Page 14268
1 Monday, 2nd November 1998
2 (Open session)
3 --- Upon commencing at 2.13 p.m.
4 JUDGE JORDA: Please be seated. Registrar,
5 have the accused brought in, please.
6 (The accused entered court).
7 JUDGE JORDA: First of all, I would like to
8 say good afternoon to the interpreters and to be sure
9 that they hear me speaking, I hope they have had a good
10 weekend. Then, of course, I would like to say good
11 afternoon both to the Defence and to the Prosecution
12 counsel, and to the accused, and to the Trial Chamber's
13 legal officer.
14 Now we can continue with the re-examination,
15 which is part of the procedure pursuant to our Rules,
16 which we can do as soon as Mr. Dundas-Whatley has come
17 into the courtroom at request of the registrar.
18 (The witness entered court).
19 JUDGE JORDA: Mr. Dundas-Whatley, good
20 afternoon, did you rest up a bit over the weekend? Do
21 you feel good?
22 A. Yes, thank you, Mr. President.
23 JUDGE JORDA: That's good. Mr. Hayman, you
24 may proceed.
25 MR. HAYMAN: Thank you, Mr. President, good
Page 14269
1 afternoon, Your Honours.
2 MR. HAYMAN:
3 Q. Mr. Whatley, I will be jumping around to
4 touch briefly on several different topics raised in
5 your cross-examination at the end of last week.
6 First, on cross-examination you were asked
7 about the level of military experience of Lieutenant
8 Colonel Watters and Lieutenant Colonel Thomas, also of
9 the Cheshire Regiment and also witnesses who testified
10 in this case.
11 First, let me ask you a few questions about
12 the service in Bosnia-Herzegovina of Lieutenant Colonel
13 Brian Watters. As the second in command of the
14 Cheshire Regiment in Bosnia-Herzegovina, did his duties
15 take him off of the British Battalion's base on a
16 regular or daily basis?
17 A. Not on a daily basis, but occasionally, yes.
18 Q. How frequently he had contact with HVO and BH
19 army commanders?
20 A. I don't know exactly, but he did have contact
21 with commanders, usually if there was a high level
22 meeting taking place and Bob Stewart wasn't available,
23 and perhaps Brian Watters would help chair that
24 meeting.
25 Q. Would that have been a regular or frequent
Page 14270
1 occurrence, or not?
2 A. Certainly early on it was hardly ever, but I
3 think towards the end, the last couple of weeks of our
4 time there, it probably happened once or twice a week.
5 Q. Did Lieutenant Colonel Watters serve with the
6 regiment during its complete tour of duty in
7 Bosnia-Herzegovina?
8 A. He didn't. He came out to replace the second
9 in command who had been there up until about the second
10 week of February, '93, that's when Major Watters, as he
11 was then, arrived.
12 Q. Thus he would have arrived about midway
13 through the tour of duty, is that right, and only been
14 in Bosnia-Herzegovina the latter half?
15 A. That is correct.
16 Q. Now, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas, he was a
17 company commander; is that right?
18 A. That is correct.
19 Q. Did he serve part of his service in
20 Bosnia-Herzegovina in Tuzla?
21 A. Yes, he did. His company was posted to Tuzla
22 for some time, and back to Vitez.
23 Q. Would his company, or the platoons in his
24 company, have been principally involved in liaison work
25 or other types of patrol or operative work?
Page 14271
1 A. No, his platoons and he, indeed, were not
2 liaison officers, that was our job. He was a rifle
3 platoon -- I'm sorry, rifle company commander.
4 Q. And thus, how frequently, if you know, did he
5 have contacts with battalion or brigade commanders,
6 either in the HVO or the BH army?
7 A. I don't know for certain how often he had
8 meetings with senior commanders. I think most of the
9 contact that the company commanders had was with
10 checkpoints, but I do know of one or two occasions
11 where he did meet brigade commanders.
12 Q. Now, you were in Bosnia-Herzegovina for seven
13 months; is that right?
14 A. That is correct.
15 Q. And just to summarise, you worked in the
16 field an average of, you said about six days per week?
17 A. Something like that, yes.
18 Q. How many meetings per day, on average, would
19 you have had with local commanders of the warring
20 parties?
21 A. It would, of course, vary. A normal day
22 would probably be three meetings, and a busy day could
23 be anything up to about ten.
24 Q. If you had four meetings a day on average,
25 that would work out, I believe, to be 25 days or so per
Page 14272
1 month, six months, four meetings per day, about 600
2 meetings with local commanders during your tour of
3 duty; is that a fair, rough, very rough estimate?
4 A. As a rough estimate, I think it is probably
5 about right.
6 Q. I asked you earlier today to count in your
7 notes how many meetings, or documented in your notes
8 with local commanders on the 15th of April, 1993. Have
9 you counted that figure for us?
10 A. Yes, I have.
11 Q. And how many meetings did you have?
12 A. About ten that are documented in my
13 notebook. Ten.
14 Q. From the 1st of March to the 16th of April,
15 did anyone in the British Battalion have as many
16 contacts as you did with the HVO and BH army commanders
17 Vitez and the surrounding areas?
18 A. No, they didn't.
19 Q. At one point in cross-examination you
20 described using a BiH army radio to arrange a meeting
21 with a Serb commander across the front-lines, I believe
22 west of Travnik. Could you describe that experience
23 for the Court? You weren't able to fully describe it
24 during cross-examination.
25 A. I frequently went to the Bosnian army
Page 14273
1 communications centre in Travnik, the purpose of which
2 was to establish contact with the Serb army, the VRS.
3 In order to do that, we, I would go into the
4 communications room with Baba Salko, who I mentioned
5 before, a very brave and honourable man, and we would,
6 he would instruct the gentlemen operating the
7 communications equipment to re-tune the radio into a
8 Serb frequency.
9 In the process of doing that, they would
10 flick through frequencies and my interpreter would tell
11 me which, listening to the conversations they were
12 having, tell me which frequency or which organisations
13 unit they are broken into. They would say, "Oh, that's
14 the Bosnian army on the Vlasic, or that's the HVO in
15 Novi Travnik, or that's the -- all right, we have got
16 the Serbs now, that's good -- oh, no, it's the wrong
17 Serb unit," so they would re-tune and go to another
18 Serb unit.
19 The point was that it became very obvious to
20 us in December '92, that an enormous amount of military
21 traffic between, or within the warring factions armies,
22 was conducted over open VHF radios, and it was easy for
23 the communication centre to re-tune through these
24 frequencies. Then they would tune to a frequency that
25 seemed appropriate for what we wanted to do, and the
Page 14274
1 radio operator would start then calling on that
2 frequency to interrupt the conversations taking place,
3 and we would then establish communications with the
4 Serbs that way.
5 Q. The first time you arranged a meeting with
6 the Serb commander, that is a meeting between a Serb
7 commander and UNPROFOR representatives, was that before
8 or after the 1st of March when you were assigned on a
9 full-time basis to the Travnik Vitez, Novi Travnik
10 area?
11 A. It was long before the 1st of March. My
12 first across-the-front-line-meeting with the Serbs was
13 in December, '92.
14 Q. Was that meeting arranged in the way you
15 described?
16 A. It was.
17 Q. You were asked on cross-examination, if you
18 were a commander, would you have investigated the
19 events in Ahmici? Who in the British army is
20 responsible for investigating serious violations of
21 military discipline, including criminal violations?
22 A. The royal military police.
23 Q. Do they have specialised training in that
24 function?
25 A. Indeed, they are the police force of the
Page 14275
1 British army, they are trained to investigate crimes,
2 and they work to a very high level chain of command,
3 they don't work for battalion or brigade commanders,
4 they work at a much higher level; but that is their
5 function.
6 Q. You have said that command and control in the
7 HVO was poor. If a commander's ability to command and
8 control the military police was also poor, what would
9 the effect be on that commander's ability to
10 investigate serious violations of military discipline?
11 A. I think it would probably be totally
12 impossible to investigate.
13 Q. Can you explain why?
14 A. The military police, like any police force,
15 is expected to be, to act in a thoroughly legal way,
16 because they are the enforcers and the regulators of
17 military discipline, particularly in relation to crimes
18 and serious breaches of discipline.
19 If the military police failed to conduct
20 their business properly, and there is no other way,
21 there is no other system that I'm aware of, certainly
22 in the British system, that I'm aware of, other than
23 them investigating themselves, other than the military
24 police sorting out their own internal problems, that a
25 breakdown of discipline of that nature can be dealt
Page 14276
1 with. I think that answers your question.
2 Q. Thank you. I have given you copies of
3 certain exhibits you were shown during your direct
4 examination in order to save time.
5 Do you have Exhibit, Prosecutor's Exhibit 539
6 before you? That's the MILINFOSUM of the 8th of April,
7 1993. And if we could activate the ELMO so it can be
8 used, please. I'll be directing your attention to
9 paragraph 6, and I also have a copy. Why don't I give
10 you a copy. I will place my copy on the ELMO for
11 convenience.
12 Have you had a chance to compare paragraph 6
13 of Exhibit, Prosecutor's Exhibit 539 with the notes in
14 your notebook from entries dated 8th of April, 1993?
15 A. Yes, I have, Your Honours.
16 Q. And are there entries in paragraph 6, which
17 is the paragraph titled "Travnik" and is now visible on
18 the ELMO, are there entries which correspond to entries
19 in your notes, including specific time references?
20 A. Yes, there are.
21 Q. The paragraph begins "An LO team"; do you see
22 that?
23 A. Yes, I do.
24 Q. What is that a reference to, what is an LO
25 team?
Page 14277
1 A. An LO team is a liaison officer, in this case
2 me, plus my driver, my interpreter and the other
3 members of my team, I would have an escort of some
4 soldiers who would act as my personal protection, and
5 possibly a second vehicle to support my vehicle, and
6 that would all together be called an LO team.
7 Q. And were you the LO referred to as the LO
8 team in paragraph 6 of Exhibit P539?
9 A. Yes, I was.
10 Q. Now, these MILINFOSUMs which were produced,
11 did you write them?
12 A. No, I did not.
13 Q. Did you make any decisions concerning what
14 went in or what was omitted from them?
15 A. No, I was not. No, I did not.
16 Q. Was that someone else's job?
17 A. That was the responsibility of the military
18 information officer and his staff.
19 Q. Thank you. We're done with that exhibit, you
20 can put it aside.
21 You were asked on cross-examination about
22 alcohol consumption by the liaison officers. Why was
23 it that the liaison officers of the British battalion
24 were frequently served alcohol in the course of their
25 working day?
Page 14278
1 A. This is a bit of a custom that we found when
2 we visited the headquarters of brigades and civilian
3 organisations, as well. We would always be given a cup
4 of coffee and a glass of plum brandy; so, depending how
5 many meetings we went to in a day as to how much plum
6 brandy we drank.
7 Q. Did the consumption of alcohol interfere with
8 your performance of your duties?
9 A. No, it did not.
10 Q. In April of 1993 did the pace of your work as
11 a liaison officer accelerate?
12 A. Yes, it did, enormously.
13 Q. Did that cause you to refuse some of the
14 local's hospitality when it was offered to you?
15 A. Yes, about the beginning of April, 1993, I
16 decided I would no longer drink plum brandy in the
17 meetings, I would make an excuse about taking
18 antibiotics or some other excuse so I didn't feel so
19 tired every day from drinking so much the previous day.
20 Q. And in fact, did you start refusing the plum
21 brandy?
22 A. Yes, I did.
23 Q. You were asked whether you told investigators
24 from the Office of the Tribunal Prosecutor that your
25 memory of events in Bosnia-Herzegovina was not very
Page 14279
1 good. Let me ask you: Were you interviewed by an
2 investigator from the Office the Tribunal Prosecutor
3 named Mr. Montooth on the 19th of February, 1995?
4 A. Yes, I was.
5 Q. On page four of his interview notes, which
6 were provided to the Defence by the Office of the
7 Prosecutor, beginning of the first full paragraph, he
8 wrote, and I quote, "DW," referring to Dundas-Whatley,
9 "Has a good deal of information, and although he
10 repeatedly suggested he had a bad memory, he soon
11 recalled specific detail when specifics were
12 discussed." End quote.
13 Was that true? Did you recall specific
14 details in this interview, although you apologised for
15 not remembering more?
16 A. Yes, it is true.
17 Q. This same interviewer from the Office of the
18 Prosecutor, in February of 1995, wrote in the third
19 sentence of the same paragraph, referring to you, and I
20 quote, "He is more than willing to provide as much
21 information as he can." End quote.
22 Was that true? Did you cooperate with the
23 Office of Tribunal Prosecutor in this interview?
24 A. Yes, I did.
25 Q. This same investigator also wrote three lines
Page 14280
1 down in the same paragraph, on page 4 of his interview
2 notes, and I quote, and this is a reference to you,
3 "His loyalty to the British Battalion is without
4 question, and particularly to his close liaison officer
5 colleagues." End quote.
6 How do you view your eight years of service
7 in the British army, and what is your relationship with
8 your former Cheshire Regiment colleagues?
9 A. I was then and am now very proud of my
10 regiment, and proud of the work that I did with them,
11 both in Northern Ireland and in Bosnia. I was very
12 proud, and still am, of my work and the work of my
13 regiment in Bosnia of United Nations, and I was proud
14 to serve the United Nations.
15 My relationship now is as it was five or six
16 years ago, with nearly all the officers in my regiment,
17 I have a very close relationship with many of the
18 officers who are still serving and many of the officers
19 who are retired.
20 Q. In the last line of the interview notes of
21 this Office of the Tribunal Prosecutor investigator,
22 written of his interview with you on the 19th of
23 February, 1993, reads as follows." If --
24 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Did you say '93?
25 MR. HAYMAN: I'm sorry, misspoke, you're
Page 14281
1 absolutely right, Your Honour, 19th of February, 1995.
