1 Wednesday, 15 October 2003

2 [Open session]

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

4 [The accused entered court]

5 JUDGE AGIUS: So good morning, everybody. Madam Registrar, could

6 you call the case, please.

7 THE REGISTRAR: Case Number IT-99-36-T, the Prosecutor versus

8 Radislav Brdjanin.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you.

10 Mr. Brdjanin, good morning to you. Can you follow the proceedings

11 in a language that you can understand?

12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Good morning, Your Honour. Yes, I

13 can.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. Thank you.

15 Appearances for the Prosecution.

16 MS. SUTHERLAND: Ann Sutherland, Julian Nicholls, assisted by

17 Denise Gustin, case manager.

18 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you, Ms. Sutherland. Appearances for the

19 Radislav Brdjanin.

20 MR. ACKERMAN: Good morning, Your Honours. My name is

21 John Ackerman. I am assisted by Aleksander Vujic, and one of our interns,

22 Kelly Seratis [phoen] is with us this morning.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you. Any preliminaries on your part?

24 MS. SUTHERLAND: Yes, Your Honour. Before we begin the

25 cross-examination of Mr. Treanor, I seek to tender three exhibits. And

1 they are -- two of the exhibits are in relation to P2656, which is the

2 excerpt of Radovan Karadzic's speech at the Bosnian Assembly session held

3 on the 11th, 14th, and 15th October 1991. And for completeness, we have

4 the entire transcript of the assembly session. And I would seek to make

5 that P2656.2.

6 JUDGE AGIUS: Any objection on your part, Mr. Ackerman?

7 MR. ACKERMAN: No, Your Honour.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you. So the document is so admitted. It will

9 be given the Exhibit number P2656.2, Madam Registrar.

10 MS. SUTHERLAND: Your Honours, we do have an English translation

11 of Mr. Brdjanin's speech at that assembly, but not the entire assembly

12 yet. So I would seek to tender this portion of the English translation at

13 this time. I also wish to tender videotapes on CD-ROM of that assembly

14 session. They have just come into -- the Prosecution has just received

15 the transcript and the videotapes pursuant to a request that we made to

16 the government. And I would seek to make the videotape P2656.3.

17 JUDGE AGIUS: So the one sheet of paper that you had in your hand

18 a couple of seconds ago relative to Mr. Brdjanin's speech in English, is

19 that part of 2656.2?

20 MS. SUTHERLAND: Yes. That will become the whole translation.

21 But at this stage we only have Mr. Brdjanin's speech and obviously

22 Mr. Karadzic's speech.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. So the CD-ROMs will be -- how many of them?

24 Just one?

25 MS. SUTHERLAND: Five.

1 JUDGE AGIUS: So they are going to be P2656.

2 MS. SUTHERLAND: .3.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: .3. And then the five of them will be pooled

4 together with no further number to distinguish them one from the other?

5 MS. SUTHERLAND: No, Your Honour.

6 JUDGE AGIUS: May I ask if the CD itself contains interpretation

7 in English or only in the original language?

8 MS. SUTHERLAND: It's just in the original language, Your Honour.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: And then you have the transcripts.

10 MS. SUTHERLAND: And then the transcripts will be P2656.2. The

11 B/C/S transcript is P2656.2. And the English translation that I have at

12 the moment of Mr. Brdjanin, and then the videotape will be .3.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: All right, okay.

14 MS. SUTHERLAND: The final document, Your Honour, is a document

15 that we seek to tender. It's -- it is relevant to issues in this case.

16 It's a combat report dated the 16th of August, 1993. I've shown it to

17 Mr. Ackerman. It was disclosed to him yesterday, and I showed him the

18 signed document this morning.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: And this is going to be what? P --

20 MS. SUTHERLAND: P2682, which is the next Prosecution exhibit

21 number.

22 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. I take it, Mr. Ackerman, that there was

23 no objection to the transcripts, to the tendering the transcripts and no

24 objection to the tendering of the CD video recordings?

25 MR. ACKERMAN: No, Your Honour.

1 JUDGE AGIUS: And the combat report?

2 MR. ACKERMAN: I'd like to reserve that until I have a chance to

3 read it. I haven't received it yet. It was put in my locker last night.

4 JUDGE AGIUS: So it is being admitted with the usual caveat. All

5 right?

6 MS. SUTHERLAND: Thank you, Your Honour.

7 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. Ackerman, any preliminaries on your part?

8 MR. ACKERMAN: Yes, Your Honour. Just kind of to follow-up on our

9 last meeting, today I have provided Your Honours and the Prosecutor a

10 schedule of witnesses beginning Monday, 20 October through the week of 12

11 January, or part of that week. We've already found that it has a problem

12 or two that will have to be corrected. If you look at the week of 25

13 November, only one of those witnesses is going to be able to called that

14 week, so that would move everything else ahead a ways. But that's my best

15 effort at this point to give the Prosecution what they requested in terms

16 of witness order. And we'll try our best to stick with this. We're

17 hoping we can go faster than this document indicates through these

18 witnesses, and we may be able to. So we have that.

19 Secondly, I have also provided this morning an updated witness

20 list that contains the names of three expert witnesses. One is a new

21 witness who I was finally able to make arrangements with late last night.

22 There is one or possibly two more that we're still in negotiations with.

23 I think within the next couple of days we'll have the answer on both of

24 those.

25 In addition, I have supplied the Prosecution with -- and the

1 Court -- with that updated list. And as Your Honours know, that's a

2 moving target. It's going to be continually updated as we go along, some

3 of it involving taking some of the people off of it. But we haven't yet

4 gotten to that point. So I think that my report this morning is that

5 we're making progress, Your Honour, from where we were last week.

6 JUDGE AGIUS: And I thank you, Mr. Ackerman. Before I put these

7 in my personal folder, any of the names that appear on these two sheets of

8 paper and obviously on the summaries supposedly confidential or not?

9 MR. ACKERMAN: Yes, these documents all need to be treated as

10 confidential, Your Honour.

11 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. That needs to be made clear for

12 everybody who is coming in possession.

13 MR. ACKERMAN: I made that clear to the Registrar when I handed

14 them to her this morning.

15 JUDGE AGIUS: But it wasn't made clear to us, so I'm making it

16 clear myself.

17 MR. ACKERMAN: Any time I provide those witness lists and updates,

18 they will always contain some persons whose names should not be divulged

19 to the public.

20 JUDGE AGIUS: That's perfect. And I take it there is agreement at

21 least from the information that I have from my staff, that there is

22 agreement between you and the Prosecution that there will be a break

23 starting from the 14th of November up to and inclusive of the 24th of

24 November?

25 MR. ACKERMAN: Yes, Your Honour. And I apologise for the

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1 confusion about that. I had -- when we had last discussed it, my

2 impression was the Prosecution was asking me to move it ahead a week.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: Yeah, that's the impression I got.

4 MR. ACKERMAN: I then informed your chief legal officer that

5 that's what we would do. And then I got a call from Prosecution saying

6 "we really didn't mean that. We want to take it back --"

7 JUDGE AGIUS: We discussed it amongst ourselves. We are prepared

8 to accommodate you whichever way you like it. If you prefer these dates,

9 you will have these dates.

10 MR. ACKERMAN: These dates are fine, Your Honour. I understand

11 you want me to file some kind of a motion --

12 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, please. And just for the record because --

13 MR. ACKERMAN: We'll get that filed right away.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, please.

15 MR. ACKERMAN: The other matter. Mr. Cunningham has been asked by

16 me to stay an extra day in Texas for the purpose of conducting an

17 interview of one of the expert witnesses that I was talking about. So he

18 will not arrive back in The Hague until tomorrow. He was scheduled to be

19 here today. He will be here tomorrow. So the next witness following

20 today's witness, I ask will not be called for direct examination until

21 9.00 Friday morning.

22 JUDGE AGIUS: Tomorrow is Thursday, no?

23 MR. ACKERMAN: Yes. I suspect, Your Honour, that I will take all

24 of today and most of tomorrow with Mr. Treanor in any event.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: I wasn't anticipating the cross-examination of

1 Mr. Treanor to finish today. I mean, that was not my anticipation.

2 MR. ACKERMAN: It will not finish today. And I may say one other

3 thing about that -- well --

4 JUDGE AGIUS: So at worst, we might finish early tomorrow. That's

5 the only difference. That all right with you, Mr. Nicholls?

6 MR. NICHOLLS: Yes, we have no objection to that, just with the

7 suggestion that if we begin Friday morning rather than whatever time

8 tomorrow, we may go slightly into Monday. I mean, that's -- we have no

9 objection to that.

10 MR. ACKERMAN: We're fully aware of that Your Honour. We have

11 understood for some time that that might be the case.

12 JUDGE AGIUS: So anything else? No?

13 MR. ACKERMAN: The only other thing I would request, Your Honour,

14 is I will be conducting the examination from over there. And I would

15 ask -- I gave you all a memo much earlier regarding some health issues.

16 I'd ask that today at least I be permitted to be seated during the

17 examination.

18 JUDGE AGIUS: Have you received --

19 MR. ACKERMAN: That memo was a month and a half ago maybe.

20 Nothing new, nothing exciting. It just explained a health condition that

21 attacks me every now and then.

22 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, yes, I remember. I remember. But I thought

23 that was -- you were passed that stage, over that stage.

24 MR. ACKERMAN: I was hoping.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: Anyway, let's not make of it an issue.

1 MR. ACKERMAN: Yes, please.

2 JUDGE AGIUS: Any time you need to have the sitting suspended,

3 interrupted, or stopped, or adjourned, Mr. Ackerman, because of health

4 reasons, let us know.

5 MR. ACKERMAN: I'm just asking I be permitted to question the

6 witness from a seated position.

7 JUDGE AGIUS: Yeah, yeah, that has never been a problem in any

8 case. Even if you need to have the sitting interrupted for a while,

9 please let us know.

10 So shall we bring in Mr. Treanor. Thank you.

11 And the documents that you were tendering and the CDs, we don't

12 have them as yet.

13 MS. SUTHERLAND: Sorry, Your Honour. The CDs we can provide after

14 the break, and when the usher comes back, we'll give him the other

15 documents.

16 [The witness entered court]

17 MS. SUTHERLAND: Your Honour, just before we begin, I have a very

18 short errata sheet. The errata sheet is in relation to Section 5 to the

19 addendum report, the implementation section.

20 Usher, if they can go to the registry and if they can go to

21 Mr. Ackerman, and then...

22 Your Honour, once you have the document in front of you, you will

23 see that it's in relation to Kotor Varos, and this was dealt with

24 Mr. Treanor in his examination-in-chief in relation to the tables at the

25 back of the report, and this simply clarifies paragraphs 171, 174, and 179

1 of the report where Kotor Varos was affected and also in relation to

2 Prijedor within the table of the concurrent evidence and implementation

3 and explanation as to the underlining. And if that could be marked

4 Exhibit P2351.4.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes.

6 MR. ACKERMAN: No objection, Your Honour.

7 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you, Mr. Ackerman.

8 Good morning, Mr. Treanor. And welcome back.

9 THE WITNESS: Good morning. Thank you, Your Honour.

10 JUDGE AGIUS: You're going to be cross-examined now by

11 Mr. Ackerman who is lead counsel for the Defence, for the accused. The

12 cross-examination is anticipated to go into tomorrow. I don't think we'll

13 finish today. So the shorter your answers, the more precise they are, the

14 quicker you will get out of here. Thank you.

15 So could I ask you to stand up, please. And Madam Registrar is

16 going to hand to you the declaration, solemn declaration, that you are

17 already familiar with. Please go ahead and read it.

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

19 whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

20 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you.

21 So, Mr. Ackerman, it is in your hands.

22 MR. ACKERMAN: Thank you very much, Your Honour.

23 WITNESS: PATRICK TREANOR [Resumed]

24 Cross-examined by Mr. Ackerman:

25 Q. Good morning, Mr. Treanor.

1 A. Good morning.

2 Q. So how are you?

3 A. I'm fairly well rested, thank you.

4 Q. Good. We have, as you might well imagine, a great deal of ground

5 to cover. And I'll just work our way through it as quickly as I can.

6 Although there will be some fairly notable exceptions to this

7 pronouncement that I'm about to make, I intend primarily to work through

8 the events in a chronological fashion. But I want you to understand that

9 I don't intend in that process to provide a complete chronology, but to

10 touch on certain documents and issues that occurred over the period of

11 time we're interested in. I'll be skipping over some other things that

12 occurred which I am not particularly interested in.

13 Do you understand what I'm basically trying to explain to you?

14 A. Yes, I understand.

15 Q. All right. I'm going to focus almost exclusively on

16 Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the place I want to begin is with amendments that

17 were made to the constitution of that republic in the years 1989 and 1990.

18 And it was these constitutional changes or part of the contents of these

19 constitutional changes that created the conditions under which multiparty

20 elections were eventually held. Correct?

21 A. Yes. In general terms, that's correct.

22 Q. I'm going to be referring several times to Exhibit DB-1, and so

23 I'll ask the Registrar to give a copy of that to you. It's that book

24 right there. Yes, that one.

25 This is a --

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1 JUDGE AGIUS: If you had given this list -- made it available

2 earlier, Mr. Ackerman, we would have had these documents available, too.

3 As it is, we have got two volumes, one of which contains the expert

4 report. The other one, the documents referred to by the Prosecution. And

5 now, we are absolutely unprovided with all the documents practically that

6 you are going to make use of, except those where you overlap with the

7 Prosecution.

8 Anyway, let's go ahead. And my secretary will try to make good

9 for your shortcoming in the break. In the meantime, Madam Registrar, if

10 you could, or Elena, if you could perhaps make a photocopy of this, and

11 hand it to our respective secretaries to have the documents ready by the

12 break, please. Thank you.

13 MR. ACKERMAN: I think we can make quite a lot of use of the ELMO,

14 Your Honour.

15 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. But in the meantime, it's easier, we don't

16 have to stretch our eyes between you, the witness, the ELMO, the

17 Prosecution, your client, and everything else.

18 MR. ACKERMAN: Yes, I understand. I wish I could have provided to

19 you earlier.

20 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. Let's go ahead. Let's proceed,

21 Mr. Ackerman.

22 MR. ACKERMAN: All right.

23 Q. I want to know if you know about the electoral law which was

24 adopted by the Bosnian parliament in March of 1990 that banned political

25 organisation on the basis of ethnicity?

