Page 24538
1 Monday, 9 February 2004
2 [Open session]
3 --- Upon commencing at 9.06 a.m.
4 [The accused entered court]
5 JUDGE AGIUS: Madam Registrar, could you call the case, please.
6 THE REGISTRAR: Yes, Your Honour. Good morning, Your Honours.
7 Case Number IT-99-36-T, The Prosecutor versus Radoslav Brdjanin.
8 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.
9 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. Brdjanin, good morning to you. Can you
10 follow the proceedings in a language that you can understand?
11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Good morning, Your Honour. I can
12 follow the proceedings in a language I understand.
13 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you. Appearances for Prosecution.
14 MS. KORNER: Good morning, Your Honours. Joanna Korner, Ann
15 Sutherland, assisted by Denise Gustin, case manager.
16 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you, and good morning to you. Appearances
17 for Radoslav Brdjanin.
18 MR. ACKERMAN: Good morning, Your Honours. I'm John Ackerman with
19 David Cunningham and Aleksandar Vujic and Cynthia Dresden.
20 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you. I hope you all had a nice weekend and
21 you are fully energised to carry on and finish with this witness. Any
22 preliminaries before we start?
23 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, only this: Professor Shoup asked if he
24 could have a copy of the document that I showed him on Friday.
25 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, yes.
Page 24539
1 MS. KORNER: Which was --
2 JUDGE AGIUS: P1275 or something like that.
3 MS. KORNER: Yes, something like that. Your Honour, we considered
4 the matter over the weekend, and in fact it is, of course, a public
5 document because it was made an exhibit. So although I think it's right
6 to say that exhibits aren't publicly put out as quickly as transcripts,
7 nonetheless, I see no reason why he shouldn't have a copy, and we'll
8 provide him or Mr. Ackerman can provide him with a copy when he's
9 finished.
10 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Thank you.
11 Anything from your side, Mr. Ackerman? No. So I think we can --
12 usher, please, could you escort Professor Shoup.
13 Do you think you will finish today, Ms. Korner?
14 MS. KORNER: I hope so, Your Honour. Yes.
15 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you. Thank you.
16 [The witness entered court]
17 THE WITNESS: Good morning.
18 JUDGE AGIUS: Good morning to you, Professor Shoup.
19 THE WITNESS: Good morning.
20 JUDGE AGIUS: And welcome once more.
21 THE WITNESS: Thank you.
22 JUDGE AGIUS: We will be proceeding with the cross-examination
23 this morning.
24 THE WITNESS: Yeah, I understand.
25 JUDGE AGIUS: And hopefully conclude with your evidence so you can
Page 24540
1 return back home. I hope you had a restful weekend.
2 THE WITNESS: Thank you.
3 JUDGE AGIUS: And you are energised. Doesn't mean to say that
4 entitles you to prolong your answers --
5 THE WITNESS: No, I understand. I understand that. I'll try to
6 be to the point, yes.
7 JUDGE AGIUS: Please to be as precise and concise as possible,
8 otherwise I'm afraid you will still be here tomorrow.
9 Ms. Korner.
10 WITNESS: PAUL SHOUP [Resumed]
11 Cross-examined by Ms. Korner: [Continued]
12 Q. Professor Shoup, I want to ask you this morning to begin with a
13 little bit about the sources that you have relied so heavily upon for your
14 report; namely, the NWID report and "Balkan Battlegrounds."
15 A. Okay.
16 Q. The NWID report was commissioned by the Dutch government. Wasn't
17 it?
18 A. That's correct.
19 Q. Commissioned as a result of the criticism it had received for its
20 role in the events of Srebrenica in 1995?
21 A. That's correct.
22 Q. And also because, in fact, some charges had been brought against
23 some members of the military in a Dutch court?
24 A. That, I'm not aware of. But I'm sure that's correct, too.
25 Q. And is this right, and if you don't know the answer please say so
Page 24541
1 straight away.
2 A. Sure.
3 Q. That the report looked at three aspects of these events. First of
4 all, Srebrenica itself?
5 A. Yes. I did not read the parts on Srebrenica because of a shortage
6 of time. This interests me greatly what their conclusions are, but yes
7 I'm aware of that part of the report as well.
8 Q. Oh, I see. So you have never read the part of Srebrenica under
9 Tito?
10 A. Oh, no, I'm sorry. Srebrenica under Tito, yes, but not the part
11 about the siege of Srebrenica itself. I didn't get to that because of a
12 lack of time.
13 Q. It actually runs to about 6.000 pages?
14 A. That's correct, yes.
15 Q. So you only read parts of the report?
16 A. I read those parts which seemed relevant to this trial.
17 Q. It also looked at national politics, that is to say, the Dutch
18 political outlook at that period?
19 A. That's correct.
20 Q. And finally at UN politics?
21 A. That's correct.
22 Q. Were you aware of this, that one of the problems that the authors
23 of this report faced was that they could not get access to many of the
24 original documents, the sources?
25 A. I'm not aware of it, but I am aware of the fact that they relied
Page 24542
1 heavily on secondary sources.
2 Q. They were actually refused permission to look at the archives in
3 Belgrade. Were you aware of that?
4 A. I believe I may have read that at some point. As I said a minute
5 ago, I was struck by the fact that they relied on secondary sources.
6 Q. And finally, Dr. Duijzings, upon whom you rely heavily -- and this
7 is not meant of any criticism as I have no doubt at all that he is an
8 extremely well-regarded academic, but he is in fact an anthropologist,
9 isn't he, not a historian?
10 A. That is correct.
11 Q. Now, can I turn next to "Balkan Battlegrounds." That is -- or the
12 two volumes are the CIA's discussion, as it were, of open-source material?
13 A. Yes. They say that. I remain convinced that probably their
14 knowledge of the war was acquired by aerial surveillance and these kinds
15 of things they can't put in the book influenced their conclusions.
16 Q. You said this that somewhere in your report, but you don't know,
17 that, do you?
18 A. No, I don't.
19 Q. So why did you say something that you didn't know?
20 A. I'm giving you my opinion.
21 Q. All right. But you agree that there is nothing in that report, as
22 it says, that is -- that covers anything outside open-source material?
23 A. I don't agree. I don't agree entirely because there are
24 conclusions such as those that I quote in the volume that appear to me to
25 be based on material that is not only open, but perhaps not available to
Page 24543
1 us. I will give the example of that statement about the VRS being in
2 control of ethnic cleansing.
3 Q. On page 306, is that it?
4 A. It could be.
5 Q. It's the one that Mr. Ackerman referred you to.
6 A. Yeah.
7 Q. I agree, nobody else has a copy of this, but it's the one that was
8 read to you. Do you agree?
9 A. I'm sorry, I didn't get the question.
10 Q. Final analysis, Mr. Ackerman more or less towards the end of your
11 examination-in-chief read you the passage that the Bosnian Serb army
12 undertook these ethnic cleansing operations because it believed the Muslim
13 population posed an armed threat, et cetera.
14 A. And the question?
15 Q. Sorry. You said -- you referred me to the -- your answer was: "I
16 don't agree entirely because there are conclusions such as those I quote
17 in the volume that appear to me to be based on material that is not only
18 open, but perhaps not available to us. I will give the example of that
19 statement about the VRS being in control of ethnic cleansing." Now, were
20 you referring to that statement? Perhaps you'd like to have a look at the
21 book?
22 A. This is getting a little confusing. If you don't mind, I think I
23 better take a look at what you're talking about.
24 Q. Usher.
25 A. But let me say simply that I don't -- so far, I don't see an
Page 24544
1 inconsistency. I don't agree always with the conclusions of the CIA. I
2 assume that when they make a sweeping judgement, as they do -- I believe
3 here that that sweeping judgement is based on a knowledge that covers both
4 open and closed sources. That's really where I stand, Ms. Korner.
5 Q. I understand that's where you stand. You have to stand there,
6 don't you, Professor Shoup, because effectively you are relying heavily on
7 these two reports as the only source material that you have looked at
8 effectively since your book?
9 A. No, that's not correct. In doing research for this project, I
10 looked for new source materials, and then focussed on these materials
11 because I thought they were written with a great deal of authority and
12 knowledge of the Bosnian situation. Other things, I don't quote. I'll
13 give you the example of Professor Gow's book in which I --
14 Q. Just pause because I'm going to come that book.
15 A. Sure, okay.
16 Q. That's the third matter I want to ask you about. But please, you
17 told us that you were greatly cheered, and I'm paraphrasing, to see that
18 "Balkan Battlegrounds" supported what you and Professor Burg had written?
19 A. Yes, in the sense that I didn't see any flagrant mistakes that we
20 had made in our volume, and we had very little to go on except our own
21 research resources, and apparently the CIA, with its vast resources,
22 didn't seem to contradict specifically what we had said.
23 Q. Could you have a look, please.
24 MS. KORNER: Usher, could you give the witness the one and only
25 copy of this book.
Page 24545
1 Q. Have a look at the passage that was quoted to you at page 306.
2 A. Let's see, 306. Are we talking about final analysis?
3 Q. It's the part that talks about --
4 A. "The Bosnian Serb army undertook ethnic cleansing," and so forth?
5 Now what is the question?
6 Q. Yes. The question is, is there any source quoted for that
7 conclusion?
8 A. Yes, there is a footnote 25. If that's what you're referring to.
9 Q. Sorry. Can I have it back.
10 A. Let me just read the --
11 THE INTERPRETER: Please slow down.
12 THE WITNESS: I see, yeah.
13 JUDGE AGIUS: If there is going to be a follow-up on this
14 question, Ms. Korner, perhaps you could have the page photocopied so that
15 we can follow, too.
16 MS. KORNER: Yes.
17 MR. ACKERMAN: Judge, it is a Defence exhibit. I'll tell you the
18 number --
19 JUDGE AGIUS: Is it part of the Defence exhibit?
20 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, at the moment -- as I said, at the end
21 of this, I'm going to object to these books. I know Mr. Ackerman has
22 listed it as a Defence exhibit.
23 JUDGE AGIUS: What I mean if it is intended to be a Defence
24 exhibit and has been given to us, then perhaps we can have a look at it,
25 and you don't need to photocopy it. Which number was it, Mr. Ackerman?
Page 24546
1 MR. ACKERMAN: I'll have it in just a second, Your Honour.
2 MS. KORNER:
3 Q. Could you look at the footnote that is referred to on the next
4 page?
5 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, we can do copies of it, of course, Your
6 Honours. It's probably simpler. Can I -- I think the simplest thing is,
7 so that Your Honours can see this. I'll ask the usher -- I'll move on to
8 another topic -- ask the usher to copy pages 306, 307, and then the
9 following 308 and 309. And at the moment, it's part of what Mr. Ackerman
10 has called DB372.
11 JUDGE AGIUS: 372 or 373A?
12 MS. KORNER: I don't know. 2, according to Ms. Gustin.
13 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, it's DB373, page 306.
14 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, that's what I have as well. Anyway, photocopy
15 that, please.
16 MS. KORNER:
17 Q. Now, while that's happening --
18 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, all those pages are an exhibit.
19 There's no need to go off and photocopy them again.
20 JUDGE AGIUS: Ms. Korner said 306 to 309. We only have up to 307
21 here.
22 MR. ACKERMAN: You have 306, 307, 308 and 309.
23 JUDGE AGIUS: No, we don't have -- oh, yeah, there is 308 is
24 footnotes or end notes.
25 MR. ACKERMAN: And 309 is notes. So you've have got all four
Page 24547
1 pages. They don't need to be copied.
2 JUDGE AGIUS: 308 is -- I can't read anything on the photocopy
3 that I have. Because all black, at least one half of the page.
4 Yes, in the meantime, I think we can follow from -- on the basis
5 of what we have, Ms. Korner.
6 MS. KORNER: The book's now gone, Your Honour. It doesn't matter
7 anyhow. I want to move on to another aspect and I'll come back to that.
8 Q. Now, what you said about Professor Gow who, as you've told the
9 Court on a number of occasions, gave evidence for the Prosecution in the
10 Tadic trial. And while we're on that, I think Professor -- if he is a
11 professor -- what's the name of the -- Hayden gave evidence for the
12 Defence. Is that right?
13 A. Correct.
14 Q. You were listed as a witness but not actually called.
15 A. That's correct, yes.
16 Q. At page 32, you said this, of the LiveNote from the 5th of
17 February --
18 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, excuse me.
19 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. Ackerman.
20 MR. ACKERMAN: I think Ms. Korner said something like, Professor
21 Hayden, if he is a professor? Does the Prosecution have any evidence to
22 suggest that he's not a professor?
23 MS. KORNER: I'm sorry, Mr. Ackerman.
24 MR. ACKERMAN: This witness has told you -- has told the
25 Prosecutor he is a professor. She's now suggesting to you that he may not
Page 24548
1 be. I wonder if she has a basis for that. It's like the other day when
2 she told you that review came from the New York Times. I wonder if she
3 has a basis for that, too. She is telling you things and suggesting
4 things to you that I think she has no basis for, and I think that's
5 totally improper.
6 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, that was actually because I wasn't sure.
7 I'm not suggesting, I can't remember whether he was a professor or a
8 doctor.
9 JUDGE AGIUS: What nationality is he? Do you know?
10 MS. KORNER: He's an American. I'm sorry, if he has told me that
11 he is a professor, of course I accept that. I have simply forgotten. I
12 think Mr. Ackerman is --
13 JUDGE AGIUS: All right, let's go ahead. Of course, I mean, I do
14 understand Mr. Ackerman's preoccupation because here in Europe you can be
15 a professor even if you're teaching primary school --
16 MS. KORNER: Believe you me, Mr. Ackerman -- I'm sorry, Your
17 Honour. I wasn't suggesting that he isn't a professor. I just had
18 forgotten whether or not he was.
19 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay.
20 MS. KORNER: I can assure you that if I'm going to suggest
21 something, I will make it absolutely clear.
22 JUDGE AGIUS: Let's go ahead anyway.
23 MS. KORNER: I'm sorry. I have now lost the note I wanted to
24 make.
25 Sorry, Your Honour, I wrote down in my note page 32 of the
Page 24549
1 LiveNote -- yes, here we are. I've got it, Your Honour. Sorry.
2 Q. It's at page 32 of the LiveNote of the 5th of February. You said
3 the second new source of great importance is the two-volume study by the
4 CIA called "Balkan Battlegrounds", and the third is a book by Gow on --
5 it's actually called "The Serbian Project." "It simply didn't work as
6 well as I had thought." What did you mean by that?
7 A. Professor Gow has said that he would really dot the i's and cross
8 the t's and show us exactly how Belgrade directed the VRS and the fighting
9 in Bosnia-Herzegovina with the implication that he would have new
10 materials. I didn't see the new materials.
11 Q. I'm sorry. Did you check all of the materials that he was
12 referring to?
13 A. I'm -- I read the -- his text. I didn't go to his footnotes. I
14 was obviously presuming that he would present new evidence in the text
15 that might help us understand the relationship between Belgrade and the
16 VRS and the SDS. And rightly or wrongly, I felt that it wasn't much help
17 in that respect. You know, I don't want to dismiss this entirely but...
18 Q. Of course. But his thesis runs counter to yours, doesn't it? He,
19 in fact, in terms asserts that many of the operations were directed from
20 Belgrade?
21 A. Yes, he counters perhaps -- on the other hand, he also says, which
22 I thought was interesting, that Mladic operated very much on his own.
23 This is exactly what the CIA said. He only gave examples of the
24 intervention of the Serb army in Bosnia that seemed really to be the
25 opposite of this case. That is, for example, when the Muslim forces reach
Page 24550
1 the Drina River, he cites this as a one very prominent example of the
2 Serbian intervention in the war. The Bosnian forces reached the Drina
3 River. They mortar across the Drina River to the Serb side. And lo and
4 behold, the Serb army answers back. I'm sympathetic to what Professor Gow
5 is trying to do. If there's evidence that we need to know, I'd like to
6 know it. I'm not partial in this sense but I felt those examples were not
7 good.
8 Q. But you agree that he footnotes for his assertions, and you
9 haven't checked those footnotes.
10 A. I saw no need if the assertions themselves such as mortaring
11 across the Drina River are well known and don't seem to back up his
12 thesis, I'm not going to pursue the matter.
13 Q. All right. Now I want to move to something else that you said on
14 the 5th of February.
