Page 318
1 Monday, 15 January 2007
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 --- Upon commencing at 9.04 a.m.
5 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Whiting, call your first witness.
6 MR. WHITING: Good morning, Your Honours, Mr. Waespi will be
7 handling the first witness, Your Honours.
8 JUDGE ROBINSON: I see.
9 MR. WHITING: Just so Your Honours know, I will be sitting in only
10 for the first session and then another lawyer for our team will be in the
11 for the remainder of the day.
12 JUDGE ROBINSON: You're blessed with an abundance of riches.
13 MR. WHITING: I certainly am. Thank you, Your Honour.
14 [Trial Chamber and registrar confer]
15 MR. WAESPI: Good morning, Mr. President. Good morning, Your
16 Honours. The first Prosecution witness will be Mr. David Harland.
17 And perhaps, Mr. President, while we are waiting, in your decision
18 of the 12th January of this year, you have accepted our motion to have
19 selected parts of his prior testimony admitted under Rule 92 ter, and as
20 you are aware, the witness testified in the Slobodan Milosevic case on two
21 days, the 18th September, 2003, mainly examination-in-chief and a little
22 bit of cross-examination; and on the 5th of November, 2003, he was
23 re-called for the end of cross-examination, a few questions by the amici
24 and re-direct examination.
25 So once the witness is in, Mr. President, Your Honours, I will ask
Page 319
1 that he, you know, certify, according to the Rules, that these two
2 testimonies can be formally tendered. And perhaps since I'm new to
3 e-court, I'm not entirely sure whether I actually give him a hard copy of
4 his two transcripts in the Milosevic case and have him confirm that this
5 is in the transcript or whether he actually looks at the transcript on the
6 screen. There have been 65 ter numbers assigned to these transcripts so
7 it could be done electronically, but I'm in your hands as how it is done.
8 [The witness entered court]
9 JUDGE ROBINSON: Witness, since we are beginning it might be well
10 that you provide him with hard copies.
11 MR. WAESPI: Thank you, Mr. President.
12 JUDGE ROBINSON: Let the witness make the declaration.
13 THE WITNESS: I solemnly declare that I will speak the truth, the
14 whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
15 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Waespi, you may begin.
16 MR. WAESPI: Thank you, Mr. President.
17 WITNESS: DAVID HARLAND
18 Examination by Mr. Waespi:
19 Q. Good morning, Mr. Harland.
20 A. Good morning.
21 Q. I hope you have well rested?
22 A. Very well-rested, thank you.
23 Q. Can you please state for the record were full name.
24 A. David John Harland.
25 Q. Now, we did meet yesterday in my office, and I showed you the
Page 320
1 record of your testimony in the Slobodan Milosevic case. Do you remember
2 that?
3 A. Yes.
4 MR. WAESPI: If the court usher please could hand over to Mr.
5 Harland a hard copy of those two transcripts, I would be mush obliged.
6 Please show it to the Defence first so that they can see that it's an
7 authentic record.
8 Q. Now, Mr. Harland, before coming to testify today, did you have a
9 chance to review your testimony in the Slobodan Milosevic case?
10 A. Yes, I did.
11 Q. And are you satisfied and can you attest today to the Court that
12 these transcripts accurately reflect your evidence in that case and the
13 answers you would give now, today, if asked about the same matters under
14 oath would be the same?
15 A. Yes.
16 MR. WAESPI: Your Honours, the 65 ter numbers assigned, and that
17 was done over e-mail, just for the record I'll just say what we have been
18 told was that the transcript of the 18th September, 2003, have been
19 assigned ter number 02815. And the second testimony, that's 5th November,
20 2003, the ter number assigned is 02816. And I propose, Your Honours, that
21 at the end of his testimony, perhaps at the end of cross-examination and
22 questions by Your Honours, we'll move or we will move to have all these
23 exhibits admitted in one go, rather than step by step.
24 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.
25 MR. WAESPI: Thank you, Mr. President.
Page 321
1 Q. Now, Mr. Harland, can you tell us your profession, please.
2 A. I'm a civil servant with the United Nations.
3 Q. And what's your current function?
4 A. I'm the director for Europe and Latin America of the Department of
5 Peacekeeping Operations at United Nations headquarters.
6 Q. And that's in New York?
7 A. That's in New York.
8 Q. Thanks. Could you briefly give for the benefit of Your Honours
9 and Defence the background of your career, your education, your career in
10 the UN very briefly, because it's an impressive career?
11 A. I did my undergraduate studies in my home country, New Zealand. I
12 then pursued graduate studies in law and in international relations, and
13 took a master's degree from Harvard University in the United States, a
14 study in comparative law, and a Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and
15 Diplomacy. I served with the United Nations extensively for almost 20
16 years in Africa, in Europe, and in Asia and in -- principally in conflict
17 and post-conflict countries. And now, for almost four years, I've been
18 based in New York, my first assignment at UN headquarters.
19 Q. Thank you, Mr. Harland. Now, of course we know from your Slobodan
20 Milosevic testimony that you were in Bosnia and in Sarajevo. Now, for how
21 long were you in Sarajevo and when exactly, what was that period?
22 A. I was a civil affairs officer with UNPROFOR initially, and I
23 arrived in the first half of 1993, and I was based in Sarajevo and
24 Kiseljak. I remained in Bosnia and Herzegovina after the war as head of
25 civil affairs of the United Nations mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and
Page 322
1 then I stayed on for almost one additional year in 1999, preparing the
2 report of United Nations Secretary-General on the massacre at Srebrenica.
3 Q. And what were the duties of a civil affairs officer? What were
4 your duties while you were in Sarajevo?
5 A. My principal duties were to make political assessments of the
6 progress of the conflict in that country and to -- in order to do that, to
7 meet regularly with members of the warring factions and also to attempt to
8 negotiate with them measures to mitigate the -- the conflict by securing
9 freedom of movement for civilians or the restoration of essential services
10 to civilians or agreements between the parties that could limit the -- the
11 effect of the war on the civilian population of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
12 Q. And is it correct to say that part of your duties was to draft
13 reports?
14 A. Yes. I did a lot of drafting. I was the principal political
15 drafter for UNPROFOR and Sarajevo for the whole period of the war that I
16 was there. I drafted all of the special reports, all of the weekly
17 political assessments of UNPROFOR headquarters. I also drafted the text
18 of most of the agreements between the warring factions, which were done
19 under the auspices of UNPROFOR.
20 Q. And I believe in the Slobodan Milosevic case you were introduced
21 as the longest-serving UN official in Sarajevo. Is that correct?
22 A. I believe that is the case, yes.
23 Q. Now, I just have one last kind of general questions before we go
24 into details. Can you tell the Judges, very briefly if you can, your
25 memory of Sarajevo, and as you know this case is concerned with the events
Page 323
1 after the signing of the anti-sniping agreement in August 1994. So when
2 you think about Sarajevo, about the atmosphere at that time, what can you
3 tell to the Judges?
4 A. Well, I -- I arrived in Sarajevo in the first half of 1993 when
5 the siege had been closed for almost a year. The streets were entirely
6 empty except for some burnt-out vehicles. There was nobody, basically, on
7 the -- on the street. There was the constant background noise of either
8 small-arms fire from the -- the front lines around the city or from the --
9 the heavy weapons, detonations from the Serbian bombardment. It -- it
10 was, in a sense, eerily empty. People would come out for very, very short
11 periods to collect water from water-dispensing points or a little bit of
12 food and then they would scurry back into their homes.
13 MR. WAESPI: Mr. President, Your Honours, the way I would like to
14 conduct this examination-in-chief is the following: First, I would like
15 him to clarify four transcript references from the Slobodan Milosevic
16 case; and then I will ask him a few questions about -- I think it's about
17 20 documents, some of them Mr. Harland drafted himself and others he has
18 seen or he knows something about the authenticity of these documents. So
19 that's the basic outline. I think we might be finished within the first
20 session or it might spill a little bit over the next session.
21 So with your leave, Mr. President, I would like to ask him a
22 couple of points in clarification of his Milosevic testimony. The first
23 reference, Mr. President, Your Honours, can be found in his first day of
24 testimony in the Slobodan Milosevic case, again that's the 18th September,
25 2003, and it's on page 26935. And I read it for the record, Your Honours,
Page 324
1 and for everybody's benefit. It's on line 10.
2 Q. And, Mr. Harland, in this part you talk about a meeting you had in
3 mid-July 1993 with Bosnian Serb leaders, and you make the following
4 comment, and I quote you from your Slobodan Milosevic testimony:
5 "Yes, Dr. Karadzic and the other Bosnian Serb leaders emphasised
6 to us that their principal goal was to force the Bosnian government to --
7 to negotiate peace, a peace agreement on terms that would be acceptable to
8 them and that the reason they were shelling Sarajevo, for example, which I
9 think was what we were protesting about that day was to apply pressure on
10 the Bosnian government."
11 Now, what you testified about in mid-July 1993, did the same
12 mechanism also apply after the period of August 1994, or was that
13 exclusively confined to the 1993 situation?
14 A. No. It applied to the whole period of the -- of the war. The
15 basic dynamic of the conflict around Sarajevo was that the Serbs, who were
16 in a completely militarily dominant position, would use shelling and
17 sniping against civilians as a way to elicit from the Bosnian government
18 behaviour they wanted, and we knew this was their essential purpose for
19 two reasons.
20 First, they told us so. The transcript which you referred to is
21 just one example of how they explained to us that they wanted to apply
22 pressure, as they called it, to the Bosnian government by waging this war
23 of terror against the civilian population. And also we knew it because
24 it -- from observing their behaviour. Most of the -- most of the military
25 activity that I was reporting on was not military activity as we would
Page 325
1 conventionally understand it. Most of it was undirected or semi-directed
2 artillery fire against civilian-inhabited areas. And one could very
3 easily detect patterns of an increase of such application of terror, you
4 know, whether through bombardment from heavy weapons or snipers or through
5 cutting off electricity and water and food at times of -- when they wanted
6 to achieve greater political leverage.
7 For example, during the Owen-Stoltenberg peace process when the
8 Bosnian government appeared to be stalling on elements of the peace
9 package which were acceptable to the Serbs, there would be a significant
10 increase in these -- this war of terror. The increase of the privations
11 by cutting off the city and an increase in the sniping against civilians
12 and the bombardment -- the random bombardment of the city. And that
13 dynamic continued right through until the end of the war in October 1995.
14 And my own assumption at the time - and I don't think anybody really
15 disagreed with it - was that indeed the principal activity of the Sarajevo
16 Romanija Corps was the -- the application of these instruments of terror
17 against the civilian population; that was what they basically did.
18 Q. Thank you, Mr. Harland. Let me turn to the second quote from your
19 Slobodan Milosevic testimony?
20 MR. WAESPI: Mr. President, Your Honours, that's on page 26936,
21 beginning at line 16.
22 Q. And your answer, Mr. Harland, is the following:
23 "Well, most obviously, of course, it's another example of the Serb
24 modulating their military effort and modulating the amount of terror; that
25 is, the amount of humanitarian difficulty placed on the population of
Page 326
1 Sarajevo to, in the context of a -- for political objectives; that is, of
2 getting the Muslims to negotiate or in terms of deterring any NATO
3 military attack on them. Our sense was they -- there was, as it were, a
4 spigot of terror which they would open or close according to how much
5 pressure was on them from the international community or what political
6 concessions they hoped to get from the other side."
7 And I believe you almost answered this question as well with your
8 previous answer. Would that quote, which is specifically directed at the
9 1993 situation in the Slobodan Milosevic case, would that also apply to
10 the period after the signature of the anti-sniping agreement in August
11 1994?
12 A. Yes. And it -- obviously, the level of terror, the extent to
13 which the spigot was more open or more closed varied a lot between 1993
14 and 1995, but the basic dynamic was the same. They attempted to inflict
15 maximum suffering on the people of Sarajevo to induce the Bosnian
16 government authorities to accept a peace agreement on terms agreeable to
17 the Serbs, but they never applied what they believed was too much
18 pressure, that it would lead to the withdrawal of UNPROFOR or to a wider
19 western military intervention.
20 And they were always relatively sensitive to that -- and, in fact,
21 this basic dynamic which is being discussed in the quotation you refer to
22 was the dominant military pattern. There was
23 little conventional force-on-force military activity. The principal
24 application of force was not, as would be understood by any modern
25 military logic, it was purely for these objectives of the application of
Page 327
1 terror against civilians.
2 Q. Mr. Harland, the next quote, the third one from the Slobodan
3 Milosevic case, can be found on the next page in your transcript?
4 MR. WAESPI: And, Mr. President, Your Honours, it's on page 26937.
5 Q. There you discuss the comparative military activity in the years
6 1993, 1994, and 1995, and I quote:
7 "1993 was the most militarily active of those years. There was a
8 conflict, both between the Bosnian government, that is, that Muslims and
9 the Serbs; and between the Bosnian government and the Croats. 1994 was
10 relatively quiet throughout most of the year, and then 1995 saw a sharp
11 deterioration again right up to the end of the war in October."
12 That was from line 15 to line 20. If you can, Mr. Harland,
13 elaborate a little bit on the sharp deterioration you mentioned here in
14 1995. We might see a couple of documents later, but can you tell Their
15 Honours what's meant by the sharp deterioration in 1995?
16 A. Yes. I should first preface it by saying that this answer is
17 correct with respect to the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina; but with
18 respect to Sarajevo, I would say that 1995 was the most militarily active
19 of the -- of the three years being discussed here. Now, in terms of
20 the -- the sharp deterioration in 1995, I would actually say that this
21 deterioration began towards the end of 1994. 1994 had been a relatively
22 stable year.
23 The Serbs had already taken almost all -- more than the land they
24 ultimately sought to keep under the peace agreement. They would discuss
25 this openly with us. Dr. Karadzic, Mr. Krajisnik would regularly discuss
Page 328
1 what they thought were the final holdings they thought they would take.
2 And they had on the ground I think a little over 70 percent of the total
3 territory of the country. And they anticipated that they would have to
4 give some of that territory back in the context of a peace agreement.
