Page 5210
1 Monday, 3 June 2013
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 --- Upon commencing at 9.00 a.m.
5 JUDGE DELVOIE: Good morning to everyone in and around the
6 courtroom.
7 Mr. Registrar, could you call the case, please.
8 THE REGISTRAR: Good morning, Your Honours.
9 This is case case number IT-04-75-T, the Prosecutor versus
10 Goran Hadzic.
11 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you. May we have the appearances, please,
12 starting with the Prosecution.
13 MR. OLMSTED: Good morning, Your Honours. Matthew Olmsted and
14 Thomas Laugel for the Prosecution.
15 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.
16 Mr. Zivanovic, for the Defence.
17 MR. ZIVANOVIC: Good morning, Your Honours. For the Defence of
18 Goran Hadzic, Zoran Zivanovic and Christopher Gosnell. Thank you.
19 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.
20 The witness may be brought in.
21 [The witness entered court]
22 JUDGE DELVOIE: Good morning, Mr. Witness.
23 THE WITNESS: Good morning, Your Honours.
24 Good morning, Mr. Hadzic, good morning Counsel. Good morning.
25 JUDGE DELVOIE: I take it you will testify in English.
Page 5211
1 THE WITNESS: Yes, I do.
2 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.
3 Could you please give us your name and date of birth.
4 THE WITNESS: My name is Jakub Bijak. I was born on the
5 5th of November, 1977.
6 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you very much.
7 Mr. Bijak, you are about to make the solemn declaration by which
8 witnesses commit themselves to tell the truth. I must point out to you
9 that by doing so you expose yourself to the penalties of perjury should
10 you give untruthful information to this Tribunal.
11 May I ask you to give the solemn declaration -- to make the
12 solemn declaration now that the Court Usher will hand over.
13 THE WITNESS: I solemnly declare that I will speak the truth, the
14 whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
15 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you very much. You may be seated.
16 THE WITNESS: Thank you.
17 JUDGE DELVOIE: Mr. Olmsted, your witness.
18 MR. OLMSTED: Thank you, Mr. President.
19 WITNESS: JAKUB BIJAK
20 Examination by Mr. Olmsted:
21 Q. Good morning, Dr. Bijak.
22 A. Good morning.
23 Q. I have to remind myself as well as you that since we're both
24 speaking English, we have to be quite careful not to overlap and give the
25 translators an opportunity to translate what we say into B/C/S.
Page 5212
1 I want to begin today by talking about your professional and
2 educational background.
3 First of all, where are you currently employed?
4 A. I am currently a lecturer at the University of Southampton in the
5 United Kingdom.
6 Q. And how long have you held that position for?
7 A. Since February 2009.
8 Q. And what is the subject matter of your work?
9 A. I work in the area of demography and social statistics. So
10 basically I deal professionally with population change and consequences
11 and causes thereof.
12 Q. Now prior to that position, where did you work?
13 A. I started my professional career back in 1999 as a three-month
14 research fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Demographic Research.
15 After which I continued my masters studies back in Poland. And after
16 that, I had two yearly positions at the United Nations International
17 Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the demographic unit, for
18 a year as a research assistant and then for another year as a
19 demographer. Since then I have worked between 2003 and -- early 2009 in
20 Central European Forum for Migration and Population Research in Warsaw,
21 which was a joint venture between the International Organisation for
22 Migration, a Swiss foundation for population migration and the
23 environment, and other organisations.
24 Q. Let's first talk about your position at the Central European
25 Forum. What was your focus there?
Page 5213
1 A. The focus was the research on migration, especially in the
2 context of population change.
3 Q. And while you were at the Office of the Prosecution for the ICTY,
4 what was the subject matter of your work?
5 A. The subject matter was the reconstruction of demographic
6 consequences of population crisis first of all in Bosnia, this was my
7 first year of the work here, and then also in Croatia in the second year.
8 Q. And I understand you have a masters in quantitative methods and
9 information systems and a doctorate in economics. Can you tell us how
10 are these degrees relevant to the field of demography?
11 A. Both my masters and doctorate are strongly linked with
12 demography. In fact, both my masters dissertation as -- and my PhD
13 thesis were related to the field. In particular, the masters
14 dissertation concerned mortality in developed countries, and my doctoral
15 dissertation concerned forecasting migration in Europe under uncertainty.
16 MR. OLMSTED: May we have 65 ter 2793. This is tab 16 on the
17 screen.
18 Q. Doctor, can you confirm that this is your resume?
19 A. This is my resume current as of early 2012.
20 MR. OLMSTED: If we could turn to page 3.
21 Q. Does this page highlight a number of your publications?
22 A. Yes. This page shows several selected publications that are most
23 relevant to the current testimony.
24 Q. Could you give us a rough estimate of the number of research
25 reports and other publications that you have authored in the field of
Page 5214
1 demographics?
2 A. I have authored one book monograph and then authored and
3 coauthored over 30 articles and book chapters as well as also over
4 30 reports, working papers, and other contributions.
5 MR. OLMSTED: Your Honours, may this be admitted into evidence.
6 JUDGE DELVOIE: Admitted and marked.
7 THE REGISTRAR: It shall be assigned Exhibit P2012. Thank you.
8 MR. OLMSTED:
9 Q. Doctor, have you testified as an expert witness before?
10 A. No, I haven't.
11 MR. OLMSTED: If we could have 65 ter 2831 on the screen. This
12 is tab 1.
13 Q. We have before us an expert report entitled: "Pre-war ethnic
14 composition of, and population displacements from war-affected areas of
15 Croatia in the period 25 June 1991 - 31 December 1993," dated June 2012.
16 Is this your expert report?
17 A. Yes. This is the expert report I coauthored with my colleagues
18 Amie Kamanda and Sarah Lubman.
19 Q. And you've just mentioned that you coauthored it. Can you tell
20 us, these two other contributors, who they were and what was their
21 contribution?
22 A. Both Amie and Sarah are my doctoral students who for this report
23 acted as research assistants and contributed two sections of the report.
24 Amie Kamanda contributed section 3 and Sarah Lubman contributed
25 section 5. Further to that, they provided comments to the overall
Page 5215
1 report, but that notwithstanding, I remain the main author of the report
2 and I take the whole responsibility for it.
3 Q. So I take it you directly supervised their work?
4 A. Yes, I have.
5 Q. Generally what were -- what are the objectives or what were the
6 main objectives of this report?
7 A. This report as stated in the executive summary and then in the
8 introduction had two main objectives. The first one was to examine the
9 ethnic composition in the war-affected areas of Croatia based on the data
10 from the 1991 population census. The second objective was to examine
11 population displacements from the war-affected areas between
12 25th of June, 1991, and the end of December, 1993.
13 Q. What territory falls within the scope of your report?
14 A. In this report we have followed the official Croatian government
15 definition of war-affected areas as defined in the Croatian law which is
16 cited in the report. And for the purpose of this particular case, we
17 excluded the territories around Dubrovnik as clearly not relevant. So
18 basically we analysed population composition and displacements from the
19 areas of -- which can be labeled as Krajina, Western Slavonia, as well as
20 Eastern Slavonia Baranja and Western Sirmium or Srem or Srijem, which we,
21 the latter, refer to collectively as Eastern Slavonia.
22 Q. Could you tell us a little bit more about these war-affected
23 areas that were determined under Croatian law? Does this mean that with
24 regard to some municipalities in Croatia, you only considered certain
25 parts of those municipalities? You didn't consider the complete
Page 5216
1 municipality?
2 A. Yes, this is true. The area in the studies shown in -- on -- in
3 figure 1 on the sixth page of the report where the red dots indicate
4 settlements, so localities, that are considered to be war affected
5 according to the Croatian law.
6 MR. OLMSTED: If we could turn to that page. I think it's page 7
7 in the e-court. Page 6 of the report.
8 Q. Could you tell us how well did the -- or do the war-affected
9 areas correspond to the three Serbian autonomous districts that were
10 created in 1991 and that eventually became the Republic of Serbian
11 Krajina?
12 A. From the information that we received from the Office of the
13 Prosecutor, it seems that these areas quite well correspond to the areas
14 of the Serb autonomous regions as they were declared but not necessarily
15 as they ended up being actually controlled by the Croatian Serbs in -- as
16 of early 1992.
17 Q. And perhaps explain to us. We see that -- within the blue
18 boundaries, we see certain white areas. What would those constitute?
19 A. The white areas within blue boundaries are those parts of the
20 areas that were declared as Serb autonomous areas that were actually
21 never involved in any way in -- directly in the conflict and, hence,
22 haven't been labeled as areas of special state care, which is the
23 shortcut for war-affected areas in the Croatian law.
24 Q. And I just notice looking at this figure that in the Western
25 Krajina area on the eastern side there are a number of war-affected areas
Page 5217
1 that are even outside the boundaries of the SAO Western Krajina -- or --
2 yeah.
3 A. Yeah, this is --
4 Q. Western Slavonia, I'm sorry. I correct myself.
5 A. In Western Slavonia there is a group of municipalities -- there
6 is a group of settlements in the municipalities that were as of 1992
7 outside of the Serb control yet still are considered to be war-affected
8 by Croatian authorities.
9 Q. Do you know just off the top of your head, would those be
10 settlements that perhaps were under Croatian government control that they
11 took back during the conflict?
12 A. Yes, that was the case.
13 Q. You mention in your report that, in 1991, there were
14 102 municipalities in Croatia while, in 1997, this number had increased
15 to 538. Can you tell us what impact, if any, did this change in the
16 number of municipalities have on your analysis?
17 A. The new municipal division that was introduced since 1992 enabled
18 a more fine-grained look into the ethnic composition and the
19 displacements of persons from the war-affected areas because the pre-war
20 municipalities were quite large, and as such, the patterns that we could
21 observe for the pre-war municipalities could be actually masked by the
22 sides. Whereas for the post-war municipalities, the patterns could be
23 seen much clearly. That is why in the report we present -- well, we
24 present both, old municipalities and new municipalities, if not in the
25 main text then in the appendices.
Page 5218
1 Q. So if I understand you correctly, looking at the municipalities
2 as they existed in 1997 simply allowed you to look at the data in more
3 detail. It didn't actually change your figures?
4 A. No, they did not change the figures at all. They are just a
5 different way of aggregating them.
6 Q. Let's have figure 5 of your report on the screen.
7 MR. OLMSTED: This is page 16 of the report. It would be page 17
8 in e-court.
9 Q. And while that's coming up on the screen, Doctor, could you
10 explain to us why was 25 June 1991 selected as the initial date for your
11 study?
12 A. This was a part of the terms of reference I have received for
13 this report from the Office of the Prosecutor, but also just to
14 corroborate on that, what we did is we looked at the patterns of
15 population displacements from the database -- from the main database that
16 we were using - I will talk about this in a moment - and we have seen
17 that there was a visible change in the patterns on or about the
18 25th of June, 1991. Whereas before that date, the daily average of
19 displacements from the war-affected areas was about 60 persons per day.
20 Since 25th of June, in the last six days of the month, this number has
21 increased to close to 500 persons per day. So clearly something
22 important has happened on or about the 25th of June.
23 Q. Looking at this figure 5, we see that there is a peak at the
24 beginning of June and there is also a peak on the 15th of June. Can you
25 tell us anything about that?
Page 5219
1 A. These peaks are quite likely statistical artefacts, so they might
2 indicate that some of the dates were missing or had the date element
3 missing in which case they would be most often recorded as if something
4 happened on the first day of the month. The peaks on the 20th, 15th, and
5 also 10th of June indicate something that is known in statistics as
6 heaping, which is the -- a form of a recall bias, which means that
7 sometimes due to problems with recollection of events, the dates are
8 being rounded to the nearest five or ten, and this seems to show in this
9 particular case.
10 Q. So just by way of an example, if I was a displaced person and I
11 was being interviewed in 1994, I might say, "Well, I was displaced in
12 June sometime around the beginning," and that would most likely be
13 recorded as the 1st of June?
14 A. Yes. That's perfectly plausible.
15 Q. Now for purposes of this report, did you look at the causes of
16 displacement?
17 A. We did not since this information was not available to us in the
18 sources that we have examined.
19 Q. And I think at this stage it would be useful if you could just
20 give us a brief overview of the structure of your report.
21 A. The report as stated in the introduction is structured into
22 six main sections and a number of appendices. So after a brief executive
23 summary, the report starts with an introduction which introduces the
24 aims, scope, terminology of the report, and also defines the area under
25 study. Then section 2 addresses the first aim of the report, which is
Page 5220
1 the analyses of the ethnic composition of the war-affected areas.
2 Sections 3, 4, and 5 address the second aim of the report, which is the
3 analyses of displacements. And in particular, section 3 looks at the
4 available scientific literature on the topic; section 4 analyses the
5 database from the government office -- government office of displaced
6 persons and refugees; and section 5 looks at other possible sources of
7 data that we could -- that we could obtain as being publicly available.
8 Then section 6 includes the main conclusions of the study, followed by a
9 list of references and links to the ICTY material, followed by five
10 appendices. The first one dealing with the territorial divisions of the
11 area under study; the second one, appendix B, to the profiles of the
12 municipalities that were included in the study; appendix C, to selected
13 settlements within war-affected areas; appendix D presents some summary
14 maps in the new municipal division to supplement the old municipal
15 division which is shown in the report; and finally, appendix E provides
16 brief biographical notes of all the three authors.
17 Q. Just turning quickly to appendix C, can you tell us how did you
18 go about selecting the settlements for that appendix?
19 A. For that appendix, three of the settlements, so Vukovar, Ilok,
20 and Erdut, were selected on the basis of them being mentioned in the
21 indictment. The further settlements that are listed in the appendix were
22 those for which we found that there was a substantial number of
23 displacements during the period under study. And by that, we mean that
24 we set a threshold of 2.000 displaced persons, so we are showing all the
25 settlements where the number of displaced persons exceeded the threshold.
Page 5221
1 Q. I would like to now talk about the statistical sources that you
2 used in conducting your analysis. But before we do that, could you tell
3 us, what do demographers typically use to arrive at figures regarding
4 population shifts?
5 A. Normally demographers would look at sources of information such
6 as population censuses such as the registration of population, the
7 registration of vital events, the registration of migratory events,
8 registration of other events of interest, as well as different surveys,
9 if relevant.
10 Q. And what about scientific -- scientific and academic sources or
11 secondary sources, as you may call them, are they typically used?
12 A. Yes, this is -- this is basically the main part of every piece of
13 academic work, to review the literature that is already available on the
14 topic. Not only to check what has already been done but also to provide
15 a bench-mark for one's own study.
16 Q. And what types of sources were available to you in your analysis
17 for this report?
18 A. For the first aim of this report, we had available aggregate
19 tables from the 1991 population census carried out in the Republic of
20 Croatia. For the second aim of the report, we identified a number of
21 published sources which are listed in the references section of the
22 report. And most importantly, we were able to look at the data provided
23 to the Office of the Prosecutor by the Croatian authorities following
24 your request back in 2003.