2 Q. And I quote from the last sentence, and this
3 is a reference to you: "If at all possible he,"
4 referring to Mr. Dundas-Whatley, "Should be interviewed
5 before any statements are taken from the Cheshire
6 Regiment officers." End of quote.
7 Do you know why the investigator would say
8 that?
9 A. I can only imagine that the investigators at
10 last had found somebody who actually knew quite a lot
11 about what had gone on in middle Bosnia and was very
12 willing to cooperate; but more than that, I can't
13 comment.
14 Q. You said during cross-examination that you
15 met the prior witness, Slavko Marin, at the airport in
16 Amsterdam; could you explain how that meeting occurred
17 and whether you had met him previously?
18 A. Firstly, I had not met Slavko Marin
19 previously, to my recollection. The meeting came about
20 by what must only be a coincidence that I was at the
21 Amsterdam airport, coming here to be a witness, and I
22 met Counsel Anto Nobilo, who was had there to meet me,
23 and with him, Slavko Marin was with him, as well, and
24 that's how I met him.
25 Q. Did you meet Mr. Nobilo for the purposes of
Page 14282
1 transportation to The Hague to testify before this
2 Tribunal?
3 A. Yes, I did.
4 Q. You said on cross-examination that you were
5 interviewed once by the Office of the Tribunal
6 Prosecutor on a particular occasion in the city of
7 Split, Croatia. Where do you currently reside, in what
8 city or town?
9 A. I live in the city of Banja Luka, which is in
10 the Serb half of Bosnia.
11 Q. Also on cross-examination you were asked
12 about the presentation of HVO bases in Central Bosnia;
13 what did you mean when you referred or used that term,
14 a base, a military base?
15 A. In the context that I answered the question,
16 during the process of this trial, I was referring to
17 places where we would see HVO soldiers, places where we
18 knew they would be sleeping, like there would be quite
19 a lot in a house or in a converted shop which they had
20 taken over. Or it could be, I mentioned the Hotel
21 Orient in Travnik and the Hotel Vitez, anywhere where a
22 number of HVO soldiers would be stationed, in the
23 school of Dubravica, for example.
24 Q. You were asked about HVO training in Central
25 Bosnia. Did the HVO, to your knowledge, have a
Page 14283
1 training facility in Central Bosnia?
2 A. Not to my knowledge.
3 Q. You were shown certain exhibits related to
4 training, for the record, Prosecutor's Exhibits 484 and
5 456/104 through 108, and you said you were not
6 surprised to see those documents, including certain
7 orders for training issued by Colonel Blaskic.
8 Can you elaborate as to why you weren't
9 surprised to be shown those documents by the
10 Prosecutor?
11 A. There are two things: Firstly, I was not
12 surprised that Colonel Blaskic was making an attempt to
13 train his soldiers. Secondly, I was not surprised,
14 because all but one of those were dated before
15 September, '92 when the situation between the Muslims
16 and Croats in Bosnia was much more stable.
17 Q. You were also shown certain combat orders,
18 for the record, Exhibits D300 and P456/45 and 46. You
19 were asked if you could deduce that they had been sent
20 in a secure manner, that is via a secure communications
21 method, and you said it would have been stupid not to
22 send them via a secure communications method.
23 Do you know how those orders in fact were
24 sent by the HVO?
25 A. No, I do not.
Page 14284
1 Q. Would you be surprised based on what you
2 learned about both the BH army and the HVO during your
3 service if those orders were sent by an amateur
4 software system that was, in fact, frequently
5 intercepted by the BH army?
6 A. No, I would not be surprised.
7 Q. You were asked whether Colonel Blaskic, to
8 your knowledge, asked the BH army to join in a joint
9 investigation of Ahmici. Did UNPROFOR serve, on a
10 regular basis, in the role of facilitating
11 communications between the HVO and the BH army?
12 A. Yes, we did. Primarily through the use of
13 our armoured vehicles. We frequently -- in fact,
14 towards the end, we constantly moved HVO and Bosnian
15 army commanders and negotiators around middle Bosnia to
16 each others headquarters, or to pick them up and bring
17 them to our headquarters for meetings and visits to the
18 ground, constantly.
19 Q. Well, why wouldn't, after the 16th of April,
20 General Hadzihasanovic just come to the Hotel Vitez to
21 visit Colonel Blaskic on his own?
22 A. For exactly the same reason. I can only
23 guess, but I should imagine it's for exactly the same
24 reason that Colonel Blaskic could not go to Zenica and
25 visit the headquarters of the Third Corps. That is,
Page 14285
1 they were at war with each other. It would be too
2 dangerous.
3 Q. You were read certain passages from a
4 magazine interview with then Colonel Blaskic, and from
5 the testimony of a Prince of Wales' Own officer
6 recounting his recollection of a discussion with then
7 Colonel Blaskic. Those texts pertain, in part, to
8 events in Ahmici in 1993, April of 1993.
9 Can you tell us, with respect to information
10 about ongoing criminal investigations within an army,
11 is information concerning such ongoing matters in any
12 army likely to be considered confidential and
13 restricted information?
14 A. Yes. I don't know exactly what security
15 classification that type of information would go under,
16 but it would certainly be information that would be
17 closely guarded until a decision was made to publish
18 the results of the investigation, I believe.
19 Q. And now I'd like to turn to the last topic,
20 command and control in the HVO. You were shown, on
21 cross-examination, a dozen or more documents consisting
22 both of orders and reports. Earlier this morning I
23 provided you with the following additional documents,
24 Defence Exhibits 340, 341, 343, 213, 211, 148, 361,
25 363, 368, 75, 135 and exhibit -- Prosecutor's Exhibit
Page 14286
1 421, and I asked you to review those. Have you had a
2 chance to review those exhibits prior to the
3 commencement of this afternoon's court session?
4 A. Yes, I have.
5 Q. Could you please tell the Court, taking into
6 account your personal experience in Bosnia-Herzegovina
7 during the war, the documents that the Prosecutor asked
8 you to review on cross-examination and the documents
9 that you reviewed during your direct testimony --
10 JUDGE JORDA: You want to leave a little time
11 for the Office of the Prosecutor to have a quick look
12 at those documents. Mr. Harmon -- can you identify
13 them, Mr. Harmon?
14 MR. HARMON: Mr. President, thank you for
15 your consideration. Yes. If I have a problem, I will
16 just interrupt briefly until I can get the appropriate
17 document in front of me.
18 JUDGE JORDA: Very well. Excuse me,
19 Mr. Hayman. Please continue.
20 MR. HAYMAN: Of course, Mr. President.
21 Q. Taking into account your personal experiences
22 during your service in Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as
23 the documents you have seen subsequent to that service,
24 both what you were shown by the Office of the Tribunal
25 Prosecutor on cross-examination, and the eight or ten
Page 14287
1 documents that I asked you to review this morning, can
2 you tell the Court, based on all of that information
3 available to you, whether having that additional
4 information, does it change or cause you to modify the
5 opinions that you expressed to this Court both on
6 direct and on cross-examination concerning the degree
7 of command and control that existed in the HVO during
8 your period of time serving with UNPROFOR in Central
9 Bosnia?
10 A. The further documents that I've reviewed this
11 morning only go to further reinforce my view that
12 command and control was poor, and I have broken these
13 documents down into three separate piles.
14 The first pile are three documents that
15 relate to the Ahmici situation, and particularly, the
16 Ahmici investigation, and these are documents D340, 341
17 and 343.
18 If I could briefly read you a little bit from
19 340. This document was written on April the 23rd --
20 Q. Please go slowly. The interpreters don't
21 have the documents in front of them. If you would like
22 to read and place it on the ELMO that's fine, but in
23 any event, please go slowly so that they can a full and
24 fair opportunity to interpret. Thank you.
25 A. This document was written by Colonel Blaskic
Page 14288
1 on April the 23rd. It's a letter written from his
2 headquarters in Vitez to Colonel Bob Stewart, my
3 commanding officer. And he says, "I am ready to send
4 immediately the investigating commission to the village
5 of Ahmici, as well as to all other places that need to
6 be investigated because of gathering facts about all
7 the innocent victims of this conflict. I myself beg
8 you to help us stop this suffering and make the
9 adequate conditions for the commission to work
10 properly."
11 There's some more paragraphs. In the final
12 paragraph he says, "I consider to you be an utterly
13 honourable and professional soldier."
14 Then there are two other letters, in fact,
15 two other orders, both of which were written by Colonel
16 Blaskic, one on the 10th of May, '93 and one on the
17 17th of August, '93.
18 The one from the 10th of May, and it's
19 difficult to know exactly who it was sent to from the
20 heading, but it comes out in the text, and it's titled,
21 "Inquiry and Written Report on the Events in the
22 Village of Ahmici", and then there's some background.
23 "For several days various rumours have been
24 circulating in the public regarding the events in the
25 village of Ahmici since the 14th of May, '93."
Page 14289
1 Now, I think he probably means the 14th of
2 April because this letter was actually written on the
3 10th of April, but he says, "14th of May, '93, and the
4 civilian casualties there." He then goes on and orders
5 two orders.
6 Firstly, "Gather all the information and
7 submit a report on the events that actually took place
8 in the village of Ahmici. In particular, on the number
9 of casualties."
10 The second part of the order, "I designate
11 the assistance of SIS of the OZ in Central Bosnia as
12 the person responsible for this task. The deadline is
13 the 25th of May, '93."
14 Before I come to the third document, what
15 these two mean to me is that firstly, on or about the
16 23rd of April, Colonel Blaskic isn't fully aware of
17 everything that happened in Ahmici, and he appears to
18 be having trouble investigating it. So he's asking us
19 to help him -- to help him. In other words, to provide
20 security and possibly personnel to go to the village of
21 Ahmici to begin an investigation, because he's hearing
22 what he refers to two weeks later as rumours.
23 But in the second one I read there, he's here
24 giving an order to the SIS to go ahead and make an
25 investigation of what -- and he says of what actually
Page 14290
1 took place.
2 The third document was dated the 17th of
3 August, and again it's written by Colonel Blaskic, and
4 this is again written to the SIS. I say it's again;
5 this one is written to the SIS, and we know the last
6 one must have been, because he's ordering them in the
7 text of it.
8 Now, this one is for three months later, just
9 over three months later, and the order is, "In order to
10 provide all the facts and take steps in further
11 investigation in connection with killing the civilians
12 in the village of Ahmici, the order, Point 1, to go on
13 with making data and collecting information,
14 considering the harm to civilians in the village of
15 Ahmici." And further down he says, "The deadline for
16 fulfilling this order is the 17th of September, '93."
17 What this one means to me is that over three
18 months since he last sent an order to this SIS unit, he
19 doesn't appear -- although we don't know what went on
20 between him and the SIS, he doesn't appear to have had
21 the reports that he wanted. He doesn't appear to
22 receive the information he's wanted. That is a clear
23 indication that the command and control, and indeed
24 communications between him and his subordinate units,
25 if indeed the SIS were a subordinate unit, is not
Page 14291
1 working properly.
2 The second group of documents are a
3 collection of orders and reports that were either
4 written by Colonel Blaskic or received by him, and
5 there is a further -- the first one, it appears not to
6 have been written by him or received by him.
7 The first one is Defence Exhibit 213. It's a
8 very long document, and it was written on the 1st of
9 March, 1993, long before the events in Ahmici. I won't
10 read any of it, but I'll just summarise what it says.
11 It's a very long document. It's a report written by
12 the Military Police in Vitez and sent to the Military
13 Police headquarters in Mostar. There is nothing on the
14 document to suggest that it was also sent to Colonel
15 Blaskic, but it may have been.
16 It's all about an incident that took place in
17 Vitez and Busovaca, I believe, but particularly in
18 Vitez, in relation to the Military Police unit that was
19 based there, took into custody, and then interrogated
20 and got a lot of information from an individual who had
21 been involved in criminal acts, and this report is
22 written by that police battalion that was doing that
23 investigation into these criminal acts, and the report
24 lists a number of people who were -- as a result of
25 that interrogation and other information, they found
Page 14292
1 were also involved in various criminal acts, and some
2 of these criminal acts appear to be quite violent.
3 As the report goes on, it turns out that
4 whilst in the Military Police custody in Vitez, this
5 particular person was forcibly removed from the
6 Military Police custody by a criminal gang that appears
7 to have been led by some military policemen and others
8 out of Travnik and other places.
9 It's not necessarily an indication that the
10 Colonel -- Colonel Blaskic's chain of command was
11 particularly bad, it's an indication that the Military
12 Police were not functioning properly and certainly were
13 not functioning in the manner which a Military Police
14 organisation must function if military discipline is to
15 work properly, because whilst in Military Police
16 custody, guarded by armed military policemen in
17 uniform, presumably, this prisoner was released by
18 other armed uniformed men, some of whom were also in
19 the Military Police.
20 The other documents from this second batch,
21 all these were either sent by, or to, Colonel Blaskic.
22 They're all Defence Exhibits 211, 148, 361, 363 and
23 368.
24 The first one, written by Colonel Blaskic,
25 he's referring to the destructive conduct of
Page 14293
1 individuals in HVO uniforms, and he orders that persons
2 inclined toward destructive and criminal conduct -- and
3 he goes on about what should be done about them, and he
4 gives a deadline of the 29th March. This document is
5 written on the 17th of March.
6 The next one, written --
7 Q. If you could just slow down slightly.
8 A. I'm sorry. The first one, on the 17th of
9 March, went to a very wide circulation of commanders,
10 HVO brigades, independent units, Military Police in
11 Travnik and Vitez, HVO presidents and various
12 departments.
13 The second one, written on the 22nd of April,
14 again to a very wide circulation, 12 brigades and
15 various other organisations including the Military
16 Police, the orders that he most strictly -- I quote, "I
17 most strictly forbid the torching of houses and
18 business premises and the looting of property." That's
19 on the 22nd of April.