15 A. Sure.
16 Q. At page 37 of the LiveNote, you said that -- when you were asked
17 the question of Greater Serbia, it was put to you --
18 A. That's correct, yes, that's right.
19 Q. One of the questions that has been contended here in this Tribunal
20 since its beginning was the question of whether or not an effort was being
21 made to create what is referred to as a Greater Serbia. Can you comment
22 on that?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. And you said sure, of course. I think first there is some --
25 there is a need to be cautious about the use of the term. The Serbs never
Page 24551
1 themselves laid out a plan for a Greater Serbia.
2 I want you to have a look, please, at another document, P20. P20,
3 please. This is the minutes of a meeting of the Serbian Democratic Party
4 on the 15th of October. I take it you've never seen that before?
5 A. No, I never have.
6 Q. And you remember the 15th of October is the day of the walkout?
7 A. That's correct.
8 Q. All right. This is a discussion of the minutes of the party
9 council held on the premises of the deputies club on the 15th of October
10 1991.
11 A. Mm-hmm.
12 Q. And can you turn to Mr. -- It's page 2 of the translation,
13 Mr. Ekmecic.
14 A. Him, yes, of course.
15 Q. Where he talks about the upcoming plebiscite that's going to be
16 held, that the contact should be continued for the search for a political
17 solution, the Serbs have created regions which are not connected --
18 A. Yes, I see.
19 Q. -- and these regions must not be allowed to establish their
20 governments which would not be connected. In public we must let it be
21 known that we can set up a Serbian government with its seat in Sarajevo.
22 THE INTERPRETER: Could you please read more slowly, Madam Korner.
23 MS. KORNER: Sorry. I thought somebody behind me said slow down,
24 Your Honour.
25 Q. This evening, we must get rid of the illusion that a form of life
Page 24552
1 together with the Muslims and Croats can be found. And then if we go on,
2 please, to -- we see that Mr. Milanovic, sorry, Mr. Ostojic, Karadzic
3 spoke. Can you come, please, to the fourth page in translation where
4 Radovan Neskovic speaks.
5 A. Neskovic, Radovan Neskovic.
6 Q. Yes. He says: "Since they will not revoke their decisions, I
7 suggest that a parliamentary crisis be provoked. Demand new elections,
8 because in this way we would gain time which suits us. As regards
9 outvoting, we were the first to use it at the local level and they at the
10 republican level. Four, go for a change of policy of with the aim of
11 creating a Greater Serbia."
12 A. Mm-hmm. That's correct.
13 Q. Now, Professor Shoup, if you'd known about this document --
14 A. Well --
15 Q. -- would you have written that line?
16 A. Do you want me to comment on that comment?
17 Q. Certainly.
18 A. I don't know Radovan Neskovic, so I'm sure he would use the term
19 Greater Serbia. I'm sure that Milorad Ekmecic would use the term Greater
20 Serbia. He was known as a die-hard historian, one of the more sinister
21 forces I think in this whole story. And as far as Radovan Neskovic is
22 concerned, I can't say.
23 I don't want to prolong my answer. I could explain that when I
24 said a Greater Serbia, what I meant and repeat that, but perhaps you don't
25 want me to.
Page 24553
1 Q. What I'm asking you --
2 A. I'm saying these are the opinions of these individuals. I know
3 Ekmecic. I'm not surprised at all he would take that position using the
4 term Greater Serbia. Radovan Neskovic, I don't know.
5 Q. But I'm sorry, Professor, all I'm asking you is if you had seen
6 this document and others which talk about the Greater Serbia, would you
7 have said in terms that the Serbs never themselves laid out a plan for a
8 Greater Serbia? That's all I'm asking you.
9 A. Well, when you say "the Serbs," I'm thinking primarily of
10 Belgrade. When I was making my comments yesterday, I was thinking of the
11 famous memorandum of 1986. I would never say that about individuals
12 within any of these groups, especially within Bosnia-Herzegovina. So if
13 you wish to say that within the SDS, somebody was laying out a plan for a
14 Greater Serbia, yes, I'm sure that somebody was. I don't think Milosevic
15 was. And I don't think the Serbian intellectuals of 1986 were. And we'll
16 take it at that.
17 Q. But Professor, we were talking about it, at least I thought we
18 were, through this whole of your evidence about the Bosnian Serbs?
19 A. Then let me make a further comment. I also said in that testimony
20 that local Serbs even when they might have -- when an individual such as
21 Radovan Neskovic might have spoken about a Greater Serbia were really not
22 interested in the other elements of that Greater Serbia, such as Kosovo.
23 Now, I refer to you Misha Glenny's book in which he is absolutely startled
24 by the fact that the intellectuals in Croatia, the Serbian intellectuals
25 in Croatia couldn't care less about Kosovo, and that was to what I was
Page 24554
1 referring.
2 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. Ackerman.
3 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, I may be confused. Is the Prosecutor
4 suggesting that if one person makes a speech calling for a Greater Serbia
5 that that represents a Serb plan?
6 MS. KORNER: I wasn't proposing to pull out every single document
7 that refers to a Greater Serbia. I am suggesting, and I have suggested
8 throughout the whole trial from the evidence that there was indeed a plan
9 which was called, putting it in its global thing, a plan for Greater
10 Serbia. And if I haven't made that clear throughout the trial and from
11 the evidence we've called, then I apologise. But at the moment, all that
12 I am asking or was asking Professor Shoup is whether he wouldn't have
13 changed that rather sweeping statement if he'd known about this.
14 THE WITNESS: The answer is no.
15 MS. KORNER:
16 Q. Thank you. All right. Now, at page 47 of the same LiveNote, you
17 said this: First, in the report you were asked about -- I should put it
18 in context for you. It was dealing with the Bosnian Assembly in October.
19 And you were read various passages by Mr. Ackerman.
20 And then you were asked this: "It appears almost as if
21 Izetbegovic isn't taking what Karadzic is saying seriously. Why does he
22 respond in such a way that there will be no war?" And you replied,
23 page 47: "First, in the report, I repeat over and over and over again
24 that all sides were preparing for war, even on the Muslim side in
25 self-defense." And then you repeat -- you say that this comment by
Page 24555
1 Izetbegovic is meant to reassure as much as anything the international
2 community, and I'm skipping what you said about this.
3 A. Certainly.
4 Q. And then you went on to say this: "The reason is very simple. He
5 doesn't want the threat of war or fear of war to in any way pose an
6 obstacle to the recognition of Bosnia, which he, and I understand him
7 perfectly, feels is the only way they will be saved from a war in which
8 they will be the possible losers."
9 Now, that's right, isn't it, Professor? If the Muslims were
10 preparing for war, it's because they realised that the Serbs were
11 preparing for war?
12 A. Well, of course. And the Serbs were preparing for war because
13 they realised the Bosnians were preparing for war.
14 Q. No. I'm sorry. That's not what you actually said, though. What
15 did you mean by the words, "Even on the Muslim side in self-defense"?
16 A. Certainly I think that all sides considered that what they were
17 doing was self-defense. I don't -- I mean, we can talk about -- they had
18 irreconcilable goals. That's all I can say. And they were going to fight
19 it out. I can't put it any more simply.
20 Q. What do you understand by the words "self-defense"?
21 A. Self-defense means that they fear the other side is going to take
22 over their villages, is going to tell them -- and they are going to defend
23 themselves, and that the other side is going to use force to do so.
24 Q. The truth is, isn't it, Professor Shoup, and you effectively, I
25 suggest, admitted it that it was the Serbs who were preparing all out for
Page 24556
1 war, and the Muslims were reacting in self-defense?
2 A. Yes, I think that's fundamentally correct because the Muslims
3 had -- were, after all, still in charge of the central government in
4 Bosnia. And from that point of view, they could wait and see what the
5 Serbs would do, yeah. Mm-hmm, I agree with you.
6 Q. Thank you.
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. All right. I just want you to look, then, I was going to show you
9 a number of documents, but I want you to look, please, now at the --
10 MS. KORNER: Would Your Honour forgive me just a moment. I just
11 want to check one document first.
12 Q. Yes, I'd like you to have a look on this topic, please, at
13 Exhibit P34. While that's being looked for, Professor Shoup, does the
14 document which has been sometimes called the variant A and B document mean
15 anything to you? Instructions for the organisation and activity of the
16 organs of the Serbian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina in extraordinary
17 circumstances. Professor? Professor, no, no --
18 A. You don't want me to obviously read this whole thing.
19 Q. Professor, just pause. That's not the document I'm showing you.
20 I just want to know if you've ever heard --
21 A. Yes, I have. I think in Professor Donia's testimony, or I could
22 confuse it with Mr. Brown's testimony, there is reference to the A and B
23 variants.
24 Q. Before you read that testimony, had you ever heard of it?
25 A. No.
Page 24557
1 Q. And you yourself has never seen the document?
2 A. No.
3 Q. All right. Thank you. Yes, you're quite right. I don't require
4 you to read through the whole document. Could you look, please, at
5 page 36 in the translation. This is part of Dr. Karadzic's speech on the
6 28th of February.
7 A. I have not seen this document before.
8 Q. No, I understand that.
9 A. Mm-hmm.
10 Q. Could you look, please --
11 JUDGE AGIUS: What page, Ms. Korner?
12 MS. KORNER: Page 36 in the translation, Your Honour. At the
13 bottom, page 36.
14 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you.
15 MS. KORNER:
16 Q. Dr. Karadzic is saying that the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina
17 is basically a conflict among peoples, just as it was the case between
18 India and Pakistan, and that's nothing new. It resulted in a huge
19 resettlement of the people.
20 A. If I can interrupt, I want to find where you're quoting him. But
21 never mind, I haven't found it yet.
22 JUDGE AGIUS: It's the fourth paragraph from the top.
23 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.
24 THE WITNESS: Thank you, Your Honour, I've found it.
25 MS. KORNER:
Page 24558
1 Q. "Muslims cannot live with others. We must be clear on that. They
2 could not -- they couldn't live with the Hindu, who are as peaceful as
3 sheep. That's the Indian religion. They are a peaceful people, and yet
4 they couldn't live with them. They couldn't live with the Greek on
5 Cyprus. They couldn't live in the Lebanon with Arabs of the same blood,
6 same language, but of a different faith. There can be no discussion here.
7 Yet they set up the Bosnian Krajina there, and in two years' time you
8 would have problems again to separate each and every village there because
9 they will overwhelm you with their birthrate and their tricks. We cannot
10 allow that to happen." Now, were you aware of that speech by Dr. Karadzic
11 before you looked at this document?
12 A. No, I was not.
13 Q. Can you move, please, to the next page. That's page 37, and can
14 you find about halfway down the words indented: "We have to take the
15 status of the Serbs into account."
16 A. Yes, I have found that spot, mm-hmm.
17 Q. "Please, until two or three months ago, we were hoping to be able
18 to play the Yugoslav card and to save the Yugoslav army, Yugoslavia,
19 legality, et cetera. This is slipping out of our grasp. That is why we
20 started on another track, a Serbian Bosnia and Herzegovina. Our sovereign
21 right, our army. We are preparing the constitutional framework to be able
22 to have immediately and on the basis of the negotiations in Lisbon, to
23 have a National Guard, to have our own police force, to have a government
24 to turn the Yugoslav Army into the Army of the Serbian Bosnia and
25 Herzegovina." Now, I take it you had -- because you hadn't read this
Page 24559
1 before, you had not heard about Karadzic saying this?
2 A. No, although it doesn't seem out of character or unlike things
3 I've seen him say.
4 Q. Can I suggest to you, Professor Shoup, that it shows two things:
5 One is a real antipathy, whether for the public or whether he believed it
6 privately, towards the Muslims as a race or as an ethnic person?
7 A. I agree.
8 Q. And also, that they were, as it were, negotiating, hoping that
9 they could pretend this was going to be Yugoslav, but having now to accept
10 that this was going to be a Bosnian Serb Army?
11 A. There does seem to be a certain way that you're phrasing this.
12 Mr. Karadzic here seems to be very manipulative and cynical in his speech.
13 I believe even in the light of what he -- the tone that he uses, that
14 their desire to be part of Yugoslavia was sincere and genuine and
15 heartfelt.
16 Q. Yes. I'm not disputing that.
17 A. I see.
18 Q. But what I am suggesting to you is that what he is saying here
19 shows that they were attempting, as it were, to hoodwink the international
20 negotiators or international negotiations by saying this was going to be
21 Yugoslavia, and now they were forced to accept that it wasn't going to be
22 Yugoslavia; it was going to be Bosnian Serb?
23 A. Well, a part of my answer would depend on the date of this
24 particular document.
25 Q. It's dated February of 1992. The 28th.
Page 24560
1 A. February of 1992. Mm-hmm. All right. We are in a situation
2 where the Badinter commission back on November 29th of the previous year
3 had already said that Yugoslavia was in dissolution. So with that
4 background, I would imagine that they would -- this is entirely in keeping
5 with their strategy, and with the fact that they have been creating
6 institutions even before February 1992 to lay claim to territory in
7 Bosnia. So I don't see that this -- it sounds a little bit more devious
8 when he says this, but I don't see that it reveals anything that we didn't
9 know about the SDS policy.
10 Q. All right. Thank you very much. That's all I want you to look at
11 on that document. Could you now look, please, at P50.
12 This is the minutes of the Assembly of the 12th of May 1992.
13 Again, something you've never seen before.
14 A. No, I have not.
15 Q. Were you aware that a very important Assembly was held on the 12th
16 of May?
17 A. Yes, I was aware within the context of a lot of material that was
18 mentioned in, for instance, Professor Donia's accounts of these meetings.
19 Yes, I do remember the 12th of May being mentioned more than once.
20 Q. All right. Well, it's not the main point that I want to deal with
21 you on this, but if you go to the very end of the minutes, page 60.
22 A. I have page 46 as the last page.
23 Q. I think I've got a -- can I -- sorry.
24 A. This is in Serbo-Croatian. In Cyrillic, it's fine, I can read it.
25 It suggests maybe you have a different version than I do.
Page 24561
1 Q. Does your last page, could you look at that? What's the number
2 that's stamped on the top?
3 A. 00847761.
4 Q. It's a different version. Because I've got --
5 MS. KORNER: Do Your Honours have the one that ends with
6 00913562?
7 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes.
8 MS. KORNER: We've got a copy, Your Honour.
9 JUDGE AGIUS: [Microphone not activated]
10 MS. KORNER: I think what may have happened is we replaced the
11 original minutes with a fuller translation, and obviously it has not gone
12 into the Court file.
13 Q. All right. If you look now, please, at page 60, which you have
14 got now --
15 A. Yes, I have page 60. Mm-hmm.
16 Q. Do you see the draft decision on establishing the Serbian Republic
17 of BH Army --
18 A. That's right.
19 Q. And then we see Mr. Krajisnik saying: "Is anyone against -- who's
20 in favour? Is anyone against," that's Momcilo at the bottom:
21 "Abstaining? No one. Serbian gentlemen, I congratulate you on your
22 army." So you see that --
23 A. Yes, I see that.
24 Q. I want you actually to have a look, please, at page 13.
25 A. Please, I'm trying. I'm ready.
Page 24562
1 Q. The third paragraph: "The Serbian side in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
2 the presidency, the government, the Council for national security, with
3 which we have set up --" sorry. "Which we have set up have formulated
4 strategic priority. That is to say, the strategic goals for the Serbian
5 People." Now, were you aware of those strategic goals?
6 A. Yes, there are six of them. I think I may have memorised them. I
7 may not have, but I can tell you generally. If you want me to repeat, I
8 can.
9 Q. No, no. I just want to know when did you first become aware that
10 they had set out these six strategic goals?
11 A. In reading the materials that were given to me. Again, I think it
12 was Professor Donia's account where they were mentioned.
13 Q. So before you were shown Professor Donia's account, you had never
14 heard that the Serbs had -- the Bosnian Serbs had set out in their
15 Assembly of the 12th of May the strategic goals?
16 A. No, because of the Graz agreement, we knew pretty much all of
17 those goals. That was made public and is contained in our book.
18 Q. I'm sorry, Professor, whatever you know about the Graz agreement,
19 the six strategic goals were not set out in that, were they?
20 A. In the Graz agreement? They were all there in one form or
21 another.
22 Q. All right. Now, the first such goal is separation from the other
23 two national communities.
24 A. That's correct.
25 Q. Separation of states. Separation from those who are our enemies
Page 24563
1 and who have used every opportunity, especially in this century, to attack
2 us and who would continue with such practices if we were to continue to
3 stay together in the same state.
4 Now, that, would you accept, Professor Shoup, was effectively the
5 blueprint for what became known as ethnic cleansing?
