invoking the

5 statement in the Official Gazette that was really neither here nor there

6 by the 6th of March when independence was regarded as finished and

7 completed fact by all sides, whether they agreed with it or disagreed with

8 it only detract us -- distracts us from the political substance of the

9 issue which is the character of the referendum, the intent of those who

10 called it, the intent of those who boycotted it, and its consequences.

11 This document, the Sluzbeni list, Official Gazette, giving

12 particular breakdown of the figures for the referendum is furthermore

13 still indicative of the fundamental political point that it did not have

14 the two-thirds majority.

15 Q. Do you understand what the term "declaration of independence"

16 means?

17 A. Let me be very specific. You may declare independence without

18 enacting it in the legal constitutional document that is sealed and

19 stamped. You can declare it verbally in front of TV cameras and in front

20 of the invited diplomatic core and correspondence, or else you can do it

21 with all the paraphernalia of the constitutional format. Either way, the

22 substance of the aftermath of the referendum in Sarajevo had the character

23 of the rump leadership proclaiming independence. Whether that

24 proclamation was couched - and by the way, we are looking at everything in

25 this area being on the other side of constitutionality, because we are

1 looking at two sides acting in concert against one - but be that as it

2 may, we are looking at the substantive issue of the aftermath of the

3 referendum being regarded as irrevocable proclamation of the independence

4 of Bosnia-Herzegovina by the rump leadership in Sarajevo.

5 Q. The reason I'm asking you about this, Dr. Trifkovic, is

6 effectively, because I suggest that what's emerging from this is that

7 either you didn't write this report at all, or if you did write it or some

8 parts of it, you didn't bother to check any facts at all, did you?

9 A. What exactly are you alluding to? The fact that the referendum

10 held on 29th of February and 1st of March did not have the legality and

11 constitutional backing? Or the fact that it was the 1st of March that the

12 de facto proclamation occurred? Please clarify.

13 Q. Have you ever seen the declarations of independence issued by

14 Slovenia and Croatia?

15 A. Yes, yes.

16 Q. Have you ever seen any such document at this period of time issued

17 by Bosnia?

18 A. No, but I have read the articles in the Oslobodenje on the 2nd of

19 March of 1992 triumphantly proclaiming the independence and quoting top

20 leaders of Bosnia-Herzegovina to the same effect.

21 Q. All right. I'd now like you to have a look, please, at what

22 Mr. Karadzic had to say about this in July of 1992.

23 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Not to lose track, the last conclusions were

24 S420-1 because they belonged to the previous document. The document we

25 can now see on the screen would then be provisionally S421A and B.

1 MS. KORNER:

2 Q. Have you read these assembly -- this record of this assembly?

3 A. Can you tell me which assembly this refers to?

4 Q. Yes, if you look at the B/C/S version attached to the back, you'll

5 see a front page saying "minutes and tape recording (transcript of the RS

6 national assembly 17th session on the 24th to the 26th of July, 1992)."

7 A. No, I have not seen these minutes.

8 Q. Could you go, please, to page 3 of the English translation, and of

9 course you're welcome to check it as against the B/C/S. The paragraph

10 that begins: "The characteristics of the external political situation of

11 the Serbian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina is as follows: By the will

12 of this assembly, we have proclaimed our republic of Serbian Bosnia and

13 Herzegovina, organised it. Thus, when we saw that Bosnia and Herzegovina

14 would be recognised, we proclaimed our independence a few hours before the

15 independence of the State of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Although BH had

16 never proclaimed independence, but simply submitted a request to the

17 European Community to be recognised, we proclaimed our republic

18 independent." And that is correct, isn't it?

19 A. And perfectly in line with what I stated earlier, that there was

20 no formal proclamation of independence adorned with the constitutional

21 framework of the Croatian and Slovenian one, but that in substantive

22 political terms as I stated very clearly, the statements by the leaders in

23 the aftermath of the referendum had the same political effect.

24 Q. It's your view, is it, that your sentence and Professor Kecmanovic

25 and Ms. Woodward, this did not stop the rump government of Alija

1 Izetbegovic from declaring independence accurately describes what we have

2 just been through?

3 A. I would be gratefully appreciative if you would elucidate me what

4 exactly is Izetbegovic's, Ganic's, and others meaning when they say that

5 with the result on camera and in print, that with the result of the

6 referendum, the requirement for independence by the international

7 community has been satisfied, and indeed the subsequent treatment of the

8 date by the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina as the independence day.

9 Now, while I agree with you that the formal declaration in the

10 sense of the Croat and Slovene one of 25th of June was lacking, in terms

11 of substantive actions having clearly defined political consequences,

12 there can be no doubt that indeed a proclamation it was.

13 Q. All right. That's your answer.

14 Thank you. And now finally, because to finish this, can you look,

15 please, at your report at page 34.

16 You were talking about, in paragraph 34, the EC -- I'm sorry,

17 paragraph 3 on page 34, "The EC recognition ignored -- of Bosnia and

18 Herzegovina ignored its own Badinter Commission which had stipulated that

19 a vote on independence would be valid only if respectable numbers from all

20 three communities approved."

21 Again, this assertion appears at page 31 of Professor Kecmanovic's

22 report. And the source for this, again, is Ms. Woodward.

23 A. In addition, I think if we look at the source document prepared by

24 the Badinter Commission in October of 1991, I believe that the very phrase

25 "respectable numbers" or "convincing segment of each ethnic community" is

1 referred to. What I believe was not the intention of the Badinter

2 Commission when it issued its opinion was a simple outvoting of two ethnic

3 groups by another.

4 Q. I'd like you to have a look at opinion number 4, please, of the

5 Badinter Commission.

6 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, it's not Ms. Karper's fault, as you can

7 imagine, I have skipped a number of documents that I was going to put.

8 Your Honour, we've stapled together all the opinions, I'm sorry.

9 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: That we don't lose control once again, the last

10 draft translation was S422, and now it's provisionally S423.

11 MS. KORNER: Your Honour will find number 154, opinion number 4.

12 You will see -- unfortunately this was a photocopy of my copy. I wrote

13 over the top December instead of November because in the original French

14 which I have here or maybe have been copied for you, that's what it says.

15 And somebody has translated December into November.

16 Q. Now, I would like you please, to have a look, Dr. Trifkovic, at

17 the last part of opinion number 4. It says: "4, in these circumstances,

18 the arbitration commission is of the opinion that the will of the peoples

19 of Bosnia and Herzegovina to constitute the SRBH as a sovereign and

20 independent state cannot be held to be fully established. This assessment

21 to be reviewed if appropriate guarantees were provided by the republic

22 applying for recognition, possibly by means of a referendum of all the

23 citizens of SRBH without distinction carried out under international

24 supervision."

25 MS. KORNER: Again, Your Honours, I don't want to give evidence,

1 but if Your Honours look at the French version of this, it says -- the

2 actual wording is I think you'll see "without any distinction." I don't

3 know. Did we provide Your Honours with the French version? We did. If

4 Your Honours look at that, it's the very last page. It hasn't gone into

5 the English version.

6 Q. Now, where do you see anything about a respectable majority?

7 A. Well, because you have focussed now only on the opinion number 4,

8 and I would like to refer you to opinion number 2, which says that "where

9 there are one or more groups within a state constituting one or more

10 ethnic, religious, or language communities, they have the right to

11 recognition of their identity under international law, norms of

12 international law requests states to ensure respect for the rights of

13 minorities," et cetera, et cetera.

14 What you would like to do I suppose is to look at opinion number

15 4, Article number 4, in isolation from the previous opinions. The --

16 since opinion number 2 specifically talks about the expression of the

17 political will of the communities, I do not think that we can look at the

18 just-quoted opinion in isolation from the rest. If you're saying that

19 simple majority is what Badinter had in mind, then that opinion would seem

20 to contradict his previous ones.