20 Two days later, on the 24th of April, Colonel
21 Blaskic sends another order to all the units in his
22 zone -- in his Operative Zone, and it's titled,
23 "Elimination of Arbitrary Acts by Commanders and
24 Individuals -- by Commanders and Individuals", in the
25 order. "After an assessment carried out in the field,
Page 14294
1 it is apparent that the lower commanders and the units
2 are acting outside the chain of command. They are not
3 executing orders from superiors and are independently
4 making decisions contrary to the received orders. They
5 plan and execute their own combat activities, exert
6 pressure on civilians and disrupt the work of UNPROFOR,
7 ICRC and ECMM."
8 Then he goes on to order, amongst other
9 things, that all the organised troops are to be fully
10 controlled and the commanders are personally
11 responsible for the behaviour of the subordinates. He
12 also orders that the individuals and groups who are
13 completely out of control are to be arrested
14 immediately and warrants are to be delivered to the
15 command of the Military Police unit.
16 He writes another order, also on the same
17 day, to a very large distribution including the brigade
18 in Busovaca, the brigade in Kiseljak, to the police in
19 Vitez, "The unlawful --
20 MR. HARMON: Mr. Dundas-Whatley, would you
21 kindly identify the document you're referring to by
22 number, please?
23 A. I do apologise. This is Defence Exhibit 363,
24 and the next one is 368.
25 And he orders, and I quote, "Unlawful taking
Page 14295
1 of the flats and stealing of property from the flats
2 which belong to citizens, who for different reasons are
3 temporarily not present, is to be prevented by all
4 means" --
5 JUDGE JORDA: Please speak more slowly,
6 Mr. Dundas-Whatley.
7 A. I apologise.
8 JUDGE JORDA: Try not to speed up.
9 A. I'm very sorry. "Unlawful taking of flats
10 and stealing of property from flats which belong to
11 citizens, who for different reasons are temporarily not
12 present, is to be prevented by all means, including by
13 use of force."
14 And the final, dated the 31st of May, written
15 by Colonel Blaskic, and it's sent to the 4th Military
16 Police Battalion in Vitez and SIS. And I quote, "On
17 the 30th of May, 1993, the officer on duty of the
18 Central Bosnia Operative Zone informed me that these
19 two people," who I won't say their names unless you
20 particularly want me to, "Both members of the Military
21 Police were expelling Muslim families by force. This
22 was despite the order which bans such actions."
23 It goes on to say, "In order to prevent
24 further actions that hinder the execution of orders and
25 the correct behaviour of Military Police," he goes on
Page 14296
1 to order that they should conduct -- that the 4th
2 Military Police battalion and the SIS should conduct an
3 investigation, take disciplinary measures and send him
4 a report by the 5th of June.
5 Those five documents together, when you
6 consider command and control within Colonel Blaskic's
7 Operative Zone, those indicate to me that he is -- he
8 is becoming aware that things are going wrong. He's
9 becoming aware that illegal acts are being -- happening
10 all over the place. But what it more indicates to me
11 is that he is constantly, over a period of about six or
12 eight weeks there, he's constantly having to send more
13 or less the same order again to more or less the same
14 people, stop burning houses, stop expelling people, and
15 there's sending an order to the Military Police to tell
16 military policemen to stop expelling Muslims from their
17 houses. I think things were going quite badly at this
18 stage for him.
19 MR. HAYMAN:
20 Q. When you say that, can you explain?
21 A. Well, if the military policemen are taking
22 part in the illegal activities, expelling people from
23 their houses, then who is going to stop it from
24 happening?
25 Q. Thank you. And the last documents that I
Page 14297
1 asked you to review, can you tell the Court whether
2 they affect or cause you to change the opinions that
3 you've given the Tribunal concerning the level or
4 degree of command and control within the HVO?
5 A. No at all. They simply reinforce the
6 opinions which I stated last week and continue to hold
7 at the moment.
8 The first document is the Prosecution
9 document number 421. This document was produced by the
10 ECMM -- the ECMM office in Travnik on the 4th of July.
11 It's a very long document and I'll summarise it.
12 It's in relation to an aid convoy belonging
13 to MSF Holland, Medicines Sans Frontier from Holland.
14 There were four vehicles, it appears, and with four
15 drivers. Three of them were French and one was
16 English. They were all in possession of legal UNHCR ID
17 cards.
18 It appears from this report that this convey,
19 consisting of medicines and other aid, arrived in
20 Busovaca where it was stopped by the HVO, and the HVO
21 arrested the drivers -- well, took the trucks and the
22 drivers to a location and then arrested the drivers.
23 Sometime after, the HVO Military Police arrived and
24 told the HVO normal soldiers to go away and that the
25 Military Police would handle the situation.
Page 14298
1 Then sometime after that, the ECMM and some
2 other international organisations got involved in the
3 negotiations about these trucks, the humanitarian aid
4 and the drivers. Very quickly the drivers were
5 allowed -- were released, were allowed to be treated
6 reasonably normally, and negotiations began in relation
7 to moving of the humanitarian aid on, I think to
8 Zenica, and I think some was going to Tuzla. And I
9 quote, "The team suggested to transport the most
10 urgently needed goods to their destination," and then
11 there's a gap. "The legal and very urgently needed
12 goods, medical equipment and medicines for Tuzla, and
13 the powdered milk for Zenica would stay on the trucks
14 and should be transported to their destination
15 immediately." That was the suggestion of the meeting.
16 The chief of the police, he's referring to
17 the Military Police here, had to ask permission from
18 his superiors in Mostar first. Had to ask his
19 permission -- had to ask permission from his superiors
20 in Mostar first.
21 That document suggests to me that the
22 Military Police chain of command came from Mostar, not
23 from Colonel Blaskic. That's the indication that I
24 draw from that.
25 And now the final two documents. These both
Page 14299
1 concern Colonel Alistair Duncan. Colonel Duncan
2 commanded the BRITBAT after Colonel Bob Stewart. The
3 first one an excerpt from a statement that Colonel
4 Alistair Duncan made.
5 MR. HARMON: Mr. Dundas-Whatley, would you
6 kindly identify the document by number? There should
7 be an exhibit number on that.
8 A. It's Defence document 75 followed by Defence
9 document 135.
10 In this document 75, Colonel Alastair is
11 talking about a convoy, the Convoy of Joy, which was
12 interrupted by the HVO, and he's talking about his
13 negotiations with regards to getting that convoy moved
14 on. It's not unlike the story that I related to you
15 last week. I'll only read two and a bit lines,
16 two-thirds of the way down the big paragraph on this
17 page 4899999.
18 I quote, "The soldiers refused to allow the
19 convoy to move, even when I used the name of Colonel
20 Blaskic as an authority." It goes on, "The soldiers
21 said quite categorically they wanted the order to
22 come from" -- I won't say the name in court, but it was
23 another senior figure in middle Bosnia at the time.
24 And the final document, Your Honours -- I'm
25 sorry this is taking quite a long time -- is Defence
Page 14300
1 Exhibit 135, which is a -- it's a report of a meeting,
2 written by Colonel Alistair Duncan, in August, '93.
3 I'm reading from paragraph three. I'll miss out some
4 names. He's referring to a Mafia Godfather, and it
5 says in this report, "It would appear that this Mafia
6 Godfather has considerable influence with the people of
7 the Lasva Valley, whereas Blaskic does not, as proved
8 by the events of the Convoy of Joy, where Blaskic
9 proved to be nothing more than a puppet commander,
10 ignored by the locals."
11 Those last three documents, particularly the
12 last, the one from the ECMM, I already told you that
13 suggests that the military police were not responding
14 to the Vitez chain of command but to the Mostar chain
15 of command, and these last two from Colonel Alistair
16 Duncan indicate strongly that Blaskic did not have a
17 great deal of power in the Lasva Valley in relation to
18 the Convoy of Joy, and these other people whose names
19 appear in the documents had a great deal more authority
20 than he had. His command and control was poor.
21 Q. Thank you for that explanation. I have one
22 other question for you of substance, but first let me
23 ask you, what's on your lapel?
24 A. This is, we call this a poppy, and it dates
25 back to the 1st World War when the British army was,
Page 14301
1 the British army, and indeed the armies of the
2 Commonwealth and the French army were fighting in
3 France and Belgium against the Germans, and millions of
4 people were killed, and they were killed in the fields
5 of Flanders and elsewhere in Northern France, and at
6 the time there were a lot of poppies in the fields.
7 Ever since the armistice of the 11th of November, 1918,
8 the British soldiers, and indeed Commonwealth soldiers,
9 wear these every year to commemorate that war and every
10 war that has followed subsequently.
11 Q. I have one more question for you, and that
12 is, I would like to ask you whether you can confirm a
13 particular incident or event which is recounted in your
14 commanding officer's book "Broken Lives," Robert
15 Stewart's book, "Broken Lives" and the incident
16 described appears at the bottom of page 91 and carries
17 over to the top of page 92.
18 I will read you Colonel Stewart's description
19 of the incident, and I would like you to tell the Court
20 if you can confirm it, if you're familiar with it, and
21 to what degree.
22 "In Bosnia most forces fighting on all sides
23 are from the local area. It is really a domestic war
24 in many more ways than it at first appears. Suddenly a
25 very large column of dispirited Croat soldiers, mostly
Page 14302
1 in old cars and on tractor driven trailers, appeared in
2 Vitez. They really did look a miserable sight. They
3 all were perfectly willing to say what was happening,
4 which was a clear indication to us that morale was very
5 low. In fact, they just wanted to go home and were
6 going to stay together until they did so. They were
7 not soldiers at all, very few had had any real
8 training. They could handle their weapons all right,
9 but were really civilians in uniform. I asked them
10 what they were paid, and they laughed. They were paid
11 practically nothing, and certainly had no money at all
12 for several weeks. In a normal army what they were
13 doing would properly be called mutiny, but no army in
14 Bosnia was normal. For two days, this large column
15 stayed around Hotel Vitez, although once it tried to
16 head west and then south to Gornji Vakuf, but was
17 turned back by its own side. It was clearly very
18 embarrassing for Tihomir Blaskic, the Croat commander
19 of Central Bosnia. When I asked him about it, he
20 simply shrugged his shoulders in a gesture of
21 resignation. Eventually Blaskic agreed that the
22 soldiers could go home, but they had to hand over their
23 weapons in Kiseljak as they did so."
24 Are you able to confirm this event and
25 provide any greater context for the Court concerning
Page 14303
1 it?
2 A. I can certainly confirm that it took place.
3 The fall of Jajce was traumatic, and there was a
4 massive influx of refugees, a lot of soldiers, a lot of
5 civilians; but I don't think I can any add any more
6 than that.
7 Q. Is the description in "Broken Lives" of a
8 very large column of HVO soldiers from Jajce?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Thank you.
11 MR. HAYMAN: That concludes my redirect
12 examination, Mr. President.
13 JUDGE JORDA: Thank you. Do you, I suppose
14 you have some documents to submit as exhibits.
15 MR. HAYMAN: All the documents referred to
16 are already in evidence, Mr. President.
17 MR. HARMON: Mr. President, we would move
18 into evidence the exhibit that we tendered, 539.
19 JUDGE JORDA: I see there is no objection.
20 Before the Judges ask their questions, we're going to
21 take a short 10-minute break, perhaps 15 minutes, and
22 then, Mr. Dundas-Whatley, you will be asked some
23 questions by the Judges and that will be all you will
24 be asked to do. Thank you very much.
25 --- Recess taken at 3.20 p.m.
Page 14304
1 --- On resuming at 3.35 p.m.
2 JUDGE JORDA: The hearing is resumed. Have
3 the accused brought in, please.
4 (The accused entered court).
5 JUDGE JORDA: I think we are ready to
6 resume. Mr. Dundas-Whatley, after the direct
7 examination, the cross-examination and the
8 re-examination, I believe that the three of us Judges
9 would like certain points clarified. Let me give the
10 floor right now to my colleague, Judge Riad.
11 JUDGE RIAD: Captain Dundas-Whatley, good
12 afternoon.
13 A. Good afternoon, Your Honour.
14 JUDGE RIAD: Can we continue calling you
15 captain?
16 A. It's not traditional below the rank of major
17 to maintain one's rank after one leaves the service.
18 JUDGE RIAD: You are living in Banja Luka
19 now?
20 A. I am at the moment, Your Honour, yes.
21 JUDGE RIAD: How long have you been there,
22 and what are you doing, may I ask?
23 A. I've been there on and off a long time, but I
24 moved there permanently about a month ago, and I'm
25 running a small business from that city.
Page 14305
1 JUDGE RIAD: I have a few points which I
2 would like to understand more clearly, and I'm sure you
3 will help me with it. You insisted on the fact that,
4 of local loyalties, that the HVO was more or less a
5 local army, and the loyalty was to the village or city,
6 political leaders, if I understood rightly.
7 Did that mean that any of -- not General
8 Blaskic at that time, Colonel Blaskic's orders, combat
9 orders; were they disobeyed, or the local authorities
10 obeyed all the combat orders?
11 A. Yes, Your Honour, I understand the question.
12 What I was describing was the -- I don't think it was
13 just the HVO, I think it was -- what I was describing
14 was also very true for the Bosnian army, was that the
15 structure of the organisation was built locally, that,
16 if you could compare it, for example, with the British
17 army, which for more than a hundred years the British
18 army has been used to decamping and going to other
19 countries as battalions, regiment, divisions, brigades
20 to fight wars. So, it was perfectly normal within the
21 British military structure to have a chain of command
22 and a fully functioning chain of command and a rank
23 structure which could be transferred anywhere. People
24 could be posted in and out of various headquarters,
25 regiments could be attached to one headquarters or
Page 14306
1 another. It's a system which has been in place for a
2 long time, and it works very well.
