Page 2162
1 Thursday, 13 December 2007
2 [Open session]
3 [The witness entered court]
4 --- Upon commencing at 9.03 a.m.
5 [The accused entered court]
6 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Registrar, kindly call the
7 case.
8 THE REGISTRAR: Thank you, and good morning, Your Honours. This
9 is case number IT-03-67-T, the Prosecutor versus Vojislav Seselj.
10 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Today is Thursday, the 13th of
11 December, 2007. My greetings to Ms. Dahl, who represents the OTP.
12 Good morning, Mr. Seselj.
13 Good morning, Witness.
14 And my morning greetings to all the people helping us out.
15 Further to Rule 15 bis, Judge Lattanzi is absent this morning.
16 She won't be sitting with us, because she has other commitments.
17 Mr. Seselj, we have been doing our sums and you have 1 hour and 5
18 minutes, with an additional 20 minutes at your request, which means that
19 you have until 10.30 to complete your cross-examination. This is what I
20 wanted to tell you to start. And you -- without further ado, you have the
21 floor.
22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.
23 WITNESS: ANTHONY OBERSCHALL [Resumed]
24 Cross-examination by Mr. Seselj: [Continued]
25 Q. [Interpretation] Mr. Oberschall, yesterday afternoon or maybe last
Page 2163
1 night did you talk to anyone about your testimony here?
2 A. No.
3 Q. Very well. The last question I asked you yesterday was about the
4 attack on the Croatian civilian population in Vojvodina. Prior to that,
5 you said that you are rather well informed, you had studied the problem.
6 But then in your response you mentioned the report of Tadeusz Mazowiecki,
7 who was an envoy of the UN Secretary-General. Is that correct? Do you
8 remember that? That was the last thing.
9 A. I remember.
10 Q. Mr. Oberschall, do you know that on several occasions I publicly
11 condemned Tadeusz Mazowiecki as a liar and a cheat?
12 A. I'm not surprised.
13 Q. No, he was not surprised either, because he knew he was a liar
14 better than I did.
15 Do you know that for --
16 MS. DAHL: Objection, Your Honour.
17 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes, Ms. Dahl.
18 MS. DAHL: I request an instruction to Mr. Seselj not to comment
19 on the witness's answers.
20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I have the right to comment on the
21 witness's answers because a new question follows up, and you cannot --
22 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] One moment, please. The witness
23 said that he wasn't surprised when he answered, so I wondered, surprised
24 at what? Because Mr. Mazowiecki would be a liar or surprised, because
25 this was said by Mr. Seselj. So it was rather ambiguous.
Page 2164
1 Witness, you said that you were not surprised. What did you mean
2 exactly in saying so?
3 THE WITNESS: Well, what I meant is that -- I certainly didn't
4 mean that former Polish Prime Minister, very distinguished person
5 Mazowiecki was a liar, but I'm not surprised that Seselj -- Dr. Seselj
6 calls a lot of people liars. Yesterday he called me a liar sitting right
7 here. It's just sort of standard talk. You know, you don't like what
8 somebody says; you call him a liar. I mean, he does that.
9 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Please proceed, Mr. Seselj.
10 MR. SESELJ: [Interpretation]
11 Q. I first have to observe that I did not call you a liar yesterday,
12 Mr. Oberschall. I said you were lying. I didn't say you were a liar.
13 The those are two very different things. If I said you were a liar, then
14 you would have had the right to be offended, because I insulted you. But
15 when I say that you are lying, you don't have the right to feel offended,
16 because I have the right to say that here.
17 MS. DAHL: Objection, Your Honour.
18 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes, Ms. Dahl.
19 MS. DAHL: Improper cross-examination. This is not
20 cross-examination, Your Honour. It's arguing with the witness.
21 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Do avoid arguing with the
22 witness. Mr. Seselj, you believe that it may be that the witness lied.
23 If that is so, say where, in which issues he lied, because I don't know.
24 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I said that yesterday in response to
25 his claim that a research into 1992 Serbian media had been made showing
Page 2165
1 that I was some kind of protege of the Serbian media. Let's not go into
2 it. We're finished with that. But I never said that Mr. Oberschall was a
3 liar. I never said that. And let him not put that into my mouth.
4 MR. SESELJ: [Interpretation]
5 Q. Mr. Oberschall, do you know, since you read that report of
6 Mazowiecki, that Mazowiecki in his report claims that I advocated
7 deportation of Hungarians from Vojvodina, ethnic Hungarians. Did you read
8 that in his report?
9 A. I don't know by heart the specifics of these reports. Had I known
10 that I would be questioned as an expert witness on the Mazowiecki reports
11 rather than on your speeches, which I content analysed, I certainly could
12 have brought these reports here with me and looked up what exactly
13 Mr. Mazowiecki said. But the details or specifics, I can't recall here
14 just -- just sitting here. No, I can't recall the specifics.
15 Q. Mr. Oberschall, you do invoke Mr. Mazowiecki's report in your
16 expert report, so you should have expected my questions about that report.
17 It doesn't justify you, that you don't know the whole contents. But let's
18 leave that aside.
19 If what I just told you is correct --
20 A. May I --
21 Q. You cannot stop me now. You cannot interrupt me. You will answer
22 when I ask my question.
23 MS. DAHL: Your Honour.
24 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Give him time to put your
25 question. I don't know what question is going to be raised, and you're
Page 2166
1 already on your feet.
2 MS. DAHL: Your Honour, the witness was asking a question of the
3 Chamber, and Mr. Seselj was talking over him and preventing him from
4 interposing a request to the Chamber.
5 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] What did you want to say,
6 Witness?
7 THE WITNESS: Well, the -- Dr. Seselj alleges that I did not use
8 the Mazowiecki material in my expert report, but I did actually. Dr --
9 Mazowiecki wrote a special report just on the media in -- during that time
10 of 1992, 1993, and so on. And he -- his staff analysed the contents of
11 the -- of the media, same as I, and that's -- I refer to that.
12 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] The only thing of interest to
13 me - but I believe it is also of interest to the accused - is whether you,
14 as an expert, you read that report. And you said you did. Very good.
15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. President, I have to note again
16 that the interpretation is disastrous, apparently. I said Mr. Oberschall
17 used Mazowiecki's report in writing his expert report. They interpreted
18 to him that he did not use the report.
19 MR. SESELJ: [Interpretation]
20 Q. Mr. Oberschall, if it is correct that Mazowiecki's report claims
21 that I publicly, through the media, advocated deportation of Hungarians
22 from Vojvodina, and I never did that, was I then completely right in
23 calling Mazowiecki a liar?
24 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's Note: The interpretation was
25 correct. Mr. Seselj is talking too fast, not so much for the interpreters
Page 2167
1 as for the court reporter. That's why it's not in the transcript.
2 JUDGE HARHOFF: Before -- before the witness answers, there's a
3 note from the interpretation to the accused that you are talking too fast.
4 That's why the interpreters have a difficulty in catching up with you. So
5 if you would be kind enough to speak slower, that would then assist the
6 interpreters. Thanks.
7 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes, Mr. Seselj. It happened on
8 several occasions that there are problems in interpretation. But it may
9 be due to the speed of delivery, which may cause some problems. But here
10 the question was crystal clear. There is no single problem. So please
11 answer.
12 THE WITNESS: Well, Mazowiecki wrote, I think, about a dozen
13 reports. They covered all of human rights violations in all of
14 Yugoslavia, and in several of the reports there were special sections on
15 Vojvodina. And we were talking yesterday about Vojvodina. And I think we
16 still are talking today about Vojvodina.
17 And he describes many human rights violations in connection with
18 ethnic cleansing in the Vojvodina, intimidation of people, threats,
19 beatings, evictions from houses, and so on. And that's what I've read.
20 Specifically what Mazowiecki report says about you and what you
21 said and didn't say, I don't recall.
22 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Judge, please instruct the witness
23 to answer the question I directly asked. He is being evasive.
24 MR. SESELJ: [Interpretation]
25 Q. If it is correct that Mazowiecki claims that I had advocated and
Page 2168
1 asked for deportation of ethnic Hungarians, and I never did, was I right
2 in publicly calling him a liar, if he is claiming something that is awful
3 and is not true?
4 A. Well, it's a -- it's a hypothetical. How do I know that what you
5 say that Mazowiecki said about you is true or not. I have no way of
6 checking that.
7 If -- if I had some written statement by somebody other than you
8 about what Mazowiecki said about you, then I could, you know, give an
9 answer. But in this kind of hypothetical question, I can't really say.
10 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Witness, the result, the outcome
11 of it for the Judges is as follows: You drew conclusions in your report
12 based on what you could read in Mazowiecki's report, but in the event that
13 Mr. Seselj is right when he says that with regard to the Hungarians in
14 Vojvodina he never said anything, whilst it is stated in the report,
15 could -- could such a thing have changed slightly or thoroughly some of
16 your conclusions?
17 THE WITNESS: Well, now you've gotten me totally confused about
18 what I am -- what the question and what it's all about. I -- I just don't
19 understand it.
20 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Well, if you don't understand,
21 I'm going to put the question again.
22 In this report it is alleged apparently that Mr. Seselj made
23 speeches in which he said that the Hungarians in Vojvodina should be
24 thrown out. Mr. Seselj says that this is stated in the report.
25 Mr. Seselj says that he never said anything in this respect.
Page 2169
1 In assuming that this is indeed in the report, that the report
2 indeed says that the accused said that -- and he claims this is not true,
3 because he says he never said that. If he's right, could this have any
4 influence on your conclusions, to a slight or larger extent? Because if
5 you drew conclusions from a report which is not absolutely true, would
6 this not -- would this not have some consequences in your report? I
7 believe now it's clear, isn't it?
8 THE WITNESS: Well, not really. I didn't content analyse the
9 Mazowiecki report on the mass media or the abuse of the -- of the mass
10 media. I only content analysed Dr. Seselj's statements and speeches and
11 TV appearances. So I never used Mazowiecki's report in my conclusions
12 about Dr. Seselj. I only used Dr. Seselj's speech and -- and discourse in
13 my conclusions.
14 JUDGE ANTONETTI: Microphone not activated]
15 MR. SESELJ: [Interpretation]
16 Q. Mr. Oberschall, you confirmed that there was an attack in
17 Vojvodina on the Croat civilian population; correct?
18 A. I said that the Mazowiecki report or various Mazowiecki reports go
19 into quite a lot of detail about very specific incidents that happened in
20 particular places to particular people at certain dates, yes. There's a
21 good -- there's a lot of documentation on that, yes.
22 Q. Were there attacks or an attack on the Croat civilian population?
23 That's what I'm asking you.
24 A. Yes, they're described in those reports.
25 Q. Where was the Croat civilian population in Vojvodina attacked?
Page 2170
1 Please.
2 A. Well, there are mentions -- by the way, it was not just the Croat
3 population. Some of them were Roma. Some of them were other minorities.
4 And as I told you, if I had known that I would be specifically examined on
5 something for which I am not here called to be an expert witness, I could
6 have compiled page numbers from the Mazowiecki report to answer your
7 question specifically. If -- if it's of real interest to you, I'm sure
8 the research sections up on the second floor has all these reports and can
9 give you all the detail that you wish.