21 Q. I'm sorry, Dr. Trifkovic. It really was a very simple question.

22 You say, Professor Kecmanovic says, and I imagine Ms. Woodward does, that

23 "The EC recognition of Bosnia and Herzegovina ignored its own Badinter

24 Commission, which had stipulated" - do you understand the word stipulate -

25 "that a vote on independence would be valid only if respectable numbers

1 from all three communities approved." Can you tell us, please, where in

2 any of these opinions you find a stipulation to that effect?

3 A. The stipulation I find in the opinion number 2, which says that it

4 is established that whatever the circumstances, the right to -- "When

5 there are one or more groups within a state constituting one or more

6 ethnic, religious, or language communities, they have the right to

7 recognition of their identity, the norms of international law require

8 states to ensure respect for the rights of minorities, requirement applies

9 to all republics vis-a-vis the minorities, the Serbian population of

10 Bosnia and Herzegovina therefore must be afforded every right according to

11 minorities on international conventions as well as national and better

12 national guarantees consistent with the principles of international law

13 and the provisions of Chapter 2 of the draft convention," and so on and so

14 on.

15 What they refer to is international convention on human rights

16 which establishes the right to self-determination. If the one ethnic

17 community is to be denied the right to self-determination under opinion 2,

18 that would seem to constitute a requirement of the participation of all

19 three ethnic groups, and the expression of the agreement of at least some

20 segment of those three ethnic groups in the change of the constitutional

21 status.

22 Q. I'll ask you one more time.

23 A. Okay.

24 Q. Dr. Trifkovic, where do you see any stipulation anywhere in those

25 words, that is, "only a vote on independence would only be valid, would be

1 valid only if a respectable number from all three communities approved"?

2 A. The formulation that is quoted in the report and in Woodward is

3 derived from opinion number 2, it is not explicitly per se contained in it

4 and is therefore not quoted in parenthesis. But it is clear from opinion

5 number 2 that "the constituent nation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is

6 entitled to the respect for the principle of the right to

7 self-determination," article number 3 of opinion number 2.

8 Q. Where do you see a vote on independence in article 2?

9 A. Excuse me, article 2?

10 Q. Opinion 2, sorry.

11 A. Well, again, you're asking first of all for a commentary on

12 opinion number 4, article 4, and what I pointed out is that opinion 4,

13 article 4 should be looked at in conjunction with opinion 2, articles 2

14 and 3. I am not saying that either article 2 and 3 in opinion 2 by

15 themselves, or article 4 in opinion 4 by itself, is sufficient to provide

16 the answer to your question. But that the two in conjunction have a clear

17 meaning of requiring the participation of the Serbian -- specifically in

18 this case, Serbian community which is entitled to the principle of the

19 right of self-determination that safeguards human rights and so on and so

20 on. If we look at article 4 of opinion 4 of and by itself, without

21 reference to opinion number 2, then indeed, it would appear that no such

22 requirement is present.

23 I would submit that on the basis of opinion 2, it was not the

24 intention of the Badinter Commission that an ethnically-neutral simple

25 majority vote in the referendum would indeed suffice.

1 Q. All right. And you don't regard that sentence as misstating the

2 true position?

3 A. Not misstating; possibly overstating. But not misstating.

4 Q. And this is because you didn't bother to check that Woodward's

5 reference was correct?

6 A. No, quite the contrary. I am well familiar with the Badinter

7 findings and recommendations and as you may have seen, I have immediately

8 referenced opinion 4 to opinion 2 because I believe that subsequent

9 opinions of Badinter did not abrogate previous ones, but incorporated them

10 into rather than replaced the previous opinions.

11 Q. Finally, Dr. Trifkovic, is the article that you were talking about

12 on Kosovo, was that actually published in Liberty?

13 A. No, if it was in Chronicles website, it would have been published

14 in chronicles.

15 Q. There's an article that we didn't have much difficulty in getting

16 from Liberty dated November the 10th, 1999, by you with the title

17 "Kosovo: Invented Massacres."

18 A. It could have been taken from the Chronicle's website by the

19 editors of Liberty without my being aware of it, but at the same time I am

20 pretty certain I didn't specifically write the article for Liberty to

21 start with.

22 Q. I want to know if this is the article you're referring to, the one

23 that you say was amalgamated with your 1996 article?

24 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, we haven't had copies made yet, but --

25 THE WITNESS: No, this is not the amalgamated article. This is

1 another article which has the character of press compilation from a

2 variety of published sources, not -- frankly, this was actually an article

3 in the character of press review rather than an opinion piece.

4 MS. KORNER:

5 Q. I'm sorry. Are you saying this is not an article you've written;

6 this is another compilation?

7 A. If you look at what this says is the quotes from the El Pais

8 followed by the quotes from Richard Gwyn in Toronto Star, the Daily

9 Mirror, this is what one would call the press review. And this is a

10 Chronicles website segment which deals with the reporting of the foreign

11 press. And I believe that this article was copied from it.

12 Q. So that's not the article you were talking about either?

13 A. This is not the article that was incorporated into the website

14 composite that you presented me with yesterday.

15 Q. All right. Thank you. You can give that back.

16 Now, finally, I thought that was the final thing, but there's one

17 other matter I want to put to you. You asked me for the evidence that

18 suggested that by October 1992, when Dr. Stakic was giving this interview

19 to the press, most of the Muslims had already left. I'd like you to have

20 a look at a document, please, which was -- it's a 65 ter number 378.

21 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I don't actually think it has been

22 exhibited yet.

23 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: So this would be provisionally marked S424.

24 MS. KORNER:

25 Q. This is a document apparently addressed to the SMB sector of the

1 Banja Luka CSB. Mr. Jelisic is the operative, and the date is the 23rd of

2 October, 1992. Could you look, please, at the part of this report that

3 begins: "From then until today, the consequences of these conflicts can

4 be felt everywhere. Dozens of villages have been almost completely

5 destroyed and left uninhabited, and it lists those villages."

6 "This destruction saw the beginnings of the mass exodus of both

7 Muslims and Croats. According to estimates, roughly 38.000 Muslim and

8 Croat citizens have left the Municipality of Prijedor so far."

9 Do those names mean anything to you, of those places that were

10 destroyed?

11 A. Some of them were mentioned in connection with the early clashes

12 and in -- some of them are not. But in order to clarify my answer, first

13 of all, in answer to your question, I did not deny that a large number of

14 Muslims had left at the time of Bishop Komarica's visit. I really don't

15 know where did you get the idea that I needed convincing that this was

16 indeed the case. What I stated explicitly is that the exodus of non-Serbs

17 notwithstanding Dr. Stakic's statements in the period under review

18 displayed consistent spirit of conciliation regardless of the vagaries of

19 events with which he was or was not connected, but certainly did not

20 appear to have reflected his willful commitment and his personal desires.

21 Q. I suggested to you that by October 1992, when Dr. Stakic was

22 giving this interview, he could, of course, talk about ethnic agreement or

23 whenever the expression was, because by then, there were hardly -- not

24 that many Muslims left in Prijedor. Can you just look at what this

25 operative says at the top of page 3.

1 "As time goes by, one can feel that both the official authorities

2 and the citizens themselves are relaxing under the impression that with

3 the departure of the Muslims and Croats, everything has been

4 accomplished."

5 A. This is certainly a very condemning statement by the individual

6 concerned. I do not know who it is. As it stands, in my objective

7 opinion, this is a very embarrassing and highly culpable statement that

8 implies his certainly very clear commitment to the kind of policy that if

9 established to have reflected the general policy would be highly

10 compromising.

11 Q. Do you still think that you were better off reading articles in

12 Kozarski Vjesnik and books by Muslims than actual original documents

13 relating to the period?

14 A. It is unfortunate that this particular document, for instance, is

15 not as far as I can tell -- had not been made available to anyone, let

16 alone myself, until this very moment. Is that correct?

17 Q. I'll leave aside your allegation, Dr. Trifkovic.

18 A. It's not an allegation. It's a question.

19 MR. LUKIC: Objection. And the Defence would confirm what

20 Dr. Stakic is claiming. We have never seen this document before --

21 Dr. Trifkovic, sorry.

22 MS. KORNER: I'll repeat again. It was disclosed to the Defence

23 on the 14th of February, 2002. It contained -- it has the 65 ter number

24 378.