3 We do not have, in the British system, a
4 problem with posting people or posting regiments under
5 command of different divisions and different brigades.
6 We don't have a problem where people say "I don't want
7 to leave my home," or "I don't really want to go there
8 and fight that war." I don't want to -- a British
9 soldier or officer would not say "I don't think that's
10 the job you want to do."
11 But we have seen examples in the last few
12 days, a very good example was in Fojnica, where the HVO
13 military commander in Fojnica was given an order by
14 Colonel Blaskic, as he was then, and then wrote back
15 saying that he has consulted the priest and the various
16 other organisations within the town and they don't
17 really want to carry out the order. In fact, they
18 refused to carry out the order.
19 The reason was, as explained in that letter
20 that I'm referring to from last week, was that the
21 loyalty of the people in the town of Fojnica, the
22 Croats in the town and the church and the other
23 institutions which I can't remember right now,
24 including the mayor, I think, and the other political
25 representatives, was not, wherever the loyalty was, it
Page 14307
1 was not to the HVO military chain of command.
2 The HVO commander felt more loyal to the
3 other civilian representatives in his town than he did
4 to the orders he was receiving in a normal military
5 chain, and that is a very good example of what I was
6 talking to you about.
7 JUDGE RIAD: As you mentioned, and as we have
8 been informed before, there was a chain of command
9 since 1992, a chain of brigade, brigade commanders, we
10 have been informed since the beginning, almost, of the
11 trial; and you are confirming there was a chain of
12 command of brigade commanders that existed?
13 A. Yes, it did exist, yes, Your Honour.
14 JUDGE RIAD: But, of course, there was this,
15 as you said, religious influence. But do you have
16 other very -- you mentioned before that example of the
17 checkpoint when, I think it was you, you were passing,
18 and they had to call Colonel Blaskic to take his
19 opinion. You mentioned that was one of the examples of
20 disobedience; but, in fact, they obeyed the order of
21 General Blaskic, because you passed.
22 A. They -- it was -- yes, I understand what you
23 mean. I think not -- it wasn't that, in that
24 particular case, that they obeyed the order of Colonel
25 Blaskic. I think in that case they just realised that
Page 14308
1 I was serious, that I was going to destroy that
2 checkpoint if they did not let the convoy go through,
3 even though they got an order from Colonel Blaskic over
4 the phone.
5 They swore at him and then slammed the phone
6 down and then continued to be very angry, and I think
7 it was the show of force outside, which was so often
8 the case in Bosnia, the show of force and the real
9 intent to use it, is what won the day on that occasion.
10 JUDGE RIAD: Thank you. You mentioned, also,
11 something about the Muslim cleansing in Prozor when you
12 arrived in October, 1992. Do you know how this
13 cleansing took place? Could you just explain to us
14 what you meant by this cleansing? Did they put them in
15 buses to send them away, or did they, what?
16 A. I understand. Most of ethnic cleansing, most
17 of the ethnic cleansing we witnessed in Bosnia was not
18 in the style that you're talking about, the buses and
19 so on. It was done through a process of fear and
20 intimidation, that -- and this was on all three sides,
21 all three sides -- but in the case of Prozor, it was
22 the Croats taking control of the town, and all the
23 Muslims then left because of some violence that was
24 directed against them.
25 There was some burning of shops and some
Page 14309
1 burning of houses, and I presume, but I can't swear,
2 that there was some shooting of Muslims in the town as
3 well. But the result of the burning of the houses was
4 the Muslim population felt very insecure in the town
5 and so they left. They were terrorised, victimised and
6 terrorised on ethnic grounds, so they left Prozor and
7 the Croats had complete control of that town.
8 Now, that style of ethnic cleansing was
9 commonplace throughout the whole of middle Bosnia.
10 JUDGE RIAD: Who did the cleansing? Did you
11 inquire, did you know who did the cleansing?
12 A. Well, we knew it was the Croats, Your Honour,
13 but as to which units and so on, I have no idea at all.
14 JUDGE RIAD: You said the Croats; was it the
15 police, was it the HVO? I mean, who had the weapons to
16 do it? You said there was shooting.
17 A. I don't know whether it was the military
18 police, the civilian police, or the army, the HVO army,
19 the normal army, or whether it was criminal groups. In
20 the situation in Prozor, we were not first-hand
21 witnesses of the initial phases of the cleansing.
22 When I observed Prozor burning at the end of
23 October, '92, what we saw was houses on fire, and the
24 edges of the town were undergoing mortar fire, mortars
25 were landing in villages around the town, and on the
Page 14310
1 edges of the town, some, not a huge number. But it was
2 enough to terrorise the population, the Muslim half of
3 the population.
4 JUDGE RIAD: I want to see something more
5 clearly about Ahmici. To your knowledge, was the
6 attack on Ahmici an organised one? Was it militarily
7 organised?
8 A. It's difficult to answer that. I presume you
9 have heard first-hand accounts of people in the
10 villages at the time, and I certainly have, and I
11 presume you have some idea of the scale of the
12 village. So, I don't think that it could possibly have
13 happened unless it was planned, and to plan it and
14 organise it, it had to have taken place. To answer
15 your question, simply; yes, it must have been planned
16 and organised, because it couldn't have been done by
17 two or three people, it had to be done by a larger body
18 of people.
19 JUDGE RIAD: And according to a systematic
20 way, in a systematic way, not haphazardly?
21 A. I don't know, we weren't there, we weren't
22 aware until a week or so later. What I will say is I
23 think most of the house burning, what I think -- this
24 is a very personal opinion now, from many years
25 experience, but without first-hand knowledge of what
Page 14311
1 happened there, because I wasn't there.
2 But from talking to many of the victims,
3 myself, in the course of talking to friends and so on,
4 I think there were two separate phases to it. I think
5 there was the military side, which resulted in these
6 horrible deaths, the 96 or so, hundred possibly, people
7 killed, mainly women and children. I think the
8 military side probably only took a few hours, maybe one
9 day, and it was during that war, during that military
10 attack, of some nature, that terrorising military
11 attack, which must have been very fearful, it was
12 during that phase that the population left.
13 I think that the second phase was probably
14 the looting and burning phase, and the destruction of
15 the mosques, blowing up the mosques, burning the
16 houses, a sort of scorched earth policy, which we are
17 fully aware of in wars in that region, and throughout
18 the world, anyway. I think that was over the day that
19 is followed. So, I think it was two separate things.
20 The first phase, the first part of it
21 probably only lasted a few hours, but that's when the
22 terror happened, and that's when, I think, all the
23 death happened.
24 JUDGE RIAD: The terror happened by the
25 military?
Page 14312
1 A. Well, I say -- I don't know if it was
2 military policemen or normal soldiers or bandits or
3 criminals or what, I personally don't know which part
4 of the Croat community committed that atrocity.
5 JUDGE RIAD: Now, although there were these
6 atrocities that existed, you mentioned that in an
7 interview to this newspaper called Zagreb Danas
8 Journal, Colonel Blaskic accused the Muslims of coming
9 in to do this work, or even the Serbs, and even
10 referred to Colonel Stewart as trying to spread false
11 rumours, or even almost conniving with the Muslims.
12 Now, at the same time you said that, or
13 perhaps we concluded that, Colonel Blaskic ordered an
14 investigation. Was this interview a result of the
15 investigation? Did the investigation lead to the fact
16 that Muslims themselves did that to themselves? Or was
17 it a comment to influence the investigation?
18 A. I very much doubt if it was actually either
19 of those, Your Honour. I think that --
20 JUDGE RIAD: If there was an investigation,
21 it would be asking the question, did they investigate
22 to find out that this man did that thing. There is no
23 need for an investigation in that case.
24 A. Yes. You're right, but I don't think that
25 that was the reason why Colonel Blaskic made the
Page 14313
1 statement that he said. I must say I never saw the
2 newspaper before Friday or Thursday, whenever it was,
3 but I can only guess that -- I think that newspaper was
4 October, '93, it was towards the end of the year, and I
5 think probably by then the situation for Vitez and the
6 Vitez pocket, the enclave, if you like, the Croats
7 territory, surrounded as they were, that Colonel
8 Blaskic found himself in at that period, I think the
9 situation was probably very bad for the Croats.
10 And I think possibly that newspaper article,
11 he was using it for propaganda reasons. That would be
12 my guess, that he was using it for propaganda reasons,
13 to -- I mean, it would not, bearing in mind he was
14 trapped in an enclave, it would not have been wise for
15 him to, despite what he probably felt in his heart
16 about the events of Ahmici, to go public and say that,
17 well, we know it was committed by members of the HVO or
18 members of whichever Croat organisation it was. It
19 probably wasn't wise for him to do that. He would
20 probably be more sensible not to speak about Ahmici at
21 all until the investigation was complete.
22 But he was concerned, I think, from reading
23 the article, from the part that was translated, with
24 the morale of his own army, which he -- and he knew it
25 was an ill disciplined army, anyway, from these reports
Page 14314
1 we spoke about. I think he was concerned with saying
2 something which was likely to turn his army against him
3 or against each other, when in fact their main concern
4 at that stage was to continue to fight against the
5 Bosnian army.
6 JUDGE RIAD: But don't you think that would
7 make the investigation pointless, if you are making an
8 investigation and your boss decided the result
9 beforehand. What is the need of the investigation?
10 That is my inquiry.
11 Because you already decided what the result
12 was, what was the result was. And what was the reason
13 for his reproach to Colonel Stewart in saying that he
14 spread false rumours and that sort of thing?
15 A. Yes --
16 JUDGE RIAD: Was there any kind of animosity
17 between him and Colonel Stewart?
18 A. Not -- I don't think there was when my
19 regiment left in the middle of May, '93, but there is
20 one incident which comes to mind that may throw some
21 light on some animosity that may have existed, and that
22 was when Colonel Stewart went into Ahmici. I wasn't
23 with him, but when he discovered, he was there when
24 some of the, one of the younger officers and some other
25 people discovered the horrific events there.
Page 14315
1 He had television cameras with him, and he,
2 he was recorded saying the words "bloody HVO", swearing
3 at the HVO, in relation, I think, to the atrocity that
4 had been committed.
5 Subsequently that quote, whether it was in
6 context or not, I have no idea, subsequently that quote
7 was broadcast over one of the satellite channels,
8 whether CNN or SKY, I don't know, and many Croats in
9 Vitez and elsewhere saw this. So, I think it was
10 enough people understood enough of the language to know
11 what "bloody HVO" meant. So that moment of anger that
12 Colonel Bob Stewart displayed, I think, was then thrown
13 back in the faces of the Croats by the satellite
14 broadcasters. I think that's what we're talking about
15 here, but I'm not sure.
16 JUDGE RIAD: Was it on a special occasion,
17 was it -- do you remember Ahmici, or what? Was it as a
18 consequence of a massacre, or what?
19 A. I believe, Your Honour, I believe, and I
20 wasn't there when he said this, I believe it was when
21 he visited Ahmici for the first time, for the first
22 time after the massacre; but I'm not absolutely certain
23 about it.
24 JUDGE RIAD: You mentioned also that, lately,
25 perhaps today, that several orders by Colonel Blaskic
Page 14316
1 were given asking for an investigation and for
2 disciplinary measures. It was, I think, addressed to
3 the 4th Military Police Battalion, SIS, and these
4 orders were not executed. There was no -- was there
5 any follow-up, first, if you know about it? And if
6 there wasn't, did he, did the matter, was the matter
7 raised to the higher authorities, to explain or to
8 notify that nothing has been done? Or was it just, was
9 the matter closed?
10 A. I was commenting on some documents that I
11 saw, which were translations of orders that Colonel
12 Blaskic had written. As to what the results of those
13 documents, his orders were, I'm not entirely certain at
14 all.
15 Although, last week I was shown, on Thursday
16 or Friday, I was shown a report written by the 4th
17 Military Police Battalion on about the 16th or 17th, I
18 think on the afternoon of the 16th of April, '93, where
19 they, they went into no detail at all about what had
20 happened in Ahmici, but said that, I think, Muslim
21 forces from Ahmici had engaged -- it was a very minor
22 description of what can only be described as a major
23 event. And it appears that the 4th Military Police
24 Battalion was stationed very close to Ahmici at the
25 time.
Page 14317
1 So, to answer that part of your question, did
2 that happen as a result of the orders he wrote? Of
3 course we never knew. I didn't see these orders until
4 I came here to Holland. But it appears, the fact that
5 he had to continually send the same order, continually
6 write the same order so many times over a period of so
7 many months, that he can't have been getting the
8 results that, in the British army, we would expect as a
9 result of the first order. We're not in the habit of
10 having to repeat ourselves.
11 JUDGE RIAD: But you don't know if it was
12 raised to the higher authorities in form of complaint
13 or --
14 A. No document of that nature --
15 JUDGE RIAD: Or asking if he had the
16 authority to do it, the higher authorities, was there a
17 higher authority to do it, which he can defer to?
18 A. From the documents I've seen here, I think
19 the higher military authority to Colonel Blaskic was
20 probably General Petkovic in Mostar. That's how I
21 understand it, but I'm afraid I'm going beyond my scope
22 of knowledge here.
23 JUDGE RIAD: But he was not in the picture?
24 A. I'm not aware Your Honour. I haven't been
25 shown these documents. It would be wrong for me to
Page 14318
1 draw any conclusions about that because I haven't seen
2 any documents relating to that, apart from that one
3 report shown to me on Thursday which made no mention of
4 anything like that at all.
5 JUDGE RIAD: You went also -- you explained
6 to us that sometimes the raising of flags had an
7 inflammatory effect, and especially when Mate Boban
8 came, I think there was some trouble because they
9 raised the Croatian flag. Was Bosnia, at that time, an
10 independent State or not yet?