5 And they described their military tactics to us as to hold on to
6 the greater amount of land they had and then to let the Muslims, as they
7 referred to the Bosnian government, to let the Muslims understand that
8 they had no military options and that the suffering of their people would
9 only greatly increase if the Bosnian government did not agree to a
10 political settlement with the Serbs that would lead to Serb independence
11 within defined borders, no reversal of ethnic cleansing, and a substantial
12 acceptance of the territory they held. And 1992 and 1993 were largely
13 devoted by the Serbs to gaining that territory and then removing the
14 non-Serb population from those territories.
15 During 1994, they were largely content to sit back and wait, hold
16 on to the territory they had, apply what they called the pressure on the
17 Muslim population, and -- and then to wait for a peace agreement
18 acceptable to them. And they were -- they were very open with us. They
19 thought that time was on their side. They said, you know, we hold all the
20 land, we dominate all the high ground, we can apply pressure - as they
21 called it - the shelling and the sniping and the cutting off of the water
22 and gas and electricity and food to the Muslim population.
23 And they thought all they had to do was wait and that in good time
24 the Muslims would accept an agreement, roughly like the Owen-Stoltenberg
25 Agreement, where the Muslims would be left with a small wedge of territory
Page 329
1 on which they could establish a state, and the Serbs would be given what
2 they -- they wanted on a larger period.
3 So during this period of 1994, the Serbs agreed to a number of
4 measures to stabilise the situation, because holding so much of the
5 territory they were content for the status quo to freeze on the ground.
6 So they agreed to what we call the opening of Blue Routes; that is, the
7 routes that would allow the circulation of the civilian population. They
8 allowed the re-starting of the Sarajevo tramway. They agreed to turn on
9 some of the electricity and water. They agreed to more cease-fires. They
10 agreed to certain measures to limit sniping against civilians.
11 And in general, when they agreed to these things, whether it was
12 the turning on of the water or whether it was the limiting of the sniping
13 attacks against civilians, they were normally able to deliver. And in
14 that sense, 1994 was relatively quiet.
15 Now, by the end of 1994, the Serbs - and again, they explained
16 this to us. Mr. Krajisnik was relatively open about explaining their
17 dilemma to us - felt that perhaps they had miscalculated, that time was
18 not on their side, and that the Muslims were not going to capitulate under
19 those circumstances and accept a land-for-peace agreement; and that in
20 fact the -- although the Muslims were surrounded by their enemies, the
21 Americans had succeeded in brokers a peace agreement with the Croats,
22 assisted by their supporters in the United States and in the Islamic
23 world, weapons were reaching the Bosnian Muslims.
24 So the Serbs, in late 1994, decided that they would start to apply
25 pressure more directly. So they -- at one point, they closed the Sarajevo
Page 330
1 air-lift, which was bringing humanitarian assistance; they increased the
2 amounting of sniping and shelling; they cut off the electricity and water
3 again; and they began to demonstrate their --
4 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Waespi, I draw your attention to the fact
5 that this is a 92 ter abbreviated procedure, and its purpose will be
6 defeated by a lengthy examination-in-chief. So please have the witness
7 give shorter answers and a more summarized procedure is appropriate.
8 MR. WAESPI: I will do that, Mr. President. Thanks for bringing
9 that to my attention.
10 Q. Let me move on to the last quote clarification from the first
11 Slobodan Milosevic transcript?
12 MR. WAESPI: And this is, Your Honours, on page 26951, and it
13 starts on line 8.
14 Q. And I will quote again and ask for clarification from your side.
15 "One of the normal tactical principles of artillery bombardment
16 of course is concentration of fire. You concentrate fire in order to
17 clear ground or suppress enemy fire, in order to take it or something;
18 whereas, the pattern of artillery fire around Sarajevo was precisely the
19 opposite. It was a dispersion of fire. Shells would be dropped
20 apparently randomly across the densely populated civilian areas of the
21 city in a way that would cause a small number of casualties in a large
22 number of places. We assumed that this was to keep the general level of
23 terror high and to forestall any dramatic events around which an
24 international response will coalesce."
25 My question, and I hope for a brief answer, is that a statement
Page 331
1 which only applied to the situation in 1993, 1994, or also later after
2 summer 1994?
3 A. Yes, and in fact, it probably applied more later on. We prepared
4 daily maps of where the impacts of artillery shells were, and these maps
5 showed a huge dispersion of shells. They would sometimes be concentrated
6 in one broad civilian area or another, but they were certainly not
7 concentrated against what we would consider military targets, no.
8 MR. WAESPI: And, Mr. President, just if I may, going back to the
9 question the witness gave beforehand and just asking him very precisely.
10 Q. In one or two sentences to finish your answer about the
11 deterioration of the situation in 1995, as you had mentioned it in the
12 Slobodan Milosevic case; just two or three sentences.
13 A. So 1994 was a relatively calm and stable year in which the Serbs
14 thought they were achieving their objectives, and they entered into a lot
15 of agreements which they agreed upon to stabilise the situation. Towards
16 the end of 1994 and during 1995, they returned to a pattern of more
17 intense use of military and non-military means against Sarajevo in order
18 to force the Bosnian government to -- to enter into a peace agreement.
19 Q. Thank you, Mr. Harland. And my last and fifth quote comes from
20 the second day you testified, that's the 5th November, 2003, in the
21 Slobodan Milosevic case. And my short quote comes from page 28684, and
22 it's a quote from line 6 to line 9.
23 And I believe it was a question by -- in cross-examination, and
24 the cross-examiner refers you to your witness statement, and I quote:
25 "Both sides targeted civilians; and when we could monitor sniper activity
Page 332
1 in Grbavica, it would appear that the Muslims were sniping more civilians
2 than the Serbs."
3 Now, can you explain what you meant by that sentence, which comes
4 from your witness statement and which was read out in the Slobodan
5 Milosevic case?
6 A. Well, first of all, we knew much, much less about the exact number
7 of casualties, military or civilian, on the Serb side because we didn't
8 have access to the Serb side. So a lot of this was presumptive; that is,
9 the Serb authorities would report to us that four children had been killed
10 by snipers or whatever. And we would largely have to take that on its
11 own, at face value; whereas, on the government side or inside the
12 confrontation lines, we tended to know exactly how many people had been
13 killed or almost exactly. We checked the morgues, we checked the
14 hospitals, and we checked the battlefields and the streets.
15 Now, the Serbs controlled all the high ground around Sarajevo, so
16 they could snipe or shell from almost any position. The Bosnian
17 government, however, had much less capacity to do so. They controlled
18 some high buildings that overlooked parts of the Serb civilian inhabited
19 area of Grbavica. So the fire out of the city by the Bosnian government
20 forces tended to be concentrated from a relatively small number of high
21 buildings overlooking Grbavica, and so I believe what I was pointing out
22 was that in that part of the city, Grbavica, that's where the Bosnian
23 government forces would have concentrated their sniper fire.
24 Indeed, I used to see Bosnian government snipers moving in to take
25 up their position in sniper-nests, just as I was going about my business
Page 333
1 in the city.
2 Q. Thank you very much for these clarifications?
3 MR. WAESPI: Mr. President, I'll now move on to the next phase.
4 These are the documents I would like to have the witness refer to fairly,
5 fairly briefly, if I may. And the first document is - and I hope I have
6 that right - 65 ter number 2, which is a document dated the 15th August
7 1994, and that's the famous anti-sniping agreement. And I hope it now
8 appears on some screen.
9 And perhaps if the witness could return the two transcripts from
10 the Milosevic case, Madam Usher.
11 JUDGE ROBINSON: What is on the screen is a reference to the
12 agreement.
13 MR. WAESPI: Yes.
14 JUDGE ROBINSON: We don't have the agreement itself.
15 MR. WAESPI: I think that's just the first page, Mr. President.
16 If the next few pages could be added -- in fact, we do not need
17 the translation at this point in time.
18 [Prosecution counsel confer]
19 MR. WAESPI: Yes, I understand that it's practice in these courts
20 to have both original and translation displayed at the same time. If
21 that's practice, I'm happy to have it both.
22 If the second page of the English version could be displayed as
23 well for the benefit of the witness.
24 Q. Perhaps, Mr. Harland, if it's big enough, can you tell us in very
25 brief words -- sentences what this anti-sniping agreement is about.
Page 334
1 MR. WAESPI: And perhaps we can scroll down to the actual message.
2 THE WITNESS: Yeah.
3 MR. WAESPI: And the next page could be put on as well, which is
4 the actual agreement. The next page is another introductory part. It
5 mentions that the day before a British soldier had been killed, and then
6 the next page will be the actual agreement, if that would be displayed,
7 please. Thank you, Mr. Court deputy.
8 Q. Now, Mr. Harland, can you tell us in brief sentences what this
9 anti-sniping agreement was about, who signed it, who was present during
10 the signature ceremony?
11 A. Well, this was an effort, an initiative launched by us. Both
12 sides had indicated that they had civilian sniping casualties. Those
13 casualties, in general, were much higher on the Bosnian side, but there
14 were certainly Serb casualties particularly in Grbavica. So we proposed
15 that the sides enter into an agreement that would limit the sniping.
16 The main argument was about paragraph 2, which is that we wanted
17 the authority to go out and get the snipers, that if anybody violated the
18 rules we would have freedom of movement within both sides to send quick
19 patrols to go and intercept the snipers, either detain them or, if
20 necessary, to kill them if they were in the act of firing. And that could
21 not be agreed, but they -- both sides did agree to pass orders and
22 limiting sniping and to allow us some limited monitoring and to announce
23 it on their public media as an indication of good faith.
24 As for who was there, I mean the -- I mean I was there, but the --
25 and I believe I drafted the text of the agreement and of this cover you
Page 335
1 were showing. And from the Bosnian side, Mustafa Hajrulahovic was there,
2 Vahid Karavelic, I think, and Hasan Muratovic. The Serb side, General
3 Milosevic, who was relatively new at that stage; and Professor Koljevic;
4 General Tolimir; other people came and went. I think there were also, if
5 I remember correctly, we held the negotiations at a FrenchBat facility at
6 Sarajevo airport, so several French officers were in and out of the room.
7 I now no longer remember exactly who.
8 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Harland.
9 THE WITNESS: Sir.
10 JUDGE ROBINSON: Was the agreement intended to prohibit sniping
11 that was of a defensive character, or is sniping, by definition,
12 necessarily offensive?
13 THE WITNESS: It was intended to -- to limit -- prevent sniping,
14 both against military and civilian personnel. There is sniping, if I can
15 put it this way, that is legitimate, that is the use of marksmen to target
16 military personnel of the opposing force at a considerable distance. And,
17 in fact, a lot of the sniping that took place in Sarajevo was going on all
18 the time. It was snipers from one position on one side trying to identify
19 snipers, military personnel, on the other side. And they would engage in
20 sort of duels, and they would move quickly from one location to another.
21 JUDGE ROBINSON: What you meant wasn't intending to prohibit that?
22 THE WITNESS: Actually it was, because we felt the same people
23 were using the same weapons sometimes to engage in what you might describe
24 as legitimate military activity; that is, activity against other uniformed
25 military personnel. But often they were using it for, you know,
Page 336
1 indiscriminate attacks against civilians.
2 So our agreement, in fact, tried to stop all sniping. And we even
3 proposed that we put line-of-sight barriers using UNHCR plastic sheeting
4 so that the snipers couldn't physically see each other or couldn't see the
5 civilian population on the other side of the line. So the question is
6 actually a very legitimate one, that we were trying to limit a legitimate
7 military activity as well as the -- the attacks on civilians, just because
8 we thought that they couldn't really be distinguished properly.
9 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.
10 JUDGE MINDUA: [Interpretation] Regarding this, you talked about
11 the policies of Sarajevo Romanija Corps, which was -- which actually
12 sought to instill terror within the civil population in Bosnia with the
13 sniping and the bombing, the shelling. But what I would like to ask you
14 is the following: There were snipers of the government on various
15 buildings that were on high elevation of Grbavica inhabited by the Serbs.
16 It's in the transcript on page 15, from 23 -- lines 23 through 25.
17 So my question is the following: Aside from this intentional
18 policy, according to your statement, on behalf of the corps of Sarajevo
19 Romanija very probably and, according to your statement, that it was also
20 from the Bosnian government at this stage, according to what you have
21 seen, could we have sought or could one have imagined that intentional
22 sniping from Bosnian snipers against their own objectives, against their
23 own -- could they have shot on their own targets? You didn't mention
24 that.
25 THE WITNESS: Yes. That is, of course, a -- an extremely
Page 337
1 sensitive subject, and it was a very sensitive subject at the time. It
2 was a common allegation of the Serb side that the Bosnians were sniping
3 against their own side. Our observations were that there were -- there
4 were some cases of this, not a large number. Certainly more than 90
5 percent of the victims on the Bosnian side, when we could identify with
6 any certainty where the shots came from, appeared to have been shot from
7 the Serb side of the confrontation line.
8 But there were certainly cases, as you suggest, in which Bosnian
9 civilians on the Bosnian side of the confrontation line were shot by
10 bullets that appeared to have originated on the Bosnian side of the
11 confrontation line. That is correct.
12 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Waespi.
13 MR. WAESPI: Thank you, Mr. President.
14 Q. Mr. Harland, I have a last question about this document. What was
15 the effect of the anti-sniping agreement?
16 A. There was a -- there was an immediate and sharp decline in the
17 number of civilian sniper casualties. If I remember correctly, we thought
18 that the command and control, particularly on the Serb side, was very
19 strong because we had failed in our efforts to have line-of-sight barriers
20 erected between the two sides; and yet, even so, the number of casualties
21 fell dramatically for a certain period, I can't remember now, a month or
22 two months or maybe three months.
23 MR. WAESPI: Thank you, Mr. Harland.
24 Mr. President I would like to move on to the next document unless
25 you have further questions.
Page 338
1 JUDGE ROBINSON: No, you may proceed.
2 MR. WAESPI: Thank you.
3 Q. The next document, Mr. Harland.
4 MR. WAESPI: And Mr. Court deputy is ter number 1.982, and it's a
5 document dated 18 August 1994, an UNPROFOR memorandum addressed to a
6 Colonel Lugonja, subject: Anti-sniping Application Measures, a two-page
7 document.
8 Q. Mr. Harland, can you very briefly tell us what this document is
9 about?
10 A. Actually, I can only see a part of it. Yeah. This is not one of
11 the documents that I wrote. This is, in fact, a document from Sector
12 Sarajevo; whereas, I was the political officer for Bosnia and Herzegovina
13 headquarters. We were both in Sarajevo, but this was the subordinate
14 sector headquarters. But this is a -- a follow-up implementation
15 arrangement.