25 I would invite the Defence before leaping to their feet and

1 supporting Dr. Trifkovic's allegations to check.

2 MR. LUKIC: Also, if the Prosecution would be so kind and explain

3 when they gave to the Defence documents marked today as S421, S420, and

4 the rest of the documents submitted today, whether they have those

5 documents or not.

6 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, none of those, the documents, if they

7 already had been disclosed, we would have given the 65 ter number. They

8 are absolutely right, because nobody thought that these documents were at

9 all relevant until Dr. Trifkovic appeared with this report.

10 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: I think this is the purpose for

11 cross-examination, to cover all the elements covered by the

12 examination-in-chief. And therefore, I can't see anything wrong with

13 this. But let's, please, refrain from discussing the admission into

14 evidence for the moment. The time is absolutely precious.

15 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I have, in fact, concluded my

16 cross-examination of Dr. Trifkovic.

17 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Thank you.

18 Questioned by the Court:

19 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Fast track: When have you been the last time in

20 the area of former Yugoslavia?

21 A. You're asking me, Your Honour. On Monday of last week for one

22 day.

23 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Have you ever been to Republika Srpska?

24 A. Yes, I have.

25 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Have you ever been to Banja Luka?

1 A. Yes, I have.

2 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Have you ever been in Prijedor?

3 A. No.

4 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Did you ever try to get access to archives, be

5 it in Banja Luka or be it in Prijedor, in order to have a more complete

6 picture of that what happened at that time?

7 A. It was made clear to me by the Defence team that the only

8 documents that I could process that would be acceptable by the Court are

9 the ones that have been officially translated - I'm talking about the

10 documents that are in Serbo-Croatian in original - and here have been

11 presented to the Court. However, in answer to your question, I haven't

12 had access directly to the archives of the Republika Srpska, and I am not

13 even aware of the freedom of public access in view of the fact that

14 considerable segment of those archives are held as documentary evidence.

15 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Did you ever try to get access to these

16 documents? Because as an expert, no doubt, it's not only your right but

17 wouldn't it be also your obligation to try to get access to more

18 contemporanian documents or witness evidence or any additional sources,

19 being more reliable than newspaper articles?

20 A. Your Honour will remember that the title of the report was "Events

21 in Prijedor in the Context of the Bosnian Crisis." My intent was not so

22 much to analyse the events in Prijedor per se, but to place them in the

23 broader context and to examine them to the extent that the events in

24 Prijedor can be looked at in isolation from the broader events that were

25 shaping Bosnia-Herzegovina politics and society. In that sense, my

1 conclusion from page 35 on seeks to round things off by basically

2 claiming, and I would submit establishing, that Prijedor of and by itself

3 is not a microcosm that it shared the destiny of the rest of the republic

4 through events that were outside the control of any one person or

5 institution within the municipality.

6 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Related to your working method, it's absolutely

7 correct what you are stating, that it's practice to send around a kind a

8 few questionnaire or ideas asking friends, colleagues whether they could

9 attribute something to the ideas of a draft. You have a concrete list of

10 recipients of these documents whenever you try to get -- or to prepare an

11 academic work?

12 A. It depends on the area of concern, and quite obviously different

13 people would be the recipients for different aspects. Let me reiterate

14 that my initial speculation on this subject was due to my being genuinely

15 puzzled at the overlap with Dr. Kecmanovic's report which only became

16 clear to me when I realised that the reliance on the same set of

17 background notes from the same source was obviously utilised by both

18 authors, Dr. Kecmanovic and myself.

19 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: But you stand by your testimony that you, in

20 fact, sent around these first ideas --

21 A. Oh, most certainly. And I am not saying now that the overlap was

22 due to that circulation. I am now convinced that in fact, the same set of

23 notes from the same source had been passed on to both Kecmanovic and

24 myself, and that my understanding that these were pro bono friendly sets

25 of notes to be used without retribution as I deemed fit was the source of

1 both confusion and embarrassment.

2 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: This list of recipients, these were only Serbs

3 or did you ask also your Muslim colleagues or Croat colleagues?

4 A. No. In fact, most of my requests for comments and opinion would

5 be to people who have no ethnic connection with that part of the world,

6 specifically because I believe that it is sometimes necessary to have no

7 ethnic axe to grind in order to have the distance and the detachment

8 necessary for a cool-headed assessment.

9 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Would you share the view that there is not one

10 historical truth at all?

11 A. Your Honour, this is an extremely intriguing question and the one

12 that calls for a complex answer, and I'm afraid we probably don't have

13 time for that. I would say that there is the evolving truth and that a

14 good example would be, for instance, the diplomatic history of the

15 outbreak of World War I, which -- the July crisis of 1914 which has had

16 different stages of evolution and analysis over the past 80-odd years. I

17 would say that in human affairs, there is no single truth cast in stone

18 and established for all times, that dependent on both the emergence of new

19 evidence and the new angles of analysis and inquiry, each generation will

20 throw new lights and events. Otherwise, once written, history would be

21 immoveable.

22 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Did you ever attend a conference of

23 representatives, put it this way, of all areas, say, from Slovenia, from

24 Croatia, from Serbia, from Bosnia-Herzegovina, coming together, try to

25 find the lowest common denominator where you could say "this is the

1 fundamentum on which we can build together"?

2 A. I have attended a number of such conferences which, however, did

3 not have such a broad sweeping objective as you have indicated, Your

4 Honour. Specifically, it was under the auspices of AAASS, American

5 Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. Because they operate

6 on the basis of panels, I have taken part in panels where people of

7 different backgrounds and different opinions on the aspects of the wars on

8 former Yugoslavia would meet in the spirit of collegial disagreement very

9 often, but always in terms of academic discourse and even the ability to

10 communicate in a friendly manner in the social context.

11 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Would you regard it as an agreed fact that by

12 the end of June 1999, there was a five-day war by the JNA occupying the

13 Slovenian borderlines?

14 A. You mean 1991?

15 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Right. End of June.

16 A. What happened in June is I would call it a tremendous blunder by

17 ineptly- and ideologically-motivated leadership of the JNA. I would not

18 even dignify it with the term "war" because a war entails clear strategic

19 plan and end game and objectives and exit strategies, which in the case of

20 frankly criminal but totally inept ad hoc and misguided intervention of

21 the JNA in Slovenia would not be even dignified by such name.

22 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Would you agree that one could have a second,

23 separate period of time, until January 1992, being an open war escalating

24 in Croatia?

25 A. The term "war" is much more applicable to the Croat situation with

1 the proviso that there was no complete identity of either interests or

2 intentions between the JNA, which was still in existence at that time, and

3 the local Serb militias and Territorial Defence units, refusing to

4 recognise the control of central Croatian authorities. In fact, if we

5 look at the pattern of JNA garrisons surrendering and evacuating from

6 Croatia in the Serbs' minds, and I'm talking about the Krajina Serbs,

7 there was a great deal of distrust of what they regarded as ideologically

8 motivated JNA and its apparent reluctance to commit itself to the defence

9 of Serb interests.

10 It's only with the emergence of the so-called army of the Serbian

11 Krajina that the dichotomy was at least ostensibly eliminated.

12 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Would you call it as an agreed fact that the

13 JNA, after returning from Croatia, primarily settled in

14 Bosnia-Herzegovina?

15 A. Yes.

16 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Isn't it true that from this period on, say

17 until autumn 1992, we could speak about a third war with about 200.000

18 victims on the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina?

19 A. There is one date in that period which we nevertheless need to

20 mention, if at least in passing, and it is May 19th of 1992, and the

21 departure of non-Bosnian personnel of the JNA from the territory of

22 Bosnia-Herzegovina, and it's concomitant leaving behind of a significant

23 part of its weaponry and materiel behind. To what extent is there a

24 continuity between the JNA and the VRS, and to what extent is the command

25 and control structure of both structures -- of both bodies essentially the

1 same is a matter that historians need yet to establish with complete

2 certainty.

