Page 1734
1 Wednesday, 10 May 2006
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 --- Upon commencing at 9.05 a.m.
5 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Please, Mr. Registrar, can you
6 call the case.
7 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] Yes, Mr. President. Good morning
8 to everybody. Case IT-04-74-T, the Prosecutor versus Prlic et al.
9 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. Registrar. I
10 want to greet everybody on behalf of the Trial Chamber and on my own
11 behalf.
12 As you know, today we are going to have a hearing with the
13 testimony of expert witness Mr. Donia over two days.
14 Mr. Scott, you weren't here yesterday. You want to take the
15 floor? You have it.
16 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Mr. President. I assure the Chamber that
17 when I'm not in the courtroom I am following things in -- quite closely
18 and am pretty familiar with the examination and cross-examination of
19 Mr. Vulliamy, and I thank the Court's continuing attention to all of these
20 matters.
21 Before the witness comes in, Your Honours, I just wanted to
22 mention a couple of things just to make sure that we are proceeding at
23 least more or less on the same page. In terms of Dr. Donia's report,
24 which has been marked as Exhibit P 09536 in its entirety including the
25 maps and attachments, and I would also mention before continuing, and also
Page 1735
1 Dr. Donia's CV is marked as Exhibit P 09547. Having said that,
2 Your Honours, I just wanted to make sure that my understanding is that all
3 of Dr. Donia's report in its entirety will be in evidence whether I choose
4 to ask questions or give emphasis to certain parts of it or not, and by
5 not focusing or asking questions by any part of the report, that does not
6 mean that any such report -- excuse me, any part of the report is somehow
7 withdrawn or unimportant. But it's my understanding that since everyone
8 in the courtroom including Your Honours and the Defence have the entire
9 report, it is not necessary to cover every word in the courtroom and,
10 therefore, I will be looking at some sections of the report in more detail
11 and other sections may not address at all. I'll leave the report to speak
12 for itself. And of course the Defence can ask any questions on any part
13 of the report as, of course, can Your Honours whether I raise it or not.
14 So I just wanted to be sure that that was the common
15 understanding. If it is not, then obviously I will have to cover the
16 report in much more detail.
17 So, Your Honour, do I have the correct understanding of the nature
18 and use of the report?
19 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. Let me explain this
20 to you regarding the procedure followed by this Chamber and other Trial
21 Chambers. When there is a written expert report, once the expert's
22 testimony is over with the examination-in-chief, cross-examination,
23 Judges' questions and redirect examination, the Prosecution or the Defence
24 may ask for the written report to be tendered into evidence, following
25 which the Judges discuss and -- the question of admissibility and rule
Page 1736
1 that the written report is admitted into evidence, then the report
2 receives a final exhibit number, or that the report is not admitted. It
3 may not be admitted because certain parts of the report have been
4 criticised or may not appear to be reliable enough for it to become an
5 exhibit. Then the only thing that is left is the transcript. The Trial
6 Chamber may refer to the transcript in the judgement.
7 So let us be clear on this, Mr. Scott. If the report is admitted,
8 the Judges in the judgement will refer to paragraphs of the said report.
9 If it is not admitted, there will be no reference to it in the judgement.
10 The Judges, in the judgement, will only refer to certain pages or lines of
11 the transcript. So this is how things work, generally speaking.
12 MR. SCOTT: I do understand, Your Honour. Thank you. I have to
13 say, that's is a new approach to me. I've never in my years of practice
14 both here and elsewhere have never had that approach before. It does
15 leave the examiner in a bit of a quandary because now I don't know if I
16 have to then go back and spend time on parts of the report that I had not
17 intended to spend time on. If the examiner does not know what will be
18 included or not included, it makes it difficult to have -- to work through
19 the report efficiently without simply rehashing every sentence of the
20 report efficiently without simply rehashing every sentence of the report.
21 So I'll proceed on the assumption and on the hope -- I will hope,
22 Your Honour, that at the end of the daily the entire report will come into
23 evidence, and you will have the entire report whether I focus on each word
24 or sentence or not. I'll proceed as best I can.
25 Secondly, Your Honour, before we start, in reference to some of
Page 1737
1 the criticisms or comments that were filed by the Defence in connection
2 with the report, I just want to mention one in particular. The scope and
3 nature of the report or the length of the report, if one wants to call it
4 that, let me just say if there is to be any criticism concerning the scope
5 or nature of the report -- I'm not talking about the content of the
6 report. The content of the report, of course, is entirely Dr. Donia's,
7 but in terms of what he was asked to do, he was asked to provide to
8 prepare a very concise and a very readable document for the assistance of
9 the Chamber on some -- certain concepts, persons, organisations, events
10 related to the indictment in this case. It is not as has been pointed out
11 an anything approaching a 500-word analysis or thesis -- page thesis or
12 analysis. It was to provide this Chamber, Your Honours, a short and
13 concise guide, introduction, if you will, to certain basic concepts and
14 events leading up to the key events in the indictment. And in that regard
15 you will note that the report ends in approximately the fall of 1992, and
16 again that was not by accident. That was by design, because it is in
17 October of 1992 that, in terms of the crime base charged in the
18 indictment, that is when we have Prozor, October, 1992. And what Dr.
19 Donia was instructed was to provide a background of certain key events and
20 concepts leading up to but not extending past approximately the fall of
21 1992. So I thought I'd make that clear so there was no confusion about
22 that.
23 Thirdly, Your Honour, in terms of the report itself, I was
24 concerned that there might be different -- it might have been formatted
25 differently by various people. I know at one time there was discussion on
Page 1738
1 whether there would be end notes or footnotes. Depending on what will
2 format one uses it might affect the page numbers, so if everyone in the
3 courtroom refers to someone says page 6 of Dr. Donia's report and people
4 have different formats or different versions then obviously the page 6 may
5 be confusing because it may not be the same. So I want to make clear that
6 for purpose of the examination I prepared my questions and I believe Dr.
7 Donia has prepared using the version that was filed with the registry some
8 time ago, I believe toward the end of March, in which the end notes, in
9 which the references or end notes are at the back of the document and it's
10 that version of the document that I'll -- at least that I'll be referring
11 to and Dr. Donia will be referring to in terms of page numbers.
12 Thank you, Your Honours. That was the only comments, introductory
13 comments that I had.
14 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes, Mr. Scott. We have indeed
15 the report. It was conveyed to us. There is an introduction and then
16 paragraphs in this report. The paragraphs mention various points,
17 Bosnia-Herzegovina, the peoples, the Croat or Croatian Banovina, Tudjman's
18 point of view, et cetera. Thereafter there is, as you indeed pointed out,
19 towards the end of the report there are references or end notes, and there
20 are appendices, the maps. So I suppose when the witness is in court
21 you're going to put questions to him, but I could do that for you. I
22 guess you get to start by saying good morning. You have drafted a report.
23 Could you tell me what you mean by Bosnia? And I suppose he's going to
24 tell us what he's written and so on and so forth. So I guess that you're
25 going to follow the written report when the time comes for you to put
Page 1739
1 questions.
2 Your colleague yesterday said that you had two hours, you had
3 scheduled two hours for the examination-in-chief, and I suppose that when
4 the witness mentions various subjects you're going to submit documents to
5 him, and you're going to ask him whether certain such and such documents
6 supports his statement, and he's going to say I'm aware of this statement
7 and then we'll have cross-examination to try and contradict this
8 statement. This is how things go. And at the end of the hearing you're
9 going to ask for the written report to be tendered. The Defence
10 unanimously are going to oppose the admission, and then the Judges will
11 deliberate. That's the way things go. There's no secret to it.
12 If everybody agrees on this, we can start.
13 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Mr. President, yes. You're correct. What
14 I will do is -- is beyond the introductory part is go to the report and
15 essentially go through the report essentially from beginning to end, but
16 again I will note that there were some sections of the report I did not
17 intend to speak about hardly at all simply because I thought that everyone
18 could read the report for themselves and can ask questions if they wish.
19 If -- if I need to cover the report in more detail based on what
20 Your Honour has told me, then I may have to stop and alter my plans
21 somewhat. I would have to say that with all respect to my colleague
22 Mr. Mundis, the two hours might have been a bit optimistic and it will
23 indeed be optimistic if I have to cover the report in more detail than I
24 had anticipated, but we'll do our best to present it as quickly and
25 efficiently as possible, Your Honour.
Page 1740
1 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Well, the French interpreter
2 says if I have to go into more detail about the report. You are not the
3 one talking about the report. The witness will speak about it. You put
4 questions. You are not the expert, the witness is. We agree on this
5 don't we?
6 MR. SCOTT: Yes, Your Honour. What I meant was, direct the
7 witness to give a more detailed treatment in court. That's what I meant
8 to say. Thank you.
9 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. So, yes, this is
10 what I understood.
11 Madam Usher, can you please bring the witness in?
12 [The witness entered court]
13 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Good morning, sir. Before your
14 solemn declaration, I'd like you to introduce yourself, surname, first
15 name, date of birth, and current occupation.
16 THE WITNESS: Yes. My name is Robert Donia. I am currently a
17 research associate at the Centre for Russian and East European studies at
18 the University of Michigan. And you wanted my date of birth, sir? I
19 believe I was born May 30, 1945.
20 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you very much. For the
21 record I'd like to ask you whether you have testified before, before this
22 Tribunal, and if you have, how many times have you been a witness?
23 THE WITNESS: I have testified before. I have testified, I
24 believe, in seven other cases.
25 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you very much, sir.
Page 1741
1 Please read the solemn declaration.
2 THE WITNESS: I solemnly declare that I will speak the truth, the
3 whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
4 WITNESS: ROBERT DONIA
5 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you, sir. Please sit
6 down.
7 A few introductory remarks before I give the floor to Mr. Scott.
8 You are a specialist with regard to this Tribunal because this is going to
9 be only the eighth time that you're going to testify as an expert, so you
10 won't be surprised by the questions put to you by the Prosecution on your
11 right or the Defence on your left. Unlike other cases, there are many
12 Defence counsel, since we have six indictees with an important Defence
13 panel.
14 As you know, after the examination-in-chief by Mr. Scott, you will
15 answer questions put in cross-examination. The Judges before you can, if
16 they need to, feel the need to, put questions to you. You are an expert.
17 Therefore, you can expect the cross-examination to be hard, but you're
18 used to it. Be aware of the fact that if questions may sound harsh, you
19 are not being criticised as such personally. It is the expert and the
20 content of his expert report that are going to be criticised. This is
21 what happens in all courts the world over. The expert is always under
22 scrutiny and sometimes has to undergo questioning by the Defence and the
23 Judges. But you are very experienced in this matter. Therefore, I'm sure
24 you will be up to the task.
25 If at any time you have any difficulty, need a rest, tell us so,
Page 1742
1 but generally we work for an hour and a half and then we have a 20-minute
2 break and then we resume, except that around 12.00 noon, we have a break,
3 a lunch break of an hour and a half so that you can have a rest, have a
4 bite. This goes also for all the people in this courtroom. And then we
5 start again in the afternoon. If all goes well, you should finish your
6 testimony tomorrow at quarter to two.
7 So we've already used 20 minutes this morning. Without further
8 ado, I'll give the floor to Mr. Scott.
9 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Mr. President and Your Honours.
10 Examination by Mr. Scott:
11 Q. Good morning, Dr. Donia.
12 A. Good morning, Mr. Scott.
13 Q. I want to just very briefly talk about your -- your background and
14 you were expertise I've had your CV or curriculum vitae marked for
15 identification as P 09547, which everyone in the courtroom has and will
16 provide your background education and publications in more detail, which I
17 will not take the time to cover extensively in court. However, in terms
18 of your education, very briefly, at the end of your CV I note that you
19 have -- you received a doctorate or Ph.D. from the University of Michigan
20 in 1976 and in connection with your Ph.D. the dissertation or thesis that
21 you did is the Politics of Fractionalism, the Muslims of
22 Bosnia-Herzegovina; is that correct?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Now, in terms of your work since then or in terms of its relevance
25 to what brings us here today, this case and matters related to it, I note
Page 1743
1 that you have published three books related to Bosnia; is that correct?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. And I understand your most recent book, titled, Sarajevo: A
4 Biography, has just been published in the last few weeks; is that correct?
5 A. Yes, it is.
6 Q. Can you just in only two or three sentences or so just describe to
7 the Judges what that book is about?
8 A. Sarajevo: A Biography, is a synthetic history of the city of
9 Sarajevo from its founding in about 1450 until about the year 2000.
10 Q. All right. When you say synthetic, sir, maybe you can explain
11 what you mean by that?
12 A. It's a comprehensive history in that it covers an extensive period
13 of time and attempts to bring together, synthesise the various periods of
14 the city's history into one coherent narrative.
15 Q. All right. In addition to the three books you have written either
16 by yourself or with another, I see from your CV that you have published
17 something approximately like 14 articles related to Bosnia or the former
18 Yugoslavia; is that correct?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. I also note that you have in addition to that written
21 approximately 14 reviews of other people's work, again in connection with
22 the former Yugoslavia, the Balkans, south-eastern Europe; is that correct?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Now, to follow up on the President's question, in terms of your
25 prior testimony at the ICTY, is it correct, sir, that you testified in the
Page 1744
1 Blaskic days in approximately 1997?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. And Kordic and Cerkez in approximately 1999?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. The Simic case in 2001?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. The Brdjanin case in 2002?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. The Stakic case also in 2002?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. The Galic case in 2002?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. The Milosevic case in 2003?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. And the Krajisnik case which is still in trial now in July 2005?
16 A. That's correct.
17 Q. Now, sir, if we can turn then to your report itself, which has
18 been placed -- I think a copy has been placed for your reference on the
19 witness stand. And again for the record this has been marked for
20 identification as Exhibit P 09536.
21 What I'm going to do, sir, and as I've explained to the Judges
22 already, is take you through your report essentially from beginning to
23 end, section by section, although some sections we may virtually skip
24 over, and I'll leave to the Defence counsel and Judges to ask you any
25 questions about those sections as they may wish and direct your attention
Page 1745
1 to some particular parts and items of your report.
2 In that regard if I could direct your attention to section 2,
3 which is the section following the introduction. It's a section entitled
4 Bosnia and Herzegovina. Only two parts from that section that I would
5 like to give some attention to.
6 You mention in this part of your report something called the
7 Independent State of Croatia. Can you please amplify or expand on that,
8 explain to the Judges what the Independent State of Croatia was.
9 A. Independent State of Croatia was created by the German and Italian
10 occupiers immediately after their conquest of Bosnia-Herzegovina and in
11 fact of the -- of former Yugoslavia in 1941. It was -- it included
12 virtually all of Bosnia-Herzegovina's territory, and the vast majority of
13 the Croatian territories under the -- at the time of the Habsburg monarchy
14 and put these under one set of rulers, the Ustasha, who were Croatian
15 nationalists who had been in emigration in Italy for about a decade and a
16 half prior to 1941.
17 Q. All right.
18 A. So it was a territory that encompassed both the historic Croatian
19 lands and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
20 Q. If I could have the assistance of the usher, please, to place on
21 the ELMO map 5 from your report.
22 All right. Perhaps if we could just see the top -- perhaps if
23 you could orient the top of the map a bit. Yes, map 5.
24 What you've just said Dr. Donia, is it the correct that the part
25 marked in yellow is what was known as the independent spate of Croatia
Page 1746
1 from 1941 to 1945?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Could you point -- perhaps on the eastern edge or borders of that
4 entity, could you just point where those are and maybe give us some idea
5 of how that later relates to what was the border, became the border
6 between what was later Bosnia on the one hand and Serbia on the other?
7 A. Well, the eastern boundary of the independent State of Croatia in
8 the very extreme north went, of course, further to the east, but then
9 followed the Drina River down through a large portion of its eastern
10 boundary. That was, in fact, the boundary by and large between
11 Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Kingdom of Serbia prior to 1914, and it became
12 the boundary between Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia, the Republic of
13 Serbia, again after 1945.
14 Q. All right. So as you said earlier, essentially the Independent
15 State of Croatia during this time essentially covered the entire territory
16 of what became post-war as Bosnia-Herzegovina; is that correct?
17 A. That's correct.
18 Q. Then -- and did that entity or that territorial arrangement ended
19 at the -- with the end of the war?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. And if I could ask the usher's assistance to put on map number 6.
22 Just by way of a quick reminder and overview, is that then a
23 configuration of the former Yugoslavia, the Republic of
24 Bosnia-Herzegovina, the socialist Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina as it
25 existed after the war after the end of the independent State of Croatia
Page 1747
1 until approximately 1992?
2 A. Yes. Follow the same boundaries again, at least the northern,
3 say, one-half to two-thirds of the boundary between Bosnia-Herzegovina and
4 the Republic of Serbia, again following the Drina River.
5 Q. All right. We can move on to section 3 of your report. What I'd
6 like to focus your attention on in the next few minutes, sir, is on page 5
7 of your report. You talk about essentially the fact that of the three
8 principal et thing groups the Croats, Muslims, and Serbs lived in close
9 proximity to each other and in Bosnia-Herzegovina to varying
10 degrees "making it impossible to delineate on a map a sizeable, contiguous
11 territory inhabited by members of only one group." Could you tell us a
12 built more about at that and what the implications of that were for any
13 nationalist groups that were trying then to carve out some sort of
14 compact, homogenous areas?
15 A. Through a combination of religious conversions and migration,
16 these three peoples had intermingled in almost all of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
17 In many areas there was a mix of Muslims and Croats, many other areas a
18 mix of Muslims and Serbs. In still other areas there were makes tour of
19 all three groups, including most of the major cities, particularly Mostar,
20 Sarajevo, Tuzla, Zenica, other -- other cities. There are small areas
21 that are ethnically monolithic, if you will, in a couple of municipalities
22 in Western Herzegovina or -- Western Herzegovina and in north-western
23 Bosnia which is -- that enclave being Muslim, but by and large through the
24 republic as a whole, the intermingling is such that drawing lines on a map
25 is a futile exercise in terms of trying to create a monolithic or
Page 1748
1 mono-national territory.
2 Q. All right. You mention on page 6 of your report on the bottom
3 half of the page, based on the 1991 census, the approximate percentages of
4 each of the three principal groups indicating the Muslims comprised
5 overall across all of Bosnia-Herzegovina approximately 43.7 per cent, the
6 Serbs approximately 31.4 per cent, and the Bosnian Croats approximately
7 17.3 per cent.
8 My question about that, sir, just so there is no confusion in the
9 courtroom, those are the percentages across the country as a whole and not
10 in any particular municipality or city; is that correct?
11 A. Those are the percentages across the Republic of
12 Bosnia-Herzegovina, yes.
13 Q. So for example even though the Bosnian Croats across
14 Bosnia-Herzegovina as a whole might be approximately 17 per cent, in some
15 particular locale they might be 80 -- 50 per cent or even 80 per cent?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. If I can have the usher's assistance by putting map number 8 on
18 the ELMO.
19 Can you just briefly indicate -- this is a part your report. Can
20 you just briefly indicate why you included that map and what it indicates?
21 A. I included the map for two reasons. Number one, it demonstrates
22 the ethnonational complexity of Bosnia-Herzegovina as we've just outlined.
23 The second reason I included it is, it's very difficult to capture that
24 diversity, those dispersions in any map, and this map comes as close as
25 any to being accurate by municipality in terms of the composition of each.
Page 1749
1 So the primary colour in each municipality indicates the majority
2 nationality or, in the case of the somewhat more faded colours, the
3 plurality, that is majority less than 50 per cent.
4 Q. All right.
5 A. And the bars in each municipality indicate the presence of other
6 groups and the percentage that they constitute of the population.
7 So to take just one that's fairly visible here, if we look at
8 Mostar, we see that it has a Muslim relative majority of less than 50 per
9 cent but also has these other groups represented within the municipality
10 as represented by the bar graphs.
11 Q. All right. Thank you very much. And focusing -- continuing to
12 focus just as an example on Mostar, if the usher could please put map 7 on
13 the overhead or on the ELMO.
14 Can you again briefly describe for the Judges what this map
15 displace or is intended to indicate?