16 Q. Now, it discusses in the first sentence follow-up meetings about
17 measures of implementation of this agreement, meaning the anti-sniping
18 agreement. Were you aware of these follow-up meetings?
19 A. Yes, and I also was involved in some of the follow-up activities
20 to the agreement. The agreement was also followed by some implementation
21 agreements and a codicil to it. A number of measures designed to make it
22 more effective.
23 Q. Thank you, Mr. Harland.
24 MR. WAESPI: If we can move on to 65 ter number 5, and this, in
25 fact, might be one of the codicils you just mentioned a moment ago.
Page 339
1 MR. WAESPI: 65 ter number 5, it's called codicil to the
2 anti-sniping agreement.
3 Q. Is this a document you had mentioned before?
4 A. Yes, and I believe this one was drafted by me.
5 Q. Thank you, Mr. Harland?
6 MR. WAESPI: Let's move on to the next document, and this is 65
7 ter number 2007. Perhaps if you can give us a brief comment about an
8 out-going code cable, which has some relevant information about this case
9 dated 12th September 1994. It's stated, Violation of Sarajevo
10 Anti-sniping Agreement.
11 THE WITNESS: This cable, which is appearing on my screen, is a
12 cable from Zagreb which was UNPROFOR theatre headquarters to New York. I
13 was at the subordinate headquarters; that is, the Bosnia and Herzegovina
14 command in Sarajevo. So this cable would have been written using
15 information that we provided then, but this information -- this cable was
16 not drafted by me and would not have been seen by me at the time.
17 MR. WAESPI:
18 Q. Thank you, Mr. Harland.
19 MR. WAESPI: Let's move on to --
20 THE WITNESS: It does seem correct, by the way.
21 MR. WAESPI:
22 Q. Thank you, Mr. Harland?
23 MR. WAESPI: Let's move on to the next document which is 65 ter
24 number 2134.
25 Q. It was drafted by Tony Banbury but emanates from the office of
Page 340
1 Victor Andreev, dated 15th November, 1994, and perhaps if you want to read
2 the first paragraph.
3 A. Mm-hmm, yeah.
4 Q. Do you have a comment about the authenticity of this document, Mr.
5 Harland?
6 A. Yeah. This document was written in my presence, by my office
7 mate, Tony Banbury, yes.
8 Q. Now, let's move on to the next document, which is number 19, a
9 document dated 23rd November 1994, and it's dated -- it's referred to as
10 "Code meeting with Generals Gobilliard and Milosevic, 23rd November
11 1994." And if you can have a look, especially at paragraph 1, Mr.
12 Harland, especially the acronym "DMZ." Can you tell Their Honours what
13 that was all about.
14 A. Well, this is another document from our subordinate headquarters;
15 that is, from the Sarajevo Sector headquarters. And it is about an effort
16 to create a weapons-free zone around Sarajevo, which was sometimes called
17 by NATO the total exclusion zone, but was sometimes were neutrally known
18 as a demilitarised zone. These were -- this was a zone established in, I
19 believe, April of 1994, after the so-called Markale 1 massacre and subject
20 to NATO -- and following NATO threats.
21 And the Serb compliance with it had always been rather
22 problematic, and one of the efforts of UNPROFOR Sector Sarajevo was to try
23 to get the terms of the agreement on the demilitarisation of the Sarajevo
24 area truly agreed to rather -- by the parties, rather than simply demanded
25 by external actors such as the United Nations or NATO.
Page 341
1 Q. Thank you, Mr. Harland.
2 MR. WAESPI: If we could move on, perhaps, to the next document.
3 Mr. President, Your Honours, this is document 2145. And this is a type of
4 document, Your Honours, which we will see more often in this case and Mr.
5 Harland could perhaps -- I'm not sure whether that's the right document,
6 though, 2145. Yes, that's the right document. Thank you very much, Mr.
7 Court deputy?
8 Q. Can you explain, Mr. Harland, to Their Honours what type of
9 communication this is.
10 A. This is a daily situation report from UNPROFOR theatre
11 headquarters in Zagreb to New York describing the military events of the
12 previous 24 hours.
13 MR. WAESPI: And perhaps as an example, Mr. President, Your
14 Honours, we'll move to page 5 of this document. And if paragraph 2 --
15 yes, that's fine. That's fine.
16 Q. And I can quote paragraph 2: "Sector Sarajevo: The situation in
17 Sarajevo was tense. There was virtually no UNPROFOR movement allowed in
18 the BSA-controlled area, apparently as a reaction to air-strikes over the
19 last three days."
20 Then it moves on to: "Sniper Alley was active with numerous
21 incidents and a heavy exchange of fire in the Holiday Inn and Grbavica
22 areas involving three anti-tank rockets shot at the BiH police station and
23 three others," and so on.
24 So who provided the information for the -- the basic background
25 information for these kind of reports, Mr. Harland?
Page 342
1 A. We did.
2 Q. Thank you.
3 MR. WAESPI: If we could move on to the next documents. Your
4 Honours, this is 2158.
5 Q. Mr. Harland, any comments on this document? It's dated 10th
6 December 1994.
7 A. Yeah. I wrote this document.
8 MR. WAESPI: And, Your Honours, on page 6, the situation in
9 Sarajevo, the electricity, other utilities situation for the civilian
10 population is discussed on page 6.
11 If we can move on to the next document, this is 2262. And we are
12 now moving into 1995. It's a document dated 29th March 1995,
13 especially -- in particular paragraph 1 might be relevant.
14 Q. Mr. Harland, if you have any comments.
15 A. Yes. This was the deterioration of the security situation in
16 Sarajevo that I was speaking about at excessive length before.
17 MR. WAESPI: And just for Your Honours' benefit, from pages 5
18 onwards, there are a number of charts barely readable, legible. And we
19 are not relying on these charts, obviously, just for the record.
20 If we move on to the next document, Mr. President, Your Honours,
21 that's 65 ter number 22.
22 Q. Can you tell us who Luc Duchesne is?
23 A. Luc Duchesne was a civil affairs officer working for me at Sector
24 Sarajevo headquarters in the -- what we called the PTT engineering
25 building.
Page 343
1 MR. WAESPI: And the next document is number 6. It dates 24th
2 April 1995, and it's dealing with anti-sniping project, again from Mr. Luc
3 Duchesne. It's a fairly detailed document, detailing all these various
4 measures.
5 Q. And I think you -- I believe you already discussed, you know, the
6 plastic you used. Do you remember that --
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. -- project?
9 A. Yes. We wanted to erect a continuous, very tall, plastic barrier,
10 non-see-through plastic barrier so that snipers from either side would not
11 be able to see targets on the other side of the line. But the Serbs
12 ultimately did not agree for this to go ahead. And when we tried to put
13 some containers, some sea containers unilaterally in the most exposed
14 places, our troops were shot at, in fact, one of them was killed while
15 operating a fork-lift trying to establish these barriers.
16 Q. And shot at from --
17 A. From the Serb side.
18 Q. Thank you, Mr. Harland.
19 MR. WAESPI: If we could move on to the next document which is ter
20 number 511. It's, again, an UNPROFOR communication. The releasing
21 officer is Colonel Demurenko.
22 Q. Do you have any comments, Mr. Harland?
23 A. I can't see the text of the document. Colonel Demurenko was the
24 Chief of Staff of our Sector Sarajevo office, an officer from the Russian
25 Federation.
Page 344
1 Q. And again --
2 MR. WAESPI: If the document could be moved up so --
3 Q. Was is that, again, one of the communications UNPROFOR released?
4 A. Yes. This was a communication from the subordinate Sector
5 Sarajevo office to the UNPROFOR command office at which I worked.
6 Q. Thank you, Mr. Harland?
7 MR. WAESPI: If we could move on to the next document, which is
8 ter number 104.
9 Q. It dates 3rd June, 1995, and it deals on page 3 with the food
10 situation in Sarajevo.
11 MR. WAESPI: Perhaps we could go to page 3. At the top, it has a
12 reference to UNHCR bringing in flour to Sarajevo and another reference to
13 the rapidly deteriorating situation of food in the city.
14 Q. Do you have any comments on that, Mr. Harland?
15 A. Yes. The -- Sarajevo was completely surrounded for most of the
16 war. The Serbs usually let in just enough food so that people would not
17 starve; however, at the beginning of 1995, they brought fire to bear on
18 the airport. So the airport was no longer available for bringing in
19 humanitarian supplies. So the only way we were able to feed the quarter
20 of a million people of Sarajevo was by bringing convoys over Mount Igman
21 and then over -- over a narrow corridor of Sarajevo airport that we
22 controlled, and then the Serbs of the Sarajevo Romanija Corps would fire
23 on us and on the humanitarian convoys we were escorting down this mountain
24 dirt-road into the city.
25 And so this report is about ongoing problems that we had and our
Page 345
1 efforts to protect that Igman road by barricades and fire from attacks
2 from the Sarajevo Romanija Corps that was trying to cut off the supplies.
3 Q. Thank you, Mr. Harland.
4 MR. WAESPI: If we could move on to number 2471, please.
5 Q. It's a document dated 24th June, 1995. And, Mr. Harland, I would
6 like you --
7 MR. WAESPI: And Your Honours as well.
8 Q. -- to draw your attention to the third paragraph, which discusses
9 the humanitarian situation in the city, the fact that civilians had been
10 killed at water-lines and marketplaces and negotiations to restore
11 utilities are ongoing. Any comments, Mr. Harland?
12 A. Yeah. This would happen at times of greater political tension
13 that the Serb military would shoot at convoys to try and stop them or
14 would increase the sniping. It was popular to shell water -- places where
15 people gathered for water because people had to gather there in larger
16 numbers. Normally, people were just hiding in their apartments or in
17 their cellars.
18 Q. The next document might need some explanation from your side, Mr.
19 Harland. This is 2490 and it's a document dated 30th June 1995, and it
20 goes to Mr. Phillip Korwin. It's signed by you.
21 MR. WAESPI: If we could go on to the next page, please.
22 Q. The second paragraph is probably the most important, if you want
23 to familiarise yourself, Mr. Harland, it. And please explain us, if you
24 recall the incident, explain us what triggered your reaction.
25 A. Yeah. I was very concerned during the period of May and June and
Page 346
1 July of 2005 that the Sarajevo Romanija Corps had in addition to its
2 effort to increase the level of terror on the civilian population by
3 cutting off the food and increasing sniping and random shelling had also
4 begun some targeted shelling against us. And I was -- during the period
5 this was written, I had moved from my regular job at BH command because of
6 a shortage of personnel, and I had taken over the civil affairs office at
7 Sector Sarajevo.
8 And my counter-part, military counter-part, the acting sector
9 commander and I, Colonel Meille, were very distressed at what was going
10 on. And the Serbs would fire shells at us to limit our activity, to
11 observe sniping and so on. And we didn't have heavy weapons, but often
12 the Bosnian army would fire back at the Serb firing point.
13 Now, this Phillip Korwin had -- he had protested that the Bosnian
14 government had fired these weapons back at the Serbs from a distance that
15 was too close to our locations, and that was -- that was correct. But it
16 seemed to me that the basic point that he was -- missed was that they were
17 doing that because that's the shells from the Serb side were landing right
18 on our positions, I mean literally outside my office windows. We had
19 shrapnel coming through the windows, and nearby Bosnian units were firing
20 back.
21 Q. Thank you, Mr. Harland.
22 MR. WAESPI: Mr. President, I have only five more documents to go,
23 and then we are completed.
24 The next document is 2491. And while the document is being
25 retrieved, Mr. Harland, in answering my question I think you said, or it's
Page 347
1 in the transcript, as referring to the period May and June and July 2005.
2 I guess you meant or you might have said 1995.
3 THE WITNESS: I'm Sorry. Yes, 1995.
4 MR. WAESPI:
5 Q. This is a document which appears to be signed by the gentleman you
6 just mentioned in your previous answer, Colonel Meille, and it's addressed
7 to MAJOR-GENERAL Dragomir Milosevic. Are you familiar with this junior?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. And can you tell us a little bit more about the circumstances, if
10 you can?
11 A. During this period May and June and July of 1995, the Serb direct
12 targeting of us and indiscriminate targeting of the city substantially
13 intensified and also some new weapons that we had not been familiar with
14 before were deployed, such as the slow-moving improvised rockets. And we
15 discussed what actions, political and military, we could take. And one of
16 the first things we agreed should be done was that there -- it should be
17 put on record through a protest.
18 Normally, we simply telephoned our protest or we delivered them to
19 the liaison officer, Colonel Indjic, but sometimes we would directly
20 approach commanders, either in Lukavica or in Pale and relay them and
21 sometimes write these letters. And this is an example of -- of one. I
22 should say they generally didn't do any good.
23 Q. What do you mean by that?
24 A. Well, we would make the protests, but it wouldn't lead to any --
25 to any change of behaviour at all by the Serbs.
Page 348
1 Q. When protests were launched, letters like that, do you recall what
2 the answer of the protestee to these protests were?
3 A. Sometimes they -- the Serbs would tell us that the Bosnians had
4 either fired out of the city or they were preparing an offensive, and so
5 they had done these things. And we would then say, you know, if the
6 Bosnians have launched a military effort to break out of the city, that's
7 no justification for either targeting us or for targeting the civilian
8 population.
9 But they were normally not responsive. Sometimes they would also
10 say that it was uncontrolled elements, but we -- we did not think that
11 they were uncontrolled elements because the pattern into which they fitted
12 was consistent with the elements that were under -- under command. And
13 when they seemed to have a desire to limit this activity, either in the
14 context of a political negotiation or in response to a threat from NATO,
15 suddenly we might have 100 percent compliance.
16 JUDGE ROBINSON: Can I ask you then, Mr. Harland, from what you
17 say, the Serbs appeared to have disputed the facts as you presented those
18 facts to them. It's not that they promised to do something and then did
19 not fulfil that promise?
20 THE WITNESS: Both. Sometimes they would dispute the facts. They
21 would say that the Muslims had fired mortars at themselves, for example,
22 but generally we were confident that this was not true. We had our own
23 mortar-detecting radars. We had UNMOs, military UN observers on the
24 ground so we were normally confident of the facts. But you are correct
25 that they would sometimes dispute the facts.