25 Q. And did you also look at international reports; for instance, by
Page 5222
1 UNHCR?
2 A. Yes, we did. These international reports constitute a vast part
3 of section 5 of the report.
4 Q. Could you tell us when was the next -- next census conducted in
5 Croatia after 1991?
6 A. The next census was conducted in 2001.
7 Q. And why did you not use that census for purposes of your
8 analysis?
9 A. There were several reasons for that. Firstly, the date of the
10 first post-war census was too far away from the period under study to
11 provide any useful information for our report. Secondly, between the end
12 of the period under study and the next census, 2001, there were
13 significant population shifts within Croatia in 1995, after the
14 operations Flash and Storm, which would have distorted any inferences
15 that we could have made on the basis of the post-war census.
16 Q. I want to talk about each of the sources that you've mentioned.
17 First, when was the population census for Croatia taken? Or in other
18 words, when was it -- when was it completed, let's say?
19 A. The census date was the 31st of March, 1911, so that was the
20 reference date. But of course the actual data collection took place a
21 bit later when the people who were enumerated in the census were asked to
22 recall the circumstances on the day of the 31st of March, 1991.
23 Q. Yes. And I was about to correct you. I think you said something
24 about close to 1911. But this is 1991.
25 A. This is 1991, apologies.
Page 5223
1 Q. So is it fair to say that the census was completed before the
2 conflict began in Croatia?
3 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's note: For the benefit of the
4 interpreters, could you please pause between questions and answers.
5 THE WITNESS: Excuse me, I didn't hear the question.
6 MR. OLMSTED:
7 Q. No problem. Would it be correct to say that the census would
8 have been completed before the conflict began in Croatia in full scale?
9 A. Yes, it was.
10 Q. Now who conducted the census?
11 A. It was the Croatian Office for Statistics or, back then, the
12 Yugoslav Croatian Republican Office for Statistics that conducted the
13 1991 census.
14 Q. And who was included in the census?
15 A. In principle the census should have included the whole permanent
16 population, permanently resident population of Croatia. So these were
17 the people with the legal status of the permanent residents of the
18 territory of Croatia at the time of the census.
19 Q. And could you give us an idea of how the census was conducted?
20 Maybe explain the process in general terms.
21 A. The process consisted in enumerators going from a household to a
22 household and interviewing persons in that household as to the basic
23 socio-demographic characteristics and filling census forms, which were
24 later computerized in the statistical office in Zagreb.
25 Q. And can you tell us what kind of information was collected --
Page 5224
1 THE INTERPRETER: Kindly pause between questions and answers.
2 MR. OLMSTED:
3 Q. I'm sorry. It's probably because I am not waiting for you to
4 complete your answer. But let me repeat my question: What information
5 was essentially collected from each person? What kind of data?
6 A. The main demographic characteristics, such as a person's sex,
7 date of birth, marital status, number of children born for women.
8 Additionally, some socio-economic characteristics about the person and
9 about the households, as well as for those households that were linked to
10 agricultural production, some information about the farms.
11 Q. And was this type of information and this process typical of
12 house censuses that are conducted around the world?
13 A. Yes. This was typical, especially back in 1991. Of course,
14 since then, the computerization has progressed so that there are
15 technological advances in census-taking, but this was, you know, a
16 perfectly standard procedure.
17 Q. And what was the process for reporting ethnicity to the census?
18 A. Ethnicity in the census was a self-recorded category, so
19 basically a person could have reported themselves as being a Croat, a
20 Serb, a Hungarian, a Yugoslav, or they could equally well decline to
21 declare themselves ethnically.
22 Q. And if they declined declaring ethnicity, what happened?
23 A. Nothing. They would just be recorded as those who didn't declare
24 their ethnicity.
25 Q. Now you mentioned that the questionnaires were computerized or
Page 5225
1 inserted into a computer system. Can you tell us, was any quality
2 control imposed by the Croatian authorities?
3 MR. GOSNELL: Objection, Mr. President.
4 JUDGE DELVOIE: Mr. Gosnell.
5 MR. GOSNELL: I haven't objected up until now, but I think we
6 should lay some foundation for the witness's knowledge of this particular
7 information.
8 MR. OLMSTED: Well, before I proceed.
9 Q. Can you tell us, what are you basing your knowledge on the
10 Croatian census?
11 A. There is -- part of it is the literature cited in the report,
12 including the 1991 census report, and part of this information comes from
13 the work I conducted on the census for Bosnia-Herzegovina, also whilst at
14 the Tribunal. Back at the time, back in 1991 the -- both the Bosnian and
15 the Croatian censuses followed the standard Yugoslav rules for census
16 taking.
17 Q. And while you were working for the Office of the Prosecution, did
18 you take any trips down to Croatia and speak with officials who were
19 responsible for the census back in 1991 and forward in time?
20 A. Yes, we did. We undertook such a mission, if I remember
21 correctly, in July 2003 or thereabouts, and we spent a week and a half at
22 the premises of the statistical office in Zagreb, and we talked to the
23 people responsible for data collection at the statistical office. And
24 also we were able to do some analysis of the material on location.
25 Q. And based on the information that you had that you described for
Page 5226
1 us, could you tell us what kind of quality control the Croatian
2 authorities imposed upon the data they were collecting for the census?
3 A. I do not know exactly what checks were conducted in the case of
4 Croatian data, but the standard routine procedures would be logical
5 consistency checks; so making sure, for example, that the person's date
6 of birth as reported is earlier than the census date, for example. Or
7 that the first name matches with the reported gender. Then the other
8 type of consistency checks that are usually carried out are related to
9 the duplicate control, whereby the statistical authorities check that a
10 person is mentioned in the census only once, because it happens that
11 during the enumeration process some people are being reported twice. A
12 well-known example considers children of divorced parents who are quite
13 often reported both by the father as well as by the mother.
14 Q. Thank you.
15 MR. OLMSTED: Let's have 65 ter 851 on the screen.
16 Just for cross-referencing purposes, this is the same document
17 that is P1776. But for reasons that will become obvious, I am showing
18 the witness this exhibit.
19 Q. First, can you confirm, is this the 1991 population census in
20 Croatia?
21 A. Yes, it is.
22 MR. OLMSTED: And perhaps we can turn randomly into the document.
23 Maybe let's go to page 150.
24 Q. The first 200 pages of this census primarily contain various
25 charts. Could you tell us what's contained in these charts?
Page 5227
1 A. This particular publication deals with the ethnic breakdown of
2 the population of the Republic of Croatia, and different tables within
3 this publication show the number of people who declare themselves
4 according to specific ethnic affiliations. So this -- this -- what is on
5 the screen shows an excerpt of such a table for some selected
6 municipalities and settlements.
7 MR. OLMSTED: And if we could turn now to page 275.
8 Q. After these charts there are a series of maps, and I want to show
9 you the one for Osijek municipality. Doctor, can you tell us what is
10 represented by the various coloured circles on this map?
11 A. The circles represent particular settlements within -- within the
12 Osijek municipality. The colours denote the type of ethnic majority in a
13 given settlement, and the size of the circle corresponds to the number of
14 people living in a given place. So for example, the town of Osijek
15 clearly stands out as the largest settlement in this municipality.
16 Q. Now what about the circles that have an empty centre, what do
17 those represent?
18 A. The filled versus empty circles represent different types of
19 ethnic majority. So the solid circles represent the absolute majority,
20 so where a dominant group considered 50 per cent or more of the total
21 population. And in this case, the red colour denotes Croats and the blue
22 colour denotes Serbs. Whereas the empty -- the circles with the empty
23 interior denote settlements with relative majority, so those who were the
24 dominant ethnic group had a majority yet still below 50 per cent.
25 Q. And we see above the map there is a number of figures. Are those
Page 5228
1 from the results of the census?
2 A. Yes, they are. All the information in this publication is
3 supposed to come from the 1991 census.
4 MR. OLMSTED: Your Honours, I think we mentioned this in an
5 e-mail last week. We would like to substitute this original version of
6 the census with the one that's under P1776 simply because this one has
7 the coloured maps and, as you can see, the colour is relevant to
8 understanding these maps. I can do that by written motion or, if you
9 would like, we could probably just do it orally?
10 JUDGE DELVOIE: And is P1776 in B/C/S as well?
11 MR. OLMSTED: It's an identical document except for 1776 is all
12 black and white.
13 JUDGE DELVOIE: Okay.
14 MR. OLMSTED: And we don't -- we didn't interpret the whole -- we
15 didn't translate the entire census because you have a template and, from
16 that, I think you can basically understand the rest of the document since
17 it's in the Latin script.
18 JUDGE DELVOIE: Any objection from the Defence?
19 MR. GOSNELL: As long as the Prosecution proffers that they are
20 the same documents except for the colour, there is no objection.
21 JUDGE DELVOIE: So we will substitute this document.
22 Mr. Registrar, will this document then have the exhibit number
23 P1 -- whatever it is, 1776, or will it have a new number?
24 THE REGISTRAR: No, correct, Your Honours. 65 ter document 851
25 shall replace and become the Prosecution Exhibit P1776. Thank you,
Page 5229
1 Your Honours.
2 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.
3 MR. OLMSTED: Thank you, Mr. President.
4 Q. Doctor, I now want to talk about the 1994 database that was
5 created by the Croatian government Office for Displaced Persons,
6 Returnees, and Refugees, which I think we can refer to as ODPRR. Can you
7 tell us what was this 1994 database?
8 A. The 1994 database includes a collection of information from --
9 about the displaced persons in the territories of Croatia to which the
10 Croatian government had access at the time. And this was the first
11 comprehensive data collection under -- undertaken by the Office for
12 Displaced Persons and Refugees. Before that, of course data on refugees
13 were collected, but the 1994 database is the first time when actually all
14 the -- all the displaced persons had to register themselves and confirm
15 their status in -- to Croatian authorities, which information was
16 later -- and later entered into a database. So for the first time, the
17 whole comprehensive information about displaced persons was -- became
18 available in electronic format.
19 Q. And could you tell us, how do you define displaced persons for
20 purposes of your report?
21 A. In our report as stated on -- on page 4, we define displaced
22 persons as those officially recognised as such due to war-related
23 activities by appropriate national or international authorities. And
24 this is a term -- this is a generic term. We referred to displaced
25 persons in the context of both internally displaced persons as well as
Page 5230
1 refugees, so those who moved abroad.
2 Q. I want to go back to your answer before this last one. You
3 mentioned that the 1994 database covers those displaced persons to which
4 the government had access. Can you clarify that for us. Does that mean
5 that in areas that were not under the Croatian government control, those
6 displaced persons would not be part of the database?
7 A. Yes, this is correct. The database only relates to the displaced
8 persons who were at the time in the government-controlled territories of
9 Croatia.
10 Q. And does the database include refugees in third countries, either
11 Serbia or Bosnia, but as well as places like Germany, Hungary, and other
12 parts of Europe and the world?
13 A. No, it does not.
14 Q. Could you tell us, based upon what you know about this 1994
15 database, was it mandatory for all displaced persons in Croatian
16 government-controlled area to register themselves with the ODPRR?
17 A. No, it was not mandatory. A person could register, especially if
18 they wanted to receive some state assistance stemming from the fact that
19 they were a displaced person. But, of course if someone was displaced,
20 there was always an option of not disclosing themselves to the
21 authorities; for example, if people lived with their families and didn't
22 need state support, they could equally be not be registered as displaced
23 persons.
24 Q. And to be included in the 1994 ODPRR database, did the person
25 have to still have been a displaced person in a Croat
Page 5231
1 government-controlled area in 1994?
2 A. If I remember correctly, the person should have been either a
3 displaced persons -- either a displaced person or a returnee by the time
4 of the -- of the 1994 registration; although, the returns and returnees
5 data were not fully collected until the later re-registration that took
6 place in 1997.
7 Q. And we will talk about the 1997 database in a minute. But if I
8 understand you correctly, if a person prior to 1994, a displaced person,
9 decided to change his permanent residence to the place to which he was
10 displaced to, he would not appear in the 1994 database?
11 A. The person would still appear in the 1994 database if they were a
12 displaced person, so a person with entitlement to be called as such. And
13 the report mentions the situations this was a person could have ceased to
14 be a displaced persons. This is listed -- the circumstances are listed
15 in footnote 14 on the page 15 of the report. So in this -- in this case,
16 a displaced person would cease to be such if the municipality of the
17 person's former place of residence decided that the person can actually
18 return safely to their place of residence. The person decided out of
19 their own free will to return or the person did not accept assistance
20 from the government.
21 Q. And in such cases, those persons would not appear in the
22 1994 database?
23 A. I think -- I think this is the case, yes.
24 Q. Could you tell us, when did the collection of the data for the
25 1994 database begin?
Page 5232
1 A. The original collection took place in 1994.
2 Q. And if you know, could you tell us in what form was the data
3 collected?
4 A. So the data was primarily collected first using paper forms which
5 were then computerized and stored centrally in a database of the Office
6 for Displaced Persons and Refugees in Zagreb.
7 Q. And was this 1994 database limited to one ethnicity?
8 A. In principle it was not.
9 Q. And could you tell us, how was the date and place of displacement
10 determined?
11 A. In the 1994 collection, the date and place of displacement are as
12 reported by the person in question.
13 Q. And could you tell us based upon your meetings with Croatian
14 officials while you were with the Office of the Prosecution, were you
15 informed of what measures the Croatian authorities employed to ensure the
16 accuracy of the data in the 1994 database?
17 A. Yes. They have conducted a range of quality checks, most
18 importantly consisting of duplicate removal from the 1994 and later
19 collections.
20 Q. And what incentive did the Croatian authorities have to ensure
21 the accuracy of the data contained within this database?
22 A. I think that the main incentives they had was the fact that the
23 registration of a person as a displaced person bear financial
24 consequences for the Croatian government, so basically people registered
25 as displaced persons were entitled to a range of benefits, which is why
Page 5233
1 it was in the interest of the government, and hence the office, to get
2 the numbers as correct as possible.
3 Q. When did the OTP obtain this database?
4 A. If I remember correctly, it was in May 2003.
5 Q. And what measures were taken to, let's say, clean the data?
6 A. We -- first of all, we double-checked the data collections we
7 received from the point of view of presence of the duplicates, and we
8 managed to identify several more of those and removed them from the
9 database.
10 Q. Were individual entries within the ODPRR database matched with
11 the 1991 census?
12 A. Partially. We have matched some of the collections including the
13 one, which I will talk about a bit later, that concerns the registration
14 of displaced persons in Eastern Slavonia in 1997 and the requests for
15 return, but we didn't match the 1994 and 1997 collections.