10 Q. Can you now forget all about Mazowiecki and leave him completely
11 aside. I'm asking you when, where, and how did attacks or an attack occur
12 on the Croatian civilian population in Vojvodina? Because I claim there
13 were no attacks on the Croat civilian population. You claim that there
14 were. So tell me, what did they look like? Where did they happen? How
15 long did they last? I'm interested. You made that claim here, and now
16 you have to prove the veracity of your words.
17 A. Well, as I told you, the -- if -- if you really want to know --
18 and what I have said is based on these reports that we've been discussing,
19 and this was not -- what happened in the Vojvodina in these years and the
20 particular ethnic cleansing techniques and attacks was not part of what I
21 was asked to provide expert advice to the -- to the Court, but I've read
22 all those reports. And if you want to know the specifics that you asked
23 me about, it's a matter of -- of really just an hour to get those reports,
24 open the pages, and I could read you all the different places, occasions,
25 targets of the ethnic cleansing that occurred in the Vojvodina.
Page 2171
1 MS. DAHL: Your Honour, if I may interject. The report in
2 question is on the Prosecution's exhibit list at 65 ter number 1695. And
3 if Mr. Seselj wants to question this witness further on the contents of
4 the report or statements therein, I would request that he be given an
5 opportunity to look at the document and familiarise himself with it. In
6 the alternative, perhaps Mr. Seselj can move on, because it's not related
7 to his expert report; the questioning is not.
8 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, the witness cannot
9 answer this question. I see that he said there had been attacks. You put
10 the question. He's not able to answer. So the Trial Chamber will draw
11 its own conclusions. Please proceed.
12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes. The witness was unable to
13 answer when, how, and where this attack on civilian Croat population
14 happened, so he cannot claim it happened.
15 MR. SESELJ: [Interpretation]
16 Q. Now, let's on -- move on, Mr. Oberschall, to your main report.
17 You, of course, claim - and that will be the subject of our discussion
18 now - that I use untruths in my propaganda activities. You noted that
19 propaganda means spreading certain information, regardless of whether it's
20 true or not. And now you claim that I used untruths. So let us analyse a
21 few of those claims you made.
22 In your evidence about my theses and theories about the
23 victimisation of Serbs, you say I often quote Serb victims and information
24 about Serb victims in the Second World War; correct?
25 A. My reference to your untruths and misinformation and misuse of
Page 2172
1 history is much more specific than that. For instance, I cite the best
2 figures available on the -- the victims and the Serb -- the Serb deaths in
3 the - I always have trouble pronouncing this - Jasenovac camp. So I
4 specifically contrast the figures that you and some other people who are
5 nationalists use with the figures that have been established by the
6 association of victims from -- of this camp, and that's where I say that
7 you have misinformed and are using the -- the wrong figures, inflated
8 figures.
9 My statements about you're misuse and misinformation, misuse of
10 facts are always very specific. It doesn't deal with broad statements
11 about victimisation of -- of Serbs or anything like that.
12 Q. Are you aware, Mr. Oberschall, that I state official figures,
13 official figures of the Yugoslav state, that in total there was 1.700.000
14 victims in the Second World War in Yugoslavia; whereas, between 6 and 7
15 hundred thousand were killed in the Jasenovac camp. Do you know that this
16 is official data?
17 A. What you call official data, there's lots of official data.
18 There's lots of unofficial data. There's lots of hypothetical data.
19 There's a lot of fictional data. And what I am referring to is actual
20 data based on research, whether it's official, unofficial, made up,
21 hypothetical, or -- or what have you. You know, we're in -- we're in
22 social science; we're not in this kind of history-writing to promote the
23 cause of one group or another group. And I'm -- I sort of stay away from
24 that and I contrast those figures with the best figures that are available
25 on factual investigation.
Page 2173
1 Q. So to you, Mr. Oberschall, the most reliable is the figure found
2 in the text of Srdjan Bogosavljevic. That's footnote 68 in your report.
3 And that's the only footnote related to these figures. Correct?
4 A. I -- I have to check this.
5 Q. Check. Check.
6 A. The material I am referring to is in my expert report on page 17,
7 and specifically the figure that I refer to is in footnote 4 -- I mean, it
8 refers -- footnote 4 gives a source. And what it says is that: "On the
9 60th anniversary of the death camp's liberation" - and we're talking about
10 the Jasenovac - "the leaders of the Jasenovac death camp victims
11 association stated that the Jasenovac museum had a list of 59.188 victims,
12 and although the real number may never be known precisely, his association
13 estimates them between 80 and 100 thousand, including Serb, Roma, Jewish,
14 Croat, and other groups" were in that -- in that death count.
15 So that's the figure that I think is the most reliable, because it
16 is really the families of the victims that came forward and provided the
17 information, and not some political party advocacy group, representatives
18 of governments who had an interest in -- in inflating or deflating the
19 figures. Generally the Serb sources inflated the figures; the Croat
20 official and unofficial sources deflated the figures. And I use one where
21 I thought that there was an interest on the part of a certain group to
22 produce an accurate figure.
23 Q. Mr. Oberschall, do you know that this association of victims
24 operates under the auspices of the Croatian government and that the
25 Croatian government finances its activity through its own budget?
Page 2174
1 A. I -- I don't know about who sponsors, who finances this
2 association. All I know is it's an association of the victims. And the
3 victims include all the victims. It includes the Serb victims, the Croat
4 victims, the Roma victims, the Jews, the -- the -- the other groups.
5 It's -- it's not just one group that is made a membership in this
6 association.
7 Q. Mr. Oberschall, do you know a single Roma who was in Jasenovac and
8 left Jasenovac alive? Do you know of any such thing?
9 A. No, I don't know personally any of the people --
10 Q. You don't.
11 A. -- who died there.
12 Q. I'm already panic-stricken on account of time. Please give me
13 answers that are as brief as possible.
14 Do you know of a single Serb leaving Jasenovac alive?
15 A. No, I don't.
16 Q. Towards the end of the war there were some, but only 10 or 20.
17 Mr. Oberschall, do you know who the only people who could survive
18 Jasenovac were?
19 A. Well, I -- I don't see what this has to do with the number killed.
20 You're talking now about the number who survived and whether I know the
21 number survived. We're talking about the number who were killed.
22 Q. I'll explain that to you straight away. The association of
23 victims is the association of survivors of Jasenovac, people who left
24 Jasenovac alive; right? Only Croats could get out of Jasenovac alive and
25 a few rich Jews. You could count them on the fingers of one hand.
Page 2175
1 We have testimony, we have an enormous three-volume book written
2 by Antun Miletic, a Croat, a colonel, about the camp of Jasenovac. He
3 established that the Ustasha Croat authorities kept records only of camp
4 inmates who were Croats and a few rich Jews. Serbs, masses of Jews, and
5 all the Roma were just brought into Jasenovac and liquidated without
6 keeping any record of that. Are you aware of that?
7 A. Well, what you're saying is not true, because the -- the
8 association does not include only the people who physically survived, but
9 it includes the families of those who died. So what -- what you've been
10 telling the -- the Court here in your testimony, it to me doesn't-- I
11 mean, it doesn't really make any sense. Obviously an association of
12 victims cannot be an association of the people who were killed. I mean,
13 that's obvious. So it must be the survivors and the families of the
14 survivors. It's not just the survivors.
15 Q. Mr. Oberschall, there is a huge amount of literature about the
16 Jasenovac camp. You did not consult it at all. You are basing your
17 conclusions only on the report of a formally non-governmental Croatian
18 organisation that is yet financed from the Croatian budget.
19 Let us go back to footnote 68 that you're trying to evade. You
20 mention Srdjan Bogosavljevic as the author of some article in a German
21 publication from 1998. It is a five-page-long article. I don't know the
22 German language. I see that it's something about genocide, but I cannot
23 really quite understand that.
24 You mentioned Srdjan Bogosavljevic as a reliable source in order
25 to diminish the overall official figures of the victims of the Second
Page 2176
1 World War in Yugoslavia. It is footnote 68. Do not evade this.
2 A. Well, I don't have any footnote 68. The pages that I have have
3 all footnotes for every page going from 1 to about 6 or 7 and -- I -- I
4 don't have --
5 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, I've noted the
6 problem, of course. In the expert report, footnotes are numbered 1, 2, 3,
7 4 per page. So each page it starts again, you know, at 1, 2, 3. So there
8 can't be a footnote 68. So could you please tell us, what is this
9 footnote 68?
10 THE WITNESS: Well, I think I see it. I think I -- I see it.
11 MR. SESELJ: [Interpretation]
12 Q. You've found it. So I don't have to look for it. Fine. You
13 found Srdjan Bogosavljevic's footnote.
14 In order to find my way more easily, I counted the footnotes,
15 Judge, and this is the sixty-eighth footnote?
16 MS. DAHL: Your Honour, if I can protect the record here. We're
17 at the English report, page 17, which is on the e-court screen presently,
18 and we have the matching page in translation also by the court officer.
19 It has been presented as well. And it appears that Mr. Seselj has
20 renumbered the footnotes for his own use, rather than the translation
21 which is consistent with the original.
22 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes. Mr. Seselj, it seems that
23 you have renumbered yourself all the footnotes, because we have the
24 footnotes here on the screen and we have no "68" here.
25 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes, it is footnote number 1 on page
Page 2177
1 16. Judge --
2 THE WITNESS: Could I answer the question?
3 MR. SESELJ: [Interpretation]
4 Q. Answer it.
5 A. I -- I'd like to go back to the Jasenovac figures. Dr. Seselj
6 says I never looked and did any research on it, which is not true. When I
7 was in Zagreb in 1998, I -- I went to the -- the demographic unit in the
8 Croat statistical service that -- they have a special unit that deals with
9 these casualties and killings in World War II and -- and afterwards, and
10 they produced figures for me and explained how they got the figures. I
11 decided that the methodology was inadequate and that they were using --
12 that they were inflating their figures, and I simply did not use them
13 because they were not reliable. So -- so that's why I'm not using those
14 figures.
15 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Fine. This is what the Trial
16 Chamber is interested in: You believe that it was about 60.000 victims
17 and Mr. Seselj, what is his figure? We need to know that. And then it
18 will be on the transcript.
19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Judge, the official figures are
20 between 600 and 700 thousand victims. These are official data of
21 Yugoslavia, and these were the figures used at the Nuremberg trials as
22 well. However, we're not talking about Jasenovac now. Mr. Oberschall
23 keeps evading Srdjan Bogosavljevic all the time. We're talking about the
24 total number of victims. The official figure is 1.700.000.
25 MR. SESELJ: [Interpretation]
Page 2178
1 Q. You say it is less than 1.700.000. You say that it is at least
2 896.000 and the maximum is 1.210.000 deaths. That is what you say on page
3 17. And then you quote Srdjan Bogosavljevic. Please don't keep running
4 away from Srdjan Bogosavljevic. He is a reliable source for you, as far
5 as the number of victims in the territory of the former Yugoslavia in the
6 Second World War are concerned. Is that right? Footnote 1, page 16. Or
7 if we look at all the footnotes, it is the sixty-eighth footnote.
8 In order to find my way there more easily, I had to renumerate
9 this, but it doesn't really matter. It doesn't change anything.