6 A. I would have to think about that. This is certainly a component
7 of ethnic cleansing, not a blueprint, but a component.
8 Q. And taken with what you saw Karadzic saying in February about the
9 Muslims, it was, was it not, a policy designed to - I'm putting it in the
10 vernacular - get rid of Muslims?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. An articulated policy?
13 A. Oh, yes.
14 Q. You never or you're unaware, are you, of any such expressed goal
15 by Izetbegovic?
16 A. No, I'm not aware of such an expressed goal by Izetbegovic.
17 Q. All right. You can give that document back to the usher. And
18 finally, I'm just going to, Your Honour, see if there's one more...
19 Yes, could you have finally, on this topic, please, the minutes of
20 the Republika Srpska Assembly, 8th of January 1993, P2449.
21 A. Mm-hmm.
22 Q. And can you turn to a speech made by Mr. Kupresanin. Do you know
23 who Mr. Kupresanin was?
24 A. I didn't run across his name frequently in our research, but I
25 assume that it's the same man who appears in Donia's testimony, as I
Page 24564
1 believe the president of the crisis committee at one point in -- am I
2 thinking about the same person? It's not somebody I'm very familiar with.
3 I agree. But I know there was some very, very negative remarks that
4 Donia alluded to, and I think it was he who was making them. Yes, please,
5 which page did you wish me --
6 Q. It's at page 64, please.
7 A. Yes, here we are. Thank you.
8 Q. Now, Mr. Kupresanin is effectively going back and having a look at
9 what happened. And can you turn to the bottom of page -- come to the
10 bottom of page 65.
11 A. Mm-hmm. "We say that this war was not necessary"?
12 Q. Yes. Well, it's not all together clear here what he means.
13 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I should say because it was -- I've had
14 the translation checked and that's what it does actually say. Or the
15 original checked.
16 Q. "We say that the war was not necessary in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The
17 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina was necessary. Right now, if we were to
18 count the population right now, there will be over a million Muslims in
19 Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosnia and Herzegovina would be predominantly a
20 Serb republic." And then: "Is war necessary in Serbia? It is a horrible
21 thing to say that the war would be necessary in Serbia. If Serbia does
22 not go into the war now, then in three to five years, the Albanians and
23 Muslims will entirely legally overtake the power in Belgrade, along with
24 the Serb opposition. This war was necessary for the Serb people. It is
25 now another question if the Serb people had played the role which had been
Page 24565
1 assigned to them? Gentlemen, you know that we entered the war with the
2 most modern weapons. I am not blaming the generals or the officers. The
3 generals and the Serb Army did not have adequate Serb leaders. Nobody had
4 told these gentlemen, Serb officers, gentlemen, this and that is your
5 task. After all, the Serb Democratic Party was not preparing the Serb
6 people for war. We do remember that our leaders, and I am not criticising
7 here, but only trying to point out the mistakes we made, were told that
8 there will be no war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and that we will
9 politically solve the problem. That is exactly what is going on in
10 Geneva, but they have been pulling our leg for years.
11 Now, we go back to this: We had aviation, howitzers, tanks,
12 cannons, but what did Muslims have? Some gun. Some machine-gun that they
13 brought from the Serbs, and homemade guns. We could have gone through
14 Bosnia as through cheese, but have not done it."
15 Now, Professor, one of the things that you talked about was that
16 when you were, as it were, assigning blame to all sides, that the Muslims
17 were armed or were arming themselves.
18 A. I did -- sorry. To be correct, I included in the report the
19 extent to which each side was armed as it was set out in the CIA "Balkan
20 Battlegrounds."
21 Q. Yes. Well, that's one of the problems, isn't it? I'm going to
22 show you another document, please, on the question of what arms exactly
23 the Muslims did have. Can you have a look, please -- I mean, I'm sorry,
24 before I do that. You see what Kupresanin had to say about the arms that
25 the Serbs had and the arms that the Muslims had?
Page 24566
1 A. Yes. But it's Kupresanin versus the CIA, I guess, at this point,
2 isn't it?
3 Q. And from your point of view, who do you think is likely to be more
4 accurate?
5 A. The CIA.
6 Q. I want you to think about that answer for a moment, Professor.
7 Are you seriously saying that the CIA, using open and secondary sources is
8 likely to be more accurate than one of the Bosnian Serb leaders?
9 A. If you remember, I didn't concede that the figures the CIA were
10 giving were necessarily based entirely on open sources. I'm not convinced
11 of that. But I do think that they were tasked to do this job and that
12 they did it professionally, whereas Kupresanin is trying to make a point
13 here. He is being a politician. He's saying: "We should have been able
14 to beat up the Muslims. Why didn't we?" This is why he is saying that
15 they don't have any of these weapons because he wants to say: "We should
16 have been more aggressive."
17 Q. I rather think -- well, what he says -- sorry, going back to it
18 for a moment, is: "We have aviation, howitzers, tanks, cannons." I don't
19 know, Professor, were you aware that witnesses have given evidence of
20 this?
21 A. Could you repeat the question, please.
22 Q. Were you aware that during this trial witnesses have given
23 evidence of the sort of arms that the Serbs actually had?
24 A. No, of course not. I could only provide in my report what seemed
25 to be the best, up-to-date knowledge that we all sure. If the CIA didn't
Page 24567
1 bother to read your reports, they are to blame, not me.
2 Q. What did the Muslims have? Some guns, some machine guns that they
3 bought from the Serbs, and homemade guns but have not done it. So he's
4 saying we could have defeated the Muslims, do you accept, but didn't do
5 it?
6 A. Do I accept that?
7 Q. That's what he's saying.
8 A. I accept that that's what he says. I'm not sure that that's
9 correct or not. I'm really not in a position to say.
10 Q. All right. Well, I want to show you --
11 A. And I think I disagree with him, too, as I think about it because
12 when I think about the whole -- the situation, different parts of Bosnia
13 at that particular moment, in January 1993 when the Muslim forces have
14 reached the Drina River, it's just about now. This takes us back to what
15 we mentioned earlier, and they are shelling the Serbian side. In Cazinska
16 Krajina, around Bihac, the Muslims are holding out perfectly well, thank
17 you. When the Serbs have been forced out of Mostar, well, they will be
18 forced out in a few months from this. And I'm not sure how he can say
19 they can go through Bosnia like cheese. I really don't understand that.
20 Q. I'm going to come back to this business of the "Balkan
21 Battlegrounds," as you say.
22 A. Of course.
23 Q. Because you were read, as I said, page 306, which I think
24 everybody now has copies of, and this is page 69 of the LiveNote for the
25 5th of February. And one of the things that the report, the CIA report
Page 24568
1 says is that the VRS focussed on seizing weapons from the population. Do
2 you recall that? Have you got page 306?
3 MS. KORNER: Could you distribute the copies of page 306 that you
4 did.
5 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, could he be given the Defence exhibit
6 so that we are referring to a document that's in evidence.
7 JUDGE AGIUS: Certainly, Mr. Ackerman. Thank you.
8 THE WITNESS: Yes, thank you. Mm-hmm. Yes.
9 MS. KORNER:
10 Q. Right. This is part of the conclusion that was read to you. And
11 you just said you thought the CIA report was more accurate than what
12 Mr. Kupresanin had to say. Now, I want you to --
13 A. I'm not sure that they are that different. I don't want to
14 interrupt you. I do apologise to the Court, but I realise that we have to
15 go back. The CIA report was talking mostly about numbers of persons in
16 the various Muslim organisations. And I think we should read what they
17 said about the number of arms to see if there is a contradiction. I'm not
18 sure right now without checking back.
19 Q. I'm going to suggest to you that --
20 A. If you think there is, I'll take your word for it.
21 Q. I'm going to suggest to you, Professor Shoup, that the evidence
22 from the documents and from testimony suggests or shows that it wasn't the
23 VRS who were responsible for collecting -- seizing weapons, but the
24 police, the CSB and the SJB?
25 A. Fine. I can't possibly contest the evidence as it's given here in
Page 24569
1 the Court. If it's a suggestion that the CIA got it wrong, then I have no
2 difficulty with that except to say that I'm disappointed that this very
3 professional organisation has let us all down.
4 Q. Well, that's the problem, Professor Shoup, that as I suggest and I
5 thought you'd agreed, that they rely on open-source material. In fact,
6 they say so in their introduction.
7 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, this is the fourth time now that
8 Mr. Shoup has been asked about this. He has said every time that he does
9 not believe they relied on open-source material, that they also relied on
10 material that they had developed in other ways. I don't know how many
11 times he has to say it. But Ms. Korner is now suggesting at line 24
12 and 25 that she thought he agreed, and he has never agreed on that.
13 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you, Mr. Ackerman. I think the witness can
14 answer for himself.
15 MS. KORNER: All right.
16 Q. Do you have "Balkan Battlegrounds, Volume I"?
17 A. I have this page 306. Is that what you're referring to?
18 MS. KORNER: Could you give your witness a copy of "Balkan
19 Battlegrounds, Volume I." I'm sorry? I thought it was an exhibit.
20 MR. ACKERMAN: No, "Balkan Battlegrounds, Volume I" is not an
21 exhibit. I don't have it, I've never had it. You have it. I saw it over
22 on your desk. But I don't have it.
23 MS. KORNER: I'm sorry. Well, just a moment.
24 JUDGE AGIUS: What we have been given --
25 MS. KORNER:
Page 24570
1 Q. I'm sorry, because you rely on -- you know, Professor Shoup, you
2 rely, do you not, partly, as one of the sources of "Balkan Battlegrounds,
3 Volume I."
4 A. I do need to clarify that point. I have submitted to the Court in
5 my report the evidence produced by these research organisations. I
6 actually question some of the findings of the CIA in the report itself, as
7 you know I do. Therefore, I'm offering to the Court what the latest, up
8 to date and very professional assessment is, and also pointing out where I
9 have doubts about that. So I don't rely on it in that sense, except in
10 places where they give us data such as the armaments of the two sides and
11 so forth. It seems to me that's the best place to go. But not their
12 conclusions always, no, I don't rely on.
13 Q. All right:
14 MS. KORNER: Well, Your Honour, I'm rather surprised because if --
15 well, never mind. I'll just get on with it.
16 Q. I'm going to read to you then what it says at page 16 of the
17 introduction to "Balkan Battlegrounds."
18 JUDGE AGIUS: This is volume I?
19 MS. KORNER: Volume I, Your Honour. It's the only one we could
20 get hold of.
21 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you.
22 MS. KORNER:
23 Q. "Given the dearth of primary archival material, the authors'
24 research for this project relied heavily on local and western daily press
25 accounts by radio, television, and wire services. Contemporary local
Page 24571
1 newspaper or magazine interviews with military commanders, articles in
2 wartime, and post-war official military journals and the memoirs of some
3 of the commanders."
4 A. Yes, you don't quote everything that they say, which is important.
5 Q. All right. I'll give you the book, and you can tell me what else
6 you think is important.
7 A. It may take me a minute to find it, but I'll just summarise what
8 they also say. And that is, we discovered, that is, the CIA team, that we
9 could learn a great deal by cross-checking the information given in the
10 sources that you cite on one side against the same -- against the accounts
11 on the other side, and that they also say that we were surprised the
12 extent to which local newspapers would report on the activities of --
13 around their front. I'm sure you'll find that if you want to there in
14 that account. I was surprised, too. I thought they wouldn't get much
15 material in that fashion.
16 Q. I'll certainly give you the book because I don't want in any way
17 to mislead the Court on this. And finally, on page 17 of this
18 introduction, "We gratefully acknowledge our debt to BBC Worldwide
19 Limited, Penguin, and to authors Laura Silber and Allan Little for
20 allowing us to quote liberally from their book "Yugoslavia: Death of a
21 Nation" which helped provide much of the political context for our
22 military analysis."
23 A. Yes. I'm glad they acknowledged the -- it's an excellent book, of
24 course.
25 Q. I'll give you the book over the break, Professor, and then you can
Page 24572
1 look for any other bits that you want to tell the Court about.
2 A. Yeah.
3 Q. Now, I'd like you to have a look, please, at P271 on this question
4 of arms and who was doing the disarming.
5 This is a document which, again, I imagine you haven't seen
6 before.
7 A. No, I have not.
8 Q. It is signed by someone called Stojan Zupljanin. Do you know who
9 Stojan Zupljanin was?
10 A. No, I have no idea.
11 Q. All right. And what he is talking about in this -- it's actually,
12 I think the date is -- it would appear to be July, I think. Maybe May,
13 because there's a second one attached.
14 Right, sorry.
15 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I just realised I need to check one of
16 the... Your Honour, I just realised I stapled together two documents which
17 are different exhibits.
18 Q. This is an order to the public security stations, and it
19 says: "With a view to monitoring the disarmament of paramilitary
20 formations, armed groups and formations in possession of illegal firearms
21 and ammunition in the area of Banja Luka CSB and with a view of following
22 the outcome of this operation, all SJBs are obliged to submit to the
23 centre detailed information on these disarmament operations up to and
24 inclusive of the 15th of June 1992."
25 And then it lists the information which is required, weapons and
Page 24573
1 ammunition returned voluntarily in response to the order issued by the
2 Crisis Staff of the Autonomous Region of Krajina and various descriptions.
3 Now, the next document, and I'm sorry, Your Honour, it's not on my
4 list because I clipped the two together by mistake. We're just checking
5 what the number is and we'll get it out ourselves. It's P1288. And we'll
6 just -- we'll put it up on the ELMO.
7 JUDGE AGIUS: P1288.
8 MS. KORNER: For some reason, I don't believe they brought the
9 exhibits to the Court today. So we'll have to hand it out ourselves.
10 JUDGE AGIUS: Can we have it placed on the ELMO, please.
11 MS. KORNER: I'm afraid you'll have to look at it on the ELMO.
12 JUDGE AGIUS: [Microphone not activated]
13 MS. KORNER: Sorry, Your Honour. I clipped the two together
14 without realising.
15 Q. This is the response to the request or order from Stojan Zupljanin
16 from Prijedor, dated the 5th of July. You can see that it's a response
17 because it says: "Reference your dispatch number 11-1/04." It was the
18 1st of July, that date.
19 "In reference to your dispatch with the above number and date,
20 please note the following: In keeping with the order of the Crisis Staff
21 of the Autonomous Region of Krajina, 2 M-48 rifles, 2 automatic rifles,
22 and 4 pistols and 55 bullets have been returned." There is then a
23 description, Serb description of the fighting in Hambarine and Kozarac.
24 "Four, most weapons and ammunition were seized in the fighting in
25 Hambarine and Kozarac. Some seized weapons are currently in the
Page 24574
1 possession of military organs. Most of the weapons belonging to the
2 Territorial Defence of Hambarine and Kozarac were returned to the army.
3 There is some information that the arm and the police seized weapons and
4 kept them for themselves or gave them to others to use. Our station's
5 records regarding seized and collected weapons and ammunition as follows:
6 16 automatic rifles, 7 M-48s, 184 hunting rifles, 24 hunting carbines,
7 8 MK rifles, 445 pistols -- .9 millimetre pistols, 280 7.65 millimetre, 90
8 7.62 calibre pistols, 6.35 calibre pistols, pistol ammunition and hunting
9 ammunition."
10 A. Mm-hmm.
11 Q. Now, do you agree, Professor Shoup - and this is the Prijedor
12 record - that the Muslim side were hardly armed to the same extent as the
13 Bosnian Serbs?
14 A. I don't agree with you to the extent that this document does not
15 prove that. I believe you're correct, but I don't believe it on the basis
16 of this document.
17 JUDGE AGIUS: Could you suggest to the witness what, according to
18 the records that we have, was the population of Muslims in Prijedor?
19 MS. KORNER: Not without checking, Your Honour, no. I could do
20 that.
21 JUDGE AGIUS: Of course, that may be relevant for his answer.
22 THE WITNESS: I would like to explain why I don't believe it on
23 the basis of this document.
24 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, in the meantime, go ahead, Professor.
25 THE WITNESS: Yes, I'll tell you why. Because these people -- I
Page 24575
1 believe that this was, generally speaking, the situation. I don't think
2 the people in this region were terribly heavily armed, but I also know
3 from experience this whole Balkan practice, that when you think a war is
4 about to break out, you bury your arms. You do not make it easy to find.
5 And later you then dig them up and go to war. So I suspect in a city such
6 as Prijedor this probably wasn't happening, but the number of arms they
7 find is no indication of how many arms the Muslims may have had.