16 Q. And can you tell us why you did not match the 1994 database?
17 A. This was mainly for the -- because of the time constraint we had
18 whilst on the mission to Zagreb. All the -- the whole matching process
19 had to be carried out whilst in Zagreb under controlled conditions to
20 ensure the privacy, protection, and at the time we were able only to --
21 to match a limited number of collections, and we prioritised the 1997
22 registration in Eastern Slavonia and requests for return because there
23 was an acute need to supplement this information with data on ethnicity,
24 as will become obvious later on.
25 Q. Your report also mentions a 1997 re-registration database that
Page 5234
1 was created by ODPRR. Could you tell us what that database was and how
2 you used it in your analysis?
3 A. This was an endeavour by -- the Croatian authorities undertook in
4 1997 to verify the numbers of displaced persons, of returnees, of
5 refugees in Croatia, done with -- with -- presumably with the aim of
6 establishing a sound evidence base for the payments of the associated
7 benefits.
8 Q. Now why did you not rely on the 1997 database?
9 A. There were two partially overlapping reasons for that. One was
10 that the 1997 database relates to a year which is further away from the
11 end of the period under study. So this is -- this is already almost
12 four years after the end of the period under study. And secondly, the
13 size of the collection is smaller than the 1994 one because between 1994
14 and 1997, quite a lot of people have already lost their entitlement to
15 state support and hence were not included in the 1997 re-registration.
16 Q. Was there a significant overlap between the 1994 and 1997
17 databases nonetheless?
18 A. Yes, there was. And actually, the collections were already
19 cross-matched by the Office for Displaced Persons and Refugees in Zagreb,
20 and they identified about 80 per cent of the 1997 registered displaced
21 persons back in the 1994 database.
22 Q. What were the advantages -- or what are the advantages of the
23 1994 database from a demographic perspective?
24 A. Well, first of all, in the context of this report, the 1994
25 database relates to a period just after the end of the period under study
Page 5235
1 in this report. Secondly, the way in which some items are being reported
2 is also better from the analytical point of view. For example, the date
3 of displacement in the 1994 collection is as reported by the person
4 themselves, whereas in the 1997 collection, the only date available is
5 the date of the first acquisition of a status of a displaced person,
6 which might be, well, a bit later than the actual displacement took
7 place.
8 Q. And now could you tell us what are the drawbacks of the 1994
9 database from a demographical point of view?
10 A. The main drawback, of course, is that this data set does not
11 cover the whole area of Croatia. It only covers those areas which were
12 at the time under the government -- Croatian government control. It also
13 does not include refugees from Croatia. So basically there are some
14 important population of displaced persons and refugees who are not
15 included in this particular data set.
16 Q. Now what about data regarding displaced Serbs?
17 A. There are some data about the displaced Serbs in the 1994
18 collection but they are really few and far between. The main information
19 about the displaced Serbs that I use in the report comes from the 1997
20 registration of displaced persons in Eastern Slavonia and the related
21 requests for return filed with the Croatian authorities.
22 Q. And we'll turn to that database in just one minute, but quickly,
23 was there an effort when you were working for the Office of the
24 Prosecution to obtain data regarding Serb displacement from Belgrade?
25 A. Yes, they were -- there were such attempts and we have filed
Page 5236
1 several requests for assistance to the Serb -- Serbian authorities at the
2 time but they were actually never answered during my time at the ICTY nor
3 to my knowledge after that.
4 Q. Turning to the last database, the one that you just mentioned,
5 what is the 1997 request for return and Eastern Slavonian registration
6 database? Who was including them there?
7 A. So in 1997, in the territories of Eastern Slavonia, before that
8 territory was reintegrated into the Croatian administrative system, under
9 the auspices of the United Nations there was a registration of displaced
10 persons carried out in the region, and also in parallel, people from
11 anywhere, and this includes non-government-controlled areas of Croatia,
12 this includes -- in Eastern Slavonia, this includes Serbia and
13 Montenegro, and Bosnia-Herzegovina and other places, could have lodged
14 requests for return to Croatian authorities if they wished to return to
15 Croatia.
16 Q. And could you tell us to what extent did the data in this
17 database overlap with the data from the 1994 and 1997 ODPRR databases?
18 A. Theoretically there should be no or hardly any overlap because of
19 the very different subpopulations that were subject to these different
20 registrations processes.
21 Q. You said "theoretically." How did it turn out? We'll go more
22 into the actual data you found from this 1997 database, but just
23 generally, was there -- did you find significant overlap?
24 A. Actually, we did not check for overlap between these collections
25 because the 1997 re-registration and the request for return were still
Page 5237
1 left waiting for any data that might have come from Serbia as -- at the
2 time that I was working at the OTP. So this part of the work remained
3 unfinished.
4 Q. You also mention -- you've also mentioned that one of your
5 sources were international reports such as UNHCR reports. To what extent
6 did you rely on such reports for your analysis?
7 A. We basically used these reports as a way of corroborating our
8 findings and just benchmarking our findings against something that was
9 provided by mostly international authorities that could be seen as
10 impartial and nonpartisan.
11 Q. And with regard to the remaining secondary sources that are cited
12 in your report, government reports, scientific or academic literature, to
13 what extent did you rely on those sources in arriving at your
14 conclusions?
15 A. To a similar extent, mainly to provide the background information
16 and also to cross-check our results against those cited with the proviso
17 that in quite a few cases, especially when it comes to academic
18 literature, it was obvious that the authors had their own agenda when
19 they published their results. So we did not treat these sources at the
20 same level as we would, for example, treat the UNHCR estimates.
21 Q. Did these sources, nonetheless, have some value for the purposes
22 of your report?
23 A. Yes, they do. Especially from the point of view of confirming
24 and corroborating the findings that we have reached.
25 Q. All right. I now want to turn to the conclusions in your report.
Page 5238
1 Based on your analysis of the 1994 ODPRR database, you determined
2 that 182.995 persons were displaced between 25 June 1991 and
3 31 December 1993 from the war-affected areas in Croatia and that over
4 97 per cent of them were Croats and other non-Serbs; is that correct?
5 A. Yes, this is correct.
6 Q. And you also indicate in your report that this 182.955 figure is
7 a minimum confirmed estimate. Why is that?
8 A. This is mainly for the reasons that I already mentioned, that the
9 data collection took place only in the government-controlled areas of
10 Croatia. So the -- there must have been displaced persons outside of the
11 government-controlled areas of Croatia and there must have been refugees
12 in other countries, and also there were some people who did not register
13 as displaced persons, which all together suggests that the true numbers
14 are higher than the ones we quote in the report. But, of course, we do
15 not know by how much. This is why in the report we presume the numbers,
16 that we are pretty certain that they refer to the -- to the actual -- the
17 minimum conservative estimates of the number of displaced persons. So
18 we -- in the report we wanted to err on the side of caution.
19 Q. Is a third factor that impacts this analysis, as we discussed,
20 the situation where a person has relinquished their displaced persons
21 benefits by 1994 and therefore they would also not be counted?
22 A. Yes. This is -- this is yet another possibility, which is
23 actually something that is confirmed or suggested by the -- by the
24 literature, that they were -- there were some short-term displacements,
25 especially in 1991, which then did not end up in the 1994 database.
Page 5239
1 Q. Very well. You've just mentioned three --
2 THE INTERPRETER: Kindly make a pause after the answer.
3 MR. OLMSTED:
4 Q. I'm sorry. Please go ahead.
5 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters are kindly asking you to make
6 a pause after the end of the answer. Thank you.
7 MR. OLMSTED:
8 Q. I just wanted to comment that you've now mentioned three provisos
9 and you've mentioned them in the past, and in the future, we'll just
10 refer to those as the three provisos with regard to the minimum estimate.
11 Is that all right?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Now compared to the pre-war population size, in which of the
14 three Serbian autonomous districts in Croatia was the proportion of
15 displaced persons the highest?
16 MR. OLMSTED: And we can perhaps turn to page 19 of the report,
17 20 on e-court. This is 65 ter 2831.
18 THE WITNESS: This was definitely the case for the broadly
19 defined Eastern Slavonia, so the war-affected areas in the municipalities
20 of Beli Manastir, Osijek, Vukovar, and Vinkovci, where the number of DPs
21 in the 1994 collection amounted to 38.2 per cent of the pre-war
22 population, and on the top of that, from the request for return and the
23 1997 registration in Eastern Slavonia to further 1.6 per cent. So in
24 terms of the relation between the number of displaced persons and the
25 pre-war population, the Eastern Slavonia region was clearly the highest.
Page 5240
1 MR. OLMSTED: And if we could turn to table 3, which is on page
2 16 of your report, page 17 in e-court.
3 Q. You indicate that the ODPRR database shows 76.226 persons
4 displaced from the SBWS or Eastern Slavonia war-affected areas.
5 MR. OLMSTED: Scroll down a bit on the page, I think. There we
6 go.
7 Q. Doctor, based on your analysis, what percentage of these
8 displaced persons were Croat?
9 A. I will need to check from -- with my notes.
10 MR. GOSNELL: Objection. That's outside of the scope of the
11 report because the witness has testified and the report indicates that he
12 conducted no analysis whatsoever as to the number of Serb displaced
13 persons from the area.
14 So to ask for a proportion of the total number of displaced by
15 ethnicity is a question that the witness can't answer.
16 MR. OLMSTED: Your Honours, I believe Defence counsel has
17 misinterpreted my question. I am actually not interested in the number
18 of non-Serbs in relation to Serbs or any other ethnicity but, rather,
19 within the Croat population itself. So I'm confining it to Croats. And
20 the percentage of Croats out of the total number of Croats in the
21 1991 census that were displaced according to the 1994 database.
22 MR. GOSNELL: Well, I don't understand the question, then,
23 because if it's the number of Croats amounted -- as a percentage of the
24 population of Croats, then that makes no sense. That's a hundred
25 per cent. So maybe I'm -- either I'm not understanding the question and
Page 5241
1 perhaps there could be a clarification.
2 MR. OLMSTED: I will try to clarify it. I think it's obvious,
3 but I'll try to clarify it again.
4 Q. We have a number here of the number of displaced Croats -- well,
5 first of all, we have a number of total persons displaced which is 76.226
6 persons displaced from the SBWS. Now, if we look over to the right, we
7 see a figure that says 93 or -- 93.4 per cent of these displaced persons
8 were Croats. Now that is for all three SAOs. What I'm interested in is
9 just for the SBWS, what percentage of Croats were displaced based upon
10 the groups that are within SAO SBWS.
11 MR. OLMSTED: And this information, Your Honours, can be derived
12 simply from looking at the appendices, and so it's available, but simply
13 it's better that the witness performs this mathematical calculation for
14 us on the record rather than leaving it to the lawyers to try to do it.
15 THE WITNESS: Your Honours, may I try to explain the questions
16 and the answers?
17 JUDGE DELVOIE: Please do.
18 THE WITNESS: Okay. Before the war in the 1991 census, in the
19 war-affected areas of Eastern Slavonia, there were 91.756 Croats
20 according to the census. Of that number, 69.168 can be found in the
21 database of the displaced persons, which is 75.4 per cent. These numbers
22 are not directly stated in the report but they can be derived from the
23 numbers that are provided in the appendices just by adding the respective
24 amounts for the Beli Manastir, Osijek, Vukovar, and Vinkovci.
25 There is yet another analysis that can be done here, which is to
Page 5242
1 look at the number of displaced Croats from this area amongst the total
2 number of people displaced from this area, which is 90.7 per cent.
3 And here, Mr. Gosnell is perfectly right, this is not reflective
4 of the true ethnic distribution. It is just the description of the data
5 set. This is just the feature of the 1994 registration. Within this
6 data set for the broader Eastern Slavonia region, over 90 per cent of
7 those registered were Croats.
8 MR. OLMSTED:
9 Q. So -- and again, that's the -- the total number of displaced
10 persons was 76.226, and out of those which were derived from the 1994
11 database, over 90 per cent were Croats? Just to make sure I have it
12 right.
13 A. Yes, that is correct.
14 Q. And then the second percentage is looking at that number compared
15 to the 1991 census and we get a figure of 75.4 per cent of the Croat --
16 of the pre-conflict Croat population in the SBWS was displaced.
17 A. Yes. This is roughly the interpretation with the proviso that,
18 of course, the population could have changed between the census and the
19 date of displacement. So of course, people could have moved out for
20 another reason. Children could have been born, people could have died.
21 So there were a lot of other things that could have happened. But in
22 general, this is the direction, with those provisos.
23 Q. So that's a minimum estimate, more or less, the 75.4 per cent?
24 MR. GOSNELL: Objection, that's leading.
25 JUDGE DELVOIE: It is, Mr. Olmsted.
Page 5243
1 MR. OLMSTED: Right. Fair enough.
2 Let's turn to figure 3, which is on page 9 of your report, 10 of
3 the version on e-court.
4 Q. Doctor, could you explain to us, what does this figure tell us
5 about the pre-conflict ethnic composition of the SBWS as compared to the
6 other SAOs?
7 A. Well, I'd like to start by just reiterating that the colours --
8 colourings on this map refer not to the whole municipalities but to the
9 war-affected settlements within these municipalities only. And with that
10 proviso, it seems that the -- well, the Eastern Slavonia as compared to
11 other areas, especially in Krajina and Western Slavonia, was in many
12 places more dominated by Croats, even if the majority was a relative one,
13 and by other non-Serbs. And by this, I predominantly mean Hungarians,
14 which can be seen on the bottom chart denoted by the green colour. This
15 is, by the way, an example of -- which shows the benefits of using the
16 new municipal division as opposed to the old one because we can obtain a
17 far more detailed picture of the ethnic composition of the area of the
18 particular localities.
19 MR. OLMSTED: Let us look at figure 8, which is on page 20 of the
20 report, page 21 on e-court.
21 Q. Doctor, could you tell us, what does this figure show us with
22 regard to SAO SBWS as compared to the other SAOs?
23 A. This figure generally displays the number of displaced persons
24 from the war-affected settlements, again, plotted by old municipalities.
25 And the top chart refers to the 1994 database. The bottom chart refers
Page 5244
1 to the 1997 Eastern Slavonia registration and the requests for return.
2 And especially -- one thing worth noting here is that the scales are
3 different. The magnitude of the displacement shown in the top map is
4 much higher than those -- of those in the bottom map, and clearly in
5 the -- from the top map it seems that Eastern Slavonia region stands out
6 in terms of the number of displacements per municipality. The highest --
7 the darkest brown colour refers to municipalities with over
8 10.000 displaced persons each and the numbers range up to 32 -
9 nearly - .4 thousand. So clearly Eastern Slavonia stands out as the
10 region most -- most displacements per municipality took place.
11 Q. Let's now turn to figure 6 in your report.
12 MR. OLMSTED: This is page 18 of the report. 19 of the e-court.
13 Q. Doctor, you also conclude that the majority of the
14 182.995 displaced persons from the 1994 database were displaced in late
15 1991 from Krajina and the SBWS region. Did other sources available to
16 you confirm this conclusion as far as when the most significant number of
17 displacements occurred?