10 A. It's -- it's absolutely true. The particular book that you're
11 referring to that was in German contains a number of analyses of the
12 deaths during World War II, deaths due to the war in -- in Yugoslavia.
13 And several demographers and experts compared figures. Dr. Bogosavljevic
14 looked and compared all these figures, and he himself is a -- an expert on
15 these -- on these matters, and he came up with the figures that I felt
16 were -- that you could defend -- you know, given the uncertainties, he
17 gave kind of a range of -- of casualties that one could defend from a
18 social science point of view. And that's what I've actually indicated
19 here on page 17, yes.
20 Q. Mr. Oberschall, you said that Srdjan Bogosavljevic was an expert
21 in this type of demographic research. What makes him an expert or
22 professional? Where is there proof of that?
23 A. Well, whether you're an expert or whether you're just a charlatan
24 and a political hack who produces figures really depends on the reputation
25 you have among your professional peers, not just in your own country
Page 2179
1 and -- but -- but internationally. And what you should do in case you
2 think that Dr. Bogosavljevic is not an expert, why don't you put his name
3 into Google and see how many references there are by other demographers
4 and experts to his work. And that -- that to me confirms whether somebody
5 is a serious expert on a topic or whether he's just somebody who's being
6 used politically for a -- you know, for propaganda purposes.
7 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Well, let's be brief. According
8 to what you say, regarding this expert mentioned in this report, the
9 number of Serb victims during World War II would be around 500.000.
10 500.000.
11 Now, according to Mr. Seselj, could we know how many Serbs fell
12 during World War II. Since you're challenging this -- the figure of this
13 expert, give us your own figure. What do you estimate?
14 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Judge, Srdjan Bogosavljevic did not
15 deal with this issue seriously at all. He is no scholar who enjoys a
16 proper reputation in academic circles in Serbia. He is the owner of
17 Strategic Marketing, a privately owned agency in Serbia, and he is
18 involved in political forecasts as to who is going to win an election, et
19 cetera. His prognosis really depends on who pays him, and he doesn't
20 really do any kind of serious work. He never wrote anything serious about
21 victims in the Second World War. He uses data compiled by three authors
22 here. Only three authors seriously challenge the number of Serb victims
23 in the Second World War. Bogoljub Kocevic, who established a book about
24 that in London in the 1970s. And this was published by an emigre
25 organisation. And it was later -- it was led by the later leader or
Page 2180
1 vice-president of the democratic party, Dasimir Tosevic [phoen].
2 THE INTERPRETER: Could the speaker please be asked to speak
3 slower, note the interpreter.
4 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Franjo Tudjman was the third one,.
5 THE INTERPRETER: And the second one the interpreters did not
6 catch.
7 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] None of them are demographic
8 experts. One is an engineer. The other one was an independent publisher.
9 And Franjo Tudjman, as you know, was a type of historian.
10 I am not challenging the fact that he did achieve something in
11 this scholarly field, but he's not a demographer. So that is what I wish
12 to say to Mr. Oberschall. Where is the forgery here?
13 And now I want to hear his position on this. The --
14 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, you're saying that
15 three other people wrote about this, but the debate is whether it's
16 500.000, 1 million, 1.5 million. What exactly is your conclusion? Do you
17 think that the figures that you gave us are your own -- are -- are true?
18 And what is that figure? Because we still don't know it.
19 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Judge, I was not involved in such
20 research. I have official figures. But I did establish how these three
21 authors falsified the results of the research, and that is what I want to
22 present to Mr. Oberschall, and then I want to hear his view on this. They
23 worked on the basis of a census in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia before the
24 Second World War and a census in communist Yugoslavia after the Second
25 World War.
Page 2181
1 They drew the following conclusion: That the number of Serb
2 victims was exaggerated. And that the number of Muslim and Croat victims
3 was diminished. Then they presented new figures with less Serbian victims
4 and more, a lot more, Croat and Muslim victims, invoking the census. This
5 is where the deception was. In the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the census was
6 carried out only on the basis of religion, not -- not ethnicity, because
7 the Kingdom of Yugoslavia pursued a unitary policy. They wanted to create
8 a Yugoslav nation.
9 The Communists kept censuses only on the basis of ethnicity. They
10 did not even have an entry for religious affiliation. So before the
11 Second World War, we have a lot more Muslims than after the Second World
12 War, because after the Second World War, when ethnicities were registered,
13 many Muslims stated that they were Serbs and quite a few stated that they
14 were Croats. That is where the deception is.
15 MR. SESELJ: [Interpretation]
16 Q. Do you understand this deception, Mr. Oberschall? In statistics,
17 these things cannot be compared. You have to have the same categories for
18 different types of research in order to draw proper conclusions. You know
19 what statistical methods consist of.
20 MS. DAHL: I would like the witness to be given an opportunity to
21 answer the question that Mr. Seselj has put to him.
22 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes, he can do it.
23 You've heard the question.
24 THE WITNESS: I did study demography and demographic methods, and
25 Dr. Seselj just said that that's not part of what -- what he studied, and
Page 2182
1 it's -- it's pretty obvious to me that -- that he didn't, given the --
2 what he's saying about all this.
3 Let me just say that on the basis of the papers by demographers
4 that I looked at which are in this volume, my assessment was that the
5 Bogosavljevic analysis of the various claims and figures, some of which
6 were inflated, some of which were obviously diminished, depending on which
7 political side one came from -- and he weighed all these considerations
8 and the methodology, and I came to the conclusion that he in fact gave you
9 a pretty good range, 460.000 to 590.000 on Serbs and Montenegrins, and
10 Croats 190 to 270 thousand, that that was just about as good an estimate
11 as could be done given what there is available by way of -- by way of
12 factual evidence.
13 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Fine. Please continue,
14 Mr. Seselj.
15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I'm already panic-stricken that too
16 much time was taken up only by one question.
17 MR. SESELJ: [Interpretation]
18 Q. On the same page in the next paragraph, you wrote: When speaking
19 to the author of this report, "a university student in Belgrade recalls a
20 Serb writer asserting before a student club in 1990" -- and then quotation
21 marks -- it doesn't matter what the student said.
22 What was the name of the student who said this to you in Belgrade,
23 Mr. Oberschall?
24 A. I don't recall. I have, of course, recorded in my field notes,
25 but I don't see how that's important.
Page 2183
1 Q. In the footnote, in footnote 5, you say that this conversation
2 took place on the 27th of May, 1998. That's your reference; right?
3 A. That's right.
4 Q. What is the name of this Serb author who was asserting something
5 before a student club in 1990? Do you know that?
6 A. Well, again, I have it -- I have it recorded in my -- in my field
7 notes, and I didn't think it was important to -- to give the name of this
8 particular speaker that the student talked about. I could have used many
9 other quotes, by the way, from these interviews that I did in -- in
10 Belgrade at the time, but they're -- they're all pretty much the same type
11 of information that was provided to me, and it had to do with the fact
12 that there was pretty routine political discourse by Serb intellectuals
13 and media about rape, atrocities, conspiracy stories, and I merely just
14 quote for the sake of on the -- being on the record what one of these
15 students told me. I could have had a lot of other quotes.
16 Q. You're giving me answers that are too extensive and there's no
17 substance in them.
18 Mr. Oberschall, how can a scholar, a scientist, in an expert
19 report invoke by way of an argument the fact that one student - we don't
20 know what student; you know in your secret papers. In the report, there's
21 no trace of that - that one student said to him that he recalls that a
22 Serb writer a few years ago asserted something before a student club? Is
23 this really fitting for a serious scholar and scientist, Mr. Oberschall?
24 A. Certainly. I mean, I wasn't asked to write a 300-page book about
25 everything that's possible to write about mass media propaganda and -- and
Page 2184
1 your statements and -- and the Serb media. I was -- I was asked to write
2 a concise easily understandable summary with -- with a lot of detail, but
3 not everything conceivable that could be put into such a -- you know, a
4 much -- much larger volume. And that's what I did. I had to be selective
5 on certain quotes, including the quotes that come from the content
6 analysis. I could have each time listed your 47 threats every time we
7 talk about -- that I -- that I analysed threats. But I only selected
8 three or four. If somebody is interested in the full record, they can
9 look through the -- the full documentation that I give in the appendix.
10 Q. Mr. Oberschall, let's go back to methodology of scientific
11 research. Can science sustain a method where the author uses the
12 following construction: A man told me that a while ago another man had
13 told him. Is this a scientific approach?
14 A. This -- about -- what you're referring to is whether information
15 can be used that is in books, that somebody who uses that information
16 didn't actually have a personal experience, referring to the events that
17 he cites in the books; whether he can quote other people in interviews;
18 whether he can -- whether he can use information that somebody tells him
19 happened to them at an earlier time. And yes, if -- if it's
20 well-documented, all of that information can be used and, you know, has to
21 be analysed and sifted carefully, but it can be used in scientific
22 discourse.
23 Q. Mr. Oberschall, you submitted your expert report in order to
24 support the indictment. If that indictment is proven to be true, then I
25 will spend my life in prison. And in this report, you say that a man told
Page 2185
1 you that a while ago another man had said to him, and so on and so forth.
2 And in response to my questions, you don't know the name of either men.
3 And you came here knowing that I would submit you to relentless
4 cross-examination. Now, what does that mean?
5 A. What does -- what does what mean? I mean, what's -- what's the
6 question here? It's -- it's not clear to me.
7 Q. Mr. Oberschall, time is precious for me. I'm not going to insist
8 on this any longer. I see that you have no answer whatsoever. Let's move
9 on, and during the remaining half hour let me try to put a few more
10 questions.
11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Please don't let the Prosecutor use
12 my time.
13 MS. DAHL: Your Honour.
14 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] He's going to move on to
15 something else. So why did you want to intervene?
16 MS. DAHL: Either Mr. Seselj can rephrase the question that the
17 witness hasn't understood or he can withdraw it, but it is inappropriate
18 for him to comment that the witness is not answering a question when in
19 fact the witness has asked for clarification of a question he did not
20 understand. So I object to improper cross-examination.
21 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Move on to something else,
22 please.
23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Are you going to deduct this from my
24 time?
25 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [No interpretation]
Page 2186
1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Thank you.
2 MR. SESELJ: [Interpretation]
3 Q. Mr. Oberschall, on page 17, towards the bottom, you say that I was
4 persistently warning the Serbs that there was the danger of pan-Islamism,
5 and so on. Do you think that these threats were not real?
6 A. What I wrote is that a group of writers analysed the discourse on
7 the radio and television of Belgrade and Serbia about the Bosnian war, and
8 that's what they concluded. The theme was the Muslims are Jihad warriors,
9 criminals, slaughterers, Islamic Ustashas, Mujahedin, terrorists, and
10 extremists. So yes, that's -- that's in my report.
11 Q. Mr. Oberschall, do you know that the communist regime in 1986
12 prohibited by court order my book "A hunt for heretics," where I warned
13 against fundamentalist and pan-Islamist threats in 1986?
14 A. No, I don't -- I don't know about that book.
15 Q. Do you, Mr. Oberschall, believe that in Bosnia and Herzegovina
16 there exists a Muslim nation?
17 A. Well, there's a people that call themselves Bosniaks and many of
18 them also call themselves Muslims, yes.