Page 349
1 Then sometimes they would give an explanation, but not promise to
2 change their behaviour because they apparently thought it was reasonable
3 that if there had been a Bosnian military act in one area, that they could
4 respond in this way.
5 And the third possibility, which you've just mentioned, is that
6 they might undertake to -- to stop the behaviour, but we didn't notice any
7 abatement of it. And we did monitor the exact number of incoming rounds
8 very carefully from day-to-day.
9 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Waespi.
10 MR. WAESPI: Thank you, Mr. President. I note the time.
11 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, it's time for the adjournment. We adjourn
12 for 20 minutes, and I would like to see the Legal Officer in my chambers.
13 --- Recess taken at 10.27 a.m.
14 --- On resuming at 10.50 a.m.
15 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Waespi.
16 MR. WAESPI: Thank you, Mr. President. We have five documents
17 left, and I think we can finish fairly quickly. The first document, Mr.
18 President, Your Honours is ter number 2503. This is a communication
19 drafted by you, Mr. Harland, 2nd July 1995. And it deals on the third
20 page on top of it with an incident on 25th of June when a 16-year-old boy
21 was killed while riding his bicycle.
22 Q. And I believe you were fairly close to that incident, Mr. Harland.
23 A. Yes, that's right.
24 Q. Have you actually seen the incident?
25 A. The incident took place just around the corner from where I was.
Page 350
1 I was -- in fact, there are many, many sniping incidents all the time, and
2 I didn't always write up each one of them in our -- our reports. I
3 mentioned this one only because in -- as a specific incident because I
4 happened to be walking down the street from the main UNPROFOR
5 headquarters; that is, the building which is now the US embassy in
6 Sarajevo I think on -- is it on Djure Djakovic Street as it was called
7 then down the street.
8 And I heard a small number of shots, and then there was a -- a
9 commotion. I think I was near the bottom of the street and then I turned
10 the -- near the Kino, the cinema Radnik, and I turned at the Alipasino
11 mosque, and there was a bicycle on the ground. And people were trying to
12 pull away a young boy who had been hit in the head and who was dead.
13 And there was always a mixture of fear and panic, worry when
14 people tried to help because you never really knew where the shot had --
15 often didn't know where the shot had come from, and people were afraid of
16 more. And people were indicating to -- that there was, in fact, a
17 building. I think it was the one we called the white building in Grbavica
18 as -- which was, in fact, visible from that point which seemed to have
19 been the firing location, yeah.
20 Q. And on -- who held that territory on which the white building was
21 located in Grbavica?
22 A. That was a Serb-held position.
23 Q. Thank you, Mr. Harland.
24 MR. WAESPI: If we could move on to the next document. This is
25 103. It dates 8th July, 1995.
Page 351
1 Q. And you were the drafter, Mr. Harland.
2 THE REGISTRAR: I'm sorry, could you repeat the number.
3 MR. WAESPI: 103, I'm sorry.
4 THE REGISTRAR: I'm sorry, but I don't have a 103 in e-court. I
5 have a 28 and the next document is 104.
6 MR. WAESPI: Yeah. It's a document dated 8th July 1995. The ERN
7 is R0024208.
8 [Trial Chamber confers]
9 MR. WAESPI: Otherwise, we'll just go over it.
10 THE REGISTRAR: I'm sorry, but I cannot locate the document with
11 that ERN number.
12 MR. WAESPI: Okay. We'll have --
13 JUDGE ROBINSON: Move on to another document.
14 MR. WAESPI: Yes. The next one is 2597. And I believe we have
15 talked about one of these releasing officers before; it's Colonel
16 Demurenko.
17 Q. Are you familiar with Colonel Demurenko, Mr. Harland?
18 A. Yes, I knew Colonel Demurenko.
19 Q. What was his position?
20 A. I believe he was Chief of Staff of the sector headquarters for
21 Sector Sarajevo.
22 Q. And that's, again, a standard UNPROFOR communication?
23 A. Correct.
24 Q. Now, let's move to the next document, which is the second-to-last,
25 2629. And it's an outgoing code cable dated 5th September 1995. And the
Page 352
1 first paragraph deals with the fact that there was "no evidence of
2 significant heavy weapon withdrawal from the Sarajevo area." Are you
3 familiar with this document, Mr. Harland?
4 A. This document is a cable from UNPROFOR theatre headquarters in
5 Zagreb to New York. So I would not have seen this document at the time of
6 drafting, but my office probably would have provided the information on
7 which it was based.
8 Q. And do you remember the dispute about the withdrawal of heavy
9 weaponry from the Sarajevo area that occurred in September 1995?
10 A. Yes.
11 MR. WAESPI: And the last document, Mr. President, Your Honours,
12 is document number 3. And it's titled, "First Meeting on the
13 Implementation of the Cease-fire Agreement of 5th October 1995."
14 Q. And it lists you, Mr. Harland, as being present, a few other
15 personnel from UNPROFOR, and a few personalities from the side of
16 Republika Srpska; Mr. Milosevic, Lieutenant-Colonel Indjic. Do you recall
17 these meetings, series of meetings?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. And what was the purpose of these meetings?
20 A. In the weeks prior to this communication, the Government of
21 Croatia had launched a military attack against the Croatian Serbs;
22 Operation Oluja, Operation Storm. And the Croatian-Serb forces had
23 collapsed in complete defeat. Croatian government forces had then surged
24 into Bosnia and were on a military campaign against the Bosnian Serbs.
25 And the Bosnian Serbs feared that they were on the brink of a complete
Page 353
1 military collapse. We knew this because General Mladic came to us in
2 great alarm and said that he wanted quickly to accelerate the peace talks
3 that were going on under the auspices of the Americans at that point.
4 And the Bosnians who were on the advance for the first time in the
5 war said that they could not consider a full end to the war unless the
6 Serbs restored electricity and gas and food to the people of Sarajevo,
7 sort of lifted the sort of cycle of terror, which the Serbs had already
8 said they didn't really have it within their power to lift so easily. And
9 yet, they -- here was the agreement where suddenly the Serbs wanted it to
10 happen and, indeed, it did happen. The gas and electricity supplies
11 suddenly increased and so on.
12 MR. WAESPI: And my last question, Mr. President, Your Honours is:
13 Q. You have met the accused, Mr. Dragomir Milosevic, his predecessor,
14 General Galic. You met General Tolimir and other Bosnian Serb generals.
15 Can you tell Their Honours your impression about these personalities?
16 A. I met General Milosevic in the context of meetings, as I had his
17 predecessor General Galic. But I didn't have a personal relationship with
18 him as, you know, I did perhaps with General Mladic or Professor Koljevic
19 or even General Tolimir. So I don't -- did not have a strong impression
20 of General Milosevic as a personality. But I did -- I did have the
21 impression that from seeing him in the negotiations on the sniper
22 agreement in 1994 that he was a forceful and commanding personality,
23 rather more commanding presence, perhaps, than his predecessor, General
24 Galic. But I did not know General Milosevic personally, I could say.
25 MR. WAESPI: Do we have that document, 103? If it just could be
Page 354
1 displayed, because it's again drafted by Mr. Harland. Document number
2 103.
3 Q. Again, Mr. Harland, that's a document drafted by you. Is that
4 correct?
5 A. Yes.
6 MR. WAESPI: And on page 2, Your Honours, one of the subjects
7 discussed are attacks on civilians, but we don't need to go into that
8 because it's mentioned there and Mr. Harland testified about that in
9 detail.
10 That completes, Mr. President, Your Honours, examination-in-chief.
11 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Waespi, there are two matters I take up.
12 First, the Chamber will not accept that the Prosecutor can spend an hour
13 and 40 minutes in a 92 ter proceeding. The 92 ter proceeding is designed
14 to facilitate the admission of evidence from previous proceedings without
15 going through an examination-in-chief. It's not a new procedure; it's
16 really 89(F) codified. And I have been in trials in which we have used
17 89(F), and the Prosecutor spends no more than 10, 15, or 20 minutes
18 introducing the witness.
19 So an hour and 40 minutes is unacceptable. It defeats the purpose
20 of the procedure, which is to expedite the proceedings. I allowed you to
21 go on, as this was the first witness, but I'm to say that the Chamber will
22 not allow that length of time for the introduction of a 92 ter. I'm
23 resisting trying hard not to say examination-in-chief, because it is not
24 examination-in-chief. The procedure is designed to avoid
25 examination-in-chief.
Page 355
1 The other matter is that I've decided to admit -- to deal with the
2 admission of the exhibits now rather than at the end of cross-examination,
3 because I think that would facilitate the cross-examiner's citation of
4 documents.
5 MR. WAESPI: Yes. Thank you, Mr. President. I accept your point
6 about the procedural issues. It was also the first witness from our side
7 which -- and also my first witness under this rule. So I do apologise if
8 I went over -- over the examinable time, and we will certainly abide by
9 your ruling in future. Thank you, Mr. President.
10 JUDGE ROBINSON: Can we deal with the admission of the exhibits
11 now.
12 MR. WAESPI: Mr. President, do you want me to read out the numbers
13 I'm proposing to tendering or is it the court officer who is doing that?
14 JUDGE ROBINSON: Let's have the court officer.
15 You'll read the admission of the exhibits.
16 [Trial Chamber and registrar confer]
17 THE REGISTRAR: Thank you, Your Honours. The transcript dated
18 18th September, 65 ter number 02815, will be Exhibit P1. The transcript
19 of the 5th of November, 65 ter number 02816, will be Prosecution Exhibit
20 P2. The anti-sniping agreement, 15 August, 65 ter number 2, will be
21 Exhibit P3. The UNPROFOR memo 18th of August, 01982, will be Exhibit P4.
22 The codicil to the anti-sniping agreement dated the 1st of October, 65
23 ter number 5, will be Exhibit P5.
24 The cable dated 12th September, 65 ter number 02007, will become
25 Exhibit P6. The memo dated 15th of November, 65 ter number 02134, will
Page 356
1 become Exhibit P7. The memo dated 23rd of November, 65 ter number 00019
2 will become Exhibit P8. The daily sitrep 24th of November, 65 ter number
3 02145, will become Exhibit P9. The weekly sitrep report dated 10th of
4 December, 65 ter number 02158, will become Exhibit P10.
5 The agreement dated 29th of March, 65 ter number 02262, will
6 become Exhibit P11. The report dated the 15th of April, 65 ter number
7 00022, will become Exhibit P12. The memo dated 24th of April, 65 ter
8 number 6 will become Exhibit P13. The UNPROFOR message dated 22nd May, 65
9 ter number 00011, will become Exhibit P14. The UNPROFOR memo dated 3rd
10 June, 65 ter number 00104, will become Exhibit P15.
11 The UNPROFOR memo dated 24th of June, 65 ter number 02471, will
12 become Exhibit P16. The UNPROFOR memo of 30th June, 65 ter number 02490,
13 will become Exhibit P17. The protest letter dated 30th of June will -- 65
14 ter number 02491, will become Exhibit P18. The UNPROFOR memo dated 2nd of
15 July, 65 ter number 02503, will become Exhibit P19. The UNPROFOR memo
16 dated 8th of July, 65 ter number 3, which also had an ERN number of
17 R0024208, that will become Exhibit P20.
18 The UNPROFOR sitrep of 28th August, 65 ter number 02597, will
19 become Exhibit P21. The cable dated 5th of September, 65 ter number
20 02629, becomes Exhibit P22. The cable dated 5th of September -- I'm
21 sorry, I just did that. The minutes dated 5th of October, 65 ter number 00
22 -- sorry, was the 65 ter number 00 --
23 MR. WAESPI: I think it's 3.
24 THE REGISTRAR: That's correct. 0003 becomes Exhibit P23.
25 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.
Page 357
1 Mr. Tapuskovic, cross-examination.
2 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Good morning, Mr. President and
3 Your Honours. There is a technical problem. I just needed the lectern.
4 I took part, Your Honours, on several occasions in certain proceedings in
5 this Tribunal, and I was in a different situations. But this is the first
6 time that I'm taking part in the procedure of this nature where we are
7 dominated by technology and electronics.
8 We made a tremendous effort to try to overcome these difficulties,
9 and hopefully today we shall manage to function properly and do our duty
10 as required. But before I start my cross-examination, I would kindly ask
11 you that during today's sitting, towards the end of it, rather, you
12 allocate a few minutes for certain procedural matters that I would like to
13 raise before you.
14 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, we'll do that, Mr. Tapuskovic.
15 Cross-examination by Mr. Tapuskovic:
16 Q. [Interpretation] Good morning, Mr. Harland. We are meeting now
17 for the first time -- for the third time --
18 THE INTERPRETER: Correction.
19 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation].
20 Q. -- and I would like to express my pleasure that you are still in
21 good health. What I would like to say is that I will do my best to ask my
22 questions as directly as possible; and as you already know, we should try
23 if possible and whenever possible to give us the briefest possible
24 answers. If -- preferably, if you can just say yes or no.
25 There are a couple of topics that I would like to cover related to
Page 358
1 the documents that you had prepared, and I will try to be as direct as
2 possible. The first issue that I'm interested in and what the Chamber
3 should hear about, you said that you arrived in Sarajevo in the capacity
4 of -- in your capacity towards the end of May, 1993. Is that correct?
5 A. Yes, the end of May or the beginning of June, yes.
6 Q. And you are well aware that the Security Council Resolution dated,
7 I think, the 4th of May, number 824 referred to protected zones, and one
8 of those protected zones was Sarajevo. And I presume that the United
9 Nations had sent their representative, among other things, in order to
10 implement this on the ground which was contained in the resolution, 824.
11 Is that correct?
12 JUDGE ROBINSON: You've asked three questions there. I would like
13 you to ask the questions separately, and please bear that in mind, but I
14 will allow the witness to answer.
15 THE WITNESS: Yes. You're right about when I arrived and you are
16 correct about the date of the passage of Resolution 824 and you are also
17 correct that 824 became a part of the mandate of UNPROFOR.
18 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation]
19 Q. Is it correct that upon your arrival, as one of your primary
20 tasks, you had a duty to secure or ensure free movement of people?
21 A. Yes. It was a mandated task of UNPROFOR to try to secure freedom
22 of movement, yes.
23 Q. You talked to a large number of Serbs and -- those Serbs whom you
24 met in Sarajevo, and they expressed their desire to leave Sarajevo?