16 A. This is a map that indicates the geographic dispersion of
17 nationalities within a particular municipality and therefore is very
18 specific as to the concentrations in individual villages and towns, and
19 what one sees with the red being Croats is that there are indeed clusters
20 of Croatian villages to the east of Mostar, but there are also Muslim
21 villages to the west and north interspersed with Serbian towns and
22 villages in that area, surrounding the city of Mostar, which is genuinely
23 mixed, all groups represented and really not distinguished by
24 neighbourhoods or a residential segregation.
25 Q. All right. Now, let me just have the -- if I could switch to the
Page 1750
1 PowerPoint presentation. We can display that. And for the usher, I'll be
2 finished with the ELMO for at least the time being.
3 Just summarising the points in your report on this section of your
4 report then sir, as you indicated due to these various conditions I think
5 you said a moment ago yourself you referred to the part of your report
6 that says, it's these characteristics which render futile any attempt to
7 separate Bosnia-Herzegovina into homogenous ethnic compact territories; is
8 that correct?
9 A. Yes, it is.
10 MR. KARNAVAS: Mr. President.
11 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes, Mr. Karnavas.
12 MR. KARNAVAS: Mr. President and Your Honours, I don't think it's
13 proper to have a reading, as it were, of the report. I believe the
14 gentleman is here to testify and what we have so far is a reading of the
15 report rather in a clever way, but I would rather have a discourse rather
16 than a reading. We can all read the report. The report has come in. He
17 can discuss it. But I think this is improper use of the report. Thank
18 you.
19 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes, Mr. Scott, try to elicit
20 the witness's answer by asking him to go into detail on given subjects.
21 Then he will be the one who is speaking instead of you.
22 MR. SCOTT: Yes, Your Honour.
23 Q. On page 5 of your report, sir, you mention the -- what you called
24 as national identity movements. Could you discuss that in more detail
25 with the Judges, please, what that meant and how that was carried out.
Page 1751
1 A. The late 18th and 19th centuries were characterised by movements
2 led by intellectuals and supported by church authorities in which the
3 Serbian and Croatian nations attempted to define and also then to spread
4 their own identity throughout the community of what were at that time
5 really religious communities. And so by, let's say the beginning of the
6 20th century we can speak of the national movements of the Serbs and
7 Croats being well developed in Croatia, Serbia, the neighbouring
8 republics, and beginning to develop effectively in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
9 The national movement of the Bosnian Muslims, who later became
10 known as the Bosniaks in 1993, took place somewhat later. So these three
11 national movements did not occur simultaneously. They occurred depending
12 on the strength of the middle class and the articulation of these
13 identities over about a century and a half of time. The Bosnian Muslims
14 asserted their identity in the early 1960s and achieved recognition as a
15 nationality equivalent to the Serbs and Croats in 1964.
16 Q. On page 5 of your report, in this regard the last paragraph on
17 that page, you talk about the efforts of the various nationalist
18 movements, and you talk about by means of myth-making, linguistic efforts,
19 commemorations, holidays, and through the national, quote, "national
20 sites." Can you again explain to the Judges what you mean by at that
21 statement?
22 A. Well, these are Vjekoslav Perica's words and I think he captured
23 in a single sentence this complex process of spreading belief in a
24 national history, in the notion of a common or single language, a set of
25 national heroes and saints whose achievements and births are often
Page 1752
1 commemorated in holidays and then the creation of holidays which honoured
2 a particular event in the national history.
3 Q. Can you tell us what role if any such things as symbols, flags,
4 certain coats of arms, certain insignia, what -- what role did symbols
5 play in this process?
6 A. Well, these symbols were typically designed by intellectuals but
7 usually drawing been something like a medieval coat of arms or even
8 slogan, and these, I'd say, various symbols including a coat of arms, a
9 national anthem, folk music, folk literature, all these both their
10 literary and very physical tangible evidences of national identity were
11 developed as part of this national awakening.
12 Q. You mention in particular among the others linguistic efforts.
13 Can you again explain how linguistics play a role in nationalist
14 movements.
15 A. Well, in the case of the South Slavs, both the Croats and the
16 Serbs in the early decades of the 19th century sought to codify national
17 language which would encompass as many people as possible by definition
18 into their national group. The purpose of that in the minds of the
19 intellectuals was to let's say integrate or fuse the population around a
20 single, standard, uniform national language.
21 Q. Apart from those efforts or in light of those efforts, can you
22 tell the Court in general as of the early 1990s, not so much necessarily
23 today but back in 1991, 1992, 1993, how similar or different were the
24 language which we now refer to at the Tribunal as B/C/S or Bosnian, Croat,
25 Serb, how different in practice and day-to-day language were those in the
Page 1753
1 early 1990s? Different or similar?
2 A. Well, they were very similar, and -- and very contested. The
3 intellectuals who were promulgating the notion that the Croats spoke a
4 different language from the Serbs and the Bosnian Muslims promoted that
5 separatism by introducing archaic terms into the language. The Bosnian
6 Muslims did the same thing with Turkish and Arabic expressions. But that
7 was a process that was designed to identify or to promote the
8 separateness. In fact, these languages are wholly mutually intelligible.
9 My favourite illustration of that was the Dayton peace talks at which the
10 each group wanted its own language represented. There were three buttons
11 on the translation panel, and whether you turned to Serbian, Croatian, or
12 Bosnian, you heard the same voice.
13 Q. Now, moving on. On page 6 of your report you mentioned the fact
14 or situation where both over time, both Serb and Croat nationalists --
15 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Wait a minute. Wait a minute.
16 Allow me to interrupt you to put a question to the witness.
17 Let me come back to the question you put on page 5. You state in
18 your report that of the 19th century each religious community became the
19 foundation for a sort of lay national identity. You quote an historian,
20 Perica, by saying that the main religious institutions worked together
21 with modern nationalistic individuals on the task of creating nations and
22 nationalities. So what your colleague Perica says as an historian seems
23 very relevant to me and seems to complement what you said.
24 Did you mean in this paragraph to indicate that religions were
25 sort of at the origin of this nationalistic feeling? Is that what you
Page 1754
1 wanted to bring out in this paragraph?
2 THE WITNESS: Yes, they are. Religion and religious tradition
3 were the foundation for these national movements. The national
4 intellectuals who asserted them often denied that there was this highly
5 significant religious identity at the core, but in fact the national
6 movements never deviated terribly far from their religious origins. So,
7 yes, I think the point is well taken that religion is the very foundation
8 from which these movements arise.
9 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you.
10 MR. SCOTT:
11 Q. Dr. Donia, I was asking you also say in your report on page 6 that
12 both Serb and Croat nationalists at various times have claimed Muslims as
13 part of them, if you will. If they were Muslims or either -- in fact
14 Muslims or Serbs, or Muslims or Croats. Did you explain that further to
15 the Judges, please?
16 A. Yes. Let's say in the first -- in the 19th century, the
17 intellectual leaders of these movements were in the business of trying to
18 define their groups as broadly as possible. So, for example, many Serbian
19 nationalists in the 19th century viewed the Croats, or let's say
20 Catholics, as Serbs of the Catholic faith, and likewise Croats viewed
21 Bosnian Muslims as Croats of the Muslim faith. So this, let's say,
22 rivalry over the entire corpus of south Slavs who spoke that language
23 which was called Serbo-Croatian in the socialist period led to -- or ended
24 up in a rivalry about the identity of the Bosnian Muslims. And until the
25 1960s, most Bosnian Muslims defined their group as a religious community,
Page 1755
1 much as had been the case with Catholics or Orthodox a century earlier. A
2 few of them accepted these overtures from Serbian and Croatian
3 nationalists and declared their nationality as Serbian or Croatian, but
4 the vast majority, particularly those other than elites, rejected these
5 overtures, and, as can be shown in the censuses from the socialist period,
6 would pick just about any identity other than Serb or Croat to identify
7 themselves as distinct from the Serbian and Croatian nationalities.
8 In a sense, this rivalry has really never ended, but by the 1990s,
9 most Croats and Serbs accepted the fact that the Bosnian Muslims were a
10 separate nation and therefore distinct from their particular
11 nationalities.
12 Q. And I believe just for -- just for reference to the point you just
13 made about the census and the -- how the Muslims would categorise
14 themselves you make a statement in your report on page 6 at the end of
15 paragraph -- at the end of paragraph one, I believe; is that correct?
16 A. Yes. The socialist Yugoslav state offered a very limited
17 repertoire of possible identities for a census respondent to select, so it
18 changed in each census until 1981, but it was in these categories that the
19 Muslim -- Bosnian Muslim population found refuge in a sense from being
20 forced to declare themselves as Serbs or Croats.
21 Q. All right. Now, perhaps you've touched on this a bit already, but
22 if you can say a bit more. What was the -- based on your historical work,
23 what was the purpose or the end that attempted to be achieved by one group
24 or the other as claiming the Muslims to be part of their group?
25 A. It was the key to demographic control of and majority status in
Page 1756
1 Bosnia-Herzegovina. If the Serbs could succeed in recruiting the Bosnian
2 Muslims for the Serbian nationality, Bosnia-Herzegovina would be a
3 majority Serbian republic. If the Croats succeeded, it would be a
4 majority Croatian territory.
5 Q. Thank you, sir. Unless the -- unless the Chamber has other
6 questions on this section, I'm moving on to the next section on the
7 Croatian Banovina.
8 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes. Just one question for
9 clarification. You said that somehow the Muslims were this challenge or
10 the stake between Serbs and Croats so that they can reach a majority. Is
11 this the way we should understand your statement?
12 THE WITNESS: This was the -- was a primary motivation for the
13 Serb and Croat nationalists to recruit, to pursue the identity of the
14 Bosnian Muslims. Yes, if you would understand my statement to identify
15 the motivation for Serbian and Croatian nationalists to seek to recruit
16 the Bosnian Muslims, that would be what my testimony is.
17 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Another question.
18 JUDGE TRECHSEL: I want to get as full clarity as possible. To
19 put it very bluntly, what you are telling us is this: There is one
20 people, ethnic, pretty much uniform in the territory of former Yugoslavia;
21 however, adhering to different religions, and the leaders of the different
22 religions assisted and complemented by intellectuals built up via the
23 secondary symbols which they created more or less artificially, more or
24 less at the origin artificial nationalism to create a nationalist identity
25 of different groups which originally were one and the same if one
Page 1757
1 abstracts from religion. Is that, very, very roughly simplified, what you
2 are saying?
3 THE WITNESS: Yes.
4 JUDGE TRECHSEL: Yes.
5 THE WITNESS: If I may clarify a bit from that. The symbols were
6 not artificial in the sense that they had no foundation in history. Each
7 group looked back to a medieval state, the Bosnian Muslims to a Bosnian
8 medieval state, the Croatian to a Croatian medieval state, the Serbs to a
9 medieval kingdom. So these were not completely artificial, invented coats
10 of arms and symbols. They were, however, selected in some cases
11 redesigned and tailored for the purpose of promoting these national
12 identities.
13 JUDGE TRECHSEL: Could one mutatis mutandis compared the different
14 kingdoms and states they look back upon to the different Italian states in
15 the Middle Ages, or the German states?
16 THE WITNESS: Yes.
17 JUDGE TRECHSEL: Thank you.
18 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Third question. These questions
19 are put to you in order really to get to the core of the matter, to save
20 time.
21 JUDGE PRANDLER: Mr. President, since being from Hungary and due
22 to the complexities of the history of our region there, I also do have, as
23 far as my mother is concerned, she was born in Croatia, and one of my
24 grandfathers served in Bosnia-Herzegovina before the First World War and
25 fought in the world war between the Italians and Russians, and then my
Page 1758
1 point is anyway that you mentioned previously that during the Yugoslav
2 socialist period of time not too many choices were given to answer in the
3 census who is who, I mean, to which nationality they belong.
4 I do recall that that was a possibility also to choose the, I
5 would say, the "Yugoslav" as being a Yugoslav and not a Serbian or not
6 Croatian or not -- I don't know if Bosnian was -- if that was a
7 possibility to choose Bosnian as a nationality. So my question is: If in
8 the census during that period of time, let's say from the early 1960s to
9 the 1990s, as far as the -- that period of time was concerned, the Muslim
10 Bosniaks, how did they in general put themselves in any categories which
11 you mentioned?
12 THE WITNESS: In the 1953 census, as you'll see in my assertion on
13 page 6, the Muslims did in fact opt for Yugoslav undetermined which is a
14 very, to me, meaningless category. In subsequent censuses, the Yugoslav
15 option was used by many people who genuinely believed in the Yugoslav,
16 let's say, state and concept. It was also used by those people from mixed
17 marriages or who simply rejected the national identity, Serb, Croat, or
18 Bosnian Muslim, for one reason or another.
19 The Yugoslav option was selected by -- I think the largest
20 percentage was in 1981 and, I believe, reached about 7 or 8 per cent of
21 the Bosnian population and then decreased somewhat in the 1991 census,
22 because the 1991 census was taken in -- I think at the end of March, 1991,
23 when some of the conflicts were already intensifying in the former
24 Yugoslavia.
25 There was I don't believe in any census ever an option to select
Page 1759
1 Bosnian, but the Bosnian Muslim or Muslim in the ethnic sense or in the
2 national or ethnic sense was an option that was chosen by many Bosnian
3 Muslims.
4 MR. SCOTT:
5 Q. Perhaps just to put a further detail on that, what would be the
6 reason for describing it or why would some people want to state it as
7 Muslim in ethnic sense as opposed to Muslim in what other sense?
8 A. Well, this progression on page 6 here reflects the evolution of
9 what was viewed at the time as the proper way to couch or express this
10 Bosnian Muslim identity. 1961 was prior to the formal recognition of
11 Bosnian Muslims as a nationality. So Muslim in the ethnic sense was
12 viewed in a sense as one step below official national status.
13 In 1971, this has been changed, and Muslim in the national sense
14 is the available category in the census. And then when Yugoslav officials
15 believe that issue is resolved, they simply allow the Bosnian Muslim
16 designation in the 1981 and 1991 censuses.
17 Q. Was there any sense in that terminology, if you know, when people
18 use the phrase Muslim in the ethnic sense, did that also allow for the
19 possibility of someone to identify themselves -- we might say someone
20 considered themselves a Muslim in an ethnic or cultural sense but perhaps
21 was -- did not actively practice the Islamic faith?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. If we can move on, then, to the section on the Croatian Banovina
24 unless the Judges have additional questions on that section?
25 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Please proceed.
Page 1760
1 MR. SCOTT:
2 Q. Dr. Donia, the concept of banovina is explained in this part your
3 report called --
4 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.
5 MR. SCOTT: My apology.
6 Q. In this section of your report, you talk about the concept of
7 banovina or ban not only in the context of what has been discussed in this
8 trial as the banovina of 1939. So before we get specifically to that, can
9 you just say just generally what the term banovina means or its
10 derivation?
11 A. It is derived from a territory ruled during the Middle Ages by a
12 governor or ban, b-a-n. It was invoked or used in 19 -- after 1929 and
13 the declaration of a royal dictatorship by King Aleksandar of Yugoslavia
14 to create new administrative units which had, in principle, no historical
15 precedent or foundation and which were intended to disregard the national
16 or ethnic divisions within Yugoslavia.
17 Q. All right. Just focusing on the end of the first paragraph in
18 that section. Do I correctly understand what you mean by that last
19 statement to be that these earlier banovinas, so to speak, well, the ones
20 established around 1929, that these were not in fact based on any
21 particular ethnic groupings or primarily on other considerations?
22 A. Yes. That's the case. There are historians of various national
23 persuasions who see in this an effort to assure a Serbian plurality in
24 effectively all of the banovinas except the Slovene, the northern,
25 north-western one, but at least in the -- if you look at the map and
Page 1761
1 understand the -- the expressed intent of the rulers, it was to eliminate
2 ethnicity or nationality as a criterion for these administrative
3 boundaries.
4 Q. All right. Now, moving specifically, then, to the banovina of
5 1939. Can you tell us and amplify on your report how that came about, the
6 historical forces or circumstances, if you will, that led to the creation
7 of the banovina of 1939 and what was involved in that?
8 A. There was -- in -- in royal Yugoslavia there was fairly constant
9 discontent by Croatian political leaders with the administrative
10 arrangements that had been created, really from the very -- almost the
11 very first day. These turned into an acute crisis in the late 1930s with
12 the growing influence of Germany and Italy and the possible -- possibility
13 of military action against Yugoslavia by those powers. So the royal
14 leaders authorised Prime Minister Cvetkovic to seek an agreement with
15 Croatian leaders about the constitutional future of royal Yugoslavia, and
16 a series of negotiations took place between Prime Minister Cvetkovic and
17 Zlatko Macek who was the head of the Croatian peasant party and resulted
18 in an agreement which created a Croatian Banovina.
19 Q. All right. Before moving on, just so the record is clear and so
20 we're all further informed, Mr. -- The Prime Minister Cvetkovic --
21 Cvetkovic, excuse me, what government did he or nationality, what have
22 you, did he represent?
23 A. He was a Serb and represented the royal government but clearly was
24 operating and negotiating on behalf of the Serbian component of
25 Yugoslavia.
Page 1762
1 Q. And can you say a bit more about this man named Macek, what his
2 background was? He was the Croat, principal Croat leader in this
3 particular situation in?
4 A. Yes. And real little was -- had over the years become an
5 uncontested leader, let's say, of the Croatian political establishment.
6 Q. And how was it then that this particular -- the actual agreement
7 itself was then formed and put into place, if you will? Was there some
8 declaration or how was it this banovina was actually but into place?
9 A. Well, this agreement was reached in closed negotiations, and then
10 ceremoniously announced in August of 1939, and then immediately
11 implemented with the changing of boundaries of the banovinas and the
12 implementation of administrative changes.
13 Q. For purposes it may come up either today or in the future when
14 there's a reference to the Cvetkovic or Macek he can agreement that is the
15 agreement sir that created the banovina?
16 A. Yes, it's much easier to think of it as the "banovina plan" or
17 simply "the agreement."
18 Q. All right. And can you tell the Judges, please, what role if any
19 Muslims played in that agreement or if they had any voice concerning it.
20 A. The undisputed leader of the Muslim organisation, Mehmed Spaho,
21 was strongly opposed to this agreement and was quite vocal in his
22 opposition to it. He died just a few weeks before the agreement was
23 reached. So there was effectively very little participation by the
24 Bosnian Muslims in the negotiations for the agreement and shortly after it
25 was reached there was quite a bit of opposition to it from various
Page 1763
1 quarters in the Yugoslav Muslim organisation which was the dominant
2 political party of the Bosnian Muslims.
3 Q. Can I have the usher's assistance, please, to put map 4 from
4 Dr. Donia's report on the ELMO.
5 MR. KARNAVAS: And if that is happening if I may just raise an
6 observation, Your Honour. I can't help but.
7 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes.
8 MR. KARNAVAS: I can't help noticing at times Dr. Donia is reading
9 his report or parts of it. He has it right there. I would like the
10 testimony to come from his memory if possible. If he needs to refresh his
11 memory that's fine, but I think you know it's either the Prosecutor
12 reading it or the witness reading it, and I don't think this is proper.
13 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, I disagree. I couldn't disagree more.
14 What the whole -- what is the point of an expert referring -- preparing a
15 report that is filed with the Court so that everyone can review it ahead
16 of time? The expert does not come into the courtroom to start all over
17 again from scratch. He has written a report. He has invested in a
18 report, made an effort to collect information, and he was simply to -- are
19 we supposed to put that all entirely to one side and act like it doesn't
20 exist? Of course it's his report and he should be able to refer to it if
21 he wishes to.
22 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes. Mr. Donia, when the
23 Prosecutor puts a question to you, you answer if whilst looking at us and
24 you just answer by memory, and then if your memory fails, you can refresh
25 your memory by looking at the report. But the main thing is to answer
Page 1764
1 orally, to answer an oral question as it were. Well, of course if you can
2 forget a minor detail, you can of course sort of dive into your report,
3 but normally everything should happen sort of verbally in order to avoid a
4 situation in which you have the Prosecutor reading and the witness reading
5 as well. Of course, this would be saving time, but we have to stick to
6 form.
7 Please proceed, Mr. Scott.
8 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Your Honour.
9 Q. Looking now at the over -- or the ELMO presentation, can you tell
10 us, then, what is confirmed -- what is marked in green on this particular
11 map?
12 A. The green body on this map is the Croatian Banovina as it was
13 defined in 1939.