18 A. Yes. Both the literature that we reviewed as well as the
19 independent estimates, such as those of the UNHCR, seems to be pointing
20 out as to 1991 as the period of the most intense displacements from these
21 areas.
22 Q. And what did your study find with regard to displacements in 1992
23 and 1993?
24 A. The general magnitude of displacements, as showed on the right
25 panel of this figure, was much lower than of those that occurred in 1991,
Page 5245
1 but still the figure shows that the displacements continued, although at
2 a lower intensity, throughout the period under study. So they didn't
3 finish in 1991. They continued throughout 1992 and 1993.
4 MR. OLMSTED: Let's turn to page 40 of your report. And this is
5 within appendix B. I believe it's B -- B1. And it's the municipality
6 profile for Beli Manastir.
7 First of all, if we could just look at the bottom of the page?
8 Yes. And if we could turn to the next page. Perhaps I got the
9 wrong page. I thought it was page 40 in e-court but it's the next -- it
10 should be the --
11 THE REGISTRAR: It was page 38. Thank you.
12 MR. OLMSTED: Page 38. No, no. It will be the next page after
13 that. And perhaps you can tell me what page that is so I can make sure
14 that my future references are to the correct page. Yes, that's the one.
15 Is that page 38?
16 THE REGISTRAR: That is page 40.
17 MR. OLMSTED: Okay. Then that is the one I want. Thank you.
18 Q. Now, if we could look at the bottom of the page, could you tell
19 us what's -- what's provided? What's listed down there?
20 A. At the bottom of the page there is a list of war-affected
21 settlements in the municipality of Beli Manastir as defined in the
22 Croatian law.
23 Q. So those are the -- the war-affected areas that you analysed?
24 A. Yes, they are.
25 Q. All right. And could you tell us, just briefly, what information
Page 5246
1 is provided in the first two tables?
2 A. The top table, the top panel shows the ethnic composition of the
3 population as enumerated in the 1991 population census by ethnicity,
4 distinguishing the measured groups such as Croats, Serbs, Hungarians,
5 Muslims, and a category of "others," which encompasses all defined and
6 undefined categories including those who did not declare themselves.
7 Further to the right there is an aggregate of the non-Serb population and
8 a grand total for the municipality.
9 The second panel shows a similar ethnic breakdown of the
10 1994 database of displaced persons. Again, the same ethnic groups and
11 the aggregate and the total.
12 Q. And what about the two graphs, what do they show?
13 A. They show the time patterns of displacements recorded in the
14 1994 data set, first for the period of 25th of June 1991 and the end of
15 1991, and then for the remaining period using a different reference
16 scale.
17 Q. You also found that 9.678 additional persons not found in the
18 1994 database were reported in the 1997 request for return
19 Eastern Slavonia registration database as displaced within the
20 geographical and temporal scope of your report. What did you conclude
21 was the primary ethnicity of these persons, these 9.000-plus persons?
22 A. For these persons about a third had their ethnicity stated as
23 being Serbs and over 60 per cent had their ethnicity stated as unknown.
24 And to find out who these people were, whilst we were in Zagreb on a
25 mission back in 2003, we have matched this particular collection with a
Page 5247
1 1991 census in order to obtain a breakdown by ethnicity of -- for this
2 collection. And basically for the whole collection of the 1997
3 Eastern Slavonia registration and requests for return, we found out that
4 for those whom we have matched and had the ethnicity reported as unknown,
5 about 90 per cent were Serbs in the 1991 census.
6 Q. And, Doctor, do you have an opinion on why this subset of
7 displaced persons for this 1997 database were primarily Serbs?
8 A. Well, I am not an expert on military aspects of population
9 displacements, but from the analysis of the data it seems that basically
10 mostly ethnic Croats were displaced into Croatian government-controlled
11 areas, whereas ethnic Serbs were displaced to Serb-controlled areas of
12 Croatia at the time, including Eastern Slavonia.
13 Q. And where were most of the 9.678 displaced persons from?
14 A. From the -- from the numbers that I have analysed in this
15 database, about a half came from Western Slavonia, a third from other
16 places within Eastern Slavonia, and further 18 per cent from somewhere in
17 Krajina.
18 Q. And when was the peak for these displacements?
19 A. The displacements from Western Slavonia peaked visibly in
20 December 1991 with a magnitude within this particular data set of just
21 about 1500 persons. The displacements from other areas in
22 Eastern Slavonia peaked in December 1991 and January 1992.
23 MR. GOSNELL: Excuse me. I'm sorry to interrupt. Could I have a
24 page reference from where the witness is reading. I'd just like to know
25 where the figures are from.
Page 5248
1 THE WITNESS: That's page 19 of the report.
2 MR. OLMSTED:
3 Q. Thank you. I believe in your report you also mentioned that in
4 this 1997 database there was 111.811 records. When did most of those
5 displacements take place?
6 A. Most of those displacements took place in 1995 during and after
7 the operations Flash and Storm and, as such, are outside of the scope of
8 the current report.
9 Q. And just briefly, because we are almost at our time for the
10 break, looking at the Beli Manastir municipality profile that we have in
11 front of us -- or, actually, now -- we've lost it.
12 MR. OLMSTED: Could we turn back to page 40 of the report.
13 Q. Where do we find the data for the 1997 request for return and
14 Eastern Slavonia registration database on this profile?
15 A. The numbers can be seen in a small table at the middle of the
16 page with a total of 132 persons and the graph of the time-line is shown
17 underneath.
18 MR. OLMSTED: Your Honours, would this be a good time for a
19 break?
20 JUDGE DELVOIE: It would indeed.
21 Dr. Bijak, this is the time for our first break. We will come
22 back at 11.00. The Court Usher will escort you out of the courtroom.
23 Thank you very much.
24 THE WITNESS: Thank you, Your Honour.
25 [The witness stands down]
Page 5249
1 JUDGE DELVOIE: Court adjourned.
2 --- Recess taken at 10.31 a.m.
3 --- On resuming at 11.00 a.m.
4 JUDGE DELVOIE: While we are waiting for the witness, two short
5 oral rulings. First one is about the Prosecution's motion to substitute
6 Exhibit P1984.1981 with the revised translation, filed 31st of May.
7 I take it the Defence has no objection.
8 MR. ZIVANOVIC: No objections from the Defence, Your Honour.
9 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.
10 The motion is hereby granted, and the Registrar shall take the
11 necessary measures to implement the decision.
12 [The witness takes the stand]
13 JUDGE DELVOIE: There is another one.
14 For the replacement of Exhibit P1410 and 14 -- sorry, P1401 and
15 P1402, filed 31st of May as well.
16 Same position from the Defence?
17 MR. ZIVANOVIC: Yes, Your Honour.
18 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you very much.
19 The motion is granted, and the Registry shall take the necessary
20 measures to implement the decision. Thank you.
21 Please proceed, Mr. Olmsted.
22 MR. OLMSTED: Thank you, Mr. President.
23 Q. Doctor, in your report you discuss how other sources,
24 governments, international organisations, scientific literature,
25 generally provide higher figures on the total number of displaced persons
Page 5250
1 in Croatia during the 1991 through 1993 period than your figures from the
2 1994 database. Beyond the three provisos that you have already testified
3 about, are there any other factors that would account for those
4 discrepancies?
5 A. Yes. First of all, as you may recall, we -- in this analysis we
6 explicitly excluded the area of Dubrovnik and Konavle, so the very
7 southern part of Croatia. Then we conducted additional quality checks
8 and duplicate control on the data set. So -- and our temporal definition
9 is also limited to the period from the 25th of June, 1991.
10 MR. OLMSTED: Let's have on the screen table 5, which is page 26
11 of the expert report, page 27 on e-court.
12 Q. Looking at the table, according to the data from the Croatian
13 Ministry for Public Works, the number of Croat displaced persons, it
14 appears from this table, reached a peak in 1991 or by the end of 1991 at
15 550.000 persons. But as we see by 1994, the number of displaced persons
16 or persons reporting themselves as displaced was reduced to around
17 200.000. And that number appears to be quite close to the number you
18 derived from the ODPRR database, approximately 183.000 displaced persons
19 who recorded themselves as displaced in 1994.
20 What does this -- what does this suggest to you, this variation
21 or decrease over time?
22 A. Well, first of all the -- the closeness of our estimates and the
23 ones reported in table 5 is not surprising given that the background data
24 are the same data from the government Office for Displaced Persons and
25 Refugees. As concerns the high variation in numbers, first of all, it
Page 5251
1 seems that the statistics on displacements have become much more accurate
2 later on. The 1991 figures obviously are rounded, possibly to the
3 nearest 10.000 or even 50.000. So this is a very rough estimate of the
4 number of displaced persons and might include many persons who have been
5 displaced only for a short period of time, might include many duplicates.
6 There is no way of actually verifying this first piece of information.
7 Q. And were there ebbs and flows of the number of displaced persons
8 over time?
9 A. Just by -- just by looking at the data from the 1994 database,
10 there were clearly ebbs and flows. The highest numbers were observed in
11 the second half of 1991, and then there was a pretty steady yet
12 non-negligible stream of displacements from 1992 to 1993.
13 Q. And I understand that. What I'm getting at is, we see the number
14 of displaced going up or being -- starting up quite high but then over
15 time it decreases. Could that be simply a matter of the number of people
16 reporting themselves as displaced decreasing over time? Is that a
17 possibility?
18 A. That is a possibility. Another possibility is the returns, of
19 course. Yet another possibility is that by the end of 1994, the
20 registration already took place, so basically the Croatian authorities
21 were in the possession of the database that is also the one that I am
22 using for the report. So this was, by that time, the data the
23 authorities had at their disposal were presumably much higher quality
24 because they have been actually computerized and quality checked as
25 opposed to, for example, the very high estimate for 1991.
Page 5252
1 Q. And we see by this table, by the end of 1992, the figure is
2 around 260.000 displaced persons. To what degree was that the accepted
3 number amongst the various sources that you reviewed?
4 A. There seems to be a consensus that by the end of 1992, the number
5 of displaced persons in Croatia was about 260.000. So this is -- this is
6 the number that appears in various publications as well as reports.
7 Q. And we also see the official statistics in this table for the
8 number of refugees. Could you tell us where did these official
9 statistics originate from?
10 A. The data in this table come from the official registers of
11 refugees or official statistics of the countries where the refugees
12 actually were granted asylum. And here in this table there is a
13 separation between Serbia and Montenegro, where the source is there the
14 official statistics of Serbia and Montenegro, and other countries, where
15 the source is the respective authorities of these countries.
16 Q. I now want to look at some reports from the 1991 through
17 1993 period that provides some statistical information on displaced
18 persons.
19 MR. OLMSTED: For the first one we are going to have to go into
20 private session as it's a protected document.
21 JUDGE DELVOIE: Private session, please.
22 [Private session]
23 (redacted)
24 (redacted)
25 (redacted)
Page 5253
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2
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4
5
6
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8
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10
11 Pages 5253-5257 redacted. Private session.
12
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Page 5258
1 (redacted)
2 (redacted)
3 (redacted)
4 (redacted)
5 (redacted)
6 (redacted)
7 (redacted)
8 (redacted)
9 (redacted)
10 (redacted)
11 (redacted)
12 (redacted)
13 (redacted)
14 (redacted)
15 (redacted)
16 (redacted)
17 (redacted)
18 (redacted)
19 [Open session]
20 THE REGISTRAR: We're back in open session, Your Honours. Thank
21 you.
22 MR. OLMSTED: And may we have 65 ter 5917 on e-court. This is
23 tab 38. And if we could turn to page 2.
24 Q. We see a chart showing the number of displaced persons in Croatia
25 as of the 22nd of January, 1992, to be around 324.000. Now this figure
Page 5259
1 appears consistent with the one we just -- the document we just looked at
2 a moment ago; is that correct?
3 A. Yes. This -- this seems correct.
4 Q. And we see underneath the chart that the data is broken down by
5 age and sex of the displaced persons. Could you tell us, just looking at
6 the nature of these figures, are they estimates or are they a result of a
7 count?
8 MR. GOSNELL: Objection. There is no foundation for that
9 question.
10 MR. OLMSTED: Your Honours, the foundation is his expertise as a
11 demographer and a statistician. He can look at numbers and give us his
12 views as whether they are just merely estimates.
13 MR. GOSNELL: Mr. President, there is absolutely no foundation
14 for the question. You can't tell that from looking at the document even
15 if you are an expert.
16 JUDGE DELVOIE: I tend to agree with that, Mr. Olmsted.
17 MR. OLMSTED: I'll move on then, Your Honours.
18 Q. Now with regard to the data you derived from the 1994 ODPRR
19 database, what percentage of the 183.000 displaced persons were female?
20 And I'll direct your attention to page 16 of your report. We don't need
21 to see it on the screen.
22 A. So in both the 1994 collection as well as in the other, the 1997
23 Eastern Slavonia registration and request for return, the percentage of
24 women was slightly higher than those for men, so it about was 52,
25 50 per cent women as opposed to 47, 48 per cent men, which is broadly in
Page 5260
1 line with the 1991 census results which identified for the whole of
2 Croatia about 51 and a half per cent of women overall, as opposed to
3 48 and a half per cent of men.
4 Q. We see in this document that women between the ages of 18 and
5 60 years old make up 22.4 per cent of the displaced population, while men
6 of military age make up only 8.6 per cent of the displaced population.
7 Could you tell us what factors may account for the lower number of men of
8 military age or the age between 18 and 60?
9 MR. GOSNELL: Objection, Mr. President. That's calling for
10 speculation. There is no context and there is no basis to suggest that
11 this expert has that information.
12 MR. OLMSTED: Your Honours, I'm not asking the witness to
13 speculate, but if he can provide an opinion based on his expertise, we
14 would like him to provide it.
15 JUDGE DELVOIE: Did the expert examine this, Mr. Olmsted?
16 MR. OLMSTED: Your Honours, the expert witness has reviewed all
17 the documents I'm showing him prior to his testimony, so he's had an
18 opportunity at least to review them.
19 JUDGE DELVOIE: You may answer, Mr. Bijak.
20 THE WITNESS: With respect to this -- this question, what I found
21 in this particular document, what I found striking was this gender
22 imbalance in this age of 18 to 60 years which is clearly not there in the
23 1994 registration. And also the age structure, as shown here, is very
24 much unlike what I found in the 1994 data collection. So there -- there
25 are not -- basically limiting myself to my area of expertise, there are
Page 5261
1 some discrepancies between the age and sex structures as reported in this
2 document and to what I found in the 1994 data collection. And this is
3 particularly seen for men age 18 to 60 for whatever reason. And for
4 children.
5 MR. OLMSTED:
6 Q. Well, can you -- can you be more specific as to what the
7 discrepancies you were -- you found so that we can have a better
8 understanding of the discrepancies between the 1994 data and what is
9 provided here?