19 Q. Mr. Oberschall, from what year are they called Bosniaks?
20 A. I think that happened sometime during the war. I don't know the
21 exact date at which they ... By the way, that excludes -- that includes
22 also some Serbs and Croats who decided to stay in the federation and --
23 and become citizens of basically the federation. So we're not only
24 talking about Muslims. We're talking about a number of other groups. The
25 majority are Muslims.
Page 2187
1 At what day did the term "Bosniak" come into general use? I don't
2 know. But sometime during the war to distinguish the Republika Srpska
3 from the other groups who wanted to maintain a -- a unified Bosnia as a
4 successor state in the former Yugoslavia.
5 Q. Mr. Oberschall, thus it's a nation that was proclaimed some 10 or
6 15 years ago. Before that, it didn't exist.
7 A. Mr. Seselj, you have -- you are always confusing what is official
8 recognition and the actual consciousness and identity and self-definition
9 of a -- of a people. I have pointed this out in my expert report on -- on
10 several occasions, and I don't know what I can do to, you know, remove
11 that confusion in your mind. I've referred to all the sources, starting
12 in the history of modern nationalism, starting with the French historian
13 Renan who gave this lecture at the Sorbonne about "What is a nation?"
14 And I quote some other sources down to the contemporary view of
15 nationalism and you always have rejected that kind of terminology that is
16 accepted throughout the world. You talk about artificial nations. You
17 talk about, you know, all kinds of euphemism where you deny the -- the
18 self-definition and the accepted sense of -- of -- of being a people
19 that -- that is a -- is a product of culture and history. You always
20 belittle that. You deny that. You think some kind of an official
21 statement that something exists and something doesn't exist really makes
22 all the difference in this whole process.
23 So my answer to you is there were people who called themselves
24 Muslim, who identified themselves as Muslim in Bosnia since pretty much
25 the Turkish -- the Turkish times, seventeenth century on. And whether the
Page 2188
1 officials recognize it or didn't recognize it or whether it be -- were
2 part of a peace treaty or an agreement doesn't really make any difference.
3 What makes the difference is how they viewed themselves and how others
4 viewed themselves. And they were recognized as a people.
5 Q. You refer to Renan and that's an absolute stronghold for you. Do
6 you know who Schelling was? Do you know what Schelling's definition of a
7 nation is?
8 A. You mean the German philosopher?
9 Q. Yes. Yes. He gave a definition of "nation."
10 A. No, I can't quote to you what his definition of "nation" is.
11 Q. I will quote it. According to Schelling, "nation" is language.
12 And now, Mr. Oberschall, to refute this thesis of yours and the
13 suffering that you ascribe to me. Just imagine, France is a state with 60
14 million population, between 50 and 60 million, if I remember correctly.
15 Now, imagine, in one part of France - let's say that it's the
16 environs of Marseilles or the environs of Paris, any French city - 5
17 million French people decide to convert to Islam. And that's their right.
18 We had this famous French philosopher, Roger Garaudy, who converted
19 sometime in the 1970s to Islam. You heard about him, I hope. He was a
20 philosopher of Marxist orientation, later converted to the Islam
21 philosophy. Do you know who Roger Garaudy is? Imagine that his example
22 was followed by 5 million French. Original French people, not immigrants.
23 They say, we are now embracing Islam, and from this moment we are the --
24 an Islamic nation. Would that be sufficiently good reason for you to say
25 that they are an Islamic nation, because that's the way they feel?
Page 2189
1 A. You know, you're making completely, you know, strange kind of
2 statements and assumptions. If people in France or anywhere else convert
3 to any kind of a religion, individually or in large groups, it makes
4 absolutely no difference whatsoever to what their citizenship and whether
5 or not they consider themselves a nation. They -- they consider
6 themselves a religious -- having a same religious faith. It doesn't
7 interfere with their citizenship or any other kind of sense that they are
8 in this case Frenchmen. So I don't know -- you're just living in a
9 different world from -- from the real world, as far as I'm concerned. I
10 mean, you're -- you're troubling yourself with all kinds of hypothetical
11 and strange questions that have no relevance to contemporary history.
12 Q. You are unable to answer a perfectly logical question of mine.
13 I'm not talking about citizenship. Of course, hypothetically French
14 people who would convert to Islam would remain citizens of France. But if
15 they do what Bosnian Muslims have done and say, We are no longer Serbs.
16 We are now an Islamic nation. Would you then, based on the frame of their
17 mind, say that they are indeed a Muslim nation within France? That's my
18 question. It's perfectly logical.
19 A. Well, first of all, the Muslims never said that -- that they were
20 Serbs and all of a sudden that they became non-Serbs. They -- they said
21 they were Muslims all along, ever since the -- ever since Turkish times.
22 I don't know. It's very confusing. You know, your thinking about all
23 this, it -- it kind of mixes all kind of things up. You can be a citizen,
24 be a member of a religious community that's a minority of all the
25 religious faiths in that community. You can speak a language which is in
Page 2190
1 fact spoken by a minority of the people in that state, and you can still
2 consider yourself a -- not just a citizen but, as I am considering myself
3 an American, or a Frenchman would consider himself a Frenchman. We have
4 multiple identities. Not all those identities most of the time make a
5 claim to having to have some kind of a sovereign state representing them
6 in a particular territory. There's a sort of -- this is basic social
7 psychology and basic history. And -- and what can I say?
8 I mean, I lecture on this to my students, and it's a shame that
9 you did not take the courses that -- that I taught on this topic, because
10 your thinking wouldn't be muddled and confused about all this.
11 Q. Well, the public and the Trial Chamber will be able to judge who
12 is muddled and confused. I can only laugh at what you just said. It's
13 perfectly obvious who's muddled and confused here.
14 Mr. Oberschall, what happened to us Serbs over several centuries,
15 a part of it under -- a part of the people under the Turkish occupation
16 convert to Islam and identify with the occupier, and the other part
17 converts to Catholicism and gradually loses Serbian national awareness.
18 I'm now speaking on the basis of historical facts. We are Serbs Orthodox,
19 they are Catholic Serbs, and the third part are Muslim Serbs, regardless
20 of what they feel like, because this quarrel was imposed on us in a
21 religious war, but I keep saying that we are still one nation.
22 A. Well, you didn't ask me a question. You just made a declaration.
23 Other people have different views about this, and that's your view.
24 Q. Mr. Oberschall, you are putting it to me in your report that I
25 deny the existence of the Macedonian nation. That's also in the report,
Page 2191
1 isn't it?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Well, then, why then don't the United Nations recognize the
4 Macedonian nation?
5 A. I don't think that's -- that's -- that's really true. The
6 question has nothing to do with the Macedonian people. It has to do with
7 the state of Macedonia. And it -- it has to do with the objection of the
8 Greek government to the use of the term "Macedonia," which also describes
9 part of Northern -- Northern Greece. So we have a dispute here not about
10 a nation or a people or what they're called. We have a dispute about
11 the -- the title or the -- the official UN and diplomatic way of
12 describing a particular state. There's no challenge to the territory of
13 that state or the boundaries of that state.
14 Q. There is no dispute about the territory and the boundaries,
15 because the Macedonian population is mostly Slav. However, Greece does
16 dispute the name of the state and the name of the nation and the name of
17 the language; isn't that correct? And they say, This state cannot be
18 called Macedonia. That nation cannot be called Macedonian. And that
19 language cannot be called Macedonian. Is that correct?
20 A. It may be correct, but the Greeks say -- I don't know. I haven't
21 studied what the Greek government maintains or who among the Greeks
22 maintains that..
23 Q. All right. Why then did not the European Union recognize the name
24 of the State of Macedonia and the name of the Macedonian people and the
25 name of the Macedonian language? Why didn't the European Union do that?
Page 2192
1 Because Macedonia claims to become a member of the European Union one day
2 but under its current name, the former Yugoslavia Republic of Macedonia;
3 right?
4 A. Well, you -- you've asked a lot of things at -- at the -- at the
5 same time, so I -- I don't know what precisely do you want me to say or --
6 or answer. I'm --
7 Q. I don't expect anything. I have no more time. I'm moving on to
8 the next question.
9 Mr. Oberschall, more than once yesterday you said - and that's
10 also in your report - that I advocate amputation of Croatia; correct?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. Was I the first to use that wording, "amputation of Croatia"?
13 A. No. No.
14 Q. Who was the first?
15 A. I don't know. I didn't do a -- a history of -- of the various
16 terms and phrases that you used. Some of it you shared with other people;
17 some of it come from people who preceded you. I'm -- I wasn't doing that
18 kind of linguistic research.
19 Q. Mr. Oberschall, I'll tell you. The first to use that wording was
20 the Yugoslavia King Aleksandar Karadjordjevic in 1928. And since then it
21 has circulated in our historical and political discourse. Many other
22 politicians picked it up in their own studies and explained what this idea
23 of amputation means. Unfortunately, it wasn't performed in good time.
24 But that's another issue.
25 Mr. Oberschall, you spoke here about the liberal democratic
Page 2193
1 discourse within the European Union.
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. And you derived the difference between that discourse and the
4 Serbian political discourse. Have you heard of Jean Cot? He is a French
5 general, former UNPROFOR commander in Bosnia.
6 A. First of all, it wasn't true that I compared the -- the European
7 Union, what I called the civic nationalist discourse, with the Serb
8 discourse. I -- I compared it to the nationalist -- xenophobic
9 nationalist discourse, and that includes a lot more people, intellectuals,
10 statesmen, than just Serbs.
11 Q. I asked you if you had heard of Jean Cot. I told you who he was.
12 In a statement for "Defense Nationale" newspaper, he stated in June 1997:
13 "As far as Serbs are concerned, nowadays it's a sick people, poisoned a
14 long time ago. They have been -- become a victim of a collective
15 paranoia."
16 Is this liberal democratic discourse?
17 A. No, actually it's generalisation and stereotype and --
18 Q. Thank you.
19 MS. DAHL: Objection, Your Honour. I'd like the witness to be
20 allowed to complete his answer. This is improper cross-examination to
21 interrupt the witness's answer.
22 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes. There was a bit missing.
23 You were talking about stereotypes. Did you want to add anything?
24 Because in the transcript, you see, you wanted to say something.
25 THE WITNESS: Yes. What I -- what I wanted to add is that even
Page 2194
1 though it is true that the xenophobic nationalist discourse prevailed at
2 this time in Serbia, it doesn't mean that all Serb intellectuals -- and in
3 fact, many outstanding Serb writers and politicians actually used and
4 thought, in terms of what I call the civic nationalist discourse -- they
5 happened to be on the losing side politically. I would never characterise
6 all Serbs as having a uniform ideology or a point of view about anything
7 like nationalism and -- and -- and many other things. In fact, I talked
8 to -- to some of them, and they in fact have political parties they
9 contest elections. So I just want to make -- put that into the record.
10 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. Please continue.
11 MR. SESELJ: [Interpretation]
12 Q. Mr. Oberschall seems to be a machine for wasting my precious time.
13 I had a specific question, and I want only specific answers. I don't want
14 his opinion on various subjects.