14 Q. And it may assist the Chamber to know perhaps the source of this
15 map. Who -- from where did you obtain this particular map?
16 A. It's a collection of maps edited by Ljubo Boban who also wrote the
17 definitive work on the Cvetkovic-Macek agreement.
18 Q. So this is not a map that either you or for instance anyone at the
19 OTP has prepared but prepared -- I believe you -- was it a Croat who
20 prepared this map?
21 A. Yes, it was published in Zagreb.
22 Q. All right. Now, you mentioned -- before putting the map on the
23 ELMO, you mentioned --
24 MR. SCOTT: I'm just looking ahead, Your Honour, for the
25 purpose -- with the assistance of the usher. I think that will be all for
Page 1765
1 now for some time.
2 Q. Now, you mentioned apart from the Muslim concerns or opposition to
3 the banovina plan, was there any opposition to the -- by Serbs or Croats
4 to the plan and, if so, why?
5 A. The various political parties took different positions once the
6 plan was announced, and most of the complaints really didn't develop until
7 several weeks and even months after the agreement had been reached, but in
8 general the -- many Croats came to feel that the plan left a lot of Croats
9 out of the banovina, and many Serb political leaders complained that there
10 were too many Serbs within the territory of the banovina, the Croatian
11 Banovina.
12 Q. Now, continuing on, on page 8 and carrying over to page 9 of your
13 report, you make the statement about -- that the banovina continued to be
14 a factor in various thinking or movements, if you will. Can you explain
15 to the Chamber how that was the case, referring to the statement beginning
16 at bottom of page 8 of your report?
17 A. Well --
18 MR. KARNAVAS: Your Honour, again I don't mean to be disputatious,
19 but again I think this is just the way -- if you can't go through the
20 front door now we're trying to get in through the basement window. He can
21 just pose the question. Just an open-ended question, you know? There's
22 no need for him to read the report or to reference it. He can just ask
23 him, you know, very bluntly, and he can help us out. He is a historian
24 after all.
25 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, I don't know the purpose of having a
Page 1766
1 report prepared if the report can't be referred to. Why didn't we just
2 have Dr. Donia come in without a report and just start talking? I just
3 don't understand.
4 MR. KARNAVAS: He can ask him very simply without references the
5 report without having him looking at the report. I believe if you ask him
6 the question, Dr. Donia is perfectly capable of answering the question.
7 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes, Mr. Scott. You want the
8 question to speak to the issue of criteria without mentioning page 8 or 9
9 of the report as such. You could ask him the question, asking him whether
10 there may be criteria, and then he could answer.
11 MR. SCOTT: Very well, Your Honour.
12 Q. Dr. Donia, you make a reference to the fact that Croats idealised
13 the arrangements and used the banovina for some -- for additional future
14 purposes after 1939. Can you explain that to the Judges, please?
15 A. Yes. I referred to some Croats and particularly to the era of
16 nationalist revival in the late 1980s and 1990s -- or early 1990s, and
17 then a -- some Croatian nationalists intellectuals and aspiring
18 politicians in the meantime who looked back on this as a -- perhaps not
19 maximum achievement of the Croatian people in terms of having a state but
20 as a far better, far more desirable state formation than existed under
21 socialist Yugoslavia. That would include most prominently at least in
22 retrospect former Croatian President Tudjman and a number of historians
23 and other political leaders who cited this as something they would like to
24 restore or at least idealise as a kind of a general goal.
25 Q. And you also mention in your report that there is the banovina in
Page 1767
1 fact the banovina of 1939 was referenced in Croatia's constitution; is
2 that correct?
3 A. Yes, it was. For the constitution, it was promulgated in 1990.
4 Q. All right. That was my next question. If you could tell the
5 Chamber when that language was put into the constitution?
6 A. I think it was June of 1990, if I'm not mistaken. In any case, it
7 was after the elections in the late spring, early summer of 1990.
8 Q. Now, sir, and in terms of this, what you've mentioned in terms of
9 President Tudjman in particular, are you the only one -- the only one,
10 sir, to have made that observation or can you tell the Chamber what other
11 either historians or political figures have been involved in the Balkans
12 during the 1990s also indicated this view or had a similar experience in
13 dealing with Dr. Tudjman?
14 A. Well, in his book Balkan Odyssey, Lord David Owen makes the
15 observation that he heard this from President Tudjman as something that he
16 himself ideal -- that is Tudjman, idealised.
17 Q. And to your knowledge, for instance, other -- did Mate Boban ever
18 refer to the banovina as something that related to what was happening in
19 what became Herceg-Bosna?
20 A. Yes. He cited it as a model or, let's say, precedent for the
21 creation of the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna in November of 1991.
22 MR. SCOTT: Your Honours, again I'm going to move past this
23 section to be consistent with what we've done this morning which I think
24 seems to work, in my view at least, reasonably well. If the Judges have
25 any questions on this section, I'll stop before I move forward.
Page 1768
1 Q. Moving on then, sir, to the next part of your report which begins
2 at page 10.
3 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes, please go ahead.
4 MR. SCOTT:
5 Q. You provide some background at the beginning part of your report a
6 little bit a limited background about President Tudjman. Can you say
7 anything more about his -- the activities or views that led him to be
8 imprisoned in the former Yugoslavia on two occasions?
9 A. Well, he was a very vocal critic of the, let's say, socialist
10 system in general as overly bureaucratic, as too authoritarian, and as --
11 at least in later years, as denying the Croatian nation its due in a
12 political sense. So he was a genuine dissident, even though he had been a
13 general, had served in the Partisans, and was highly regarded for his
14 service to, let's say, socialism and Yugoslavia. He was imprisoned for
15 these views on two occasions.
16 Q. And you mention then in 1989 he formed the Croatian Democratic
17 Union. Can you tell us more about that, how that came about, any other
18 particular high-profile individuals if any that were involved with
19 President Tudjman in creating that political party?
20 A. I don't know what you mean by high-profile individuals. He was --
21 Q. All right.
22 A. Well, much of the later political establishment was involved at
23 some level.
24 Q. Well, let me strike my -- forgive my words, but can you tell us
25 some of the other individuals besides Franjo Tudjman who were involved in
Page 1769
1 establishing the party in 1989?
2 A. I can't give you a string of names right now, no.
3 Q. All right. Now, in this section you talk about
4 President Tudjman's views toward Bosnia. Can you summarise those for the
5 Chamber, please?
6 A. He viewed Bosnia-Herzegovina as a territorial intrusion into
7 Croatia, which made Croatia an unnatural geographic and -- let's say,
8 economically unviable geographic territory, and he furthermore believed
9 that the Bosnian Muslims or the vast majority of the Bosnian Muslims by
10 their traditions and language were Croat in ethnicity. So he expressed
11 this -- this view that much of Bosnia-Herzegovina actually belonged to
12 Croatia and that its people were of the same ethnicity as his own,
13 Croatian.
14 Q. And can you tell the Chamber was there anything about that you're
15 aware of the available historical information or the census that we were
16 referring to earlier which would have been contrary to President Tudjman's
17 view that the Muslims identified themselves as Croats, the fact that they
18 often identified themselves as Croat?
19 A. The indications that I gave earlier whereby the Bosnian Muslims
20 sought refuge from these other rival identities were, I think, evidence
21 that the number of Bosnian Muslims who viewed themselves as Croats was
22 very small. In fact, in one census, I believe it was 1971, it was either
23 1961 or 1971, you could answer that you were a Muslim and then you also
24 had the option of identifying a nationality, and the number of people who
25 identified themselves as Muslims and Serbs was, I think, about 74.000 out
Page 1770
1 of something like 3 million Bosnians, and for the Croats was somewhat less
2 than that. As I recall, it was around 26.000. So the number of people
3 who in that census format came forward and said they were Croats of the
4 Muslim faith effectively was very small.
5 Q. Continuing on with the -- President Tudjman's views towards
6 Bosnia-Herzegovina, can you tell the Chamber whether he viewed the
7 continued existence of Bosnia-Herzegovina as a detriment to Croatia?
8 A. He specifically cited the economic factor as impeding the natural
9 development of the Croatian state.
10 Q. And can you point out, sir, in terms of your work, any other --
11 similar to the question I asked you a few moments ago, did
12 President Tudjman express or state these views to other national leaders
13 or historians confirming these views in other statements that he made?
14 A. Tudjman was remarkably consistent in expressing these views. He
15 first expressed them in a book that was published in the 1970s, translated
16 into English in 1981 as nationalism in contemporary Europe. It's from
17 that book that I've taken the quote that's in the paper, which page I
18 don't know right now, but in addition, he expressed in almost the same
19 words those views to a gathering of Bosnian Croat leaders in his office in
20 December 1991, and he was quoted to that effect again in somewhat similar
21 language by the US ambassador to Yugoslavia at the time, Warren
22 Zimmermann, in his recollection of these events reflected in his book.
23 Q. Before we -- I think we're coming up to the break. Before we go
24 to the break, if I could just finish on this. How, again, was the
25 Zimmermann account, if you will, the Zimmermann account of his dealings
Page 1771
1 and conversations with Franjo Tudjman, how does that fit into what you
2 know of the history and literature and that matter in terms of the
3 indications of Franjo Tudjman's views?
4 A. Well, it's consistent with his -- I think with what is reflected
5 in the literature by a number of authorities, namely that Tudjman seems to
6 have been a true believer, a nationalist, which is what one would expect
7 if someone had effectively gone to prison for his views on two occasions
8 during socialism as opposed to Milosevic and, in fact, others, whose views
9 may have been based more on pragmatism and realism than a national, I
10 would say, ideology.
11 MR. SCOTT: Mr. President, in light of the clock I would indicate
12 this would be, if the Chamber agrees, an appropriate time to take the
13 break.
14 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well, Mr. Scott. It is now
15 10.30. We're going to have a 20-minute break.
16 --- Recess taken at 10.32 a.m.
17 --- On resuming at 10.55 a.m.
18 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] The hearing is resumed. Please
19 proceed, Mr. Scott.
20 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Mr. President.
21 Q. Dr. Donia, I've been reminded or asked by the translation people,
22 a common problem here at the Tribunal when the examiner and the witness
23 speak the same language is that we tend to go back and forth quite quickly
24 while the translation may still be continuing, so both of us need to
25 provide a bit more of a pause between my answer -- excuse me, my question
Page 1772
1 and your answer, or sometimes my answer. If we could both do that,
2 please.
3 A. We will.
4 Q. Dr. Donia, in terms of your report, and I would say for the
5 Chamber, to provide the Chamber the opportunity to ask additional
6 questions, the next section in your report in order starting on page 12 is
7 the Dissolution of Yugoslavia's Central Institutions. And continuing with
8 my approach to the report and time will tell how that's received, but I
9 have no questions on that section. Unless the Judges have any questions
10 on that section, I'm going to move on.
11 MR. KARNAVAS: Just to make sure that we're very clear. We do
12 intend to oppose the introduction of the report so later on, you know,
13 Mr. Scott should be fully aware of our position, so -- and there's a
14 possibility, I suspect, since it hasn't been admitted yet, which is why
15 I'm raising all these objections, that the report may not be coming in.
16 So he's moving at his own peril.
17 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, I will hope to persuade the Chamber of
18 the wisdom of the Prosecution's position on this. You have the report, it
19 was filed some time ago, and everyone in the courtroom can read the report
20 and we've been told not to read it in the courtroom. So it seems we're
21 either all going to sit here and read the report word by word and cover
22 every page and every sentence so that it's in the transcript or, if we're
23 not going to read the report, then I have to rely on the fact of what's in
24 the report.
25 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes. In a few minutes on this
Page 1773
1 chapter of the Dissolution of Yugoslavia's Central Institutions, the
2 witness could sum up these two pages in the report.
3 So what can you say in a couple of minutes as to the dissolution
4 of these central institutions? I see that you're looking at the report.
5 I mean, you can use your own memory, because you've been a witness eight
6 times on the subject.
7 THE WITNESS: I frankly haven't memorised the report, but I view
8 the dissolution of Yugoslavia's central institutions as having taken place
9 in stages and sort of one institution at a time. The first step in this
10 process was the relative weakening of the federation starting about the
11 time of the constitutional amendments in 1971 enacted in the new
12 constitution of 1974 and then becoming acute with Tito's death in 1980.
13 The second phase really was the rise of Milosevic and his effort
14 to acquire a majority of supporters on the Yugoslav Federal Presidency
15 with a series of demonstrations which are known as the "happening of the
16 people" or the "Anti-Bureaucratic Revolution" in 1988 and 1989, so that by
17 the end of that period Milosevic and his allies held four of the eight
18 seats on the Federal Presidency and effectively could stymie, obstruct any
19 other group from implementing changes or reforms through that Presidency.
20 The transformation of the Yugoslav national army would be a third
21 part of this process, which meant -- by which I mean the transformation of
22 the army from being a true multinational or multi-ethnic force devoted to
23 the principles of socialist Yugoslavia to an effectively single,
24 mono-ethnic institution promulgating, promoting the interests of the
25 Serbian people as interpreted by its commanders.
Page 1774
1 Additionally, the League of Communists, which was always relied
2 upon by Tito and socialist leaders to reconcile differences within
3 socialist Yugoslavia effectively became moribund in January of 1990 with
4 the collapse of agreement or efforts to reach agreement at the 14th
5 extraordinary party Congress in January of 1990. An after that took place
6 the Yugoslav National Army was essentially the only institution in all
7 republics and charged with holding Yugoslavia together.
8 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well.
9 MR. SCOTT:
10 Q. Sir, in that section of your report you talk about the fact -- can
11 you tell the Chamber how the Presidency of the Socialist Republic of
12 Yugoslavia worked during this time period in terms of the rotation of the
13 president of the Presidency?
14 A. When the arrangements were being made for Tito's inevitable death,
15 the succession arrangement was that the Presidency which had at that time
16 nine members would rotate its position of president of the Presidency by
17 republic and autonomous region. So the schedule was drawn up, I believe,
18 two rotations in advance so that on May 15th of a particular year the
19 representative of, let's say Croatia or Slovenia would become the
20 president of the Presidency. The Presidency normally endorsed this
21 rotation with a kind of symbolic vote, but on May 15th, 1991, when Stipe
22 Mesic, the Croatian -- the representative on the Presidency from the
23 Republic of Croatia was due to assume that position, the four -- Milosevic
24 and his allies either abstained or voted no on Mesic's accession, and that
25 effectively left the Presidency without a -- without a leader. Mesic was
Page 1775
1 eventually confirmed after international intervention in the Brioni accord
2 of July 1991, and he served in that position for several months but was
3 effectively marginalised by both the military leadership and the civilian
4 leadership, Milosevic and his allies, of Yugoslavia.
5 Q. Can you say a word or two more about the way in which he was
6 marginalised or how that -- some of the ways that was manifested?
7 A. Well, he was not informed at all about what was going on in the
8 military. He was the commander of a unit or of an army that was fighting
9 against his own people and his own republic. So obviously his orders were
10 completely disregarded, and he effectively stopped trying to function in
11 that capacity and resigned in December, 1991.
12 MR. SCOTT: Mr. President, I'm moving on to the next section
13 unless one of the Judges has any additional questions on this part of the
14 report.
15 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes, go ahead.
16 MR. SCOTT:
17 Q. The next part of your report, sir, talks about the political party
18 formation in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1990. Can you give us a brief
19 introduction to what -- what the situation had been prior to this time in
20 terms of political parties -- political party or parties in the former
21 Yugoslavia and how that then changed in approximately 19 -- around 1990,
22 particularly in Bosnia-Herzegovina?
23 A. From the early days of socialist Yugoslavia in the mid 1940s
24 there was only one political party in power and that was the Communist
25 Party of Yugoslavia which was renamed the League of Communists of
Page 1776
1 Yugoslavia in 1993. It was aided in this socialist scheme of things by a
2 mass organisation which in -- by 1990 was known as the Socialist Alliance.
3 In 1990, with communism collapsing throughout Europe and great popular
4 demand for multi-party elections, each republic of the former Yugoslavia,
5 the legislative body of each republic voted to allow multi-party elections
6 sometime in the course of 1990. That legislation varied from republic to
7 republic, and there was never an agreement on holding an election in all
8 of Yugoslavia for a single Yugoslav leadership. Consequently, this moved
9 forward this process of fragmentation along republic lines.
10 The legislation in Bosnia was -- it under out to be very difficult
11 to reach agreement on that legislation and in fact was passed in two
12 stages. Number one in February of 1990, the Assembly of
13 Bosnia-Herzegovina provided for multi-party elections but didn't specify
14 specifically the character of the institutions for which elections would
15 be held, and furthermore, ruled out the policy or legality of parties
16 organised along political -- I'm sorry, national or religious lines.
17 The second set of legislation which was -- consisted of
18 constitutional amendments were passed in -- I think the last day of July,
19 1990, and that legislation defined the character of the institutions for
20 which the elections would be held. That included a Presidency, a
21 collective Presidency which was very much in vogue at the time, consisting
22 of two Croats, two Serbs, two Bosnian Muslims, and one representative from
23 the category of other. In addition, they provided for the election of a
24 republican Assembly to consist of 240 delegates and representatives to all
25 109 municipal assemblies and the Assembly of the city of Sarajevo.
Page 1777
1 Q. Let me stop you there for a moment. You've said that the way that
2 the Presidency was structured at one point in time was that there would be
3 approximately two members of each of the three major ethnic groups and
4 then one other, and this category we discussed earlier today, the "other"
5 category. Was that the original -- always the original concept or are
6 there been earlier a consideration of structuring the Presidency on a
7 proportional -- some proportional basis reflecting population?
8 A. Yes. As I indicated earlier, there were -- there were many
9 variants that were considered, and the -- one of them, the variants, that
10 was considered was to structure the Presidency proportionally according to
11 the most recent census, which would have been 1981, to have three Bosnian
12 Muslim members, two Serbs, and one Croat. And in the course of
13 negotiations, that was rejected and the agreement was reached pretty much
14 widely shared amongst all the participants in the Assembly that this
15 should be a 2, 2, and 2 and 1 format to provide approximate parity of the
16 three national communities.
17 Q. So drawing back on the demographic information that we looked at
18 earlier this morning with Croats in Bosnia-Herzegovina as a whole
19 representing only approximately 17 per cent of the population, they were
20 nonetheless given exactly equal standing on the Presidency with two
21 persons, the same as the Muslims and the same as the Serbs; is that
22 correct?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Continue on, please, in just your narrative of how then the
25 parties -- once these structures -- some of these structures were designed
Page 1778
1 how the formation of some of the political parties in Bosnia then took
2 place.
3 A. The formation of political parties began well in advance of the
4 legislation that sanctioned them and the determination of the institutions
5 for which they would compete. The organisational activities of all three
6 parties comfortably pre-date the February date for legislation, and in the
7 case of the HDZ, there was considerable -- that is, excuse me, the
8 Croatian Democratic Union, considerable activity in even mid to late 1989
9 to select key leaders of the party, and there is -- there was also a great
10 deal -- there were consultations and arrangements for the selection of the
11 leadership of the Serbian Democratic Party or SDS, as well always the
12 leading Muslim party, the Party of Democratic Action.
13 When the February legislation was enacted, it effectively made
14 illegal some of the activities that these parties were engaged in, or
15 proto-parties were engaged in, and they resorted to meeting in cafes and
16 holding local meetings without registering their parties, and meeting in
17 apartments and so on. And it wasn't until a Constitutional Court ruling
18 of June 1990 that these parties were able to organise legally and hold
19 their founding assemblies.
20 Q. All right. And just for reference because it may come up today or
21 in the
22 future. It may have already, in fact. When you talk about the primary
23 Muslim -- so-called Muslim party, the Party of Democratic Action, is that
24 also sometimes known as the SDA?
25 A. Yes.
Page 1779
1 Q. So you had the HDZ with it being the primary Croat nationalist
2 party. You would the SDS as mainly the Serb party, and the SDA as being a
3 primarily Muslim party; is that correct?
4 A. Yes. There were a host of political parties organised. I think
5 the number was 40 or more. But these three parties emerged as the primary
6 preferred parties of members of the three groups who they claimed as
7 constituents.