10 A. So in the 1994 data set and -- and here I refer to my notes, out
11 of the total of nearly 183.000 displaced persons, about a quarter,
12 25.2 per cent, were children under 18, which was clearly a lower
13 percentage than the one reported in the document shown on the screen.
14 The population of the normal working age, between 18 and 60, comprised
15 55.2 per cent of the number of displaced persons, which is, again,
16 clearly higher that the statistics we see on the screen.
17 For the population over 60, those labeled as elderly in the
18 document, the estimate from the 1994 database is about 16 and a half per
19 cent, which is probably more comparable with what can be found in this
20 document. And I should add that -- that in the 1994 collection,
21 3 per cent of entries had the age or date of birth missing or obviously
22 incorrect.
23 Q. And I don't want you to speculate in any way, but could you
24 enlighten us, if you can, on what factors might explain the discrepancy
25 in particular with regard to the number of men between the age of 18 and
Page 5262
1 60? And if you are not able to speculate -- give us any opinion or
2 insights, then, of course, do not.
3 MR. GOSNELL: Well, Mr. President, I'm going to object to that.
4 It's not up to the witness to decide whether or not he's speculating.
5 It's evident -- it's -- from the four corners of the report that this is
6 calling for speculation. It's asking, and the specific question was:
7 What is the reason for the higher or the lower number of men of military
8 age?
9 And that is a question -- the answer can only be beyond the scope
10 of the report in my respectful submission.
11 MR. OLMSTED: Your Honours, in essence it is the question I
12 originally asked, which is asking him if he can provide us with the
13 possible factors. Obviously he didn't write this report so he cannot
14 give us the exact cause of the discrepancy, but he -- as he's already
15 explained, a number of factors go into the variation in data that's being
16 reported back in the time-period versus the data that he has in his
17 1994 database.
18 So I'm merely asking the witness if he can, based upon his
19 expertise, come up with factors that may impact this discrepancy in the
20 numbers that are reported here with regard to men between the age of 18
21 and 60 and those that came out of his 1994 ODPRR database.
22 JUDGE DELVOIE: Mr. Bijak may give his expert opinion without
23 speculating.
24 THE WITNESS: That will be difficult, Your Honour --
25 JUDGE DELVOIE: Then --
Page 5263
1 THE WITNESS: -- but I will try.
2 JUDGE DELVOIE: Well, if it's too difficult, you don't.
3 THE WITNESS: What I can certainly say is that in the document
4 shown on the screen, which is dated as of early 1992, presumably, which
5 is at the time of still military action going on or -- well, this was
6 after the cease-fire but still there was -- there was military tension.
7 At that time, it seems from this document that the men of military age
8 are under-represented in the registration as shown in this document than
9 what can be seen from the later registration, you know, which took place
10 in 1994. So for whatever reason, men either were not eligible at the
11 time to register or did not register from their own will. These are
12 probably the two hypotheses I could -- I could propose, but of course,
13 you know, it goes beyond my expertise to determine whether any of these
14 is true.
15 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.
16 MR. OLMSTED: Your Honours, may this be admitted into evidence.
17 MR. GOSNELL: Objection to this one, Mr. President. Unless this
18 document has been relied on by the witness, we would say it goes beyond
19 the scope of the report. In fact, the witness has specifically testified
20 that it is contrary to the information that he has looked at in his
21 report. So we say that there is no foundation to admit this document
22 with this witness.
23 MR. OLMSTED: Your Honours, we've already had a number of expert
24 witnesses testify in this case, and they have had the opportunity to
25 review documents that are not contained within their reports, and to the
Page 5264
1 extent they can comment on them, they've been allowed to do so. If those
2 comments provide insights into the document, useful insights into the
3 document, then, Your Honours, our position is that they should be
4 admitted at this time as any other document.
5 These are -- the ones we are looking at right now are UNHCR
6 documents, and I don't see a challenge as to their authenticity, and
7 therefore our position is that they are admissible and admissible through
8 this witness.
9 MR. GOSNELL: If I may briefly, Mr. President. This is not a
10 UNHCR document, this is a Croatian document. So we do question its
11 reliability and that's a basis for an objection in its own right.
12 Secondly, Mr. President, this witness had an opportunity -- there
13 have been supplements that have been tendered in respect of this witness
14 in May, I believe in May or March of this year, through a proofing note
15 in a supplement to his report. If there had been a wish for the
16 witness's commentary that we would have proper notice of in respect of
17 this document, that easily could have been done.
18 And if I may finally, Mr. President, in terms of previous
19 precedence, Your Honours know that on occasions we have interposed
20 objections in respect of documents used with previous expert witnesses
21 and some occasions you have upheld those objections where the document
22 did appear to go beyond what had been addressed in the subject matter of
23 the report. And that's what's important. Not whether or not the
24 document is footnoted in a report, but whether it goes beyond what
25 appears to have been in the subject matter of the report, so that we in
Page 5265
1 the Defence have reasonable notice even if we don't have the specific
2 document commented upon in the report. And respectfully, Mr. President,
3 we don't have that notice with this document.
4 MR. OLMSTED: Your Honours, first of all, I stand corrected.
5 Defence counsel is correct. It is a government of Croatia document.
6 Having said that, his argument goes to what weight the Trial Chamber will
7 eventually provide to the document, not to their admissibility.
8 With regard to the issue of notice, Your Honours, along with the
9 supplemental material, in the proofing note we listed this document as
10 exhibits that this witness may comment upon during his viva voce
11 testimony. And this was disclosed on the 22nd of May, 2013. So, in
12 fact, Defence counsel has been on notice that this witness may provide
13 comment on this particular document.
14 MR. GOSNELL: But, Mr. President, we didn't know the content of
15 that commentary and that's what vital in this circumstance, especially
16 when the content of that testimony is different from what's in his
17 report.
18 [Trial Chamber confers]
19 JUDGE DELVOIE: The objection is sustained.
20 MR. OLMSTED: May we have 65 ter 5874 on the screen, and I'm
21 sorry, this has to be in private session.
22 JUDGE DELVOIE: Private session, please.
23 [Private session]
24 (redacted)
25 (redacted)
Page 5266
1 (redacted)
2 (redacted)
3 (redacted)
4 (redacted)
5 (redacted)
6 [Open session]
7 THE REGISTRAR: We are back in open session, Your Honours. Thank
8 you.
9 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.
10 MR. OLMSTED: And just for the record, the next document is
11 65 ter 5875, it's tab 23.
12 And this is a UNH -- a document entitled: "UNHCR, Estimates on
13 the Current Location and Areas of Origin of Displaced Persons." It's
14 dated 1 March 1992.
15 If we could turn to page 3.
16 Q. Doctor, I want to focus your attention on the second pie chart.
17 We see that as of the date of this report it provides -- it's a little
18 difficult to see, but around 38 per cent of all displaced persons came
19 from the SBWS region. How does this compare to the results of your
20 analysis of the 1994 ODPRR database?
21 A. Despite these two documents referring to different dates, the --
22 the percentage itself is actually quite close to what I have obtained in
23 my analysis, which is 38.2 per cent displaced persons coming from the
24 Eastern Slavonia region. This is page 19 of my report at the very
25 bottom.
Page 5267
1 Q. And did you also provide a percentage of the total of the
2 three -- or of, let's say, the three SAOs, out of the three SAO regions
3 the percentage of SBWS's share of those displaced persons?
4 A. I'm afraid I don't quite understand the question. Would you mind
5 rephrasing it, please?
6 Q. Yes. Let me give it another attempt. In this pie chart we see
7 Eastern Slavonia, Baranja, Western Srem, and then we see the two other --
8 we have the Southern Krajina, Northern Krajina, Western Slavonia, and
9 elsewhere. Did you provide this kind of figure as to the SBWS's share as
10 compared to the other SAOs? Did you provide a percentage of that?
11 A. Well, my percentage referred only to the Eastern Slavonia,
12 Western Slavonia and Krajina region without the "elsewhere" bit. This
13 could be the area around Dubrovnik and Konavle, but of course, you know,
14 this is speculation again so I don't want to dwell on that.
15 Q. Yes, and I'm actually looking through your report. I think I saw
16 a figure of 41.7 per cent somewhere in your report. And maybe I'll have
17 to come back to this.
18 MR. GOSNELL: Mr. President, objection. It's asked and answered
19 twice now. And that's on page 19 of his report.
20 THE WITNESS: Yes, I have to apologise. I misinterpreted the
21 question the first time around, so if -- with your permission, I'm happy
22 to give the correct answer now.
23 JUDGE DELVOIE: Do you have an objection to that, Mr. Gosnell?
24 MR. GOSNELL: If Your Honours wish to hear the answer for the
25 third time.
Page 5268
1 THE WITNESS: It will be the second.
2 Indeed you are right. The correct percentage -- the correct
3 share of the displaced persons from Eastern Slavonia is 41.7 per cent,
4 which is higher than what is shown on the screen, the 38 per cent, but of
5 course the difference can be due to the fact that I only calculated
6 percentages out of the three regions without what is shown here as the
7 "elsewhere" part. Apologies for that.
8 MR. OLMSTED:
9 Q. Now if we look at page 4, the next page, we see a bar graph
10 showing the number of displaced persons by geographical area of origin
11 and current location. And my question with regard to this bar chart is
12 if we look at the bars for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja, and Western Srem,
13 and we add them up, they provide a number that's actually higher than the
14 total population that you provided in your report for Eastern Slavonia.
15 I think you provided the figure 199.547. Could you tell us what factors
16 may account for this variation here, in that it appears here that there
17 is more displaced persons than there was population?
18 A. There are several possible reasons for that. One is that the
19 1991 census related to the permanent population of these areas, so those
20 who formally registered as residents there. The other possibility is
21 that population movement occurred between the 1991 census and the date of
22 this report. So, again, children could have been born, people could have
23 died, people might have moved in and out of the region for different
24 purposes which is -- which is why these numbers might be -- might not
25 necessarily match.
Page 5269
1 Q. And what about geographical scope, could that also be a factor?
2 MR. GOSNELL: Objection, leading.
3 MR. OLMSTED: Your Honours, this is an expert witness. I think I
4 can ask the question whether geographical scope would have any impact on
5 the variation here.
6 MR. GOSNELL: It would have been better phrased to just say, "Are
7 there any other factors that may have played a role?"
8 JUDGE DELVOIE: I would agree, Mr. Gosnell.
9 MR. OLMSTED: All right. Well, Your Honours, I seek to tender
10 this document into evidence.
11 JUDGE DELVOIE: Admitted and marked.
12 THE REGISTRAR: Shall be assigned Exhibit P2015, admitted as
13 public document. Thank you.
14 MR. OLMSTED: The next document we do need to look at in private
15 session.
16 JUDGE DELVOIE: Yes, please.
17 [Private session]
18 (redacted)
19 (redacted)
20 (redacted)
21 (redacted)
22 (redacted)
23 (redacted)
24 (redacted)
25 (redacted)
Page 5270
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12
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Page 5273
1 (redacted)
2 (redacted)
3 (redacted)
4 (redacted)
5 (redacted)
6 (redacted)
7 [Open session]
8 THE REGISTRAR: We are back in open session, Your Honours. Thank
9 you.
10 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.
11 MR. OLMSTED:
12 Q. Doctor, I would now like to show you some other exhibits of --
13 providing population data on the various municipalities and settlements
14 to see how they compare to your 1994 ODPR database figures. The first
15 one I would like to show you is 65 ter 1229.
16 MR. OLMSTED: This is tab 7.
17 Q. What we have in front of us is a letter from the Slunj Municipal
18 Assembly to the RSK government and it's dated 11 August 1992. And what
19 I'm interested in is what is put under item number 2, which states:
20 "Many villages and hamlets have become deserted due to the
21 departure of around 12.000 Croats out of a total 18.000 inhabitants of
22 the municipality."
23 Now if we could look at your report.
24 MR. OLMSTED: 65 ter 2831, that's annex B 29. That's page 68.
25 Q. Could you tell us how do these figures compare with the data that
Page 5274
1 you collected on Slunj?
2 MR. GOSNELL: Mr. President, I would object on the basis of
3 Your Honours' previous two rulings, and I would suggest that your rulings
4 pertain -- are equally applicable to questions as well as to the
5 admission of the document, so we object to the question.
6 JUDGE DELVOIE: Yes, Mr. Olmsted.
7 MR. OLMSTED: Well, Your Honours, the purpose here is, of course,
8 to show the data that are in his appendices and compare them to the data
9 that's obviously in this document and to see whether there is a
10 correlation between the two to give us some insights as to whether this
11 information is accurately reported at the time to the authorities.
12 [Trial Chamber confers]
13 JUDGE DELVOIE: Please move on, Mr. Olmsted.
14 MR. OLMSTED: Well, Your Honours, perhaps I should seek
15 clarification because I don't want to repeat the cycle over the next
16 hour.
17 My intention is to go through some documents that are on our
18 65 ter exhibit list this witness has had an opportunity to review, the
19 Defence have been put on notice that we intended to show it to this
20 witness, and compare the data provided in those documents on our
21 65 ter list with the information provided in his appendices. Some of
22 that -- those documents relate to particular events in a municipality or
23 a settlement and his appendices may or -- may show that that event is
24 reflected in the data. Or sometimes it is mainly dealing with what's
25 happening in that particular month to see whether that's also reflected
Page 5275
1 in his data.
2 Now, if that process the Trial Chamber doesn't believe is going
3 to be helpful in its analysis of those documents or events in our
4 indictment period, then I won't go through that exercise any further
5 because I don't -- I don't want to constantly have to debate this issue.
6 JUDGE DELVOIE: We indeed do not think that this exercise is very
7 helpful, Mr. Olmsted, and there is more in -- what -- with regard to this
8 particular issue, this -- your question obviously was to be able to have
9 some information whether the Krajina government was correctly informed on
10 the matter and that goes -- that's not within the scope of this expert's
11 report or expertise.
12 MR. OLMSTED: Your Honours, perhaps you misunderstood me. That
13 is certainly not a question I am going to be putting to this witness. I
14 certainly --
15 JUDGE DELVOIE: That's not what I understood. That's what you
16 said, Mr. Olmsted.
17 MR. OLMSTED: Okay. I apologise and I clearly misspoke. The
18 purpose is simply we have figures here of displaced persons from these
19 particular municipalities, and I want to see if there is a correspondence
20 between these figures and the data that's provided in his appendices.
21 JUDGE DELVOIE: And you do that in order to be able to -- to
22 tender those documents, and that's where -- that's where it fails.