11 A. Oh, yes. Legally and recognised by the
12 United Nations --
13 JUDGE RIAD: It was no-man's land?
14 A. No, Bosnia was an independent sovereign State
15 from the previous year.
16 JUDGE RIAD: They had a flag.
17 A. They did have a flag.
18 JUDGE RIAD: And this flag was not the
19 Bosnian flag which was being raised?
20 A. No. The point, Your Honour, is that by the
21 time of the period we're talking about, Bosnia was
22 divided not just into two, it was divided into three,
23 and the Serbs -- the Serbs point-blank rejected the
24 Bosnia flag, the Bosnia government and all the rest of
25 it, and they controlled 70 per cent of Bosnia using
Page 14319
1 Serb symbols, Yugoslavia Slav symbols, Serb symbols and
2 the Cyrillic alphabet, et cetera, et cetera.
3 In the other 30 per cent of the territory,
4 which is what we're discussing, and Vitez and Travnik
5 were in the other 30 per cent, there was a division
6 there between the ruling government in Sarajevo, which
7 we called the Bosnian government, which had the Bosnian
8 flag, and they then ended up controlling something
9 like -- I can't remember -- something like 15 or 20 per
10 cent of the territory, something in that order.
11 Although they were the established government, they
12 only had about 15 or 20 per cent of the territory. And
13 that's where their flag flew. Then there was the Croat
14 territory which flew the Croat flag, and they had
15 about -- a similar amount of the territory as well.
16 So it wasn't that the Croats had just
17 rejected the Bosnian government and the Bosnian flag,
18 so had the Serbs. It was a three-way thing. And so
19 the Bosnian flag was actually only flown in three major
20 cities, which was Sarajevo, Zenica and Tuzla, and other
21 towns like Travnik.
22 But at the time we're talking about, Your
23 Honour, if I could be absolutely clear, the Croat flag
24 and the Bosnian flag were both in Travnik from the day
25 I arrived and from before, because the HVO, which had
Page 14320
1 the Croat flag, and the Bosnian army, which had the
2 Bosnian flag, worked together in Travnik and Vitez and
3 other towns, Gornji Vakuf, Zenica, many other towns,
4 they worked together, so you could drive through the
5 town and see both flags.
6 The incident that you spoke about with
7 regards to Mate Boban, we didn't see Mate Boban in the
8 town. We were told that he had been there, and we were
9 told that the presence of Mate Boban had inflamed
10 things, because allegedly he -- whether he was there or
11 not, I don't know, but we believed at the time that he
12 was. That his presence inflamed things because he
13 said, "Look, this is a Croat canton under the
14 Vance-Owen Plan, and, therefore, the Croats' flag
15 should be everywhere because this is a Croat canton
16 under the plan," and that is what allegedly sparked the
17 flag burning and shooting incidents of that day in the
18 first week of April, I think.
19 JUDGE RIAD: Now, I pass on another thing
20 which you mentioned this morning about your -- I think
21 somebody mentioned that you were ready to provide all
22 the information you had to the Prosecutor, and, in
23 fact, you were interviewed by the Prosecutor in Split?
24 A. Yes. I've been interviewed many times.
25 JUDGE RIAD: Many times?
Page 14321
1 A. Many times.
2 JUDGE RIAD: But you mentioned before, I
3 think it was February 1995, one of them --
4 A. Yes, that's correct.
5 JUDGE RIAD: But you said before that you
6 refused once to sign a declaration. They wanted to you
7 sign a declaration and you refused.
8 A. Yes. I've never signed a statement.
9 JUDGE RIAD: When you're interviewed, don't
10 you usually sign a declaration?
11 A. In my experience, and I have a lot of
12 experience with this, the Prosecutor -- the Office of
13 the Tribunal Prosecutors have visited me many times to
14 clarify certain points. Now, over time, they have
15 become much more knowledgeable about who was involved
16 and what was happening, but as time has gone -- and as
17 I speak to them, and I've spoken to them in Sarajevo,
18 I've spoken to them in Zenica, I spoke to them in
19 Split, I've spoken to them in many places, they, of
20 course, like good investigators they write everything
21 down. But on occasions they've wanted witnesses or
22 potential witnesses like me to -- instead of them just
23 writing down everything I say, they want me to make a
24 statement to the Court, and I've never wanted to make a
25 statement until I had much more knowledge about the
Page 14322
1 subject matter, and until I was confident that the
2 statement I was going to sign was accurate and correct
3 and a full statement, and, furthermore, that I was
4 willing to be a witness to that statement in -- and a
5 witness to the Court as a result of that.
6 Consequently, I have never signed any
7 statements for anyone, because I think that all the --
8 all the cases in this Tribunal must be seen on their
9 own merit and individually.
10 And in the case of Colonel Blaskic, I have
11 views which I've expressed in the last few days which I
12 wanted to come here -- eventually I made a decision to
13 come here and present those views in person to the
14 Court. This would not have been helped by making a
15 statement.
16 JUDGE RIAD: You mean, you are not almost
17 allowed to put your views in this statement?
18 A. That's a different issue, Your Honour. There
19 was an occasion where I was asked to sign a statement
20 which was a statement that I hadn't written, almost as
21 if I was incapable of writing my own statement, and I
22 said, "I'd rather not."
23 JUDGE RIAD: I see. Just a rather personal
24 question; you yourself said that you were -- when the
25 Prosecutor was questioning you, you mentioned sometimes
Page 14323
1 that you were often drunk, which I don't at all -- I
2 fully understand that if anybody was living in these
3 circumstances, it was better to be drunk.
4 A. Your Honour, that was not the reason why I
5 was drunk. I was not searching for the bottle to make
6 up for some other inadequacy.
7 JUDGE RIAD: Turn away from the horrible
8 views, perhaps, what you are seeing. But was it the
9 case with all the people of the army? Were they trying
10 to run away from the atrocities by getting drunk?
11 A. No, that was most definitely not the case,
12 Your Honour, and it was not the case for me either.
13 This -- this -- the point of the -- the point
14 about the alcohol, I tried to explain it this morning,
15 but I will -- this afternoon, but I will try again.
16 There were six captains who were liaison
17 officers, and I was one of them, and our job, our only
18 job, was to talk to the local commanders. The
19 battalion and the British in Bosnia at the time had
20 something like 1,500 people and a whole regiment of
21 engineers, I think, and lots of logistics people as
22 well, but there were six of us, out of all these 1,500
23 people who had to spend all day every day talking to
24 military commanders and civilian leaders.
25 Most members of my battalion and most members
Page 14324
1 of the British army didn't meet locals. They saw them
2 occasionally at checkpoints, they didn't meet them.
3 Many members of the battalion didn't go outside the
4 British base the whole time they were in Bosnia,
5 because their job didn't require them to.
6 Then there were people on patrol like the
7 companies, like Major Thomas' company, Colonel Thomas
8 as he is now, who went out on patrols, and to observe
9 the front-lines and observe other things, and they were
10 in and out whole time and they would see the locals.
11 But there were six of us who were out the
12 whole time with the locals, and the custom we found was
13 that -- and I think possibly we encouraged it as well,
14 but the custom we found is that when we went into
15 somebody's office, we would be given a cup of coffee
16 and a glass of brandy. And the coffee always tasted
17 horrible and the brandy always tasted horrible, but if
18 you alternated it would become a little bit nicer. And
19 we got -- and this would happen every day. So if I had
20 ten meetings in a day, I would probably be quite drunk
21 at the end of it. But I knew this was happening, and
22 so I wrote everything down in my notebook so I didn't
23 have to rely on my memory, and when things got really
24 busy I made a decision that I would stop drinking. I
25 was not the only one. I made a decision that I would
Page 14325
1 refuse their hospitality, which was okay because they
2 knew me by then. They all knew me very well, so
3 refusing the hospitality did not matter in the sense of
4 upsetting the commanders.
5 Does that answer your question, Your Honour?
6 JUDGE RIAD: Yes. Yes, it does. Now, the
7 last question: Concerning the 7th Muslim Brigade, you
8 mentioned that they were different from the people in
9 the area, and that even some Bosnian officers
10 complained to you about them and mentioned that they
11 were fundamentalists. That was your word, I think. In
12 other words, they were religious fanatics.
13 Would you then conclude that the other
14 Bosnians, the Muslim Bosnians were not Muslim fanatics?
15 Is that a fair conclusion?
16 A. That's absolutely right, Your Honour. The
17 overwhelming percentage of Muslims and Croats and
18 Serbs, but Muslims, to answer your question, are not
19 fundamentalists in their religious or other beliefs.
20 They are perfectly normal, sensible people.
21 That's what was so particularly worrying
22 about the formation of the 7th Muslim Brigade, because
23 it wasn't what anyone expected in Bosnia. Bosnia does
24 not have a history of Islamic fundamentalism.
25 In reality, I think many of the people who
Page 14326
1 joined the 7th Muslim Brigade themselves were not
2 fundamentalists at all, but it was a better army to
3 join -- not a better army, but a better part of the
4 army to join, because they were paid more, they were
5 given uniforms, and in the event of them dying, their
6 families would be cared for properly, which -- there
7 were other advantages for them to be with the 7th
8 Muslim Brigade, but there was an unity of purpose
9 within the 7th Muslim Brigade. It was very attractive
10 for the Muslims. And it attracted those, of course,
11 who had more deep religious views and were capable and
12 wanting to fight as well.
13 But that was what was so worrying about it,
14 is that most Muslims in Bosnia, and I have many Muslim
15 friends in Bosnia, of course, are perfectly rational
16 people who do not posses religious or other fundamental
17 views.
18 JUDGE RIAD: So there was no religious
19 barrier between Muslims and non-Muslims?
20 A. Not prior to this war. The problems that
21 nationalism create are they -- as we've seen in
22 Northern Ireland and all over the world, nationalism
23 unites people behind one cause or one flag at the
24 expense of all others. So the Muslims and the Croats
25 separated, and they ended up being united behind their
Page 14327
1 own flags at the expense of each other. Instead of
2 uniting behind one flag, as they have subsequently
3 managed to do with the Federation, which is progressing
4 quite well in Bosnia right now.
5 But back in '93, religious -- sorry,
6 nationalism, not fundamentalism -- nationalism was a
7 very powerful force. It was in the hands of very
8 irresponsible, power crazy, many of them young people.
9 It was stirred up by criminal groups who benefited from
10 the anarchy and chaos which it brought about, and it
11 allowed criminal gangs to loot and pillage. If you
12 create Croat nationalism in a Muslim area, the Muslims
13 leave and you go and take the car and the television.
14 So I think there are a whole load of reasons why
15 nationalism was very successful in middle Bosnia, and
16 part of it was this religious fundamentalism, this
17 religious divide that you're talking about, but that
18 wasn't the historic cause of it in Bosnia.
19 JUDGE RIAD: Thank you very much, Captain.
20 JUDGE JORDA: Judge Shahabuddeen.
21 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Mr. Dundas-Whatley,
22 anyone who has listened to you, as we have these last
23 days, would be puzzled to know how anyone could
24 possibly have the temerity to expect that you would
25 sign a statement which did not represent your full and
Page 14328
1 true views. Where were you when this statement was
2 written up?
3 A. I didn't sign the statement, and I was --
4 this took place in Sarajevo last -- last year, Your
5 Honour, I think.
6 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Yes, but where were you
7 when this statement was being written?
8 A. Oh, in my flat in Sarajevo.
9 Q. The statement was being written in your
10 flat?
11 A. No, I was -- I -- an investigator came to my
12 flat and asked me if I would sign the statement and was
13 it suitable for me to sign, and of course, I said
14 "No." He, I believe, had written the statement as a
15 result of a conversation we'd had the previous day or
16 the previous week in Sarajevo.
17 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Oh, he had written it up
18 before coming to your flat?
19 A. That's correct, Your Honour.
20 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: And did you read it or
21 did he read it?
22 A. As I remember, he showed it to me and I said,
23 "I have no intention of signing a statement."
24 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: How many pages was it?
25 A. I can't remember, Your Honour.
Page 14329
1 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Would you say several
2 pages or one page?
3 A. I really can't remember, Your Honour, because
4 the whole idea of being asked to sign a statement
5 written by someone else was -- seemed ridiculous to me,
6 and I said this to the investigator at the time, and he
7 was quite happy with this. I must point out he was
8 quite happy with this. I think he realised he asked me
9 please -- would not -- please sign, but he said, "Could
10 you sign this," or, "Would you sign this statement it
11 would be quite good for us if you-- or quite useful if
12 you would sign a statement, words to that effect." I
13 can't remember the exact words. And I said, "No."
14 So I can't actually remember -- I think the
15 statement was brought out, put on the desk. I don't
16 think we even turned it over.
17 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: I see. So would I be
18 correct, Mr. Dundas-Whatley, in concluding that you
19 refused to sign the statement on the basis of the
20 principle that any such statement should have been
21 written by you? Is that a way of looking at it?
22 A. That's partly it, yes, Your Honour.
23 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: It was not a question of
24 the statement containing any specific inaccuracies?
25 A. No, not at all, Your Honour, and if that's
Page 14330
1 been the suggestion, then I'm very sorry. That was
2 never meant to be the suggestion.
3 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Now, I was interested in
4 your career having been demobilised. Is that the right
5 word?
6 A. It used to be Your Honour, yes.
7 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Demobilised from the
8 army because it was slimming down. You then served
9 with certain NGOs, I think Oxfam was named, and you
10 lived for a while in Belgrade and later on in Sarajevo,
11 and later on in Banja Luka, or were there other places?
12 A. I've also lived -- when I was with Feed the
13 Children, I lived in Vitez, Your Honour, which is
14 particularly relevant, and I have lived in Split in
15 Croatia as well.
16 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Very good. And you
17 operate a business?