8 Thank you.
9 MS. KORNER:
10 Q. I don't know, do you know anything about the attacks on Kozarac
11 and Hambarine?
12 A. No, I don't. That is, the details. I know that they took place,
13 but not the details. I agree with your general conclusion so that we are
14 not in disagreement with each other. I'm simply saying that this document
15 doesn't prove your contention.
16 MS. KORNER: This is the wrong volume. Volume I. Your Honour, in
17 fact, this will do, Your Honour. It's not the census document, but it's a
18 rough... This is -- Your Honour, this is not the census document we've
19 all looked at. It's Exhibit 1150, which shows that Prijedor contained
20 112.470 inhabitants of which 49.454 were Muslim.
21 JUDGE AGIUS: So roughly plus or minus 50.000 Muslims in Prijedor.
22 MS. KORNER: There were also 6.300 Croats and 47.745 Serbs. Your
23 Honour, this is the 23rd of September 1991.
24 Q. All right. I think, Professor Shoup, if I'm wrong, you are, in
25 fact, agreeing with me that the Muslims had nothing like the weaponry that
Page 24576
1 was available to the Bosnian Serbs?
2 A. Yes, I agree, especially if we're talking about Bosanska Krajina.
3 This particular region. I think we should go region by region. But I
4 certainly -- in the context of this region around Prijedor and Banja Luka,
5 I would certainly agree.
6 Q. Now, one of the other things that you said, again on the 5th of
7 February, and this is the LiveNote at page 92, is -- and this was in
8 answer to questions by me, the very beginning of cross-examination when I
9 asked you whether you were trying to -- you were not trying to suggest,
10 are you, that because Bosnia was dysfunctional that excuses the commission
11 of war crimes by individuals, and you said: "I'm trying to suggest that
12 war crimes must sifted through, a Balkan situation, and not for us to
13 stand off and try to apply standards and imagine the Bosnian situation as
14 one that we're more comfortable with. That is, one that is not as
15 complicated and so on. I think that's what was done during the war itself.
16 We had to talk about a war of aggression because we felt more
17 comfortable with it."
18 Now, in the light of what we have been looking at today and
19 Friday, it was a war of aggression, wasn't it, that the Serbs were waging?
20 A. The background of the Serb actions, as you know, is a total
21 incompatibility between Bosnian Muslim aims for the Republic of Bosnia
22 with the aims of the Serbs. Both of them are using nationalistic language
23 which I really find very repellent, frankly. They were both preparing for
24 war against one another. I've said time and time again that the situation
25 really was leading to war. I believe that both sides felt that by early
Page 24577
1 1992. And it was not a question of aggression by Serbia, as I see it.
2 They had incompatible aims. They wanted to secede. Izetbegovic said you
3 could not secede. And they decided to go to war to secede. Yes, in that
4 sense, if you recognise that Bosnia was a state and people were rebelling
5 against the state. But I have said over and over in my testimony that I
6 don't think Bosnia any longer existed. It was a dysfunctional state.
7 Just like Badinter had said of Yugoslavia, it had ceased to exist.
8 Q. Accepting for the moment what you say, that Bosnia -- and this is
9 purely for the purposes of this argument -- but that Bosnia didn't exist
10 and it was a dysfunctional state. It was still, was it not, a war of
11 aggression by the Serbs on the Muslims by and large?
12 A. Then, I guess I would have to say the Muslims were carrying out a
13 war of aggression against the Serbs in areas where similar actions were
14 taking place around Sarajevo, where the Serbs were placed in camps and so
15 forth and dislocated.
16 May I just close my remarks, I'm not out of sympathy with your
17 position. The Serbs were using their arms. They were in a much stronger
18 position, and they were going to take advantage of that situation. Looked
19 at from the point of view of the local situation, I would be glad to agree
20 with you. But not in Bosnia as a whole.
21 Q. Professor, I'm sorry. I thought we dealt with this. Some half
22 hour ago or so, you agreed that what you had said yourself was that the
23 Muslims were acting in self-defense.
24 A. Not everywhere. Well, everybody was. Everybody was both
25 aggressing [sic] against the other side and acting in self-defence. My
Page 24578
1 point which I'm trying to get across if you look at all of Bosnia, you
2 will see that people were doing the same thing everywhere. If you want to
3 label it as aggression in Bosanska Krajina against the Muslims, then I
4 suggest you label it as aggression against the Serbs in Konjic, for
5 example, by the Muslims. So everybody is committing aggression against
6 everyone else.
7 Q. I know that's what you would like to say, but Professor Shoup in
8 actual reality, and it's not my position, it's what I'm suggesting to you,
9 the evidence clearly shows is that the aggressors were the Serbs, for one
10 very simple reason if nothing else, that the Muslims had no arms?
11 A. I'm sorry, I agree with you when it comes to Prijedor and
12 Banja Luka. I don't agree with you when it comes to Bosnia as a whole.
13 Let's take the situation in Mostar or on the Neretva River. The Croatians
14 and Muslims joined forces in 1992. They expelled the Serbs from Mostar,
15 as you know. Now, are they committing aggression against the Serbs in
16 Mostar? I can't ask you a question, but it would be the one that I would
17 ask you.
18 Q. Well, all right, Professor, I don't think that I'm going to
19 continue this argument. You accept, do you, that in the Autonomous Region
20 of Krajina, from what you know about it, which isn't --
21 A. Yes. If we want to use the term "aggression" in this fight hat
22 was going on, I think it's inappropriate since everybody is committing
23 aggression against everybody else but if it suits you best, I will
24 certainly say, all right, here's where the Serbs are predominant, let's
25 use the word "aggression.".
Page 24579
1 Q. No, no, Professor, I don't want you to say: "What suits you
2 best." I am asking you if alone some of the documents I have shown you
3 this morning and some from what you know of your own knowledge don't
4 reveal clearly that the Serbs were the -- the Bosnian Serbs were the
5 aggressor in this conflict.
6 A. In Bosnia?
7 Q. In Bosnia.
8 A. On the basis of documents you will show me.
9 Q. On the basis of documents you have seen yourself.
10 A. No, absolutely not. I repeat what I said before. The war was
11 going in one direction in the south. It was going in another direction in
12 the north. A third direction in the east. And you're saying that the
13 people who are winning are the aggressors. Well, if that's your standard
14 then I would say that the Muslims and the Croats are aggressors in Mostar
15 and the Serbs are aggressors in Banja Luka, simply because that happens to
16 be the side that is winning of in any given area of Bosnia.
17 Q. I'm just going to go back and ask you then what you meant when you
18 said yourself in answer to Mr. Ackerman that the Muslims were -- I'm
19 sorry, I better find the part again and read you back what you said.
20 Page 47, LiveNote: "I repeat over and over and over again that all sides
21 were preparing for war even on the Muslim side in self-defense."
22 A. Yes, preparing for war means you have to prepare for the defence
23 of your own ethnic bastions; for example, Sarajevo in the case of the
24 Muslims, maybe Banja Luka or Pale in the case of the Serbs. I don't know
25 what else to say here. In a war, there is defence, offence, but
Page 24580
1 certainly -- I don't see the tactics being much different except that the
2 Serbs had the stronger -- were the stronger side in most parts of Bosnia.
3 Q. I'm sorry. You say: "Even on the Muslim side in self-defense."
4 I asked you about this earlier this morning --
5 A. I think everybody --
6 Q. Just a moment, Professor Shoup.
7 A. Excuse me, I didn't mean to interrupt.
8 Q. That the Muslims were preparing for war to defend themselves, to
9 protect themselves. What else does an ordinary English word like that
10 mean?
11 A. It means that a war is looming. It means that the Serbs have the
12 overwhelming military advantage prior to the war. So it's quite -- that
13 the Muslims are anticipating that the Serbs will attack the Muslims. That
14 is what happened. It's also what happened is that the Muslims allied
15 themselves with the Croatians in the south and took the attack to the
16 Serbs.
17 Q. I'm sorry, you said something, and it hasn't come out on the
18 screen, about the Muslims preparing for the attack.
19 A. I'm sorry?
20 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, it's not your fault, Professor Shoup. It's the
21 transcript that won't cover the entirety of --
22 MS. KORNER: Could that be marked, it's at line 18, page 41, so
23 when the tape is listened to, it can be corrected. Your Honour, that's
24 probably an appropriate moment.
25 JUDGE AGIUS: We'll have a 25-minute break starting from now.
Page 24581
1 Thank you.
2 --- Recess taken at 10.31 a.m.
3 --- On resuming at 11.01 a.m.
4 MS. KORNER: I'm going to leave that.
5 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.
6 MS. KORNER: Sorry.
7 Q. I'm going to leave that particular discussion, Professor Shoup,
8 which doesn't seem to me to be getting very productive. Could you have
9 your report back again, please. And could you turn to page 18.
10 A. Yes, I'm ready.
11 Q. In the third paragraph, you're talking about first of all the
12 memorandum of sovereignty.
13 A. That's correct -- that's right.
14 Q. You're aware, aren't you, that Amendment 60 of the 1990 amendments
15 to the Bosnian constitution declared Bosnia a sovereign state?
16 A. Would you repeat the question again.
17 Q. You are aware, are you not, and I'll show it to you if you want --
18 are you aware, are you not, that in --
19 A. Amendment 60 of the --
20 Q. Amendment 60 --
21 A. Adopted in 1990, I presume.
22 Q. That's right. Declared that the socialist Republic of
23 Bosnia-Herzegovina is a democratic sovereign state?
24 A. Yes, those declarations of sovereignty were common in the
25 republics at that time. They weren't obviously taken to mean at that
Page 24582
1 moment in 1990 that Bosnia-Herzegovina was declaring its independence of
2 Yugoslavia.
3 Q. Yes. No, I just wanted to -- because it wasn't the first time?
4 A. It was not the first time, no.
5 Q. And then you go on to deal with the debate over the plans to hold
6 a referendum. You don't mention there the plebiscite that was held in
7 November 1991. But you're aware of it, I know.
8 A. Of course. As you can see, I'm trying to summarise what was
9 already submitted into evidence, that is, the book, and not to go into
10 excruciating detail.
11 Q. Okay. And then in the third paragraph, do you see the sentence:
12 "By this time, the Serbs had already formed SAOs."
13 A. Yes, this is the third paragraph, yes.
14 Q. "That seemed bent on secession."
15 A. Yes, that's right.
16 Q. And indeed as you rightly say in your book at page 73, you deal
17 with this in much more detail.
18 A. That's right.
19 Q. Yes, it's the chapter, the dissent into war, page 73: "Serb
20 autonomous oblast were formed in Serb areas of Bosnia, the SAO in eastern
21 and old Herzegovina was established on September the 12th."
22 A. That's correct.
23 Q. "The SAO of Bosanska Krajina on --
24 A. Mm-hmm, that's correct.
25 Q. -- September 16th." And so on. "This continued the process of
Page 24583
1 wresting control away from Sarajevo started by the Serbs in October 1990."
2 All right, now, then could you move, please, to the next -- I'm
3 sorry, page 20 where you summarise the factors at work which made --
4 A. Yes, that's correct.
5 Q. A constitutional agreement in Bosnia so difficult.
6 A. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. That's right.
7 Q. And then the second factor that you summarise: "Were the actions
8 of the Serb and Croat break away regions in declaring autonomy on the one
9 hand and the Bosnian Assembly in declaring sovereignty and pushing
10 independence on the other."
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. "We are not able to say at this point which action provoked the
13 other."
14 A. Mm-hmm.
15 Q. But the declaration of the SAOs was in September of 1991. The
16 declaration of sovereignty, pushing for independence, was in October 1991.
17 So how do you say you're not able to say which action provoked the other?
18 A. Well, I'm sure, as the Prosecution is aware, that the motion to
19 declare Bosnia sovereign, which is in this case and in this context a very
20 serious move, we agree, that that motion was made twice earlier and not
21 accepted in the spring of -- this would be the spring of 1991, before the
22 SAOs were formed. And that's why I'm not going to prejudge the issue of
23 who started all of this. Frankly, I think they were both intent on their
24 own agendas.
25 Q. I'm sorry. But -- so when you said the break away regions in
Page 24584
1 declaring autonomy and the Bosnian Assembly and declaring sovereignty and
2 pushing for independence, you didn't mean the actions of September 1991
3 but you meant something earlier? Is that what you're saying?
4 A. I have that in mind. As I said, I don't try in this report to go
5 into great detail. But what is influencing my statement here is the fact
6 that at least -- well, not at least but two efforts were made prior to
7 October 15th in the Bosnian Assembly to declare sovereignty for reasons
8 that are not clear to me, they were not -- the resolutions were not
9 adopted. I think that was as early as January or February of 1991.
10 Q. All right. So we should read into your sentence there: "Earlier
11 attempts."
12 A. Yes, mm-hmm. Yes. I agree.
13 Q. And then you go on to say this: "It was clear, to be fair to the
14 Muslim side --"
15 A. That's right.
16 Q. "-- that once the formation of the AOs was underway, the SDA could
17 rightly feel that any compromise in the direction of regionalisation of
18 Bosnia would in the end lead to Bosnia's dismemberment."
19 Why did you need to adds add the words: "To be fair to the Muslim
20 side." Aren't you trying to be fair to all sides?
21 A. Well, I -- the declaration -- by focussing on the adoption of the
22 declaration of sovereignty without the approval of the Serbs on
23 October 15th, we see what is a really very basic violation of the rights
24 of one of the ethnic communities in Bosnia-Herzegovina. I felt it was not
25 fair to leave it at that, that we had to point out the dilemma in which
Page 24585
1 the Bosnian Muslim side faced, and that was that given the fact that these
2 SAOs were now in existence, any compromise in the direction of
3 regionalisation of Bosnia could lead to the -- could simply lead to the
4 further dismemberment of Bosnia. This is a terrible dilemma for all
5 sides, it seems to me. I don't think anyone would say otherwise.
6 Q. So it's not, is it, that your report starts from - putting it in
7 as neutral a term as I can find - a predisposition to look at the point of
8 view of the Serbs throughout?
9 A. No. I may inadvertently give that impression. I certainly -- and
10 this is precisely why this sentence is here, to show the dilemma in which
11 the Muslims were at this point. I don't want to look at it only from the
12 Serb side.
13 Q. All right. I want to deal very briefly, then, please with
14 something you say in your report on the military side. Page 27.
15 Now, you talk about there in paragraph 3: "On the other hand, the
16 war was not all as one-sided as observers initially thought."
17 A. I see, yes.
18 Q. "Croat forces with Bosnian Muslims in their ranks drove the Serbs
19 from Mostar. The struggle over establishing a corridor between Western
20 Bosnia and Semberija first ended in defeat for the Serbs, and the fight
21 for the corridor continued throughout the war."
22 A. That's right.
23 Q. Now, again I ask you how much detail do you know about the fight
24 for the corridor?
25 A. Well, I have not examined the war in Bosnia from a strictly
Page 24586
1 military viewpoint. However, I was -- I've spent many hours trying to
2 determine just generally what did happen in those months after April of
3 1992. As I -- I don't know that if I have to recapitulate this, but I
4 will be brief, and that is that initially there was an offensive from the
5 north by the Muslims and the Croatians. It was the Croatians who were the
6 chief instigators of this invasion. They pushed south. This would be --
7 I won't maybe get the dates exactly right. This would have to be June of
8 1992. Then the Serbs -- and that, of course, broke the corridor, at least
9 for a week or two. And then the -- or more. And then the Serbs
10 counterattacked and, as we know, opened the corridor again.
11 Q. Right. This is what you say. You said that it ended in defeat
12 for the Serbs, and the fight for the corridor continued throughout the
13 war. But that's, may I suggest, an inaccurate statement?
14 A. No, the first offensive that was launched in the corridor was
15 launched by the Croatians and the Muslims and led to defeat by the Serbs,
16 as I just said.
17 Q. What do you base this on? Military documents?
18 A. Oh, my goodness. That was -- I have gone over that, you know -- I
19 couldn't possibly tell you, on the -- if the question is, did that happen
20 or not, I would stand firmly on the position yes, exactly that's what
21 happened. That was way back ten years ago that that material was first,
22 you know, looked at.
23 Q. All right. You see, I'm going to suggest to you that the evidence
24 from the Serbs own military documents shows that the corridor was cut, as
25 you say rightly, by the Croat and Muslim forces. It was then retaken, the
Page 24587
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Page 24595
1 corridor was opened by, at the latest, the end of July 1992. And
2 thereafter-wards was expanded by the Serbs?
3 A. Yes, that's what I said. That's basically what I said a minute
4 ago.