25 A. Yes, sir.
Page 359
1 Q. When you say that, are you primarily referring to those Serbs who
2 were in the neighbourhoods under the control of the Muslim military
3 forces?
4 A. Yes, sir.
5 Q. And those who wanted to leave were unable to do so because they
6 were not allowed by the Muslim authorities to do that. Is that correct?
7 A. That is correct. That is certainly one of the main reasons they
8 could not leave.
9 Q. If that is correct, that they were not allowed to leave, does that
10 constitute a serious violation of international conventions?
11 A. I'm not a lawyer, but it was certainly --
12 JUDGE ROBINSON: Don't answer. Don't answer that question.
13 THE WITNESS: Thank you, sir.
14 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I appreciate that.
15 I am not going to go through this transcript because that will take too
16 much time; but at the last trial, Mr. Harland responded directly in
17 affirmative to this question and it can be found in the transcripts.
18 Q. My second subject is somewhat similar.
19 Before you came to Sarajevo, were you familiar with the fact that
20 in Sarajevo, before the outbreak of the conflict, between 150 and 180.000
21 Serbs had lived in Sarajevo?
22 A. Was I familiar with that fact before I arrived in Sarajevo? I
23 don't recall. Perhaps I was not familiar with that, but became aware of
24 it on my arrival.
25 Q. Thank you. Before you arrived in Sarajevo, or maybe afterwards,
Page 360
1 were you informed about the existence about a certain national Serbian
2 project of ethnic cleansing that was being implemented solely by the
3 Serbian side?
4 A. No. It was not our impression that ethnic cleansing was solely
5 done by the Serbian side, and that was not my personal experience. I
6 travelled extensively around the country. And, in fact, the first example
7 of ethnic cleansing that I saw was I was in the city, small city, of
8 Kakanj when it fell to the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina that was
9 fighting against the Croats. And the Croat population was being
10 physically removed house by house by a unit called the 7th Muslim Brigade.
11 Q. Thank you. But when you arrived in Sarajevo, did -- were you
12 not -- did you not become aware yourself, in light of the information that
13 you just mentioned, and did you learn that at the time when you arrived,
14 only 40.000 Serbs were living there at the moment when you arrived --
15 means that at the moment when you arrived about 140.000 Serbs had already
16 left.
17 A. Yes. I don't now remember the exact number, but that is
18 approximately our understanding as well. Yes.
19 Q. There's another thing. A while ago you spoke about the pressure
20 when you responded to the question of my learned colleague Waespi about
21 the pressures that were being exerted, and you also mentioned that they
22 were holding 70 percent of the territory throughout the war and that as a
23 result they launched or adopted a so-called offensive strategy, so to
24 speak.
25 But did you know and did you ever find out about the fact that
Page 361
1 before the war, before the war broke out, 65 percent of the territory of
2 Bosnia-Herzegovina was owned by the Serbs according to title deeds,
3 according to land registers, as an inalienable right which is related to
4 right to the private property. Were you aware of that?
5 A. That was an assertion that was frequently made to us by our
6 Bosnian Serb colleagues, but my own office did some research on the matter
7 and we disagreed with that finding by a Serbian group. We found that
8 about 30 percent of the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina was entirely
9 uninhabited and was the property of the state. It is true that the Serbs
10 were more preponderant in the rural areas and so the areas under the
11 communist system had some level of private title.
12 The Serbs did hold more of them in the rural areas. In the urban
13 areas which were more inhabited by the Muslim population, there would
14 often be more socially owned -- so-called socially owned properties. But
15 the general statement that the Serbs owned 65 percent of Bosnia is a
16 certainly misleading and, in my view, basically an inaccurate statement
17 about the distribution of population in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
18 Q. Mr. Harland, you just mentioned yourself the word "communism." Do
19 you know that in the communist system, property had been confiscated from
20 people who owned it and became state property. Only now, after all the
21 reforms that had been implemented, the situation is being reversed and
22 people are getting back their property, regardless of what had happened
23 before, and that the property owned by the Serbs during the communist era
24 was confiscated from them but left in the land registry. Were you aware
25 of that? If not, just tell us so?
Page 362
1 A. Yes. We were aware that title to land in Bosnia-Herzegovina over
2 a period of 130 years had changed dramatically; sometimes forcibly,
3 sometimes voluntarily. At the moment of -- in the late 19th century, it
4 was overwhelming Muslim owned. There was a wave of confiscations and then
5 there was substantial Serb holdings; and then after 1945, there was a
6 large amount of state or so-called social holdings.
7 Yes. We were very aware that title had shifted dramatically over
8 a period of several decades, and that's one of the reasons that this
9 figure of the Serbs owned 65 percent of Bosnia seemed to us an essentially
10 unscientific and more propagandistic statement than actually an accurate
11 reflection of the distribution of population in Bosnia-Herzegovina; though
12 it is true that the Bosnian Serbs by and large were more preponderant in
13 rural areas and, therefore, tended to have more land. That is true as a
14 general fact.
15 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Tapuskovic, the question that you put, if I
16 understood it correctly, is that 65 percent of the territory of
17 Bosnia-Herzegovina was owned by the Serbs according to title deeds, but
18 ownership of property is -- is a different concept from ownership of
19 territory, is it not?
20 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] That's correct. But most of the
21 Serbs remained in the area that they owned precisely around Sarajevo, what
22 Mr. Harland just mentioned, and I wanted to ask him about that. These
23 rural areas around Sarajevo were held by the Serbs or owned by the Serbs.
24 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, but you're speaking of property, private
25 property?
Page 363
1 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Yes, about property, private
2 property. That is correct. Exclusively about the property -- private
3 populate, that's what I am referring to. That's correct.
4 JUDGE ROBINSON: I didn't want that to be confused with ownership
5 of the territory, with questions of sovereignty of the territory.
6 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Of course, that's a matter of --
7 it's a legal matter and there's no need to dwell on that. I perfectly
8 understand what you are saying and I take note of that, and we shall
9 address this issue in the course of the forthcoming proceedings.
10 JUDGE ROBINSON: Please proceed.
11 THE WITNESS: Though, the statement is still wrong even as -- even
12 as framed like that. If you were to take all of the private property
13 deeds of Bosnia-Herzegovina at the time of the 1991 census and put them
14 all together, those title deeds owned by people declaring themselves of
15 Serb nationality would certainly not have represented 65 percent of the
16 surface area of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
17 And in fact, this has been badly manipulated. And in fact, I
18 wonder, sir, President Milosevic even gave me a map which coloured the
19 Sarajevo area according to which population was preponderant and owned
20 which parts, and so there is just a little green strip in the valley of
21 Sarajevo. And it covered the whole of Mount Igman and Mount Bjelasnica,
22 which are essentially uninhabited areas with the colouring of Serb
23 ethnicity. These were, we felt, essentially manipulations, propagandistic
24 statements rather than statements of fact.
25 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] .
Page 364
1 Q. Thank you, Mr. Harland. Let us move now on to another subject
2 matter. You said that you arrived in Sarajevo as a civil servant of --
3 for the United Nations. Is it true - and I can see from the reports and
4 from what you said today - that you were involved in military issues as
5 well?
6 A. My responsibility was to report on all the mandated areas of
7 UNPROFOR's work; that included military as well as political and
8 humanitarian. That is correct, sir.
9 Q. In your earlier testimony, you said that Sarajevo was in the
10 valley and that the Serbs were on hilltops around it. You said the same
11 today.
12 A. Yes.
13 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] I would kindly ask this map that
14 Mr. Waespi had already submitted, 0044-1766, that's the UNPROFOR mark, to
15 be displayed on screens, please. It was shown in the opening statement.
16 We don't have it on e-court, as I believed that it was. I don't have it.
17 I don't have a copy for Mr. Harland either. If one copy can be given to
18 Mr. Harland, can we try somehow because this is very inconvenient. I had
19 other maps as well, but I believe that I can use this one.
20 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Mr. Harland has been given a copy.
21 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] 004401676.
22 [Trial Chamber confers]
23 JUDGE ROBINSON: That is marked number 6.
24 MR. WAESPI: Yes, Mr. President.
25 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] So we can't see it on our
Page 365
1 monitors, right?
2 THE WITNESS: I have it on my monitor.
3 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] If we can move it a little bit
4 towards east.
5 Q. Mr. Harland, Kiseljak where you work, it was in the valley, wasn't
6 it?
7 A. No, Kiseljak is not on this map.
8 Q. Very well. I wanted to ask you something else. Since you said
9 what you stated, and we all heard you, did you ever go within this circle
10 here? On this map you can see this yellow line which indicates the Army
11 of Bosnia and Herzegovina positions. Is that correct?
12 A. Yes, it seems to.
13 Q. And the red line indicates the Army of the 1st Corps of Republika
14 Srpska. This is the demarcation line. Is that correct?
15 A. Yes, at a certain date. I couldn't tell you what date.
16 Q. If we look at this area here, were you ever at Colina Kapa which
17 is on -- to the east. It's a hill about 966 metres high. Did you hear
18 about that ever Colina Kapa? It's not marked on this map, but it's
19 somewhere here to the east and near Debelo Brdo. And this hill called
20 Colina Kapa is 966 metres high. Were you ever there or weren't you?
21 A. I was at Debelo Brdo, which is marked on this point, which was
22 the -- one of the higher positions occupied by --
23 Q. I'm not receiving interpretation.
24 A. I was saying I did visit Debelo Brdo, which you mentioned, and
25 which is marked on this map and which is an area higher up.
Page 366
1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Would you point that out for us, Mr. Harland.
2 THE WITNESS: It is here. It is a hill, a reasonably high hill,
3 that was heavily contested between the Bosnian army and the Serb army.
4 And UNPROFOR also had a position on the hill that was regularly under
5 attack, but I believe that the question is trying to ask me whether I was
6 aware that there was some high ground within the confrontation lines as
7 marked on this map. And yes, of course, I'm aware that there was some
8 high ground, but essentially this is a valley which is overwhelming
9 dominated from the north and south and east faces of the valley by higher
10 ground held by the Serbs. So we could probably just move on if we -- if I
11 accept that perhaps.
12 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation]
13 Q. Debelo Brdo, Mr. Harland, is 800 metres high, and Colina Kapa
14 around 1.000 metres. Did you ever go to Mojmilo? Can you please look to
15 the left a bit. It's a very long hill, and the altitude is 680 metres.
16 From Mojmilo, one can have control on both sides towards the
17 Serbian-populated places. Can you just say yes, that you went to this
18 hill and that it's a dominant hilltop over all the other surrounding area?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Now, let's move to the north. There's only one named here, which
21 is marked, and it's Zuc. You know that Zuc is 830 metres high. Is that
22 correct?
23 A. It's certainly a hill.
24 Q. A little bit to the east there's the Oric hill, which is nearly
25 900 metres high. Did you ever go there?
Page 367
1 A. Yes.
2 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I wouldn't like to
3 go on. There are a large number of other positions, but it's not
4 necessary to bother this witness with this. So other people who are more
5 familiar with the terrain will speak about that.
6 JUDGE ROBINSON: I would like to see the last hill, the Oric hill,
7 where is that?
8 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] A little to the right, lower than
9 Zuc; that hill is 876 metres high, and nearby is Volujak, which is 824
10 metres high. All these hills were held by the Muslims within the yellow
11 line; therefore, the full control on these higher-ground positions of
12 Sarajevo was there. Can we --
13 Q. Is it fair to say that, yes or no?
14 A. It is certainly fair to say that from the north slope of Zuc,
15 which was controlled by the Bosnian army, they were able to look down into
16 Serb-held Vogosca. That is true. So there was -- if your point is that
17 there was some high ground that was controlled by the Bosnia-Herzegovina
18 army which overlooked some Serb-held territory, that is true. I don't
19 think it negates the general proposition that Sarajevo lies in a valley
20 and that the floor of that valley was controlled by the Army of
21 Bosnia-Herzegovina. And these surrounding hills on the whole were
22 controlled by the Army of Republika Srpska.
23 [Trial Chamber confers]
24 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation]
25 Q. I think --
Page 368
1 JUDGE ROBINSON: [Microphone not activated]
2 THE INTERPRETER: Your microphone, Your Honour.
3 JUDGE ROBINSON: The last two hills that you mentioned, we haven't
4 been able to find them on the map.
5 Have you seen them, Mr. Harland?
6 THE WITNESS: The Zuc feature, which is the principal high ground
7 controlled by the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina just north of Sarajevo, is
8 marked on -- on our map --
9 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, I have that.
10 THE WITNESS: -- here, and the other subordinate features are not
11 marked. And Zuc, I did visit and can confirm that it is high ground that
12 overlooks Serb-held territories. The other smaller features, some of them
13 I have visited and some of them I have not visited.
14 JUDGE ROBINSON: What about Vogosca?
15 THE WITNESS: Yes. Vogosca was a community which prior to the war
16 had a Muslim preponderant population, but it was taken very early in the
17 war by the Serbs. And it had a couple of valuable factories in it for
18 ammunition and motor vehicles. And the Muslim population was killed or
19 expelled, but the Muslims, through the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina, were
20 able to control high ground that overlooked Vogosca.
21 So what the honourable colleague says is correct, that the Serb
22 population, the Serb people who either had previously lived in Vogosca or
23 who came then to serve or work in Vogosca were within the field of sight
24 of Bosnian small-arms fire. So he is right in saying that there was some
25 exceptions to the general statement that the Muslims were in the valleys
Page 369
1 and the Serbs controlled the high ground.
2 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you. Are you able to point on the map,
3 even though they are not marked, where those are?
4 THE WITNESS: No, sir.
5 JUDGE ROBINSON: You are not.
6 Yes, Mr. Tapuskovic.
7 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Mr. President Robinson, Vogosca
8 is marked here all up to the north, and it's in a valley. From Zuc, it
9 can be fully controlled.
10 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, we have found it, yes.
11 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Oric is next to Zuc, and it's
12 even higher; it's 876. It's not marked here, but, Your Honours, you will
13 be able to see this is an incomplete map, and of course I have no need to
14 insist upon this further. With other witnesses, we are going to point to
15 the number of these hills within this yellow circle line overlooking the
16 valley. For now, I think that Mr. Harland has painted a clear picture to
17 the best of his knowledge. However, in order for the Chamber to
18 understand better, Grbavica -- it says here Hrasno, Debelo Brdo, and
19 Grbavica.
20 Q. Is this area there, if you can see it on the map, between Debelo
21 Brdo and Hrasno. Grbavica is situated in a valley. Is that correct?
22 A. Yes, sir. That is the one part of the urban heart of Sarajevo,
23 which was controlled by the Bosnian Serb forces. And like the rest of the
24 urban area of Sarajevo, it lies principally in a valley.