15 MR. SESELJ: [Interpretation]
16 Q. Mr. Oberschall, listen to me carefully. The former President of
17 France, Jacques Chirac, at a time when he was President of France, at a
18 summit of heads of states of the European Union, in June 1995 in Paris,
19 interrupted the speech of the Greek Prime Minister, Andreas Papandreou,
20 who said that a civil war was going on in Bosnia with many features of a
21 religious war. And here Jacques Chirac says: "Allow me to interrupt you,
22 Prime Minister. Serbs are a people without law and without religion. It's
23 a nation of highway robbers and terrorists." It was broadcast on EuroNews
24 in June 1995.
25 My associate then, Dejan Mirovic, quoted that in my notification
Page 2195
1 of special defence that I submitted to the Prosecution two years ago, and
2 it's otherwise published in a book by Zoran Petrovic "Erase the Serbian
3 virus," 2002. Would this statement by Jacques Chirac be part of the
4 liberal democratic discourse? Would it fall within those boundaries?
5 A. Well, first of all, I very much doubt that President Chirac ever
6 said what is attributed to him. If -- if you actually cited a French
7 newspaper or journalist rather than this sort of roundabout citations and
8 attributions, you know, then I would react and assess what
9 President Chirac said. I would feel confident that he in fact said it.
10 What you quote here and the sources that you describe, and so on,
11 to me is just not reliable. There's a lot of fact and fiction and
12 propaganda that -- that goes on in -- in this kind of, you know, attempt
13 to justify yourself and attack other people. And if you give me a
14 statement that I feel confident that derives from President Chirac on the
15 Serbs in this -- in this war, then I will react to it. But I -- I don't
16 react to this kind of hearsay stuff.
17 Q. Mr. Oberschall, the day before yesterday you mentioned the
18 president of Venezuela, Mr. Hugo Chavez. And you quoted him as an
19 example. You said that he was an example of a political leader who is
20 closer to my discourse. That's what you said the day before yesterday
21 here in the courtroom. Do you remember that? It's on the record. I
22 noted your statement.
23 A. I guess if it's on the record -- if it's on the record, yes.
24 Q. Okay, Mr. Oberschall. I believe Hugo Chavez to be one of the
25 leaders of freedom-loving humanity, because he is opposed to American
Page 2196
1 leadership, globalism, or whatever it's called.
2 Hugo Chavez took part a few days ago at the summit of --
3 MS. DAHL: Objection, Your Honour.
4 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes.
5 MS. DAHL: I object to a speech about Mr. Seselj's views of Hugo
6 Chavez. This is improper cross-examination.
7 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes, your views on Mr. Chavez
8 are not to be taken into account, unless based on a question, you put a
9 question to the witness, and he can answer it.
10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, I do have a question, but the
11 Prosecutor didn't allow me to put it.
12 MR. SESELJ: [Interpretation]
13 Q. Here is the question: A few days ago there was a summit of
14 Hispano-American states. Did you see it on TV? It was on CNN, on BBC, on
15 various French televisions and Dutch televisions that I'm able to see
16 here. They showed it all. Have you seen it?
17 A. Probably. I mean, I follow the news, so -- yes.
18 Q. An incident occurred when the Spanish king, Juan Carlos, jumped up
19 and started insulting Hugo Chavez. All the televisions in the world
20 broadcast that. Have you seen that?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Now, do you believe the Spanish king, Juan Carlos, to be someone
23 who propounds liberal democratic discourse?
24 A. Let me say why the Spanish king said what he did, is because
25 Hugo Chavez insulted Spain, Spanish history, and -- and used a totally
Page 2197
1 undiplomatic, inappropriate language in that kind of an international
2 meeting of -- of -- of heads of state. And that's why he walked out.
3 That's why the King Juan Carlos walked out. And I think he was right that
4 he should walk out.
5 Q. All right, Mr. Oberschall. Hugo Chavez was talking about
6 historical facts. Spaniards were very brutal in colonizing Latin America,
7 looting and killing everything before them, setting the land on fire.
8 It's a historical fact, isn't it?
9 A. Mr. Seselj, do you really want to talk about the history of Spain
10 in the Americas for the remaining -- for the remaining time that you have?
11 I mean, is this a -- is this a course, a seminar on --
12 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Well, he's asking a question.
13 You can say "I know," "I don't know."
14 THE WITNESS: No, I know all that history he's referring to. Of
15 course.
16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] So you say you know.
17 Fine. Continue.
18 MR. SESELJ: [Interpretation]
19 Q. Was the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, elected at democratic
20 elections by the will of his people?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Right. Now, was the Spanish king, Juan Carlos, elected
23 democratically by the will of his people?
24 A. The Spanish king does not get elected by a popular vote, because
25 he's recognized in the constitution of the country, but it's not an
Page 2198
1 elected office.
2 Q. Very well, Mr. Oberschall. Do you know who put the Spanish king,
3 Juan Carlos, on the restored Spanish throne?
4 A. I don't know really quite how that happened. It -- it had to do
5 in the last years of the Franco regime. There was a constitutional
6 settlement. I'm not prepared to talk about the details of the Spanish
7 history in that kind detail.
8 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Please, go to the actual
9 question, Mr. Seselj, because your time is just about up. Please put your
10 question.
11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] If my time has run out, I'll ask one
12 more question.
13 MR. SESELJ: [Interpretation]
14 Q. The Spanish king, Juan Carlos, was put on that throne. The
15 fascist dictator, Francisco Franco, that was his own personal decision.
16 On one hand, we have Hugo Chavez, who was elected democratically by the
17 Venezuelan people, by democratic elections. On the other hand, we have
18 the Spanish king, Juan Carlos, who was placed on the throne by a fascist
19 dictator. Now, Juan Carlos you believe to be a proponent of liberal
20 democratic discourse and you believe Hugo Chavez to be a proponent of the
21 discourse that is opposed to liberal democratic discourse which is closer
22 to mine.
23 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] It must be a mistake in the
24 transcript, because I see the Omarska camp suddenly has nothing to do with
25 it. The question has been put to you, please answer it.
Page 2199
1 THE WITNESS: I would like to point out that just about three
2 weeks ago in a referendum in Venezuela, Hugo Chavez wanted to confirm,
3 assuming dictatorial powers, and he lost that referendum by, I think,
4 about 52:4 against and 48 in favour. So you keep talking about
5 Hugo Chavez as representing the -- the Venezuelan people and being an
6 elected politician. But the majority of his countrymen are actually him
7 against him at this present time. And they made it very clear that they
8 are against him.
9 Now, you're asking me questions about comparing a constitutional
10 monarch and his legitimacy to speak for his -- for his people with a
11 elected head of state, and I -- I really don't understand what all this
12 has to do with a -- with a topic that we're considering here. I must say
13 I've forgotten now exactly where we are in this all, in this.
14 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, this question on
15 comparing the King of Spain with Mr. Chavez, what was purpose of it?
16 Because we have difficulty in following you. What was the purpose of your
17 question as part of your cross-examination, in relation to the expert
18 report? What did you want to highlight? Which truth did you want to
19 highlight?
20 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I am showing how untenable this
21 construction is that Mr. Oberschall refers to in his expertise, that on
22 the one hand, there is liberal democratic discourse, and, on the other
23 hand, this nationalist discourse, which is not liberal and democratic at
24 the same time. Hugo Chavez wanted to have his constitutional authority
25 extended. He held a referendum and by a slim majority the people said, We
Page 2200
1 won't allow this. And Hugo Chavez immediately admitted that. The people
2 do not want to have my authority extended. That's part of the democratic
3 process. He proved to be a democrat there; whereas, the King of Spain,
4 the King of Spain never called a referendum to check what the will of the
5 people was in relation to the will of Franco the dictator.
6 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mrs. Dahl, you wanted the floor?
7 MS. DAHL: The volume of Mr. Seselj's voice in the courtroom is
8 preventing me from hearing him in translation. And I would like to be
9 able to follow what he is saying.
10 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] You're absolutely right.
11 Mr. Seselj, you've explained yourself. You explained why you
12 wanted to ask this question. But your time is up. You've used up the
13 time that the Trial Chamber had allotted you.
14 Will Mrs. Dahl have any redirect? No? Fine.
15 Then, Witness --
16 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Just a second.
17 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes.
18 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I didn't have time to put all my
19 questions, but I'm not complaining. I would just like, if possible, for
20 you to admit into evidence two documents that I prepared. I don't know
21 whether Mr. Oberschall received this in English, this proclamation to the
22 Serbs of the Muslim faith that I signed in 1990, and it was published in
23 the first volume of Velika Srbija. And also part of the editorial of this
24 first volume of Velika Srbija.
25 Has this been submitted to you, Mr. Oberschall? The service was
Page 2201
1 supposed to submit that to you. They're giving it to you only now? I had
2 hoped that you would be provided with this earlier on.
3 Another thing, Mr. President: You did not accept my official
4 notification with regard to the second addendum related to the expert
5 report of Witness Oberschall, and I submitted that on the 26th of
6 November. I went beyond the deadline. However, the Trial Chamber can
7 extend every one of the deadlines envisaged in the Rules of Procedure and
8 Evidence.
9 So I ask you, then, to admit this into evidence, and the
10 translation can be deducted from that quota of 10.000 pages that you've
11 allowed me; so that can be part of that quota.
12 I have submitted this early enough for Mr. Oberschall and the
13 Prosecution to familiarise themselves with this.
14 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Fine. You're asking for the --
15 this to be tendered, and the Prosecution will answer. You're asking to
16 tender a document that was disclosed to the Trial Chamber and to the
17 Prosecution just a few minutes ago. That's one document.
18 And the second document is the rejoinder -- is the addendum that
19 the Trial Chamber had not admitted because the deadline had not been
20 complied with.
21 What is the position of Prosecution regarding these two requests?
22 MS. DAHL: I think procedurally that would be a Defence exhibit
23 marked for identification, but I have no objection if Mr. Seselj wants to
24 make sure we proceed efficiently, if he wants exhibits admitted in the
25 Prosecution's case in chief. We'll take them and -- and move forward. I
Page 2202
1 do, however, in the face of this, have one brief question on redirect
2 perhaps I can ask Dr. Oberschall after the break.
3 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] No, we have no break.
4 MS. DAHL: Now?
5 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] So please ask your question
6 right now.
7 Re-examination by Ms. Dahl:
8 Q. Dr. Oberschall, did you have an opportunity to look at
9 Mr. Seselj's book entitled "The ideology of Serbian nationalism"?
10 Specifically, the -- the chapter headings in his book.
11 A. Yes. I -- actually, I have them with me here, the chapter
12 headings.
13 Q. Okay. Would you take a moment to look at the subchapter headings
14 for Mr. Seselj's views on Croats in a historical perspective.
15 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Objection.
16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Seselj, yes.
17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I have an objection. First of all,
18 yesterday Mr. Oberschall said that he never had my book "The ideology of
19 Serb nationalism" in my hands, and that exhausted my question.
20 Secondly, in the re-examination the Prosecutor only has the right
21 to deal with questions that had already been raised during the
22 examination-in-chief or the cross-examination. She does not have the
23 right to start new topics now.
24 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Witness, it seems that regarding
25 this book, you said that you did not read it. And now you're saying that
Page 2203
1 you know the book.