1 A. I'm familiar with that law in general terms. I could not bring to

2 mind the specific provisions you're speaking of, though.

3 Q. I will not go into the specific provisions. It's just as a

4 general proposition, I take it you'd agree with me that there was an

5 electoral law adopted that attempted to prevent the creation of parties on

6 an ethnic basis, in other words, in other words, the creation of a Muslim

7 or a Serb or a Croat party?

8 A. Yes, I believe that's correct.

9 Q. Are were you also aware that the constitutional court then of

10 Bosnia-Herzegovina declared this law unconstitutional, and removed it from

11 the law governing those multiparty elections that occurred later?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. And did you know that the President of that constitutional Court

14 was a judge by the name of Dr. Kasim Trnka who later became a very active

15 member of the SDA leadership?

16 A. Yes, I certainly knew that Dr. Trnka was a member of that court. I

17 can't recall whether I knew he was the president, though. And I know that

18 he was active later.

19 Q. Of the three major parties, the SDA, the HDZ, and the SDS, the

20 first of those to be formed was the SDA, was it not?

21 A. I believe that's correct.

22 Q. And that party was formed during the time that the law prohibiting

23 the organisation of parties based on ethnicity was in existence, before it

24 had been declared unconstitutional, wasn't it?

25 A. I would have to take your word for that. I believe that's

1 correct.

2 Q. And that was a party that was headed by a gentleman by the name of

3 Alija Izetbegovic?

4 A. Yes.

5 Q. And the name of that party was such as to not reveal any ethnic

6 basis to it at all; it was I think the Party of democratic action, or

7 something like that, translated, wasn't it?

8 A. That's correct.

9 Q. Did you know that Alija Izetbegovic had been imprisoned twice

10 under the Tito regime primarily because of his fundamentalist preachings

11 and ideas?

12 A. I know that he had been imprisoned. I don't know what the

13 specific charges were.

14 Q. Well, do you know that the second imprisonment was for circulation

15 of a writing of his called "the Islamic declaration" which he wrote in

16 1970?

17 A. No, I guess I didn't.

18 Q. All right. Did you know that he represented a faction of the SDA

19 which was inclined toward an identity defined largely in terms of Islam

20 and intent on securing a dominant role for the Muslims in

21 Bosnia-Herzegovina?

22 JUDGE AGIUS: Are you reading from somewhere, Mr. Ackerman?

23 MR. ACKERMAN: It's actually Exhibit DB-1, page 46, Your Honour.

24 JUDGE AGIUS: All right.

25 MR. ACKERMAN:

1 Q. Would you agree with that statement?

2 A. I did not know that.

3 Q. Let me ask you: Just look at the entry on page 46 of DB-1, if we

4 can find it. I can't right now find what I just quoted on page 46.

5 A. At the bottom of the page perhaps, last paragraph?

6 Q. Yes, I think so. In any event, do you agree with that proposition

7 that's stated there?

8 A. Well, quite frankly, I have little basis to either support that or

9 challenge that.

10 Q. That's fine. I appreciate that. If you look over on the next

11 page, then, on page 47 --

12 MR. ACKERMAN: At any time Your Honours want, we can put these on

13 the ELMO so you can see them.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: I think it would be a better idea, Mr. Ackerman. I

15 understand you have several copies of these.

16 MR. ACKERMAN:

17 Q. You're going to be in a position now that you're going to sort of

18 put that over on the ELMO and look at it from that position. So if we'll

19 just put pages 46 and 47 over there so we can see them. And if we could

20 zoom in on the right-hand side with the language "the overtly Islamic..."

21 Is the part -- right in there, yes.

22 "The overtly Islamic and Muslim nationalist orientation of the

23 SDA leadership around Izetbegovic led to a split with the more secular

24 Muslims within the party led by Adil Zulfikarpasic who formed his own

25 party the Muslim Bosniak organisation in October of 1990. Were you aware

1 of that? Do you agree with that?

2 A. Again, I'm aware of some of that in general terms. But I do not

3 have a documentary basis in mind that I could call to support or the

4 refutation of that proposition.

5 Q. Now, assuming just for the purposes of the discussion that we're

6 having here now that these statements, these paragraphs that we have been

7 reading from, from DB-1, are correct, these would have been things that

8 would have been known to Serbs, especially those with a political bent, in

9 Bosnia at the time; they would have known about Izetbegovic's

10 imprisonment, his Islamic declaration, his reputation as a relatively

11 militant Muslim? That's not something that would have been a secret, was

12 it?

13 A. No, I believe that's correct, again, in general terms. It would

14 have been known to the general public and to the political elite what his

15 background was.

16 Q. And it was probably quite obvious when Zulfikarpasic formed a

17 party with Izetbegovic, what the basis was for his doing that and his

18 concerns about where Izetbegovic was going with the SDA. That probably

19 was also fairly well known, would you think?

20 A. I'm sure that opinions on that would have been current.

21 Q. So in March of 1990, Izetbegovic starts this SDA party and begins

22 a process of the development of ethnically based parties. There was at

23 the time in Croatia an ethnically based party called the HDZ which later

24 formed its -- an offshoot of it, a party based on the same principles with

25 the same name in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Correct?

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1 A. When you say the same principles, I'm not sure what the principles

2 -- which principles you're referring to, but it certainly had the same

3 name.

4 Q. Okay. I'll withdraw the principles part and we'll just stick with

5 name. It was a party that was primarily Croat, almost exclusively Croat,

6 wasn't it?

7 A. I believe that's correct.

8 Q. Then finally in July of 1990, finally there was established the

9 SDS party which was a party established under the leadership of Radovan

10 Karadzic?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. And the basic platform, the raison d'etre of that party was

13 opposition primarily to Bosnian Independence or to any changes in the

14 makeup of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina that would subject the Serb

15 minority to rule by an ethnically alien majority made up of Muslims and

16 Croats. Do you accept that?

17 JUDGE AGIUS: Again, are you reading from DB-1, Mr. Ackerman?

18 MR. ACKERMAN: Yes, Your Honour.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: I would prefer if when you are reading or referring

20 specifically to some part of DB-1, you declare that.

21 MR. ACKERMAN: Yes.

22 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you.

23 THE WITNESS: I'm sorry, could you repeat that or indicate the

24 page where that is found.

25 MR. ACKERMAN:

1 Q. If we look at page 47 -- I'm just trying to find it now.

2 A. In the last paragraph.

3 Q. It's -- what it reads is: "The Serb Democratic Party" - and it's

4 on your screen, Your Honour.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, yes.

6 MR. ACKERMAN: Down through the words "ethnically alien majority"

7 with the footnote 85 there. That's the passage I'm referring to.

8 Q. Mr. Treanor.

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. And do you agree with that, or do you accept that?

11 A. Well, I don't think I would have put that proposition in quite

12 those terms.

13 Q. All right. Now, with the formation of these parties and the

14 campaigns that followed, there was finally multiparty elections held on

15 18 November 1990. Correct?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. And these three ethnic parties, SDA, SDS, HDZ, won the most seats?

18 A. Collectively, yes.

19 Q. The -- for the purposes of that election, the Republic of

20 Bosnia-Herzegovina was divided into seven election districts, was it not?

21 A. I'll take your word for the fact that there were the seven

22 electoral districts for the elections to the --

23 Q. Chamber of citizens?

24 A. -- Chamber of citizens, yes.

25 Q. You can look at page 50 of DB-1, and we can even put it on the

1 ELMO so the Judges can see, the map that sets out those seven election

2 districts and the number of delegates to be elected from each one.

3 According to the authors, this comes from the writing of Suad Arnautovic

4 that I assume you're familiar with.

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. All right.

7 Now, there's a new exhibit, DB-160, that was provided this

8 morning. And I'd like you to take a look at that. And you'll actually

9 find it --

10 JUDGE AGIUS: We don't have this as yet.

11 MR. ACKERMAN: I'm sorry, Your Honour. I thought those had all

12 been turned in.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you.

14 MR. ACKERMAN: This actually comes from DB-1, pages 52 and 53, Your

15 Honours. But I thought it appropriate to make it a separate exhibit.

16 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes.

17 MR. ACKERMAN:

18 Q. And sir, what you'll see there on Table 2.3 are the results from

19 each of those election districts. And 2.4, the number of seats then

20 distributed based on the outcome of the election.

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. If we look at first Table 2.3, we find that in Banja Luka, 40 per

23 cent -- 40.85 per cent of the votes went to the SDS. The SDA and HDZ

24 combined got about 33. And the rest was spread among some other minor

25 parties. If you look at Doboj, the SDS got 23 per cent. About 43 per

1 cent was spread between the SDA and the HDZ. And the rest, some of the

2 other parties.

3 Mostar, SDS was a little over 14 per cent, and the SDA and HDZ

4 combined was 78 and a half basically. Sarajevo, SDS 22 per cent; SDA 32

5 per cent, HDZ about 8 per cent, and the rest other parties, notably

6 SK-SDP, got a higher percentage, as did SRSJ, than the HDZ did. Zenica,

7 the SDS about 9 per cent. About 67 per cent went to HDZ and SDA. Tuzla,

8 SDS about 27 per cent. About 44 and a half per cent went to SDA/HDZ. And

9 finally, Bihac, where the SDS got 21 and a half per cent, that between the

10 HDZ and the SDA, 63 and a half roughly.

11 Correct?

12 A. That's what the table shows, yes.

13 Q. In none of those districts, then, did the SDS over 50 per cent of

14 the vote?

15 A. That's correct.

16 Q. And then if you go over and look at Table 2.4, out of the 130

17 seats, the SDS received less than a third, about 34. Exactly 34. The

18 SDA, 43; and the HDZ, 21. Correct?

19 A. Yes.

20 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, I offer that as DB-160.

21 JUDGE AGIUS: Is there a document which indicates the turnout of

22 voters?

23 MR. ACKERMAN: The turnout --

24 JUDGE AGIUS: Because I'm impressed by the number of invalid votes

25 which by any standard that I am familiar with is pretty high. And that I

1 take it most of the time to show a deliberate rendering of a vote valid.

2 But I would be interested to know the -- what the turnout was. Because

3 these figures are a percentage of all votes cast, including the invalid

4 votes.

5 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, I don't know the raw numbers in terms

6 of turnout. Maybe Mr. Treanor does or has access to a document that would

7 show that. Off the top of my head, I don't. It might be in his report.

8 I'm not sure.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: I wouldn't Mr. Treanor to know that.

10 THE WITNESS: I don't know offhand. We do have the reports of the

11 electoral commission which would, I believe, provide the figures to

12 indicate that.

13 MR. ACKERMAN: Perhaps when you come back tomorrow, you could

14 bring that and we could supply that to the Chamber.

15 THE WITNESS: I'll look into that.

16 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you, Mr. Treanor.

17 MR. ACKERMAN: I agree with Your Honour, that's a very high number

18 of invalid votes.

19 Q. And I'll ask Mr. Treanor if he has any idea why that situation

20 occurred. Do you?

21 A. Do I have any -- I thought you were going to ask me after I'd

22 looked into the matter.

23 Q. If you know now, I'd like to know. If you don't --

24 A. I could only speculate.

25 Q. Okay. That's probably not a good idea.

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1 All right. We've already discussed the proposition that --

2 JUDGE AGIUS: Before you proceed, Mr. Ackerman, sorry, I would

3 also like to know perhaps either through you Mr. Treanor, or you, Mr.

4 Ackerman after having verified this whether in ex-Yugoslavia at the time,

5 whether voting was statutorily obligatory, as it is in Italy, for example,

6 and in some other countries? Because that could explain the number of

7 invalid votes. But there are some countries in Europe where voting is not

8 just a right, but it is a legal obligation, subject also to penal

9 sanctions.

10 MR. ACKERMAN: I'm quite certain that was not the case, but I

11 hunch that's something Mr. Treanor may know.

12 THE WITNESS: I don't believe that's the case either, but I can

13 check on that as well.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Treanor.

15 MR. ACKERMAN:

16 Q. We've already talked a little bit about positions, platforms, what

17 was going on politically with regard to the positions of each of the

18 parties with regard to the question of independence. And I think it's

19 clear that the SDA, supported finally by HDZ, was interested in achieving

20 independence for Bosnia-Herzegovina. Correct?

21 A. Again, in general terms, I would say that's correct, yes.

22 Q. And very soon after these multiparties, the SDA tried to get a

23 declaration of sovereignty through the Bosnian assembly. That would have

24 been in November 1991, and failed in their efforts at the time. Correct?

25 A. I'm not familiar with that document. And my answer to the

1 previous question, I didn't realise you were trying to gear that to the

2 electoral period. I'm not certain what their position was at that

3 particular time, that is, in the pre-electoral campaign.

4 Q. Well, let's at least go to February of 1991, shortly after those

5 elections when an effort was made to get a declaration of sovereignty

6 through the Bosnian Assembly by the SDA, which failed. And my source for

7 that, if you look at DB-1, page 71, the second -- the beginning of the

8 second full paragraph. And maybe you can slide that over to the ELMO so

9 the -- starts with the language "in February, and then again in May..."

10 Needs to be brought down and to the left just a tad.

11 MR. ACKERMAN: Has to be moved to page 71, and then up. Up.

12 There. "In February, and then again in May 1991, the SDA attempted to

13 push a declaration of sovereignty through the Bosnian Assembly. Both

14 resolutions failed."

15 Q. Do you see that?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. Do you have any reason to doubt the accuracy of that?

18 A. Well, in substance, no. Again, I'm not sure I would have put that

19 proposition in that manner, "push."

20 Q. All right. You might quarrel with the word "push." Is that what

21 you're saying?

22 A. Yes.

23 Q. All right. Now, this was apparently happening in the parliament,

24 the assembly, in February and May. In April of 1991, after the February

25 activity in the parliament and before that, in May, the community of

1 Bosnian Krajina Municipalities was formed, was it not?

2 A. In April, yes, April, May. Right.

3 Q. Yes. And that is Exhibit P69. And I'd like you to be furnished

4 that so you can just take a look at that, a little part of it I want you

5 to see.