25 It actually flows down from higher ground, known as Vrace, down
Page 370
1 to right the valley of the Miljacka River a kilometre or two below. But,
2 principally, the higher buildings, the most densely populated area was, as
3 in the rest of Sarajevo, was actually on the valley floor. That is
4 correct.
5 Q. And let us finish this part. Let us look at the map. On this
6 specific spot, you can see that the forces of the Army of
7 Bosnia-Herzegovina surround Grbavica from three sides. Is that right?
8 And that this is something that can absolutely be seen. It is at this
9 spot that Grbavica was encircled by the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Is it
10 fair to put it that way?
11 A. That is correct. It was surrounded on three sides by the Army of
12 Bosnia-Herzegovina.
13 Q. I do not wish to belabour the point. There are other such spots,
14 but, Mr. Harland, let's look at Nedzarici. You know very well where they
15 are placed. Can you show Nedzarici for the Chamber?
16 A. Yes. It's on -- can you see where I'm indicating on this map?
17 I'll move the map a little bit. If you come north from the airport, you
18 find the small settlement of Nedzarici, which comes from the airport side
19 in a triangle with the tip of the triangle almost at the famous
20 Oslobodjenje newspaper building. It was a famous point of much exchange
21 of fire throughout the war.
22 Q. Thank you. Can you tell us, for instance, when we are discussing
23 Nedzarici, whether Nedzarici was encircled throughout where this line runs
24 and that members of the Army of Republika Srpska could barely have this
25 one corridor as their way out. For the rest, Nedzarici was surrounded by
Page 371
1 the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina on all the other sides?
2 A. That's correct.
3 Q. Thank you. You also discussed roads. One of your last duties
4 involved roads. When you discussed the matter in the investigative stage,
5 in the minutes of the 9th of February, 10th of February, and so on and so
6 forth in your statement, back in 1998, I can show it to you and you can
7 confirm to me whether this is true - that's at page 7 in the English
8 version - you stated: "The Serbs were unable to travel the
9 Ilidza-Lukavica route." Is that correct?
10 A. That is correct. I mean, I don't have the statement. Oh, here it
11 is. That is a correct statement of fact; but to get from Ilidza to
12 Lukavica, they had to travel a very long way around into Eastern Bosnia
13 and back. Yeah, that is correct.
14 Q. Can you please show distance from Ilidza, and can you show the
15 route where it runs, and you said it was just several kilometres long?
16 THE WITNESS: Do I understand also that others have on the screen
17 what I'm indicating to on mine?
18 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.
19 THE WITNESS: Here it's not marked. Oh, here is the suburb of
20 Ilidza and over here is the suburb of Lukavica. These were both
21 Serb-controlled areas, and they're only a couple of kilometres apart. But
22 as you can see, there was Bosnian-held government territory in between.
23 So in order to get from Ilidza to Lukavica or vice versa, any traveller
24 would have to take a very circuitous route east of Sarajevo into the
25 mountainous territory of Eastern Bosnia, and then come back in safety away
Page 372
1 from the confrontation lines from the south and east and into Lukavica.
2 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation]
3 Q. Is it correct that you are of the opinion that the Serbs did not
4 care that much about the roads as the Bosniaks did?
5 A. Well, the Serbs were not surrounded. I mean, there was no siege.
6 There was no -- these areas were not surrounded, and so they had some
7 access; whereas, the -- the people of Sarajevo, a quarter of a million or
8 whatever, they were completely surrounded. They dug a small tunnel out of
9 the city from Dobrinja to Butmir which allowed people to go in single file
10 and very small numbers. So the Serbs and the Bosnians were in completely
11 different situations.
12 And whenever we were able to measure the -- the humanitarian
13 situation in terms of average hours of electricity or water or the average
14 intake of food or the number of casualties for the -- per population unit,
15 the situation within the confrontation lines was, you know, obviously
16 vastly worse than the situation outside the confrontation lines held by
17 the Serbs. But if your point is that there were also some difficulties
18 for the Serbs, either in areas exposed to fire or because they had to take
19 long routes to get to where they wanted to go, that's true; but that was a
20 different and altogether lesser order of problem in terms of human need.
21 Q. Thank you. Let me present you with an example which has to do
22 with your statement that the Serbs did not care that much about the roads.
23 You spoke of the short distance between Nedzarici and Grbavica -- that is
24 to say, between Lukavica and Ilidza. Do you know -- are you aware of the
25 fact that there was a hospital there for the Serbs, and did you know that
Page 373
1 the hospital was unable to provide medical care for people who were
2 seriously injured? Are you aware of this? Can you confirm that this is
3 true?
4 A. Yes, and, in fact, the people in Lukavica used other medical
5 facilities, that is correct, which is not at all to say that their medical
6 facilities were --
7 Q. No, no.
8 A. All right.
9 Q. But you do confirm that there was this hospital and that it wasn't
10 intended for seriously injured. When the need arose for a seriously
11 wounded person to be transported to a better-quality hospital, one had to
12 skirt this yellow and red lines, some 180 -- some 90 to 100 kilometres to
13 reach an adequate hospital. Is that right?
14 A. Sir, if you're trying to make a comparison between life inside and
15 outside the confrontation line, it's impossible. I lived there throughout
16 this period. There were some difficulties outside --
17 Q. No, no.
18 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, Mr. Robinson, I
19 should like my question to be answered. I'm fully respectful of all that
20 was happening in the valley. I'm not going into that matter. I'm raising
21 the matter of roads. I'm not talking about military issues. I'm talking
22 about these specific problems concerning those who were seriously injured
23 and who had to travel the distance, and because of the fact that they had
24 to travel the long distance they died along the way. Is that true, please
25 say yes or no.
Page 374
1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Harland, please respond.
2 THE WITNESS: Yes, I believe that's correct.
3 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation].
4 Q. You mentioned the tunnel. I'd like you ask you, in connection
5 with the tunnel, you spoke about this in the investigation stage in your
6 statement. And I'm not sure if you have one in front of you now. And I'm
7 talking about page 20, the last paragraph, and the first paragraph of page
8 21, or rather, the paragraph starts as the last one on page 20 and the
9 first one on page 21. There, Mr. Harland, you discuss your meetings with
10 General Delic. Is that right?
11 A. Yes, sir.
12 Q. You stated there: "Delic did not have good command and control
13 over his troops in Sarajevo and outside Sarajevo very little." Is that
14 correct?
15 A. That was our impression, yes.
16 Q. You go on to say: "I would say that he had only limited control of
17 forces in Sarajevo." Is that correct? And to the east of the Presidency,
18 in particular?
19 A. That was certainly true in the earlier status of the war; but as
20 time wore on, the command and control arrangements in the Army of
21 Bosnia-Herzegovina improved somewhat in our view; though they were
22 probably never as good as the command and control arrangements in the Army
23 of Republika Srpska in our view.
24 Q. This is precisely what the tunnel made possible, because you said
25 here that once the tunnel was made, the tunnel that connected Sarajevo
Page 375
1 with Central Bosnia, the matters improved. Is that true?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. In the statement you gave in the Slobodan Milosevic case, you
4 stated - this is in French, and you will have to confirm this so that I do
5 not go on searching for this in the English version - you said that
6 Karadzic and the Serbs tolerated the existence of the tunnel because it
7 made possible communication, food, and medical supplies, and so on. Is
8 that correct?
9 A. Yes. Dr. Karadzic once said to me I -- we were talking about the
10 tunnel, and he said to me, "You know, we could -- we could destroy it, but
11 we're going to let the Muslims breathe." And it confirmed our view that
12 the Serb intention was to inflict, you know, terror and suffering on
13 Sarajevo but not actually to starve everybody to death. They could have,
14 in fact, cut off all the food and water and probably forced the actually
15 surrender of Sarajevo at certain points, but they chose not to and they
16 chose to allow the existence of this tunnel.
17 Q. I should now like to present you with a document, which is dated
18 the 7th of October, 1994, and marked --
19 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Can I have your assistance in
20 this, please.
21 Q. This is an outgoing dispatch message addressed to Annan. And in
22 connection with the meeting with Karadzic and Mladic, I would like to show
23 you paragraph 5 of the document under B2, which can be found at page 3,
24 page 3. 001-4722-R001-4731. This is the 65 ter document number 1. Item
25 5, under B, or rather, item 5, B2. Have you found it?
Page 376
1 A. No. No. I think this is a paragraph immediately before D, so it
2 must be paragraph C. I don't know.
3 Q. We have items A and B under 5, so --
4 MR. WAESPI: I think it's on page 2, the English version.
5 THE WITNESS: Yeah.
6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Waespi.
7 THE WITNESS: Mm-hmm. Sure.
8 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation]
9 Q. Do you recall that the following was noted in the report, in the
10 middle: "On Sarajevo as a whole, Dr. Karadzic outlined the following
11 conditions," and then some matters are being mentioned; and then
12 concerning the tunnel: "The tunnel beneath Sarajevo should be covered up
13 and placed under the control of UNPROFOR."
14 So he never agreed to having the tunnel function. In other words,
15 this is contrary to what you're saying, that he agreed with it. Because
16 at this particular meeting, he asked for the tunnel to be covered up,
17 filled up.
18 A. Yeah, I was at this meeting. Yes. The tunnel always --
19 Q. This is enough for me. Time will pass quite quickly.
20 JUDGE ROBINSON: Are you agreeing that this contradicts what you
21 said before?
22 THE WITNESS: No, I -- not at all. Dr. Karadzic contradicted
23 himself, which he did all the time, by the way. He's a very flamboyant,
24 very charming character, but he's not at all consistent. And I believe
25 that he was under pressure from his military people to close the tunnel
Page 377
1 and to take a harder line. His military advisor, in particular General
2 Tolimir, was constantly pushing Dr. Karadzic to push us to close the
3 tunnel because it ran under territory we controlled.
4 But Karadzic, when he spoke to us in private, didn't exhibit great
5 concern about it. And he, in fact, was much aware than his military
6 commanders that if he pushed UNPROFOR too far or the Bosnian civilians too
7 far, that could provoke a NATO intervention which would be bad for the
8 Serbs. So Karadzic was himself zigzagging on this issue and on many
9 others I should say, like the provision of food to Sarajevo and so on.
10 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Thank you.
11 THE WITNESS: Sorry, sir.
12 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation]
13 Q. Under item 6, if I can direct your attention to this, this is
14 precisely what you're saying, that the military authorities insisted on
15 something quite else; and then here it is stated what Mr. Mladic said --
16 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Waespi.
17 MR. WAESPI: Yes, this is on page 4, item 6, for the court
18 deputies.
19 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.
20 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation]
21 Q. Mladic firmly protested against the fact that the ABiH infantry
22 used the tunnel to go out of Sarajevo and attack. Is it true that when
23 the airport became operational in mid-1994, the ABiH used the tunnel to
24 carry out various missions out of Sarajevo and to get back to Sarajevo
25 again. Is that correct or not?
Page 378
1 A. That's correct, but the date of -- which you gave was not right.
2 The airport was opened in 1992, and the tunnel was dug by the Bosnians I
3 believe in 1993. But your statement about what the tunnel was used for,
4 which meant that it was including for military purposes to conduct attacks
5 against the Serbs in other areas and then to bring back troops, that is
6 correct that it is one of the purposes for which it was used.
7 Q. Very well. I may have been mistaken in that regard. However, at
8 the time when the commander of the Sarajevo Romanija Corps was Dragomir
9 Milosevic, the tunnel was constantly operational from August 1994 onwards.
10 Are you aware of the fact that the tunnel was more than 700 metres long?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. Do you know that the tunnel had a cable that was running through
13 it and that electricity supplies were restored to Sarajevo from the
14 Neretva; that was in late 1994 when the cable provided more or less
15 sufficient energy supplies?
16 A. No, that's not correct, sir.
17 Q. I can, of course, put this to you. This is something that Alija
18 Izetbegovic stated in his book. You haven't seen the book?
19 A. I have. I've read the book, but I'm surprised you're quoting it.
20 Q. Well, I'm compelled to, because in his book he wrote that
21 thousands of tons of weapons and ammunition were brought in through the
22 tunnel into Sarajevo. Is that right?
23 A. That is correct.
24 JUDGE ROBINSON: Is it correct that he said that?
25 THE WITNESS: It's correct that he said it, and it's correct that
Page 379
1 it was true. It's a fact. We used to try to monitor the flow of goods.
2 There was an awful lot of black marketeering. The brigade commander, the
3 Bosnian brigade commander on the Butmir side I think his name was
4 Prevljak, he was we believed heavily engaged in black marketing.
5 But there was also a flow of weapons and of military personnel
6 because Sarajevo had a large base of population, and they would send
7 troops out to fight in other areas. The weapons, on the other hand, were
8 outside of Sarajevo, they would be given weapons, and then they would send
9 troops back in for -- to their homes and often send weapons in as well.
10 JUDGE ROBINSON: And why would you be surprised that Mr.
11 Tapuskovic is quoting from Alija Izetbegovic's book?
12 THE WITNESS: I wasn't realise -- didn't realise that he
13 considered it a reliable source for a narrative of the conflict in Bosnia
14 and Herzegovina, but I'm glad to hear that he does, sir.
15 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation]
16 Q. I can only give you my impression. To me, that is the most
17 important thing, to be able to hear something like that from the person
18 that headed the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina. You spoke of black
19 marketeering. Were Muslim citizens able to use the tunnel to leave the
20 town whenever they wished to and to come back?
21 A. Yes. If they were well-connected or if they paid a fee, yes, some
22 were able to. But the great majority of -- or many of the population who
23 would rather not have endured the siege were -- were not able to use the
24 tunnel to escape the suffering of the siege.
25 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Tapuskovic, it's time for the break. Do you
Page 380
1 have one more question?
2 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] My last question.
3 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.
4 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation]
5 Q. The Serbs never. They either had to pay hefty sums of money to go
6 out; and then even if they managed to get out, it would so happen that
7 they would be killed at the end of the road. Are you aware of this?