8 MR. KARNAVAS: Mr. President, if I may interject here for one
9 second. Just a point of clarification. I don't recall Mr. Donia saying
10 that the HDZ was the Croat nationalist party. There was an emphasis
11 placed on that, and I want to make sure we're not putting words into
12 the -- he didn't do the same thing with the SDS, and he didn't do it with
13 the SDA, but he's highlighting Croat nationalist party, and I think
14 that's -- there's some -- we have to be very careful not to inject
15 comments into the witness's mouth. Thank you.
16 MR. SCOTT: I will suggest, Mr. President, it is in his report.
17 It's not a secret to anyone that I'm suggesting something that hasn't --
18 the witness hasn't said in his report that everyone in the courtroom has
19 in front of them.
20 MR. KARNAVAS: The report is not evidence, Your Honour. I must
21 stress that. It has not been introduced. Had it been introduced, I would
22 not be up here objecting. It has not. The whole purpose is -- is to see
23 if the gentleman can testify. If so, the report may not come in. That's
24 my position. Now if there is any other alternative position that the
25 Prosecution has, that's fine. But he's testifying live. He's answering
Page 1780
1 questions. He's doing quite well in fact when he's only -- not
2 referencing to his report.
3 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Scott, I said on several
4 occasions that the objections that are raised are only the result of a
5 question of form, the way in which you put the questions. If you had
6 asked the witness to list the parties who won the elections, he would have
7 mentioned the three parties, and then you could have asked him whether he
8 could define each of the parties. If the witness had said that the HDZ is
9 a nationalist party, it would be his problem, the witness's problem, not
10 yours. So it is the way in which you put your questions that should
11 elicit comprehensive answers by the witness without injecting the answer
12 into his mouth. If the witness says that the HDZ is a nationalist party,
13 then it is him who says so, not you.
14 So I'm going to take up the questions.
15 You heard the objection raised by a Defence counsel.
16 Mr. Donia, regarding the HDZ, what can you say?
17 THE WITNESS: Well, the HDZ was a Croatian nationalist party. The
18 S --
19 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Stop here. You wanted to add
20 something?
21 THE WITNESS: Yes.
22 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Go ahead.
23 THE WITNESS: Let me first of all say that when one uses the
24 word "nationalist" in English and it's translated into B/C/S as
25 nacionalisticke, I think it has a much heavier, harsher meaning than it
Page 1781
1 does in English. I use the word nationalistic, but I would almost hope
2 that the translation into B/C/S would be national.
3 Three groups each had a dominant nationalist party. The Serbs had
4 the party of democratic action. The Muslims had the party of -- I'm
5 sorry, the Serbian Democratic Party for the Serbs, the Party of Democratic
6 Action for SDA for the Bosnian Muslims and the Croatian Democratic
7 Community for the Croats.
8 In their approach to their constituencies, in their organisational
9 format, these were very much parallel parties, and they were also parallel
10 in that they achieved virtually complete domination of votes within their
11 respective constituencies and never seriously sought votes from the
12 constituencies of other parties.
13 MR. SCOTT:
14 Q. Can you recall and provide to the Judges, please, information on
15 the -- after the parties were formed -- excuse me just a moment, make sure
16 I'm not -- strike that. We'll get to that eventually.
17 All right. Mr. President, I have no further questions on this
18 section of the report unless the Judges have some additional questions
19 that they would like to put to the witness.
20 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes. Move on.
21 MR. SCOTT:
22 Q. The next section of your report is concerning the Croatian
23 democratic union, HDZ, in Croatia. Can you again summarise for us the
24 formation of that report -- excuse me, that party, how it was -- when it
25 was formed, and who was involved to the extent you recall in -- I mean
Page 1782
1 everyone, of course, but principal players or persons involved in
2 organising that party.
3 A. The Croatian Democratic Union or HDZ as formed in Croatia in the
4 course of 1989 was very much under the leadership and command of Franjo
5 Tudjman, the former general and dissident. It was his speech at the
6 opening Congress that became the basis for the party programme. He was
7 quite explicit in asserting the sovereignty of the Republic of Croatia and
8 indeed all but moved to assert the independence of the Republic of Croatia
9 in the founding Assembly. That was -- perhaps its most significant
10 platform was, as much sovereignty or sovereignty for the Republic of
11 Croatia and minimum, if any, role for the Yugoslav federation in the
12 future of Croatian affairs.
13 Q. Do you recall approximately when the founding Assembly of the HDZ
14 was?
15 A. No, I don't. I cited in the paper the founding Assembly was
16 sometime I think in late 1989.
17 MR. KARNAVAS: No objections to the gentleman looking at his
18 report to refresh his memory provided he seeks -- you know, he makes a
19 request first.
20 MR. SCOTT:
21 Q. If you need to look at your report, Dr. Donia, please --
22 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Donia, do you need to look
23 into the report in order to find the date?
24 THE WITNESS: Yes, I do.
25 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Please do. Look at the first
Page 1783
1 two lines.
2 THE WITNESS: Well, the question was when its founding Congress
3 was held, and I don't believe the founding Congress was held in February.
4 I think it was held somewhat later, perhaps in June or July of 1989. And
5 I don't know if I have cited that date.
6 MR. SCOTT:
7 Q. Very well. And do you know who --
8 JUDGE TRECHSEL: May I --
9 MR. SCOTT: Yes of course.
10 JUDGE TRECHSEL: -- insist a little bit? In your report you wrote
11 in February 1989, on page 16, second line. Now you say it was later. Can
12 you tell us on what sources you based the date that you give in the
13 report?
14 THE WITNESS: There were several meetings in which party members
15 gathered, expressed an intent to form a party, formed an initiating
16 committee. That was my date for -- that was my first date for February of
17 1989. The founding Congress was in a sense the last act of party
18 formation. The same was true in Bosnia. There were many months of party
19 formation activities that preceded the founding Assembly. I make that
20 distinction. I think it's an important one. Others really rely heavily
21 on the dates of the founding Assembly.
22 JUDGE TRECHSEL: Thank you.
23 MR. SCOTT:
24 Q. Can you tell us what role Franjo Tudjman played in that party from
25 the time of its formation in 1989 till President Tudjman's death in late
Page 1784
1 1999?
2 A. He was the undisputed leader of the party from the first day til
3 the last and made -- ordered many personnel changes in the HDZ throughout
4 his -- throughout that decade.
5 MR. SCOTT: All right, Mr. President. I have no further questions
6 about this part of his report unless the Chamber would like to ask
7 additional questions.
8 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes, move on.
9 MR. SCOTT:
10 Q. In the next section of your report, Dr. Donia, you refer to the
11 Serbian Democratic Party of BiH or SDS. Again, it was my intention not to
12 go into this section, but in light of how things are proceeding, can you
13 give us a summary of what you addressed in that section?
14 A. The Serbian Democratic Party was organised under the influence of
15 Serbian leaders in the Belgrade leadership, specifically Dobrica Cosic
16 and, to a lesser degree, I believe, Slobodan Milosevic. In the early
17 consultations for the party leadership, they first turned to Nenad
18 Kecmanovic to head the party, who was a former rector, I guess at the time
19 he was rector of the University of Sarajevo, but eventually settled upon
20 Radovan Karadzic as the leader of the party, a psychologist at the
21 university clinic in Sarajevo.
22 He articulated much of the party programme. The party itself was
23 formed in a variety of meetings prior to July 1990, but at its initial or
24 founding convocation in July of 1990, the primary speaker was Jovan
25 Raskovic, another psychiatrist who -- clinical psychiatrist who was
Page 1785
1 well -- very well acquainted with Cosic.
2 The party programme as was to be expected of such a nationalist or
3 national party emphasised the interests of the Serbian people and
4 specifically expressed opposition to a confederal arrangement or other
5 such arrangement which would weaken the central Yugoslav federation. The
6 party's views, in fact, lined precisely with those of President Milosevic
7 of Serbia who had expressed these very similar ideas and emphasis on
8 preserving Yugoslavia and all Serbs in one state at about the same time.
9 Q. What can you tell us about the relationship, if any, between the
10 Serbian Democratic Party of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Serb leadership in
11 Belgrade?
12 A. The personal relationship between Karadzic and Milosevic seems to
13 have developed rather slowly, but by the time of the elections, they were
14 in somewhat regular contact, and that relationship grew closer over time.
15 The leadership in Belgrade clearly had an active role in the formation of
16 the SDS in both Croatia and in Bosnia-Herzegovina and continued to, if you
17 will, mentor the party's leaders from the time of -- of its formation
18 through the rest of the -- certainly the -- at least the end of the war.
19 Q. Just to clarify for the record, when you say that the relationship
20 between Karadzic and Milosevic seemed to develop rather slowly, and then
21 you said "by the time of the elections." Can you give us the approximate
22 date of the elections that you're referring to there?
23 A. The elections were on November 18, 1990.
24 Q. All right. Now, in reference to the relationship between the SDS
25 party and Bosnia-Herzegovina, you may have said, and if you did and I
Page 1786
1 didn't hear you, forgive me, was there a similar -- was there a party
2 known as the SDS in -- also in Croatia?
3 A. Yes, there was. And the leader of that party, certainly the most
4 charismatic speaker, dynamic personality, was Jovan Raskovic who then
5 became a major speaker at rallies for the SDS in Bosnia-Herzegovina. That
6 relationship was largely a personal one and really didn't, let's say,
7 develop until one being dominant over the other, but there was a
8 collegiality between those two SDS parties.
9 Q. Let me move forward, then, to the creation of the Croatian
10 Democratic Union or HDZ of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Can you tell us how that
11 party -- how and when that party was formed?
12 A. The HDZ of -- that was formed in Zagreb in 1989 asserted that it
13 was the party of Croats everywhere, and in fact was it -- it's founding
14 Congress was attended by Croats from the United States and Australia and
15 various places in Germany, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. In the course of 1989
16 and early 1990, the leadership of the HDZ in Zagreb identified and courted
17 a physician from Sarajevo, Dr. Davor Perinovic and invited him to lead the
18 formation of an HDZ in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Perinovic was in fact the head
19 of the provisional organising committee and was the first president of the
20 party. He was -- he resigned or left his position in -- very early in the
21 game before the elections and was replaced by Stjepan Kljuic who was a
22 popular journalist from Sarajevo and the party then proceeded under his
23 leadership into the elections.
24 Q. All right. And can you tell us about what you know about the --
25 we've talked about the founding assemblies several times now in some of
Page 1787
1 the other party context. The founding Assembly of the HDZ-BiH in
2 Sarajevo, approximately when that was and what happened there?
3 A. The HDZ of Bosnia-Herzegovina held its founding Assembly in August
4 of 1990, and the symbology, the heraldry, the symbols and the slogans all
5 represented the parentage of that party in the HDZ as it was organised in
6 Zagreb. Like the founding Assembly of the other two parties, it was held
7 in the Skenderija sports centre. The speakers all emphasised the Croatian
8 nation as a whole, and the Congress really was -- featured pictures of
9 Croatian President Tudjman and the singing of the Croatian national
10 anthem, "Lijepa nasa domovino."
11 Q. Sir, can you tell the Judges why it would be a political party in
12 Bosnia-Herzegovina, not a political party in Croatia but a political party
13 in Bosnia-Herzegovina, would display the Croatian flag, the photograph of
14 a foreign president, and play the Croatian national anthem?
15 A. Well, the party was conceived as a part, an integral part of the
16 HDZ that had been organised in Zagreb. As a nationalist party, it
17 emphasised the Croatian people as a whole wherever they lived, including
18 Bosnia-Herzegovina and thus was effectively an affiliate of the Zagreb
19 party.
20 Q. Can you tell the Judges whether in the charter of the -- the
21 political charter document of the HDZ BiH indicated a relationship with
22 the HDZ party in Zagreb?
23 A. Yes. The founding document specifically identified the party as
24 and integral part of the HDZ as it had been organised in Zagreb.
25 MR. SCOTT: Can I have the assistance of the registry in
Page 1788
1 displaying Exhibit P 00013. In other words, 13, Exhibit 13.
2 Sorry, I'm just waiting for it to come up on my screen,
3 Your Honour.
4 Q. If I can direct your attention to page it of that document and
5 move to page 2. For some reason we're not getting the -- I don't know
6 about anyone else in the courtroom but we're not getting -- I'm not
7 getting the feed.
8 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Scott, I think it would be
9 faster to give a hard copy and to put it on the overhead projector. It
10 would be more efficient.
11 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Your Honour. We'll proceed to do that.
12 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] That took two minutes for it to
13 be displayed on the screen.
14 MR. SCOTT: It appears we have it now. Thank you, Mr. President
15 and Your Honours, for your patience. On page -- if I can direct the
16 registry to page 2 of that document.
17 Could I ask for the registrar to place this page of Exhibit 13 on
18 the ELMO, please.
19 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] So really, it's this system has
20 collapsed; right? It really doesn't work.
21 MR. SCOTT:
22 Q. We have it again -- this is the ELMO I suppose, yes. Dr. Donia,
23 if you can assist us by -- if you can find any language on that page, and
24 I have to say working with these various tools I may or may not have given
25 you the correct page, if you can assist us, please, any language which
Page 1789
1 talks about the relationship between the HDZ party and Bosnia-Herzegovina
2 and the party in Zagreb.
3 A. In Article 4, the last sentence sums up what I've been pointing
4 out that the Bosnia-Herzegovina HDZ is a constitutive part of the united
5 HDZ organisation whose seat is in Zagreb.
6 Q. I wonder if the technical booth could assist us by focussing and
7 enlarging the language under Article 4. Well, we'll leave it at that for
8 now, I suppose.
9 Then if I could also ask the witness to be shown Exhibit 31. I
10 don't know if the system is working any better now or not, but otherwise
11 we could have a hard copy of Exhibit 31, in particular, page 2.
12 I'm going to ask the usher to put on -- first to put on the first
13 page of that exhibit, Exhibit 31, which is the Political Platform Of The
14 BH HDZ. If I can have the usher's assistance, please. It's on now. All
15 right.
16 And if we could go to the second page of that document. I don't
17 know if you're able to read it, sir, or not, from where you are, but once
18 again can I ask you to point to any particular language on that page? I'm
19 looking at the top of the page where again it talks about any relationship
20 between the party in Bosnia and the party in Croatia.
21 A. The first sentence reading "The Bosnia-Herzegovina Croatian
22 Democratic Union is an integral part of the single HDZ, just as the
23 Croatian people and its history in Bosnia and Herzegovina are part of the
24 same Croatian national identity." [as read].
25 Q. National identity or --
Page 1790
1 A. "National entity."
2 Q. All right. Now, moving forward, you've mentioned that the first
3 president of the party, that is the party in Bosnia-Herzegovina, was
4 Mr. Perinovic. Can you tell the Chamber what happened with Mr. Perinovic?
5 Did he continue in that position very -- I think you mentioned this
6 briefly but can you just remind us what happened with Mr. Perinovic as the
7 party leader?
8 A. He left the party shortly after it was revealed in the press that
9 his grandfather had been a Serbian Orthodox priest and members of his
10 family were buried in a Serbian Orthodox cemetery in Bileca.
11 Q. And I think you mentioned and then Mr. Kljuic became the party
12 leader?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. In terms of the -- as the party developed through the time 1991,
15 did there come to be a -- a difference -- different factions in that party
16 in the HDZ in Bosnia-Herzegovina?
17 A. Yes. Stjepan Kljuic represented a group of Croats who are
18 sometimes identified as urban Croats or Croats who support continued
19 Croatian life within Bosnia-Herzegovina, and a rival group, principally
20 associated with Croats living in rural areas, particularly those in living
21 in Western Herzegovina arose under the leadership of Mate Boban in the
22 course of 1991. That faction was -- favoured some sort of territorial
23 unit in which Croatian rights would be realised and was opposed then by
24 those who felt that the best destiny for the Croats lay in their
25 participation in Bosnia-Herzegovina as a whole since they were so widely
Page 1791
1 dispersed.
2 Q. Can you tell us how these two factions interacted or how these two
3 factions evolved and what happened over the course of 1991, early 1992?
4 A. The territorial faction in November 1991 took the lead in
5 declaring a Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna and a smaller Croatian
6 Community in the Posavina. In December of 1991, these two factions
7 clashed directly in a large meeting in the office of Croatian President
8 Tudjman, the transcript of which is available.
9 Q. Yes.
10 A. And shows that Tudjman's strong preference went to the territorial
11 faction. It really was not until late January, 1992, when this faction
12 announced its intent to take over the party, to take over the leadership
13 of the Croatian delegates in the Bosnian Assembly, those who were HDZ
14 members, and also to assert its supremacy over the Croatian Community of
15 the Bosnian Posavina.
16 In early February this territorial faction effectively ousted
17 Kljuic from the leadership of the party and subsequently became the
18 uncontested dominant faction within the HDZ.
19 Q. In reference to the -- the meeting in Zagreb with President
20 Tudjman, can I ask that Exhibit P 00089 be displayed, and in particular
21 the English page number 21. If it's possible to display the English page,
22 it would be page 21 or ERN page 00837881.
23 And, Dr. Donia, in reference, among other things, to the second
24 paragraph beginning on that page saying "It seems to me," is that the
25 language -- some of the language you were referring to earlier a few
Page 1792
1 moments ago when you said that in the course of this meeting
2 President Tudjman came down in the favour of the -- what you've described
3 as the Boban faction?
4 A. Yes. The second sentence there, "It seems to me therefore just as
5 we have taken advantage of this historic moment to establish an
6 independent, internationally recognised Croatia, I believe it is time at
7 that we take the opportunity to gather the Croatian people inside the
8 widest possible borders."
9 Q. Yes.
10 A. And he continues in that vein.
11 Q. Can I then have the assistance of the registry to go to English
12 page 56 or it would be ERN 00837916.
13 And this also relates back to some of the material we discussed
14 earlier today, but in light of this evolving procedure, if I can ask you
15 to look at the bottom half -- if we could possibly zero in on
16 approximately the bottom half of the page. If we could enlarge that so
17 people can see it. If you can stop there, please. Thank you.
18 A. Yes. See, he notes in this -- I think it's next to last
19 paragraph, "... the survival of Bosnia-Herzegovina as an independent and
20 sovereign state, even if possible, is in any case against the interests of
21 the Croatian people and makes impossible the normal territorial
22 establishment of the Croatian states, and creates conditions for the
23 disappearance of what remains of the Croatian," I lose the text here, sir.
24 Q. Can the usher or registry roll up a bit. The other way, please.
25 The other way. Thank you. Can you continue on, Dr. Donia?
Page 1793
1 A. Yes. "... what remains of the Croatian people in
2 Bosnia-Herzegovina today."
3 Q. All right. And then if I can ask the registry, please, then to --
4 do roll up higher in the page.
5 In reference to what we've discussed earlier today, I asked you
6 some time ago whether it was Dr. Tudjman, President Tudjman's view that
7 the existence of Bosnia-Herzegovina was a detriment to Croatia. Can I ask
8 you to point particular language on that page again where President
9 Tudjman said this?
10 A. Yes. As I look at this, it's moving. "Therefore, Bosnia and
11 Herzegovina should not be taken as something God given which must be
12 preserved, and we must especially not forget how harmful it is.
13 "Because of the creation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia has
14 been put in an impossible situation regarding its territory. Regarding
15 administration, not to mention defence, we cannot establish an independent
16 Croatia such as it is."
17 Q. Thank you, sir. In your historical research and work in this
18 area, including in the three books you've published and the other articles
19 you've written, have you come across anything or described anything in
20 terms of the Tudjman government's so-called -- something called a
21 dual-track or two-track policy?
22 A. Yes. And in fact, President Tudjman announced it at this meeting,
23 announced that the approach would continue to run on both a territorial
24 track, which would be the substantive or real policy of the HDZ, and also
25 on what he called a formal or nominal track, which was to support the
Page 1794
1 sovereignty of Bosnia-Herzegovina with the territorial track gradually
2 taking over the more -- the dominant position.