18 A. That's correct, Your Honour.
19 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Could I ask what
20 business is it?
21 A. Yes. I act as a consultant for people. For
22 example, I do a lot of work -- not so much now, but
23 historically I did a lot of work for the press, for the
24 international press. More latterly, in the last year
25 or so, I have -- I provide a lot of services,
Page 14331
1 facilities, for the International Community, in
2 particular the -- for example, I -- it would be
3 inappropriate for me to mention some of my clients,
4 but --
5 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Please feel completely
6 secure, and do not trouble to mention any clients about
7 whom there might be the slightest sensitivity.
8 A. No, there's no sensitivity, I just think
9 that -- for example, I manage a house for the British
10 Embassy. I don't do it personally, but we -- the
11 British Embassy have contracted me as a consultant to
12 organise a house for them and manage it for them on the
13 coast. We do -- I would do that type of thing for
14 other organisations, which I don't need to list, I
15 don't think.
16 We -- our big drive in the last two years has
17 been towards leisure for the International Community,
18 and we do a great deal of skiing for the British army.
19 We hosted all the British army skiing in Bosnia last
20 winter, including -- we run their ski meetings towards
21 the end for the British division. And we do sailing
22 for the international organisations, where we act as a
23 broker between the international organisations --
24 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: What is the scope of
25 your contribution to the international media?
Page 14332
1 A. This is coming to an end now, Your Honour,
2 because of course, the international press are not too
3 interested in the events in Bosnia so much now, but
4 normally I -- they -- I'm -- I've got a title such as
5 "coordinator," something like that, and I provide
6 interpreters, and I would probably drive the news crew
7 around, or documentary company.
8 I must point out that I was involved in the
9 documentary on The Hague last year, although I didn't
10 actually come here, I did the Bosnia end of that.
11 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Would I be right in
12 supposing that your contribution to the international
13 press would be concerned mostly with the events about
14 which you speak?
15 A. No, you wouldn't be, Your Honour. It's --
16 the documentary was partly concerned with Vitez, and it
17 was -- but no, most news is not interested in this. I
18 didn't start working for news until the summer of '95,
19 autumn '95, by which time the events of Ahmici were
20 long forgotten as a news item.
21 No, it's things like the election or the
22 opening of the bridges in Mostar or -- the elections
23 are a very big and ongoing story, every time there's an
24 election or appointing of governments. Sometimes the
25 introduction of the single currency, the new single
Page 14333
1 currency in Bosnia. Events like this that take place
2 in the course of time attract the international media,
3 and they need someone on the ground to organise things
4 for them, to organise camera crews for them and
5 vehicles, and know what's going on and to have the
6 contacts.
7 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Very good. Then would I
8 be right in supposing that in the course of your
9 contribution to the international press, you would have
10 had occasion to speak on the subject of command and
11 control in the Lasva Valley?
12 A. I don't think so, Your Honour. I don't
13 remember discussing command and control with anyone.
14 Q. Were there other British officers like you
15 who settled down in the former Yugoslavia after leaving
16 the British army?
17 A. There's one from my regiment which I'm aware
18 of, Your Honour, who lives in Sarajevo, and there are
19 quite a few British people working there as well. I
20 wouldn't say we've settled -- any of us have settled
21 down there, Your Honour. It's --
22 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Do you have a family?
23 A. No, not at all.
24 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: You don't have a
25 family. You're a loner. All right.
Page 14334
1 A. I'm just not married to my family.
2 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: All right. Once or
3 twice, perhaps more often, in the course of your
4 testimony, you assured the Court that you were not
5 being evasive. Why did you feel it necessary to give
6 that assurance? I don't believe --
7 A. I can't remember a specific example, but I
8 think -- I think occasionally I would be asked a
9 question which required a more complicated and in-depth
10 answer than a simple yes or no, or a number, or date,
11 and so in order to explain it, I would have to come in
12 from a slightly different angle, and that's what I was
13 referring to, things that happened in Bosnia and
14 continue to happen in Bosnia are not necessarily as
15 simple as people may wish to believe them.
16 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Am I right in my
17 recollection that neither Defence counsel nor
18 prosecuting counsel used the word "evasive"?
19 A. I don't know, Your Honour. Probably.
20 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Now, let us talk about
21 Prozor a little, through which you passed in October
22 1992. The prosecuting counsel was asking you a
23 question like this: Did tensions rise as a result of
24 the ethnic cleansing in Prozor? My recollection is
25 that your answer was that tensions rose because of the
Page 14335
1 influx of refugees in certain places.
2 Now, which is it really? Did the ethnic
3 cleansing by itself in Prozor cause tensions to rise,
4 or did tensions rise solely because of the subsequent
5 influx of refugees into certain places?
6 A. It's going to be a long answer, Your Honour.
7 In most of the towns and most of the cities in Bosnia,
8 the HVO and the Bosnian army worked together, but
9 then -- as the relationship between the two of them
10 started to collapse, from the south heading northwards,
11 what happened in one town may have almost no effect on
12 a town 50 miles way, or that we could see.
13 So were it not for the fact that Prozor had
14 this horrific situation which resulted in a loss of
15 confidence on the front lines in Jajce, which resulted
16 in refugees coming into Vitez, which were explained in
17 the book just now, it is unlikely that the results of
18 Prozor would have had a direct effect on Vitez, because
19 the Vitez situation, like the situation in all the
20 towns further north, was a power struggle and a
21 balance.
22 But the refugees came, a lot of Muslim
23 refugees came from Banja Luka, Jajce fell and that
24 caused a strain, and that reverberated down the Lasva
25 Valley, from Travnik down to Vitez and further.
Page 14336
1 But at the same time -- we're talking now
2 about October, '92 -- at the same time in Tuzla, a 100
3 miles or so away, the HVO and the Bosnian army
4 co-operated throughout the war and this had no effect
5 on them. And so it was -- and at the same time, Vitez
6 and -- in Vitez, the Muslims and Croats in October,
7 '92, were shooting each other in the streets, but in
8 Travnik they're walking down the streets together, only
9 20 miles away.
10 So what I was trying to answer -- what I was
11 trying to explain in that answer, is that, yes, Prozor
12 was ethnically cleansed, but one of the main results of
13 that as the collapse of Jajce, and the influx of
14 refugees, and the loss of confidence between the two
15 sides locally, and to some extent regionally, but it
16 did not cause panic and despondency further down --
17 further down the chain. The HVO in Sarajevo and Tuzla
18 were -- continued to co-operate perfectly with the
19 Bosnian army.
20 Do you understand why I wanted to explain?
21 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Let me square my
22 understanding with yours. Your position is that the
23 ethnic cleansing in Prozor did not, by itself, cause
24 tensions to rise in places further afield; is that it?
25 A. That's correct, Your Honour.
Page 14337
1 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: All right. I understand
2 your answer. Now, are you in a position to say to the
3 Court, in a ballpark sort of way, whether you
4 considered that a substantial part of HVO personnel had
5 come to the HVO with or without previous JNA
6 experience?
7 A. I think the overwhelming percentage of the
8 population in Bosnia had JNA experience, but, I also
9 believe, and this is, of course, hearsay, that at some
10 stage the, many people in Bosnia started not attending
11 their compulsory military service. They didn't bother
12 to go, the system was collapsing, I think probably
13 in '90 or '91. So, yes, there were young people of
14 military age that did not have military experience, but
15 it was, of course, a minority when put against the
16 overwhelming majority who had served in the JNA 20
17 years before, or whatever.
18 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Would you say that,
19 therefore, to follow the drift of your remarks, that
20 the HVO did not have greater JNA experience than the
21 ABiH? Is that what you would say?
22 A. I would have thought -- this is not an area
23 I'm an expert in, none of us were, none of us are --
24 but I would have thought that the percentages would be
25 very similar.
Page 14338
1 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Very similar. Thank
2 you. What about equipment?
3 A. The, from what we saw, and from what we knew
4 from talking to people who had been on the Serb side,
5 the Serbs had overwhelming military might, in the sense
6 of equipment, tanks, artillery, so on.
7 Left on the other side, on our side, if you
8 like, where we were stationed, there wasn't actually a
9 great deal of military hardware around, and to see an
10 artillery piece going down the street was a major
11 event. So, I don't think that -- and the most number
12 of tanks I ever saw in one day was two, and they were
13 probably 30 miles apart.
14 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Let me ask your
15 impression on this point about which the Court has had
16 the benefit of other testimony.
17 How would you compare the fire power exerted
18 from the Vitez side against the fire power exerted from
19 the Stari Vitez side?
20 A. I think in taking that isolated area together
21 --
22 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Over a sustained period
23 of time, say during the whole of April.
24 A. I didn't ever see any heavy weapons in Stari
25 Vitez. I saw rifles, I didn't -- I don't remember ever
Page 14339
1 seeing mortars, tanks, artillery in Stari Vitez.
2 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: What I mean,
3 Mr. Dundas-Whatley, is; was the level of fire power the
4 same, or was it preponderant in one side or
5 preponderant on another side?
6 A. Probably I saw very little hardware. I think
7 probably the Croats had, in that, in the Vitez town,
8 had more heavy equipment than the Bosnian army. But
9 we're not talking about tanks here --
10 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: No, I'm talking about
11 fire power, whatever the source be, rifle, tanks,
12 mortars.
13 A. I see. Well, I think it is then down to how
14 many people that the Croats could put on that
15 front-line, because the Croats had another front-line as
16 well, the outside front-line looking out towards Zenica
17 and Travnik.
18 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: What I mean,
19 Mr. Dundas-Whatley, was; there was an armed exchange
20 between Vitez and Stari Vitez which went on for a
21 while. Now, which side had the preponderance of fire
22 power, or did they have roughly the same level of fire
23 power?
24 A. I don't know. I should imagine the Croats
25 outnumbered them, but I don't know, Your Honour.
Page 14340
1 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Did the HVO control the
2 territory through which the resupply routes of the ABiH
3 passed?
4 A. For Stari Vitez?
5 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Generally.
6 A. Absolutely right, Your Honour, yes. Except
7 that there were stories that, there were stories, and I
8 never confirmed it, that in Travnik the Bosnian army
9 was actually getting resupply also from the Serbs, but
10 I think it is more of a black market nature than
11 anything else.
12 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Let us turn to HV, the
13 wearing of HV insignia, that is, the military emblems
14 of the army of Croatia proper.
15 A. Yeah.
16 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: My recollection is that
17 you said you saw only one insignia being held up by
18 some instrument or another, a pin or something.
19 Were you aware, Mr. Dundas-Whatley, that the
20 then Colonel Blaskic had issued instructions to his
21 military to order them to discontinue the wearing of
22 any HV emblems?
23 A. No, I wasn't, Your Honour.
24 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Assuming that he did so,
25 would that make a difference to your evidence that you
Page 14341
1 did not see any soldiers in HV uniforms or wearing HV
2 insignia?
3 A. No, Your Honour. I can only remember one
4 occasion where I saw an HV insignia.
5 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Let us talk a little
6 about another subject. Did you become aware of some
7 degree of cooperation between the HV and the Serbs?
8 A. The HV and the Serbs?
9 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: The HVO, I'm sorry, the
10 HVO and the Serbs.
11 A. Yes, but this was after I left the army that
12 I was appraised of all this, Your Honour.
13 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Never mind when you
14 became aware of it, you did become aware of it?
15 A. Absolutely, yes.
16 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: There was a degree of
17 cooperation between the HVO and the army of the
18 Republika Srpska. Could you tell us a little more
19 about the nature of that cooperation?
20 A. The, there are a few examples that spring to
21 mind, Your Honour. For example, in the area of
22 Kiseljak we were aware, or I became aware, as an aid
23 worker travelling through Kiseljak, that as you went
24 from Croat territory to Serb territory, there were no
25 bullet holes in the walls, which was normally the best
Page 14342
1 indication of front-line.
2 So, it appeared to us, then, that Kiseljak,
3 although it had a front-line with the Serbs, and indeed
4 with the Bosnian army, as well, it was not in a
5 shooting war with the Serbs, indeed, there was traffic
6 crossing that front-line. So there is that incident of
7 cooperation that I was aware of in '94.
8 Also in '94 I became aware of what had gone
9 on in the town of Zepce, which I mentioned to you
10 before, it's well to the north of Zenica. Zepce was,
11 in my time, had an HVO and a Bosnian army headquarters
12 in the town. Subsequently there was a small war in the
13 town and the Bosnian army was kicked out and the HVO
14 took control of the town.
15 During -- that came about, I've been told,
16 because of cooperation between the HVO commander in
17 that town and the Serbs who came across the front-line
18 and assisted the HVO in their war against the Bosnian
19 army in the town of Zepce. So, those are two examples
20 that spring to mind, Your Honour.
21 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Did you become aware at
22 any stage of a covering umbrella agreement between
23 Serbia and Croatia under which this, these incidents of
24 cooperation might have occurred?
25 A. I remember reading something in the
Page 14343
1 newspaper, some, probably in '94 or '95.
2 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Did you read anything
3 about talks being held at -- what's that name,
4 Karadjordjevo, between President Milosevic and
5 President Tudjman?
6 A. The press spoke about this frequently, that,
7 it's not something that I'm aware of at all, Your
8 Honour, but the press spoke about this frequently, that
9 there was a master plan. Whether it involved
10 Mr. Izetbegovic or not, I'm not sure, but there was,
11 allegedly, a master plan to divide Bosnia up.
12 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: The Vance-Owen Plan came
13 along and it assigned Canton 10 inter alia to the
14 Croatian community; is that correct?
15 A. Yes, I believe Travnik was Canton 10, yes.
16 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Could you help the Court
17 by telling us how the HVO understood the assignment of
18 Canton 10 to the Croatians? Did they understand it to
19 mean that the HVO were to control it, or did they also
20 understand it to mean that Canton 10 was to be cleansed
21 of any non-Croatian elements?