6 If you look at Article 9, which is on page 3, this is a section

7 which deals with all-people's defence. "In the area of all-people's

8 defence and social self-protection in its territory, the community of

9 municipalities shall..." And then it sets out a number of things that the

10 community shall do. "In a time of war, threat of war, to organise the

11 all-people's defence in the territory of the community of municipalities.

12 To organise the all-people's defence in the community of municipalities

13 and to lead it. Talks about preparations, organisation, things like that,

14 of all-people's defence. This is a -- all-people's defence was basically

15 a municipality obligation in terms of administration and organisation up

16 to that point, wasn't it?

17 A. No, I don't think I would describe it that way.

18 Q. How would you describe it?

19 A. It was an obligation in a -- including a financial obligation, an

20 organisational obligation, which was in the responsibility of the

21 individual republics. And many of theses activities and responsibilities

22 were devolved to the municipalities. I would not say it was basically a

23 municipal function, though.

24 Q. But each of the municipalities had responsibilities regarding the

25 all-people's defence, the TO?

1 A. In the area of their municipalities, yes.

2 Q. And the community of municipalities that is formed here is just

3 making an effort to coordinate the responsibilities of the municipalities

4 regarding these issues, isn't it?

5 A. Again, you've said "just." I'm not sure what you mean by just.

6 Q. Leave out the words of just --

7 A. The text of the article purports to claim a role in that regard

8 that is set out in the article, certainly.

9 Q. Well, at page 5 of your report, you describe this community of

10 Bosnian Krajina Municipalities as having been formed by a number of

11 SDS-dominated municipalities in northwest Bosnia. That's your language,

12 isn't it?

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. Now, would you agree --

15 A. That's page 5 of the...?

16 Q. Page 5 of your report in this case.

17 A. The addendum.

18 Q. Well, there's some confusion about that because your original

19 report is called "the addendum." It's a report that you filed in this

20 case, you prepared for this case.

21 JUDGE AGIUS: It's called the addendum.

22 MR. ACKERMAN: It is, Your Honour, but so is his original report.

23 MS. SUTHERLAND: His original report is called the Bosnian Serb

24 leadership 1990-1993, dated the 30th of July, 2002.

25 MR. ACKERMAN: There's no purpose in this argument. When the

1 Prosecution submitted the original report, they called it an addendum to

2 their submission of the expert witness, and that's why I use the word

3 addendum because the Prosecution called it that.

4 MS. SUTHERLAND: The report is called an addendum because it's an

5 addendum to this report that I just referred to, which is Exhibit P2352

6 and the addendum is Exhibit P2353.

7 MR. ACKERMAN: It is a waste of time.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: Let's proceed. It's neither fish nor fowl. And

9 what's in a name anyway.

10 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, you're correct. As long as he knows

11 what we're talking about.

12 Q. Do you know which document we're talking about, Mr. Treanor?

13 A. Yes, and I've found page 5.

14 Q. And you've found the language I'm referring to?

15 A. Is it in paragraph E5?

16 Q. Yes, it is. It's about halfway through paragraph E5 where it says

17 "in the early months of 1991 following the multiparty elections and the

18 establishment of Municipal Assembly Assemblies dominated by one or another

19 of the nationally based parties, including the Serbian democratic party, a

20 number of SDS dominated municipalities in northwest Bosnia established the

21 community of the municipalities of the Bosnian Krajina."

22 A. Correct.

23 Q. Okay. Now, my question to you is that is not a completely

24 accurate statement, is it?

25 A. Well, if you'd like to call my attention to the -- some part you

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1 disagree with, I'd be willing to go into that.

2 Q. Well, I will. If you look at the list of municipalities that were

3 part of this agreement, you'll find, for instance, the municipality of

4 Kotor Varos; you'll find the municipality of Sanski Most. And I think

5 you'll agree that neither of those were SDS-dominated municipalities,

6 won't you?

7 A. Well, I don't have the figures or facts in front of me in regards

8 to those municipalities.

9 Q. Maybe I can help you just a little bit. And maybe not much, but

10 maybe a little bit. If you look at Exhibit P58, please.

11 THE INTERPRETER: Could Mr. Ackerman please slow down when he

12 reads the text. Thank you.

13 MR. ACKERMAN: Yes, I will.

14 Q. If you look at page 4, you'll see Kotor Varos, in 1991, at least

15 38 per cent of the people living there were Serbs. And about 59 and a

16 half per cent were Muslims and Croats. So I think it's possible to infer,

17 at least, that the municipality was not SDS-dominated. Do you agree with

18 that?

19 A. On that basis, yes.

20 Q. If we look at Sanski Most, and that's on page 8, at least in 1991

21 population was about 42 per cent Serb. And about 54 per cent Muslim and

22 Croat. So again, we might infer that that was not an SDS-dominated

23 municipality.

24 A. Yes, that would be a reasonable assumption on the basis of those

25 figures.

1 Q. Now, if we look now at Exhibit P2354 --

2 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. Ackerman, I'm sorry to interrupt you in the

3 course of your cross-examination. But while this document is being

4 checked by the witness, I am informed, and I did have some indication

5 before that as well, that before you tendered the first of today's

6 documents, Defence documents, DB-160, the last document that you had

7 tendered and was admitted before was DB-149. So there seems to be from

8 DB-150 to 159 unaccounted for.

9 MR. ACKERMAN: Yes, Your Honour. The --

10 JUDGE AGIUS: Are they going to be documents related to the

11 witness we should have had yesterday and the day before?

12 MR. ACKERMAN: No, but we will eventually fill those in. What

13 happened is we were trying to reach the Registrar, Chuqing, to try to get

14 what our last exhibit number was and we were unable to do so. Therefore,

15 as an abundance of caution, we decided to start with 160 and then fill in

16 whatever was missing later.

17 JUDGE AGIUS: We will retain --

18 MR. ACKERMAN: We won't change those, and we will try to those

19 numbers as we go along. We just weren't able to get that number

20 yesterday, and we had to make designations. So that's the explanation.

21 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. Thank you.

22 MR. ACKERMAN:

23 Q. We're now looking at P2354 -- do you still have P69 there with

24 you, too, the one we were just looking at? Because I think it might be

25 useful for you to look at those two together. I would like to point out

1 for the Chamber, sir, that Prijedor Municipality was not part of this

2 agreement on the formation of the community of Bosnian Krajina

3 Municipalities, was it?

4 A. Was Prijedor part -- I don't believe so, no.

5 Q. No.

6 A. The problem here, as with -- as is sometimes a problem elsewhere

7 is there are various documents that bear on the question of which

8 municipalities were, in fact, members of this community of municipalities.

9 Q. I think we're getting to what you're getting to rather rapidly.

10 That's why I'm asking you to look at 21. As Exhibit 2354, this is the

11 statute of that same association, isn't it?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. And if you compare the two in that original document, the

14 agreement on the formation, P69, there were 19 municipalities that were

15 part of that. When we get to the constitution, that number has dropped to

16 16. In neither of those is there a Prijedor. And in the second document,

17 P2354, the municipalities of Kotor Varos and Sanski Most are also no

18 longer involved. Correct?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. All right. I think that's what you were trying to point out.

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. All right.

23 A. Yes. I would point out in that regard that there are two versions

24 of the agreement to form the community which have different -- differ

25 between themselves as to which municipalities are involved. And then this

1 document basically includes the 16 municipalities that were common to the

2 two lists of municipalities in those documents.

3 Q. And what you just pointed out is not a completely unusual state of

4 affairs with the documents that have come out of former Yugoslavia.

5 Sometimes there are multiple versions of a document that differ, aren't

6 there?

7 A. That's correct.

8 Q. And I think as we go through some more documents here today or

9 tomorrow, we're going to see at least one or two more examples of that,

10 which makes drawing conclusions about some things rather difficult,

11 doesn't it?

12 A. That depends on the conclusion you want to draw.

13 Q. Well, I assume that the conclusion that you want to draw is always

14 the one most favourable to the accused since that's what the law would

15 require you to do.

16 A. I don't know that the law requires me to do anything other than

17 make my best effort to interpret these documents.

18 Q. Well, I take it that you do --

19 A. The issue --

20 Q. -- You do want the Court to see you here as an unbiased,

21 independent, expert witness, and not as a representative of the Office of

22 the Prosecutor, or would you rather be seen as an advocate of the Office

23 of the Prosecutor? Which of those would you prefer?

24 A. Well again, the terms that you put the issue in are not the terms

25 that I would use.

1 Q. What would you use?

2 A. I would say I am here to enlighten the Court and help in any way I

3 can to understand the documents that have been put before it.

4 Q. In that process, in your report, you arrive at a significant

5 number of conclusions based upon the documents that you've reviewed, don't

6 you?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. And when more than one conclusion is possible from a document, one

9 consistent with the Prosecutor's allegations in the indictment and one

10 inconsistent with it, don't you tend to always favour the conclusion that

11 supports the indictment?

12 A. I would not say that that is invariably correct. I think we

13 endeavour to make the best-founded conclusion.

14 Q. This document you have before you now, P2354, I'd like you to look

15 at Article 5 first, please. Article 5 provides that "the official

16 language of the association of municipalities organs shall be

17 Serbo-Croatian and Croato-Serbian using the Cyrillic or Latin alphabets."

18 Does that have any significance in your mind?

19 JUDGE AGIUS: Before you proceed, Mr. Ackerman, and before he

20 answers that question, because I think we need to clarify this, you

21 previously asked the witness "and when more than one conclusion is

22 possible from a document, one consistent with the Prosecutor's allegations

23 in the indictment and one inconsistent with it, don't you tend to always

24 favour the conclusion that supports the indictment?" And the witness

25 answered: "I would not say that that is invariably correct. I think we

1 endeavour to make the best-founded conclusion."

2 I think we need to clarify the position both as regards your

3 question and as regards his answer. He is a witness, for all intents and

4 purposes an expert appointed by the Prosecution. So I want to know from

5 the witness whether he feels that as a Prosecution expert witness, he has

6 any duties towards the Prosecution to present their case from a scientific

7 research point of view as a stronger case. And I want a clear-cut answer

8 from you, sir. For all intents and purposes, you are an ex parte

9 witness -- expert witness. You are not an independent expert appointed by

10 the Tribunal or by the Trial Chamber. You have been appointed by the

11 Prosecution and brought forward as a Prosecution witness, expert witness.

12 So in your report, did you take that into consideration? Did you feel it

13 was your duty to bring out all the evidence that would support the

14 Prosecution's case?

15 THE WITNESS: Let me back up a little bit to answer that. I can

16 say it is my professional obligation, be it to the Office of the

17 Prosecutor or be it to this Court, to objectively evaluate the documents

18 which are available to me and to draw the most reasonable conclusions from

19 those documents. I would not be serving the -- either the Office of the

20 Prosecutor or this Court well by telling the Prosecution what it wanted to

21 hear. My job is to, again, look at all available documents, endeavour to

22 collect documents which I believe would be helpful and are missing to us,

23 and to analyse and evaluate those documents objectively. The report was

24 written on that basis. Everything we write in my section is written on

25 that basis. And I conceive it as my duty to the Office of the Prosecutor

1 as well as to this Court to present an objective view of what the

2 documents say. To do anything else would not be serving either the

3 Prosecutor or the Court.

4 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. I'm happy with that answer, Mr. Treanor.

5 Thank you.

6 Mr. Ackerman, you may proceed.

7 MR. ACKERMAN: Thank you, Your Honour.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: And can we go back to the question that you asked

9 before.

10 MR. ACKERMAN: I'll just ask it again, Your Honour.

11 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes.

12 MR. ACKERMAN:

13 Q. We were looking at Article 5, Mr. Treanor.

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. And the question I asked you was: "Do you see any significance in

16 the language of Article 5"?

17 A. Well, I would say that Article 5 states the position on the use of

18 language that was current in the Socialist Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

19 Q. Right. And you know that the SDS position, at least as later

20 expressed, was that the only appropriate alphabet was Cyrillic?

21 A. I know they certainly made efforts in that direction, yes.

22 Q. Look also at Article 11. Article 11 provides at the very

23 beginning, the first sentence: "Each member municipality may leave the

24 association of municipalities."

25 To me this signifies that what we've got here is a voluntary

1 association, isn't it?

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. You can be a member, a municipality can be a member if it wishes;

4 it can not be a member if it wishes; it can come in and go back out at

5 will. There are some regulations on how you go about doing that, but it's

6 a voluntary association?

7 A. Yes.

8 Q. Right. And finally Article 16 deals with this same issue of

9 all-people's defence that we talked about a few moments ago. And what

10 this says is that: "The association of municipalities shall monitor the

11 situation and coordinate activities for the organisation and

12 implementation of preparations for all-people's defence in accordance with

13 the law, municipal defence plans, and the republican defence plan."

14 Right?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. And the republican defence plan it's referring to is that of the

17 Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. And this association was formed, if you look at the preamble,

20 pursuant to -- I think it's amendment 42, if I can read Roman numerals

21 properly, to the constitution of the Socialist Republic of

22 Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Article 4 of the agreement on uniting the

23 association of municipalities of 14 May 1991. Correct?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. So it was formed under the republican constitution of

1 Bosnia-Herzegovina.

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. All right. Not under the Serbian Republic or anything like that.

4 Correct?

5 A. Right.

6 Q. And a regional community like this that was formed under the

7 constitution of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, these were not

8 sociopolitical communities, were they?

9 A. The communities of municipalities, that is correct, they were not

10 what are termed in Yugoslavia political parlance, legal parlance, a

11 sociopolitical community.

12 Q. And in that legal parlance, could you tell the Chamber what is

13 meant by "sociopolitical community" or "sociopolitical" --

14 A. In my understanding, that term is used to denote what I would call

15 governmental units, beginning with the local communities, then the

16 municipalities, the republics themselves, and the federation, I suppose.

17 Q. In fact, the constitutional court of the Republic of

18 Bosnia-Herzegovina specifically ruled on 1 November 1991 that defence is

19 organised only by sociopolitical communities; that is, by the republican

20 municipalities, not by communities of municipalities because they lack

21 that characteristic. Correct?

22 A. Yes, I believe that's correct.

23 Q. All right.

24 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, it's a little bit early, but there's a

25 major break here and I think it might make sense to take the break now

1 rather than later.