23 MR. OLMSTED: Yes, Your Honours. I do understand the issue
24 regarding the admissibility of the document, that you have ruled that
25 these types of documents cannot be tendered into evidence with this
Page 5276
1 witness. But my issue and the reason I am raising this at this stage is
2 if the -- the benefit that I see of doing this comparison is that it is
3 linking his report with certain events that are happening, that are
4 relevant to the indictment, and that link, of course, could be done by
5 the lawyers at a later stage but it's -- I think there is some benefit to
6 have the witness to be here to comment on the link or the lack of
7 correlation between the data. Putting admissibility aside, which I
8 understand I will not be able to tender these types of documents through
9 this witness, but if the Trial Chamber does not feel that this analysis,
10 looking at his appendices, looking at the data provided in the document,
11 comparing the two, if it is not helpful to the Trial Chamber, then I am
12 simply going to try to move on to something else.
13 [Trial Chamber confers]
14 JUDGE DELVOIE: You should move on, Mr. Olmsted.
15 MR. OLMSTED: Thank you, Your Honours.
16 Q. I would like us to take a look at one of your appendices. Let's
17 look at appendix C-2, which is page 80 of your report.
18 MR. OLMSTED: This is 65 ter 2831.
19 Q. And we haven't taken a look at one of these appendices. This one
20 is for Ilok, not the municipality but the settlement. I believe the
21 first two tables are self-explanatory as well as the two graphs. What
22 I'm interested in is the table in the middle of the page that provides
23 displaced persons as a percentage of the population. Could you tell us
24 what are the provisos that we need to take into consideration when we
25 look at these -- this kind of data?
Page 5277
1 A. Of course, as it was already mentioned before, the percentages
2 are not proper rates in a demographic sense because they link the number
3 of dispersed persons throughout the period to the census population. So
4 in the meantime, various things could have happened: People could have
5 moved out of the country, people could have died, people could have gone
6 missing, people could have been born. So there might have been some --
7 some discrepancy in the figures. Besides, the 1991 population is a
8 permanently registered population which would further add some
9 complexity. So these percentages are to be seen as crude approximations
10 of the intensity of the displacements for various ethnic groups.
11 Q. And for your analysis in your expert report, were you able to
12 look at population influxes, people coming into a municipality or a
13 settlement that weren't there previously?
14 A. Well, in this particular case, since these areas were the areas
15 outside of the -- largely outside of the control of the Croatian
16 government, I didn't have this information.
17 MR. OLMSTED: Your Honours, my next series of questions will
18 relate to the supplemental information that the witness information that
19 the witness has provided along with the proofing note regarding the
20 individual -- additional individual settlements. If those could be
21 admitted into evidence in their paper form, then, Your Honours, I'm in a
22 position that I could wrap up my direct examination at this time. If I
23 need to lead them orally, that's, of course, going to take some time to
24 get the data into the record.
25 So at this time, I'd move to have that supplemental data which is
Page 5278
1 provided -- 65 -- I'm looking up the 65 ter number. Yes, 65 ter 6441
2 into evidence.
3 JUDGE DELVOIE: Mr. Gosnell.
4 MR. GOSNELL: Mr. President, if I may. Your Honours will
5 remember that there was an extensive litigation about whether or not
6 supplements or alterations of the Theunens report should be admitted
7 after the deadline that was set by the Pre-Trial Judge in this case, and
8 ultimately the Trial Chamber ruled that it wasn't appropriate for the
9 Prosecution to be tendering a fundamentally different and revised report.
10 And we say that the same principle precisely applies in respect of the
11 so-called proofing note and the supplementary information sheet that's
12 been provided. All of this should have been submitted along with the
13 expert's report as per the dead-line set by the Pre-Trial Judge. It now
14 doesn't make any difference whether or not it's written down on a paper
15 or the Prosecution intends to elicit this information in court. In
16 either case, it's beyond the scope of the report as filed as required by
17 the Pre-Trial Judge, and so we would say that neither in written form nor
18 orally should this information been entertained by the Trial Chamber.
19 MR. OLMSTED: Your Honours, this supplemental data is subsumed in
20 the municipality data. It's simply a situation where Dr. Bijak has
21 de-aggregated the data for a particular municipality. For example, there
22 is appendix 4, Vukovar municipality, and it provides the figures for the
23 settlements in the war-affected area for that municipality. What
24 Dr. Bijak simply did was to look at particular settlements there within
25 the scope of that overarching data. So he's really just de-aggregating
Page 5279
1 it, breaking it down into smaller levels to make it more applicable to a
2 number of the locales, the settlements, the towns, the villages that are
3 now relevant to this case based upon the evidence that has been presented
4 thus far.
5 The databases from which all this data is derived have been on
6 our 65 ter exhibit list. They're available -- they have been available
7 to the Defence. They continue to be available to the Defence that he --
8 they can extract this data themselves. Obviously with our assistance.
9 We're not seeking to tender the databases. They are too large to tender
10 them. So we see it as much more practical for this witness to break
11 this -- the overarching data for the municipality down into the
12 particular settlements that we have an interest in as regard the evidence
13 that has been presented in this case.
14 Moreover, the supplemental data helps us assess a number of
15 documents that were not available to the Prosecution or this witness when
16 the witness was preparing his reports, and I'm referring in particular to
17 a number of documents that we received that relate to the JNA that we
18 received some time in the middle summer of last year and that were
19 eventually admitted onto our 65 ter exhibit list. There are also a
20 handful of Rule 70 documents that we simply didn't have clearance to use
21 until more recently, and so they certainly -- these documents certainly
22 weren't available to this witness to review or to include in his report,
23 and that also is the reason why we went up -- through this process of
24 obtaining the supplemental data.
25 As I said, the Defence have the data, they can access the
Page 5280
1 database to confirm its accuracy, and we'd be happy to assist them in
2 doing that, but we would seek to tender this supplemental data preferably
3 in written form because it will save a considerable amount of time but at
4 the very least to present it orally.
5 JUDGE DELVOIE: Mr. Olmsted, perhaps you did already answer this
6 question, but is this document on your 65 ter list?
7 MR. OLMSTED: We responded to an e-mail last weekend. It
8 isn't -- we haven't moved to add it to our 65 ter list. We provided it a
9 couple of weeks ago --
10 JUDGE DELVOIE: Yeah.
11 MR. OLMSTED: -- with a proofing note. And so yes, we would
12 obviously -- we have to do the two-step process of adding it and then
13 tendering it.
14 JUDGE DELVOIE: And what would be the good cause to add it to
15 your list? So that's the basic requirement.
16 MR. OLMSTED: Yeah. The good cause is that this data became
17 particularly relevant as a result of additional documents that we didn't
18 receive when this expert was preparing his report. They were received
19 subsequently in the late -- mid or late summer of last year and added to
20 our 65 ter list somewhat after that, and therefore they simply weren't
21 available for this witness's initial analysis.
22 Now, when we were able to arrange for the witness to come out to
23 The Hague, again to look at the data for these particular settlements, it
24 wasn't until a couple of weeks ago and he ran that data at that stage in
25 order to provide insights into these new documents.
Page 5281
1 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.
2 Yes, Mr. Gosnell.
3 MR. GOSNELL: Mr. President, to the best of my knowledge, there
4 is no source of information relied on in either the proofing note or
5 supplementary information that was not also relied on in the original
6 report. Now I stand to be corrected on that, but I don't see any
7 reference to any other information.
8 Now, that being the case, there is absolutely no good cause based
9 on these supplemental documents because the witness did not rely on them
10 for these two supplementary pieces information. So that's the first
11 point.
12 And the second is that the Prosecution hasn't even --
13 notwithstanding the fact that they may have provided us with the raw
14 data, that in no way addresses the key point which is do we have notice
15 or any information about the witness's expertise in relation to the data,
16 his opinions, which after all is the purpose of expert testimony, and
17 it's the purpose of Rule 94 bis, that we have notice of that - of those
18 opinions - in respect of very complicated and complex and voluminous
19 subject matter well enough in advance for us to be able to study it, have
20 knowledge it, and ask some sensible questions in response.
21 MR. OLMSTED: Your Honours, I disagree that it's not relevant or
22 based upon his conclusions. His evidence is based upon his analysis of
23 the 1994 ODPRR database, and this data -- this new supplemental -- this
24 supplemental data is simply derivative of the overall data that he's
25 already analysed, so it just providing it for a particular location, a
Page 5282
1 particular village. So it is subsumed within his expertise and within
2 his general conclusions. It is just allowing us to look at particular
3 settlements.
4 Now when we were setting the terms of reference for his original
5 report, we selected certain settlements based upon the indictment and the
6 information that was available at that time. As new evidence was
7 acquired from other sources, we determined that it would be useful in an
8 analysis of this additional documentation to look at other settlements in
9 more particular detail rather than just having the overarching municipal
10 data. And so this is simply de-aggregating it so that we are comparing
11 apples and apples. And so when we look at a document that's providing
12 data with regard to Lovas, we have a corresponding appendix C on Lovas so
13 that the parties and the Trial Chamber can compare the two and make their
14 own assessment based upon those -- the appendix and the document as to
15 what is accurate, what is not, and hopefully have some -- walk away with
16 some insight. That is the thing behind the supplemental data.
17 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you, gentlemen.
18 Mr. Witness, we will take the second break now. We'll come back
19 at five minutes to 12.00 -- to 1.00, sorry. The Court Usher will escort
20 you out of court.
21 THE WITNESS: Thank you.
22 [The witness stands down]
23 JUDGE DELVOIE: So we will see what happens after the next break.
24 Thank you. Court adjourned.
25 --- Recess taken at 12.22 p.m.
Page 5283
1 --- On resuming at 12.58 p.m.
2 JUDGE DELVOIE: The Trial Chamber considers that OTP has not
3 fulfilled the requirement of Rule 94 bis and did not show good cause for
4 the late notice of the supplemental material and the late request to add
5 it -- to add the document to the 65 ter list.
6 [The witness takes the stand]
7 JUDGE DELVOIE: So the Trial Chamber will sustain the --
8 Mr. Gosnell's objection and will not allow questions on this material.
9 Mr. Olmsted, please proceed.
10 MR. OLMSTED:
11 Q. Doctor, I just have one more issue to cover with you.
12 MR. OLMSTED: If we could turn to page 12 of your expert report.
13 This is 65 ter 2831. It's page 13 in e-court.
14 Q. One of the case studies in your report is for Ilok in which you
15 discuss the literature, the academic literature that provides a range of
16 5.000 to 8.000 persons who were displaced from that village in
17 October 1991 following its surrender to the JNA forces. And at the end
18 of this analysis, you concluded that in light of the ODPRR data from the
19 1994 database, that these figures seem to overestimate the number of
20 displaced persons on that occasion. Could you tell us what data from the
21 1994 database did you review to arrive at that particular conclusion?
22 A. I used the data for the settlement of Ilok only. So just one
23 settlement.
24 Q. So you did not take into consideration displacements that
25 occurred before the end of October in settlements around Ilok?
Page 5284
1 A. No, I did not.
2 Q. Okay.
3 MR. OLMSTED: No further questions, Your Honour.
4 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.
5 Mr. Gosnell, cross-examination.
6 MR. GOSNELL: Thank you very much, Mr. President.
7 Cross-examination by Mr. Gosnell:
8 Q. Good afternoon, Dr. Bijak.
9 A. Good afternoon.
10 Q. I'll have a few questions for you today. If any of my questions
11 are not clear, please feel free to ask me for a clarification and I'll be
12 happy to do that.
13 A. Thank you.
14 Q. Now if we could turn to page 8 of your report, please.
15 MR. GOSNELL: And we have the document there on the screen so if
16 we can go to page 9 in e-court, please.
17 Q. Now I've done some addition in respect of your top -- the table
18 there, table 1, and when I add up the column indicating Croats and Serbs,
19 I come respectively to the number 338.000 for the former and about
20 345.000 for the latter. And by my calculation - and I'm certainly no
21 expert in arithmetic, but it's not that complicated - the figures
22 breakdown to being about 44 per cent Croats and 45 per cent Serbs as a
23 matter of the total. Would that seem about right, when you just eyeball
24 those figures there in the table?
25 A. Yes. And the exact numbers are actually quoted on the preceding
Page 5285
1 page of the report. So the percentages are 44.3 per cent for Croats and
2 45.2 per cent for Serbs.
3 Q. Thank you for that. And in your experience, do you have any
4 basis to breakdown by ethnicity the category "other" as it was filled out
5 on the census forms?
6 A. Well, you could do that if you were interested in any particular
7 ethnic groups as self-declared within the census. There were some groups
8 that were represented in the areas, especially in Eastern Slavonia,
9 Slovaks, Ruthenians, for example. Furthermore, there was the category of
10 the Yugoslavs, who -- basically, these were people who declared
11 themselves, you know, ethnically on the basis of a statehood rather than
12 anything else. Finally, the undeclared might be of interest.
13 Q. Do you know that Serbs tended to make up -- ethnic Serbs tended
14 to make up the majority of those who were ticking the box "Yugoslavs" on
15 the census forms?
16 A. I think there is a slight problem with this statement because the
17 ethnic Serbs presumed -- presumes that there is another definition of
18 ethnicity than the one used in the census. So it would presume that we
19 will need to depart from the statistically adopted definition that was
20 used in the census and seek something else in order to determine whether
21 someone was a Serb or not, whereas in the census basically people were
22 free to define themselves as they wished.
23 Q. Well, that's a fair point, and I'm just asking you about the
24 information that you have at your disposal. And let me put it a
25 different way: Do you have information at all that people who might
Page 5286
1 self-declare as Croats would on occasion tick the box "Yugoslavs," or
2 would you say that that's not something that happened?
3 A. Well, I think it's basically the same -- the same point. If
4 people identify themselves as Yugoslavs, that was the declaration they
5 made to the census officer. So I guess -- I guess the problem here is
6 with different definitions of ethnicity; for example, the ancestry-based
7 versus the one adopted in the census, which is a more modern version of
8 the definition of ethnicity as self-declared, self-reported.
9 MR. GOSNELL: If we could turn, please, to the previous page of
10 the report, and if we could please zoom in on the section below 2.2.
11 Q. And here, Dr. Bijak, you are discussing the pre-war ethnic
12 composition of war-affected areas in Croatia. And there are some numbers
13 that I found quite striking and apparently you do as well based on what
14 you say later in your report. What you say, and I'm going to present
15 these numbers a little bit differently to try to focus on what I find
16 interesting here. You say that overall out of the 1.447 war-affected
17 settlements, 885, 61.2 per cent, had a Serb majority.
18 And then if we jump down to the last paragraph there on that page
19 you say:
20 Of those 885 Serb villages, "in 625 instances Serbs constituted
21 over 90 per cent of the total permanently resident population. In a
22 further 149 settlements, between 75 and 90 per cent" of the population.
23 And just now to look at the Croat villages and again comparing
24 your two paragraphs, you say that there were 527 Croat villages with a
25 Croat majority of which 299 had over 90 per cent Croats and 107 had
Page 5287
1 between 75 and 90 per cent Croats. Now if we break those numbers down,
2 that means that - and I'll speak slowly because I'm about to give a bunch
3 of numbers - of the Serb villages, 70 per cent had at least 90 per cent
4 Serbs, so more than two-thirds of the Serb villages had more than 90 per
5 cent Serbs, and 86 per cent had at least 75 per cent Serbs. Whereas of
6 the Croat villages 56 per cent - so that's more than half - had at least
7 90 per cent Croats, and 76 per cent of the Croat villages had at least
8 three-quarters Croats.