3 Q. In terms of the HDZ party in Bosnia-Herzegovina after Mr. Kljuic
4 was effectively removed, can you provide the Chamber with any assistance
5 in terms of what the -- how the Serbs viewed that party -- how the Bosnian
6 Serb leadership viewed that party, HDZ, under Mate Boban's leadership, for
7 example, in relation to either peace talks or to -- in particular the
8 Cutileiro process?
9 A. The Bosnian Serbs led by Radovan Karadzic came to feel that they
10 had a companion party in the HDZ and its leaders in that both the SDS and
11 the HDZ came to favour partition schemes for Bosnia-Herzegovina. Karadzic
12 referred to this specifically at a meeting of the Bosnian Serb Assembly in
13 which he noted that the new leadership of the HDZ, that is the leadership
14 as of the purge of Kljuic in early February, 1992, shared with the Bosnian
15 Serbs a notion of how Bosnia-Herzegovina ought to be organised.
16 Q. If I could have the assistance of the registry to please display
17 Exhibit P 09538. P 09538, and English page 2. I'm asking the usher,
18 Your Honours, to put page 2 of that document on the ELMO. I regret the
19 difficulties that we're having, but we'll do the best we can.
20 If we can have the ELMO viewed.
21 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Could you tell us what the
22 origin of this document is?
23 MR. SCOTT: Yes, Your Honour. I was first trying to get it on the
24 screen if we could. I'm still not getting the broadcast of the ELMO view.
25 All right.
Page 1795
1 Q. Dr. Donia, you said a moment ago before I had asked for the
2 exhibit to be displayed, you made reference to a particular meeting where
3 Mr. Karadzic made some comments about this. Which meeting was that?
4 A. This was a meeting of the Assembly of the Serbian people in
5 Bosnia-Herzegovina, a body created by the SDS and Bosnian Serb
6 nationalists in October of 1991, consisting of delegates who were elected,
7 Serbian delegates who were elected to the parliament of Bosnia-Herzegovina
8 in the 1990 elections. The transcripts and minutes of these sessions are
9 now in evidence in various cases before the Tribunal, and in this case
10 we're looking at a transcript of a meeting from February, 1992, in which
11 Radovan Karadzic is expressing his satisfaction with the situation as the
12 negotiating process sponsored by the European Community is going forward.
13 Q. If I can then with that background direct your attention -- if you
14 can follow on that page to about halfway down the page. The paragraph
15 that begins "We don't know much about the Croat delegation," and if that
16 could please be enlarged so that people in the courtroom might be able to
17 perhaps see this a bit clearly, more clearly.
18 A. I'm sorry, I don't see that, Mr. Scott.
19 Q. You were just there a moment ago with your pen.
20 A. Let me move down here and --
21 Q. "We discussed," a little --
22 A. Yes. "We discussed a little about the principles on which
23 Serbian-Croatian relations in general could be resolved as regards the
24 Krajina. They think that the best solution would be to relocate
25 population."
Page 1796
1 Q. Hold on one moment, please. Excuse me. Give me one moment,
2 please. I've canibalised my document to give you the page. With the
3 usher's assistance, could I ask you to look at page 1 here. Go to page 1
4 and we'll come back to page 2. And if I could please ask you to assist us
5 by again enlarging as much as you reasonably can the lower part of the
6 page where -- Dr. Donia, if you will find again what was a little bit
7 confusing was the language basically starts out almost the same. "We
8 don't know much," and if you can find "We don't know much about the Croat
9 delegation."
10 A. Okay. It's here on my ELMO anyway.
11 Q. All right. This was referred to -- I'm just referring you to
12 something that's in your report. Can you just tell us what that is and is
13 that the -- some of that the language you're referring to when you
14 testified a few moments ago about Karadzic's view toward the Croat
15 delegation at this time?
16 A. Yes. He expressed this satisfaction with the make-up of the
17 Croatian delegation. "We don't know much about the Croatian -- the Croat
18 delegation, about their skill, but we know they were very much on our side
19 when it came to where sovereignty is primarily realised. They said that
20 sovereignty is to be realised in constituent units and in the Republic of
21 Bosnia-Herzegovina if the constituent units so transfer it."
22 There is then a further elaboration of that on the page we just
23 left, on the second page.
24 Q. Yes. Can we now go back to page 2, please. And I'll just leave
25 it to you, sir, if you can direct the courtroom to the language and then
Page 1797
1 read that language.
2 A. This is toward the bottom of the page. "They are in complete
3 agreement about Bosnia-Herzegovina, and that was obvious. Lasic has been
4 eliminated. A delegation which fully shares our views of how Bosnia and
5 Herzegovina should be set up has now arrived."
6 This -- to clarify, Miro Lasic was an active leader in the HDZ who
7 at a meeting on the 29th of January expressed his opposition to
8 cantonisation or territorialisation, and his view, of course, did not
9 prevail in the party, rather the view in support of a territorial division
10 prevailed.
11 Q. Fine. Thank you very much. I think -- I think that will conclude
12 the use of the ELMO for the moment. Thank you very much to the registry.
13 MR. SCOTT: Mr. President, that concludes my questions for now in
14 connection with the HDZ party in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and I'm moving on to
15 another topic unless the Chamber wants to put questions about this to the
16 witness.
17 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] No.
18 MR. SCOTT: Thank you.
19 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes. We'll be working until
20 twenty past twelve and then we'll have our lunch break.
21 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Mr. President.
22 Q. Dr. Donia, if I can now turn your attention for a few minutes to
23 the Muslim party that you've identified earlier today, the SDA or Party of
24 Democratic Action. Once again, can you briefly tell us about the
25 formation of that party.
Page 1798
1 A. The SDA was -- or Party of Democratic Action was conceived as a
2 nationalist party of the Bosnian Muslims. Its origins may be found in
3 some meetings that took place between Alija Izetbegovic, who, like
4 Tudjman, was a dissident, who had been imprisoned in socialist Yugoslavia
5 and in fact released only months before the party was formed, and other
6 Bosnian Muslim leaders, including Adil Zulfikarpasic who was living at
7 that time in Switzerland.
8 The meetings resulted in the formulation of a party platform, and
9 the decision to give the party a non-national name, that is the
10 term "Bosnian Muslim" or "Bosniak" does not appear in the name Party of
11 Democratic Action partly because leaders couldn't agree on exactly how to
12 formulate the party's desired constituency in terms of a nomenclature that
13 they would all accept.
14 The party then held its organising or founding convocation in, I
15 believe, May. I may have to check that, 1990, and expressed a platform or
16 articulated a platform which put Bosnian Muslim interests at the heart of
17 the party's objectives and adopted a very ambivalent position about the
18 party's future or Bosnia-Herzegovina's future constitutional relationship
19 to Yugoslavia. It favoured sovereignty for Bosnia-Herzegovina but also
20 asserted its belief that Bosnia-Herzegovina should be a part of the
21 Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
22 Q. All right. And this is in 1990?
23 A. This is in 1990, yes.
24 Q. Can you tell us any difference, if there was any, between the
25 views of the SDA at this time in terms of how the structure of Bosnia -- I
Page 1799
1 just touched on but I'd like you to go further, please, if you can, how
2 the structure and organisation of the Bosnia-Herzegovina should -- should
3 continue as opposed to what was the view of the Boban faction of the HDZ?
4 A. Well, at this time -- to go back in time a bit to the time of
5 party formation in 1990.
6 Q. Yes.
7 A. Both the SDA and the HDZ had these rather vaguely formulated
8 positions on the constitutional future of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Both of
9 them evolved in time, and I've tried in the paper to give you some notion
10 of how those changes took place in response to the changing political
11 environment. By the time that the territorial faction had prevailed
12 within the HDZ, the positions were starkly different between the HDZ and
13 the SDA, the SDA favouring the continuation of a sovereign
14 Bosnia-Herzegovina, one which was unified and devoid of these internal
15 divisions which amounted to partition.
16 Q. In that regard, can you tell us, and I mention it now because in
17 connection with the founding Assembly, at that Assembly did Izetbegovic
18 express a view contrary, for example to the banovina concept or plan.
19 A. He specifically referred to -- in that address to what he called
20 the shameful Cvetkovic-Macek agreement and said that it should not be
21 repeated in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
22 MR. SCOTT: I'm going to ask the usher's assistance if we have to
23 displace P 09539, able say, Your Honour, at the outset this has not been
24 translated yet. Unfortunately, we found out last night by that oversight
25 a couple of these documents had not been translated, but they are
Page 1800
1 referenced and quoted in parts in Dr. Donia's report. Obviously we'll
2 provide a translation as soon as we can obtain that. If we can have that,
3 please.
4 Q. Sir, do you refer to in terms of your report, do you cite this
5 document as one that provides an account of Mr. Izetbegovic's statement
6 that the shameful Cvetkovic-Macek agreement to divide this land will not
7 be repeated?
8 A. Yes. It is on this page of the Sarajevo newspaper Oslobodjenje.
9 I can't read the -- the type.
10 Q. It's Cyrillic?
11 A. I can read the Cyrillic. I can't read, I can't see the --
12 Q. It's too small?
13 A. -- letters.
14 Q. I don't know whether we can make it larger or not. Will are
15 the --
16 A. It will be either the second one down the page or the third one
17 down the page. To would -- I think it's probably in the second one. It
18 would take me a few minutes to go through and find it.
19 Q. That is the article that you're referring to in your paper though?
20 A. Yes, it is.
21 Q. Now, moving ahead, then, from the formation and early history of
22 the SDA -- well, let me just look at my notes for a moment, please.
23 I have no further questions on at that section once again, Mr.
24 President, unless the Judges would like to ask questions about that.
25 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Continue.
Page 1801
1 MR. SCOTT:
2 Q. Moving on, then, to the elections of November, 1990, in
3 Bosnia-Herzegovina. I'll just once again ask you, sir, if you can
4 summarise what happened in connection with the November, 1990, elections.
5 How were they conducted and what were the results of those elections?
6 A. The elections were held, were generally deemed to be free and
7 fair. There were a few complaints from some of the nationalist parties
8 and, for that matter, some in the opposition, but by and large the voting
9 was perceived by most Bosnians to be open, free, and fair.
10 Defying the predictions of pre-election polls, the three
11 nationalist parties won an overwhelming victory, captured between them or
12 among them the vast majority of seats in the Assembly of
13 Bosnia-Herzegovina, control of all but two municipal assemblies, and
14 control of all seven positions on the Presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
15 Q. And is it correct, sir, that these national elections in Bosnia
16 were held in November 1990?
17 A. Yes, November 18 , 1990.
18 Q. Can you recall, sir, or I'll ask for the Chamber's permission for
19 you to refer to your report if you need to, approximately how many seats
20 each of the three nationalists parties won, that is the SDA, the SDS, and
21 the HDZ?
22 A. Well, with the Chamber's permission, I will consult it.
23 Yes, Your Honours. The SDA won 86 seats.
24 Q. Out of how many?
25 A. Out of 240. The SDS won 72, and the HDZ in Bosnia-Herzegovina won
Page 1802
1 44 seats.
2 Q. Were there any remaining seats that were taken by other -- various
3 other parties?
4 A. Yes. The two leading non-nationalist parties were the Reformists
5 and the Social Democrats. They were the primary recipients of the
6 remaining 38 seats, along with a couple of very small parties that won
7 individual seats.
8 Q. Now, I believe you mentioned earlier that as a result of these
9 elections in each of the nationalist parties each won their two seats in
10 the national Presidency; is that correct?
11 A. Candidates nominated by the nationalist parties prevailed in each
12 of those categories, yes.
13 Q. Now, I believe you may have mentioned earlier that when this was
14 originally structured, in addition to the two seats for Serbs, two seats
15 for Croats, and two seats for Muslims, there was also a category or one
16 seventh seat for other; is that correct?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. And who was elected to that position or selected or put in that
19 position?
20 A. Well, he was elected. The -- Ejup Ganic, who was a SDA member was
21 elected to that seventh seat. To probably explain that, the SDA ran a
22 candidate for -- in the category of "other," Mr. Ganic, who identified
23 himself as a Yugoslav in the 1981 census, not as a Bosnian Muslim. The
24 SDS ran a candidate as well, the head of the Sarajevo Jewish community,
25 Ivan Ceresnjes, and he did not prevail in the voting for this other
Page 1803
1 category.
2 Q. Now, as a result of following this election and I believe -- well,
3 I'll ask the next question or two and that will bring us to a breaking
4 point for lunch.
5 Following the results of this election, excuse me, who was
6 selected to be, again, president of the Presidency?
7 A. Alija Izetbegovic was selected as president of the Presidency.
8 Q. And can you tell the Chamber the process that was involved in that
9 or how that came about?
10 A. He was elected by the members of the Presidency, but in the
11 background there was an inter-party agreement, an agreement among the
12 three nationalist parties to divide the three leading portfolios in the
13 government among them. The leading vote-getter was to name the president
14 of the Presidency, clearly limited by members of the Presidency, and the
15 head of the -- or president of the Assembly of Bosnia-Herzegovina was to
16 be selected by the vote-getting party, which turned out to be the SDS, and
17 they selected Momcilo Krajisnik. The president of the government, the
18 position that I know as Prime Minister or Premier, was to be selected by
19 the HDZ. The HDZ selected Jure Pelivan. And each of those positions then
20 was confirmed by a vote in the constitutional bodies that were designated
21 for that role. In other words, the nationalist parties had to support one
22 another in this voting to realise that inter-party agreement.
23 Q. So if I understand correctly, then, since the SDA received the
24 largest number of seats, votes, that you mentioned earlier, they then were
25 allowed to, essentially by this inter partes agreement, select Alija
Page 1804
1 Izetbegovic. The Serbs, since they got the second most votes, selected
2 the head of the Assembly which was Krajisnik. And is that the same
3 Krajisnik that's on trial at the Tribunal right now?
4 A. Yes, it is. Just to be clear, the parties made these decisions,
5 not the group as a whole, the political parties, the SDA, SDS, and HDZ.
6 Q. And then the HDZ under this arrangement allowed to particular the
7 Premier or Prime Minister who, as you indicated, was Mr. Pelivan. Do I
8 understand that correctly?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. All right.
11 MR. SCOTT: Mr. President, I think that brings us to the lunch
12 break.
13 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Scott, so that we can rest
14 as well as possible, could you tell us how much more time you will need?
15 MR. SCOTT: Well, Your Honour, I'm proceeding in a completely
16 different way than I had contemplated, I must tell the Chamber, as I think
17 probably is to apparent everyone, and therefore not proceeding nearly at
18 the pace that I had anticipated when I estimated it might be as little as
19 possibly two hours. So I would guess proceeding in the fashion we're now
20 proceeding in it could be -- and, of course, some of the time the Judges
21 quite properly sought to ask questions this morning, I would think,
22 Your Honour, we might -- it might be as long as another hour, hour and a
23 half.
24 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. We will break for an
25 hour and a half, and we shall resume around ten to two.
Page 1805
1 --- Luncheon recess taken at 12.22 p.m.
2 --- On resuming at 1.56 p.m.
3 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] We are resuming with our
4 hearing. Please go ahead, Mr. Scott.
5 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Mr. President. I will need the usher's
6 assistance, I'm afraid, on the ELMO for a couple of minutes.
7 Q. Dr. Donia, before we continue on, in light of the procedure we're
8 following, I'd like to take you back to a couple of the exhibits that were
9 referenced in connection with earlier parts of your testimony today, and
10 if you could please look at Exhibit P 08642.
11 If that can please be put on the ELMO.
12 Sir, looking at that page, this is the book from David Owen,
13 Balkan Odyssey. Can you just indicate the reference -- can you just
14 indicate if that page contains the reference in your report to the --
15 reference to the Cvetkovic-Macek agreement that's quoted in your report in
16 reference to Dr. -- Mr. Owen's statement?
17 A. Yes, on page 36 of Lord Owen's book.
18 Q. And in a similar fashion if I can ask you -- if I can have the
19 usher's assistance just to hand you or to put on the ELMO P 09537?
20 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Scott, the witness said that
21 that was on page 36, and here in this document the pages I have is 35 and
22 36.
23 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's correction: 34 and 35.
24 MR. SCOTT: The page reference should be corrected to page 36.
25 Yes, Your Honour. And it will be substituted. The correct page will be
Page 1806
1 provided to you. It was found again -- discovered that when the matter
2 was xeroxed the wrong page was xeroxed. My apology.
3 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] All right.
4 MR. SCOTT:
5 Q. The next document that I've asked you to play on the ELMO and
6 again, Your Honours, I said this will have to be addressed pending
7 translation.
8 But also, sir, in reference to the banovina discussion, you made
9 reference to Mate Boban's position. Have you cited this article in your
10 paper concerning a statement by Mr. Boban about the banovina?
11 A. Yes, I have.
12 Q. And that is Exhibit P 09537. If I can have the usher's
13 assistance, please.
14 I'm now going to hand you part of Exhibit P 00002, page 113 of the
15 book -- of English translation of the book of Franjo Tudjman. If that can
16 be placed on the ELMO, please. If we can possibly zero in as much as
17 possible on the right side of the page, page 113.
18 Sir, you referred to some quotes from President Tudjman's book
19 today in terms of his attitude towards Bosnia and Herzegovina. Are those
20 statements found on page 113 of his book?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Can I ask the usher to please put page 114 on the ELMO as well,
23 also from Exhibit P 00002, Franjo Tudjman's book.
24 And on page 114 did you also cite to that quotation from his book,
25 again in connection with his attitude towards Bosnia-Herzegovina, or the
Page 1807
1 Muslim people?
2 A. Yes, I did.
3 Q. And I think -- and finally, if I can have the usher's assistance,
4 please, to put on the ELMO Exhibit P 08632, page 74.
5 You referenced this morning a statement by Ambassador Zimmermann
6 in his book about statements made to him by Franjo Tudjman. Are some of
7 those statements reflected on this page out of Mr. Zimmermann's book,
8 which is P 08632?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Thank you very much.
11 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Scott, the last document is
12 what number? P what? Because I can't find it in our bundle.
13 MR. SCOTT: It should be, Your Honour, P 08630, and if it's not on
14 your list, if it's not in the bundle, we will certainly provide it to you.
15 08630. It is in our bundle, Your Honours. Sorry if there's some
16 confusion.
17 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] All right.
18 MR. SCOTT: Thank you.
19 Q. All right. Now, Dr. Donia, then proceeding forward from where we
20 left off before lunch, I'm going to next direct your attention to several
21 sections of your report taking them somewhat together. It's section 14,
22 Bosnian Serb Parallel Institutions; section 15, Serbian Republic of
23 Bosnia-Herzegovina; and section 16, Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna.
24 So to address some of those things in a related way.
25 You mentioned in your testimony earlier today that the Croatian
Page 1808
1 Community of Herceg-Bosna was established or declared on the 18th of
2 November, 1991; is that correct?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. With the assistance of the registry, could we display, please,
5 Exhibit P 00302.
6 Looking at that, sir, could you tell the Judges what this document
7 is?
8 A. This is a translation in the Official Gazette of Herceg-Bosna from
9 September, 1992, of the decision to establish the Croatian Community of
10 Herceg-Bosna.
11 Q. Sir, in the course of preparing and conducting your research, did
12 you find -- could you tell the Judges what basis, if any, you found for
13 the apparent reasons why certain municipalities were claimed to be within
14 the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna?
15 A. The municipalities which are listed in the decision to form the
16 Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna, in my opinion, best correspond to the
17 delineation of territory in the Croatian Banovina of 1939 to '41.
18 Q. If we can have the registry's assistance to scroll down that page
19 to where we can see Article 2. I think the Judges will be able to see the
20 municipalities are listed in the document.
21 A. Yes. And just to be clear, a few of those municipalities are,
22 like the last one, Trebinje Ravno, suggests that part of the municipality
23 is included but not all of it.
24 Q. And the same for Skender Vakuf?
25 A. Yes.
Page 1809
1 Q. And just to take your previous answer a bit further, sir, could
2 you tell the Chamber based on your research and work, is there anything
3 that indicates consistently that the municipalities were chosen because in
4 each of these listed municipalities there was a Croat-majority population?
5 A. No. I specifically identified Jablanica in my report as having a
6 Muslim majority, and other municipalities on the list also did not have an
7 absolute Croatian majority within their boundaries.
8 Q. Were you also able to tell whether the election of the
9 municipalities appeared to be based on whether the HDZ had won elections
10 in those municipalities during 1990?
11 A. No. That didn't seem to be an indicator that that particular
12 municipality would be on the list to the exclusion of others.
13 Q. In terms of the reasons given in this document for the creation of
14 the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna, in your report you indicate that
15 those reasons, or at least some of those reasons, were false. Can you
16 explain that to the Judges, please?