5 Q. When you say the fight to the corridor continued, the corridor
6 thereafter was open?
7 A. Yes, but the fight to widen it continued. The forces were
8 entrenched on each side, but the fighting continued along the corridor. I
9 will simply mention, because it's fresh in my mind, the CIA reports make a
10 big point of the fact that a great number of Serb forces were tied down on
11 the corridor and could not be used elsewhere.
12 Q. All right. Now, can you look, please, next at page -- just for a
13 moment, to page 28. Just one thing I want to ask you about.
14 A. Certainly.
15 Q. You say in the third paragraph: "While we tend to think of the
16 conflict as one of irregular forces." Who's "we"?
17 A. It's the editorial "we".
18 Q. It's you.
19 A. It's me.
20 Q. It's you.
21 A. Yeah, but I am -- here, there is a tendency to be a little, let's
22 say, flexible. When I say: "When we tend to think," I mean that not only
23 I, but that was the general impression at the time the war was being
24 fought.
25 Q. Yes, but -- well, that's what I'm getting at. Who do you say had
Page 24596
1 this impression apart from you?
2 A. Well, I can't cite the -- the articles are in the book. But there
3 were articles that were appearing frequently in military journals such as
4 Jane's Intelligence, I forget the exact title of that magazine, painting
5 this war in very picturesque terms. For example, I can cite one article,
6 I could find it for you here, which described how one side that was on the
7 higher side of the hill would pack dynamite in a rubber tube and roll it
8 down the hill on the other side. This seemed to be like a primitive way
9 of fighting wars, and you had other examples of this kind which gave that
10 impression.
11 Q. Well, I lost -- just trying to find a note that I made.
12 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I'm sorry, I was going to deal with
13 something, but I can't now find the note I was looking for. Your Honour,
14 I'll move on, and I may come back to that later.
15 THE WITNESS: Yes.
16 MS. KORNER:
17 Q. All right. Now, can you look, please, next at page 33.
18 A. Mm-hmm. Certainly.
19 Q. No, sorry. Page 41.
20 A. Page 41?
21 Q. Yeah.
22 A. Mm-hmm.
23 Q. This is where you are talking about effectively your thesis of the
24 demonisation of the Serbs.
25 A. Yes. Let's see.
Page 24597
1 Q. Right.
2 A. Yes. Well, I don't use that term here, of course.
3 Q. No, you use it earlier on, but that's what you're talking about,
4 isn't it?
5 A. No, I'm talking about the fact that acts which --
6 Q. Stop. Sorry, stop for a moment.
7 A. Sure, I'm sorry.
8 Q. Go back to the top of page 41, the first paragraph: "To be clear,
9 there was reason to be outraged by the Serb atrocities committed against
10 the Muslims but this observer in any case became deeply troubled by --"
11 A. Yes, you're right, I do use the term. If I might explain, it's
12 simply that what follows is an explanation of why no one believed that the
13 Muslims might have shelled their own people. But...
14 Q. This is the -- is your thesis or whatever you want to call it,
15 demonisation, is that based entirely on this incident in the marketplace?
16 A. Oh, absolutely not. No. It's based --
17 Q. You keep on going back to it, Professor Shoup.
18 A. Well, it shows you how far it went. That is, nobody would believe
19 that the Muslims might have done this when the facts indicate that we
20 don't know and that the Muslims were also capable of shelling their own
21 people. It shows you how far this whole tendency to blame the Serbs for
22 everything went, and this is in the -- I think this is a very important
23 point to make in front of the Court.
24 Q. Can we look at the third of your conclusions: "The outrage over
25 these incidents and the rush to blame one side reflected the fact that the
Page 24598
1 Serbs often refused to cooperate with international observers in Bosnia.
2 Out of suspicion of the IC's motives..." That's the international
3 community, I take it: "...and persuaded that the media would use any
4 opportunity given them to engage in Serb bashing," as you so put it.
5 A. That's correct.
6 Q. Could you have a look, please, at another document, 2425. Now
7 this, again, is a report from the 1st Krajina Corps dated the 3rd of
8 September, which, again, I take it, you've never looked at?
9 A. No, this is the 3rd of September 1992.
10 Q. That's right. And it's headed state of morale in the 1st Krajina
11 Corps units --
12 A. Certainly.
13 Q. -- In August of 1992. If you go, please, to the second page of
14 the translation.
15 A. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
16 Q. "All units and armed formations have essentially been put under the
17 control of the 1st Krajina Corps."
18 A. Yes, I read that.
19 Q. Although there is still resistance from the CSB.
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. I'm suggesting certainly by August 1992 the so-called paramilitary
22 formations were actually under the control of the 1st Krajina Corps?
23 A. I see. Yes.
24 Q. And then on the point that you make at the bottom of that
25 page: "The effect of combat morale of the resolution of the Serbian
Page 24599
1 Republic crisis by the international community, the intolerant attitude of
2 the international community towards the Serbs' position in BH is causing
3 extreme distrust of their goodwill. In this period, there was great
4 interest in visits to LRZs," which I think is camps, "...with euphoria the
5 dominant feeling, interest in the sick and difficult cases and the
6 attempts to show the world public the unbearable conditions in these
7 camps."
8 A. Yes, that's right.
9 Q. And then deal with the visit by Mr. Mazowietski to what was
10 Manjaca.
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. And then can you go down to the next part: "The effect of the
13 political security situation in the territory --"
14 A. I see.
15 THE INTERPRETER: Please could the counsel slow down a bit.
16 MS. KORNER:
17 Q. "Certain tensions --"
18 A. The effect of the political and --
19 Q. ... present in the Kotor Varos, Kljuc, Sanski Most, and Prijedor
20 areas.
21 A. I'm sorry. Could you repeat that. Now I've lost you. Last
22 paragraph: "Certain tensions were still present." Yes, I see it.
23 Q. I'm going to start again because I see, and it's my fault, I'm
24 sorry, I'm going too fast. The transcript hasn't picked up the beginning.
25 "Certain tensions are still present in the Kotor Varos, Kljuc,
Page 24600
1 Sanski Most, and Prijedor areas because of a large number of arrested
2 citizens for whom there is no evidence or criminal reports that they
3 participated in the armed rebellion."
4 A. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
5 Q. "The CSB especially from Prijedor is not contributing to this
6 approach. Prijedor, headed by --" that should be Simo, it's Stevo
7 Drljaca, "...who led a convoy of people who wanted to leave the crisis
8 area. They committed a massacre in the Skender Vakuf area of over 150 men
9 who wanted to leave the territory of the Autonomous Region of Krajina."
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. "This action caused indignation, not only among citizens, but also
12 among 1st Krajina Corps soldiers. This dark stain which was created did
13 not have support, but it is very fortunate that the international
14 community did not find out about it in more detail."
15 A. That's right.
16 Q. Now, Professor Shoup --
17 A. Shoup, yes.
18 Q. Shoup, I'm sorry. The Serbs themselves were trying to hide things
19 from the international community, weren't they?
20 A. Yes, I would say they were, and I think everybody was.
21 Could I elaborate? I don't want to --
22 Q. Certainly.
23 A. Yes. My experience in doing research is this, and this was what I
24 was trying to say under part 3 on page 41, the Serbs did not really
25 provide the international community with information on what was happening
Page 24601
1 to the Serbs themselves in Bosnia. I found it extremely difficult to find
2 this out. I did, I think, satisfactorily. And this struck me as very
3 odd, and perhaps as a result of the suspicion of the international
4 community, and of me, by the Serb side.
5 Q. Couldn't it just be that they weren't providing information
6 because they didn't want the international community to know what they
7 were doing? Isn't that an alternative thesis?
8 A. I think these are -- I don't understand -- I know they are hiding
9 what they are doing. You and I are in agreement on that, but I don't know
10 why they would hide what the Muslims were doing to the Serb side, or the
11 Croatians -- not hide it, but make it difficult to find out. This was
12 what I was -- this was my experience and something that puzzled me
13 continually in my research.
14 Q. Well, you see, that's the next topic that I want to come on to,
15 Professor, and that's this: That what they were showing to the
16 international community, amongst others, was propaganda suggesting
17 atrocities committed by the other side.
18 A. Well, maybe so, but they didn't make the chapter and verse, that
19 is, the details of those atrocities, easily available.
20 Now, let me qualify that. There were documents sent to the United
21 Nations listing the atrocities that were committed against the Serbs. But
22 to really get a realistic picture of what was happening in Sarajevo in the
23 private prisons, for example, where Serbs were being held and later were
24 exhumed when the war ended, you had to go outside the regular propaganda
25 channels to find this material.
Page 24602
1 Q. I'm now going to ask you to have a look at a video of some of the
2 television programmes that were going out.
3 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, this is actually a brand-new video,
4 which has just come into our possession. And I'm not going to play all of
5 it. We haven't had -- because we got it so recently, we haven't had a
6 chance to do a full transcript. But that's going to -- that's happening,
7 and we've done a transcript of some parts and summaries of the others.
8 I'm not going to play the whole thing.
9 Can I hand out the transcripts that we have done.
10 JUDGE AGIUS: Has it been disclosed to Mr. Ackerman?
11 MS. KORNER: Mr. Ackerman has a copy, yes.
12 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you.
13 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, as far as exhibit numbers go, I think
14 this will be 2727? Are you sure?
15 JUDGE AGIUS: Last one was 2726, I think.
16 MS. KORNER: Right. I thought we had made -- because I didn't
17 make the part 3 of the video of whatever the --
18 JUDGE AGIUS: I know that we skipped one. We skipped one number.
19 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please, Mr. President.
20 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, sorry.
21 Perhaps Madam Chuqing can -- Madam Registrar could --
22 MS. KORNER: 2727 it is, Your Honour. So it will be 2727 for the
23 video, 2727.1 for the transcript. We will replace it with a full one,
24 Your Honour, when it's finished.
25 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay, thank you.
Page 24603
1 Madam Registrar, just make sure that we haven't had 2727 before.
2 Okay.
3 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I'm going to skip -- there's quite a
4 lengthy part which is -- if Your Honour goes to the transcript at 4.12,
5 it's the third page, there's a piece on Ostojic. It's a reporter talking.
6 We haven't had that transcribed. I'm going to skip from where it goes
7 4.10 to 08 on the timer. I hope.
8 [Videotape played]
9 [Please refer to Exhibit P2727.1 for transcript]
10 MS. KORNER: The sound does get better, Your Honour.
11 [Videotape played]
12 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, we're going to skip.
13 [Videotape played]
14 MS. KORNER: This is just the end of...
15 [Videotape played]
16 JUDGE AGIUS: One moment, could we have -- stop. Could we have
17 start this again and have the interpreters read out from the transcript so
18 that we can watch the video at the same time because if we -- I stay
19 reading, I miss what I can visually see. And I mean, the visual
20 perception is also important in these matters.
21 MS. KORNER: I think the interpreters have got the -- yes, they
22 have, Your Honour.
23 JUDGE AGIUS: I think they have, yeah. There is one -- okay, all
24 right. So when we start --
25 THE INTERPRETER: Can the interpreters know where it starts?
Page 24604
1 JUDGE AGIUS: Where we just started, with the --
2 MS. KORNER: That isn't Ostojic, Your Honour.
3 THE INTERPRETER: We couldn't find it before.
4 JUDGE AGIUS: With the piece on Ostojic, yeah.
5 THE INTERPRETER: Which is the page, please, for the interpreters?
6 Thank you.
7 JUDGE AGIUS: We have to go back a bit, rewind just a little bit.
8 [Videotape played]
9 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I don't propose to play any more of the
10 video firstly because we haven't had a chance to properly go through it,
11 translate it, and secondly because it is apparently from the summary it
12 deals with the late of 1993 -- with the Vance-Owen Plan.
13 Q. Now, Professor Shoup, having watched that -- now, first of all,
14 were you aware of what that first camp was that you were shown?
15 A. Manjaca he's talking about. Yes, certainly.
16 Q. You heard about Manjaca?
17 A. Of course.
18 Q. What is being alleged in this part of the film from the people
19 that you see is that Manjaca is a camp where conditions are relatively
20 good, where they get medical treatment and the like. Would you agree with
21 that?
22 A. No. And I think it's -- I'm not sure the Prosecutor might wish to
23 amplify this point. As I see it, some of these prisoners are wearing
24 Chetnik hats; is that correct? Which they are probably being forced to
25 wear, to humiliate them. That is my conclusion right away.
Page 24605
1 Q. From the point of view of conditions what is being suggested by
2 this footage, isn't it, that there was medical treatment, that the food
3 was cooked by a number of professional cooks and so on and so forth.
4 A. Yes, I wouldn't believe that. And the minute I saw the "sajkaca"
5 on these Muslims' heads, I wouldn't believe a word that they said.
6 Q. You might not because, Professor Shoup, you obviously have
7 expertise in this area of the world. What about the ordinary member of
8 the public? And you saw there was an English reporter there, or somebody
9 speaking in English. What would they think?
10 A. I don't know. You're better qualified to say that, except that
11 it's so common for people being held in prisons to say that everything is
12 just fine, that I must say that even an ordinary, intelligent spectator
13 must have had some skepticism about this. But that's just my opinion.
14 Q. And it then goes on to say, as we all saw, that whilst these
15 people were being looked after in this camp, there were -- sorry, while
16 the Serbs were taking care of their prisoners, fresh graves of known and
17 mass graves of unknown Serbian heroes are spreading all over the Krajina.
18 And then you see those utterly repellent photographs.
19 A. Yes, so much of that was going that it was terrible. And of
20 course the Serbs were defeating their own cause. Then no one would
21 believe -- when some atrocity was committed against the Serb, nobody would
22 believe it any more.
23 Q. You said that the Serbs weren't waging a propaganda battle. They
24 were, weren't they?
25 A. No, I didn't say that. I said that I had difficulty in getting
Page 24606
1 solid information from the Serbs of what was being done to their own
2 people in areas that were occupied by the Croatians and Muslims. We take
3 it for granted that that means that none of us are looking at the
4 propaganda films for evidence; we are looking for interviews with
5 refugees, we're looking for documentation of the kind that might be
6 submitted to the United Nations, something more serious.
7 Q. I'm sorry, Professor, look at page 42 of your report again, second
8 paragraph.
9 A. Certainly.
10 Q. "Be this as it may, the Serbs, unlike the Bosnian Muslims and the
11 Croats, did not wage a propaganda battle."
12 A. Yes, I should have added to that "with the international
13 community." Because though propaganda films that we saw are simply not
14 credible, and the Serbs must have known that.
15 Let's take the United Nations. There was a Serb representative at
16 the United Nations during the war. They never effectively took the
17 evidence of what was happening to Serbs in Sarajevo and made a convincing
18 case that something should be done about it. This is perhaps where I
19 should have said: "Didn't wage a propaganda battle where it counted, in
20 the United Nations and elsewhere".
21 Q. What you should have said was, wasn't it, they were pretty
22 hopeless and ineffective at the sort of propaganda they tried to put out?
23 A. Towards the international community. Is that what you mean?
24 Well, in general -- I would say in general, yes, I agree with you in
25 general. Yes, certainly.
Page 24607
1 Q. And this is the final matter I want to deal with you, and it's on
2 the same topic. And it's what you have to say about the ITN report?
3 A. Could you repeat the statement, I'm sorry.
4 Q. I'm going to ask you now about what you say about the original ITN
5 report.
6 A. ITN. Yes, certainly the incident at Trnopolje.
7 Q. Right. Have you yourself ever seen the news broadcast?
8 A. I have seen the tape that -- what is it, The Emperor's Clothes, I
9 refer to it here, and point out how they themselves don't tell the whole
10 story.
11 Q. Just a minute. You watched The Emperor's Clothes which purported
12 to show that the footage was faked. Why didn't you watch the original?
13 A. You know, I think that you're asking me on every single incident
14 that arises to go back and check everything. I thought, and maybe the
15 Prosecutor can straighten me out, that there wasn't any argument about
16 that particular event; that is, that these people were being filmed
17 from -- the prisoners were on the outside, you know, the contention there
18 that the prisoners were on the outside of this barbed wire, and that the
19 film producers were on the inside. And this then went to Court, as we
20 know, in Great Britain. I know that the Court then decided that these
21 people were not considered to have somehow -- what was the word? What
22 would the word be? That they were found not guilty --
23 Q. Faked the footage.
24 A. Yes. What?
25 Q. Faked the footage. That's what the allegation was in this film --
Page 24608
1 A. That's right.
2 Q. Just pause for a moment, Professor Shoup.
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Do I understand you to say that you knew at the time that you
5 wrote this report that in 2002 - I could have the date wrong - this whole
6 issue had been thrashed out in the libel courts?