3 I personally think that the lines of command in the case of the

4 VRS always extended up all the way to Belgrade, even though the fact was

5 not completely apparent to the personnel on the ground.

6 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Just for a moment of thinking, if you would have

7 been approached in the past by, say, Mr. Milutinovic, or just another

8 example, by Mr. Hadzihasanovic, asked for an expertise as you did it for

9 Dr. Stakic, would you have done this?

10 A. No I would have not.

11 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Why this?

12 A. Because I would have strong moral qualms taking part in any effort

13 dealing with the members of a power structure that I regard as deeply

14 flawed and unfortunate for the scenarios unfolding in the former

15 Yugoslavia in the 1990s. When it comes -- and obviously, Mr. Milutinovic

16 is inseparable from the Milosevic establishment. My record of writing and

17 public commentary on the Milosevic regime in Belgrade is both long and a

18 matter of public record.

19 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: You mentioned yesterday that you visited twice

20 Dr. Stakic in the United Nations Detention Unit. Was this to experience

21 or to find out whether or not both of you were more or less of one and the

22 same political opinion?

23 A. No. There was very little talk of politics per se. My specific

24 intent was to personally satisfy my own curiosity as to the character and,

25 if I can use the colloquial term, the vibes, the aura of the man, and my

1 own sense of his sincerity in his claim that he neither knew, nor wanted,

2 to support the events of which he is accused.

3 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Do you as an academic normally check your

4 sources on the question of reliability?

5 A. In this case, this was something very different to what would be

6 the normal academic routine because it entailed a personal engagement in a

7 matter that obviously touches upon one's own values and one's own

8 conscience. For instance, referring to the newly disclosed document, I

9 would have been extremely unhappy if the quote at the top of page 3, and I

10 am now being very sincere with you even without your prompting, if such a

11 document were to be found to have been signed by Dr. Stakic. I would have

12 been both disappointed and defeated.

13 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Would you agree with a sentence stating:

14 "Muslims who were created artificially"?

15 A. No, I have a problem with the term "Muslims" for the ethnic group

16 that now refers to the Bosniaks. I think that their emergence as a

17 separate ethnic group is the product of a spontaneous ethnogenesis over a

18 period of centuries.

19 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: No doubt, you are trying to avoid a clear

20 answer. Once again, would you agree with the sentence: "Muslims who were

21 created artificially"?

22 A. No, I would not.

23 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Did you ever crosscheck and try to find out to

24 what extent Kozarski Vjesnik was a reliable source, apparently the only

25 source, despite of those other quotations you made or others made it for

1 you? Did you ever contact anybody from Kozarski Vjesnik, and the role

2 Kozarski Vjesnik played in 1992 in Prijedor?

3 A. Kozarski Vjesnik in my considered opinion is a reliable and

4 objective source until the spring of 1992. And after that date, it

5 becomes more or less a one-party mouthpiece of the SDS ruling

6 establishment in Prijedor, which is why I relied upon it mostly in the

7 period of its multiethnic editorial board and composition of reporters,

8 whereas I only used factual reports with direct quotes such as, for

9 instance, the one concerning the visit by Bishop Komarica in the period

10 thereafter.

11 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: But the conclusion would be that in the period

12 following, say, April 1992, summer 1992, you would admit yourself that you

13 didn't have any really reliable sources?

14 A. But in any event, Your Honour, my report ends with the spring of

15 1992 in any event. And from that point on, we enter into the area of

16 military report.

17 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Right. So in conclusion, you never tried to get

18 access via the Defence or other sources to other, be it documents, be it

19 audiotapes, be it videotapes reflecting that what has been stated in the

20 period of time you covered with your report?

21 A. I was supplied with a considerable wealth of additional

22 supplementary documents concerning primarily Oslobodenje daily, Dani

23 magazine, and Slobodna Bosna, as well as by the memoirs of a total of four

24 Bosnian army commanders who were active in the early days of the Patriotic

25 League.

1 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Would you agree that these are secondary sources

2 only?

3 A. They are absolutely secondary sources, I agree. But at the same

4 time, it is the secondary sources that for the broadbrush outline of the

5 political context of developments within which the Prijedor episode was

6 unfolding are more suitable than the primary sources which may be

7 individually useful elements in the mosaic, but which need hundreds or

8 even thousands of such little stones in order for the mosaic to be

9 intelligible. And that is something that I had neither time nor resources

10 to do.

11 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Is your work directly or indirectly, maybe via

12 one of the chronicles you're editing, funded by a third source?

13 A. No.

14 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Absolutely not?

15 A. Absolutely not. The only funding such as it was in the form of

16 modest advance came from the Defence team and from no third party

17 whatsoever.

18 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: This was a more general question --

19 A. Oh, excuse me.

20 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: -- related to the period of time since 1992.

21 A. Excuse me. I didn't understand the question. Can you repeat it,

22 please.

23 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Was there any kind of funding of your work, by

24 whomsoever, since 1992, be it directly or indirectly by, for example,

25 supporting the editing of articles or chronicles or whatsoever?

1 A. You mean am I paid for my writing for Chronicles?

2 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: I asked whether you received any fundings which

3 would not be in a kind of duo des [phoen] related to concrete articles or

4 chronicles, but a general political support, and thereby, because all

5 support, first of all, needs money, did you receive any money in support

6 of your work?

7 A. In support of my work, in the spring of 1994, I did receive a

8 small financial support during the period of my attempts to set up the

9 Republika Srpska representative office based in London. That was the only

10 outright grant per se. Other than that, all of my work, journalistic,

11 academic, and otherwise, was on strict either salary or contract or

12 consultancy basis.

13 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: And you received this financial support by whom,

14 may I ask?

15 A. From the members of the Serbian diaspora.

16 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Can you also add names to this?

17 A. These were events such as dinners or open events where collections

18 would be made which would generally be accounted for through the

19 acquisition of equipment and the related expenses.

20 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Thank you. Judge Vassylenko, please.

21 JUDGE VASSYLENKO: Dr. Trifkovic, during your testimony on Friday,

22 you stated that - it is page 13.647 and 13.648 LiveNote - you stated that,

23 Following in Pasic tradition meant to give expression to ethnic

24 particularism within the Yugoslav framework, and I emphasise not only that

25 that would give expression to the Serb particularism, but also other

1 groups.

2 In this regard, I would like to ask you, are you aware that Nikola

3 Pasic interpreted the idea of the Slavs unity and the ethnic particularism

4 within this unity in a way that would ensure Serbian supremacy, and that

5 he during all his life did his best to implement this idea along the lines

6 of a Great Serbian concept?

7 A. Your Honour, in answer to your question, it would be necessary to

8 emphasise that Pasic's views were evolving. What you're referring to is

9 probably accurate, talking of the closing months of World War I, when

10 Pasic changed his mind about the Corfu declaration of 1917, and insisted

11 that the submersion of Serbia into the Yugoslav project without the clear

12 delineation what belonged to whom, so to say, was a mistake. However, in

13 the course of the early 1920s, and especially in the course of his

14 attempts to reach an agreement and an understanding with the Croat peasant

15 party of Stjepan Radic, Pasic was forced to modify his views especially in

16 view of the fact that Regent Aleksandar, later King Aleksandar, opted for

17 the unitarist constitution, the so-called Vidovdan constitution of 1921,

18 and that Pasic was obliged to act within its brief and within its

19 restraints.

20 So in answer to your question, the answer is that had Pasic had

21 the full choice of political options in the course of negotiations with

22 the Yugoslav committee during World War I, he would have preferred to

23 define the Serbian lands first and then to unify them with Croat and

24 Slovene ones, but within the restraints of post-World War I arrangements,

25 Pasic was forced to modify his views and furthermore negotiate very

1 successfully with the Croats in the way that was crowned in 1925 with the

2 establishment of the coalition government.