2 MS. DAHL: Your Honour, if I can -- if I can clarify.
3 THE WITNESS: I've only seen the Table of Contents. I didn't -- I
4 didn't read the book. Just the Table of Contents.
5 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] So you know the Table of
6 Contents.
7 Secondly, regarding the objection on the additional question, what
8 is the basis of this additional question? Does it have anything to do
9 with the question asked by Mr. Seselj during the cross?
10 MS. DAHL: Yes, it did, Your Honour. We presented the texts in
11 electronic format that were searchable. We didn't send the -- the expert
12 the physical books that he -- Mr. Seselj was holding up. And I wanted to
13 cover the characterisation of Croats by Mr. Seselj in his book.
14 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] My question is the following:
15 What question did Mr. Seselj ask to the witness which is the basis for
16 this new question that you are asking?
17 MS. DAHL: The question concerned the accuracy of Mr. Seselj's
18 characterisations of Croats in history.
19 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Fine. So ask your question,
20 please.
21 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Judge, Judge, an objection.
22 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes.
23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Judge, when was it that I discussed
24 that yesterday and the day before yesterday? There was no mention of
25 that. If you remember, my first question this morning addressed to
Page 2204
1 Mr. Oberschall was whether yesterday afternoon or last night or this
2 morning he discussed the subject of his testimony with anyone. He said he
3 did not. All of a sudden he appears with the contents of my book.
4 Obviously he had contact with someone regarding this. Please don't allow
5 that. Ms. Dahl will have an opportunity to call other witnesses with
6 regard to this matter.
7 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] No, Mr. Seselj. This is not the
8 question. This is not the problem. During the cross-examination, you did
9 talk about Croats, Croat victims, and so on. You did address this topic.
10 It's a very broad topic. And the Prosecution can ask for an additional
11 information about this, and this is what Mrs. Dahl wants to do. So let's
12 ask -- let's wait for the question. You are asking for the floor and you
13 don't even know what the question.
14 Mrs. Dahl, please ask the question.
15 MS. DAHL:
16 Q. Could you please read the characterisations of Mr. Seselj in his
17 subchapters and then comment in the coding analysis that you did on what
18 categories that description of Croats would fall into.
19 A. Well, here -- here are the subchapters' titles: "Europe horrified
20 by the Croat's bloodthirstiness," "Incredible criminal effluence of the
21 Croatian mindset creates as a paradigm of cruelty," "Croatian barbarity in
22 folk songs," "Croatian massacre -- massacres in Ham [phoen]," "Croatian
23 history abounds with savagery, robbery and murder as a primordial feature
24 of the Croatian national character," "Croats as a blind tool of the
25 Vatican," "The bestial urges of the Croatian ethnic being." I -- I didn't
Page 2205
1 read every one of them, but they pretty much are the same.
2 First of all, they are -- this is pretty extreme talk. It's very
3 negative stereotypes. Some of it actually falls into the category that I
4 didn't use when I read the other texts, which is "Dehumanisation." I
5 mean, the bestial urges of the Croatian ethnic being is like comparing a
6 human being to an inferior, almost like a -- a prehuman primate or other
7 kind of animal. So -- and, of course, all of it would be generalisations,
8 because, you know, we're talking about all the Croats. And that's --
9 that's how I would have coded it.
10 Q. Now, in traditional propaganda techniques, what would someone use
11 these kinds of dehumanisations or generalisations to achieve?
12 A. Well, first of all, it would -- it would create fear of these
13 bestial beings. Secondly, it would create animosity against them,
14 mistrust, inability to -- to deal with them on a civilised cooperative
15 level. I mean, with savages, and so on. So that would be -- that would
16 be the --
17 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Objection.
18 THE WITNESS: The uses of these kind of propaganda to create
19 these kind of sentiments and inimical relationships, hostile
20 relationships, yes.
21 MS. DAHL: Thank you, Dr. Oberschall.
22 Your Honours, I have no further questions of this witness.
23 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] My colleague has a question. He
24 read the titles of the chapters in your book and he did answer as to the
25 propaganda technique employed. What more do you want?
Page 2206
1 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, Judge, I ask you not to allow
2 an analysis on the basis of -- an analysis of a text on the basis of
3 contents at the very end of that book. This has to do with testimony of
4 historical eyewitnesses and prominent European historians, military
5 leaders, and even the great German poet, Schiller, who described Croats
6 that way in his own ballad. And the Croats in the Cilician wars, killed
7 the entire population of Magdeburg in Germany, near Dresden. And a
8 content analysis cannot be carried out on the basis of the contents of a
9 book.
10 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] My colleague has a question.
11 Questioned by the Court:
12 JUDGE HARHOFF: Given the time, perhaps we should take the break
13 now and I'll put my questions after the break.
14 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Do we have any time left?
15 Because it would be best to finish off.
16 Mr. Registrar, how much time do we have left regarding the tape?
17 Why have a 20-minute break and come back just for a few minutes? I
18 believe we have five or ten minutes left on the tape.
19 [Trial Chamber and registrar confer]
20 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Ten minutes.
21 JUDGE HARHOFF: Very well.
22 Mr. Oberschall, I have a few questions relating to something which
23 I don't think has been brought up by any of the parties; namely, the
24 methods used in your expert report. And the first question I wanted to
25 put to you relates to what you have indicated in page 1 of your report,
Page 2207
1 because I wanted to know what was the question that was put to you by the
2 Prosecution in order for you to work on this report.
3 And I see that on the top of the page there is a question that
4 reads: "How mass media propaganda impacts on ordinary people's acceptance
5 and participation in collective violence" and "How Seselj's nationalist
6 propaganda promoted and justified coercion and violence by Serbs against
7 non-Serbs."
8 And my question is: Was that the question that was put to you by
9 the Prosecution? Was this your task?
10 A. What the -- as I recall what I was asked to do is to content
11 analyse the political discourse of Dr. Seselj on Serb/non-Serb political
12 relations during the time that was indicated, 1991 to 1994. Of course,
13 that was a nationalist discourse and -- and I was asked to provide sort of
14 an expert opinion of that discourse, and I immediately said for that we
15 have to do a content analysis, because this is the only way that you can,
16 instead of searching and picking particular statements, get a -- a good
17 record and do a uniform analysis. And, you know, that's what's sort of
18 currently done in -- in political discourse analysis, is based on content
19 analysis, rather than just a selection. So they said yes: Can you do
20 that? And I said yes, I can do it and I will do it.
21 JUDGE HARHOFF: I'll get to that in just a minute. My question
22 is: Who then formulated this passage that I just read it out?
23 A. I did.
24 JUDGE HARHOFF: Because that seems to be a working thesis.
25 A. I did. Because I didn't think that one could meaningfully as a
Page 2208
1 social scientist just produce a set of conclusions based on the sort of
2 narrow propaganda analysis of counts, you know, how many threats, how many
3 victimisation statements without putting --
4 JUDGE HARHOFF: Mr. Oberschall, did this working hypothetical
5 question or thesis, did that in fact guide you through your study? Was
6 that the --
7 A. What thesis are you referring to?
8 JUDGE HARHOFF: The question that I have read out to you, and
9 I'll -- which is on the top of page 1, the issue: How mass media -- and
10 I'll read it again, if you didn't get it.
11 A. No, I know what you're referring to.
12 JUDGE HARHOFF: Very well. My question is: These two questions
13 that are included to here, did they form the working thesis for you when
14 you were doing your study?
15 A. Propaganda analysis, whether it's content analysis or otherwise,
16 deals with three basic questions.
17 JUDGE HARHOFF: Mr. Oberschall, please --
18 A. The messenger, the message, and the impact that it has. And the
19 impact it that has is a very important part of propaganda analysis. And
20 as much as possible, I went into the impact.
21 JUDGE HARHOFF: You see, we are at the beginning of the trial
22 here.
23 A. Yes.
24 JUDGE HARHOFF: And you have presented a report. And for the
25 Chamber to understand fully the value and the use of your report, I have
Page 2209
1 to be sure about what your study purported to show. And so this is why my
2 question relates to the opening thesis that you -- I want to deal with the
3 question of how media propaganda impacts on ordinary people -- on ordinary
4 people's acceptance and participation in collective violence and how
5 Seselj's nationalist propaganda promoted and justified coercion.
6 So that's why -- that's -- my question is to ascertain whether
7 this was in fact what you wanted to prove, to --
8 A. Yes, I wanted to --
9 JUDGE HARHOFF: Very well.
10 A. -- talk to these topics.
11 JUDGE HARHOFF: Very well.
12 A. That was my intention.
13 JUDGE HARHOFF: That is good to know.
14 Because then, if you move on to part -- to page 2, you describe
15 the methodology of your content analysis. And in the big paragraph, which
16 is just below the middle of the page --
17 A. That's right.
18 JUDGE HARHOFF: -- you say that "Oberschall" -- this is yourself,
19 I suppose -- "identified the following themes on which information was
20 necessary to fully characterise Seselj's views and positions." And then
21 you list -- you line out all the keywords that you used subsequently in
22 your analysis of each piece of material that you got from the Prosecution;
23 is that correct?
24 A. Yes.
25 JUDGE HARHOFF: Right. Now, my question is: How did you arrive
Page 2210
1 at these keywords?
2 A. Well, I explained that here, and it's looking at the literature on
3 nationalism -- that is the best sources I could find on nationalism, like
4 people like Anthony Smith, who is the, you know, the Oxford professor who
5 keeps writing about nationalism, and other authors. And in their books on
6 nationalist discourse, they list a number of topics, such as being
7 presented as a victim, trying to make a connection between being a chosen
8 or a special people who has sometimes in a religious sense of being a
9 chosen people by God or by history or by destiny. So I looked very
10 carefully at what their major themes were, and I then produced the -- the
11 glorification, the negative stereotypes, all of that is in this
12 literature, specifically in Anthony Smith's book that I referred to. So I
13 compiled this list of what I was going to look for, which is my coding
14 categories from the literature on nationalism.
15 There's another five -- or six coding items which comes from the
16 literature on the techniques of propaganda. The generalisation,
17 stereotyping, threat messages, victimisation, and so on. These -- it
18 doesn't matter whether you -- you look at contemporary or nineteenth
19 century documents or -- or speeches or -- or -- or whatever, of whatever
20 people. There are techniques of propaganda which are pretty much the
21 same.
22 So I coded both for the nationalist themes from the nationalism
23 literature and the techniques of propaganda from the propaganda
24 literature, and the discourse is a combination of techniques and the
25 substance.
Page 2211
1 JUDGE HARHOFF: I -- I realize that you have probably struck most
2 of the issues which would be relevant to assess in the examination that
3 you have carried out, but you see, for the Chamber it's important to know
4 whether each of these 11 topics that you have listed out in your --
5 A. Mm-hm.
6 JUDGE HARHOFF: -- methodology --
7 A. Yes.
8 JUDGE HARHOFF: -- were things that you were -- were issues that
9 you had selected from literature or whether some of these issues were
10 issues that you had figured out yourself as being relevant for this
11 analysis.
12 A. These were -- of course, when I -- when I said "threats," I had to
13 specify it has threats involving Serbs or against Serbs. So I added that.