22 A. I don't think it was the latter, but I think
23 what happened was, when the Vance-Owen Plan was
24 produced and divided Bosnia into all these cantons, it
25 was, part of the plan was that each canton would be
Page 14344
1 ruled by one of the three parties, and that is how we
2 understood it. We were having trouble getting enough
3 information --
4 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: I'm asking you if you
5 could help us by telling us how the HVO understood it.
6 A. That's how we understood it, and I believe
7 that Mate Boban's alleged visit to Travnik was him
8 saying that Travnik is the capital of Canton 10, this
9 should be under the control of the Croats, why aren't
10 the Croat flags everywhere.
11 I think that's the way the Croats saw it.
12 But in, the real situation was, the Croats knew in
13 Travnik, in the town of Travnik, that they were
14 hopelessly outnumbered in terms of numbers of soldiers,
15 but also in the fire power that was available to the
16 Bosnian army in Travnik, because of the huge number of
17 refugees which had come in from Republika Srpska, that
18 it was better, that Colonel Filipovic probably thought
19 it better to leave things as they were, rather than
20 trying to impose some sort of control over Canton 10.
21 But I think what you described is how the
22 Croats thought it was meant to be but were not in a
23 position to do it.
24 I do remember attending a meeting on this
25 issue in Travnik, and the HDZ representative, that's
Page 14345
1 the Croat political party representative, for the town
2 of Travnik, was a man whose name was Krizanac, his
3 nickname was Klempo because he had sticking out ears,
4 and that's how I remember him, he was a very odd
5 looking man. And his politics were slightly less
6 balanced than people like Colonel Filipovic. He was, I
7 believe he was from Travnik, and I think he went to
8 school with the, with my interpreter's aunt.
9 He was a great one for screaming and shouting
10 and banging the table, and he did this at this meeting,
11 and it got so annoying for everyone at the meeting that
12 the military part of the meeting, which was Colonel
13 Alagic and Colonel Filipovic and their staff officers
14 and aides, and me and my interpreter, we decided to
15 adjourn the meeting and have another meeting which
16 would have no civilians at it, because it was the HDZ
17 representative in Travnik that was causing all the
18 problems.
19 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: What was he saying on
20 this point of Canton 10 being or not being exclusively
21 occupied by Croats?
22 A. No, he would have been, he would have been
23 strung up there and then if he said anything like that
24 in that meeting. That may have been his personal
25 views, I don't know. But he was, um, if I remember,
Page 14346
1 and I haven't got any notes about it, because it was
2 such a ridiculous conversation I didn't write anything
3 down, but as I remember it, he was complaining to the
4 Croat military leaders that they were weak and should
5 take control of the town. And this was in front of the
6 Bosnian army commanders, as well.
7 It was a ridiculous situation to be in. The
8 military commanders like Colonel Blaskic had much more
9 understanding of the real situation on the ground, and
10 they weren't about to start inciting in that manner.
11 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: They had a saner
12 assessment?
13 A. I beg your pardon?
14 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: They had a saner
15 assessment?
16 A. Certainly, sir.
17 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Tell me, was there any
18 question, did you ever become aware of Herceg-Bosna
19 giving an ultimatum to the BiH to this effect that if
20 the BiH, Mr. Alija did not sign on to the Vance-Owen
21 Plan, the Croatian community would unilaterally
22 implement the plan? Did you become aware of any such
23 ultimatum?
24 A. No, Your Honour. But I do remember something
25 about that, but it was much later that I, and probably
Page 14347
1 in '94 or '95, when I was reading a book by a
2 journalist that I remember something about that. It
3 was not an issue during my time in the army.
4 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: If it had arisen during
5 your time in the army, would you have considered it
6 sufficiently important to engage your attention?
7 A. Yes, an ultimatum of that nature, Your
8 Honour, would have -- ultimatums by their very nature
9 have a destabilising effect.
10 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: What you read in the
11 books was about an ultimatum to implement the
12 Vance-Owen Plan effective the 16th of April?
13 A. I don't remember a date being involved. I
14 don't remember there being a date. What I do remember,
15 and this is well out of my scope of knowledge, Your
16 Honour, but, well out --
17 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: I only ask you because
18 you were there, and you said you had been visiting a
19 number of the officers on both sides.
20 A. The Vance-Owen Plan was a constant topic of
21 conversation through March and April, '93, right up to
22 the events this Court is concerned with, primarily.
23 I think that the opinion that many
24 journalists hold on this, and it is not an unrealistic
25 opinion, was that the Vance-Owen Plan, the very
Page 14348
1 presence of, whether it was signed or not, or an
2 ultimatum or not, the very presence of it is what
3 resulted in the Muslim-Croat war in Bosnia, the
4 complete collapse, the rush for land, the grab for
5 land.
6 I don't remember reading that, the ultimatum
7 that you're referring to, that I think was in a book by
8 Vulliamy, I believe, who may have testified in this
9 case, I'm not sure, referred to a date, I think -- I do
10 remember something in probably his book about this,
11 about there being some sort of ultimatum.
12 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Did you, yourself, speak
13 once or twice about the Vance-Owen Plan, or perhaps I'm
14 mistaken?
15 A. In this Court, Your Honour?
16 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Yes. Perhaps I'm
17 mistaken.
18 A. Yes, I referred to it on one occasion, I
19 believe.
20 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Let's turn to a separate
21 subject which relates to command and control. The
22 thesis you presented was that based on your experience
23 on the ground, and looking at the documentation,
24 command and control was flimsy, I think you used the
25 word, and it best sums up the totality of your
Page 14349
1 testimony on the point; is that what you were saying,
2 that it was flimsy?
3 A. Yes, Your Honour.
4 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Now, are you aware that
5 in some documents Colonel Blaskic reminded his soldiers
6 that International Law relating to armed conflicts
7 applied -- I'm paraphrasing a great deal of
8 documentation here. You're aware that he took that
9 position?
10 A. No, I'm not aware that he ever used that
11 phrase, Your Honour. It's not been in any documents I
12 read.
13 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: I think he referred to
14 the Geneva Conventions and International Law and to the
15 International Humanitarian Law. If I'm wrong counsel
16 on both sides may correct me.
17 A. He may have used the word Geneva Convention,
18 but I'm not entirely certain, Your Honour, but he
19 certainly spoke about the points of those laws, if not
20 mentioned them by name.
21 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Now, you are a military
22 man, yourself, and you are familiar, I take it, with
23 the rough outlines of that area of law as it applies to
24 military men.
25 A. Yes, Your Honour.
Page 14350
1 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Now, we all know it
2 covers several branches, but is it your impression that
3 a central idea in that law relates to the question of
4 command and control?
5 A. In the sense that a commander is responsible
6 for the actions of his subordinates, to some extent; is
7 that what you're referring to, Your Honour?
8 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Yes. Now, do I gather
9 from what you are saying that as you see it, nobody,
10 just nobody had any command and control responsibility
11 for whatever happened in the Lasva Valley?
12 A. No, far from it, Your Honour, I most
13 definitely am not saying that.
14 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Well, could you tell us
15 what you are saying?
16 A. What I am saying is in the -- in the specific
17 case of Ahmici, for example, a very good example, an
18 attack happened on that village resulting in a lot of
19 people being killed, and that attack must have been
20 controlled by somebody, or a group of people, and it
21 must have -- so under their control there must have
22 been a larger number of people.
23 So, it was a planned and organised attack,
24 I'm sure, although, I didn't witness it, of course, I
25 believe it was a planned and organised attack, but
Page 14351
1 probably on a much, much lower level than the OPS group
2 level or even the brigade level.
3 I think it is far more likely that it was --
4 talking about that one for a moment -- that that attack
5 was planned and orchestrated at a lower level, you
6 could probably say at company level, if you were to
7 compare it with a British army, something of that
8 nature.
9 Furthermore, the -- we used to refer to -- I
10 still do -- refer to the state of middle Bosnia and the
11 Lasva Valley, at the time in question, as being in
12 anarchy. But by that we didn't mean that everyone was
13 out with a gun doing what he wanted. What we meant was
14 there was gangs, criminal gangs, small military, quasi
15 military units, that the central power and the chain of
16 command did not follow what we had written down on the
17 big wall of our MILINFOSUM, with Petkovic at the top
18 and OPS group, Central Bosnia and Tomislavgrad I think
19 was the other one, Mostar, I'm not sure, and the
20 various OPS groups, and underneath them the various
21 brigades, and under them whatever the battalions were,
22 I can't remember.
23 That was a chain of command, and it looked
24 good on the wall, and any visiting generals would see
25 that and think we had a good idea of what was going on;
Page 14352
1 but we would then tell them that actually there were
2 many other influences and that -- so, I'm sorry, but if
3 I could finish -- that there was a chain of command on
4 paper, and there were a lot of things that were
5 happening in the town, and they weren't random. But
6 that does not mean that they were as a result of the
7 main, the military chain of command that we
8 understood.
9 We knew there were criminal gangs, we knew
10 Bob Stewart had to personally negotiate for the release
11 of vehicles that had been hijacked or stolen, so did
12 Captain Martin Fulgrave, who was a liaison officer in
13 the Lasva Valley prior to me, he had to personally
14 negotiate with people.
15 But the people we were negotiating with were
16 not the brigade commanders and Colonel Blaskic. It was
17 other people, it was some political figures on
18 occasion, some criminal figures on occasion. Does that
19 answer your question, Your Honour?
20 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Mr. Dundas-Whatley, it's
21 always interesting and rewarding to listen to you.
22 I'll ask you my last question.
23 I gather, from what you are saying,
24 understandably, that a number of variables have to be
25 taken into account in evaluating any situation.
Page 14353
1 Now, would there be a distinction, do you
2 think, between certain kinds of orders? On the one
3 hand you have combat orders which are telling troops to
4 attack or to retreat or to encircle the enemy or
5 something like that. I would call those combat orders,
6 but I would defer to your more accurate description.
7 On the other side you have other kinds of
8 orders, say orders relating to safe passage of convoys,
9 or non-torching of houses, or non-expulsion of people;
10 do you see what I mean? There is a distinction, I
11 would suppose, but only suppose, between combat orders
12 and other kinds of orders.
13 Now, is it within your knowledge that any
14 combat orders issued by Colonel Blaskic were disobeyed
15 with impunity?
16 A. All the information I have relating to
17 anything like this I have learned much more recently,
18 from a documentary point of view, from the documents,
19 orders that I've seen in court, for example.
20 I think the example of Fojnica, where the
21 brigade was given an order to link up, to protect the
22 southern flank of the pocket, I think that summarises
23 the order, this area down here, which was point blankly
24 refused. So, there is that example which has come to
25 my notice in the last four days.
Page 14354
1 But if I could go back to the question: In
2 the British army we don't draw distinctions between
3 these different types of orders, we have --
4 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: No, I know, the British
5 army is a very superior kind of military model. I was
6 offering you a distinction and inviting you to say
7 whether you would make that distinction. Are there
8 other incidents like Fojnica?
9 A. I'm not aware of any other incidents at the
10 moment, Your Honour, I haven't seen enough documents.
11 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Did Fojnica concern, and
12 I really don't know, did Fojnica concern the question
13 of obedience to a combat order to engage the enemy?
14 A. I probably would have to study the order in
15 more detail, Your Honour. But the impression it
16 creates and that its response creates, to me, is that
17 the brigade there was asked to take military action in
18 one or two villages, I can't remember, and refused to
19 do that.
20 The, all the impressions I have created are a
21 result of everything, not a result of one particular
22 incident.
23 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Yes, yes, I appreciate
24 that, Mr. Dundas-Whatley, and I do thank you for your
25 answers.
Page 14355
1 A. Thank you, Your Honour.
2 JUDGE JORDA: I think after the questions
3 that my colleagues asked it won't be necessary for me
4 to ask any. I want to thank you very much. I see that
5 my colleague, Judge Riad, would like to ask you an
6 additional question, apparently. All of them were
7 asked, Mr. Riad, remember we have a break to take for
8 the interpreters' sake. Thank you very much.
9 JUDGE RIAD: Point of clarification, I was
10 under the impression, when I asked you about your
11 refusal to sign the statement with the investigator, I
12 was under the impression that you were not in agreement
13 with the substance of the statement; but in your answer
14 to the searching question of my colleague, Judge
15 Shahabuddeen, you mentioned it was the result of an
16 interview, and the whole thing was that you did not,
17 you wanted it to be in your own style, that was the
18 only reason.
19 So, I want just a clear answer, was the
20 statement the result of the interview, and it was just
21 prepared for your convenience; or was it a statement of
22 things you don't want to sign? That's the first.
23 The second: If you didn't, if you are, being
24 a journalist and a writer, you wanted to write it
25 yourself; why didn't you do that, since you have been
Page 14356
1 telling us several times that you are only in search of
2 the truth and it was an occasion to tell the truth.
3 Did they prevent you from writing it?
4 A. No, Your Honour. I didn't -- I don't
5 remember whether I read the statement -- the statement
6 they wanted to be signed or not. I don't think I read
7 it. I think what happened, if I can remember -- this
8 was only a minor point and I am very surprised it has
9 become an issue, it is a minor point.
10 JUDGE RIAD: Not for us.
11 A. Of course not, Your Honour. For me it was
12 not a big issue. The issue at the time was that I
13 didn't want to -- there were two things, I didn't want
14 to sign a statement which I hadn't written myself.
15 But, secondly, I didn't want to sign any statements
16 anyway, because at the time of the interview I didn't
17 have the benefit of all these notebooks which I kept at
18 the time. I knew my memory was -- I do not have a good
19 memory, and I know that, so I was very concerned about
20 putting my pen to paper on things which, even if I
21 believed them to be absolutely true, which until I had
22 been back to Britain, found my notebooks, which were
23 dotted all over the place, and had the benefit to sit
24 down and talk to people who knew a lot about the
25 situation and be briefed fully, particularly, if
Page 14357
1 possible, read the MILINFOSUMs and the other documents
2 which my regiment produced, which there are an enormous
3 pile of documents, then I would be in a better position
4 to make a statement.