3 JUDGE VASSYLENKO: Are you acquainted with the research of Ivo

4 Banac?

5 A. Banac, yes.

6 JUDGE VASSYLENKO: [Previous translation continues]... Question in

7 Yugoslavia?

8 A. That's correct, yes.

9 JUDGE VASSYLENKO: Do you agree with his assessment of activity of

10 Nikola Pasic?

11 A. I believe that Ivo Banac gives more weight to Pasic's influence

12 within the Serbian political establishment at the end of World War I than

13 is warranted by history because had Regent Aleksandar followed Pasic's

14 advice, the constitutional arrangement on which the kingdom was based

15 would look very different. Quite possibly, it would have sought a more

16 clearcut definition of Serbian unit within the new kingdom. But really,

17 while I'm familiar with Ivo Banac's work and I respect him, I do not

18 recall specific judgement of Pasic's role that you're referring to.

19 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: May I ask the usher, please, to distribute the

20 excerpts of this book to the parties, and one for the registry. And

21 please give us the next J exhibit number.

22 THE REGISTRAR: J32, Your Honour.

23 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Thank you.

24 JUDGE VASSYLENKO: My next question: Dr. Trifkovic, would you

25 agree that political and state system of Yugoslavia as established after

1 the Second World War was so destructive by its very nature?

2 A. Yes, I would.

3 JUDGE VASSYLENKO: Is it true that after the collapse of the

4 communist regime in the former Yugoslavia, the Serb political leadership

5 made an attempt to preserve state unity and prevent the disintegration of

6 Yugoslavia? And when this attempt failed, opted for the implementation of

7 a Greater Serbia concept in order to create ethnically-homogeneous Serb

8 state on the Serbian historical lands?

9 A. I would agree with the first part of your assessment, Your Honour,

10 about the attempt to keep Yugoslavia together. As for the concerted

11 effort to follow the greater Serbian plan, I would doubt very much this

12 was indeed the Milosevic scenario or the only scenario. I have reason to

13 believe that Milosevic played several games, so to say, and that even some

14 of his closest collaborators were not quite certain what was the ultimate

15 end game even if he had one. It is a very complex issue and I regret that

16 I cannot give a more clearcut answer, but it is the one that I sincerely

17 hold.

18 JUDGE VASSYLENKO: And the last question: Isn't it true that

19 trying to prevent the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia and to

20 implement a Greater Serbia concept, the Serbian political leadership

21 recoursed to the use of armed force accompanied by flagrant violations of

22 international humanitarian law and generally recognised standards of human

23 rights?

24 A. It is true that on the Serbian side, there had been recourse to

25 force and the violation of all these rights that you mention. It is also

1 true that the way in which the separation was being effected, particularly

2 in the case of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, violated Yugoslav

3 constitutional norms, and created the sense of insecurity and uncertainty

4 among the very sizable Serbian population of those republics. To simply

5 state that one side resorted to violence without considering the

6 complexity of the multilayered and multicornered equation is too

7 simplistic. I believe that part of the problem we have had ever since the

8 beginning of Yugoslavia's disintegration is the attempt to look at things

9 through the prism of black and white. Most of the Yugoslav story is

10 mainly different shadows of grey.

11 JUDGE VASSYLENKO: Thank you, Dr. Trifkovic. I have no more

12 questions.

13 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Judge Argibay.

14 JUDGE ARGIBAY: Only one. I hope it's only one question,

15 Dr. Trifkovic.

16 Are you aware that the Islamic declaration by Mr. Izetbegovic was

17 published in 1970?

18 A. The publication in 1970 had the semi-illicit character. The

19 formal and, how shall I put it, mainstream trumpeted publication only came

20 under the Bosna edition in 1990. But, of course, yes, the text had been

21 available since 1970.

22 JUDGE ARGIBAY: Why do you call it semi-illicit character?

23 A. Because under the rule of the old socialist Yugoslavia, for a

24 publication to have the licit character, you have to have "retzin zenti,"

25 [phoen] which means two reviewers who recommend a piece of work for the

1 publication and who invest their professional reputation and their

2 standing behind the given work. And this is something that takes me quite

3 a few years back. I wouldn't like to give you a more detailed answer than

4 this. Suffice to say that under the 1970 publication, the procedural

5 rules for the legal distribution and dissemination of the book with the

6 national library entry card were not satisfied. But at the same time, as

7 far as I'm aware, the 1990 edition was not qualitatively different from

8 the preliminary 1970 write.

9 JUDGE ARGIBAY: As long as I can see, they are identical?

10 A. That's right.

11 JUDGE ARGIBAY: So can you tell me why after 20 years, you

12 decided, or a lot of people decided, that this is an revelation of an

13 extremist character when in the Islamic declaration, Bosnia is not even

14 mentioned?

15 A. You don't need to mention Bosnia in order to display through the

16 statements such as we are all familiar with, that you have very strong

17 views of the desirable organisation of the society along the lines of a

18 clerically-ordained and clearly religiously-inspired preferred order of

19 human affairs. In fact, I don't think that it would have been even

20 necessary to refer to any particular geographic region, even though he

21 does refer to the entire Islamic world from Morocco to South East Asia to

22 Indonesia. The blueprint is there, the principle is there, and its

23 implications for the non-Muslim communities in Bosnia-Herzegovina could

24 not have been comforting, quite the contrary, I believe they are

25 rightfully alarming.

1 JUDGE ARGIBAY: Only one more question then relating to this: If

2 you replace Islamic by Christian or Jewish declaration, wouldn't it be a

3 lyrical declaration of what a person could think about an ideal society?

4 A. This question is very interesting because right now the only

5 attempt to contextualise Christianity with the social and political order

6 comes from certain marginal Protestant groups in the deep south Bible belt

7 of the United States, a sustained Catholic integralism or orthodox

8 fundamentalism that seeks to recreate, for instance, Byzantine of the 6th

9 century AD or the papal states of medieval times simply does not exist as

10 a viable political project anywhere in the world. At the same time,

11 political Islam does.

12 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: The trial stays adjourned until 5 minutes to

13 4.00 sharp.

14 --- Recess taken at 3.46 p.m.

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

16 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Please be seated. When the expert is in the

17 courtroom again, it's for the Defence. And please don't forget that at

18 the end, we have to decide whether you want to tender or not. But please

19 proceed.

20 Further examination by Mr. Lukic:

21 Q. Once again, good afternoon, Dr. Trifkovic.

22 A. Good afternoon to you.

23 Q. We have to be pretty fast to conclude in the next half an hour,

24 so -- to enable you to leave tonight. Can you tell us, what's the title

25 of your column in Chronicles magazine?

1 A. In the print variety, there is "The American Interest." Would you

2 like a specimen?

3 Q. No, just tell us. Thank you.

4 A. And in the Internet variety, "News and Views Unfit to Print".

5 Q. "News and Views Unfit to Print"?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. Does this mean that you are prone to criticise and that's actually

8 your job to criticise [Realtime transcript read in error "credit

9 advertise"]?

10 A. Also the Internet column is more polemical, more -- how shall I

11 put. Generally, Internet equivalence of print publications are less

12 stringently edited and less rigorously subjected to the checks and

13 balances which apply in print journalism.

14 Q. Thank you. On page 117, line 12, it says "credit advertise," it

15 should say "criticise."

16 You criticised also this Tribunal at least in 1996. Are you aware

17 that this Tribunal has been criticised also by some of the Judges of the

18 Tribunal? And we would like to distribute, to distribute some

19 documents --

20 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: I think this is an agreed fact, and it has

21 nothing to do, I think -- yes, it's an ongoing procedure, let us put this

22 way.

23 THE WITNESS: In addition, let me reiterate what I already stated

24 yesterday, that first of all my 1996 article is the one that was the basis

25 for the consideration of this subject yesterday, and that after the

1 passage of seven years, my personal hope that I had entertained at that

2 time, that domestic judicial systems of the success of republics would be

3 better equipped to deal with the task themselves has failed to be fully

4 materialised. And at the same time, this Tribunal has become more

5 even-handed in the treatment of indictments and at least potential

6 culpability of different sides which would have made me express opinions

7 on this subject in a more considered way today.

8 MR. LUKIC:

9 Q. Thank you. But do you agree with me that criticism can be

10 constructive as well?