17 A. The decision cites the -- or makes the allegation that the -- that
18 Bosnia-Herzegovina was not functioning as a state, and therefore the
19 Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna had to be created. The time -- at the
20 time the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna was created, in fact the
21 central institutions of Bosnia-Herzegovina were functioning. The members
22 of the HDZ who were elected to the Assembly of Bosnia-Herzegovina were
23 actively representing the -- their constituencies in regular meetings of
24 the Assembly, and the central institutions of government were in fact
25 meeting regularly and carrying out their duties.
Page 1810
1 Q. If I can ask the registry to scroll so we can see part 1 --
2 article 1 of the document saying reasons. Just up above on the page.
3 Excuse me.
4 Couple additional questions -- sorry, there is also references --
5 something -- is there something in this document to be, perhaps in part or
6 reference to, something that happened at Ravno around this time?
7 A. Yes. It will take me a minute to find it. Yeah. This first few
8 lines of number I, reasons, is apparently a reference to the attack of the
9 Yugoslav national army or Yugoslav People's Army on the village of Ravno
10 just outside Dubrovnik, above Dubrovnik in the municipality of Trebinje,
11 and -- which, as I've indicated in my report, was in fact a horrendous
12 attack and members of that residence, that village, were killed in
13 significant numbers, and the village was ravaged by the Yugoslav People's
14 Army.
15 This appears in the context of November, 1991, to the reference
16 being made in the first paragraph here.
17 Q. But did you understand that event to be an indication that the
18 institutions of Bosnia-Herzegovina were not in fact operating at that
19 time, or functioning?
20 A. The central institutions were functioning just -- I mean, not just
21 fine, but they were functioning, carrying out their duties at that time.
22 The problem was, of course, that the boundary areas were subject to raids
23 by both Croatian paramilitaries and the Yugoslav People's Army, and on
24 this particular case the ability of the Socialist Republic of
25 Bosnia-Herzegovina to defend against such incursions was zero. There were
Page 1811
1 police on the ground, but they were clearly outnumbered and outgunned by
2 the Yugoslav People's Army forces.
3 Q. In the third paragraph of this Article -- or section I, Article 1,
4 Reasons, in about the fourth line there is the language "The
5 unacceptability of the unitary state model." Can you assist the Judges
6 with what that is an apparent reference to?
7 A. This was the position of both the Croatian Community of
8 Herceg-Bosna and the HDZ at this time that Bosnia-Herzegovina could
9 only -- should only continue to exist if it was divided into ethnic
10 enclaves or what was called at the time cantons.
11 Q. All right. Now, moving forward, can you tell the Judges in this
12 context or with these things in mind what was -- what had happened during
13 1991 prior to and around this time in terms of institutions and structures
14 being set up on the Bosnian Serb side?
15 A. Even before the election of November 18, 1990, Radovan Karadzic
16 announced the creation of a Serbian National Council, which was an
17 institution not within the structure of the Socialist Republic of
18 Bosnia-Herzegovina, but in fact a purely Serbian institution. That
19 institution never assumed an active role, but it was the first of several
20 announcements by SDS leaders of separate Serbian institutions to challenge
21 or negate the jurisdiction of the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
22 In April, 1991, SDS leaders announced the creation of a community
23 of municipalities of the Bosnian Krajina in north-western Bosnia, which
24 had that same role but was to consist of a specific territorial unit
25 consisting of the municipalities that declared themselves members of it,
Page 1812
1 and those municipalities with a few exceptions were Serbian-majority
2 municipalities.
3 In subsequent weeks, similar institutions were announced for
4 Herzegovina and for the area around Sarajevo, and in September of 1991,
5 this process took another step forward with the SDS announcing the
6 creation of Serbian autonomous regions or SAOs, as they were known, SAOs.
7 The Serbian autonomous regions, if you looked at them on a map, take up
8 much of the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and they were declared in the
9 course of the second and third week of September, 1991.
10 Q. If I can have the assistance of the registry to switch to display
11 where we can show a PowerPoint slide, I would appreciate it. It is a map
12 that has been provided to everyone in the book of maps that we prepared
13 and given to the Judges and others some days ago.
14 Sir, if you can see that map now, can you briefly describe what
15 that map shows?
16 A. It shows the SAOs that were created by number. The one exception
17 here which I think is number 1 was actually styled a little bit
18 differently. It was the I think Serbian region. It had a different title
19 to it in -- in B/C/S, so it was -- it was retitled in September of 1991,
20 in the sense of recognition as its prior status as a community of
21 municipalities. So with that qualification, these are the Serbian -- it's
22 a map of the Serbian autonomous regions that were created in September of
23 1991.
24 Q. All right. So, can I ask you this question then, sir: Did your
25 research show -- are you aware of the fact that some similar institutions
Page 1813
1 or similar parallel organisations were set up on the -- by the HDZ or on
2 the Herceg-Bosna side?
3 A. Two similar institutions were created in November -- on November
4 11th, 1991. One was the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna. The other
5 was the Croatian Community of the Bosnian Posavina, which is in the north
6 strip of land in the northern part of the country. On this map it starts
7 just below the word "Croatia" at the very top of the map and goes to the
8 right or east.
9 Q. That's the Posavina.
10 A. Yes. That would be the Posavina, Croatian Community of the
11 Posavina. And the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna being that on --
12 which is outlined in blue in the lower left-hand part of the map.
13 Q. All right. Now, sir, in connection with this map, which for the
14 record I'll just indicate now is Exhibit -- this particular map is Exhibit
15 P 09276. You refer to these as SAOs or abbreviation for Serb autonomous
16 areas. Did you ever in your -- the course of your work here any
17 Herceg-Bosna or HDZ institutions referred to by some similar description?
18 A. Yes. Commentators in the media immediately started referring to
19 the Croatian communities as HAO, that is the letters for the Croatian
20 autonomous areas, not precisely accurate but many observers noted the fact
21 that the Croatian communities were imitating the similar organisational
22 approach of the SDS in creating these two communities.
23 Q. And just so the record is clear, when you said HAO, it would be
24 H-A-O, H being for Hrvatski, being the Croatian autonomous area. Is that
25 what you're saying?
Page 1814
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. In your work, sir, whether on the Croat side or on the Serb side
3 harks did these parallel institutions if into if you will any sort of
4 plans for either a Greater Serbia or the establishment and carrying out of
5 Herceg-Bosna?
6 A. The SAOs were a precursor -- or precursors of the creation of a
7 separate institution by the SDS known as the republic of the Serbian
8 people of Bosnia-Herzegovina. That was indicated -- there was a meeting
9 in late December which indicated that the SDS planned to create such a
10 republic, and in fact it was pronounced on the 9th of January, 1992. Its
11 constitution was subsequently approved, and on April 7, 1992, the republic
12 of Serbian people of Bosnia-Herzegovina declared itself independent.
13 Q. Can you -- based on your testimony in a number of what we might
14 call here at the Tribunal in Serb cases, you mentioned several including
15 the Krajisnik case, can you tell the Judges how these Bosnian Serb
16 institutions -- what relationship they had with Belgrade or Serbia and how
17 they were used as part of, if you will, Greater Serbia?
18 A. Well, they were supported by the Belgrade leadership and in some
19 sense modelled upon similar institutions that had been created by Serbs in
20 Croatia as early as 1990. As the Serbian republic was formed and started
21 to take actual substance, it received enormous support in the active Serbs
22 within [sic]. It received a great deal of support from the Yugoslav
23 People's Army and political support from the Belgrade leadership in its
24 activities.
25 Q. All right. We can leave the map for now, I believe. And going
Page 1815
1 back to Herceg-Bosna, can you tell the Chamber whether any court in
2 Bosnia-Herzegovina found the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna to be an
3 illegal organisation?
4 A. The Constitutional Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina issued a ruling in
5 September of 1992 declaring the formation of -- known as the Croatian
6 Community of Herceg-Bosna to be contrary to the constitution of
7 Bosnia-Herzegovina.
8 Q. And could I have the registry's assistance, please, to display
9 Exhibit P 09540. Or forgive me. In the interests of time, let me ask you
10 to please instead display - I'll skip that one - 09541.
11 Can you tell us in reference to your research, sir, what the
12 document indicates.
13 MR. SCOTT: And again, Your Honour, I will have to provide a
14 translation. The relevant translations are provided in the report, in Dr.
15 Donia's report but not separately from the report.
16 THE WITNESS: This is not a reference to the --
17 MR. SCOTT: Hold on. I don't think -- Dr. Donia, I don't think
18 we're getting the broadcast. I think the witness has it but we're not
19 getting the courtroom broadcast as far as I can tell. Okay. Now we have
20 it.
21 THE WITNESS: Just to clarify, the Constitutional Court members
22 wrote a letter at the time that additional constitutional measures were
23 taken by the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna, and this article refers,
24 I believe, to those measures being taken and the Constitutional Court's
25 letter to the Assembly of Bosnia-Herzegovina. I spelled that out in my
Page 1816
1 paper. It should be distinguished from the ruling of the Constitutional
2 Court which took place in September in 1992, not before that. The reason
3 being that will the Constitutional Court's procedure at that time was to
4 rule on the constitutionality only of those decrees, laws that were
5 published in an official gazette.
6 MR. SCOTT:
7 Q. And how did that impact the fact that they issued -- that this
8 Constitutional Court at this time issued some sort of a letter as opposed
9 to a more formal ruling?
10 A. Again, this is not the document -- the letter is not the document
11 that I'm looking at right now.
12 Q. All right. Well --
13 A. But in any case, the letter from members of the Constitutional
14 Court was addressed to the Assembly of Bosnia-Herzegovina and appealed to
15 them to take measures against such separatist acts.
16 Q. All right. Can I then ask the registry to display Exhibit P
17 09540. Again, I do not -- again, Your Honours, this one will not be
18 translated apart from the body of Dr. Donia's report.
19 Sir, could you tell us is that reference to the letter you've been
20 telling us in the last few minutes?
21 A. Yes. That's the practice that was quite common at the time to
22 carry the full text of such pronouncements or correspondence from the
23 Constitutional Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina directed to the Assembly of
24 Bosnia-Herzegovina.
25 Q. All right. Now, if we could next please go to Exhibit P 00505.
Page 1817
1 MR. KARNAVAS: Before -- excuse me, Mr. President. Before we go
2 on to the next document, on the previous one where the gentleman indicated
3 this letter, perhaps he can point to us where it's signed, and how does he
4 know that this is the authentic letter? Just for points of clarification.
5 MR. SCOTT:
6 Q. If you'd like to answer that now, Dr. Donia, you can, although I'm
7 sure Mr. Karnavas will ask you in cross-examination. If you want to
8 address it now, please.
9 A. No, I'll address it now. As I indicated this is the text of the
10 letter that was carried by the newspaper Oslobodjenje in Sarajevo. It's
11 not the original document.
12 Q. Is this the newspaper that at that time was sometimes people
13 talked about newspapers being essentially the paper of record in
14 Bosnia-Herzegovina at that time?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Now, if we can go on to Exhibit P 00505. Can you tell the Judges
17 what this document is. They may have seen it before, I believe, but can
18 you briefly say what that document is?
19 A. This is the text of the Constitutional Court's decision annulling
20 the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna and subsequent changes to its
21 statutes and laws that were -- that took place in 1992.
22 Q. And can you tell the Judges was there subsequently a similar
23 ruling by the constitutional court of Bosnia and Herzegovina not on the
24 Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna but the subsequent entity called the
25 Croatian Republic of Herceg-Bosna?
Page 1818
1 A. Yes, there was.
2 Q. Can I ask, please, that Exhibit P 08060 be displayed. And can you
3 again, sir, please indicate to the Judges what this document is?
4 A. Like the previous document, this is a translation of the Official
5 Gazette publication of the Constitutional Court's ruling annulling the
6 Croatian Republic of Herceg-Bosna.
7 Q. And we'll see just by way of summary under "decision," "The
8 decision on the proclamation of the Croatian Republic of Herceg-Bosna in
9 Livno on 24 August 1993 is hereby annulled." Is that correct?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Sir, moving forward, trying to move as quickly as possible, I'd
12 like to go to another topic. Can you tell the Judges, please, about
13 events leading up to the holding of a referendum in February of 1992 on
14 the question of independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina from the -- from
15 Yugoslavia?
16 A. Toward the end of 1991, the European Community made an effort to
17 systematise its recognition of the states, republics that were seeking
18 independence from Yugoslavia. The EC's involvement goes back some months
19 before that, but -- excuse me. In December, on December 17th, the council
20 of ministers of the EC empowered the commission of jurists known as the
21 Badinter Commission, to accept applications of those republics that wished
22 to achieve recognition as independent from the republics of the former
23 Yugoslavia. Slovenia -- the republics of Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia
24 applied, and on December 21, 1991, the Presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina
25 over the dissent of its two Serbian members also voted to seek recognition
Page 1819
1 from the EC.
2 The Badinter Commission assessed these applications, and noting
3 the existence of some effort to form a separate Serbian state within
4 Bosnia-Herzegovina, declared that the will of the people of
5 Bosnia-Herzegovina to achieve independence was not fully established and
6 therefore recommended that a referendum be held to determine the will of
7 the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
8 On January 27, 1992, the Assembly of Bosnia-Herzegovina voted to
9 accept that recommendation and subsequently scheduled a referendum on the
10 proposition of Bosnia-Herzegovina's independence on February 29 and March
11 1, 1992.
12 Q. All right. As we continue on the topic of the referendum, can I
13 ask that the registry please display Exhibit P 00116.
14 MR. SCOTT: Excuse me, Your Honour. I guess we'll have to
15 retrieve a hard copy of the document. Do you have it? Okay. We'll use
16 the e-court I suppose. Thank you.
17 All right. If we can enlarge that a bit, please. Maybe a bit
18 more. All right.
19 Q. Sir, looking at that document, did you become aware in your
20 research in looking at various documents that there was an HDZ leadership
21 meeting in Grude on the 29th of January of 1992?
22 A. This is -- the document we're looking at is actually a meeting of
23 the leadership of the Presidency of the Croatian Community of
24 Herceg-Bosna.
25 Q. All right.
Page 1820
1 A. It obviously consisted of a large number of HDZ leaders, but not
2 all of them.
3 Q. All right. Briefly, sir, in the interests of time, did you point
4 out two things in this -- in particular, and maybe perhaps others, does
5 this document mention what was happening concerning Mr. Kljuic around this
6 time in early 1992?
7 A. Yes, it does. In summary, what this document does is to issue a
8 harsh criticism of the competing wing of the HDZ, that which favoured --
9 which was opposed to the territorial option or preferred solution whereby
10 Croats throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina would be represented by the party.
11 Q. All right. If I can just interrupt you for a moment, I'm sorry.
12 If we could display page 4 of the document or ERN 00478436. And if we
13 could blow-up or enlarge the bottom of that page. All right.
14 At least in part I think it continues on over to the next page,
15 sir, but just part of the document talking about Mr. Kljuic.
16 A. Yes. The -- the document, and this is toward the end of the
17 document, essentially blames what's going wrong in the leadership of the
18 party on Mr. Kljuic, and although the -- the Croatian Community of
19 Herceg-Bosna had no formal authority to do so, it recommends an
20 extraordinary meeting of the party which is carried on -- this is in the
21 sentence that begins on this page and carries on to the next page of the
22 document.
23 Q. All right. And it was around that time or shortly subsequent to
24 this time, was it, that Mr. Kljuic was effectively removed from the party?
25 A. It was several days subsequent to this meeting.
Page 1821
1 Q. Now, on the other topic, and if I can have the registry's
2 assistance to go to page -- page 3 of the document or ERN 00478435. And
3 it's the bottom half of the page approximately. All right.
4 Can you tell us more about what the document says in reference to
5 the referendum and any issues that were being discussed among the
6 Herceg-Bosna leadership at this time about the independence referendum?
7 A. Pardon me. There -- I'm getting a little bit confused because
8 there were two meetings at this time.
9 Q. All right.
10 A. One was the 29th of January, which we have in front of us, and the
11 other of which was, I believe, on the 9th of February.
12 Q. Yes.
13 A. And in this first meeting, which is a Herceg-Bosna meeting, the
14 party essentially announced its intent -- or, I'm sorry, the Herceg-Bosna
15 leadership essentially announced its intent to assume the leadership of
16 the party and criticised the Croatian delegates to -- the Croatian HDZ
17 delegates to the Bosnian Assembly. They also then referred to the desire
18 to amend the language of the referendum and authorised Mr. Boban to --
19 bestowed upon Mr. Boban the -- the right to determine the timing with
20 which the Croatian people would be informed about the attitude of the
21 party and the HZ HB toward the referendum.
22 Q. All right. In the interests of time, then, if I could direct your
23 attention next to P 00117. If we could enlarge that a bit, please. All
24 right.
25 Sir, will you tell the Judges what this document is.
Page 1822
1 A. This is the record of the session -- the second meeting to which I
2 just referred of the central board or committee of the Croatian Democratic
3 Union of Bosnia-Herzegovina. This meeting was presided over by Mr. Boban,
4 but at that point Mr. Boban was not yet the president of the -- the
5 Bosnia-Herzegovina HDZ. That only took place in, I believe, in September
6 or October of this year. But his presiding over this meeting essentially
7 indicated the drift of the group to revise the language of the referendum
8 and to add a phrase to the referendum, a proposition which stated that
9 the -- that Bosnia-Herzegovina would be divided into cantons.
10 Q. All right. And just for the record, say, this was a meeting, and
11 you said "later that year." This is a meeting that took place on the 9th
12 of February, 1992?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. All right. Now, in that -- does this document go forward and talk
15 about -- and if we could -- excuse me. If we could go forward in that
16 document, page -- the next page, please.
17 In the top part of that page, just to orient everyone in the
18 courtroom to the document, you will see one formulation of a possible
19 referendum. And if you can scroll down that same page, please. So there
20 is the second formula.
21 Can you tell the Judges which of these two formulas were the --
22 was the formulation, the language that was adopted or approved by the
23 Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina?
24 A. Well, the lower formulation which we're looking at right now was
25 that adopted by the Assembly on January 25th.
Page 1823
1 Q. Okay.
2 A. It took the language directly from a constitutional amendment to
3 the constitution of Bosnia-Herzegovina and only added the
4 word "independent" to that constitutional amendment to formulate the
5 wording of the proposition.
6 Q. All right. If I could ask the assistance for this particular
7 purpose to show -- so we can have a PowerPoint slide, just to put the two
8 specific versions next to each other.
9 Sir, can you point out to the Judges and describe the differences
10 between the two formulations and why -- what is the significance in the
11 different formulations so far as you understand it?
12 A. Well, there are only two differences. One is that the
13 phrase "other peoples who live in it" has been removed. That is, the
14 formulation in the top version has been removed in the bottom version.
15 And the second, the phrase "in their ethnic areas (cantons)" has been
16 added in the version approved at the meeting of February 9th.
17 Q. All right. And that was my next question to you. Can you tell
18 the Judges whether this alternative language on the bottom half of this
19 slide, was that approved at the Livno meeting?
20 A. It was approved at the Livno meetings as the basis for
21 negotiations with representatives of other peoples and parties with the
22 objective of having that adopted for the language of the referendum.
23 Q. Can you tell the Judges whether that alternative language was ever
24 adopted by the Assembly of Bosnia-Herzegovina?
25 A. It was not.
Page 1824
1 Q. So is it correct, sir, that the referendum language that went
2 before the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina at the end of February was the
3 language in the top part of the page?
4 A. Yes, that's correct.
5 Q. If I could ask the witness to be shown -- well, did the referendum
6 pass?
7 A. Yes, it did.
8 Q. And could I ask the witness to be shown Exhibit P 00132.
9 And can you just briefly, sir, tell us, tell the Judges what this
10 document is and what it indicates.
11 A. This is the translation of the Official Gazette publication of the
12 results of the referendum indicating that about 64 per cent of the
13 registered voters participated and overwhelmingly voted in favour of --
14 over 99 per cent in favour of the proposition. This also reflects the
15 fact that most Serbs boycotted this vote and therefore did not have
16 their -- their wishes recorded in this proposition.
17 Q. So this vote most -- primarily represents the vote of Muslims and
18 Croats in Bosnia-Herzegovina?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. There's been previous indication -- well, have you found in your
21 study and in your work -- are you aware of some indications that the HDZ,
22 the Herceg-Bosna leadership pointed to the Croat support of the referendum
23 as some indicated of their support for a sovereign Bosnia-Herzegovina?