14 But in the literature on nationalism deals with the relationship between
15 many different kinds of people and religious groups, and so sometimes you
16 would have French and German and Russians in there specifically, but I was
17 only dealing with Serbs and non-Serbs, so I specified within this
18 nationalist discourse that -- that -- that the threats and the
19 victimisation referred to Serbs and to non-Serbs.
20 JUDGE HARHOFF: I -- I think that maybe I'm not expressing myself
21 clearly in my question, so I'll try again.
22 [Trial Chamber and registrar confer]
23 JUDGE HARHOFF: The issue is whether each of these 11 topics that
24 you have chosen for your analysis have been derived from -- from
25 scientific literature that you have gone through or whether you developed
Page 2212
1 them yourself for the purpose of this analysis.
2 A. No, I -- I derived them from the -- what -- the scientific
3 literature; however, I left out some topics which did not really apply and
4 don't ever appear in Dr. Seselj's discourse; that is, in the -- in the --
5 the nationalist literature, there's often parallels made between nation
6 and religion and sort of a quasi-religious discourse about being a chosen
7 people and favoured by God and that kind of -- that kind of nationalist
8 religious terminology.
9 If I were to analyse al-Qaeda or -- or Osama bin Laden's
10 discourse, I would have to include here things that have to do with
11 religion, but in the -- in the kind of secular nationalist discourse that
12 Dr. Seselj conducted, this never appears, so I just left it out, even
13 though it was in the literature.
14 JUDGE HARHOFF: So you selected these 11 topics as being the most
15 relevant and thereby --
16 A. Yes.
17 JUDGE HARHOFF: -- deciding to leave out some that you thought
18 were not relevant.
19 The -- the reason I'm asking, of course, is that -- that in those
20 topics, I would have thought that references to what might be
21 characterised as the accused's paradigms or his views of how Serbs should
22 be regarded in contemporary history would be a relevant parameter to
23 include also.
24 A. Well, I did that in my report when I -- of course, I coded for --
25 JUDGE HARHOFF: It doesn't figure here as -- as one of the topics
Page 2213
1 that you used for analysis.
2 A. No, because I had a general code called "nations and
3 nationalities"; that is to say, Dr. Seselj's discourse on nations and
4 nationalities. He actually gave us a couple of examples today. And by
5 then going into the detailed views that he put forward in these texts
6 about the Serbs being a true nation and the other peoples in Yugoslavia
7 being artificial nations and what are nations and what are people and what
8 are -- you know, Macedonians are not nations, Montenegrins are Serbs but
9 don't know it, and that kind of thing, is what I then covered in other
10 sections of my report, especially the section on "Seselj's discourse --
11 nationalist discourse." And that's when I go into the specific
12 examination of the texts that I coded under "nations and nationals --
13 nationalism."
14 JUDGE HARHOFF: Very well. If you then move to the next category,
15 which you have called "persuasion."
16 A. Where -- what page are we on now?
17 JUDGE HARHOFF: On any of the pages that -- that -- on the record
18 numbers. You can pick any record number and you will see underneath --
19 A. Oh, yes. .
20 JUDGE HARHOFF: -- you have these 11 topics and then you have
21 seven means of persuasion.
22 A. Yes.
23 JUDGE HARHOFF: And there you list out stereotyping,
24 generalisation, falsehood, and so on and so forth.
25 A. Yes.
Page 2214
1 JUDGE HARHOFF: I would have thought that the context in which
2 each of his statements were made would have an impact on your assessment
3 of the persuasiveness. Would it not make a difference whether these --
4 whether the speech that the accused was giving was given, say, in a radio
5 programme or in a public newspaper or in a crowd at a demonstration, or
6 whatever? Or does that not make any difference?
7 A. Well, what I'm coding for here is not persuasion in the sense of
8 impact. I'm coding for technique of persuasion. From the context of what
9 I am coding, which is a text, I have no information about how the radio or
10 the TV audience or people who read the newspaper --
11 [Trial Chamber and registrar confer]
12 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Unfortunately, we'll have to
13 have a break, a ten-minute break.
14 THE WITNESS: If I may just finish. I have a whole section in my
15 expert report on the impact and how I measured impact.
16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Listen, we're going to have a
17 break, unfortunately, for ten minutes.
18 --- Recess taken at 11.01 a.m.
19 --- On resuming at 11.18 a.m.
20 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. We have resumed the
21 hearing. Judge Harhoff is going to proceed with his questions.
22 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you.
23 So, Mr. Oberschall, what you were telling me before the break was
24 that the seven headings under the "persuasion" group is not actually
25 physical persuasion but, rather, techniques of persuasion.
Page 2215
1 A. Yes.
2 JUDGE HARHOFF: Is that correctly understood?
3 A. That's right.
4 JUDGE HARHOFF: If we return to the original working thesis, as
5 you had put it out on page 1, I would revert to the second question that
6 you put up for yourself; namely, "how Seselj's nationalist propaganda
7 promoted and justified coercion and violence by the Serbs against
8 non-Serbs."
9 This last part of your working thesis would suggest that you had
10 actually conducted studies into the effects of Dr. Seselj's speeches and
11 things. Did you do so?
12 A. Let me explain what I -- what I did. When it comes to the impact
13 of propaganda discourse, the findings that I referred to about threat
14 messages creating fear and being powerful in terms of action derive from
15 social psychological experiments, a lot of them done at Yale University,
16 over a period of time in which you always have a control group, you have
17 an experimental group that gets the messages and a control group that
18 receives other messages, and then a comparison is made on sort of before
19 and after what their thinking is, what their beliefs are, what their
20 sentiments are.
21 Now, it's not possible to do this kind of experimental work in a
22 natural historical setting. So there's sort of other ways, which are not
23 as -- as good, but still there are other ways of trying to measure
24 propaganda impacts.
25 The most important media is television. Now, one -- one problem
Page 2216
1 with measuring the impacts of television is it's very hard to find in the
2 contemporary age a part of the population that is not exposing itself to
3 television, because, you know, viewers are all over the place and the
4 majority of the people look at television, not just -- you know, in every
5 country.
6 So what I tried to do is to find a measure of what is an impact,
7 and that is a vote, a vote in elections. So I tried to find -- and I
8 refer to two situations in which Dr. Seselj had access to the -- to the --
9 to the media of communication before an election, and then look at an
10 election shortly afterwards when for -- because of his rivalry with the --
11 with the Milosevic regime he actually was deprived of such access, or even
12 more, he was negatively depicted in the -- in the media of communication,
13 in -- in television. And I found two such examples. And then I compared
14 the votes that he got when he held his discourse on the -- the Serb media
15 compared to the votes that he got when he didn't have that opportunity, or
16 a much more limited opportunity, and looked at the number of votes that he
17 got.
18 In -- in one case, it was two elections that were about a few
19 months apart. In another case, actually only three weeks apart, because
20 it was a run-off, you know, as you -- you know from ... Okay.
21 So by looking at those figures and the election outcomes, as
22 provided by Goati, I estimated that lack of access and -- or negative
23 depicting of him in the media cost him or his party something like between
24 20 and 40 per cent of the votes that he would count on compared to when he
25 had access to TV.
Page 2217
1 So to me that's a pretty good measure of impact. I don't know
2 what else and how else to measure the impact, but it's a political impact
3 and Dr. Seselj was pretty much not changing his position, his policies,
4 his views. He had a fairly constant political discourse at this time, so
5 that's the measure of impact that I came up with.
6 JUDGE HARHOFF: So in your study, you were able to show that the
7 accused's speeches had an impact on peoples exercising their democratic
8 rights.
9 A. Yes.
10 JUDGE HARHOFF: That would seem to me to be quite different from
11 what you have set out in your working thesis; namely, that you wanted to
12 show how the nationalist -- nationalist propaganda promoted and justified
13 coercion and violence by the Serbs.
14 A. Well, he's --
15 JUDGE HARHOFF: That's two very different things that --
16 A. Well, his discourse, as I've done and examined in a content
17 analysis, is a pretty aggressive nationalist discourse justifying Greater
18 Serbia and an expansionist policy, including armed conflict against --
19 against the neighbouring states. So that's what he -- that's what they
20 were reacting to.
21 JUDGE HARHOFF: But --
22 A. That was his discourse.
23 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] One follow-up question. If I
24 understand you properly, in fact when there is an election, the media are
25 the ones that are going to cause the results. Depending on the access or
Page 2218
1 lack of access by the candidates, the results will be influenced by the
2 media or a consequence of the media. Is that the conclusion one is to
3 draw?
4 A. Not -- not really. That is to say, when he does not have the
5 media, that is to say, he doesn't have television and probably also radio,
6 of course he still has the -- the party newspaper, the election rallies,
7 the speeches he makes at -- at the Assembly, and so on. And that
8 produces, in my estimate which I give in this report, something like
9 600.000 votes that this party and he can count on. But when he does have
10 the extra access to television where his message is not only directed at
11 the readers of the -- of the Radical newspaper and an audience that
12 pays -- goes to his rallies, and supporters that he already has, so to
13 speak, then he can increase his votes from about 600 -- 5, 6 hundred
14 thousand, to about a million.
15 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] I understand what you say.
16 However, in your theory, what do you make of the free decision, the free
17 power to decide of a citizen, of the one who listens to a speech, who
18 watches the media? Does he play no role at all? Is he totally
19 manipulated by the speaker, by the one who speaks on the radio, on
20 television, in the newspapers? What do you think of free thinking? We
21 have the impression that it no longer exists, if I follow you in your
22 conclusions. People go one way or the other, depending on what they see
23 in the media. What about their personal input? What is the place it
24 takes?
25 A. Well, I -- I actually discuss this particular question when I talk
Page 2219
1 about the two different frames that existed in the population for their
2 beliefs and their -- their understanding of the relationship between Serbs
3 and non-Serbs. And up to the time that the conflict becomes an armed
4 conflict or up to the 1990 elections, when this nationalist propaganda
5 really takes hold of -- of the politicians in the country, the -- the
6 Yugoslav people outside of Kosovo -- and I cite surveys indicating -- big
7 public opinion surveys which were done at this time in Yugoslavia, that
8 indicated that most of the people believed that there were good and
9 satisfactory relations between the -- between the different groups in
10 their personal life, in their neighbourhoods, in the workplace, in civic
11 activities, and so on. So that -- that's sort of the beliefs that they
12 started with.
13 Then I said there's a crisis discourse, which is based also on
14 reality. It's based on the reality of the conflicts that took place in
15 World War II and before that, World War I and the -- the Balkan wars, and
16 in that discourse the people are afraid, fearful, feel threatened, have
17 been victimised, and they interpret the political events that are
18 explained -- that take place and that are explained to them by the
19 political leaders in that frame.
20 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] One final example. Indeed,
21 there's no end to this discussion.
22 We saw a video-clip with a woman, a young woman going to war, it
23 seemed. This young woman, her training, her education, what she learned
24 in her past, if she learned that there were 500.000 or a million Serbs who
25 were killed during World War II, one -- one person killed is one too many,
Page 2220
1 but let -- if she had learned about those figures and she went to war in
2 order to avoid that from being repeated, in her personal approach, which
3 is the part of a decision made by a politician like Mr. Seselj? What is
4 the determining factor? Is it her personal belief or what she may have
5 heard from a politician?
6 A. I think it's very much what she hears in the media, the -- what
7 the -- what the public discourse becomes, what the politicians are saying.