11 A. Criticism indeed has to exist in order for the dialectical process

12 of the enrichment of human knowledge and experience to proceed, if the

13 hegelian parallel is allowed.

14 Q. You also criticised former president of Yugoslavia Milosevic, and

15 you stated it, and I have a list of some of your titles. I'll just ask

16 you whether you remember --

17 MS. KORNER: I think, Your Honour, it would help if I explained

18 that these articles were put to him not for whether he's justified in

19 criticising. I said he was. But for the basis of the allegations that he

20 made, not for anything else.

21 MR. LUKIC: May we quote some -- a few titles.

22 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: I think we have the statement as such. We have,

23 in addition, the summary of articles, radio interviews, and so on and so

24 forth. If it would be in addition to this, yes; if not, then we have the

25 statement before us.

1 MR. LUKIC: I'll just quote three or four so Your Honours have a

2 rough idea.

3 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: So please proceed.

4 MR. LUKIC: Thank you.

5 Q. From US News and World Report, June 18th, 1990, it says:

6 "Slobodan Milosevic is cynically exploiting the nationalist awakening to

7 perpetrator communist rule and his own power in the eastern half of

8 Yugoslavia." And it's addressed as your text. Is it true, Dr. Trifkovic?

9 A. Yes, it is true. And it -- this statement relates to a question

10 from the panel a minute ago about Milosevic's motivation, which as I tried

11 to explain, is multilayered, and it is very hard to tell which was the

12 real Milosevic, especially at that time.

13 Q. And standard, Hoover Institution in 1991, published under the

14 title "The Yugoslav Crisis and the United States" that you called

15 Mr. Milosevic "demagogue and populist"?

16 A. I used that phrase more than one, and I believe that this was one

17 of those occasions. "Populist and demagogue" is I think a very apt term

18 throughout his misrule.

19 Q. And from the "Plain Dealer," Cleveland, September 6th, 1992, they

20 quoted you and said: "Trifkovic said he was critical of the authoritarian

21 rule of Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic and has called for his

22 removal from office and democratic reforms." Do you remember that you

23 were quoted by this paper?

24 A. Roughly, yes. Yes, I believe that is an accurate quote.

25 Q. And out of 20 others, I would like to choose that you in the

1 Times, London, on November 23rd, 1995, you said, and I quote: "Trusting

2 Milosevic is like giving a blank bloodbank to Count Dracula."

3 A. That was an article by Ivan Prentice [phoen] quoting me as far as

4 I remember, and yes, it is an accurate quote.

5 Q. And I would just add another one where you say: "Milosevic is

6 afraid of having Mladic and Karadzic delivered to The Hague not because of

7 the possibility of a Serb backlash in Serbia itself but because those two

8 know quite a lot about Milosevic's own rule in the early days of the

9 Yugoslavian war in 1991 and 1992." It's BBC source, World Service TV,

10 29th of May, 1996.

11 A. Yes, it is an accurate quote, too, I think. Yes, sounds right.

12 Q. Doctor, I would like to show you the document marked in this trial

13 as S16, SK46. It's from Donia collection.

14 So Doctor, in front of you, you have the B/C/S version if I can

15 see correctly.

16 A. Mm-hmm.

17 Q. And if you can please turn page 2, and because it's B/C/S, I'll

18 read in B/C/S as we both know that you can follow. In the middle of the

19 page, there is the name of Stakic, Milomir. Or if you can use the English

20 version, if it's easier for you. Do you find name Stakic, Milomir?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. I will read it. "Stakic, Milomir, [Interpretation] since 30 April

23 1992, here in the Municipality of Prijedor the constitution of the Serbian

24 Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina has been implemented. Along with those

25 laws which conform with the constitution. In those matters where new laws

1 have not been passed, the existent laws are still applied. The next two

2 or three months until the funds which are now being established actually

3 have available fund will be the most critical period. Peace must be

4 maintained at all costs, and the economy must be revived."

5 [In English] You were asked by the Prosecution that Dr. Stakic

6 gave a statement in September, October 1992 when all the Muslims have

7 already been removed from the municipality. From which date is this

8 record or minutes, if you can tell us?

9 A. 9th of May of 1992.

10 Q. At that time, what was, if you know, the situation regarding the

11 national structure of the population in the Prijedor Municipality?

12 A. The straightforward answer is difficult because some people had

13 started leaving spontaneously in the period even while the multiethnic

14 Municipal Assembly was still functioning.

15 Q. But maybe I can ask you this way: Was the period immediately

16 after the takeover?

17 A. In answer to your question, the drastic departure of the bulk of

18 people who had left by October of 1992 had not left to the best of my

19 knowledge at the time when this report was prepared, i.e., the beginning

20 of May.

21 Q. Do you remember reading these minutes?

22 A. In fact, I remember seeing reference to the statement about the

23 need for the observance of laws in the Kozarski Vjesnik. What I do not

24 specifically remember is in that article, the mention of the validity of

25 the inherited old legislation, but it would stand to reason that, of

1 course, unless new legislation is enacted, then the inherited one would

2 remain on the statute books.

3 Q. Thank you, Doctor.

4 MR. LUKIC: And we won't be needing that document any more. Thank

5 you.

6 Q. During your testimony, on page 54, line 14 today, you mentioned,

7 and you were shown the document with the name of Mate Boban. Which

8 political party Mr. Mate Boban was a member and which function he carried

9 in the spring and summer 1992, do you know?

10 A. Mate Boban belonged to the Croatian democratic union of

11 Bosnia-Herzegovina. And in the spring of 1992, as its leader, he was

12 representative of the Croatian -- I think it could be accurately said

13 Croatian people because the HDZ -- HDZ, for all intents and purposes, was

14 the political force that represented most Croats in the Cutileiro-related

15 negotiations that were underway in Sarajevo, Lisbon, Grac, and elsewhere.

16 Q. I'm not sure about this document, which number is bears, with the

17 entitle "Through Bosnian Eyes" by Robert Donia -- no, actually by Mirko

18 Pejanovic, introductory remarks by Robert Donia.

19 THE REGISTRAR: S149.

20 MR. LUKIC:

21 Q. Mr. Mirko Pejanovic wrote a booklet or -- I don't know, we have

22 only a few pages, with the title "Through Bosnian Eyes" and you were asked

23 about him being a member of a -- some political structures as a

24 representative of Serbian people. You answered that he was never elected

25 by Serbs in Bosnia. And this gentleman actually commented on

1 unconstitutional act in defiance of parliament's authority. What is the

2 profession of Mr. Mirko Pejanovic if you know?

3 A. I do not know what is the profession of Mirko Pejanovic, and I

4 would be very surprised if it was law.

5 Q. It is not, but I cannot testify. Thank you.

6 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I didn't put it in, but I've got the

7 full book here, and there's a biography of what he did so I'll have that

8 copied and it will be handed in.

9 MR. LUKIC:

10 Q. Dr. Trifkovic, is it the same name on the first page, on the

11 bottom of the page -- actually in the introductory page, that says that

12 introduction and notes "by Robert J. Donia"?

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. Does the same name appear on an expert statement of a historian,

15 expert historian offered by the Prosecution?

16 A. It would appear to be so.

17 Q. Thank you.

18 MS. KORNER: I can confirm it is, but I would like to know what

19 the suggestion is.

20 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Please don't have unnecessary disputes. The

21 Trial Chamber is able to read.

22 MR. LUKIC: I'm trying to rush through the documents.

23 Q. You were asked today about the factual basis for a plea of guilty

24 of Ms. Plavsic. And wasn't it obvious from this document that this

25 document is not composed by Ms. Plavsic, because --

1 MS. KORNER: I object. I haven't objected to any of the leading

2 questions so far. It is not a proper question to put, as far as anyone

3 knows, that is Mrs. Plavsic's basis of plea. You cannot ask a question

4 like that.

5 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Sustained.

6 MR. LUKIC: Rephrase. Thank you, Your Honour.

7 Q. In paragraph 10, it says: "By October 1991, the Bosnian Serb

8 leadership, including Ms. Plavsic..." Does this paragraph show that

9 somebody else composed this?