7 A. Yes, I knew that.
8 Q. And that it had been shown to the satisfaction of a jury that this
9 was genuine footage?
10 A. Yes, it was the interpretation of the footage that -- could I
11 explain a moment, please.
12 Q. Yes.
13 A. The issue was that the press -- as I say it here, the issue was
14 that the -- that I wanted to stress was that the press took this whole
15 footage up to mean that this was a concentration camp, Trnopolje, and that
16 this was part of what Roy Gutman and the others said, these were deaths
17 camps and so on and so forth. I don't believe -- I'd have to check once
18 more. I don't want to imply that I knew whether the barbed wire was on
19 one side or the other. What we do know is that it was considered to be a
20 concentration camp. And then Penny, whatever her name is, it turns out,
21 never said that. And this was what the film The Emperor's Clothes did not
22 adequately explain. The issue for me was, were people claiming this was a
23 concentration camp or not.
24 Q. Let me show you what you said -- you have a look at what you said.
25 And I'm going to show you the film that you've never seen, plus some of
Page 24609
1 the testimony about it.
2 A. Excellent. I'd love to see it.
3 Q. Page 42, at the top: "The negative image which the Serbs acquired
4 was in part the result of well-known media dispatches, for example, of
5 death camps by Roy Gutman."
6 A. That's right.
7 Q. "Which circulated in the summer of 1992 and the notorious
8 picture --"
9 A. Oh, I see.
10 Q. Just pause, would you please.
11 A. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, go ahead.
12 Q. "And the notorious picture of a starved Muslim behind barbed wire
13 taken by an ITN television crew shortly after Gutman's reports began to
14 appear."
15 A. That's right.
16 Q. "(The individual in question was, in fact, outside the barbed
17 wire, and the location was not a concentration camp, but a relocation
18 centre.)"
19 A. That's right.
20 Q. You asserted, as a fact, that the individual was outside --
21 A. That's right.
22 Q. Even though you were aware that there had been a libel action
23 where the allegation had been dealt with in full and a jury had decided
24 that this film was a genuine film.
25 A. I was aware that the accusation had been made that this was a
Page 24610
1 concentration camp and that when the issue came in front of the Court, it
2 was shown that Penny, what -- her name, actually made clear that this was
3 not a concentration camp. I was not aware that the Court in any way
4 decided that this film was taken from the outside or the inside. I needed
5 a clarification. Is it true, then, that the Court decided that the film
6 was taken from outside to the inside of the camp? If that was the case,
7 then I have been misled. But I don't know -- but I haven't received the
8 answer, so I don't know otherwise. But my focus was I had assumed that
9 the Court had decided that Penny whatever-her-name-was was not guilty of
10 libel because she didn't say it was a concentration camp.
11 Q. Why before you made this statement, and it takes up a substantial
12 part of this page, why didn't you check?
13 A. Because in the material that I read about the decision of the
14 Court, there was no mention of the fact that the film was, in fact, -- you
15 say genuine, but that's ambiguous, that is, that the film was actually
16 taken from the outside looking in. If I had some suspicion of that in the
17 material I had read, I would have certainly gone further. But I had no
18 suspicion that the Court was telling me that the way this was filmed was
19 quite different than what I had thought.
20 Q. That was the issue, not whether Trnopolje was a concentration
21 camp, but whether the two journalists from ITN, Penny Marshall and Iain
22 Williams, had deliberately filmed the inmates outside the wire as though
23 they were inside the wire. That was the whole issue. Didn't you
24 appreciate that?
25 A. No, not from what you can see in the general discussions of this
Page 24611
1 incident. Now, I'm still not clear whether the decision of the court was
2 that, in fact, they were viewing from the outside into the inside?
3 Q. Well, Professor, I suggest that you go and check that yourself.
4 I'm now going to show you the actual film, and then I'm going to show
5 you --
6 MS. KORNER: We've attached to it, Your Honour, part of the
7 testimony from the Stakic case which was an exhibit --
8 THE WITNESS: Fine. I was fooled if that's the case. Let's go.
9 MS. KORNER: -- that --
10 JUDGE AGIUS: This is the film that we have seen --
11 MS. KORNER: It's P1133, but we've added on to that the actual
12 video of Dr. Merdzanic testifying in Stakic, which is P1148, because it's
13 easier to do it rather than reading it.
14 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, okay.
15 [Videotape played]
16 MR. ACKERMAN: Excuse me. Your Honour, how is this admissible,
17 this testimony from some other case? How can I cross-examine this
18 witness?
19 MS. KORNER: It's an exhibit. You can cross-examine --
20 MR. ACKERMAN: Didn't give evidence in this case. He did?
21 MS. KORNER: I know it has been a long case, Mr. Ackerman. But he
22 gave evidence in this case.
23 JUDGE AGIUS: Is this his testimony in this case?
24 MS. KORNER: No, it's not his testimony in this case.
25 JUDGE AGIUS: This is his testimony in Stakic, I understand.
Page 24612
1 MS. KORNER: It's his testimony in Stakic, which is an exhibit
2 because I couldn't go through the whole thing because we have an agreement
3 that the Prijedor witnesses, the testimony of the transcript from Stakic
4 would go in.
5 MR. ACKERMAN: Why not use his testimony in this case, then, that
6 has been cross-examined properly.
7 MS. KORNER: I'm not sure -- Your Honour, may I explain. He --
8 JUDGE AGIUS: Are we having the discussion -- are we having this
9 discussion --
10 MS. KORNER: No, this doesn't affect.
11 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, I would like to ask the witness go out
12 of the room for a moment because I do have something that I would want to
13 say outside his presence.
14 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, all right. Usher. Thank you.
15 And I think with your consensus, Ms. Korner and Mr. Ackerman,
16 thrash this point out, and we can have the break immediately after rather
17 than bring him in and break --
18 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I know it's a very, very long time, and
19 Mr. Ackerman has forgotten. Your Honour, in respect of Prijedor because
20 nearly all the witnesses had testified either in the Stakic case or other
21 cases, the agreement was --
22 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. Ackerman. Listen --
23 MR. ACKERMAN: I was standing up so I could get a better look at
24 the picture. I'm sorry, Ms. Korner.
25 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay, Ms. Korner.
Page 24613
1 MS. KORNER: The agreement was that the transcript of the previous
2 evidence would go in as an exhibit. That was part of their evidence. And
3 then if any additional questions should be asked, then they could be
4 asked. Dr. Merdzanic gave full testimony in Stakic which he didn't give
5 here, but his testimony in Stakic was an exhibit, and is there intended,
6 and I hope that Your Honours have taken it that way, to be evidence to be
7 used in this trial. And anything that was said in the Stakic trial or any
8 of the other trials, if it wasn't accepted by the Defence, had to be
9 cross-examined.
10 Now, I didn't take Dr. Merdzanic through what he had to say about
11 the wire in this trial in his evidence because it was contained in the
12 part of the Stakic transcript. And that's what I'm showing because it's
13 easier and more effective to show the video, so it's the video of his
14 evidence and the exhibit number is 1148.
15 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. Ackerman.
16 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, I accept all of that. I think
17 Ms. Korner is absolutely correct about that, so I have no further
18 objection regarding this particular part here. The other part that I'm --
19 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes.
20 MR. ACKERMAN: -- I'm a bit concerned about is I thought that the
21 issue of Penny Marshall's television show from Trnopolje was a resolved
22 issue. It's clear that she went inside a barbed wire enclosure for the
23 purpose of filming from that enclosure out of that enclosure into
24 Trnopolje. I mean, you can go there and see it yourself. I have been
25 there many times and seen it myself. If you look at the tape, there's a
Page 24614
1 little short fence about this high that's on the road side that goes in
2 front of Trnopolje school that is a temporary enclosure that was put
3 there. But the actual footage itself, it's still there, there's an
4 enclosure there that has a gas company or something in it that's
5 surrounded by barbed wire. She went inside that enclosure to take the
6 pictures to make it look like this was a camp surrounded by barbed wire.
7 It was not. So I don't know why this is an issue any longer.
8 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, it's just as well Mr. Ackerman has some
9 kind of privilege for saying these things in Court. Because otherwise, I
10 think he'd find himself facing a libel action. It's the exact opposite.
11 That was what the whole libel action was about Mr. Deichman, whoever he
12 might be, alleged that exactly what Mr. Ackerman has now alleged happened,
13 that they went inside the wire, that the prisoners were actually free to
14 wander about, and the whole thing was faked. That is what the whole point
15 was. These prisoners, and that's what Merdzanic said, and that was not
16 cross-examined to, the wire wasn't there for very long, but it was put up
17 over the chicken wire that one can see, and it surrounded three sides of
18 the camp. Penny Marshall, and it's quite clear, stood outside the wire.
19 These prisoners were prisoners inside the camp. And that is exactly what
20 was thrashed out in the libel case. That is what Professor Shoup alleges
21 in this report, without having checked. And clearly it now shows that
22 Mr. Ackerman hasn't checked either. But that is what this was all about.
23 These people were behind the wire.
24 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. Do you agree that -- yes, is there
25 anything else, Mr. Ackerman?
Page 24615
1 MR. ACKERMAN: I've checked and I'm quite certain that I'm right.
2 I have never taken the position that there wasn't a fence. There was a
3 fence. But the barbed wire fence that Penny Marshall takes a picture
4 of --
5 JUDGE AGIUS: You did try to get some witnesses that we have had
6 here agree that there was no fence.
7 MR. ACKERMAN: I'm sorry?
8 JUDGE AGIUS: You did try to get some witnesses --
9 MR. ACKERMAN: Oh, here was a long period of time there was no
10 fence. When they brought the people in -- it's in the transcript, Your
11 Honour, and we probably shouldn't be arguing this.
12 JUDGE AGIUS: I quite remember what was said.
13 MR. ACKERMAN: When they brought people in, they put that fence up
14 temporarily.
15 MS. KORNER: Your Honour --
16 JUDGE AGIUS: [previous translation continues]... to the gun
17 posts.
18 MS. KORNER: I agree. Your Honour, the evidence is quite clear.
19 Mr. Ackerman is right on that. No wire except for this chicken wire.
20 There were gun posts and sniper posts and everything else. And then when
21 they brought the prisoners over from Omarska and just before that, they
22 put the wire up. That's the evidence. But what we're dealing with here
23 now is the assertion made by Professor Shoup based on this -- it's
24 actually the programme, I think it was untitled, but it was made by a
25 company called The Emperor's Clothes, which repeated Mr. Deichman's libel
Page 24616
1 that Penny Marshall and her crew had stood behind the fence to film the
2 people outside it.
3 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Should we have the break now?
4 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, this is my last part, so we will finish
5 immediately after the break.
6 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Unless, you want to -- we bring the
7 witness -- how long --
8 MS. KORNER: There's about -- I think there's about 10 minutes or
9 so of his testimony. So, Your Honour, it may be as well to take a break
10 now.
11 JUDGE AGIUS: Because I would imagine there is some
12 re-examination, and we may also have some questions for the witness.
13 Thank you.
14 We'll have a 25-minute break starting from now. Thank you.
15 --- Recess taken at 12.21 p.m.
16 --- On resuming at 12.51 p.m.
17 MS. KORNER: Your Honours, we've sorted out. Mr. Ackerman --
18 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.
19 MS. KORNER: Your Honour --
20 JUDGE AGIUS: Wait, wait, because on channel 4 now I'm receiving
21 interpretation in French.
22 THE INTERPRETER: Sorry, Mr. President.
23 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. It's sorted out.
24 MS. KORNER: I've given Mr. Ackerman a copy, and I'm going to be
25 showing it to the witness when the video is finished playing. Can I show
Page 24617
1 you two reports of the libel trial. Thank you.
2 JUDGE AGIUS: These were not exhibited before, no?
3 MS. KORNER: They are not. Your Honour, it has never so far been
4 an issue in this case. It's amazing what has become an issue. If we can
5 have the witness back and finish playing the video, and then I'll ask him
6 a couple of questions.
7 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, where is the witness?
8 MS. KORNER: Don't know.
9 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. Shall we proceed first, and then I'll give you
10 the opportunity afterwards, Professor?
11 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone for the witness, please.
12 JUDGE AGIUS: Now we are going to refer to the testimony given in
13 the Stakic case.
14 MS. KORNER: And also in this case, Your Honour.
15 JUDGE AGIUS: And also in this case.
16 MS. KORNER: But it's just the video of what he actually said in
17 Stakic.
18 [Videotape played]
19 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, that was page 7751 of the transcript.
20 [Videotape played]
21 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, that was transcript pages 7792 --
22 [Videotape played]
23 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, that last part was transcript page 7795
24 to 6.
25 Your Honour, because it's a compilation actually of video, could
Page 24618
1 it be given a separate exhibit number.
2 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.
3 MS. KORNER: I understand Professor Shoup wanted to say something.
4 He sent you a note.
5 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Professor Shoup, you asked us to give you an
6 opportunity to respond to the allegation that you perceived.
7 THE WITNESS: Yes, excuse me.
8 JUDGE AGIUS: Of poor research technique in respect of the
9 Trnopolje incident.
10 THE WITNESS: Yes, thank you. I'll be brief.
11 JUDGE AGIUS: Go ahead. Take your time.
12 THE WITNESS: Yes, because I think this particular incident shows
13 the problems of doing research where one might make a mistake, but also
14 where one probably is doing it the right way. I appreciate that I now saw
15 that original film. Having seen that original film of BBC, the critical
16 point where I may have misled the Court about this question of, are people
17 inside the barbed wire or outside the barbed wire I have concluded it
18 could not be determined from that film. Therefore, the research technique
19 that I used which was to consult sources that I trusted that talked about
20 this incident, and I'm referring again to the Dutch study, and never
21 indicated that there was a -- someone alleging that that incident, people
22 inside or outside the barbed wire, was one that had to be looked into.
23 The only way that I would have been able to determine who was right in
24 this case would have probably been to read a secondary source, one that I
25 trusted, which would give a very careful analysis of this situation.
Page 24619
1 I did not find such a source. And finally, let me simply say that
2 there is a tremendous -- a great deal of irony here because I note in the
3 footnote that in fact prisoners had been transferred to Trnopolje from the
4 worst -- the other camps which were worse. And so I was aware of that
5 fact because of the sources I used. I'm aware, therefore, that many of
6 these prisoners who looked maltreated really were maltreated. They had
7 just come from a very much worse camp so that although Trnopolje was not
8 as bad as these other places, prisoners were there who had been very
9 poorly treated, and I think this is all pointed out in the report. What I
10 don't know yet, and maybe the Court can ask the Prosecutor directly, is
11 was the film itself taken of these people with this barbed wire, was it
12 one way or was the other? I will accept the findings of the Prosecutor
13 who has obviously had a chance to look at evidence I have not.
14 MS. KORNER:
15 Q. Professor Shoup, we're getting right off the point. The point
16 that I'm trying to make is that you asserted without doing any proper
17 checks at all that this individual, as you put it, was in fact outside the
18 barbed wire. You could have, couldn't you, have done a simple thing like
19 checking on the news reports of the ending of the libel trial.
20 A. Yes. Again, I relied on the Dutch study, for example, to -- there
21 was no indication there that this allegation had been challenged.
22 Q. Well, no. The -- well, there are two things. Each time you say
23 something you send me off -- if you would like to have a look, please, at
24 a copy of the Guardian report and the BBC report of the end of the libel
25 trial in 2000.
Page 24620
1 A. Thank you.
2 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, may that, then, become 2729.
3 JUDGE AGIUS: 2729?
4 MS. KORNER: Yes.
5 JUDGE AGIUS: Both of them together?
6 MS. KORNER: Yes.
7 JUDGE AGIUS: All right.
8 MS. KORNER:
9 Q. And all you had to do was look down, wasn't it, and see that the
10 trial and the whole issue concerned what had been called the allegation
11 they deliberately misrepresented the image of an emaciated Bosnian Muslim
12 as being caged behind barbed wire at Trnopolje camp by selective use of
13 camera angles and editing. That's all you had to do, wasn't it?
14 A. I really have to read this very carefully before I could answer
15 your question.