5 JUDGE RIAD: But the statement was a result
6 of the interview?
7 A. The interview was the day before, but I
8 presume so, Your Honour, yes.
9 JUDGE RIAD: It is normal to make a statement
10 after an interview, that is what I wanted to make sure
11 of.
12 A. Yes.
13 JUDGE RIAD: Thank you very much.
14 MR. HARMON: Mr. President, I would make a
15 request of the Court, and that is, Mr. Dundas-Whatley
16 has --
17 JUDGE JORDA: I think we're going to first
18 take a break. I really want to keep in mind the
19 interpreters. You can take the floor once the break is
20 over, 20 minutes.
21 MR. HARMON: Before Mr. Dundas-Whatley leaves
22 --
23 JUDGE JORDA: Mr. Dundas-Whatley will be back
24 in the courtroom to hear your statement.
25 --- Recess taken at 5.04 p.m.
Page 14358
1 --- On resuming at 5.45 p.m.
2 JUDGE JORDA: The hearing is resumed. Have
3 the accused brought in, please.
4 (The accused entered court)
5 JUDGE JORDA: Mr. Harmon, I think that you
6 had -- that you had requested be given the floor. I
7 suppose it is a statement relating to that statement;
8 is that correct? The statement in the Prosecutor's
9 office. Go ahead.
10 MR. HARMON: Mr. President, we yield the
11 floor. We have no additional information or requests
12 to the Court, and we're prepared to proceed with the
13 next witness. Thank you.
14 JUDGE JORDA: I think then as regards the
15 testimony, Mr. Dundas-Whatley, the Tribunal sends you
16 back to your job, and thank you for having come.
17 THE WITNESS: Thank you Mr. President, Your
18 Honours.
19 JUDGE JORDA: Perhaps you might at least
20 introduce the next witness in order to gain some time,
21 Mr. Nobilo. I only have the English version in front
22 of me which introduces the witness.
23 MR. NOBILO: Thank you, Mr. President. I
24 shall briefly present the next witness to you. The
25 next witness is the father -- is Father Ivan Pervan, a
Page 14359
1 clergyman. He belongs to the Franciscan Order, and he
2 is the clergyman in Kiseljak.
3 He will be explaining where he comes from,
4 what schools he has completed, and he will say a few
5 words on the importance of the Franciscan Order in
6 Bosnia-Herzegovina throughout history. After that, he
7 will describe his community and parish, the territory
8 it encompasses.
9 He will be speaking about his work as the
10 leader of Caritas, the humanitarian organisation, which
11 sent aid and assistance both to Croats, Serbs and the
12 Muslims during the war. He will be speaking about the
13 refugees which appeared in the municipality of
14 Kiseljak, where they came from, who they were fleeing
15 from, and the number of refugees that came and
16 individuals dates when the refugees arrived, so as to
17 be able to get an impression of what actually happened
18 in Kiseljak.
19 They will then be speaking about the village
20 of Rotilj, and he went to the village of Rotilj
21 personally and took food to the Muslim population
22 there. He will describe the conditions under which the
23 Muslims in Rotilj lived and what he remembers from that
24 time.
25 Furthermore, he will speak about how Kiseljak
Page 14360
1 came by its food supplies, what the roads were and
2 communications were via Serb territory that were
3 used to take humanitarian aid to the needy. And Father
4 Ivan was personally in charge of the convoys passing
5 across Serb territory to Split, where in the port of
6 Split food was taken over and that was the food that,
7 in fact, fed the population of the Kiseljak
8 municipality. He will indicate the directions used,
9 the exact directions used, and how these directions
10 were used for other commercial purposes and military
11 purposes.
12 He will also be speaking about the way
13 Kiseljak was cut off as an enclave from Vitez and
14 Busovaca, the second enclave, as he saw it from his own
15 position, and he will be speaking about his meetings
16 with Tihomir Blaskic, what they discussed, his
17 assessment of Tihomir Blaskic as an individual, as a
18 man, and he will be speaking about what he learned
19 about relations between Tihomir Blaskic and Ivica
20 Rajic, the commander of the brigade in Kiseljak, and
21 Blaskic as commander of the Operative Zone, and from
22 his aspect -- from his angle of vision, how he saw the
23 functioning of the chain of command and control of the
24 command.
25 Then he will speak about Miel Borzic (phoen)
Page 14361
1 who was at one time the commander of the Ban Josip
2 Jelisic Brigade, and the circumstances under which he
3 was expelled from the command of the Ban Josip Jelisic
4 Brigade, and under what circumstances and conditions he
5 was reappointed -- Ivica Rajic was reappointed as
6 commander of the Ban Josip Jelisic Brigade.
7 Well, that would be a summary and a praecipe,
8 and the testimony could last up to three hours, Your
9 Honours.
10 JUDGE JORDA: Three hours. Very well. We'll
11 have the witness brought into the courtroom
12 (The witness entered court)
13 JUDGE JORDA: Do you hear me? First of all,
14 do you hear me?
15 THE WITNESS: Yes, I can hear you very well.
16 JUDGE JORDA: First of all, give us your
17 name, your first name and what people generally call
18 you, since your religious work was described to us
19 briefly. First state your name, your first name, where
20 you work, and what name you would like the Tribunal to
21 use when speaking to you, and after that you will take
22 the oath. For the time being remain standing, please.
23 THE WITNESS: My name is Ivica Pervan. That
24 is the name I was given at birth, Ivica Pervan. I am
25 by vocation a clergyman, and everybody addresses me as
Page 14362
1 Father Ivan Pervan. I am a clergyman in the Kiseljak
2 parish. I have been since the 1st of September, 1991,
3 up to the present day.
4 I would like you to address me as Father
5 Ivan.
6 JUDGE JORDA: If you like. This is a
7 question you would ask of the President of the
8 tribunal, but it is self-evident that the Judges may
9 have a different sensitivity. This is an International
10 Tribunal, they will call you as I see fit, but I was
11 asking what in general people call you.
12 Obviously, our colleagues, according to their
13 own sensitivities, will call you what they feel is
14 appropriate.
15 For the time being you are Mr. Ivica Pervan.
16 Remain standing are for a few more moments, the time it
17 takes to read the solemn declaration.
18 THE WITNESS: I solemnly declare that I will
19 tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the
20 truth.
21 JUDGE JORDA: You may be seated. This is the
22 end of the afternoon, but we still have about 15
23 minutes, which will allow Mr. Nobilo to begin with his
24 direct-examination.
25 WITNESS: IVICA PERVAN
Page 14363
1 Examined by Mr. Nobilo:
2 Q. Thank you, Mr. President.
3 Good evening, Father Ivan. We shall try, in
4 the 15 minutes at our disposal, to cover some basic
5 information about you and the Franciscans, and we'll
6 continue tomorrow with other concrete matters.
7 Father Ivan, tell the Court, please, where
8 and when you were born, what schools you have completed
9 and where you have worked so far.
10 A. Your Honours, I was born on the 16th of
11 December, 1957, in the place of what Nadiocivitsa
12 (phoen) of the Maglaj municipality, and I completed, in
13 my native village, eight years of primary school. In
14 1973 I graduated and went to classical gymnasium in
15 Visoko. I graduated four years of the classical
16 gymnasium, and then I went to Sarajevo where I attended
17 the Faculty of Theology.
18 I also completed the Raijal (phoen) gymnasium
19 in 1978 in Zagreb, and the Faculty of Theology I
20 graduated in -- that is I went in Sarajevo, and
21 graduated in Ljubljana Slovenia in 1983 as a clergyman,
22 and as such I was sent to the Lepenica parish, which is
23 10 kilometres away from Kiseljak, which is where I spent
24 one year. After that I went one and a half years in
25 Travnik in the Rajkovici (phoen) parish, after which I
Page 14364
1 spent three years as the vicar of -- in the monastery
2 in Kresevo. After that I was assistant for three years
3 of the clergyman in Busovaca, and I have been in
4 Kiseljak for eight years. I am the parish priest
5 there.
6 Q. Could you tell us something about the
7 Franciscan Order? I think we should speak a little
8 more slowly so the interpreters can follow us.
9 Your order, the Franciscan Order, came to
10 Bosnia in 1292. So tell us briefly -- tell the Court,
11 briefly, under what circumstances the Franciscans came
12 to Bosnia and what they mean to the history of Bosnia.
13 A. Bosnian history has recorded that Bosnia
14 gained its statehood, Your Honours, in the 11th
15 Century, and that statehood is always mentioned, and
16 the name of Kulinbahn (phoen) was mentioned, and it
17 says that "There have never been better days than the
18 days of Kulinbahn."
19 So the 11th Century is the century I'm
20 talking about, which is when the church had its
21 hierarchical organisation, and the Bisjuanova (phoen)
22 is mentioned as a place which is the Vitez of today,
23 which was the headquarters of the bishop, and it had
24 Bishopric and it had three churches. With the
25 Bosnian Kingdom, especially with the Kotrominic (phoen)
Page 14365
1 Dynasty, there were closer links formed as was usual
2 and customary in the Europe of the day between the King
3 and Rome.
4 The King asked the Pope in Rome to send to
5 Bosnia missionaries who would teach his people and who
6 would spiritually educate and lead the people. The
7 Pope replied by sending him the Franciscans, and at the
8 time the King's seat was in Central Bosnia in Sutjiska
9 (phoen) at the town of Bobovac, and in 1292, was the
10 year when the Franciscan Order arrived in Bosnia.
11 The Franciscans remained in Bosnia, remained
12 in Bosnia to the present day, and they make up more
13 than half the Bosnian Catholic clergymen.
14 With the downfall of the Bosnian monarchy
15 under the -- under Turkish rule in 464, the King
16 was killed, the Queen fled to Rome, and the Franciscans
17 have remained in Bosnia to the present day.
18 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: 464? Did I hear
19 correctly?
20 MR. NOBILO: 1464. It's a mistake. 1464.
21 There was a mistake in the translation of the
22 name (sic). In 1464 was when Bosnia fell. You may
23 continue.
24 A. To the present day, nobody in Bosnia and
25 Herzegovina is contesting the fact that somebody does
Page 14366
1 not -- that people do not have a 700 year old
2 continuity except the Franciscans, and we celebrated
3 the 700th anniversary of the Franciscans in
4 Bosnia-Herzegovina at the meeting. At this celebration
5 we had the presence of all the church dignitaries and
6 the State dignitaries headed by the President,
7 Mr. Alija Izetbegovic.
8 Since the downfall of the Bosnian monarchy in
9 1464, the Franciscans remained the sole people to offer
10 resistance -- to support the Catholics in
11 Bosnia-Herzegovina right up until the arrival of the
12 Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1878, and throughout that
13 time they erected their settlements, which are called
14 monasteries, and which on several occasion were set
15 fire to by the Turks. New ones were built which
16 incurred a lot of heavy material costs, and
17 certificates for these to be built up from Istambul.
18 They were the protagonists of education, they
19 were the sole physicians, the sole builders in the
20 country, and they were the first to write a grammar of
21 the language of our people. They were also the sole
22 representatives with the authorities of the time, and
23 in this period of almost 500 years, nobody was able to
24 have power and authority unless they were under the
25 rule of the Turkish Empire and an Islamist.
Page 14367
1 Q. Tell us, please, is it true that when the
2 700th anniversary of the Franciscans arrival in Bosnia,
3 is it true that the president of Bosnia, Mr. Alija
4 Izetbegovic, said that the Franciscan Orders are the
5 oldest part of the State of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and,
6 therefore, the fathers, Franciscan fathers?
7 A. Yes, that is true, and we were very happy to
8 hear this. He told us that in a long speech that he
9 made on the occasion, and he said this with pride. He
10 said -- and we accepted this, and recognised it as
11 recognition for all the good that we had done for the
12 State of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
13 Q. Thank you. Could you now explain to the
14 Court, and we shall be completing this now, your
15 parish, what places does it incorporate, the parish of
16 Kiseljak, and is there a difference between the parish
17 of Kiseljak and the territory of the Kiseljak
18 municipality?
19 A. The Kiseljak parish is located in Central
20 Bosnia, and it takes the name of the municipality of
21 Kiseljak. It has the same name. It is the town
22 proper, the town itself, but the municipality of
23 Kiseljak incorporates three more parishes, the Banba
24 Lepenica (phoen) to the south of the municipality, in
25 the middle we have the Kiseljak parish, and then we
Page 14368
1 have the Gromiljak parish. Next to it the Brestovska
2 (phoen) parish. So we can say that is a central town
3 urban parish.
4 Q. In addition to the town of Kiseljak, what
5 other large place belongs to your parish?
6 A. To my parish belongs the town itself, and
7 also the surrounding villages linking up on the town.
8 The largest village which belongs to the parish of
9 Kiseljak is quite certainly the Brnjaci community,
10 Calukovac, Potkraj, Palez, Zagorice, Zavrsje, Veljko
11 Selo, Podastinje, Parizevici, Rotilj, and one part is
12 called Privori, then we have Borina, both the Borinas,
13 Kresevska Cesta and Cizma.
14 Q. Thank you.
15 MR. NOBILO: Mr. President, that was the
16 introductory part; so, before we go into the substance
17 of our examination-in-chief, perhaps we could break for
18 the day.
19 JUDGE JORDA: I think we will suspend the
20 hearing. We resume tomorrow at 10.00.
21 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at
22 6.05 p.m., to be reconvened on Tuesday,
23 the 3rd day of November, 1998 at 10.00
24 a.m.
25