2 JUDGE AGIUS: No problem at all, Mr. Ackerman. We'll have a break

3 of 25 minutes, resuming at quarter to 11.00. Quarter to 11.00. Thank you

4 --- Recess taken at 10.21 a.m.

5 --- On resuming at 10.51 a.m.

6 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. Ackerman, you may proceed. But before you

7 do so, I noticed that in the schedule that you handed to us this morning,

8 there's a reference to the cross-examination of the witness we should have

9 cross-examined yesterday and the day before.

10 MR. ACKERMAN: Yes.

11 JUDGE AGIUS: And that's scheduled for the -- starting 3rd of

12 November. Is that in agreement with the Prosecution, or is it just a

13 suggestion on your part?

14 MR. ACKERMAN: It's mostly what will work best for us,

15 Your Honour. The Prosecution would like to have him here a little

16 earlier. But we've already made some significant arrangements regarding

17 these first few witnesses. So we prefer to do it that way.

18 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. Nicholls.

19 MR. NICHOLLS: That's correct, Your Honour. I've spoken with

20 Mr. Ackerman, said we would prefer to do that sooner rather than later and

21 finish off that witness. But we don't object to that date if Mr. Ackerman

22 tells us that it's the only real way he can do it.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: But you want to take both of you to come back to

24 this later on once you have decided -- taken a decision as to when that

25 gentleman is coming over to be cross-examined?

1 MR. ACKERMAN: I think we're both comfortable with leaving it

2 where it is at this point, Your Honour, if it's okay with the Court.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: It is okay with the Court. I just wanted to know

4 whether it's just an initiative on your part.

5 So let's proceed with Mr. Treanor. Mr. Ackerman, go ahead.

6 MR. ACKERMAN: Thank you, Your Honour.

7 Q. Mr. Treanor, we had been talking before the break about the

8 association of municipalities of Bosanska Krajina, what has been referred

9 to many times in this case as ZOBK. We were looking at the statute of

10 14 May 1991. About four months later, 16 September 1991, this association

11 transformed itself into the Autonomous Region of Krajina. Correct?

12 A. That's correct.

13 Q. Let's look at Exhibit P81, please. Now, we're in September of

14 1991. This is before the October events in the republican assembly

15 regarding the question of independence, when the Serbs walked out of the

16 assembly and there was a vote. Correct?

17 A. This is before October 1991, yes.

18 Q. Okay. I guess that was a fairly obvious question, wasn't it?

19 The word "autonomous," you see it in the first page there under

20 the title "decision," "on the proclamation of the Autonomous Region of

21 Krajina." That was a deliberately used word, wasn't it?

22 A. Well, I presume that they deliberately chose that word.

23 Q. If you look at Articles 8 and 9, one might get a clue as to why

24 the word "autonomous" was chosen. Article 8 reads: "If the

25 constitutional/legal position of BH in federal state of Yugoslavia

1 changes, the assembly of the Autonomous Region of Krajina will decide to

2 form a separate republic on its own or together with other republics,

3 which would become a federal republic and a part of the federal state of

4 Yugoslavia."

5 They then say they're going to send this decision, the one we're

6 reading, to the assembly of Bosnia-Herzegovina for adoption, and that if

7 it fails to be adopted by the Assembly of the Socialist Republic of

8 Bosnia-Herzegovina, a decision for separation would then be submitted to

9 the association for adoption, doesn't it?

10 A. Yes.

11 JUDGE AGIUS: To add to it, I would refer the witness to the

12 preamble which is very clear in the terminology used there, it says:

13 "Precisely pursuant to every nation's right to self-determination," so

14 we're talking of an Autonomous Region of Krajina, referring to "every

15 nation's right to self-determination, including the right to secession,

16 based upon its freely expressed will and in accordance with its historical

17 aspirations to live united in the federal state of the federative

18 Yugoslavia," which is implying -- that's it. And then it's the decision.

19 So you have the macrocosm becoming the microcosm or vice versa.

20 MR. ACKERMAN:

21 Q. So what's going on here is basically the beginning of a separatist

22 movement basically, that if you don't adopt what we're suggesting here,

23 then, you know, we're going to create our own republic, the republic of

24 whatever, Bosanska Krajina or whatever you want to call it. Right?

25 A. I would describe this as an important step in a secessionist

1 movement.

2 Q. And that secessionist movement is based upon the proposition that

3 there is a movement by the SDA to create an independent state of

4 Bosnia-Herzegovina. Right?

5 A. Well, it doesn't say that here.

6 Q. But that was the underlying political reality, wasn't it?

7 A. Well, let me say, my understanding of the underlying political

8 reality which -- based on the documents which I have read, first of all,

9 that a context which you provided going to the future about this decision,

10 but going a little bit into the past, it's useful to recall that the

11 Republics of Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence at the end

12 of June 1991, and that hostilities in those republics began shortly

13 thereafter. And in the case of Croatia, continued at least through the

14 end of and probably after the end of the year. So that the political

15 situation within Yugoslavia as a whole had drastically changed.

16 Prior to that time, there may have been hope and effort, indeed

17 there were efforts to keep the whole country together. This was

18 undermined by the events I just described. And I believe it's correct to

19 say that the Croatian democratic community, that is the Croatian-based

20 political party in Bosnia and Herzegovina was no longer interested in

21 having Bosnia-Herzegovina remain within Yugoslavia, but rather were

22 interested in some sort of association with Croatia, which had declared

23 itself independent. And that this situation impacted on the position of

24 the SDA as well in a similar direction.

25 Q. Well, yeah, and as long as you've decided to talk about those

1 events, especially the events that happened in Slovenia and Croatia and

2 the hostilities that broke out there, that was all for the citizens of

3 Bosnia-Herzegovina, not just the Serbs, but all the citizens, that was a

4 fairly anxiety producing series of events, wasn't it?

5 A. I think that is correct.

6 Q. Yes. Keep that document that you have, and I'd ask that you now

7 be given P80, because this is another one of those sort of curious things

8 that we were talking about earlier. The first document, the P81 that we

9 have been talking about, is dated 16 September 1991. And then immediately

10 on the same day, there seems to have been adopted a statute of the

11 Autonomous Region of Krajina. I think you expressed the opinion at some

12 point that it's unlikely that both of those things happened on the same

13 day, didn't you?

14 A. I'm not sure I expressed that opinion. I think that the date of

15 the adoption of the statute is a little fuzzy, though.

16 Q. In any event, there is a statute that was adopted, isn't there?

17 And that's Exhibit P80.

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. Now, Prijedor Municipality is still not involved, if you look at

20 Article 1 of the statute of the Autonomous Region of Krajina. Right?

21 A. That's correct. There's no mention of Prijedor here. I only have

22 the translation in front of me, I don't have the original. But on the

23 basis of the translation, yes, Prijedor is not mentioned.

24 Q. If you look at the preamble, again, this statute is based on the

25 authority of that same amendment, 42, to the constitution of the Socialist

1 Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina?

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. Article 1 says that these municipalities that are listed there

4 have united on the basis of voluntariness, solidarity, equality, and for

5 the purpose of effecting permanent cooperation, harmonisation of

6 development plans, and the realisation of other common interests.

7 A. That is correct.

8 Q. The language in my translation is a little different from that we

9 see on the screen, which probably is a more recent translation. But in

10 any event, that's the basic idea. Correct?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. If we look at Article 4, Article 4 reads: "In performing tasks

13 within the jurisdiction of the Autonomous Region of Krajina, all peoples

14 and nationalities in the Autonomous Region of Krajina shall have equal

15 rights and duties, without distinction as to race, sex, birth, language,

16 nationality, religion, political or other beliefs, education, social

17 background, wealth, and any other personal qualities." True?

18 A. Yes, that's correct.

19 Q. And again, we're talking about a voluntary association of

20 municipalities, aren't we?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. Also, in Article 5, there's that same expression regarding

23 language, the official language of the Autonomous Region of Krajina shall

24 be either Serbo-Croatian or Croato-Serbian using the Cyrillic or Latin

25 alphabets.

1 A. Yes, that's correct.

2 Q. That's identical to the language that was in the ZOBK document

3 that we looked at earlier, I think.

4 A. Yes. Those two documents, that is, this statute and the other

5 statute, are almost identical.

6 Q. If you look at Article 11, right there at the top of the page, the

7 same language again: "Each member municipality may leave the Autonomous

8 Region of Krajina." In other words, they can separate from this voluntary

9 association. There are some regulations as to how they go about doing

10 that. But again, it's the same kind of languages as in the ZOBK document.

11 Correct?

12 A. Yes, that's correct.

13 Q. I want to look now at Article 35. And I think if nothing else,

14 this highlights the completely voluntary nature of this association. If

15 you look at the second paragraph of Article 35: "Decisions and

16 conclusions of the Assembly shall become binding for the member

17 municipalities once they have been approved by the assemblies of

18 municipalities."

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. In other words, the decisions and conclusions of the ARK assembly

21 were only binding on municipalities once their own assemblies accepted

22 them.

23 A. Yes, that's correct.

24 Q. All right. We're going to go now to the 14th and 15th of October

25 of 1991. This was a day of what I'm calling a showdown in the assembly of

1 Bosnia-Herzegovina. And I think the Chamber is aware of some fairly

2 well-known speeches made that day by Mr. Karadzic and Mr. Izetbegovic.

3 And you know what I'm talking about, don't you?

4 A. Yes, indeed. The session of the assembly --

5 Q. Right.

6 A. -- Of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina took place on

7 that day. I believe it had begun a couple of days earlier, in fact. It

8 may have stretched into the 15th.

9 Q. It did, indeed. I think they were in session for hours. There's

10 a description of it, and I'm not going to refer to it, language. But

11 there's a description of it on page 77 of this DB-1, of that meeting. But

12 I think for the purposes of our discussion this morning, what happened was

13 the Muslims and -- the Serbs abandoned the assembly, the Muslims and

14 Croats convened a rump session of the assembly and adopted a declaration

15 of sovereignty by a majority vote.

16 A. Well, in general terms, yes. Again, I wouldn't use quite that

17 language to describe what happened.

18 Q. And in any event, the issue then of sovereignty passed by this

19 rump session of the assembly without participation of the Serbs then

20 prompted a request by the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina to the European

21 community for recognition as an independent state? And that went off to a

22 commission called the Badinter Commission. Right?

23 A. In general terms, yes.

24 Q. Could you explain for the Chamber what was the Badinter

25 Commission, just so we have that in the record if it's not already there.

1 A. If I recollect correctly, the Commission was set up by the

2 European Community, as it was at that time, to review the situation in the

3 former Yugoslavia, in particular, the individual republics in connection

4 with their movements toward independence and to make recommendations to

5 those republics and to the European Community as a whole, the government

6 of the European Community in connection with, if I may put it, application

7 for independence, recognition of independence.

8 Q. Application for recognition of independence. After this showdown

9 of the 14th and the 15th of October in the assembly, the Serbs then

10 decided to hold a plebiscite of the Serbian people to try to accurately

11 determine the will of the Serbian people regarding this issue of

12 independence. Did they want to be part of an independent nation, or did

13 they want to remain part of Yugoslavia? And this plebiscite was held on

14 the 9th and 10th of November, wasn't it?

15 A. I believe that's correct. I would have thought it was the 10th

16 and the 11th, but maybe you're right.

17 Q. And you might be right. I think it's the 9th and 10th, though.

18 Let's look at -- I hope I have it. I may not have it. We're going to

19 look at this document, we're going to have to look at it tomorrow because

20 I think I neglected to bring it. There's a report written by the

21 Commission of Experts that details this plebiscite. And according to that

22 report, on page 24, there was about an 85 per cent turnout of eligible

23 voters; 95 per cent of whom voted in favour of remaining within the

24 Federal State of Yugoslavia. Does that square with your knowledge

25 about --

1 A. That sounds about right.

2 Q. I want to look then -- now, after that plebiscite, then, and after

3 that vote and after -- we'll look at DB-161, and then I'll ask you some

4 more questions about it.

5 Now, DB-161 is the opinion on international recognition of the

6 socialist republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina by the European Community and its

7 member states issued in Paris on 11 January, 1992. First of all, it

8 states that on 20 November, 1991, a letter was written to the president of

9 the council of European Communities by the minister of foreign affairs of

10 the Socialist Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina asking the member states of

11 the European Community to recognise Bosnia-Herzegovina as an independent

12 state. Correct?

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. And then there's a lot of language about that process. And we

15 finally get over to the third page, paragraphs 3 and 4. About halfway

16 down in paragraph 3, the following language appears: "Outside the

17 institutional framework of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina on

18 10 November 1991, the Serbian people of Bosnia-Herzegovina voted in a

19 plebiscite for a common Yugoslav state. On 21 December 1991, an assembly

20 of the Serbian people of Bosnia-Herzegovina passed a resolution calling

21 for the formation of a Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in a

22 federal Yugoslav state if the Muslim and Croat communities of Bosnia and

23 Herzegovina decided to change their attitude towards Yugoslavia. On 9

24 January 1992, this Assembly proclaimed the independent of a Serbian

25 Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina."

1 And then this, paragraph 4: "In these circumstances, the

2 arbitration commission is of the opinion that the will of the peoples of

3 Bosnia and Herzegovina to constitute the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and

4 Herzegovina as a sovereign and independent state cannot be held to have

5 been fully established.

6 "This assessment could be reviewed if appropriate guarantees were

7 provided by the Republic applying for recognition, possibly by means of a

8 referendum of all the citizens of the Socialist Republic of

9 Bosnia-Herzegovina without distinction, carried out under international

10 supervision."

11 Now, it appears that what the Badinter Commission is telling the

12 Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina is "we can't approve your application

13 for independence when one of your constituent nations, the Serbian people,

14 appear to be completely opposed to it. So maybe what you can do is hold a

15 referendum and show us that all of the citizens, without distinction,

16 would be in favour of this application." That's a fair reading of that,

17 isn't it?

18 A. Yes, indeed.

19 Q. This referendum was then, in fact, held on 29 February and 1 March

20 of 1992, wasn't it?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. And in that referendum, 63.4 per cent of the electorate voted, 99

23 per cent of them in favour of independence?

24 A. I'll certainly take your word on that.

25 Q. And this referendum was openly boycotted by at least large

1 numbers, if not somewhere around 95 per cent of the Serbs, very small

2 number of Serbs voted in other words.