9 Now am I reading those last two paragraphs correctly of page 7 of
10 your report?
11 A. I will have to rely on your calculations of the percentages here,
12 but, yes, this seems perfectly reasonable.
13 Q. And on the next page you describe this as, and I quote, "ethnic
14 polarisation." Now, I'm not sure how you measure such things, but why do
15 you say that this reflects ethnic polarisation?
16 A. Okay. Can -- there could be possibly an analysis, a formal
17 analysis of ethnic polarisation conducted. There are indicators that
18 could be used in this case. The point I was trying to make here in this
19 report is that, both for the Croats as well as for the Serbs, most of the
20 settlements are those with visible majority. So basically whereas at the
21 level of municipalities we see a mixture, as is shown in figure 3 of the
22 report, when we drill down to the settlement level, it is becoming much
23 more likely that the settlements are either Croat or Serb settlements.
24 So, in other words, the geography, the level of geography is a
25 confounding here. The aggregates at the municipal level mask the
Page 5288
1 differences between the settlements.
2 MR. GOSNELL: And just following on on that observation, let's
3 please turn to page 10 in e-court and look at the top map.
4 Q. Because you were shown this map. In that observation you just
5 made about there is a masking of the level of polarisation, would you
6 agree with me that the way you have represented Eastern Slavonia in this
7 map is based on municipality level and you did not break it down to
8 settlement level, did you?
9 A. Well, this -- these two -- these two figures show the municipal
10 level aggregation. And, of course, there are differences between the old
11 municipalities, the large ones, and the new municipalities, the small
12 ones, and again at the -- at the large municipal level, when we look at
13 Eastern Slavonia, all municipalities only have a relative majority of
14 either of the ethnic groups, whereas when we go one level down to the new
15 municipalities, actually some of the areas become strongly ethnically
16 dominated --
17 Q. Well, let me just interrupt you there, Mr. Bijak, because my
18 question isn't about comparing old versus new municipalities. My
19 question is about whether or not you went down to the level of
20 settlements in respect of this map because I -- my understanding is that
21 you have not -- you have not reflected the polarisation in respect of
22 settlements on this map; is that correct?
23 A. Yes, this is correct. I didn't have a map at the settlement
24 level which could be used for this purpose. That's why -- and also after
25 such fine-grained level of detail, it would probably be very difficult to
Page 5289
1 digest the amount of information that was available. That's why I have
2 decided to go for several case studies which are presented.
3 Q. But my point is that the comparison as appears to be reflected on
4 this map or, I should say, the contrast on this map between the Krajina
5 area and the SBWS area may be overstated because you haven't gone down to
6 the settlement level; isn't that right? In terms of the ethnic
7 polarisation?
8 A. This might indeed be the case, but this would require a further
9 analysis. I mean, such an analysis is, of course, possible, so it will
10 be -- from the database it would be very easy to actually add up the
11 numbers if it -- if it helps the Trial Chamber.
12 Q. And did you analyse previous censuses before 1991?
13 A. No. For the purpose of this particular report, I have not.
14 Q. Do you have any information that assists us in understanding
15 whether the level of residential ethnic polarisation was a recent
16 phenomenon prior to or as reflected in the 1991 census or had it been
17 that way for many years, many decades, as far as you know?
18 A. I do not know the answer to this. But of course, this is
19 something that could be easily checked if someone had access to 1981 and,
20 then back, 1971 population censuses.
21 Q. Have you studied other areas where there is a high level of
22 ethnic polarisation, the expression you use in your report, where there
23 was a period of armed conflict to see how that affected migration? If at
24 all.
25 A. Yes. Whilst working at the ICTY, I was involved in the analysis
Page 5290
1 of the data for Bosnia and Herzegovina, which at different -- we looked
2 at the data at different levels, especially pre-war and post-war
3 municipalities, and there the -- this was entirely within the context of
4 the conflict, comparing the ethnic structure as reported in the 1991
5 census and in the 1997/1998 OSCE voter's registers, and comparing the
6 ethnic structures of the respective populations. So this was -- this was
7 indeed a case of such a study.
8 Q. Would you agree with me that Bosnia is, as reflected in the 1991
9 census, was much less ethnically polarised in terms of residence?
10 A. From my recollection, pre-war Bosnia was indeed more ethnically
11 mixed countries with quite many municipalities. I mean, on -- the one I
12 have -- can mention from the top of my head is Prijedor where the ethnic
13 composition was roughly half/half between Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian
14 Muslims before the war. But of course, this is, again, to reach this
15 conclusion fully, one would need to look at the exact data once again in
16 all detail.
17 Q. Well, that was true in many other settlements as well, wasn't it,
18 including Brcko, Sanski Most, Bratunac, the figures, as you can recollect
19 them as you sit there, were below 75 per cent for one ethnic group or the
20 other. Correct?
21 MR. OLMSTED: Your Honours, objection. This is going beyond the
22 scope of this witness's expert report. He makes no comparisons between
23 Croatia and Bosnia or any other country, and to provide data to him or
24 names of municipalities to him without him having the opportunity to
25 really review that material and analyse it is both unfair to this witness
Page 5291
1 and not helpful to this Trial Chamber.
2 JUDGE DELVOIE: Mr. Gosnell, anything?
3 MR. GOSNELL: Well, Mr. President, I'm aiming, as I think is
4 obvious, at methodology and conclusions, and to that extent, the
5 witness's prior methodology and conclusions in areas where he says there
6 is ethnic polarisation is a perfectly relevant matter for
7 cross-examination.
8 JUDGE DELVOIE: Overruled within the limit of what you have just
9 come to say, Mr. Gosnell.
10 MR. GOSNELL: Thank you, Mr. President.
11 Q. Dr. Bijak, your answer was not recorded. Now, is it your
12 recollection that indeed there was -- there were far more municipalities,
13 as far as you can recall, in those areas that had less than 75 per cent
14 of one ethnic group or the other?
15 A. I'm afraid I cannot answer this question without access to the
16 evidence, so I apologise for that.
17 Q. Have you examined any other areas where there was migration
18 following a conflict where the population by residence was ethnically
19 polarised?
20 A. No, I have not directly examined similar populations in a similar
21 context.
22 Q. If there is a high level of ethnic polarisation residentially
23 during times of peace and stability, would you expect that that
24 polarisation would Chris crest during war or times of instability?
25 A. It is difficult to answer without knowing the context. This is
Page 5292
1 something that certainly happened in Bosnia where over the course of the
2 war polarisation visibly increased. And, you know, just from knowing
3 from -- from the literature, but not from my own research, this was the
4 case in some other conflicts as well. But again, I did not conduct any
5 studies as to -- as to that matter.
6 Q. Didn't you think it would be helpful in preparing this report in
7 order to edify the Chamber and the parties --
8 A. Not --
9 Q. -- about other areas where you have pre-existing significant
10 ethnic polarisation by residence and to analyse what occurs when there is
11 a transition from a time of peace to a time of war?
12 A. I do not think it would be either necessary nor helpful in the
13 context of the scope of this particular report. I would think it would
14 go beyond the remit of the analysis that I was tasked with. And these
15 issues might be very much context specific. That's -- I wanted to stick
16 to the very specific area that is mentioned in the -- in the introduction
17 and in the terms of reference, because it would be really difficult for
18 me to substantiate the conclusions about the changes -- well, about the
19 ethnic composition in Croatia by looking at other countries who -- which
20 share -- the only common thing they share with Croatia is the presence of
21 multi-ethnic populations in the conflict. So no, I didn't look at other
22 similar studies, but I do not think that it would be particularly helpful
23 in this case.
24 Q. You don't think it would have been helpful to analyse, for
25 example, whether you could see a pattern of a propensity of displacement
Page 5293
1 where there is a higher level, higher degree of ethnic polarisation prior
2 to the conflict? You don't think that would have been helpful -- that
3 would have been helpful information for you to add to such a report?
4 A. I do not think so, and I do not think so especially because in
5 quite many context that I could think of where actually ethnic
6 polarisation was an issue during the time of conflict, there is lack of
7 meaningful data that could actually show it. Former Yugoslavia is quite
8 unique because we have population censuses and we have quite good
9 registration data, whereas I can think of many other instances of
10 conflict-affected countries where actually there is some evidence that
11 things like ethnic change has happened but there is no -- absolutely no
12 way to establish that through statistical means.
13 So in that sense, I had a quite unique material at my disposal,
14 which is why I wanted to utilise this and -- rather than wandering into
15 the realms of speculation and trying to establish links with other
16 contexts that might be spurious.
17 Q. But as a demographer, are you saying you wouldn't have been able
18 to find information of a comparable quality to what you found in Croatia
19 in respect of, for example, Nagorno-Karabakh, Iraq, Afghanistan, other
20 places, to determine whether there was simply a correlation, a
21 correlation between a high degree of ethnic polarisation and migration at
22 a time a conflict breaks out?
23 A. I think that especially with respect to the countries you
24 mentioned it would not be possible due to the lack of data. Afghanistan
25 is notorious for the lack of any statistical information, and even the
Page 5294
1 population estimates, you know, have error ranges of about 3 million
2 persons for a population of about 30-odd million. Iraq is a well-known
3 case study where there were analyses conducted with respect to, for
4 example, the Kurdish population, but they do not rely on such strong
5 evidence as we have at our disposal for Croatia. They are based on
6 statistical techniques and with strong expert-based input. So this is a
7 very different data situation.
8 Q. And what about in Azerbaijan?
9 A. My expertise unfortunately does not extend to Azerbaijan or
10 Nagorno-Karabakh so I cannot comment on that.
11 Q. But you have looked at the figures for Iraq and Afghanistan
12 apparently, haven't you, and you've decided that the data set is not
13 adequate for you to draw comparisons with the situation in Croatia?
14 A. I --
15 MR. OLMSTED: Your Honours, the witness has given his explanation
16 as to why he hasn't analysed other countries. I think it's been asked
17 and answered. And throwing a bunch of other countries out at the witness
18 is not going to advance his evidence.
19 MR. GOSNELL: I'll move on if it makes everyone happy,
20 Mr. President.
21 JUDGE DELVOIE: I think it does, Mr. Gosnell.
22 MR. GOSNELL: Could we go back to page 3 in e-court, please.
23 Q. Now you set out two aims here and you've discussed them during
24 your testimony. The first aim is to establish the pre-war ethnic
25 composition of the war-affected areas, and the second aim is to discuss
Page 5295
1 the population displacements from the war-affected areas between the
2 25th of June, 1991, and December 1993. So am I correct that your report
3 does not include any discussion of the post-conflict ethnic percentages
4 in the population as a whole in the war-affected areas? Correct?
5 A. Yes, this is correct for the reason that I have mentioned in the
6 examination-in-chief. The main source of information that I would have
7 at my disposal would be the 2001 census, which is, I found, too far away
8 from the end period of the -- my remit of the study.
9 Q. And you say -- you make the judgement that it's too far away, do
10 you not, because, by then, most of those who had been displaced, at least
11 those who are covered in your report, had returned to their places of
12 residence; is that right?
13 A. Yes, that is -- that is one of the reasons, and the other one is
14 that the -- that also in the interim period, during the operations Flash
15 and Storm, these were at this time the Serb population who were
16 displaced. So there were different factors acting towards the distortion
17 of the ethnic structure of the areas in question.
18 Q. Are you able to say how many of those who had been displaced as
19 referred to in your report returned by the 2001 census?
20 A. I am not able to give you any figure. I presume there might
21 be -- this information might be available from the Croatian authorities
22 at -- you know, some of the reports. So it might be available but I do
23 not know the number by heart.
24 Q. Well, you say that you looked at the 2001 figures. Can you give
25 us an approximation?
Page 5296
1 A. I -- I looked at the 2001 figures but it is not possible to give
2 an -- even an indicative estimate of -- of the number of returns because
3 of all the other factors that were involved in the interim period. So in
4 order to come up with an estimate, I would need to know exactly the
5 number of births, the number of deaths, the number of refugees who left
6 to other countries, so this is -- this is really something that would
7 require a separate inquiry in its own right.
8 Q. And the failure to include figures of the ethnic composition of
9 the population after the conflict or after the start of the conflict sets
10 your report apart, does it not, from the reports in which you
11 participated that were submitted in the Milosevic and the Stanisic and
12 Simatovic cases; isn't that right?
13 A. Yes. This is an entirely different situation because in the
14 reports that you have mentioned, we had a very good complete source of
15 data not long after the conflict ended. So the -- it was the 1997 and
16 1998. So it was -- it was just over a year or two after the
17 Dayton Accords. Whereas in this case, not only is the next census way
18 outside of the remit of this particular study but also many things --
19 many other things happened in between, and also the natural population
20 change also took place.
21 Q. And that's a significant omission, is it not, given that we know
22 and you know, from having looked at the figures, that -- and some
23 underlying documents, that large numbers of Serbs were leaving from
24 precisely the same areas from which Croats were leaving from; isn't that
25 correct?
Page 5297
1 A. This is correct exact to the specification of the period of the
2 study, because most of the Serbs left in 1995, which is outside of the
3 scope of my remit. So, yes, ideally, I would like to have a data set
4 which would show an ethnic composition in 1994, after the period under
5 study but before operations Flash and Storm. Alas, I do not have
6 anything like that. So the only possibility was -- was to look at the
7 bench-mark figures from before the war and also at the displacement
8 statistics.
9 Q. Well, you say most Serbs left --
10 JUDGE DELVOIE: Mr. Gosnell, just one moment.
11 Mr. Bijak, could you please look on the screen at the first line
12 of your response.
13 "This is correct exact to the specification of the period of the
14 study ..."
15 Is that what you said and what you meant to say?
16 THE WITNESS: I -- I meant to say that given that the remit of my
17 study was limited to the period from 2001 to 2003, the Serb displacements
18 that took place in 2005 are -- fall outside of the -- of this remit. So
19 basically, they have not been covered in the report because they -- this
20 was not my task to actually look at these particular displacements.
21 MR. OLMSTED: And just to correct the record, Dr. Bijak, it says
22 here that you gave the dates of 2001 to 2003. I think you most likely
23 meant 1991.
24 THE WITNESS: Of course. My apologies. These the -- the dates
25 should be the 1990s, of course.
Page 5298
1 JUDGE DELVOIE: Mr. Gosnell.
2 MR. GOSNELL:
3 Q. Dr. Bijak, you say that most Serbs left after 1995. Isn't it
4 true that an extremely large number of Serbs left from the conflict areas
5 before 1995 and, in fact, in 1991, 1992, and 1993?