24 A. Yes, the HDZ leadership supported a yes vote in this matter.
25 Q. But this was not the form of language that they had approved at
Page 1825
1 the Livno meeting.
2 A. It was not the formal language that they approved at the Livno
3 language and therefore not their preferred formulation.
4 Q. And could you tell the Judges, if the referendum had not passed
5 what would have been the practical result?
6 A. The practicality result would have been that Bosnia-Herzegovina
7 would remain a part of Yugoslavia.
8 Q. Before we move on to the next and final topic or two, in reference
9 to the same meeting in Livno, a different dimension, do you recall in that
10 meeting whether the issue of Croatian citizenship was discussed, that is
11 that Bosnian Croats be given the right to Croatian citizenship?
12 A. Yes. That initiative was presented to the meeting. It was
13 formulated as a request to the Republic of Croatia to include Croats of
14 Bosnia-Herzegovina as citizens of the Republic of Croatia.
15 Q. Could I ask the registry, please, to go back briefly to Exhibit P
16 00117. And I believe it is at the -- on page 6, the bottom of page 6 of
17 the translation. And if you can go to the bottom of that page, please.
18 Do you see, sir, the discussion at item number 4?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. And in terms of the second paragraph that begins with item number
21 4, could you read the first sentence of that paragraph?
22 A. "The justification for such a demand is that this will be an
23 indestructible thread linking all Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina with
24 the Republic of Croatia."
25 Q. And can you tell the Judges, sir, was this ultimately put into
Page 1826
1 place, and did the Croatian government make provision for Bosnian Croats
2 that is Croats living in Bosnia-Herzegovina to be provided Croatian
3 citizenship?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. All right, sir. Moving to another topic, the Cutileiro Plan. Can
6 you tell the Judges what the Cutileiro Plan or the Cutileiro peace process
7 was about and the approximate time that that process was in effect?
8 A. With the Badinter Commission having rendered its recommendation
9 that the four republics be recognised as independent, that is Macedonia,
10 Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia, and Croatia, the clock began running on the
11 efforts of European Community negotiators to arrive at an agreement that
12 won the support of all three national parties in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This
13 took place under the aegis of the European Community Committee on
14 Yugoslavia, ECCY, and these talks were held by Jose Cutileiro who was a
15 representative of Portugal which had the rotating Presidency of the
16 European Community.
17 Those talks centred on maps. They centred on efforts by Cutileiro
18 to win the support of all three groups for a -- effectively division of
19 Bosnia-Herzegovina into ethnic cantons.
20 Q. All right. And in the interests of time, can I ask, please, to be
21 displayed the Exhibit P 09546. And can I have the assistance -- thank
22 you.
23 Now, can you tell us what this particular map -- did each -- well,
24 first of all let me ask you. In this process as you've described it as
25 looking at maps, creating maps, did each of the parties, if you will, the
Page 1827
1 principal ethnic parties, the Muslims, the Croats, and the Serbs, all
2 prepare and circulate proposed maps?
3 A. Yes, they did.
4 Q. And did the EC itself or did Mr. Cutileiro then propose his map,
5 if you will?
6 A. Yes. The situation got rather confused in the hasty course of
7 these negotiations, but in March, indeed Mr. Cutileiro did produce a map
8 and announced that it was -- had been accepted as the basis for further
9 negotiations by the parties.
10 Q. Could I ask -- before we talk about this map, could we go to the
11 next page, please. Could you blow that one up, please.
12 Unfortunately, when we blow this up you can't see the title on the
13 top of the page but is this the map proposed by the SDA?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. And the areas in white would be the Muslim areas and the areas as
16 we can see on the legend in horizontal lines would be the Croat areas?
17 A. The areas in white were proposed to be Muslim areas.
18 Q. Sorry. I misspoke, I'm sorry.
19 If we could go to the next page, please. Before you enlarge that
20 and people see at the top.
21 Is this the HDZ proposed map?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. All right. And if we could go down. All right. I think the map
24 perhaps speaks for itself.
25 And could we go to the next map, please. And this is -- is this
Page 1828
1 the SDS or Serb -- Bosnian Serb map?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Could we enlarge that a bit so. And then if we could go back to
4 the first page of the exhibit.
5 And was this then having received and considered these, the three
6 maps presented by each of the parties, is this the map that the EC
7 proposed?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. And can you tell the Judges, please, did the Cutileiro process
10 ever result in any sort -- either an agreed map or any other agreement?
11 A. No, it did not. The objections of the various parties were really
12 voiced only after the initial announcement by the EC that this whole thing
13 had been accepted, but in fact there were profound difficulties from the
14 beginning, and it's apparent that the parties never concurred on this map
15 or any other nor on the principles that were proposed by Mr. -- the
16 constitutional principles that were proposed by him.
17 Q. All right. Sir, moving on to another section of your report which
18 talks about the Croatian Defence Council or HVO. Because of time I'm only
19 going to ask you a couple of questions.
20 Can you -- at one point on page 36 of your report -- sorry.
21 In the second paragraph of that report and it's the only way I
22 know -- I'm asking for specific clarification of the language you've used,
23 so I -- you say the Presidency -- in the second paragraph, the Presidency
24 of the HZ HB? What are you referring to when you say the Presidency,
25 because today we've heard at that Presidency can be used to mean a number
Page 1829
1 of different things.
2 A. I -- without looking at my reference in the report, I really can't
3 give a clear answer, I don't think.
4 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, with Your Honour's permission, may Dr.
5 Donia look at report?
6 MR. KARNAVAS: If I may, Your Honour. If we could have just a
7 neutral answer to that question, what does Presidency mean? The
8 president, the Presidency, these are sort just sort of neutral, and then
9 he can look to see in what context it was used.
10 MR. SCOTT: That's the problem, Your Honour, it means different
11 things in different context.
12 MR. KARNAVAS: Well, I dare so no.
13 MR. SCOTT: We're not here to have Mr. Karnavas testify either.
14 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] How would you define the
15 word "Presidency"? What to your mind is "Presidency"?
16 THE WITNESS: Well, it can mean either a single individual who was
17 the president of a body or a collective group of people who share and
18 divide the responsibility of that position of typically head of state. I
19 should add that there -- every -- about every body you can identify at
20 this time was creating presidencies and having arguments about who was the
21 president of the Presidency. So these were very commonplace discussions
22 and had a little bit different meaning in each context.
23 MR. SCOTT:
24 Q. Well, when you would refer to -- Your Honour, with your
25 indulgence, again I'm looking at paragraph 2 of pair 36, when you in that
Page 1830
1 part of your report refer to the Presidency of the HZ HB, what body or
2 person are you referring to?
3 A. Well, the HZ HB in fact created a collective Presidency when it
4 was formed, and my reference here is to that collective body.
5 Q. You also in your report in various places use the terminology the
6 HVO and then separate word or abbreviation, HZ HB. What does that
7 reference mean or refer to?
8 A. Again, without looking at the report I can't -- I can't really
9 answer that -- that question.
10 MR. SCOTT: Again, Your Honour, I would ask the Court to allow to
11 direct Mr. -- Dr. Donia's attention to the end of paragraph 1 and page 36.
12 MR. KARNAVAS: Before doing so, Your Honour, I would like to know
13 whether Dr. Donia, after all these years, knows what the HVO means. Is
14 there more than one meaning? If so, we would like to have those. And
15 also, if he knows what it means, HZ HB. And he can give us the meaning.
16 I think after all these years, you know, when he first testified in
17 Blaskic, he should know the answer.
18 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes.
19 MR. SCOTT: I will break it up, Your Honour.
20 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] This is a question that the
21 Judges would like to have a answer to. What do you consider the HVO to
22 be.
23 THE WITNESS: The HVO was an organisation created to fuse
24 military, civilian, and administrative leadership within the Croatian
25 Community of Herceg-Bosna.
Page 1831
1 MR. SCOTT: Can I ask that the witness be shown Exhibit P 00152.
2 Q. Can you tell the Judges what that document is, sir?
3 A. This is the English translation of the declaration published in
4 the Official Gazette to form the HVO or the Croatian Defence Council.
5 Q. And the date of this document, sir, if we can see it. It may
6 be --
7 A. Like many of these documents, it was published in September, 1992,
8 but pertains to an earlier proclamation or decision reached on April 8,
9 1992.
10 Q. Now, around this same time, if I can ask you -- excuse me, the
11 registry's assistance to direct your attention to P 09543.
12 MR. SCOTT: And again, Your Honour, I'll have to tender this
13 marked for identification pending translation because it's again quoted
14 and interpreted in the body of the report but not -- there is not a
15 separate translation at this particular time.
16 Q. Sir, can you tell us what happened around this time in connection
17 with the Bosnian government forming a military arm -- or an armed force
18 for the Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the state of Bosnia and
19 Herzegovina?
20 A. That is newspaper of April 16, 1992, and the headline halfway down
21 the page on the right-hand -- right three columns says: "All formations
22 under the command of the Territorial Defence." This was the announcement
23 by the Presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina that all armed formations in the
24 country should come under the command of the Territorial Defence forces
25 central command in Sarajevo.
Page 1832
1 Q. And did that include at that time any reference either then or
2 later to including the HVO?
3 A. I don't know. That's -- I'm not certain. I'm not certain.
4 Q. All right. We'll come back to that if we have time. But around
5 the same time, sir, you were saying -- I'm sorry, can you give us the date
6 of this again, please?
7 A. The newspaper is dated April 16, 1992, and pertained to an event
8 that was -- or announcement made, proclamation of April 15, 1992.
9 Q. All right. Dr. Donia, if we can move on to what I think would be
10 then our final topic. Can you tell the Judges -- sometimes something's
11 referred to as the Graz Agreement. Can you describe what that was and the
12 circumstances surrounding that to the Judges, please?
13 A. In early May of 1992, Mate Boban and Radovan Karadzic met in the
14 Austrian city of Graz to work out a territorial division of
15 Bosnia-Herzegovina which they styled as a peace agreement. It was done
16 without the participation and apparently without the knowledge of any
17 Bosnian Muslim leaders. They did arrive at an agreement which, except for
18 territory near Mostar along the Neretva River, represented that division
19 which included a small territory allocated to Bosnian Muslim control.
20 Q. All right. Could I ask that the registry please display Exhibit
21 P 00187. Could I ask you to go -- there's several pages of this. Could I
22 ask you to go to the previous page, perhaps. Or do you have the previous
23 page? Thank you very much.
24 And just focusing on that top part of the page. You stated a
25 moment ago that this purported to be some sort of a peace agreement.
Page 1833
1 You'd indicated in your answer a moment ago, you said there appeared to be
2 an agreement except for some territory near Mostar along the Neretva
3 River.
4 Now, if we could go back to the exhibit and is that -- is that
5 disagreement reflected in items number 1 and 2 of this document?
6 A. Yes. Points 1 and 2 spell out that difference in views.
7 Q. And can you tell the -- well, sorry, before we get to that, can we
8 next look at Exhibit P 00192. And part of that -- I'm sorry, may I
9 have -- if you would go down several pages into that document, please. It
10 could be about the third page of that document. And please continue on
11 down. ERN 00332081. Page 4, I'm told, of that particular exhibit.
12 I'll ask the usher to please display on the ELMO this part of the
13 exhibit. Still in reference to Exhibit 192 but ...
14 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes. There's a question that --
15 JUDGE TRECHSEL: I would like to, and it's probably a question to
16 the Prosecution. We have this 192 document, and the English version looks
17 like a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy perhaps, whereas the B/C/S
18 version looks freshly typed on a computer. Now, what is the explanation?
19 Did they -- did they issue a document in English?
20 MR. SCOTT: Subject to being corrected, Your Honour, because I
21 don't want to be accused of testifying, but it's my understanding that,
22 yes, because this document -- part of the document was issued for the
23 purposes of the -- for the consumption of the international community
24 there was an English version prepared, and I'm sure -- and I -- well, I
25 shouldn't say I'm sure. I'm pretty confident that the reason the B/C/S
Page 1834
1 translation looks crisp by comparison is that in this particular instance
2 the B/C/S translation has been prepared at the ICTY of the English
3 document.
4 JUDGE TRECHSEL: Hvala.
5 MR. SCOTT: You're welcome.
6 Q. Sir, looking -- I guess I don't have the ELMO display. Sorry.
7 Can you just explain, in your report you talk about the fact that
8 there was the perception or the position that was taken that the effect of
9 the Graz Agreement was in fact to undo or overturn the referendum on
10 independence.
11 A. Yes. That -- pardon me. That's the assertion made in this press
12 release of Ian Greer and associates which was the public relations agency
13 employed by the SDS.
14 Q. Can you point to the Judges, please, refer them to the language
15 that you're referring to now?
16 A. It's the third paragraph. "The agreement overturns the mandate of
17 the Bosnian independence referendum for self-determination for a Bosnian
18 state. Instead, the mandate will be reversed. Bosnia will be divided and
19 in its place three separate states will be formed."
20 Q. And, sir, can you tell the Judges whether this agreement was ever
21 recognised by the international community or carried into effect?
22 A. No. In fact, evoked a rapid and rather angry response from EC
23 negotiators that no agreement could be reached without the participation
24 of all three parties, and they declined to accept the offer made by Boban
25 and Karadzic to arbitrate their differences in the Neretva valley.
Page 1835
1 Q. And can you also then finally, sir -- to your knowledge did any
2 representative of the Muslim ethnic group, if you will -- was there any
3 Muslim participation in the negotiation leading to this Graz Agreement?
4 A. No.
5 Q. Dr. Donia, thank you very much.
6 MR. SCOTT: Mr. President, I have no further questions of the
7 witness. I will tender the exhibits at the appropriate time, whenever you
8 wish. Thank you.
9 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. Well, that completes
10 the examination-in-chief. It is time to take a break anyway.
11 Fifteen seconds for Mr. Kovacic.
12 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, since you said
13 yesterday that I would be the first to cross-examine based on the
14 rotation, I would just like to inform you that the Defence counsel have
15 reached an agreement about how to conduct today's cross-examination and
16 will be proceeding in the following way: All the Defence counsel and
17 Defence teams have delegated their entire time to the Defence of Jadranko
18 Prlic and the Defence of Valentin Coric. That means Mr. Karnavas and my
19 learned friend Mr. Jonjic will be conducting the cross-examination, and
20 they have reached an agreement between themselves as to how to divide the
21 time.
22 In addition to this, if there is sufficient time left over from
23 the time you have allotted to us, the Defence of General Petkovic and
24 Bruno Stojic principally, possibly some others as well, might be asking
25 one or two brief questions or seek clarification, nothing more than, but
Page 1836
1 let me repeat, only if we have surplus time. Which I don't suspect we
2 will.
3 The third point I wanted to raise is this: We will in all events
4 stay within the frameworks of the time allotted to us. However, with
5 respect to the time now, looking at the clock, I'd like to ask the Trial
6 Chamber to tell us how much time we're going to have and to make a short
7 story of it before you ask the question, it seems to be 20 minutes past
8 three now. The Prosecution had two hours for cross-examination. They
9 said they would take two hours, but they have taken more, double, almost
10 double the time that the Prosecution had announced, the initial two hours,
11 and so bearing in mind the principle that guided us with previous
12 witnesses, the Defence expects, first of all, to be given at least as much
13 time, because it is quite obvious that this overstepping of time by the
14 Prosecution cannot be to the detriment and disadvantage of the Defence.
15 And as you have already intimated, we would just have until the end of
16 business tomorrow, the end of day tomorrow, which means that part of the
17 time from our fund has already been used up by the Prosecutor. So
18 regardless of the fact when we have to complete our cross-examination,
19 because we, according to this schedule would be moving into Monday,
20 regardless of the calendar days, we consider that we should be given at
21 least as much time as was taken up effectively by the Prosecutor today.
22 I think that that was all that I had to tell you. We, of course,
23 are at your disposal if you have any further questions.
24 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well, thank you. So the
25 legal assistant officer has said that the Prosecutor used three hours and
Page 1837
1 31 minutes. Now, in respect to what was announced yesterday, they had an
2 extra one and a half hours. So as of now, the Defence, up until tomorrow,
3 will have in actual fact five and a half hours, because we're going to
4 have an hour and a half now left over for us, plus the four hours of
5 tomorrow, which makes five and a half hours in total. Which means that
6 the Defence, according to that calculation, will have two hours more than
7 the Prosecution had.
8 So that is food for thought. Think about the problem. But a
9 priori, you're going to have two extra hours, two more hours than the
10 Prosecution. So you can divide this time up amongst yourselves, and we
11 ought to finish tomorrow at 1.45.
12 We'll discuss the matter later on, but it is 3.20 now, and we'll
13 reconvene at 3.40. Thank you.
14 --- Recess taken at 3.23 p.m.
15 --- On resuming at 3.45 p.m.
16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Before giving the floor to
17 Mr. Karnavas, just one point I'd like to specify.
18 Mr. Scott, the exhibits which you listed earlier today, you would
19 like these exhibits to be tendered into evidence or are you waiting for
20 the end of the cross-examination before asking these to be tendered into
21 evidence? So what's your position?
22 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, I'm happy to tender them now. I was just
23 trying to be sensitive to the time situation, but I'm happy to tender them
24 at this time. I believe they should be Exhibits -- I'm not going to --
25 unless the registry needs me to I won't refer to all the 0's, but 2, 13,
Page 1838
1 31, 89, 116, 117, 132, 152, 187, 192, 302, 505, 1043, 8060, 8630,
2 Your Honour, marked for identification pending translation, 8632, again
3 marked for identification subject to translation, 9356 [sic], 9537 pending
4 translation, 9538, 9539 pending translation, 9540 pending translation,
5 9541 pending translation, 9542 pending translation, 9543 pending
6 translation, 9544, again pending translation, and 9546 for the four maps,
7 and 9547, also pending translation. And I may have -- also, Your Honour,
8 9 -- sorry, I don't know if it's on here or not. Also, 9276, which was
9 the one map of the Serbian autonomous areas.
10 JUDGE TRECHSEL: Excuse me, sir. There has been probably a slip
11 of the tongue. When you mentioned 5956 you probably had in mind -- you
12 said 9596 and you referred to probably 9536. Is that correct?
13 MR. SCOTT: Yes, Your Honour, absolutely. Thank you.
14 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. As far as the list
15 of exhibits is concerned, there are a number of exhibits pending
16 translation. So the registrar will give a -- will mark these exhibits for
17 identification.
18 There is one exhibit which we still need to rule upon; we shall
19 confer after the hearing, which is the expert's report, number P 9536. So
20 we shall wait for the end of the cross-examination and let you know what
21 we do about it. But the other documents which you mentioned of various
22 origins are documents which can currently be tendered into evidence.
23 Registrar, you have the floor.
24 THE REGISTRAR: Thank you, Mr. President. The following documents
25 are therefore admitted -- tendered -- sorry, admitted today: Dukes P
Page 1839
1 0002, P 0013, P 0031, P 00089, P 00116, P 00117, P 00132, P 00152, P
2 00187, P 00192, P 00302, P 00505, P 01043, P 08060, P 9356, P 09356, P
3 09538, and P 09276. And as per the decision of the Chamber the following
4 documents are only marked for identification which they remain as marked
5 for identification, and these are the reference: P 08630, P 08632, P
6 09537, P 09539, P 09540 [Realtime transcript read in error "P 0940"], P
7 09541, P 09542, P 09543, P 09544, and P 09547. These are marked for
8 identification until a translation is provided to the registry.
9 Finally, the report of the expert witness P 09536 is -- will be
10 admitted only after -- well, pursuant to your decision, Mr. President.
11 Thank you.
12 JUDGE TRECHSEL: I'm sorry to be schoolmaster again, but I think
13 instead of P 095 -- 0940 you wanted to say 09540. It's on line 8. The
14 second.
15 MR. SCOTT: Sorry, Your Honour.
16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes, Mr. Scott.
17 MR. SCOTT: I don't want to take any time but the only confusion I
18 still have left, at least from mine, it may only be me, at line -- on page
19 106, line 4, there's reference to P 9356 and then P 09356, and again we
20 have 9536 which is the report, but I don't think we had a 9356. Could it
21 possibly have been 9276?
22 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes. Very well. The expert
23 witness report is number 9536, subject to our decision.