8 A. No. Some Serbs did use the tunnel. Generally, Serbs -- Serbs who
9 were trying to leave Sarajevo for good, permanently, they generally would
10 not use the tunnel, because the tunnel was connecting it to other Bosnian
11 government-held areas. If they wanted to leave Sarajevo, they tended to
12 cross the front line in order to go to Serb-held territory, Lukavica or
13 Ilidza. And there they would normally have to pay some money to a Bosnian
14 commander and sometimes they would also have to pay money to a Serb local
15 military unit, and then they could escape that way.
16 But some Serb businessmen who stayed on the Bosnian side during
17 the war, they did use the tunnel to buy goods outside where prices were
18 cheaper and then bring them back and sell them at a larger profit.
19 Serb -- Bosnian businessmen of Serb nationality known to me were involved
20 in this black market trade, along with Bosnian Muslims. Black market was
21 a major feature of the war in Sarajevo.
22 JUDGE ROBINSON: We'll take the break now. 20 minutes.
23 --- Recess taken at 12.14 p.m.
24 --- On resuming at 12.43 p.m.
25 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Tapuskovic, you may continue.
Page 381
1 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours.
2 Q. Mr. Harland --
3 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honours.
4 Q. Mr. Harland, let us move now on to military questions, as it were;
5 particularly, the problems that arose in the aftermath of the tragic event
6 of Markale on the 5th of February, 1994. I'm not going to remind you
7 about this. For the Chamber, I think it will be interested that
8 everything that was undertaken in order to calm down the situation, and in
9 that respect I would like to ask you a few questions.
10 You know that the agreement was concluded - I would not go into
11 many details right now - and that this agreement was reached for a large
12 number of heavy weaponry on both sides to be placed under the control of
13 UNPROFOR. Is that correct?
14 A. Yes, sir.
15 Q. And it was done in a certain sense, as you explained page 28674,
16 line 10-21. I would not go back to that, because it will take too much
17 time. I would like only to focus on one thing. I don't know if it is
18 true that part of the weapons, so my first question was: Was part of the
19 weapons at certain points placed under the direct control of UNPROFOR?
20 A. They were placed under the monitoring of UNPROFOR, yes.
21 Q. And was a considerable amount of weapons replaced or moved 20
22 kilometres away?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Very well. Now I will present to you a document drafted by you.
25 Victor Andreev sent it to Sergio De Mello. It's dated the 17th of
Page 382
1 February. This should be our exhibit, and I just omitted a while ago that
2 the previous document be marked as Defence document number 1. That's 7th
3 of October, 1994; that would be Exhibit Number 1 if you permit that.
4 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. We'll admit that as Exhibit Number 1 for
5 the Defence.
6 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] So this is the document dated the
7 17th of February; In English version last paragraph on page 1, which I'm
8 going to read to you.
9 Q. Do you have this document in front of you, sir? So page 1
10 immediately after the introduction which shows who had drafted the
11 document. Can you see that?
12 A. I have that cover page, yes, sir.
13 Q. Last paragraph on this cover page reads as follows: "The Serbs
14 are cooperating more than they had been ever before. Heavy weaponry is
15 silent and a number of long-standing problems have been solved." Is that
16 correct?
17 A. That's correct.
18 Q. Another question, and I must ask you that because it relates to
19 this document and I want to avoid going back to it again later. In
20 English version, that's page 3, immediately after the passage which says
21 "Rump BH." So page 3 of the English version towards the end under the
22 heading "the Rump BH," the last-but-one paragraph.
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. It says here:
25 "The BH authorities of Sarajevo appear to be diverting even more
Page 383
1 food than usual away from those that it intended to,
2 perhaps less than one-third of the aid brought into the city. It is not
3 entirely clear what is happening to the balance. Some resurfaces on the
4 black market and some of it is diverted to the military; most, however,
5 cannot be accounted for."
6 So this is what you wrote in your report. Does this mean that
7 these enormous amounts that were arriving in Sarajevo in order to aid the
8 civilians were diverted elsewhere?
9 A. A large amount, yes, sir.
10 Q. Thank you. I would now read a piece on page 28657 of the
11 transcript line 2-6, if we can please have this on your monitor. Has this
12 been found, please.
13 JUDGE ROBINSON: Okay. It has been found.
14 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] It reads as follows:
15 "Towards the end of 1994, it seems that the Serbs genuinely wanted
16 the stabilisation on the situation in Sarajevo and they ceased fire. In
17 fact, they did that" --
18 JUDGE ROBINSON: Just a minute. It's not on our screen.
19 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [No interpretation]
20 MR. WAESPI: And am I correct that you're referring to his
21 testimony in Slobodan Milosevic, to the transcript page?
22 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Yes.
23 MR. WAESPI: And that is the second day he testified?
24 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] That's been tendered, yes.
25 28657, 2-6.
Page 384
1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Just wait until it has been identified and found
2 so that we can see it.
3 [Defence counsel confer]
4 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] I apologise. That's the
5 transcript from the trial in the proceedings against Slobodan Milosevic.
6 I apologise if I omitted to say that.
7 THE REGISTRAR: And do you have a 65 ter number, please?
8 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Should it be admitted under 65
9 ter?
10 MR. WAESPI: 65 ter, if I can assist, is 02186.
11 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Tapuskovic, you must make sure that you have
12 all of the relevant data for easy identification of your documents.
13 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] You're right. I was sure that I
14 had the correct page, and that's what I have from the transcript from the
15 Slobodan Milosevic trial, page 28657.
16 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters didn't get the line number.
17 JUDGE ROBINSON: Would you repeat the page and the line.
18 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] 28657, lines 2 to 6.
19 [Trial Chamber confers]
20 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] This is very important to me, and
21 I simply don't know.
22 Q. So by the end of February 1994, the Serbs did seem genuinely to
23 want a stabilisation of the situation around Sarajevo, and they did stop
24 shooting. And, in fact, they did so. They reduced the amount of fire
25 coming from their side of the confrontation line from February of 1994,
Page 385
1 right through till the autumn of 1994 to a very low level. Is that
2 correct?
3 A. Yes, sir.
4 Q. In this period - and I wouldn't refer to the transcript any longer
5 because I believe you remember, and you confirmed that in Slobodan
6 Milosevic trial - that between 10th February and 27th April 1994, there
7 were 318 cease-fires by the Muslims, to which you responded approximately.
8 Is that correct?
9 A. I don't remember the exact number, but that is approximately
10 right, yes.
11 Q. In order to avoid any further confusion, I have to refer to the
12 following on page 28 --
13 [Trial Chamber confers]
14 JUDGE ROBINSON: May I just -- it's not clear to me what you mean
15 by 318 cease-fires by the Muslims, to which you responded.
16 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] 318 times the Muslims fired from
17 their positions in violation of the truce and cease-fire.
18 JUDGE ROBINSON: That's different from what is on the transcript.
19 So they breached the cease-fire 318 times?
20 THE WITNESS: Right.
21 JUDGE ROBINSON: And that occasioned a response from UNPROFOR. Is
22 that so, Mr. Harland?
23 THE WITNESS: It elicited protests from us, yes.
24 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.
25 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation]
Page 386
1 Q. Let me read this in French.
2 [Interpretation] "We were concerned about the fact that certain --
3 about certain elements, that's for sure, about the fact that some Muslim
4 leaders did not want to stabilise the situation all around Sarajevo. This
5 was extremely frustrating for General Rose."
6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Waespi --
7 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] That's correct.
8 MR. WAESPI: If he could give a reference to the transcript page,
9 please.
10 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] I'll give you in the English
11 version. That's page 28659, lines 15 to 18. It's a very brief statement.
12 THE WITNESS: Yeah, that sounds correct, sir, yes.
13 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.
14 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation]
15 Q. Mr. Harland, let me present to you now a document dated 18th
16 September 1994; just a portion of this document, on 65 ter list, there's
17 not the entire document. This is just a part of this document. It's on
18 the 65 ter list -- no, it's not on the 65 ter list; only part of it is but
19 not this particular part.
20 It refers to the protection forces of UNPROFOR related to the
21 report on the shelling which took place on the 18th of September, 1994.
22 This part was tendered as 1429; part of this document was entered under 65
23 ter with the number 1429. And this is going to be our exhibit, but I
24 omitted, Your Honour, to tender previously two other exhibits. So these
25 are all the documents that we are tendering into evidence that I have just
Page 387
1 mentioned.
2 JUDGE ROBINSON: Well, would you just mention them so we can give
3 them an exhibit number.
4 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] It's difficult now to do it post
5 factum. I'll do it at the end for sure.
6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Very well, yes.
7 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation]
8 Q. Does -- this part of the document is before the witness. This is
9 0026-3949 and 0026-3950. That's the report. Can you see it, Mr. Harland?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. According to this document, it is clearly shown on one side are
12 activities by the ABiH army and on the right-hand side were activities by
13 the Bosnian Serbs on the 18th of September. So look at this. The
14 activities carried out by the Bosnian army started at 1715 hours, and the
15 number of shells is given; then 30 -- 10, 30, 30, 30, 30, 40, 30, and so
16 on and so forth until 1850 and, or rather, 1907, at which time a response
17 came from the Serbian side; whereas, the shelling from the Bosnian side
18 continued; and then the Serb shelling ceased at 1814, whereas, the Bosnian
19 shelling continued until 2049 hours. Is that correct?
20 A. Yeah, that's what it says here, yes.
21 Q. So please look at the next page on this report, which is contained
22 in this document. It reads:
23 "This attack had two likely objectives: To block the Serbian
24 logistic road in order to obtain a release of the Serbian pressure on the
25 Bosnian logistic road through Mount Igman to -- to provoke the Serbs to
Page 388
1 make a mistake and open fire at the town for the president, Izetbegovic,
2 to give a strong argument for negotiating a lifting of the embargo by the
3 USA. At the same time, the Bosnian opened aversionary fire in the eastern
4 suburb near the coordinate 9358 with the intention possibly to simulate
5 the attack towards the east along the road to Pale."
6 Do you know about this document, and is this correct?
7 A. I didn't write this document, but it sounds like a plausible
8 account of that incident, yes.
9 Q. Let me now move on to the next document which was drafted by you
10 only two days later, on the 20th of September. You wrote it and Victor
11 Andreev forwarded it to Sergio De Mello. It is, again, part of 65 ter
12 number 2230.
13 JUDGE ROBINSON: Is this the document which is now on the screen?
14 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Yes, it is, but I can't still see
15 the page that I intend to quote from.
16 JUDGE ROBINSON: What is that page? Page 2230.
17 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] The last two numbers are 4232.
18 MR. WAESPI: Yes, if I can assist, Mr. President, and colleague
19 from the Defence, the next page is in fact the document drafted by Mr.
20 Harland.
21 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: Yes.
22 Q. [Interpretation] Here you report about a meeting held in Pale. As
23 far as I can see here, on page 1, the message was that you had a meeting
24 with Karadzic and that he made an angry remark about the Bosnian attack on
25 Sarajevo.
Page 389
1 JUDGE ROBINSON: That is paragraph 2. Mr. Harland, can you
2 confirm that?
3 THE WITNESS: Yes, I wrote that.
4 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation]
5 Q. And in paragraph 7, after the meeting in the Presidency in
6 Sarajevo, it says here that you reported that President Izetbegovic was
7 absolutely contrite about Saturday's attack and promised, in front of
8 General Delic, that there would be no repetition of the incident. He
9 stated that orders had been passed to Bosnian soldiers on the ground not
10 to respond to provocations. Is that correct?
11 A. Yes, I wrote that.
12 Q. And, in fact, it was the Bosnian side who was provoking. Is that
13 correct?
14 A. Yes, certainly.
15 Q. He also promised that Bosnian forces would stop their attacks on
16 the Serb supply route around Sarajevo. Is that correct, too?
17 A. Yes, though not everything President Izetbegovic promised was
18 always implemented.
19 Q. Thank you. Now, I have a document dated the 2nd of October, Major
20 Fraser's report for the 2nd of October.
21 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] This is 65 ter 2055. The mouse
22 is not working on our desk.
23 JUDGE ROBINSON: Do we have the document now on the screen?
24 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation]
25 Q. Mr. Harland, you don't have it on your screen?
Page 390
1 A. No.
2 Q. 65 ter 2055.
3 A. I have it.
4 JUDGE ROBINSON: Now, I hope these are initial growing pains,
5 because I would have to say that right now the system is slower than the
6 previous one where we used hard documents.
7 It's there now, Mr. Tapuskovic.
8 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] May I continue, Your Honour?
9 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Yes, please do.
10 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation]
11 Q. On page 2, we can see that this is the message related to the
12 meeting with Ganic, as attended by Gobilliard, Fraser, who was actually
13 sending the report. And under item 2 on the next page reads:
14 "General Gobilliard began the meeting and then he said that
15 another incident had happened in a demilitarised zone and the exclusion
16 zone of heavy weaponry involving 200 troops of the 4th Brigade, the
17 members of the alleged Muslim league and the policemen."
18 Do you know about this?
19 A. This was one of a number of violations by the Bosnian government
20 of this TEZ. I don't remember this specific one and I was not at this
21 meeting, but it sounds like a correct account, yes.
22 Q. Now, please, Mr. Harland, take a look at the last item in this
23 report compiled by Mr. Fraser, which reads -- the last page, paragraph 10:
24 "Dr. Ganic appeared unaware of the troops in the TEZ/DMZ, but
25 unconcerned. He was uncomfortable with the idea that the incident might
Page 391
1 be raised by Mr. Akashi and Defence Minister Perry. He was anxious that
2 this not happen because of the impression that the Muslims were provoking
3 the Serbians."
4 JUDGE ROBINSON: May I ask that when the documents are put on the
5 screen, they are highlighted so that we can see them in bigger print.
6 It's difficult to read what is there now. Yes.
7 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Was this that I have read out
8 enough or should I do it again?
9 JUDGE ROBINSON: No, that's fine. You may proceed.
10 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] The last sentence: "He did not
11 deny the presence of the soldiers in the exclusion zone, demilitarised
12 zone, but he tried to redirect, without success, the discussion to the
13 attacks in the north around Bresa."
14 Q. Is that right?
15 A. Well, I was not at this meeting, but it sounds like a very typical
16 discussion with Dr. Ganic, yes.