16 Q. All right.
17 A. So far, I've seen nothing in this report about the -- whether
18 these people were inside or outside the wire. But if I keep reading,
19 maybe I will find out that they were -- they say here that --
20 Q. Have a look --
21 A. I don't want to delay the Court, I really don't.
22 Q. Professor Shoup --
23 A. Yes. Show me where perhaps because then I can concede the point.
24 Obviously you're better informed than I am. But why don't you show me
25 exactly --
Page 24621
1 Q. I will if you stop talking, Professor Shoup, for a moment.
2 A. Sure, of course. I apologise.
3 Q. Turn to the second page, please.
4 A. Sure, yes, mm-hmm.
5 Q. And go to -- for the Guardian trial [sic], and go to the sixth
6 paragraph, LM's editor.
7 A. LM's editor. "The article claimed the barbed wire was not around
8 the camp which... around the news team, filming from a small enclosure
9 next to the camp."
10 Yes, but I don't have an answer to this paragraph. I mean, I'm
11 willing to concede that this was your point, but I don't see an answer, a
12 straightforward answer to the question of whether these people were filmed
13 inside or outside that particular piece of barbed wire. I'm not trying to
14 defend anybody. I just don't see an answer to my question.
15 Q. If you don't --
16 A. The article claimed the barbed wire was not around the camp, but
17 around the news team. Well, we have heard from the testimony here that
18 there was not -- there was a fence around the camp, and I could imagine it
19 was barbed wire, but there wasn't apparently, but there was a fence around
20 the news team: "Filming from a small enclosure next to the camp." Now,
21 I'm looking for someone to say no, that wasn't the way it was. We just --
22 the next paragraph goes on to claim that the article was an attack on
23 their reputation and professional integrity, and that's all I see. I
24 don't see a refutation of that particular statement. But I'm -- you know,
25 I don't really want to argue, but I would love to know whether that
Page 24622
1 particular incident with the man shown with the barbed wire, whether he
2 was inside or outside the barbed wire. I just don't see it here. That's
3 all.
4 Q. I'm sorry, you don't see that in the article?
5 A. No, I don't.
6 Q. All right. I'm not going to waste any more time on it.
7 A. Of course. And in this war, I can concede that what you're saying
8 is quite possible. But apparently, those who did read this article, the
9 Dutch have read everything, plus everything that I never knew they could
10 get to, and didn't reach the same conclusion. There was no clue in these
11 reliable sources that I used that this was an issue, of the barbed wire,
12 and I don't see anything here that suggests otherwise.
13 Q. The Dutch report merely reported the controversy. They didn't
14 come down on either side. You relied on, didn't you --
15 A. No.
16 Q. Just please, Professor Shoup.
17 A. I thought it was my turn, I'm sorry.
18 Q. You relied on what was another propaganda film made by a company
19 called The Emperor's Clothes which repeated Mr. Deichman's allegations.
20 That's what you relied on, isn't it?
21 A. Not only on that. The allegation in The Emperor's Cloths should
22 be seen here in Court if they haven't been. You should compare that film
23 with the one we just saw. Secondly, if there was any clue that those --
24 they were very convincing. If there was any clue that they had
25 manufactured that, it would certainly turn up in the discussion of this
Page 24623
1 whole issue. And to sort of support the Dutch here, if it had come to the
2 point where the whole allegation made by The Emperor's Clothes film had
3 just been simply thought up, the Dutch would have reported it for sure.
4 Q. Do you understand -- I'm sorry, Professor. Do you understand, and
5 we do have a copy and we can play it if you insist, that that film
6 reported the allegations made by this German journalist or whatever he was
7 called Deichman? Do you understand that?
8 A. I understand.
9 Q. Do you understand that Dr. Deichman -- I'm not sure he's a
10 doctor -- but Deichman gave evidence at the libel trial?
11 A. I don't know, but I assume he probably had to, yes.
12 Q. And do you understand that this allegation, and indeed it can be
13 clearly seen from the film itself, is an utterly false allegation?
14 A. I can't see it from the film. And maybe someone else can. I'm
15 not denying that you could be correct. It's just that on the basis of --
16 I'm trying to defend my research techniques, and that is viewing the film
17 would not have helped me, I can assure you, to determine that point. What
18 would have helped me would have been an open statement in the press and in
19 the reliable accounts of the war and the propaganda on the war that that
20 very detailed analysis of how this picture was taken was completely false.
21 I never had any clue that anyone was denying this, and I don't see it here
22 either.
23 Q. One last question on this: You knew that a libel trial had taken
24 place?
25 A. After the fact, yes, after the fact.
Page 24624
1 Q. When you wrote this report?
2 A. Yes, of course.
3 Q. Other than The Emperor's Clothes and other than the part of the
4 Dutch report which merely reported the controversy, did you make any
5 effort to find out what had happened?
6 A. No, I told you I did not because we felt confident that if The
7 Emperor's Clothes version about who was inside and outside that wire had
8 been challenged, I would have run across it. I had no -- I would have
9 certainly used that material if I'd had the opportunity, but we still
10 don't know, do we? We still don't know. I've not received any kind of
11 clear answer from anyone what the situation was.
12 Q. Can I suggest this to you, Professor Shoup, that when you leave
13 this Court, you get hold, and indeed we'll provide you with a copy
14 ourselves of the full transcript of the libel trial and it will show you
15 beyond any venture that Mr. Deichman when he made these allegations was in
16 error.
17 A. About this particular point.
18 Q. About the fact that he alleged that ITV, ITN had deliberately
19 faked footage. Do you understand that?
20 A. I don't understand that at all. You're still not answering -- I'm
21 sorry. The question as to whether the man was inside or outside the
22 barbed wire, but I would be delighted if you would -- I don't want to say
23 that I'm always right. I would be delighted. I hope you will give me a
24 copy of the transcript of the trial. I would be delighted to receive it.
25 Q. I will do that.
Page 24625
1 A. We're not really on the opposite side on this one.
2 Q. Well, Professor Shoup, I'm going to suggest to you finally that
3 this whole report is full of errors because you haven't done
4 insufficient -- you have done insufficient checking?
5 A. I'm sorry. That means that you're really -- you're telling me the
6 CIA is full of errors, you're telling me that the Dutch are full of
7 errors, and you're telling me that the book is full of errors, on which I
8 base most of this report. In other words, it's not simply the report
9 itself, it's everything on which the report is based. If you would tell
10 me that the report deviates from the book, if you would tell me that the
11 report deviates from the Dutch study or the CIA study, I think that would
12 be a very serious accusation. But it doesn't deviate from these studies;
13 in effect, you're condemning all of the professional work that goes on, on
14 this war.
15 Q. No, Professor. What I'm suggesting is that the "Balkan
16 Battlegrounds" and the NWID report suffer from the same problem that you
17 do, which is that you have not had, for whatever reason in your case,
18 access to the original documents.
19 A. But that is a startling assertion. Of course, original documents
20 in this Court will help clarify what's in the book or what is in the Dutch
21 report. But you're, in effect, saying that the Dutch should not try to do
22 what they did, that they should not try to rely, for example, on the
23 efforts of the United Nations Commission of experts which they quote, that
24 they should not rely on the immense, immense efforts to try to describe
25 the battles that went on in Bosnia that was done by the CIA. Why?
Page 24626
1 Because you say that they are quotes secondary sources and not original
2 sources. I am telling you over and over again when it comes to certain
3 aspects of this situation, you need to analyse this material and present
4 it to the rest of us.
5 Now, take the International Red Cross, for example, are you saying
6 that their reports are not to be relied on? I'm sorry, I can't ask you
7 that question. But we have to rely on careful work done by international
8 agencies, by people like the Dutch, for example, and then we have to
9 supplement it with original documents that are now appearing here in the
10 Court. I'm delighted to see these documents. I want to read them. We
11 may change our opinions on certain aspects of the war. But I don't think
12 that as of this moment you have challenged the veracity of this book.
13 Q. The second aspect that I'm to suggest to you, Professor Shoup, and
14 I think it's only right you should deal with it --
15 A. Sure.
16 Q. -- that you start with a bias and you have looked only for
17 information that helps support your bias, namely that the Serbs have been
18 unjustly blamed.
19 A. I don't think I shall answer that. If the Court has looked at
20 this book, they will make their -- draw their own conclusions, and you
21 will draw your own conclusions as well.
22 Q. I'm talking about the report --
23 JUDGE AGIUS: One, one --
24 MS. KORNER:
25 Q. I'm talking about the report that you wrote, Professor Shoup.
Page 24627
1 This report.
2 A. Let me give you an example of why I feel that this is an unjust
3 accusation. Take the question of Karadzic's famous remarks of
4 October 15th, 1991 when he said that the Muslims face annihilation. And
5 we understand each other, don't we? It would have been very easy for me
6 to note that Karadzic ended his remarks with the statement that we all
7 face annihilation, and not note in the footnote that he said that after a
8 pause in which the assembly erupted in scandalous discussions. Now, to
9 the add to the irony of this charge that you're making, that observation
10 as I remembered later, came from the BBC film which you challenged me to
11 look at as though I had never seen it. In fact, that was precisely the
12 source, although I had not remembered it at the time, where I -- where
13 that footnote came from.
14 Secondly, let's take the events we have just described. You're
15 making a very serious accusation against my reputation. And I apologise
16 to the Court if I don't follow the Judges' instructions, but I think I
17 have to defend myself. Take the events in Trnopolje. I've made it very
18 clear in the report that those persons who are at Trnopolje, many of them
19 had come from Manjaca and other places where they had been mistreated.
20 The irony of the film that we have been discussing is that when the
21 British team came to the really bad places, as you know, Omarska and so
22 forth, they were -- the inmates were not able to describe these terrible
23 conditions. They were sort of shoved off. There was a terrible problem
24 there. And I've not hidden it in the report. Some of these people were
25 then at Trnopolje when the BBC group came.
Page 24628
1 The point I was trying to make was that the international press
2 picked up the picture of this gaunt figure behind barbed wire. As we
3 know, that picture went throughout the world, and that was the end of the
4 discussion. That's a concentration camp; nobody went into the details of
5 this matter. That was taken for granted that that was all at stake. This
6 is the point I was trying to make. But you must find many examples
7 throughout this report as I think the Judges will see of my making clear
8 that I'm not playing any favorites.
9 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you, Ms. Korner.
10 Mr. Ackerman, is there re-examination?
11 MR. ACKERMAN: Yes, Your Honour.
12 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you.
13 Re-examined by Mr. Ackerman:
14 Q. Good afternoon.
15 A. Good afternoon.
16 Q. We're getting close to the end. I want to try to go rapidly
17 because I have a lot to cover in a very short time.
18 JUDGE AGIUS: And there will be questions --
19 MR. ACKERMAN: We may not even finish today, Judge.
20 JUDGE AGIUS: [Microphone not activated]
21 MR. ACKERMAN: I don't know that there's much choice. I mean,
22 there's -- we've taken until leaving me 20 minutes and then --
23 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.
24 JUDGE AGIUS: I have no intention of curtailing on your time,
25 Mr. Ackerman. Please.
Page 24629
1 MR. ACKERMAN: Let's start, and maybe we can get finished.
2 JUDGE AGIUS: Maybe we'll stay for the day here. When were you
3 scheduled to fly back?
4 THE WITNESS: Tomorrow morning.
5 MR. ACKERMAN: I think we can go rapidly through what I was going
6 to discuss first, Your Honour. I have -- I wanted to talk about the
7 review of the movie that was done by this Joshua Tanzer. Since that came
8 up in the cross-examination by Ms. Korner, we've done a little bit of
9 research on this man, and I've given the document that we developed to
10 Ms. Korner. And if Ms. Korner would simply agree that she was mistaken
11 when she suggested that he was a reviewer for the New York Times, I won't
12 ask any more questions about it.
13 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I will. I have been shown I made an
14 error because I can see from this he wrote headlines in the New York Post,
15 and I'm afraid American newspapers are much the same to me. So I
16 absolutely withdraw that he was with the New York Times.
17 MR. ACKERMAN: I would like the witness to be shown Exhibit DB377.
18 And we'll have to give it to the usher. I think it's here. And again,
19 this is a document that I received actually from Ms. Korner, so this won't
20 come as a surprise to anyone either. This, Your Honours, is the review
21 that actually was written in the New York Times by one Steven Holden who
22 is a film reviewer for the New York Times. And it's his review
23 of "Yugoslavia, the Avoidable War."
24 Q. Do you have it there, Professor Shoup?
25 A. Yes, I do.
Page 24630
1 Q. I only want to refer to a couple parts of it, if you go to the
2 second page: "Whether or not you're convinced by the film assertions many
3 of which are based on information provided by the Red Cross, Amnesty
4 International, Human Rights Watch, and other organisations that
5 investigated reported events after the fact, "Yugoslavia, the Avoidable
6 War", does an impressive job of relating the complicated history of the
7 war and of filling in the background."
8 And the last -- next -- right next to the last paragraph: "Has
9 the meticulously chronological account of the Balkan Wars unfolds event by
10 event, failed peace initiative by failed peace initial, "Yugoslavia, the
11 Avoidable War" leads you to a no-man's land of doubt." Do you think those
12 two paragraphs at least are fair reviews of that film?
13 A. I will try to be very careful in stating my view. I think that's
14 it's important that people see films which have information that they
15 might not have otherwise obtained. This film does have that kind of
16 information. For example, the testimony of people like Lord Carrington,
17 people might not have realised that he was against the recognition of
18 Croatia. The fact that Dubrovnik was not destroyed is true, and it should
19 be shown there. I cannot, in all honesty, agree with this meticulously
20 chronological account of the Balkan wars, if you'll excuse me, because
21 really I gave you the example to the Prosecutor a day or two ago of the
22 events in Mostar in which things were compacted in such a way that you
23 were led to believe chronologically that the Serbs had been the victims of
24 mass liquidation in Mostar, and I thought that was really disinformation,
25 if you will pardon me --
Page 24631
1 Q. We have --
2 A. -- but the idea that you have to look at such films and understand
3 that some of these things are terribly important for you is my way of -- I
4 just think this is terribly, terribly necessary. That's all.
5 Q. Professor, whether you're here tomorrow or not is in your hands.
6 Just to warn you.
7 A. All right. I'll be short.
8 Q. In the film, you saw the -- you saw General Kukanjac, and you
9 mentioned in your cross-examination that he had been in negotiations with
10 Izetbegovic.
11 A. That's correct.
12 Q. Are you familiar with any agreement that they entered into
13 regarding the withdrawal of troops, JNA troops from Sarajevo?
14 A. I'll be brief. I have been warned. There was an incident, of
15 course, connected with the return of Izetbegovic from abroad, May 1st
16 and 2nd, in which Izetbegovic was held by the JNA. There were
17 negotiations with General MacKenzie. Part of the agreement I think was
18 that the JNA should be permitted to leave at that particular point.
19 MacKenzie thought everything was settled. When the JNA began to leave,
20 the convoy was attacked, and MacKenzie was furious. If that's the
21 incident you're referring to.
22 Q. And was anybody killed in that attack on the convoy?
23 A. Yes. Yes, I don't remember how many. But it was a betrayal of
24 the United Nations, as MacKenzie saw it.
25 Q. And attacked by whom; do you know?
Page 24632
1 A. By the Muslims.
2 Q. You spoke also about the newspaper Oslobodjenje.
3 A. Oslobodjenje, yes.
4 Q. And you talked about how Oslobodjenje was a very reliable source.
5 Did it remain reliable throughout the war? In other words, was it a
6 reliable source in 1993, or did its character change in some way?
7 A. It's character changed radically. It was a marvelous newspaper
8 before the war. I made great efforts to obtain copies of the Oslobodjenje
9 during the war from Zulfikarpasic in Zurich. He supplied me with these
10 copies, and it turned out that Oslobodjenje during the war -- I wouldn't
11 say it was propaganda, but it was -- it practically no information
12 whatsoever of any use to a person studying the conflict.
13 Q. And I think I have just one more question. Ms. Korner was asking
14 you about the issue of self-defense, were the Muslims engaged in
15 self-defense, were the Serbs engaged in self-defense.
16 A. That's right.
17 Q. And you just very lightly mentioned Mostar and Konjic. Are you
18 familiar with the events that took place in Konjic in the spring of 1992?
19 A. I am aware of the persecution both of the Croats and the Serbs
20 during that period by the Muslims in Konjic. In the book, I think we
21 mention this. And that actually there was an investigation of this
22 situation by Sarajevo which didn't change events very much. I won't say
23 more than that because I would have to refresh my memory about the exact
24 details.