3 A. That's correct. The SDS in fact ordered Serbs not to vote.

4 Q. Yes. Would you agree that if the fact of that earlier plebiscite

5 and the expressed will of the Serbian people in that earlier plebiscite

6 was sufficient to convince the Badinter Commission that the will of the

7 people of Bosnia-Herzegovina had not been appropriately expressed in

8 favour of independence, that it made some sense that a complete boycott of

9 the referendum by one of these constituent peoples would underscore that

10 lack of will and perhaps make it even clearer to the Badinter Commission

11 that one of the constituent peoples was very opposed to that proposition?

12 A. I would have thought that that is the conclusion that they would

13 draw, that one of the peoples was opposed to that, yes.

14 Q. And this was done in a context that those of us from the outside

15 may not have a full appreciation of. This was done in a context of a

16 country that since World War II, and the government of Tito, had been

17 very - what's the best way to put this? - the rights of these constituent

18 people, the rights of these minority ethnicities had been very heavily

19 protected and heavily secured throughout this whole period so that one of

20 the constituent peoples, if one of the constituent peoples objected to

21 something that was going on in that country and in the assemblies and in

22 the SFRY or in one of the republics, that certain things simply couldn't

23 happen over their objection. There was the kljuc system, there were

24 provisions in the constitution, everything else --

25 A. I certainly agree that there was very heavy emphasis in the

1 communist period on the existence of the nations and nationalities and

2 their rights, et cetera, et cetera. However, there was no mechanism by

3 which those - let's just stick to the nations - per se could express their

4 will or view on any matter. The only way that that could happen was

5 through the people -- the officials, deputies in the assembly, government

6 officials, members of the presidency, et cetera, who happened to be

7 members of those nationalities, as you mentioned, the key, the kljuc,

8 which was a mechanism to guarantee that each nation or nationality had

9 adequate representation within the various organs of government. But it

10 was only through those organs that they could express their will -- or a

11 political will could be expressed at all. The system did not have a

12 mechanism that permitted the nations per se to express their will

13 independently of the existing organs.

14 Q. Yeah, except there was -- because of the way the system was

15 designed, it was designed to prevent, say, the Serbs and the Croats from

16 getting together and ganging up on the Muslims and taking away their

17 rights or any of the groups to get together and attack a minority and take

18 away the rights of that minority. I mean, that really was how that

19 process was designed, the government was designed, wasn't it?

20 A. We're going a little far afield here. I think in general terms,

21 that's certainly one of the purposes. I think the main purpose of the

22 system was to guarantee the continuous power of the communists.

23 Q. Did you know that in July 1990, an amendment, there was an

24 amendment adopted to the constitution of Bosnia-Herzegovina which created

25 a council -- it has a horrible name. A Council for questions of the

1 establishment of equality of the nations and nationalities of

2 Bosnia-Herzegovina. Are you aware of that?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. And this council was designed to consistent of an equal number of

5 Croats, Serbs, and Muslims, wasn't it?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. And by its provisions of this amendment, if 20 deputies to the

8 assembly considered that an act of the assembly undermined the equality of

9 nations, then it would be sent off to this body for consideration. And

10 then this council could propose that for the act to be adopted, a

11 two-thirds majority would be necessary.

12 A. Correct.

13 Q. And this was simply a continued recognition of the necessity of

14 protecting the rights of the constituent peoples, the minority peoples.

15 A. Yes. And it sought to provide the mechanism which I mentioned

16 earlier was lacking in the previous system.

17 Q. And if we -- the previous system, I guess the reason for that was

18 the previous system didn't have these multiple parties that we wound up

19 with by this time?

20 A. Right. It was not a multiparty system.

21 Q. During those debates that we were talking about on the 14th and

22 15th of October on the independence resolutions in the republic assembly,

23 Serbs requested that that issue be referred to this council that you and I

24 have just been discussing, and the Muslim/Croat representatives voted

25 against that and prevented it from being sent off to this council on the

1 grounds that the council had not yet been constituted.

2 A. Yes, right.

3 Q. All right. I'm going to switch to another document now. This is

4 a document that we've heard a lot about in this case. It's P25, Exhibit

5 P25. And we refer to it generically as the "variant A and B document."

6 Now, at this point, the independence issue has passed the assembly

7 and has been sent off to the European Community requesting recognition.

8 There has been the plebiscite of the Serbian people. But it's still 1991.

9 It's 19 December of 1991. Correct?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. And we know that that letter that we referred to that was sent off

12 to the European Community requesting recognition was done clearly against

13 the will of the Serb people of Bosnia-Herzegovina which was pretty clearly

14 expressed. Right?

15 A. Well, yes, it was clearly against the will of the Serbian

16 democratic party, and the will of the Serbian people as expressed at that

17 plebiscite.

18 Q. Yes.

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. Let's look at the first page now of this variant A/B document.

21 First of all, I think it's important that we keep in mind that what they

22 are called is "instructions." And then you look at this first paragraph,

23 there, number 1 "these instructions have been prepared because of a

24 justifiable suspicion that certain forces are operating in a persistent,

25 thorough, and organised manner toward the forcible removal of

1 Bosnia-Herzegovina and thereby the Serbian people from Yugoslavia. The

2 instructions elaborate uniform tasks, measures, and activities..." And

3 remember "tasks, measures, and activities" because I think that's also

4 important. "... which will be carried out within the national community

5 of the Serbian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina for the purpose of

6 carrying out the results of the plebiscite at which the Serbian people in

7 Bosnia and Herzegovina decided to live in a single state both under the

8 existing conditions and circumstances and all such conditions that may

9 arise given the current political and security developments".

10 Number two: "The tasks, measures, and activities that are laid

11 out in these instructions will be carried out in order to increase

12 mobility and readiness for the defence of the interests of the Serbian

13 people."

14 So we're speaking about the things that are contained in the rest

15 of this document, as tasks, measures, and activities, that will be carried

16 out at some point. Correct?

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. Now, back to that page 5 of your report, in paragraph E6, you make

19 this statement, first sentence: "Beginning in December 1991, the SDS

20 ordered the establishment of bodies known as Crisis Staffs in all

21 municipalities in which Bosnian Serbs lived."

22 That's what you told this Court, this Chamber, in your report.

23 Correct?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. And would I be correct in the assumption that when you wrote this

1 sentence, that you were referring to this document we have now before us,

2 this variant A/B document?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. And more specifically, referring to page 3, paragraph 3, and the

5 page 6, paragraph 3 of the document which says "the SDS municipal board

6 will immediately form a Crisis Staff of the Serbian people in the

7 municipality comprised of the following..."

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. Thank you.

10 That's one of the tasks that page 2 refers to when it talks about

11 tasks, measures, and activities, isn't it?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. One of the tasks being to form a Crisis Staff of the Serbian

14 people. Yes?

15 A. Right.

16 Q. I want you to look now at the very last page of this document.

17 And it's a bit ambiguous. But paragraph 3 and 4 at the bottom read as

18 follows: "The order to carry out the specified tasks, measures, and other

19 activities in these instructions is given exclusively by the BH SDS

20 president using a secret, pre-established procedure."

21 And then number 4: "The secret procedure for transmitting and

22 accepting the order to carry out the tasks, measures, and other activities

23 specified in these instructions shall be established at a future time."

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. Are you aware of any order from Karadzic which ordered the

1 carrying out of any of the tasks, measures, and activities contained in

2 this document?

3 A. Well, to answer that question, I think I'd have to go beyond --

4 may have to go beyond the documentation which is adduced in those reports.

5 I think there is reference in the report - and by the report, I mean what

6 I call the first report, not the addendum --

7 Q. In this document, what --

8 A. I'm sorry, let me complete the answer.

9 Q. Go ahead.

10 A. -- that there was in fact a meeting of SDS officials, I believe it

11 was the day after the date this document refers. I believe it was the day

12 after the date that this document bears, the 20th, perhaps the 21st of

13 December. One of the large-type meetings that Karadzic was wont to call

14 at which this document was distributed. There's a reference of that

15 meeting in the diary of Karadzic's chef du cabinet. What went on at the

16 meeting per se is not documented.

17 On the 14th of February, there was another large meeting which was

18 alluded to in my testimony, and at that meeting there was a speech given

19 by Karadzic in which he referred to implementing the second degree of the

20 instructions. Now, I put that together with the fact that we have

21 documentation indicating that Crisis Staffs -- documentation and other

22 evidence indicating that Crisis Staffs - some Crisis Staffs - were, in

23 fact, formed during the period between the 19th of December and indeed the

24 14th of February. I put these facts together to draw the conclusion that

25 at some point in time after the 19th of December and before the 14th of

1 February, the local -- the municipal SDS officials were, in fact,

2 instructed -- believe they had been instructed, at least, to form Crisis

3 Staffs.

4 Q. Well --

5 A. What the secret procedure is, I don't know.

6 Q. There's nowhere in this document that there's anything called the

7 second degree, is there?

8 A. Well --

9 Q. I mean, that language doesn't appear in here.

10 A. It occurs in two places, if I can peruse the translation. I can

11 see why you're puzzled.

12 Under II, discussion of variant A, in the Serbo-Croatian, the next

13 following line has the words which I would translate as "first degree."

14 Stepen.

15 Q. Give me the words.

16 A. Prva stepen. It's translated here as first stage. An alternate

17 translation of that word would be degree. We then see --

18 Q. -- the question becomes. I'll accept that from you. You don't

19 have to go show me any more. The question becomes that you were talking

20 about a speech made by Karadzic?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. In which you say that Karadzic said something about the second

23 degree.

24 A. Yes. And notes made by participants at that meeting used the same

25 used.

1 Q. What I'm interested in is the word that Karadzic used at that

2 time. Did he use that word "stepen"?

3 A. I believe so. I can't call the passage to mind. I do know that

4 in notes of participants that they made later, they do use that word.

5 They adduced those --

6 Q. Do you have it there?

7 A. No. We can get the speech.

8 Q. That's now another task that I'll ask you to try to perform before

9 tomorrow. I think it would be interesting to use the word stepen.

10 JUDGE AGIUS: I don't think we need to postpone it until tomorrow.

11 Can I ask Mr. Nicholls or Ms. Sutherland to try and find it, locate it,

12 please now.

13 MR. ACKERMAN:

14 Q. While we're looking for that, let me have another look at another

15 document --

16 JUDGE AGIUS: You should have it handy. We have it in both

17 languages, both in English and in B/C/S, Ms. Sutherland. I think -- I

18 don't know who would have it handy

19 MS. SUTHERLAND: Yes, Your Honour, I'm just trying to find it now.

20 MR. ACKERMAN: While we're doing that, can we look at DB-162.

21 Q. And the part of this document that I'm interested in is on page

22 23. Now, this is the 14th session of the Assembly of the Serbian people

23 in Bosnia and Herzegovina of 27 March of 1992, three months after this

24 variant A/B document was leased which you say ordered the establishment of

25 Crisis Staffs in all the municipalities.

1 Three months later, here's Karadzic speaking at the assembly. If

2 you look near the bottom of page 23: "When you return to your

3 municipalities, especially the newly formed municipalities, I ask you to

4 do what you're entitled under the law. The moment you arrive in your

5 municipalities, you must urgently establish Crisis Staffs." Right?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. Now, if he ordered them to do that in December of 1991, why on

8 earth is he in March of 1992 telling them to go home and establish Crisis

9 Staffs? That makes no sense, unless he ignored his earlier order, or if

10 it wasn't an order. I mean, which is which here?

11 A. I mean, I can only draw an inference, and I can understand why

12 you're puzzled. My inference would be that in fact not all

13 municipalities, not all SDS municipal organisations had formed Crisis

14 Staffs, and that he was urging them to get going.

15 Q. But you told this Chamber in your report, the SDS ordered the

16 establishment of bodies known as Crisis Staffs in all municipalities in

17 December 1991. And you told us that variant A/B is an order to establish

18 Crisis Staffs. And what I'm suggesting to you, it isn't that at all.

19 It's a document saying that here's some things we will do in the future

20 when I decide to do them and let you know secretly to implement them. I

21 think that's what that document is. And this, I think, confirms that.

22 It's not until Martha Karadzic says, okay, go off and form Crisis Staffs.

23 A. Well, it's because of the intervening facts that I mentioned

24 earlier that I would interpret this differently, that I mentioned the fact

25 that Crisis Staffs had been created in certain areas before this. This

1 indicates to me that they had not been formed in all municipalities. It's

2 correct he had given an order, but the order hadn't been carried out.

3 Q. So your position is that people were ignoring Karadzic,

4 municipalities were ignoring Karadzic, not --

5 A. My position is, yes, it looks like in this case that his order was

6 not carried out, had not been carried out.

7 Q. So there was no -- this was no tight SDS organisation, enterprise,

8 marching in lockstep, everything doing what they were ordered too? Of

9 course people were ignoring the orders of Karadzic at their will with no

10 apparent punishment for doing so? If it's your position that he told them

11 in December 1991 to form Crisis Staffs and they didn't do so, then they

12 were just free to ignore him?

13 A. On the basis of this, I would certainly conclude that in some

14 municipalities, and I don't know how many, Crisis Staffs had not been

15 formed. To make a sweeping generalisation of that nature on the basis of

16 this, I think, may be going too far. However, if we look at other

17 evidence, I think it is certainly true that Karadzic had to do a lot of

18 cajoling - if I may use that word - a lot of talking to get people to

19 carry out various instructions. He put a lot of energy into doing that.

20 And he would intervene in certain cases, move people, that sort of thing.

21 He had a hard job.

22 Q. He was ignored a lot, wasn't he? I mean I've got some more

23 examples we'll see today.

24 A. Well, "a lot," statistically, I don't know. But it's certainly

25 true that he had to intervene in many cases to see that previous

1 instructions had been carried out.

2 Q. It would certainly be very hard to conclude that the SDS was some

3 sort of organisation operating in clockwork fashion, everybody carrying

4 out orders and doing what they were being told to do, wouldn't it?

5 A. Yes, I would not describe it in that fashion. It was an

6 organisation of like-minded individuals who had their own interests,

7 competencies, and this, that, and the other thing.

8 Q. Apparently not like-minded, because what one of them wanted done,

9 the others ones weren't doing. One of the leaders wanted Crisis Staffs in

10 December 1991, according to you, and several of them, the followers, said,

11 "no." And so he had to tell them as late as March 1992, he had to go and

12 tell them again: Go home and create Crisis Staffs. Come on, I'm getting

13 tired of this.