17 Q. Thank you. I would like to deal with one topic very swiftly. Do
18 you know that General Dragomir Milosevic took the command over around the
19 10th of August or precisely on the 10th of August, 1994?
20 A. I knew it was about that time because he appeared as the commander
21 of the Romanija Corps in the discussions about the anti-sniping agreement,
22 which I think was just after that time, yes, but I didn't know the exact
23 date.
24 Q. Are you aware of the fact that several days earlier - I believe it
25 was on the 4th of August, 1994; therefore, several days before he assumed
Page 392
1 the duty - the FRY introduced sanctions against the Army of Republika
2 Srpska and that the sanctions were in force at the time General Milosevic
3 took up his duties?
4 A. Yes. We were aware of the sanctions and, in fact, we
5 internationals were trying to encourage their imposition. But, you know,
6 they were only partially successful of course, yes.
7 Q. However, at one point you said - and I don't have time now to go
8 and find exactly where this was - that the Serbs were evidently concerned
9 about the borders being closed, the borders opposite the Federal Republic
10 of Yugoslavia?
11 A. That's correct. Dr. Karadzic raised it with us several times.
12 Q. I am about to broach quite a broad topic that deals with sniping.
13 And it was mostly for that topic that I wanted to deal with your statement
14 that you gave to the OTP investigators on the 17th of April, 1997, on the
15 13th of January, 9th of February, and the 10th of February, 1998, and
16 which concerns sniping.
17 I do not wish to go back to the agreement that was already
18 discussed, because I don't want to analyse the matters concerning the
19 agreement. The agreement was already tendered into evidence by the
20 Prosecution. Nevertheless, I do have a couple of questions.
21 In the statement, when discussing the anti-sniping agreement at
22 page 11, the second paragraph, and the one immediately following it in the
23 English version. In the B/C/S version --
24 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] For the benefit of the
25 interpreters at page 10, the last paragraph.
Page 393
1 Q. -- the following is stated: "From the end of July until the 14th
2 of August, we had a series of abortive meetings." These were your words.
3 "They were mainly abortive, but nevertheless the agreement was signed."
4 Therefore, for several months from the 14th of July, you were
5 negotiating unsuccessfully. Dragomir Milosevic took up his duties on the
6 10th of August; and there -- and then on the 14th of August, he signed
7 this anti-sniping agreement. Is that right?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. In the paragraph before that one --
10 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Mr. Waespi is on his feet.
11 MR. WAESPI: Yes, just to correct the record. That paragraph you
12 just quoted from the witness statement, "from the end of July until 14th
13 August." It's a little bit different. After the abortive meetings, "they
14 were mainly abortive because of the lack of interest in an agreement by
15 Tolimir and Indjic who were obstructing the negotiations." Just to
16 complete the record. Thank you.
17 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Waespi.
18 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Mr. Waespi, this is precisely
19 what I was referring to, the obstruction. There was obstruction of the
20 agreement; however, Mr. Milosevic signed the agreement, in spite of all
21 the previous obstruction. This is precisely what I wanted to hear,
22 whether this was true.
23 Q. In the previous paragraph --
24 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Could the witness please state
25 the answer for the transcript.
Page 394
1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Are you in the position to confirm that, Mr.
2 Harland?
3 THE WITNESS: Yes.
4 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] I would kindly ask Mr. Harland to
5 confirm his answer verbally and not just by nodding.
6 JUDGE ROBINSON: I asked the witness whether he was in a position
7 to confirm that.
8 And what is your answer, Mr. Harland?
9 THE WITNESS: Yes. I'm in a position to confirm it, and I can
10 also say that we were making no progress when we wanted to have an
11 agreement to create a physical barrier that would stop snipers from being
12 able to see the other side. And at the last meeting, we made what we felt
13 was a -- a major concession, which is that we would not have the authority
14 to actually hunt down violating snipers and -- in Article 2, and we would
15 not actually have any construction of a physical barrier. And at that
16 point, the Serbs agreed to sign; before that, they had not. So Mr.
17 Tapuskovic's chronology is essentially correct.
18 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation]
19 Q. But in the previous paragraph you said, literally: "The
20 background to this agreement is that the Blue Routes were closed in part
21 due to the sniping by the Bosniaks of Serb civilians." Is that correct?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Then at page 11, the last paragraph in the English version, you
24 stated what you stated, in fact, today, that the agreement worked well for
25 a period in the first couple of months when sniping was quite rare?
Page 395
1 A. Yes, that's correct.
2 Q. Do you remember that the agreement also said that the parties
3 should publicly, or rather, that a public statement should be issued to
4 the effect that the Serb side honoured this while the Muslims did not?
5 A. No. I remember that we asked that both sides make public
6 statements that -- that they were promoting the -- the agreement; and
7 then, if I remember correctly, the famous incident in which two young Serb
8 girls were killed in Grbavica happened before the agreement; and that then
9 after the agreement -- and there had been a large number of sniper
10 casualties on both sides; and that after the agreement - actually, if I
11 remember correctly - the number of sniper incidents on both sides dropped
12 away almost to zero for many weeks.
13 Q. You mentioned the two young Serb girls. Was this in the month of
14 August? Weren't you perhaps mistaken there? Did this not happen in the
15 month of March during the violation of the agreement? Actually, they were
16 killed during a truce that was supposed to last for four months?
17 A. I cannot now remember the date.
18 Q. In your statement, you also said that whenever it was possible to
19 monitor a sniping at Grbavica, the impression was that Bosnians were the
20 ones who were sniping more extensively than the Serbs. That's at page 24,
21 paragraph 5 in the English version.
22 A. That was our impression from counting both sniper rounds and
23 sniper victims in the Grbavica area and the adjacent areas controlled by
24 the Bosnian government, yes, sir.
25 JUDGE MINDUA: [Interpretation] Just a minute, Mr. Tapuskovic.
Page 396
1 There's a very important point which you addressed, and I'm wondering if
2 we couldn't get back to that. You mentioned the death of two young Serb
3 girls. Is that right? Because we don't have the date of that incident.
4 You are hesitating. And if we don't know, you've checked this
5 with the witness and you wondered whether this was in March or in August.
6 You must understand that this is a very important point. Is there any
7 official UN document or any other document that could help you remember
8 the day when these two young girls were killed?
9 THE WITNESS: Certainly, we kept a full record. And it could be
10 found in the daily situation reports of Sector Sarajevo, though I would
11 just mention, Your Honour, that there were a large amount of sniper deaths
12 on both sides, and this particular incident was one of very many. But it
13 became famous because there was so much discussion around how -- whether
14 or not one bullet had killed both of the girls. So in my -- it can be
15 checked, but in my memory I cannot with absolute certainty distinguish the
16 date of this incident from that of a large number of others.
17 JUDGE MINDUA: Thank you.
18 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour Mindua, a lot of time
19 has passed since, and it is quite possible that Mr. Harland cannot state
20 this with any precision. But I'm sure in due time we will be able to
21 clarify this matter, and I will not insist on the date, whether it
22 happened in August of 1994 or in March of 1995. It isn't that important
23 really. At any rate, he knows about the case when two young Serb girls
24 aged 12 or 13 were killed.
25 Q. In your statement, you also said that you had some doubts about
Page 397
1 the command and control that the respective sides had over their snipers,
2 and that the French were not certain whether the shots were fired -- that
3 were fired on Bosniaks from a great distance actually originated from
4 Serbs or Bosnians?
5 THE INTERPRETER: Could Mr. Tapuskovic please speak into his own
6 microphone, please. Thank you.
7 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] It's the reference to the
8 statement of the page that he just now.
9 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Tapuskovic, you're being asked to speak into
10 your own microphone.
11 THE WITNESS: That is correct. It was often not possible from to
12 a victim's wounds to tell where the firing point was located. That's
13 correct, yeah.
14 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation].
15 Q. Mr. Harland --
16 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] And, Your Honours, I will be
17 doing my best to try and refer as little as possible to the documents
18 prior to the tenure of Mr. Milosevic. But I do have a document dated the
19 3rd of November, 1993, which was drafted by Mr. Harland and was then
20 forwarded by Mr. Victor Andreev to Sergio De Mello.
21 I would like to present Mr. Harland with only one paragraph
22 thereof. R001449 is the number of the document. Could we look at page
23 R0014152 -- or no, no, no, I'm sorry. That's the anti-sniping agreement.
24 This is R0029446.
25 THE INTERPRETER: And could Mr. Tapuskovic please speak slowly
Page 398
1 when citing numbers.
2 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] I've grown a bit tired with all
3 the business with the papers now.
4 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Tapuskovic, never mind that. The interpreter
5 is asking you to speak more slowly when citing the numbers and the pages.
6 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] I've grown a bit weary of this,
7 that's why, perhaps.
8 JUDGE ROBINSON: Well, it's too early in the day for that, Mr.
9 Tapuskovic.
10 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] I agree. There we go. It's
11 here. That's the English version. That's at page 3 of the English
12 version, in the middle of the page. That's the fourth paragraph from the
13 bottom.
14 Q. Have you found it?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. The text reads: "BH snipers have been firing on UN personnel
17 around UNPROFOR's forward HQ. Two Bosnian snipers have been firing not
18 only at UN personnel, but also at local pedestrians in the vicinity. BH
19 Corps claims that these snipers are 'renegade supporters of Caco.'"
20 A. Yes, I wrote that. And, in fact, I remember the incident and I,
21 in fact, was present when those snipers were shooting around that area.
22 And I spoke also with the anti-sniping teams from UNPROFOR that identified
23 the exact sniping positions, yes.
24 Q. Could you explain something else. You mentioned local
25 pedestrians, does it mean that they were firing on Muslim citizens?
Page 399
1 A. Well, you can't tell whether somebody is Muslim or Serb or Croat,
2 but they were certainly firing on civilians who were inside -- in the
3 Bosnian-controlled territory. Yes, that's correct. Also, I think, on
4 Djure Djakovica Street.
5 Q. At page 6 of your statement you gave to investigators, paragraph
6 2, you talk about an assessment you made concerning snipers. I don't know
7 if you found this bit.
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. "In this assessment I also indicated that in the area of the
10 forward HQ of UNPROFOR, two Bosnian snipers were active who also fired on
11 UN personnel."
12 Is that more or less the same statement you made that we looked at
13 just a moment ago?
14 A. Yeah, it appears to be.
15 Q. With regard to this incident, I do recall that the French brought
16 two of their own snipers to find -- find these two and kill them. Is that
17 right?
18 A. Yes, and I met those two French snipers.
19 Q. Thank you. You say you've met them. Can you tell us, did they
20 liquidate them?
21 A. At the moment I talked to them, they had not. They had identified
22 the firing point. Actually, they were a team. One of them seemed to hold
23 some sort of telescopic sight, and the other one had a gun with a
24 telescopic sight. And the one who was principally trying to identify the
25 firing points had located actually more than one firing point, and they
Page 400
1 were able to point them out to me.
2 And those firing points were certainly within Bosnian
3 government-held territory, and then I was able to see for myself that
4 sniper fire was opened from one of those positions and that it -- the
5 sniper fire landed also in Bosnian government-held territory near the
6 bottom of Djure Djakovica Street, causing a few civilian pedestrians to
7 run quickly for hiding, yes, sir.
8 Q. I would like to finish this particular chapter, if I may. This is
9 very important and is linked with what we've just been discussing?
10 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. And how much longer will you be in your
11 cross-examination?
12 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I do believe that I
13 shall need some more time. I don't know how much was -- is envisaged
14 within the six hours. I do believe that I should address the matters
15 thoroughly, in view of the documents that I have. At first there were ten
16 hours set aside, which were then reduced to six.
17 [Trial Chamber confers]
18 JUDGE ROBINSON: When is your next witness, Mr. Waespi?
19 THE WITNESS: It's Witness Fortin, and he's available. He will be
20 next.
21 JUDGE ROBINSON: Would half an hour more tomorrow be enough for
22 you, Mr. Tapuskovic?
23 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] No, Your Honour, I'm sure this
24 will not be enough. I do have several important topics that I haven't
25 addressed yet and which are even more important than the ones I've done.
Page 401
1 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Waespi.
2 MR. WAESPI: Yes. The witness, as you know, has been scheduled
3 for five or six hours, I might be mistaken. So we are still within that
4 range, although you might have additional questions. And it's a first
5 witness, and I can assure you that the next witnesses will be short and
6 well within the time allocated. So while this first witness might be a
7 little bit longer than anticipated, you know, the other ones might be a
8 little bit shorter. So by the end of this week I'm sure we will be well
9 within the schedule, Mr. President.
10 [Trial Chamber confers]
11 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Tapuskovic, one hour, would that enable you
12 to complete your cross-examination? The witness was scheduled for five.
13 The Prosecutor did overrun his time.
14 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, Mr. Robinson, I will
15 do my best to stay within the time. I'm not sure whether I will be able
16 to, but I will try to cut down the issues I still have left this afternoon
17 and to try and finish within the time given. But could I perhaps just
18 finish this one sentence that we are dealing with right now?
19 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. We have to adjourn immediately after that.
20 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation]
21 Q. Mr. Harland, I would like to hear whether the following is true,
22 in the context of the meeting between General Rose and the BiH commander:
23 "I do recall that we continued making comments about this over the
24 following several months more than once. During the meeting with Mr.
25 Ganic, General Rose complained about mortars mounted on trucks and sniper
Page 402
1 fire opened by Bosnians on their own people. Ganic's customary reply was
2 to say that Rose was anti-Muslim." Is that true?
3 A. Is what true, sorry? Is it true that he said that, or is it true
4 that he was anti-Muslim?
5 Q. Is all of what I said true, that Rose, along those lines --
6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Waespi, do you wish to say something before
7 the --
8 MR. WAESPI: Yes, just the source. Is it Mr. Harland's witness
9 statement, is it Rose's book, is it a document?
10 THE WITNESS: We're reading from the witness statement.
11 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] That's the statement dated 17
12 February and then the other dates, at page 6, as I indicated a moment
13 ago. And this is before Mr. Harland, this text, and is what I just read
14 out true, correct?
15 A. That is correct. I made that statement and I knew those facts
16 because I was in those meetings between General Rose and Dr. Ganic.
17 Q. Thank you.
18 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you. We must adjourn now, and we resume
19 tomorrow at 2.15 here.
20 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.47 p.m.,
21 to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 16th day of
22 January, 2007, at 2.15 p.m.
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