8 For 30 years and in the schools that she attended there wasn't any mention
9 of 500.000 victims. All of this kind of history and material was very
10 much not debated, suppressed during the Tito years, and it really didn't
11 surface in a major way until the 1990 elections. So where did this lady
12 and other people like that learn about these things? They learned it from
13 this extreme nationalist political discourse that was taking place,
14 especially in the 1990 election and afterwards. It wasn't something she
15 carried out in --
16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Well, but that's your belief.
17 A. Yes.
18 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] You said that she learned it
19 that way. But you're not in a position to prove this. This is a
20 conclusion that you draw.
21 A. Excuse me. Can I ...?
22 I also cite several examples of interviews done by journalists
23 with a -- a number of different Serbs and non-Serbs about why they were
24 doing what they were doing.
25 And let me ask you, in particular in one case that I cite here -
Page 2221
1 and I could have cited many others - there's a woman who is a refugee with
2 her family, a Serb woman who's a refugee from someplace in what became
3 Republika Srpska, where she left her village to go to a -- another place
4 where the Serbs are in the majority. And the journalist asks her, Why did
5 you leave? And she said, "Because I heard on television that the Muslims
6 are going to kill all the Serb men and all the women will become sex
7 slaves of the -- of the Muslims in a harem to produce, you know, Muslim
8 children." And, you know, she goes on and talks about what in fact was
9 depicted on television and was part of the kind of xenophobic discourse.
10 Then the journalist asks her, "Well, what about your neighbours,"
11 who were Muslim. And she says, "Well, they're fine people. I've lived
12 with them in a friendly fashion all my life, but it's not my neighbours
13 that I'm afraid of. It's those Muslims that they are talking about on
14 television." And that just gives you a very vivid example - and I have
15 other ones - of the impact that this kind of discourse has.
16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Indeed. But this example of
17 this woman who heard on television that she might be put in a harem, this
18 woman might very well think that this is nonsense, gibberish said on
19 television. Nothing forces her to go. So she does have a personal free
20 will, in spite of the fact that she may have heard this on television.
21 The fact that something is said on television doesn't mean that it is the
22 truth.
23 So in any decision, there must be a part of personal decision.
24 There are other people than her who decided to stay.
25 Mr. Harhoff.
Page 2222
1 JUDGE HARHOFF: I'll revert to what seems to me to be a
2 discrepancy between your conclusion and your working thesis.
3 A. Yes.
4 JUDGE HARHOFF: Because what you told us a while ago was that the
5 effects that you had been able to -- to establish of the accused's
6 nationalist propaganda was the democratic conduct of the constituencies in
7 the sense that before and after his speeches people changed their pattern
8 of vote, democratic vote.
9 A. Right.
10 JUDGE HARHOFF: But how do you arrive from there to the, as you
11 say, the coercion and violence by the Serbs against non-Serbs?
12 A. Well --
13 JUDGE HARHOFF: Are you assuming that because they changed their
14 votes in exercising their democratic rights, they would also go out and --
15 and use violence against non-Serbs? Is that your thesis?
16 A. If -- well, let me say that in the beginning of my expert report
17 I -- I do explain that the majority of the people who vote in a regime
18 that creates and -- and advances a kind of an aggressive policy don't
19 personally have to be in favour of any kind of armed violence or -- or
20 killing, or anything like that. They just have to feel threatened and
21 afraid and vote for politicians who then say, We will save you from this
22 threat. Put your faith in us, and we will have a policy that will remove
23 the threat.
24 I also say in this early part - I think page 3 or 4, or something
25 like that - that to execute this kind of aggressive policy, all you need
Page 2223
1 is a fairly small number of people, maybe 5 to 10 per cent of the
2 population, usually young males, who are either in the army or they're
3 enlisted in paramilitaries or militias or maybe criminal bands, and, you
4 know, in the -- in the -- in the case of -- in the case of Germany, they
5 were the -- they were the -- the SS and the special troops and -- and you
6 have these phenomenon in all of these, you know, armed conflicts. And
7 the -- the crucial thing is you have a regime that produces a -- that
8 pursues an aggressive policy against what they say is a threat. You have
9 a majority of the voters who are persuaded that they're really doing a
10 good thing by saving us. And you then you need about 10 per cent of
11 really quite ordinary people who otherwise would not harm anybody in
12 ordinary times, who are mobilised, armed, trained, and who then do the
13 fighting.
14 So you -- you don't have any kind of discourse that creates a
15 bloodthirsty population out of a -- out of a normal population, but what
16 you need is these three elements that come together. And they come
17 together because political leaders and organisations want them to come
18 together. And if they come together successfully, that's when you have
19 the armed conflict.
20 JUDGE HARHOFF: But were you able to establish any such link
21 between the accused's speeches and the factual commission of coercion or
22 violence?
23 A. Well -- no, I was -- what you have to do - and we tried to do it -
24 that is, the Madam Prosecutor tried to do it by showing video-clips of --
25 like this lady in uniform getting on the bus, saying that she was alerted
Page 2224
1 by what she saw on television about the dangers of the Serbs in Vukovar.
2 We also had then a clip of the -- of the paramilitaries in uniform with
3 their weapons who, when asked by the journalist, why they're there,
4 they're pretty much repeating the kind of messages that -- that they
5 picked up from this -- from this political discourse that I've -- that
6 I've content analysed. And that's as far as we can go.
7 No, there's no experimental evidence for -- in the same sense that
8 we have it, you know, for the basic studies done about threat in a -- in
9 an experimental setting.
10 JUDGE HARHOFF: So what you are saying in your report is not that
11 the accused's speeches actually did promote or justify a coercion of
12 violence, but, rather, that in general terms it was conducive to such
13 actions.
14 A. Actually, I -- I have a -- I have an example that I -- that you
15 really ought to consider, because on the --
16 JUDGE HARHOFF: Is it in your -- this --
17 A. It's in my report, and it corresponds to something said by one of
18 these armed fighters in Vukovar as -- as to what he's doing and why he's
19 doing it and why he's fighting there. And what he's saying is that the
20 Croats have massacred all these small children in a school. That's what
21 he's saying. That's why he's here, to prevent this massacre.
22 Now, I quote the exact place and time that on -- on Serb TV there
23 was a report by a journalist who quoted -- who said precisely that he had
24 talked to people in Vukovar who had told him that there was this massacre
25 of children at a school. I think he even mentions the number, 41.
Page 2225
1 Now, the next day other people questioned this so-called fact and
2 the journalist the next day retracted the story. It was a fabricated
3 story. It was an untrue story. And -- and this is documented, and I
4 refer to it. I wish -- you know, you will -- you will -- you will read
5 it.
6 JUDGE HARHOFF: Yes.
7 A. Now, this is a very good example where specifically we have a
8 record of somebody who's armed, who's participating in the fighting, who
9 says, The reason I came here is because of these children who were
10 massacred. And then on television, before he came, there was this news
11 story about the massacre, which was a total fabrication, as admitted by
12 the TV station the next day.
13 So that gives you an idea of what is happening here. Of course,
14 the soldiers in the field didn't know this story was retracted and -- and
15 generally speaking, a lot of falsehood was not really challenged and
16 retracted at all.
17 JUDGE HARHOFF: I'm sure that -- that in -- in science a lot of
18 such examples can be mentioned, but just to be sure, this particular
19 example that you mention was not in any way associated with the accused,
20 was it?
21 A. No. As far as I'm concerned, it wasn't.
22 JUDGE HARHOFF: One last question. You say that you have used
23 what you call "content analysis."
24 A. Yes.
25 JUDGE HARHOFF: I understand that to be a method of analysis?
Page 2226
1 A. Yes, it's -- content analysis is --
2 JUDGE HARHOFF: Yes. That is a way of doing your analysis.
3 A. It's a quantitative way of analysing content, rather than -- based
4 on large sets of records that are not arbitrarily selected to prove a
5 point, and is different from the usual textual analysis, based on a few
6 examples that one picks for a particular purpose. And that is content
7 analysis. It was a technique developed after World War I and especially
8 II in terms of analysing allied and Nazi propaganda.
9 JUDGE HARHOFF: What other methods could you have used, if any?
10 A. Well, the only thing I could have done is this -- which by the
11 way, I would refuse to do, would be to pick and choose -- what's called
12 cherry-picking, particular statements and kind of making a -- becoming an
13 advocate for a -- for a certain point of view.
14 I -- I told the Court that my method of content analysis is what
15 is currently accepted in social science as the reliable and the most valid
16 method, and I would not have used anything else.
17 JUDGE HARHOFF: And you will assure us that it is not a
18 qualitative method but purely a quantitative?
19 A. Well, Your Honour, all my coding that I did is indicated on every
20 record. You can check for yourself. If you disagree with it, if you
21 disagree with my coding, you can actually check what I have done and what
22 you would do. So this is in the -- it's in the public domain. I have
23 absolutely nothing to hide. And if anything, I would say that I gave
24 Dr. Seselj the benefit of the doubt. When something wasn't clear, like he
25 was making a sarcastic joke, and I said, Okay, this is his way of speaking
Page 2227
1 to an audience; I didn't actually code that necessarily, because I took --
2 JUDGE HARHOFF: No, I --
3 A. -- you know, I took that into account.
4 JUDGE HARHOFF: Mr. Oberschall, I only wanted to -- to be
5 reassured that in your own understanding, you did not include any
6 qualitative assessments in -- in your report. You -- you're basing this
7 on a purely quantitative method that does not apply qualitative
8 techniques.
9 A. Well, I mean, I have to make a decision about what is victimhood
10 and what is not victimhood. And if somebody says that genocide has been
11 committed us -- against us in World War II, then, you know, that is
12 victimhood. And the actual counts of the number of times this kind of
13 victimhood is mentioned in all these texts is based on a -- on a count,
14 which I also did. But if you disagree with my -- my view of victimhood
15 and what I -- what I consider victimhood, it's all there for you to check,
16 if you wish.
17 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you.
18 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Fine.
19 Mr. Registrar, could I have two numbers for -- MFI numbers for
20 Mr. Seselj's documents.
21 THE REGISTRAR: Yes, Your Honour. The article that the doctor
22 referred -- Dr. Seselj referred to will be marked for identification as
23 MFI D1, and the second rejoinder to the expert report will be marked for
24 identification as MFI D2.
25 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes.
Page 2228
1 Mrs. Dahl, unless I'm wrong, did you ask for the report to be
2 tendered? Yes. And did you get an MFI number?
3 MS. DAHL: All of the documents have been marked for
4 identification. There is a motion pending before the Chamber for
5 admission of this material. Given that we are not trying to prove our
6 entire case through one witness, that -- I renew the motion but consider
7 it within the Chamber's discretion to decide when, at which point in time
8 you receive it.
9 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Fine. The Trial Chamber will
10 decide on this in due time.
11 Mr. Oberschall, your testimony is now over. Thank you for coming
12 here, and I wish you a safe trip home.
13 Before adjourning, as you know, we will resume on Tuesday, January
14 8, 2008, and I believe that we will be sitting in the afternoon at 2.15.
15 So see you then.
16 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 11.50 a.m.,
17 to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 8th day of
18 January, 2008, at 2.15 p.m.
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