10 MS. KORNER: I object. It's a leading question. Do you

11 understand what a leading question is, Mr. Lukic?

12 MR. LUKIC: Yes, I do.

13 MS. KORNER: You may ask the witness for his opinion if you really

14 want to, but in nonleading form.

15 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Please, stay polite vis-a-vis each other. But

16 I think the objection is well-based.

17 MR. LUKIC:

18 Q. Is it common, Mr. Trifkovic, in our language or in English that

19 somebody composes a document mentioning himself in a third person

20 singular?

21 A. It is for royalty and patriarchs.

22 Q. Thank you. It is not common that anybody else uses and describes

23 him or herself in a singular third?

24 A. I really feel unable to comment on Mrs. Plavsic's role in

25 preparing her own statement. I really prefer to stick to responses that I

1 gave to the prosecutorial team, and give her the deserved respect of the

2 benefit of the doubt in this respect. But at least emphasise the

3 possibility that the sentiments and opinions expressed in the statement

4 are by themselves not the final establishment of the existence of the

5 agreed set of guidelines and the agreed set of objectives common to the

6 entire SDS leadership. I really don't feel qualified to comment on the

7 personal circumstances of the preparation of her statement.

8 Q. Thank you, Doctor.

9 Regarding the plebiscite, you explained us that it's not binding

10 for anybody, but it's only the expression of one nation. What is the

11 reason that there were two coloured papers or ballot papers at that time?

12 A. So that people not declaring themselves as Serbs could also join

13 in the voting, which by the way all together was a silly and not

14 particularly useful form of -- it's one of the examples of ad hoc

15 improvisations that were both politically and substantively

16 ill-conceived. By describing what it was, I'm not suggesting that it was

17 a very fortuitous way to proceed.

18 Q. Thank you, Dr. Trifkovic. We want to be sure that you will leave

19 on time, and we don't have any questions.

20 MR. LUKIC: Thanks.

21 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Questions in return? This is not the case.

22 MS. KORNER: No, Your Honour, but I should make it very clear

23 because Dr. Trifkovic said he had to leave today, there were a number of

24 other aspects, factual assertions in his report, that I was unable to

25 cover. I want to make it absolutely clear that the Prosecution suggests

1 that this report in many other respects than those we have covered is

2 factually inaccurate.

3 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: I think it's a good time to prepare the oral

4 submissions and the final brief, and this is the place to discuss also

5 this document.

6 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, that's the trouble. I haven't actually

7 put to him the documents that I would have put otherwise. But, Your

8 Honour, I just wanted to make that clear that should it be -- should the

9 Defence be going to assert that other parts of his report were not

10 challenged by me, in many cases that is because we didn't have sufficient

11 time. I just want to make it clear.

12 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: If this is a mutual agreement.

13 MR. LUKIC: You know that sometimes we were rushed as well with

14 some Prosecution witnesses. If it's applied to anybody, we would agree.

15 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: So I had the impression that you also deleted a

16 number of documents and therefore --

17 MR. LUKIC: Yes, of course, we skipped many.

18 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: I think it's only fair to give both parties the

19 rights to address this statement as such, and the testimony as reflected

20 on the transcript, and none of the parties - that's my understanding -

21 will object on the mere basis that the one or other document was not put

22 to this witness.

23 Can we agree on this? Thank you.

24 Then the first question is of course: Is it the intention of the

25 Defence to tender this document?

1 MR. LUKIC: Dr. Trifkovic mentioned only chapter 5, if I --

2 THE WITNESS: It was not my intention to treat the entire book as

3 a document, but because I was specifically asked about the role of

4 mujahedin in Bosnia during the early 1990s and couldn't quote details from

5 memory, I wanted simply the relevant segment of the book to be treated as

6 a document.

7 MR. LUKIC: So we would like to offer Chapter 5 from this book in

8 evidence.

9 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: May I ask, here we -- it's really a borderline

10 question about the relevance for our concrete case. We have the comments

11 in the transcript by the witness, and I really can't see in the moment the

12 added probative value of this. I want to refrain from characterising this

13 paper. So can we agree that it's not relevant for the purpose of this

14 case?

15 MR. LUKIC: We agree, Your Honour, then.

16 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: May I then ask the usher, please, to give these

17 books back to the witness. And also, Madam Registrar, your copy, and the

18 Prosecution.

19 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I'd rather like to keep it because in

20 fact it's wholly unavailable in this country. And although we had quotes

21 from it, you never know, it may be useful to keep. So I would like to

22 keep it.

23 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: So is it --

24 MS. KORNER: I'm not asking for it to be made an exhibit, but I

25 would simply like to hold on to the copy, as it was volunteered.

1 THE WITNESS: Well, it was volunteered in the context of a

2 document that could be potentially accepted by the Court as part of the

3 official record. It was simply not volunteered as my personal gift to

4 you.

5 MS. KORNER: Very well. Dr. Trifkovic, that book will be returned

6 to you, and we'll see if we can get hold of a copy somewhere else.

7 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: So also this issue has been clarified.

8 We have a number of documents not yet admitted, but we have to do

9 it in the presence of the expert in case there should be any kind of

10 dispute.

11 Now, in the order backwards, first, it was S424, Security

12 Assessment for the Prijedor Municipality. Objections? 424, Security

13 Assessment for the Prijedor Municipality, 23 October 1992.

14 MR. LUKIC: We object. It's outside of the scope of the

15 indictment, and I think that that document, I cannot find it, is not

16 signed.

17 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Prosecution, please.

18 May I hear the submission by the Prosecution, please.

19 MS. KORNER: I'm sorry, I didn't hear the objection. Your Honour,

20 we have been through this a number of times. It was written after the

21 period of the indictment; however, it refers fairly and squarely to all

22 the events within the period of the indictment.

23 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: In fact, we have to base our decision not on the

24 date when it was written, but it's related to the period starting May

25 1992. Therefore, it's in the scope, and therefore admitted into evidence,

1 S424A and B respectively.

2 S423. These are the proposals or opinions by Mr. Badinter.

3 Objections?

4 MR. LUKIC: No objections, Your Honour.

5 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Admitted into evidence, S423A and B

6 respectively.

7 S422. Unfortunately, we don't have the cover page, but I can

8 identify it in Cyrillic, the minutes and tape recording of the national

9 assembly's 17th session held on 24-26 July 1992. Objections?

10 MR. LUKIC: We do not have objections, although we would like to

11 have these kind of documents if possible, because this one has never been

12 disclosed to us before. And if the Prosecution has a similar document, we

13 think that it would be necessary for us to have them as well.

14 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: If there are additional problems between the

15 parties, please resolve this problem amongst yourselves. In the moment,

16 we have only this document before us. Admitted into evidence, S422A and B

17 respectively.

18 S421, document of 6 March 1992, signed by President Mirko

19 Boskovic. Objections?

20 THE REGISTRAR: The announcement of the results of the referendum.

21 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Here using the word "referendum."

22 MR. LUKIC: It's Official Gazette. We don't have any objections.

23 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Admitted into evidence, S421A and B

24 respectively.

25 S420-1, the conclusions of the Assembly of the Republic of the

1 Serbian People of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the session of January 26,

2 1992. Objections?

3 MR. LUKIC: No objections, Your Honour.

4 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Admitted into evidence under these exhibit

5 numbers.

6 Then let's go back, 420. And now I have to ask from now on Madam

7 Registrar to assist me with the contents of the document.

8 THE REGISTRAR: This is the document dated 19th February 1992,

9 from the executive committee of the SDS party of Bosnia-Herzegovina

10 regarding the standpoints in connection with the referendum delivery.

11 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: This is a document preceding the conclusions we

12 just admitted into evidence. Objections?

13 MR. LUKIC: We cannot locate the document. Sorry.

14 The only objection regarding this document is it's not signed.

15 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Following our practice, admitted into evidence

16 as S420A and B respectively.

17 419, Madam Registrar, could you please continue helping me out

18 with the...

19 THE REGISTRAR: S419 is the except of Mr. Pejanovic's book.

20 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Objections?