14 A. Not to enter into a polemic on this issue since it's an

15 interpretive matter. There are other reasons, incompetence to lack of

16 energy and what not as to why things weren't done.

17 Q. All right. Let's go back to this variant A/B document.

18 I want you to go back and just revisit those two paragraphs at the

19 end, paragraphs 3 and 4. And keep in mind where we are in chronological

20 order here, we are in between the October activities in the assembly and

21 the letter that was sent by the government to the European Community

22 requesting recognition of independence. We are in between those incidents

23 and the decision of the Badinter Commission saying "no, we don't believe

24 that there is sufficient indication of the will of the people to agree to

25 grant independence at the present time." We're between those events with

1 this document, aren't we?

2 A. Yes.

3 Q. Let me suggest this to you, let me suggest to you that this

4 document was created as a basis for a possible reaction in the event

5 independence was granted by the European Community, that it was never

6 intended to have any effect on December 19th, 1991, and that's why

7 paragraphs 3 and 4 are there. These are things that will be done if

8 certain other things happen. And if I want any of those things carried

9 out, then I, as President of SDS, will secretly advise you by a procedure

10 that will be set up in the future. In other words, this document orders

11 nothing. It's just a blueprint for what might have to be done if

12 independence is granted, a preparatory document. Doesn't that make more

13 sense?

14 A. That's certainly one interpretation. But again, I take the

15 document together with other events that occurred at that time, most

16 notably the meeting of the SDS leadership the day after the issue -- the

17 document is dated. And the fact that Crisis Staffs in some areas, at

18 least, and again, we don't have complete documentation on every area as to

19 when Crisis Staffs were established, as evidence that the instruction

20 where is carried out. They are called instructions. Whether you want to

21 characterise this as an order or not is, in my opinion, a semantic issue.

22 I mean, they provided the instructions, the guidelines, and apparently

23 within a day or two of the instructions being drawn up, they were

24 distributed to the local and other SDS leaders and told to get going.

25 Q. Now, you don't have any evidence for the told to get going part at

1 all?

2 A. Well, Crisis Staffs were established.

3 Q. You have no evidence that they were told to get going. The

4 document speaks for itself. I mean, anybody-- if this was distributed to

5 somebody, they should read paragraphs 3 and 4, and give them meaning,

6 shouldn't they?

7 A. Yes, as I say, there was a meeting where this was distributed, and

8 after that meeting, Crisis Staffs were established.

9 Q. I mean, that's -- if you were to say publicly tomorrow "I think

10 Yasar Arafat ought to get out of Palestine," and three days later he

11 leaves Palestine, I take it you wouldn't take credit for him leaving?

12 A. We're not getting into that analogy now.

13 Q. You're making a linkage here --

14 A. Charges --

15 JUDGE AGIUS: Don't answer that question, Mr. Treanor. Because it

16 captious one.

17 MR. ACKERMAN:

18 Q. I mean you can't conclude because someone makes a statement and

19 then something follows from that statement that it was the result of the

20 statement unless you have some evidence to show that. You don't have any

21 evidence that anybody created a Crisis Staff because of this document, do

22 you?

23 MS. SUTHERLAND: Your Honour, I think Mr. Treanor has already

24 answered this question.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: Pardon?

1 I will allow it. Answer it once for all and, Mr. Treanor, and

2 let's move forward.

3 THE WITNESS: There are references in later documentation to this

4 instruction which would make it appear that this instruction was being

5 followed. As to when precisely the incident in time was that these

6 instructions were carried out, to use the term here, when the order was

7 given, in terms of paragraph 3, the order was given, I don't have a

8 document that shows that. But we know that there was a meeting within a

9 day or two of the instructions being drawn up, the instructions were

10 distributed. And very shortly thereafter, we see the creation of Crisis

11 Staffs in certain areas, and we see references to the instructions being

12 made in various contexts, including the 14 February speech, et cetera. So

13 in my conclusion, based on all those facts, and there may be other

14 evidence that I'm unaware of, is that Crisis Staffs were set up on the

15 basis of these instructions.

16 MR. ACKERMAN:

17 Q. Well, we're going to explore that. You used some language. I'm

18 going to quote it exactly. "There are references in later documentation

19 to this instruction which would make it appear that this instruction was

20 being followed."

21 I worry about language like "make it appear" when we are operating

22 in a forum where there must be proof beyond a reasonable doubt. I think

23 appearances don't meet that standard. Don't you?

24 A. I really can't answer that question.

25 Q. Paragraph 4: "The secret procedure for transmitting and accepting

1 the order to carry out the tasks, measures, and other activities specified

2 in these instructions shall be established at a future time."

3 Do you know of any evidence that would indicate, that would prove,

4 that that procedure was ever established?

5 A. No.

6 Q. Now, you believe, because Crisis Staffs were established, that it

7 must have been because of this document, at least that's the conclusion

8 you draw. Let's test that a little bit. Go back to page 6, paragraph 3.

9 "The SDS municipal board will immediately form a Crisis Staff of the

10 Serbian people in the municipality..." And then it talks about who shall

11 be part of that Crisis Staff.

12 All members of the SDS municipal board secretariat. All

13 executive officials in the municipality, SDS candidates and all municipal

14 bodies. Representatives in the assembly of the Serbian people of BH.

15 Members of the BH SDS main board from that municipality. So it says "set

16 up the Crisis Staff. These will be the members." Do you know of a

17 Crisis Staff that was set up in any municipality that had the membership

18 set out in that manner? Do you know of one?

19 A. Set out in those terms?

20 Q. Yes.

21 A. No, I'm not aware of any documents that would do that.

22 Q. All right. Let's look at the next sentence?

23 THE INTERPRETER: Could Mr. Ackerman please speak into the

24 microphone and read more slowly. Thank you.

25 MR. ACKERMAN:

1 Q. -- To be the commander, the commander of the Crisis Staff. Now,

2 other than Gojko Klickovic up in Krupa, do you know of anyone else who

3 called himself commander of the Crisis Staff in any municipality?

4 A. No, not offhand, no. I was just checking the original language to

5 make sure it was the word that appears in the document.

6 Q. Look then at the next paragraph: "The commander appoints a member

7 of the Crisis Staff as coordinator of relations with the municipal

8 leadership of the SDA and the HDZ." In any of these Crisis Staffs which

9 you say were created as a result of this instruction, was there a

10 coordinator relations with SDA and HDZ that you're aware of?

11 A. I'm certainly aware that there were negotiations that were carried

12 out between the SDS and those parties in the municipalities, whether the

13 person conducting negotiations had that title I don't know in any

14 particular case.

15 Q. That was my question. Are you aware of any Crisis Staff where

16 the commander appointed one of its members as coordinator of relations

17 with the municipal leadership of the SDA and the HDZ?

18 A. I'm not aware of that.

19 Q. So I take it it has to be your position then that Crisis Staffs

20 were created in accordance with this language of this document, but they

21 ignored everything but creating a Crisis Staff. There were other parts of

22 it they didn't implement at all. They didn't have commanders, they didn't

23 have the right membership they didn't have coordinated relations with SDA

24 and HDZ. They ignored everybody but the order to create a Crisis Staff.

25 Is that your position?

1 A. I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't say that, that they ignored

2 everything. The membership of the Crisis Staffs in so far as they have

3 been able to determined in various cases and various ways in general

4 include the category of people that is mentioned in paragraph 3.

5 Q. Well, you told us at the beginning of your testimony earlier today

6 that what you really wanted to do here as a witness was look at the

7 available evidence, look at all the documentation you had, and give the

8 Court the conclusion that you draw from that that you think is the most

9 sensible, logical conclusion. I suggest to you that this order, as you

10 call it, contained in paragraph 3 sets out in detail what is to be done.

11 And if that was not done, then it's virtually impossible to draw the

12 conclusion that the Crisis Staffs that were created were created in

13 accordance with these instructions, but these clearly weren't. So I think

14 that's an improper conclusion to draw, don't you? Just being fair.

15 A. Well, I think I said that they were formed on the basis of these

16 instructions, and I think that is clear for the reasons that I have

17 stated. Again, if every detail of the order -- if we don't have evidence

18 that every detail of the instructions, I'm sorry, was carried out in every

19 place, that's certainly not surprising.

20 Q. I'm not asking --

21 A. I don't think it undermines the conclusion that the SDS ordered

22 the creation of Crisis Staffs.

23 Q. I'm not asking about every detail. I'm asking about any detail.

24 I'm not saying that 5 per cent of this wasn't done, therefore it didn't

25 happen. I'm saying 95 per cent of this wasn't done. The only thing that

1 you can tell us that was done was that this document existed, and a Crisis

2 Staff was formed. That's all. You can't go beyond --

3 A. With the composition as laid out, generally laid out in the

4 instructions.

5 Q. But it doesn't have that composition. You can't find one

6 Crisis Staff that has the composition that this instruction talks about,

7 can you?

8 A. With that exact composition, I can't think of one. But in general

9 terms, that is the composition.

10 Q. I just have --

11 A. That is, that those categories of people are represented on the

12 Crisis Staffs.

13 Q. I'm not going to pursue this matter with you any further because I

14 think we've covered it. I have one more question to ask you about the

15 variant document. There's nothing at all in this document, is there, that

16 makes reference, any reference whatsoever, to the formation of any

17 regional Crisis Staffs or regional organisations?

18 A. No, certainly isn't.

19 Q. Now, I want to go to - and I'm going to get the term exactly right

20 this time - your report called the Bosnian Serb leadership 1990 through

21 1992 dated 30 July 2002. And I want to go to page 66. At page 66, you're

22 referring - if you look at page 103 - you're referring to Municipal

23 Assemblies created, operating pursuant to the constitution of the Republic

24 of Bosnia and Herzegovina of 1990.

25 A. Yes.

1 Q. And in paragraph 104, you tells that the Municipal Assembly was

2 the highest organ of authority in the municipality?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. Do you derive that from the constitution itself or do you derive

5 that from some other source?

6 A. Let's just look at --

7 Q. It's logical. I just wonder where you found it. I agree with the

8 statement, by the way.

9 A. That would proceed from the constitution where assemblies are in

10 general are described that way.

11 Q. Now this is the same constitution and the same amendments that the

12 preamble of the ARK statute says it was created under, isn't it?

13 A. Yes.

14 Q. And I take it you would then take the same position that the ARK

15 assembly was the highest organ of authority of the Autonomous Region of

16 Krajina, that voluntary association of municipalities called the

17 Autonomous Region of Krajina?

18 A. Well, yes, it purported to be.

19 Q. So whether we're talking about a municipality or the Autonomous

20 Region of Krajina or any other body, its authority would derive solely

21 from the assembly, wouldn't it?

22 A. Yes. Let me amend that. I think its authority would derive from

23 the constitution or whatever, which specifies the assembly as being the

24 highest organ of authority.

25 Q. Constitution through the assembly.

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. I think we can agree with that. I want you to look now at P168.

3 Now, P168 is one of those documents, sir, that there are several

4 versions of.

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. But the version makes no difference with regard to the question

7 I'm getting ready to ask you. This is the document that allegedly created

8 the what in the document is called the war staff the Autonomous Region of

9 Krajina with Radislav Brdjanin as president. Correct?

10 A. Yes.

11 Q. Bearing in mind the discussion we've just had, notice that this

12 document was issued by Nikola Erceg, president of the executive council of

13 the Autonomous Region of Krajina. Correct?

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. I take it you'll agree with me that there's nothing in the ARK

16 statute that authorises the creation of a Crisis Staff in the Autonomous

17 Region of Krajina?

18 A. Probably not.

19 Q. Do you want to look?

20 A. If there was any authority to do that, it would have been -- in

21 the terms of that body, it would have been the assembly that would have

22 had authority to do that.

23 Q. You say --

24 A. There is certainly no explicit reference to Crisis Staffs in the

25 statute, but there are a lot of powers discussed in the statute. And as

1 we were discussing, the supreme authority is the assembly, so one would

2 expect if anyone -- one could perhaps expect that if anyone was going to

3 do this, it would be the assembly. On the other hand, we've just been

4 discussing, all the other Crisis Staffs that we have documentation about

5 were, in fact, created by the SDS. So I would rather have expected

6 someone of that nature to be signing a document of this type.

7 Q. Do you have any evidence, documentary or otherwise, that would

8 indicate that the ARK Assembly gave Erceg authority to create a Crisis

9 Staff?

10 A. Prior to this, no.

11 Q. All right.

12 JUDGE AGIUS: Since we stopped at quarter to 11.00, we keep to the

13 hour and a half, we should stop in about six, seven minutes' time. I just

14 wanted to draw your attention to that, Mr. Ackerman, unless there is

15 consensus that we go on until 12.30, and then we reconvene 25 minutes

16 later. But I think it would make more sense that we stop in seven

17 minutes' time. So you have enough material to carry on for the next seven

18 minutes?

19 MR. ACKERMAN: Yes, yes.

20 Q. I want to refer you now to Bosnian Serb leadership 1990/1992

21 addendum regarding instructions to the Autonomous Region of Krajina, page

22 18, your report.

23 A. Page 18.

24 Q. Yes, sir, paragraph 26. In paragraph 26, you are discussing

25 generally provisions which authorised emergency bodies in certain

1 emergency situations. And you say this: "The underlying features of the

2 system of emergency rule at the federal, republican, provincial, and

3 municipal levels were similar. If an assemble, the highest organ of

4 authority in the municipality, is unable to meet, an emergency body was to

5 exercise authority within the assembly's competence - and I want to

6 emphasise that - within the assembly's competence until such time as the

7 assembly was once again able to meet and approve the actions of the

8 emergency body."

9 That's a totally accurate statement, isn't it?

10 A. I believe it's accurate.

11 Q. The emergency body could only act as a sort of substitute for the

12 assembly and only within the competence of the assembly.

13 A. Yes, that's the general principle.

14 Q. And once the assembly could meet again, it then had to report and

15 had to have whatever it did approved by the assembly, and then the

16 emergency body would disappear?

17 A. Well, I think that there could be a situation in which the

18 assembly might be able to gather as a one-time thing and approve what has

19 been done, and then the situation might be such that they knew they

20 wouldn't be able to get together again for a while so the emergency body

21 might continue.