6 A. There are some indications of some numbers of Serbs leaving the
7 conflict-affected areas in those periods. And, in fact, this is
8 mentioned in the report where, first of all, I show the indicative
9 numbers from the 1997 registration in Eastern Slavonia and the requests
10 for return collection, which clearly indicated that this was mainly the
11 Serb population who was leaving the areas like Western Slavonia. And, of
12 course, I'm perfectly aware that these numbers are underestimates because
13 these are only the people who actually registered themselves as displaced
14 persons with the Croatian authorities.
15 Furthermore, the table in section 5 of the report on page 26
16 contains --
17 Q. Can I just --
18 A. Mm-hm.
19 Q. -- stop you there.
20 A. Sure.
21 Q. We'll come back to the rest of your answer, but just to focus on
22 this issue of the number of Serbs who would have registered with the
23 Croatian authorities as being displaces, you would agree with me that
24 that's likely to be substantially underreported, wouldn't you?
25 A. Yes. This is my -- this is my conclusion as well.
Page 5299
1 Q. Thank you. Would you like to proceed with your previous answer?
2 I didn't mean to cut you off.
3 A. Thank you. In table 5 on page 26, there is information about
4 refugees in Serbia and Montenegro, who, you know, some of those people or
5 most of these people can be presumed to be ethnic Serbs or the family
6 members, and these are, as you see from the table, these are substantial
7 numbers. So in this way, I think that you are very right to point out
8 that these were not only Croats who were expelled. The main thing is
9 that the 1994 database contains information on mostly ethnic Croats. And
10 as such, as I pointed in the report, the ethnic structure of this data
11 set is not representative of the whole displacements that took period and
12 area under study.
13 Q. Well, let's see if we can get an idea of the number of Serbs who
14 were leaving in 1991 and 1992 for starters.
15 MR. GOSNELL: And could we please have P2015, please, and this is
16 Prosecution tab 23. Yes, Prosecution tab 23. And this is a document
17 that is not under seal.
18 This is the UNHCR report and the date is March 1st, 1992.
19 If we could now please turn the page to page 4.
20 Q. There is an indication here of main groups displaced. Now,
21 ethnicity is not indicated on this graph, but we see area of origin and
22 current location. Now, can we first of all agree that, at the least,
23 most of those who are fleeing to Croatia are Croat by ethnicity probably
24 and most of those fleeing to Serbia are Serbian by ethnicity, correct?
25 A. Well, from what I know -- I mean, I can probably say about --
Page 5300
1 about Croatia because that's -- the information is contained within the
2 1994 database, so as you know the -- the majority of those recorded were
3 ethnic Croats. As to Serb -- people who went to Serbia, whether they
4 were ethnic Serbs, presumably, yes, but this is entering the area of
5 speculation again.
6 Q. And can you say anything at all about the likely ethnic
7 composition of those fleeing to Bosnia?
8 A. This is difficult to say because -- I guess the answer would
9 depend very much on where those people actually ended up in Bosnia, in
10 which part of Bosnia did the refugees ended up, whether it was the
11 Republika Srpska or whether it was Herzegovina or whether it was the
12 Bosnian government-controlled territory. So it is difficult to say.
13 Q. Now, if we just take a look at Eastern Slavonia, Baranja, and
14 Western Srem. And here I would draw your attention to the fact that
15 Western Slavonia is dealt with separately. But just within
16 Eastern Slavonia, Baranja, and Western Srem, you'd agree that there is no
17 further geographic subdivision. It's the population that has fled from
18 this entire region; is that right?
19 A. Yes, that is correct.
20 Q. So we can't say precisely beyond that designation where those
21 individuals have left from?
22 A. Not from this graph.
23 Q. And would you agree, based on other information you've seen, that
24 there is an overlap, a geographic overlap as to the origin location of
25 refugees, whether they be Croat or Serb?
Page 5301
1 A. I'm not sure that I understand the question correctly with
2 respect to the notion of overlap. Would you mind clarifying that?
3 Q. Certainly. What I mean is that we cannot take for granted, based
4 on looking at this information or, indeed, based on other information
5 that you are aware of, that we have a situation where Serbs are only
6 fleeing from Serb areas and Croats are leaving only from Croat areas. In
7 fact, there might be a substantial outflow from the same areas; is that
8 right? Of both ethnicities.
9 A. In theory it may be right, although from the analysis of the 1994
10 data set, it seems that of those who ended up fleeing to
11 government-controlled territories, again, most of the flows were
12 comprised of the Croats and other non-Serbs. As to the Serbs fleeing the
13 territory, unfortunately I am not in a position to answer because I do
14 not have this information.
15 Q. And we see here that --
16 JUDGE DELVOIE: Mr. Gosnell, just one moment. It's probably
17 because it's already late, but there is something with the document on
18 the screen that I don't understand. It says that it is about main groups
19 of displaced by area of origin and current location. Those, I suppose,
20 are two geographical criteria, right? How is it reflected in the
21 graphic? I mean there is, for instance, Slavonia, Baranja, and
22 Western Srem, what is the -- is it an area of -- an area of origin or is
23 it a current location? And if it's one, where is the other?
24 THE WITNESS: That -- so the groups of bars would denote the area
25 of origin, so Eastern Slavonia, Baranja, and Western Srem would be one
Page 5302
1 area of origin.
2 JUDGE DELVOIE: Okay.
3 THE WITNESS: Western Slavonia would be another.
4 JUDGE DELVOIE: Yeah, okay.
5 THE WITNESS: And of those different bars with different shadings
6 relate to the current location of the displaced persons, so the one with
7 the searched [phoen] relates to those who left to Serbia, the left dash
8 to Croatia, right dash to Bosnia and Herzegovina.
9 JUDGE DELVOIE: Okay. Where I was wrong I thought that was about
10 the ethnicity of the displaced persons. So now I understand. Thank you.
11 MR. GOSNELL:
12 Q. And you were asked a number of questions during your direct
13 examination two or three times as we discussed about the highest number
14 of displaced persons as described in your report comes from Eastern
15 Slavonia, Baranja, and Western Srem. Isn't it also true that that is the
16 region from which there is the highest number of displacements total
17 regardless of ethnicity?
18 A. I have to make one caveat here because the largest -- according
19 to my report, the largest number of displaced persons come from Krajina,
20 and it's only in relative terms, relative to the pre-war population size
21 that Eastern Slavonia comes to the fore. So this information is
22 contained in table 3 on page 16. So the number of displaced persons from
23 Krajina comprise over 92.000 persons whereas from Eastern Slavonia over
24 76.000.
25 Q. That's a very helpful clarification. Thank you. And would you
Page 5303
1 agree with me that as a percentage of the total, the proportion of Serbs
2 and Croats who are internally displaced is about, approximately -
3 approximately - equal, whether we look at Eastern Slavonia, Baranja, and
4 Western Srem, the Krajinas, and actually substantially lower than in the
5 case of the category "elsewhere"; is that right?
6 A. To answer this question precisely, one would need to read out the
7 numbers from this graph and divide them by the respective population
8 sizes from table 1. So you -- you probably would need to take the number
9 of people going to Serbia as reported here, so 70.000, and divide it by
10 the pre-war population of Eastern Slavonia, which is lower than that. It
11 is over 67.000. Then the same for the Croats, so close to 130.000 divide
12 by the pre-war population of 91.000. In -- and by doing so, the only
13 thing that will occur is that probably in most cases the numbers quoted
14 here, as we discussed during the direct examination, the numbers are
15 larger than the pre-war population which can signify a -- lots of
16 problems with these numbers as reported on this graph. They can be rough
17 estimates. They can be not subject to quality control, duplicate
18 checking. They can -- there is a variety of reasons. They can take into
19 account chain movements of populations, so someone first moving into
20 Eastern Slavonia and then moving out of the area. So all possible
21 problems there.
22 And also there is the question of how is exactly the area defined
23 in the graph. Again, this popped up during the direct examination. So
24 we don't really know what the authors of this draft mean by Eastern
25 Slavonia, Baranja, and Western Srem.
Page 5304
1 Q. Well, the least that can be said is that this graph doesn't
2 support the view, does it, that displacement of Croats was any more
3 severe in Eastern Slavonia, Baranja, and Western Srem, than anywhere
4 else? In fact, as a percentage of those displaced as reflected on this
5 graph, it's less, right?
6 A. I do not -- I'm not sure whether I understood you correctly, but
7 did you say that -- did -- the question was whether the displacement was
8 no more severe in Eastern Slavonia than elsewhere?
9 Q. As a percentage of the total numbers who are being displaced.
10 That's correct. That's the question.
11 A. So again, to do this exercise, we would need to take this time,
12 add all the four numbers for the four bars together for each of the group
13 of the bars, and then determine whether, in fact, for Eastern Slavonia
14 the respective share was lower. It might well be the case. I mean, this
15 would be need to be -- this would need to be checked by doing some simple
16 arithmetic calculations.
17 Q. Now you testified at page 23 today that, and I think on one other
18 occasion, that the government had an incentive to ensure the accuracy of
19 the numbers of internally displaced because, as you said, they were
20 obliged to pay out compensation, support, and so forth. Did I understand
21 that testimony correctly?
22 A. Yes, you did.
23 Q. Does it follow from the fact that support was being provided to
24 internally displaced persons that those candidates for internal
25 displacement would also have an incentive to make such applications even
Page 5305
1 if they weren't really internally displaced?
2 A. The thing is -- of course, theoretically it is possible, but I
3 would assume that upon the registration some form of either proof was
4 required or at least a solemn statement to the -- to the effect that a
5 person was displaced. So I do not think that -- and, you know,
6 government office for displaced persons would just accept someone's
7 registration without doing any checks. Again, this is -- this is
8 something that I didn't look in more detail, but still, that would be the
9 standard statistical procedure in such cases.
10 Q. How many applicants for the status of internal displacement, as
11 far as you know, were rejected between 1991 and 1993?
12 A. I do not know the number.
13 Q. Do you know whether the number is above 0?
14 A. I do not know that. The thing is that from what I know about how
15 the registration process was set up, from talking to people in -- in the
16 office for displaced persons in Zagreb whilst on mission ten years ago,
17 they have been following some international -- internationally recognised
18 standards of setting up such a process. So I would believe that they
19 were following or trying to follow established procedures for a
20 registration of displaced persons. What was the rate of refusals, I
21 cannot tell from my expertise.
22 Q. Did they at any time mention that they had rejected even a single
23 applicant?
24 A. I cannot recall that. Neither positive nor negative.
25 [Defence counsel and accused confer]
Page 5306
1 MR. GOSNELL:
2 Q. Dr. Bijak, you use as a reference point the 25th of June, 1991,
3 as the start of the period of displacement. Why did you choose that
4 date?
5 A. Well, this date was included in the terms of reference that I
6 received from the -- from the Office for the Prosecution, and the exact
7 story behind this was that I was -- in the original remit of the study I
8 was meant to look at the whole month of June and from there -- from the
9 1st of June to the 31st of -- 1st of June, 1991, to 31st of December,
10 1993. But then whilst I was doing my research last year here in
11 The Hague, it was decided that -- to cut this period to the 25th of June
12 onwards. First of all, to match the period that is mentioned in the
13 indictment and also based on the fact that, what you can see in figure 5
14 on page 16 of the report, there was a visible shift in the patterns of
15 displacements on or around that date.
16 Q. And can you explain to me again why you conclude that there was a
17 visible shift as of that date? What data are you relying on for that
18 assertion?
19 A. This is -- this is again the 1994 data set from the Office of
20 Displaced Persons and Refugees, and basically, as I said before, in the
21 days prior to the 25th of -- of June, the daily average was about
22 eight times lower than in the last six days of June. So there is a --
23 there is a visible shift in the patterns, in the temporal patterns of
24 displacements, and this already includes all the problematic issues that
25 I mentioned such as the heaping or the misreporting of certain dates.
Page 5307
1 Q. Dr. Bijak, thank you very much.
2 MR. GOSNELL: Mr. President, no further questions.
3 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you, Mr. Gosnell.
4 Anything in redirect, Mr. Olmsted?
5 MR. OLMSTED: No, Your Honour.
6 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.
7 Dr. Bijak, this brings your testimony to an end. You are
8 released as a witness. We thank you very much for coming to The Hague to
9 assist the Tribunal and we wish you a safe journey home. The Court Usher
10 will escort you out of court. Thank you very much.
11 THE WITNESS: Thank you very much, Your Honours.
12 And a very good afternoon, everyone. Thank you.
13 [The witness withdrew]
14 JUDGE DELVOIE: Mr. Olmsted.
15 MR. OLMSTED: Thank you, Mr. President.
16 The Prosecution would like to tender the expert report of this
17 witness into evidence.
18 JUDGE DELVOIE: I thought the Registrar was going to intervene,
19 no? No? Okay.
20 Yes, Mr. Gosnell.
21 MR. GOSNELL: Ah, Mr. President, we will not object to the report
22 as such, but we would like to take the same approach in respect of the
23 footnoted documents as we've taken in respect of previous experts.
24 JUDGE DELVOIE: Which means that we will get written submissions
25 in that regard?
Page 5308
1 MR. GOSNELL: Yes, Mr. President. That would be -- that would be
2 our position.
3 JUDGE DELVOIE: Yeah.
4 [Trial Chamber and Legal Officer confer]
5 JUDGE DELVOIE: I wasn't sure whether this means that we also
6 wait for the report to be admitted. Is that the practice until -- until
7 now?
8 MR. OLMSTED: I seem to recollect that we actually admitted the
9 last report or maybe the one before that into evidence and then -- just
10 the report itself and then the associated exhibits, or whatever you want
11 to call them, later on.
12 JUDGE DELVOIE: Did the -- I don't I have -- I don't think we
13 have a preference for one or the other. The preference would be
14 consistency, so what we did until now, we will do again.
15 MR. GOSNELL: Well, with Mr. Theunens we did consult with the
16 Prosecution after the end close of his testimony and about three days
17 later the report was admitted following -- by joint agreement of the
18 parties.
19 JUDGE DELVOIE: Well, that was because at the moment it was
20 tendered, you didn't know whether you would object or not --
21 MR. GOSNELL: That --
22 JUDGE DELVOIE: -- which now you do. I mean you don't -- you
23 don't object.
24 MR. GOSNELL: That's correct. We won't object and we don't have
25 any objection to it being admitted now, subject to also the same caveat
Page 5309
1 that we entered in respect of Mr. Theunens, namely that if there are some
2 quotations from documents that are in the report and we object to those,
3 then we would object to that being treated as evidence.
4 JUDGE DELVOIE: That's right. But with that caveat, we will
5 admit the report for the moment.
6 Mr. Registrar.
7 THE REGISTRAR: The report with 65 ter number 2831 shall be
8 assigned Exhibit P2016. Thank you.
9 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.
10 If there is nothing else, court is adjourned.
11 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.58 p.m.,
12 to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 4th day of June,
13 2013, at 9.00 a.m.
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