21 MR. LUKIC: No objections, Your Honour.

22 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Admitted into evidence.

23 418.

24 THE REGISTRAR: The minutes of the joint session of the chambers

25 of the assembly of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina. ERN

1 03075714.

2 MR. LUKIC: No objections, Your Honour.

3 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Admitted into evidence.

4 S417.

5 THE REGISTRAR: An article from Oslobodenje, formulation of

6 interests of the Croatian people.

7 MR. LUKIC: No objections, Your Honour.

8 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Admitted into evidence. S416.

9 THE REGISTRAR: Another article --

10 MR. LUKIC: No objections, Your Honour.

11 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Admitted into evidence.

12 S415.

13 THE REGISTRAR: The Official Gazette of the socialist Republic of

14 Bosnia-Herzegovina.

15 MR. LUKIC: No objections, Your Honour.

16 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Admitted into evidence. Then we have a problem

17 with S413. My proposal would be to admit the document S413 with the

18 caveat that following the testimony of the expert witness, this is a mixum

19 compositum of articles from 1996 and 2000 not edited under the

20 responsibility of the expert witness, but then S413-1, this would be the

21 actual article from June 1996. Correct?

22 THE WITNESS: It was written in June 1996, and published in the

23 August 1996 issue of magazine Chronicles.

24 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: We are speaking about the same document

25 apparently, and it's your testimony that you weren't able to find in this

1 short period of time the article of 2000. Correct?

2 THE WITNESS: That's right.

3 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: So objections?

4 MR. LUKIC: No objections, Your Honour.

5 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Admitted into evidence as S413 and 413-1.

6 Then we have J32, "The National Question in Yugoslavia" by Ivo

7 Banac. Any objections?

8 MR. LUKIC: No objections, Your Honour.

9 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Admitted into evidence under this exhibit

10 number.

11 I think it's not the time now to go through the other binders. It

12 has to be dealt with in a special way, maybe in the same way as we did it

13 with the Mr. Donia's documents. And therefore once again, the invitation

14 to the parties, please tell us whether you have come to an agreement or

15 not. And that we only have to rule on the remaining disputed issues.

16 Madam Registrar just pointed out that there would be a problem

17 with S414, the Kecmanovic report. I think it's mandatory to have this

18 report, that we can find out, and I took it that the expert witness was

19 himself felt attacked that these articles appeared in part in another

20 document just recently presented in this Court in another case.

21 Any objections to the admission into evidence of S414A and B

22 respectively?

23 MR. LUKIC: No objections, Your Honour.

24 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Admitted into evidence under these numbers.

25 Anything else to be clarified today?

1 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, we do have a B/C/S copy of this report.

2 The only thing I should say is we're not sure whether it's the original

3 B/C/S that he himself wrote or whether it's a translation that was done by

4 us of the translated B/C/S report.

5 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: I think it could help out that Dr. Stakic is

6 able to read this document in its totality. And therefore, I would ask

7 the Prosecution to provide Dr. Stakic with this --

8 MS. KORNER: We'll make a copy of it tonight, Your Honour.

9 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Thank you. The remaining and the most crucial

10 problem for me in the moment is that apparently, we have two different

11 reports. Was it possible for the Defence or the expert witness to find

12 out which is the one -- I know what's tendered, but was it intentionally

13 tendered in this maybe abbreviated version or what is the problem?

14 MR. OSTOJIC: Your Honour, we did not have an opportunity to

15 compare the actual report that's in front of Dr. Trifkovic with that which

16 was filed. However, it's my understanding, because he uses a different

17 computer system, that it's only a question of pagination. We would be

18 happy with the court officer after these proceedings to take the copy that

19 Dr. Trifkovic has and to go through it line by line. But I think the

20 Court will find that the pagination or the font may be slightly different

21 from that which Dr. Trifkovic produced and that which we ultimately

22 submitted to the Court.

23 MS. KORNER: I don't think, with respect, it's the pagination

24 that's different. It's the footnotes. The pages are the same.

25 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: In the footnotes, there were -- in the

1 footnotes, you identified the one misleading footnote as 61, and in the

2 report submitted and admitted, it was 63. So this is a discrepancy, and

3 it has to be resolved. And I only can invite the legal officer together

4 with the Defence and also one representative of the Prosecution to go

5 through this document and then let us know tomorrow which is the version

6 which really the one you are prepared to take the responsibility for.

7 THE WITNESS: I think I have the answer right away, Your Honour. I

8 think it is the version that the Defence team has and has passed around.

9 The discrepancy may have been caused by the fact that prior to these

10 proceedings, I had a copy printed out of my laptop that I brought with me

11 and that the file in the laptop may have been slightly different to the

12 file from the desktop from which I produced the final version of the

13 report for the Defence team on February 18th or 19th. This was due to my

14 more or less constant travelling since that time. Had I been given simply

15 a photocopy of the same report that was given to the Court, I am sure the

16 discrepancy would have been avoided. But trying to determine the origin

17 of the discrepancy, I am pretty certain that the version given to the

18 Defence team and passed on to the Court is the right one.

19 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Mr. Trifkovic, it's your responsibility, and you

20 have signed a report, and we -- you will be held responsible for all parts

21 line by line. And therefore, I believe it's more appropriate that we

22 proceed this way. You check it with the Defence only, and if we don't

23 hear by tomorrow morning through the Defence or the court deputy that you

24 do not agree in part with the document submitted, then we take it that you

25 take the responsibility for the report in its entirety as submitted by the

1 Defence. Can we proceed this way?

2 THE WITNESS: Fair enough.

3 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, technically, it should be the one that

4 Dr. Trifkovic actually signed as his report. I don't know whether that's

5 the one he has got there, with 61 for the footnotes, or the one that we've

6 got.

7 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: I think it's the responsibility for the expert

8 in the moment. He gave us an explanation. And he is prepared to take the

9 responsibility. And therefore, it's for the Defence and for the expert to

10 find out whether something has been added or deleted and thereby not

11 authorised by the expert witness.

12 Anything else on an urgent basis for today? So we expect that

13 General Wilmont will appear tomorrow, 9.00 as scheduled. And as

14 envisaged, please let us try that we make a fair distribution of the time

15 left for us. This is two morning sessions. And the expert witness will

16 no longer be available. And therefore, I don't want yet to impose a time

17 limit, but please be aware that this witness will be only here for two

18 days.

19 And I already asked in the past, Prosecution, what about the plans

20 by the Prosecution for next week, for the period of rebuttal as

21 envisaged? It was agreed that during the period of rebuttal, Chamber

22 witnesses could be introduced, and we would start with Witness PST on

23 Monday. It's not yet finally confirmed whether the next Chamber witness

24 will be available on Wednesday. We'll let you know as soon as possible.

25 But as for the other days of next week, we expect by tomorrow the schedule

1 what is the intention of the Prosecution how to proceed.

2 MS. KORNER: I'll talk to Mr. Koumjian, Your Honour.

3 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: And then immediately following the period of

4 rebuttal, of course, it can be answered only then by the Defence. We

5 would appreciate to know as soon as possible what would follow in

6 rejoinder.

7 I can't see any other issues for today. Then I have to thank you,

8 Mr. Trifkovic, for coming to The Hague. This Tribunal is not an ordinary

9 criminal court. In addition to that what is ordinary, in stricto senso of

10 a criminal court, we are under the obligation of Chapter 7 of the charter

11 of the United Nations, and the Charter of the United Nations, no doubt,

12 envisage peace and tolerance, and only as a very personal remark, you are

13 no doubt an absolutely intelligent, highly intelligent person. And it's

14 absolutely your right and if not your duty to criticise, but you should be

15 aware that also words out of context can be used and abused by others as

16 weapons.

17 This concludes your testimony. May I ask the usher to escort the

18 witness out of the courtroom.

19 [The witness withdrew]

20 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: The trial stays adjourned until tomorrow, 9.00.

21 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned

22 at 4.51 p.m., to be reconvened on Thursday,

23 the 20th day of March, 2003,

24 at 9.00 a.m.

25