22 Q. Of course, of course that could happen. But the basic concept was

23 that once the assembly could begin meeting again, then the emergency body

24 could dissolve?

25 A. Yes.

1 Q. Okay. And the concept of a Crisis Staff, a war staff, a war

2 presidency was simply a way to implement this emergency body proposition

3 that we have been talking about?

4 A. Well, again, "simply a way," it's a way to implement that idea.

5 Q. Yes.

6 A. But of course, it's being implemented through -- in a manner that

7 is not prescribed by the legal provisions we are referring to.

8 Q. And we're referring to the ARK statute?

9 A. In the paragraph of the report we were discussing previously, we

10 were referring to the constitution of the Socialist Republic of

11 Bosnia-Herzegovina and related documents.

12 Q. But we know that there was an emergency body created to exercise

13 authority within the ARK assembly's competence until such time as that

14 assembly was able to meet again. That emergency body was called the ARK

15 war staff or the ARK Crisis Staff, wasn't it?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. Now, I'd like you --

18 MR. ACKERMAN: This would be a good time, Your Honour.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. So we'll have a 25-minute break starting from

20 now. Thank you.

21 --- Recess taken at 12.15 p.m.

22 --- On resuming at 12.50 p.m.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. The witness, where is he?

24 When I say we are going to have a 25-minute break, never take me

25 seriously because you are going to have a 25-minute break. I never have

1 one minute break. I end up in my Chambers with problems from here and

2 problems from there.

3 Yes, Ms. Sutherland.

4 MS. SUTHERLAND: Your Honour, we've located the exhibit of the

5 speech.

6 JUDGE AGIUS: What word did Mr. Karadzic use?

7 MR. ACKERMAN: Stepen.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: Did he use the word stepen?

9 MR. ACKERMAN: Yes, Your Honour.

10 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes.

11 MS. SUTHERLAND: Sorry. The Exhibit number is P2383.15.

12 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you, Ms. Sutherland. Thank you.

13 Can we proceed, Mr. Ackerman?

14 MR. ACKERMAN: I've had Ms. Philpott pull that document. If you

15 think it's necessary to show it to the witness, but I concede, Your

16 Honour, that he said "stepen."

17 JUDGE AGIUS: I mean, I haven't seen it, but I take your word for

18 it.

19 MR. ACKERMAN: And that matches the word in the variant document.

20 JUDGE AGIUS: All right.

21 MR. ACKERMAN:

22 Q. The next document I want to refer to is P285. Now, P285 is a

23 document dated 17 July 1992. It is a meeting of the Assembly of the

24 Autonomous Region of Krajina held on that date with 99 members of the

25 assembly present. And Item 4 on the agenda is verification of the

1 decisions and conclusions adopted by the Crisis Staff and war presidency

2 of the Autonomous Region of Krajina. Correct?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. Now, what it specifically refers to is the decisions and

5 conclusions of that body. Right?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. If we then look over at Item 4, verification of decisions,

8 conclusions adopted by the Crisis Staff and war presidency of the

9 Autonomous Region of Krajina. Following a debate in which several

10 assembly members took part, all decisions and conclusions adopted by the

11 Crisis Staff and war presidency of the Autonomous Region of Krajina were

12 verified.

13 And then the next two paragraphs indicate that 98 people voted for

14 that proposition, and one voted against it. Correct?

15 A. I see the 98 voting in favour. Yes, next page, 1 member voted

16 against.

17 Q. Yes. I take it you have no idea who it was that voted against?

18 A. No, I don't.

19 Q. I want you to look now at P227. Now, this is some conclusions

20 drawn by the Crisis Staff on 26 May 1992. And you'll see the part I'm

21 interested there in paragraph 1. It says that "the Crisis Staff of the

22 Autonomous Region of Krajina has absolute support for its work since it is

23 now the highest organ of authority in the Autonomous Region of Krajina as

24 the Assembly of the Autonomous Region of Krajina cannot function due to

25 objective and subjective circumstances."

1 A. I'm sorry, I'm not --

2 JUDGE AGIUS: Page 29, I think.

3 MR. ACKERMAN: Something's wrong. I'm looking at P227. And it's

4 actually conclusion number 17. That's where the problem is. I'm sorry.

5 Q. There we go.

6 A. Yes, yes.

7 Q. Paragraph 1 under conclusions, do you see paragraph 1 there?

8 A. Yes, indeed.

9 Q. Now, that language sort of matches the things that we have been

10 talking about before the break, that when the assembly can't meet, an

11 emergency body of some kind can take its place. And what they're saying

12 there is the assembly can't function due to objective and subjective

13 circumstances, and therefore this body, the Crisis Staff, is taking its

14 place.

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. And has -- the assembly, having been the highest organ of

17 authority, is now replaced by the Crisis Staff, which is now the highest

18 organ of authority.

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. And as you indicated in your report, it is exercising -- the

21 Crisis Staff then is exercising authority that's within the competence of

22 the assembly, same authority.

23 A. Well, I think in the report we indicated that under the legal

24 system of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, that that is the

25 case in relation to the - and I can use the term now, I think - the

1 sociopolitical communities within that republic. What's happening here is

2 certainly analogous to that. I would only point out that the Autonomous

3 Region of Krajina was not a sociopolitical community within the framework

4 of the republic.

5 Q. Yes.

6 A. So anything it is doing, irrespective of the fact that in its

7 preambles and so forth, it may say it's basing itself on the constitution,

8 is basically on its own authority.

9 Q. But the proposition that you stated in your report transfers

10 appropriately to this situation; in other words, the Crisis Staff,

11 substituting for the assembly, certainly does not have authority that

12 exceeds that of the assembly. It cannot have, it's functioning --

13 A. In that model.

14 Q. Yeah, it's functioning under the ARK statute?

15 A. Deemed to be following that model.

16 Q. Yes.

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. And if we go back then to Exhibit P80 --

19 A. I'm sorry, if I may be allowed to supplement my answer to your

20 question --

21 Q. Let me go ahead and ask you the next question, and then if you

22 have something you want to supplement, we can talk about that.

23 MS. SUTHERLAND: Your Honour, can Mr. Treanor be allowed to finish

24 his question -- his answer, I'm sorry.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. You are right, Ms. Sutherland. Mr. Treanor,

1 please go ahead --

2 THE WITNESS: I just wanted to point out as Mr. Ackerman has been

3 asking about the basis within the ARK statute for the powers of the

4 assembly as those -- of those of the Crisis Staff as those being of the

5 assembly, as we saw in the statute, the assembly did not have the

6 authority to bind the municipalities by its decisions. They only became

7 valid when the municipalities approved them. In this conclusion in the

8 second paragraph of point 1, it says that the decisions of the Crisis

9 Staff are binding for all the Crisis Staffs in the municipalities. So in

10 this respect, the power of the Crisis Staff is going beyond what the

11 assembly had -- the ARK assembly had assigned itself in its own statute.

12 MR. ACKERMAN:

13 Q. The statute of the autonomous region which you now have before

14 you, if you look at -- the part I want to draw your attention to is - let

15 me find it - it's Article 38. Article 38 talks about the manner in which

16 the statute may be amended. And it says that a proposal to engage in the

17 procedure of amending the statute of the Autonomous Region of Krajina may

18 be submitted by the assembly, the assemblies of the associated

19 municipalities and the executive council.

20 The proposal referred to in the preceding paragraph shall be

21 communicated to the assemblies of the associated municipalities for their

22 consideration and for the purpose of obtaining their opinions.

23 And then after their opinions have been obtained or after a given

24 deadline has expired, the assembly shall consider the draft enactment on

25 amendments or additions to the statute and transmitted to the assemblies

1 of the associated municipalities to obtain their approval. And finally

2 having attained the approval of the associated municipalities, the

3 assembly may then declare the amendments and additions to the statute

4 adopted.

5 A. Yes, that's correct.

6 Q. So that's the procedure that would have to be carried out to

7 amend, for instance, Article 35 of the statute. Correct?

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. And to my knowledge, and tell me if you know of anything, to my

10 knowledge, there is no ARK document where the Assembly of the Autonomous

11 Region of Krajina amended Article 35, is there?

12 A. Well, there is a document which -- in which the Crisis Staff does

13 so.

14 Q. I understand that. But I didn't ask you that. I asked you if the

15 assembly --

16 A. There may be a document, and the timing is escaping me at the

17 moment. There may have been a subsequent decision similar to the one that

18 you -- that we discussed earlier in which the assembly approves all the

19 acts of the Crisis Staff. There may be a decision of that nature that

20 encompasses the decision to amend the statute.

21 Q. But we just looked at Article 38, amending the statute requires

22 the approval of all of the associated municipalities. I'm suggesting to

23 you that the Crisis Staff had no authority to amend the statute of ARK

24 unless they complied with Article 38.

25 A. Yes, yes, that would certainly be true. But what the procedure

1 was before the issue of that decision, I have no idea.

2 Q. But you don't know -- I mean, there's no indication whatsoever

3 that the procedure outlined in Article 38 was followed, is there?

4 A. No, no. Apparently not. I think we would need among other things

5 the records of the Crisis Staff meetings to determine what sort of process

6 may have been followed.

7 Q. Well, again, I'll remind you that the burden here is upon the

8 Prosecution to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.

9 Look again, then, at Article 35. That could be read with the

10 Crisis Staff substituting for the assembly.

11 A. Article 38? I'm sorry, is --

12 Q. Article 35.

13 A. Oh, 35 now.

14 Q. Second paragraph. That could be read with the Crisis Staff

15 substituting for the assembly, that the decisions and conclusions of the

16 assembly shall become binding for the member municipalities once they have

17 been approved by the assemblies of municipalities, or you could put in,

18 you could substitute Crisis Staffs of municipalities for assemblies, I

19 suppose.

20 A. One could.

21 Q. All right. I don't have them with me today. I can perhaps let

22 you look at them tomorrow. But maybe you're aware of them as you sit

23 there, a decision or two from the Prijedor Municipality Crisis Staff that

24 they were not going to follow decisions coming from the ARK Crisis Staff.

25 Do you remember that decision?

1 A. Yes indeed. That's referred to in the report.

2 Q. Yes.

3 A. The addendum.

4 Q. I want to look now at Document P157. This is a document of 26

5 April 1992, and it's entitled "Excerpt from the instructions of the work

6 of the Municipal Crisis Staffs of the Serbian people." That phrase would

7 cause one to believe that there were more detailed instructions somewhere

8 that this was excerpted from. Have you ever seen the more detailed

9 instructions?

10 A. No, indeed.

11 Q. Do you agree with me that there must have been something like

12 that?

13 A. Well, one must certainly be led to believe that there was, or at

14 least it was intended that there be.

15 Q. This was issued by Branko Djeric who was the prime minister. And

16 I think it might be useful before we go any further to discuss the

17 organisation of the government just a little bit. There was the assembly,

18 and I think you'll agree with me that the assembly was, as you have said,

19 the highest organ of authority of the government of the Serbian Republic

20 of -- of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina. But then they had

21 created this part called the government which was headed by a prime

22 minister and included all of the deputies and so forth. Correct?

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. And this document was issued by what was called the government

25 through its prime minister, Branko Djeric. Have I got that right?

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. Let's look at -- if you wanted to compare it, for instance, to the

3 typical municipality or even the ARK situation, Djeric was occupying a

4 position which might earlier have been called president of the executive

5 council?

6 A. Yes, that's right.

7 Q. Okay. Paragraph 3: "The Crisis Staff coordinates the functions

8 of authorities in order to ensure the defence of the territories, the

9 safety of the population and property, the establishment of government and

10 the organisation of all other areas of life and work. In so doing, the

11 Crisis Staff provides the conditions for the municipal executive committee

12 to exercise legal executive authority, run the economy, and other areas of

13 life."

14 Now, this paragraph clearly contemplates that when the assembly

15 can't meet and the Crisis Staff is in existence, the executive committee,

16 the municipal executive committee, will continue to function and exercise

17 executive authority through that period, doesn't it?

18 A. Well, it certainly seems to contemplate the possibility that it

19 might be continuing to function, or more precisely attempt to function,

20 but I think it would also cover the contingency where the executive

21 committee wasn't able to function at all.

22 Q. But the effort here seems to be to provide conditions where that

23 municipal executive can function?

24 A. Yes. Yes. And the reasons for it not functioning could be

25 various. And the way of its functioning could be various.

1 Q. Were you aware that the ARK executive committee actually did

2 function and remain active throughout the life of the ARK Crisis Staff?

3 A. Yes, I think -- yes.

4 Q. Okay. Paragraph 4: "The command of the TO and police forces is

5 under the exclusive authority of the professional staff; and therefore,

6 any interference regarding the command of the TO and/or the use of the

7 police forces must be prevented." In other words, the TO and police

8 forces have their own chain of command, their own structure. And the

9 Crisis Staff ought not to be interfering with them, and they ought to keep

10 anyone else from doing so.

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. Paragraph 6: "The work of the Crisis Staff is based on

13 constitutional and legal provisions and on decisions reached by the

14 Assembly, the Presidency, and the Government of the Serbian Republic of

15 Bosnia-Herzegovina." We talked before we started referring to these

16 paragraphs about the organisation of the Serbian Republic of

17 Bosnia-Herzegovina. Those are basically the three components of that

18 government, the Assembly, the Presidency, and the Government. Right?

19 A. Correct.

20 Q. So what it's referring there is all three components, that the

21 Assembly is the highest organ, there's the Presidency, and the Government

22 and the Crisis Staff operates pursuant to decisions reached by those

23 bodies?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. What this sets out is the chain of authority, the chain of

1 authority runs from the Assembly, the Presidency, and the Government, down

2 to the municipality and its Crisis Staffs. Right?

3 A. Well, I'm not quite sure that those are links in a chain

4 necessarily, especially given the situation at the time when this document

5 was issued. If I can elucidate on that, at the end of April, indeed the

6 second half of April and through the first half of May, the assembly was

7 not meeting. The acting presidents were exercising emergency powers. And

8 most decisions were being taken -- important decisions at the top were

9 being taken within the framework of the National Security Council, which

10 included the two acting presidents, the president of the assembly, the

11 president of the government, and the president of the SDS. So as I say,

12 the idea of a chain here may not be exactly appropriate. I think -- the

13 main idea may be that you're asking is yes, the Crisis Staffs responded to

14 the central authorities. And my point here was they were not

15 hierarchically tiered, one upon another at this point in time, but rather

16 they were all sitting in the same room and making decisions.