25 Q. Would you say that the Muslim forces were engaged in self-defense
Page 24633
1 in --
2 A. No, absolutely not.
3 Q. -- Activities they undertook in Konjic?
4 A. Wait a minute. Let's be careful about this. All sides were
5 trying to be sure that the other sides didn't take advantage of the
6 situation. The Muslims put Serbs and Croats in camps where they would be
7 no threat to them. Maltreated them. I see that action as being
8 absolutely the equivalent of what was taking place in the north, perhaps
9 on a somewhat smaller scale.
10 MR. ACKERMAN: That's all the questions I have, Professor. Thank
11 you so much for coming and trying to help us. And I wonder if the
12 Prosecution could remember to return his "Balkan Battlegrounds" book
13 before he leaves. Otherwise, thank you very much.
14 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you, Mr. Ackerman.
15 Yes, do you have any questions, Judge Janu? We have some
16 questions for you. Judge Janu from the Czech Republic will go first.
17 Questioned by the Court:
18 JUDGE JANU: Am I right, Professor, if I presuppose that you can
19 speak Serbo-Croatian language?
20 A. That's correct.
21 JUDGE JANU: How long -- how many years did you spend in former
22 Yugoslavia, altogether? We can start that we know from your CV that you
23 read law in University of Belgrade. So how many years was study and other
24 years spent in former Yugoslavia or the south Yugoslavia altogether?
25 A. I would have to think a minute. I would say that I was there with
Page 24634
1 a leave of absence from my university for full time for maybe two or three
2 years. And then I would go back to Yugoslavia every summer or spring for
3 two or three months over a period of 20 years. So I would imagine,
4 really, we're talking about ten years, 15 years maybe all told if I put
5 all of this together.
6 JUDGE JANU: And study itself was how many years?
7 A. Study took a long time. Professor Burg at one point could not
8 finish his part of the book, so that we stopped --
9 JUDGE JANU: No, no, no.
10 A. We ended the research in 1999.
11 JUDGE JANU: No, Professor. I am back at the beginning.
12 A. Oh, I see.
13 JUDGE JANU: That you told us that you studied the law faculty of
14 Belgrade. How long this study --
15 A. Oh, I see. This was the first exchange between the United States
16 and Yugoslavia. It was very -- it was very much at the very beginning;
17 Stalin was still alive, for example. The three of us, none of us knew
18 Serbo-Croatian. We were sent there as a sort of pioneer effort so that
19 our first job was to learn the language, and this is what we tried to do.
20 But I -- in the end, we all decided that the best thing to do was to be a
21 student, to try to absorb the culture. And in the end, I did not take a
22 degree or attend more than a few lectures at the law faculty.
23 JUDGE JANU: Okay. The video we saw here before the break, there
24 was a speech of Minister Ostojic, and he said something like the religious
25 war which has been inflicted upon the Serbs.
Page 24635
1 A. Yes.
2 JUDGE JANU: My question is, what in your view and in your
3 experience was the role of the orthodox church in the conflict, or maybe
4 other churches as well? If you are able to --
5 A. I'll try to be brief. The orthodox church took a nationalist
6 position and helped, I'm afraid, to -- and contributed to the tensions in
7 Bosnia by doing so. When it -- the Catholic church, on the contrary, was
8 a force for reconciliation among the various ethnic groups. And Ostojic's
9 effort to say that somehow the Vatican was behind all of this, you may
10 have noticed that, I think is just pure imagination.
11 When it comes to the Islamic community, we have to -- it's more
12 difficult to say. The expert, Mr. Xavier Bougarel, a French specialist,
13 describes in detail the fact that within the SDA there were both more
14 fundamentalist groups who foresaw that Bosnia might become a totally
15 Islamic state, and there are more secularly minded persons who wanted
16 sincerely to create some kind of a Balkan civil society.
17 JUDGE JANU: Okay. On the page 14 of your report, you said
18 something like this: That there were two events during the course of
19 1990, and that events were crucial and highly detrimental for the future
20 of Bosnia.
21 A. That's right.
22 JUDGE JANU: The first one, and I was like to stay with the first
23 one, first was the breakup of the Yugoslav League of Communists in January
24 1990.
25 A. Yes, that's right.
Page 24636
1 JUDGE JANU: So, Professor, you said you were in former Yugoslavia
2 when Tito still was in power. So you know that his relationship with
3 Stalin at the beginning was very close --
4 A. That's right.
5 JUDGE JANU: And that his socialistic steps in Yugoslavia were
6 very, very resolute. His collectivisation was maybe more stricter than in
7 the former Soviet Union, and change became afterwards.
8 A. Yes.
9 JUDGE JANU: So you are aware of this. My question is, how you
10 can say that breakdown of communist system was highly detrimental? We
11 know that breakup of communist was in whole central and east Europe, and
12 it was beneficial in all the ways. So I would like to put to you wasn't
13 it more the not old communist leaders who were not able, because of their
14 past, to be successful in the peaceful transformation of the country than
15 this --
16 A. Yes. Perhaps these two positions are complementary rather than
17 being contradictory. The old communist leaders of Bosnia had an
18 opportunity to try to keep Bosnia from falling into ethnic chaos. And
19 they were not able to do so. And I won't go into a lengthy description of
20 why, except to say that I think that by 1990 the communist party of Bosnia
21 had been paralysed by infighting, you know, among these people. They bear
22 a responsibility. But they were under pressure from what was happening in
23 the rest of Eastern Europe to hold free elections, and what was happening
24 in the rest of Yugoslavia. And they gave way to that pressure, and the
25 consequences were those that we saw. Three nationalist parties locked in
Page 24637
1 combat with one another. The transition itself was rocky in Bosnia, much
2 more so than in the Czech Republic, for example, simply because it
3 resembled more the transition in some of these eastern countries such as
4 the Ukraine or Moldavia or whatever. A sudden total transformation.
5 There had been no dissident movement in Bosnia, as in the Czech Republic,
6 to which people could turn. So it went from communism to nationalism,
7 just like that.
8 JUDGE JANU: Okay. My last question is what's your opinion about
9 the Islamic Declaration which was, as you remind us here --
10 A. Thank you.
11 JUDGE JANU: -- reprinted 1990?
12 A. In the book, I treat it very cautiously. I mention -- I, we,
13 Professor Burg and I mention it but pass on because this was an object of
14 a great deal of propaganda on all sides. People -- the Serbs were saying
15 look what he proposes here, and let's -- how could we possibly live in
16 such a state?
17 My conclusions now are that the Islamic Declaration was important
18 not for what it said, but because it was used by the SDA before the
19 elections widely, according to Xavier Bougarel the expert on this, and in
20 other words, the Muslims were waving copies of this document. And in
21 other words, it was being brought up to date. Izetbegovic would say, no,
22 this is past. That was 20 years ago. But in fact, there were those who
23 were on the Muslim side who were using this document as a way of trying to
24 get people to vote for their party. That brings it right up to the time
25 of the elections.
Page 24638
1 As far as the contents is concerned, I think -- I'll be quick -- I
2 think if I was reading it I would conclude that when the Muslims were to
3 become a majority in Bosnia, they would then wish to impose some kind of
4 an Islamic culture and political system.
5 JUDGE JANU: Thank you.
6 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you, Judge Janu. Judge Taya.
7 JUDGE TAYA: On page 18 of your report, in the middle of this
8 page, you said that the debate over plans to hold a referendum for
9 independence which took place on January 25th, 1992, also ended with a
10 walkout of the SDS. This was a critical moment. Bosnia was poised on the
11 brink of war.
12 A. That's correct.
13 JUDGE TAYA: The Bosnian parliament seemed ready to consider Serb
14 demands for the regionalisation of Bosnia as a condition for holding a
15 referendum for independence only to be blocked by Izetbegovic.
16 My question is as follows: Is it correct to say that this Serb
17 demand is Bosnia-Herzegovina should maintain confederation with federal
18 Yugoslavia, or so it becomes independent state on the basis of three
19 ethnic regions?
20 A. Thank you. This debate does not concern the question of a
21 confederal relationship with Serbia or Croatia or the other members of the
22 former Yugoslavia, but whether a referendum which will declare Bosnia an
23 independent state should first be preceded by some agreement between the
24 three ethnic communities over what that state should look like. In other
25 words, would it be made up of national cantons or whatever. There is a
Page 24639
1 certain presumption here that it would have made sense to try to first
2 decide how Bosnia was to look before you then went ahead and declared its
3 independence. Maybe I haven't completely understood the question. I do
4 beg your patience and indulgence. If you wish to clarify this, I will.
5 JUDGE TAYA: What is the difference of this Serb demand from the
6 Lisbon Accord?
7 A. There is no -- well, the Lisbon Accords come later. And in
8 effect, the Lisbon Accords are trying to spell out what that
9 constitutional settlement accompanying independence might look like. And
10 as we noted, the Lisbon Accords were very brief. They didn't go into
11 great detail, but they seemed to supply the notion of national cantons
12 which for the Serbs was what they wanted at this particular moment. And
13 at the same time, the Lisbon Accords affirmed the independence of Bosnia.
14 So in effect, they were trying to wrap up what had happened, providing the
15 constitutional settlement that had not been provided in the Assembly, and
16 at the same time acknowledging that Bosnia was independent, which the
17 referendum had done. So that the Lisbon Accords were bringing both of
18 these points together into one package, as it were. And as we know,
19 Karadzic, for his own reasons, accepted this. Izetbegovic did not. But I
20 don't believe that Karadzic was entirely sincere either.
21 JUDGE TAYA: You said in your report, on this paragraph, this Serb
22 demand was only to be blocked by Izetbegovic. How was the general
23 attitude of Muslim population vis-a-vis an idea of the --
24 JUDGE AGIUS: One moment, Judge Taya. He has got a problem with
25 his earpiece.
Page 24640
1 THE WITNESS: If I can --
2 JUDGE AGIUS: Can you follow the --
3 THE WITNESS: Could somebody give me the transcript button? There
4 we go.
5 JUDGE AGIUS: Usher, can you just switch on his monitor on
6 transcript mode so he can read.
7 THE WITNESS: My apologies. Here we are. Let's see.
8 All right. You asked what was the general attitude of the Muslim
9 population vis-a-vis the idea of national cantons, I think?
10 JUDGE TAYA: Yes.
11 A. I think that they were suspicious. I think they felt that the
12 national cantons would be dominated by the Serbs, and I think that
13 suspicion was justified. On the other hand, everybody -- the average
14 person wants to avoid a war. This is the point. They are desperate to
15 avoid a war, I think. And in that context, if I was to ask a Muslim at
16 this stage would you accept national cantons, many of them might have
17 said, if the option -- if the alternative is war, yes, I would,
18 reluctantly, but I would. But this is just hypothetical. You can see
19 that they were in a terrible, terrible dilemma at this point.
20 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I don't want to have to go back and ask
21 permission to read the cross, but perhaps I could ask what he's basing
22 this on, what evidence.
23 JUDGE AGIUS: I think he's speculating.
24 THE WITNESS: I'm speculating.
25 JUDGE AGIUS: He's speculating on the assumption that everyone
Page 24641
1 would do practically -- and accept practically everything to avoid war.
2 MS. KORNER: Exactly, Your Honour. I'm sorry. That's why I rose
3 to my feet. It really is important if we're going to have these general
4 statements, that we know what he's basing them on.
5 JUDGE AGIUS: It was being perceived as a speculation, at least
6 from my point of view in any case.
7 Judge Taya.
8 JUDGE TAYA: Do you know that part that on 9th January 1992
9 Assembly of Serbian people in Bosnia-Herzegovina adopted the creation on
10 the proclamation of Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina being part
11 of federal Yugoslav state, and that the territory of that state includes
12 even the regions in which the Serbian people remained in the minority due
13 to the genocide conducted against it in World War II.
14 A. I'm reading the question, if you'll be patient for a moment. I
15 have to use the transcript here.
16 Yes, I think I understand the question now. You're referring to
17 this area of Bosanska Krajina, and you're referring to the charge that was
18 made by the Serbians -- by the Serbs that the only reason that they had to
19 act to incorporate areas such as Sanski Most into this ARK was that it was
20 truly Serb because the people there -- because the Serbs had been -- so
21 many Serbs had died during World War II. Therefore, they had the right to
22 include this area in the ARK. Is this what we're after? I'm sorry.
23 I don't like those kinds of claims. I think that they can be --
24 you can go as far back in history as you wish to justify your claims to a
25 certain piece of territory. I don't think this is sincere. I mean, it is
Page 24642
1 sincere, but not correct.
2 JUDGE TAYA: But you know the fact?
3 A. The facts are correct, that is that --
4 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, can I assist. I think that the witness
5 and Her Honour are at cross-purposes. She was asking about the
6 declaration of the Serbian republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, nothing to
7 do with the autonomous region.
8 THE WITNESS: I'm sorry, yes.
9 MS. KORNER: Whether the professor was aware of it.
10 THE WITNESS: No, I wasn't aware. I'm sorry.
11 I don't like those claims that are based on history, Your Honour.
12 I think that these are self-serving, and maybe that's -- I've said enough.
13 Yes. I don't like them.
14 JUDGE TAYA: But you are not aware of the declaration adopted by
15 the Assembly of Serbian People in Bosnia-Herzegovina on 9th January 1992?
16 A. No.
17 JUDGE TAYA: Thank you.
18 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you, Judge Taya. Judge Taya is from Japan. I
19 forgot to tell you that in the beginning.
20 I would have loved to put a few questions to you, but if I were to
21 put all the questions that I would like to, then that would mean you will
22 have to stay here tomorrow. So I think I will skip questions.
23 MS. KORNER: Well, Your Honour, may I assist, I'm not sure there's
24 another case in the Court this afternoon. There isn't, so it may be with
25 a short break, that the interpreters may let --
Page 24643
1 JUDGE AGIUS: Well, I can do that.
2 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, I'm simply concerned. I don't want Your
3 Honour to go away feeling there are questions you'd like to have.
4 JUDGE AGIUS: I can live without asking the questions, Ms. Korner,
5 believe me. Otherwise I would have certainly -- there are a few issues
6 mainly arising out of the report that on which I would prefer to tackle
7 Professor Shoup. I think we can leave it at that.
8 Professor, I should like to thank you on behalf of the Trial
9 Chamber and also on behalf of the Tribunal for -- not only for having come
10 here to give your expert testimony, but also for the way in which you
11 testified. You have refocussed some of the spotlights we had already on
12 and switched on others which, of course, is food for thought for us, the
13 three Judges presiding over this case. We can assure you that everything
14 that you said will be taken -- will be given due weight, due consideration
15 by us in our deliberations.
16 You will receive all the assistance you require after you are
17 ushered out of the courtroom to enable you to return home. And on behalf
18 of Judge Janu and Judge Taya, and of course myself, I wish you a safe
19 journey back home.
20 THE WITNESS: Thank you. Thank you for your courteous treatment.
21 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. Ackerman.
22 MR. ACKERMAN: Two things, Your Honour, I'd like for Dr. Shoup to
23 meet us in the lobby so I can return some documents to him. And second of
24 all, his report --
25 JUDGE AGIUS: -- unless it's a problem with the Prosecution.
Page 24644
1 MR. ACKERMAN: We're finished now. His report is being tendered
2 as Defence Exhibit DB376.
3 MS. KORNER: Yes, Your Honour --
4 MR. ACKERMAN: Made the registry happy.
5 MS. KORNER: We haven't got time today, but Mr. Ackerman produced
6 a whole list of exhibits, not all of which have been put in. But in any
7 event, I will be submitting to Your Honour that the majority should not be
8 admitted.
9 JUDGE AGIUS: That we'll deal with on Wednesday.
10 MS. KORNER: It's Wednesday afternoon, I think, isn't it?
11 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, it is definitely in the afternoon because I
12 have got meetings in the morning. So that's why the sitting is in the
13 afternoon.
14 Okay. Usher, please escort Professor Shoup.
15 [The witness withdrew]
16 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, I wish to publicly thank the interpreters, the
17 technicians, and the rest of the staff for having indulged us for about 10
18 minutes, 12 minutes over and above the normal schedule. I apologise to
19 you if I did not try to seek your permission before, but I anticipated the
20 sitting not to go beyond what it has actually gone. So I thank you once
21 more publicly because without your cooperation, Professor Shoup would have
22 had to return here tomorrow morning. Thank you. And good afternoon to
23 everyone.
24 We'll meet again on Wednesday in the afternoon. Thank you. If
25 you can shift it to the morning, try. Thank you.
Page 24645
1 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.57 p.m.
2 to be reconvened on Wednesday, the 11th day of
3 February, 2004, at 2.15 p.m.
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