17 Q. Certainly, the prime minister made decisions and issued this

18 excerpt on the 26th of April?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. What paragraph 6 doesn't say may be as important as what it says.

21 It doesn't say that the work of the Crisis Staff is based on decisions

22 reached by any regional authority, does it?

23 A. No.

24 Q. Paragraph 8 speaks of the relationship between the paragraph and

25 the JNA. And just so we're clear, we're talking about a period of time,

1 26 April, before the VRS was created, aren't we?

2 A. Yes, right. That's right.

3 Q. What the excerpt says with regard to that relationship is that the

4 Crisis Staff has the obligation to provide working and living conditions

5 for the JNA, for the members of the JNA, to ensure a fair attitude toward

6 JNA officers and soldiers, and to prevent them from being humiliated or

7 insulted in any way.

8 It certainly doesn't indicate that there is any relationship which

9 would contemplate command of the JNA by a Crisis Staff, is there?

10 A. Not in this paragraph.

11 Q. Right. And finally, I just want to refer very briefly to

12 paragraph 14. It says: "The Crisis Staff shall convene and make

13 decisions in the presence of all its members, take official minutes, issue

14 written decisions, and submit weekly reports to the regional and state

15 organisations of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina."

16 In any of the research that you have done, did you find that this

17 paragraph was followed by all the municipal Crisis Staffs? Have you found

18 these weekly reports that were supposed to be submitted --

19 A. No.

20 Q. -- From each of these staffs?

21 Do you think this was a situation where the documents were simply

22 lost or this document was simply ignored, or do you know?

23 A. Let me finish answering the previous question. I also certainly

24 couldn't say that every Crisis Staff met with all its members all the

25 time, nor can I state that they always took official minutes. I have seen

1 many minutes of meetings. We have seen many written decisions by those

2 bodies. I haven't seen any weekly reports. I would suspect - I believe I

3 pointed out at the beginning of my direct examination - that the records

4 at our disposal are incomplete, and that the record that may have been

5 created was itself quite likely incomplete. So yes, it may be that some

6 of the Crisis Staffs did not do some of these things. And if they did

7 them, maybe we don't know about it.

8 Q. One thing that you alluded to just a few moments ago was that

9 we're at the 26th of April now, and a lot of things were going on. One of

10 those being a war. And so the assembly was not meeting, emergency

11 organisations were trying to function. I think it would be fair to say

12 that there was a great deal of chaos, even anarchy, throughout the country

13 at this period of time. And whether or not decisions were followed and

14 documents prepared and sent as ordered was a sometime thing, sometimes

15 impossible, sometimes just ignored.

16 There's a lot in that question. You're capable of taking it

17 apart. I've seen you do it before.

18 A. What is the question?

19 Q. Do you agree with that?

20 A. Again, I don't think I would exactly put it in those terms. There

21 undoubtedly was a large degree of disorganisation, anarchy, failure to

22 follow proper procedures, et cetera, et cetera. How large that degree

23 was, I don't know. The thing that strikes me on the basis of only those

24 documents we have at our disposal is the degree to which an attempt was

25 made by the Bosnian Serb authorities to adhere to many of the various

1 administrative niceties by formulating and publishing in Official Gazettes

2 for a body, the Autonomous Region of Krajina, which didn't even legally

3 exist under the law of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the

4 keeping of minutes on various levels, and that sort of thing, the amount

5 of documentation that's available is indeed impressive, given the wartime

6 situation you're describing.

7 It was undoubtedly not a very complete record that was being kept.

8 And as I alluded before, even in peacetime, it was difficult sometimes for

9 Radovan Karadzic as the president of the party, to get people to do what

10 he wanted them to do and to report that and that sort of thing. So yes,

11 there was failure to observe some of the niceties. But the degree to

12 which that may have prevailed is almost ipso facto impossible to say on

13 the written record since what we have reflects the organised part of it.

14 Q. One of the things I've never seen, and I've tried to pay

15 attention, is any evidence, documentary, testamentary, any kind of

16 evidence that there was any kind of punishment mechanism that was carried

17 out for failure to implement any of these conclusions and decisions and so

18 forth that we have been talking about. We go back earlier to what we are

19 talking about, the variant A/B thing, where you Karadzic ordered Crisis

20 Staffs to be put together. We talk about this one which talks about the

21 weekly reports. There are any number of conclusions, decisions, orders,

22 whatever you want to call them that were issued by various bodies

23 including the ARK Crisis Staff. But I do not know of one instance of

24 punishment for failure to carry out, do you?

25 A. Well, in the prewar period, there is certainly evidence that

1 Karadzic had people removed from party positions for failing to do what he

2 thought they should do. There were changes made in the municipal

3 leadership of the SDS, in certain locations. The Crisis Staffs, there

4 were -- I think there were some changes there. What the basis for such a

5 decision might have been in any particular instance, I don't know. And

6 that there was any sort of organised tribunal or forum that monitored what

7 people were doing and brought them to task, I'm certainly not aware there

8 was anything like that.

9 Q. I can see those changes, but I suggest those were more based on

10 personalities than failure to carry out specific orders, weren't they?

11 A. I'm sure that each case was a case.

12 Q. We kind of digressed from where we were going, and I want to go --

13 I want to try to get back into the chronology that we were working

14 through, which means we have to go back to early 1992. And I'd like you

15 to look now at Exhibit P19.

16 Now, this is a document which is dated 9 January of 1992. Right?

17 JUDGE AGIUS: One moment.

18 MR. ACKERMAN: We have --

19 JUDGE AGIUS: If you are referring the witness to P19 --

20 MR. ACKERMAN: That's the wrong document, Your Honour.

21 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay.

22 MR. ACKERMAN: Absolutely the wrong document.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. Because the Document P19 --

24 MR. ACKERMAN: Yeah, I agree that's some other document.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: -- Is dated 13 September 1990.

1 MR. ACKERMAN: Here's what we're going have to do -- now, I don't

2 know what exhibit number this is because it apparently got mismarked.

3 Q. First look at the very top so we can see the designations on it.

4 The P19 up there was I think put there when it was delivered to us from

5 the Office of the Prosecutor. That's probably how I got confused about it

6 being Exhibit P19.

7 The second page, though, will show you the date that I was

8 referring to. And that's 9 January 1992. Right?

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. And to put this document in context, this document is issued two

11 days before the decision of the Badinter Commission saying that they were

12 not going to approve independence for Bosnia-Herzegovina yet. Right?

13 A. Correct.

14 Q. The first paragraph is a kind of a preamble and suggests that this

15 action is being taken, this proclamation of the Serbian Republic of

16 Bosnia-Herzegovina, is being taken on the basis of the plebiscite of the

17 9th and 10th of November of 1991. And then in the second paragraph, it's

18 proclaimed that the republic shall remain within the Yugoslav federal

19 state as its federal unit. True?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. Now, I don't recall without looking, so Ms. Philpott -- the usher

22 could help me. Is there anything on there that I have marked with a

23 yellow pen? I don't think so. I think mostly what I was interested in is

24 bringing the date of this document to your attention, so you can bring it

25 back to me now.

1 MR. ACKERMAN: I'm through with it. You can bring it back. At

2 some point I need to figure out whether this is an exhibit in the case,

3 Your Honour, and if so, designate it properly or admit it as an exhibit.

4 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Ms. Gustin, there was the ERN number --

5 MS. SUTHERLAND: Your Honour, I've just passed Ms. Gustin the ERN

6 number, and she is checking.

7 JUDGE AGIUS: You can perhaps identify the document whether it has

8 already been tendered or whether it needs to be tendered.

9 MR. ACKERMAN:

10 Q. While we're doing that, I'm going to have you look at Document

11 DB-163.

12 MS. SUTHERLAND: That's Prosecution Exhibit P2471.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: That was P2471, for the record, Mr. Ackerman.

14 MR. ACKERMAN: Thank you, Your Honour.

15 Q. So what I originally referred to as P19 is P2471, so the record

16 will be clear about that.

17 MS. SUTHERLAND: I'm sorry. I don't know what exhibit P19 is at

18 the moment. But I thought you just referred to DB-163, and I was just

19 advising that that's Prosecution Exhibit P2471.

20 MR. ACKERMAN: DB-163 is?

21 MS. SUTHERLAND: Yes, and for the record, DB-162 is Prosecution

22 Exhibit 2475.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: Incidentally with reference to DB-162, the exhibit

24 is divided into two parts, the first part being a speech by someone who I

25 would like to know who it is, and the second part being the minutes of the

1 14th session of the meeting of the Assembly of the Serbian people of BH.

2 Who was -- whose speech is it in the beginning of --

3 MR. ACKERMAN: It's Krajisnik, Your Honour.

4 JUDGE AGIUS: Krajisnik?

5 MR. ACKERMAN: Yes. If you look at the end, after all the names

6 have been named, he says: "And myself, Momcilo Krajisnik." That's how I

7 concluded who it was that made the speech. I had the same problem as you

8 did, Your Honour, yesterday when I was trying to figure out who it was.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: So it's DB-163 now.

10 MR. ACKERMAN:

11 Q. I take it you now have that document. This document is 27

12 January -- well, actually that's not true. This document is 9 January

13 1992, the same date as the other document we were just referring to, and

14 still a document preceding the decision of the Badinter Commission saying

15 no to independence.

16 A. Yes.

17 JUDGE AGIUS: 163.

18 MR. ACKERMAN:

19 Q. That first page that's kind of a preamble --

20 MR. ACKERMAN: May we go ahead, Your Honour?

21 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, yes, go ahead.

22 MR. ACKERMAN:

23 Q. If you look at that first page, one, two, three, the fourth

24 paragraph down, it says: "The destruction and dissolution of the Yugoslav

25 federation would cause irreparable damage to all Yugoslav peoples."

1 That was fairly prescient, wasn't it, considering all the

2 irreparable damage that has been done to Yugoslavia --

3 A. Well, again, I'm not sure why they would say would.

4 Q. They are talking about a period of time before independence was

5 granted.

6 A. I would say it already had.

7 Q. I was being too subtle about it. But the point is this: The

8 issue that was going on, that was live at this point, was whether or not

9 Bosnia-Herzegovina was going to be declared an independent state. And

10 you'll recall Izetbegovic saying at one point that he realised that going

11 forward with that might mean war, but he thought that was the appropriate

12 alternative if that's what it had to be. And I think what's being said

13 here is that everybody knows there's going to be a war if this

14 independence business goes forward. And it's going to cause irreparable

15 damage to Yugoslav peoples. This is another effort to avoid that, to

16 create a Serbian people in Bosnia-Herzegovina and avoid having a war about

17 this. Isn't it?

18 A. Well, this document is certainly -- contains an expression of the

19 will of the Serbian people to remain within Yugoslavia, there's no doubt

20 about that. The state had largely dissolved already.

21 Q. The political coalition --

22 A. But they definitely did want to keep Bosnia what remained in

23 Yugoslavia.

24 Q. "The political coalition of the Muslim and Croatian ethnic

25 communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina is joining to the secessionists in

1 their efforts to break up Yugoslavia. In its bid to effect Bosnia and

2 Herzegovina's secession from Yugoslavia, this coalition is grossly and

3 flagrantly ignoring the sovereign rights of the Serbian people, trying to

4 strip them of their status as a constituent nation, and impose their

5 interests and decisions on them."

6 Now, that's pretty much exactly what had happened in the assembly

7 in Sarajevo on the 14th and 15th when it was real clear that the Muslims

8 and Croats were not going to consider the wishes of the Serbian people.

9 And in spite of their opposition, they were going to hold a rump session

10 of that parliament and vote for independence. So they were flagrantly

11 ignoring the sovereign rights of the Serbian people in doing that, weren't

12 they?

13 A. I'm not a lawyer, let alone a constitutional lawyer, and I really

14 couldn't speak to that issue. All I could say is this is a fair statement

15 of the view of the Bosnian Serb leadership of that situation.

16 JUDGE AGIUS: Which leaves you exactly where you started from,

17 Mr. Ackerman.

18 MR. ACKERMAN: I suspect so, Your Honour.

19 Q. If we look then past the preamble over to page 3 of the document,

20 the declaration proclaims this Republic of the Serbian People of Bosnia

21 and Herzegovina as a part of the federal state of Yugoslavia and one of

22 its federal units. Correct?

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. Okay.

25 If you look at this document as a whole, look at all of this

1 language, it's really an expression of a fire of the Serbian people to

2 remain within a federal Yugoslavia in accordance with the results of the

3 plebiscite of the Serbian people, isn't it?

4 A. Yes.

5 Q. Two days later, January 11th, we know what happened with the

6 Badinter Commission. That's -- we've already looked at that, I think.

7 It's DB-161, I believe. I don't think we need to look at it again.

8 After that decision on January 11th by the Badinter Commission, I

9 want to just go back for a minute to October of 1991 and set the stage

10 from that point with regard to what happened next. We will recall that in

11 October of 1991 at the parliament, speeches of Izetbegovic and Karadzic,

12 speeches that have become famous, I think, that were actually became part

13 of the record here in greater detail this morning, those speeches were

14 made. And they had a tone of finality to them, Karadzic saying if you go

15 forward with this, the Muslim people may not survive, or something to that

16 nature. It was that kind of rhetoric that was going on at the time,

17 wasn't it?

18 A. In general terms, yes.

19 MR. ACKERMAN: I think what I'd like to do, Your Honour, is leave

20 it at that place and pick it up from there in the morning.

21 JUDGE AGIUS: Only five minutes left in any case.

22 Mr. Treanor, we need to stop here. We will continue tomorrow. I

23 thank you.

24 THE WITNESS: Thank you.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: Anything else before we adjourn?

1 MR. ACKERMAN: I don't think I have anything, Your Honour. Thank

2 you.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Thank you. We stand adjourned until tomorrow

4 morning at 9.00 in this same courtroom. Thank you.

5 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.42 p.m.,

6 to be reconvened on Thursday, the 16th day of

7 October, 2003, at 9.00 a.m.

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