24 MR. SCOTT: Okay. Thank you.
25 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] I shall now give the floor to
Page 1840
1 Mr. Karnavas. And over the break we discussed this very briefly. We have
2 decided to grant the Defence team two extra hours, two more hours than the
3 Prosecution. That said, the Defence teams will be entitled to call their
4 own historical witness, so you will plenty of time to make additional
5 comments by calling your own witnesses.
6 Mr. Karnavas, you have the floor.
7 MR. KARNAVAS: Thank you, Mr. President. I'll try to condense a
8 four-day cross-examination into four or five hours. It will be a
9 challenge.
10 Cross-examination by Mr. Karnavas:
11 Q. Good afternoon, sir.
12 A. Good afternoon.
13 Q. I trust you are okay to continue?
14 A. Yes, I am.
15 Q. Okay. Thank you. And by the way, congratulation on your new book
16 that just came out on Sarajevo.
17 A. Thank you.
18 Q. You didn't by any chance bring a copy for us to look over during
19 the evening in case I wanted to, you know, as you a couple of questions on
20 it tomorrow since you go all the way to 2003?
21 A. I'll wait for you to buy it.
22 Q. Okay. So, well, my question is, do you have it here in The Hague?
23 A. I do not have a copy here, no.
24 Q. You didn't bring one for the Prosecutor to look at?
25 A. No.
Page 1841
1 Q. And he didn't ask for one either, as I'm asking --
2 MR. SCOTT: He's also waiting for me to buy it.
3 MR. KARNAVAS: All right. Okay.
4 Q. It's market economy as opposed to the command economy back in the
5 days of the former Yugoslavia; right?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Okay, right. Now, a little bit about your qualifications. You
8 touched on it today. We have your CV, but let's just get right to it.
9 You got a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan; right?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. And because we speak the same language, we're going to have to
12 pause a little bit. Yesterday, I was -- it was rather challenging for
13 folks in the translation booth. My fault.
14 That was a rather specialised the Ph.D. dissertation that you did;
15 correct?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. And if you could just share the period, the time period within
18 which that dissertation evolved.
19 A. You mean the time that covered, the historical period?
20 Q. Yeah, the period that it covered.
21 A. It covered the period 1878 to 1914.
22 Q. 1878 to 1914. That's in Bosnia; right?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. And it dealt with the Muslims of Bosnia during that period?
25 A. Yes.
Page 1842
1 Q. All right. It didn't cover earlier periods, some periods which we
2 might find in your report or which you testified earlier or which you
3 wrote in another book with your -- with your mentor; right?
4 A. That's correct. It did not address periods before 1878.
5 Q. And it didn't cover periods afterwards because you stopped right
6 there, isn't that right?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. All right. So the period that we're talking about prior to World
9 War II, during World War II, after World War II, the break-up of
10 Yugoslavia, none of that is covered in your report; right -- in your
11 dissertation?
12 A. That's correct.
13 Q. And I take it when you do a dissertation you really focus into the
14 area; right?
15 A. Most dissertations are very specifically defined by area, by
16 chronological period, and by topic.
17 Q. Right. And you have a mentor that walks you -- that helps you
18 along the process? Or maybe even more than one?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. And the reason for having a mentor is to make sure that the
21 research is done properly?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. That you cite the sources that you need to cite and they're cited
24 properly?
25 A. Yes.
Page 1843
1 Q. In other words, not taken out of context. That's one of the -- I
2 mean, among other things.
3 A. Among other things, yes.
4 Q. Right. Making sure that you read the proper sources. In other
5 words, you have got to look through them before you begin to discriminate
6 which you're going to use and which you're going to discard for whatever
7 reasons; correct?
8 A. Yes. The mentor in general helps formulate the research strategy
9 which includes literature and the exploration of archival sources.
10 Q. All right. And it's a rather tedious process, is it not?
11 A. It certainly is.
12 Q. And that dissertation, I bet, is heavily footnoted?
13 A. It -- it is significantly footnoted, yes.
14 Q. And, of course, if one were to go to the footnote and check out
15 whatever it is in the footnote, it would exactly say, you know, what it
16 purports to say, you know, what it's being cited for in other words?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. All right. And I take it, just one last question on that -- on
19 this issue, I take it through this entire process you learn a methodology
20 about doing research and writing on a particular topic?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. And I take it that methodology is the same methodology that you
23 could use for future purposes.
24 A. One could use that methodology for future purposes, but I would
25 say there's not a single methodology which is used in all historical
Page 1844
1 writing.
2 Q. Right.
3 A. And not, for that matter, in all dissertations.
4 Q. There are different methods?
5 A. Different methods, different approaches to presentation.
6 Q. And also different groups of historians; right?
7 A. Certainly.
8 Q. And of course if all depends on which group you fit in. It may
9 depend on the outcome of -- of the historical conclusions.
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Okay. We're going to touch on that a little bit later, but just
12 to highlight this portion, reasonable historians can reasonably disagree.
13 You've heard that phrase before here in The Hague. And, by the way, just
14 in case you need anything, I've gone ahead and read through all your
15 transcripts. I have them over here. But you've -- you've acknowledged
16 that; right?
17 A. My sympathies to you for having read through the transcripts, but
18 I have certainly knowledge and acknowledged now that historians frequently
19 have disagreements on interpretations.
20 Q. On interpretations of the same events?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Based on the same data that they look at; right?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Although some may exclude certain data or decide not to use it?
25 A. Yes.
Page 1845
1 Q. Some may place more focus on certain data as opposed to other
2 data?
3 A. Yes. That's a function of the way the topic is formulated and
4 also of the method of exposition to be used in the work.
5 Q. Okay. Now, since your dissertation you wrote a book. I believe
6 that was in 1994, I think it was.
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. That was while all hell was breaking loose in the former
9 Yugoslavia, specifically in Bosnia-Herzegovina?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. At that point in time, you were still employed for Merrill Lynch?
12 A. Yes, I was.
13 Q. And for those of us who aren't -- who don't know who Merrill Lynch
14 is or aren't fortunate enough to be able to invest in Merrill Lynch, what
15 is it?
16 A. Merrill Lynch is a large diversified financial services firm with
17 global operations but based in the United States.
18 Q. And after getting your dissertation, as I understand you taught
19 four years and thereafter you went to work for Merrill Lynch?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. All right. Rather different. You know, big switch I would say?
22 A. Completely different.
23 Q. Okay. And is it fair to say that some of the tools that you
24 learned while you were doing your dissertation were not necessarily being
25 applied while you were working at Merrill Lynch?
Page 1846
1 A. Some of the tools were not, yes.
2 Q. All right. I mean, of course you learn how to use logic and
3 common sense and that sort of stuff, analyse documents and those sorts of
4 things you could always use; right?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. But you weren't doing sort of like risk assessments of certain
7 countries or regions such as, you know, to see whether investors should
8 invest in a particular region or country like the former Yugoslavia that
9 would give you some of the edge, the inside knowledge of what was
10 happening in that region?
11 A. No, I did not.
12 Q. All right. So it would be fair to say and by -- and you can
13 correct me any time you want, but it would be fair to say that during that
14 period, for all intents and purposes you were focusing in your new
15 occupation, your new job, right, your new vocation?
16 A. Principally, yes.
17 Q. And history had become an avocation at that point?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. And as part of your avocation you occasionally would do a book
20 review; right?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. And might we say that your 1994 book that you did was slightly
23 more than just a avocation but not necessarily what one would consider a
24 scholarly work?
25 A. I would not share that characterisation. I think it was a work
Page 1847
1 using scholarly methodology.
2 Q. Okay.
3 A. And designed for a more general audience than the typical
4 scholarly work addressed.
5 Q. All right. I think we partly address. You know, using a
6 scholarly methodology ask not the same thing as producing a scholarly, you
7 know, text?
8 A. Right.
9 Q. Okay. And by that I mean is -- what I mean is, for instance, when
10 you look at the book, and I have -- I have read it -- by the way, I have
11 purchased it, just so you know.
12 A. Thank you.
13 Q. That when I look at it, a lot of footnotes are missing. I mean,
14 one would expect, because you're making a bold statement, and I would look
15 to see -- and I would find no footnote. Would you agree with me on many
16 instances that is the case in your book?
17 A. Yes. I think we set out to minimise the scholarly apparatus in
18 terms of extensive footnotes and lengthy bibliography.
19 Q. And you would agree with me, would you not, that if someone who
20 has a footnote fetish like me who would want to actually go and look at
21 the footnote and actually kind of check it out and make sure that what
22 you're citing is indeed you know relevant and pertinent, I wouldn't be
23 able to do that with your work? And I'm not trying to diminish it, but
24 I'm just saying I wouldn't be able to check out exactly to see whether
25 what you're claiming is indeed factually based on data.
Page 1848
1 A. Well, being, let's say, brief on scholarly apparatus, it was
2 indeed -- it contained many things which were based on general assertions
3 and understanding and therefore are not footnoted. So if you have that
4 fetish, it probably would be difficult to find support for some of the
5 propositions made in the book itself.
6 Q. All right. And I just want to make sure you said general
7 assertions. You would agree there's a lot of general assertions that
8 you're making in that particular text; right?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Now, I indicated that it came out in 1994. You were still working
11 for Merrill Lynch. I take it full time?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Pretty demanding job?
14 A. Yes, it was.
15 Q. Especially, as I understand, you were at a supervisory level so
16 you had to make sure -- under the principle of command responsibility, you
17 had to make sure that the folks beneath you were doing their job; right?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. And so -- but during that period of time, you found the time to
20 write a book with your mentor, and I take it you must have had -- had to
21 go to Sarajevo or to Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to do some original
22 research?
23 A. No. The book was specifically committed to an account which was
24 not based on extensive original research but on available sources from
25 other works, Radio Free Europe reports. This was real little at a time
Page 1849
1 when those documents were extremely difficult to come by in any case.
2 Q. Okay. Well, you caught my attention here when you say extensive.
3 "Not based on extensive original research." Now, that would lead me to
4 believe that you did some original research. Maybe not extensive but
5 some?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Okay. Might you be so kind as to tell us what original research
8 you did?
9 A. Well, I went through the -- I just mentioned Radio Free Europe
10 reports, which were continuous through the 1980s and early 1990s. I also
11 looked into some of the documentation pertaining to the earlier periods in
12 which we -- we dealt. For example, the census reports which gave a
13 history of the population of Bosnia-Herzegovina and its ethnic
14 composition. There are a number of other things, but I would cite those
15 as significant among the things that I looked at.
16 Q. Okay. But those are secondly sources; right? They're not
17 original research?
18 A. No. I would say the census reports are -- qualify as primary
19 source. I think the distinction between a primary source and a secondary
20 source is often difficult to make.
21 Q. Okay. We're going to get to that.
22 MR. KARNAVAS: But first, I have a technical problem here,
23 Your Honour. If I may indulge for one second and try to fix it. I
24 apologise to everyone. Okay. We're back on line. All right. I don't
25 know what I touched, but it went off.
Page 1850
1 Q. So, all right. We're talking about your book. Did you -- and we
2 left off on primary and secondary. What would you consider to be primary
3 sources?
4 A. Well, the usual definition is a document that is generated by a
5 direct participant in an event.
6 Q. Okay.
7 A. It's, as I say, a rather fuzzy, flexible, if you will, definition.
8 Many primary sources may exist in an archive somewhere but are then
9 published word for word in a collection and are also then normally
10 considered primary sources.
11 Secondly sources, therefore, are the works of other scholars who
12 have examined particular issues or particular sources and written their
13 conclusions based on their examination.
14 Q. Okay. If I could just deal with the primary sources. You talked
15 about, I guess, actors, we could call them, folks that participated in the
16 events. For your 1994 book, I mean some of the actors, if you were in
17 Sarajevo, did you speak with Mr. Izetbegovic?
18 A. No.
19 Q. He was available at the time?
20 A. I never went to Sarajevo prior to the public -- completing the
21 writing of the book.
22 Q. Okay. So the book was written from afar?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Okay. So would it be fair to say for at least that particular
25 book you didn't have any interviews, face-to-face, tete-a-tete?
Page 1851
1 A. I don't recall that I had any interviews for that book.
2 Q. Okay. But based on the collection of the documents that you were
3 able to get, you were able to draw some general conclusions?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. All right. Now, I want to switch over here at the ICTY. You
6 indicated that this is your eighth time that you're testifying; correct?
7 A. I think that's correct, yes.
8 Q. All right. And would it be fair to say that the first time that
9 you testified was the first time that you testified anywhere as an expert?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. At least in this kind of a setting; right?
12 A. First time, period.
13 Q. Okay. First time, period. And so one might say that being a
14 novice at the time, you might not have known what exactly your task would
15 be as an expert?
16 A. Well, I don't know that I was a novice at the time, but I --
17 Q. You just said that you hadn't testified before?
18 A. If you mean that I was a novice as an expert witness.
19 Q. Yes, that's what I meant?
20 A. I would accept that characterisation, yes.
21 Q. All right. All right. So you were a novice. I take it they had
22 to walk you through what you needed to do in order to prepare?
23 A. They gave me a charge --
24 Q. Okay?
25 A. -- which I then attempted to execute, and the testimony was the
Page 1852
1 result.
2 Q. Okay. They gave you a charge. Now, when you say "a charge," does
3 that mean they gave you the indictment?
4 A. They gave me the indictment.
5 Q. Okay. Now, let's stop here and, you know, let's park a little bit
6 and try to figure this one out. And help me out here. The indictment
7 usually tells a story, does it not?
8 A. Part of it does typically, yes.
9 Q. Yeah. And might we say that it tells the Prosecution story?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. I mean, it, the Prosecution, alleges X, Y, and Z and sort of, at
12 least in the Prosecution's mind, rightly or wrongly, they formed an
13 opinion; right?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. They believe that the person that they're indicting, that person
16 is indeed guilty and they can prove that beyond a reasonable doubt; right?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. All right. So it would be fair to say that when you came in at
19 least at the very first time, and of course this applies for all the other
20 times, but at least for the very first time when you came in, they didn't
21 say here -- here is some material, look it over, and if you need anything
22 else, let us know, and come up with an expert report? They didn't do
23 that?
24 A. No.
25 Q. All right. In fact, as I understand it in, in the Blaskic case
Page 1853
1 you didn't produce a report but you had some notes that you were making
2 reference to, that you were looking at?
3 A. I had a 19-page outline --
4 Q. Yeah?
5 A. -- that I referred to in the course of the testimony.
6 Q. Right.
7 A. But no written text.
8 Q. Right. In fact, during the case, during the trial, one of the
9 Defence lawyers asked for that outline because it hadn't been provided;
10 right?
11 A. That's correct.
12 Q. But he probably you let you look at it more than I did today?
13 A. About the same, actually.
14 Q. Okay. All right. Now, you then testified in the Kordic case.
15 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Karnavas, try and speak more
16 slowly because perhaps the interpreters are having a little trouble
17 following you, if you could. Thank you.
18 MR. KARNAVAS: Again I apologise to the interpreters. I just had
19 a coffee and that excites me a little bit, but I'll try to slow down.
20 Q. All right. The next time you testified was in Kordic; right?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. By this point you were no longer a novice. You had at least gone
23 through the right of passage; you'd testified, so you kind of knew what it
24 was to be an expert witness.
25 A. Yes.
Page 1854
1 Q. All right. And in that case, it's deal with the Muslim-Croat
2 conflict, it was -- the issues were relatively identical or the same or
3 similar?
4 A. Similar, yes, uh-huh.
5 Q. And in that case you did in fact produce a report, did you not?
6 A. I did.
7 Q. But in that case there were no footnotes, were there?
8 A. There was no scholarly apparatus to the report except for a few
9 quotations which were cited in the course of the text.
10 Q. Okay. Well, a report doesn't need to necessarily be scholarly in
11 order to have footnotes. Would you agree with me on that?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Okay. So -- but in other words, in the report itself, you were
14 making assertions and there was no way to know where exactly those
15 assertions were coming from or at least how you had come to certain
16 conclusions?
17 A. Some of the conclusions were backed by quotations that were
18 included in the text of the report.
19 Q. Right.
20 A. The --
21 Q. But --
22 A. The report, of course, began very, very early in time and covered
23 a long historical period and ended up with the contemporary period just up
24 to April of 1993.
25 Q. Okay. But it did not have sources from which the lawyers could
Page 1855
1 look at some of the assertions that you were making in order to see
2 whether the assertions were well-founded based on historical facts or
3 historical data that could be tested.
4 A. Some of those assertions were backed up by sources that were
5 cited.
6 Q. Those are the quotations; right?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Okay. But I'm talking about other, because you said it was a long
9 report.
10 A. Yes. I was not asked to -- I was asked not to footnote that
11 report, as a matter of fact.
12 Q. Really? The Prosecutor actually told you don't footnote?
13 A. The Prosecutor asked me to essentially replicate the historical
14 account that I had given verbally in Blaskic --
15 Q. Uh-huh.
16 A. -- in writing.
17 Q. Was that Mr. Nice that did that? I mean we don't want to out them
18 out, but I'd like to know who was --
19 A. I don't recall who gave me that charge initially.
20 Q. But you would agree with me though for the Defence lawyer it would
21 be very difficult to go and check the assertions that you are making
22 unless there were footnotes there for them to check; right?
23 A. They didn't seem to have any difficulty doing that.
24 Q. Well, you didn't answer my question, though, did you? It would
25 appear, though, that without foot notes one would have a difficult time
Page 1856
1 checking your assertions?
2 A. Some of them.
3 Q. Okay. I'll take that. We're late in the game. All right. Now,
4 that issue, though, did come up during the trial, did it not?
5 A. Yes, I believe it did.
6 Q. In fact, the lawyer walked you through it. It was a very
7 interesting cross-examination.
8 A. Yes, uh-huh. It was interesting.
9 Q. Okay. And he pointed out how you not only had no footnotes but
10 there was no peer review of that report; right?
11 A. That's correct.
12 Q. Okay. And at least at the end of that rather interesting
13 cross-examination, you at least must have felt that at least for the next
14 time you would know what to do should you be called upon to do a report?
15 A. I certainly felt --
16 Q. Uneasy.
17 A. -- the next time that I came to address one of these things that
18 more scholarly apparatus would be appropriate --
19 Q. Okay.
20 A. -- and continued to hold that view. It was, I think, the
21 judgement of the -- the Prosecutor that that was in a sense an obstacle to
22 a straightforward understanding why the Court -- of the basic historical
23 chronicle that was laid out.
24 Q. The Prosecutor thought that the Trial Chamber, the Honourable
25 Members of the Trial Chamber weren't able of understanding the report if
Page 1857
1 it had footnotes?
2 A. No, that's not the statement that I made.
3 Q. Okay. Well, help me out here.
4 A. I think the Prosecutors felt it was a --
5 Q. [indiscernible]
6 A. A barrier to impeded effective communication of what was a fairly
7 basic historical fact.
8 Q. All right. Since then, you've produced reports with footnotes and
9 obviously the Judges haven't been impeded by those foot notes have they?
10 To your knowledge, at least?
11 A. To my knowledge, no.
12 Q. Okay. Now, you were once asked and I believe it was the Stakic
13 case. I have it here. I can pull it out if you want me to, but you were
14 asked whether at least in that particular case if it was important for you
15 to do comprehensive reports if -- if and when you're called upon to
16 testify in cases of this magnitude. Do you recall that?
17 A. No, I don't.
18 Q. Okay. You recall being asked whether your report was
19 comprehensive?
20 A. I'm sorry, I don't recall, no.
21 Q. Okay. And I take it you don't recall your answer?
22 A. No.
23 Q. Okay. Well, let me ask you this before I get to it: Would you
24 agree that with a case such as the crimes that are being tried over here,
25 the crimes alleged, do you think it's important for someone like yourself,
Page 1858
1 an expert, to be rather comprehensive when coming in here and producing a
2 report for the Trial Chamber's assistance?
3 A. I think it depends on how the charge to me is formulated.
4 Q. Okay.
5 A. It -- to be truly comprehensive gets one into hundreds of pages,
6 perhaps even multiple volumes, and I don't think that's the purpose of my
7 testimony or my report, either in this case or in other cases.
8 Q. Would you say that your report is comprehensive, the one that
9 you've produced?
10 A. No.
11 Q. Okay. Would you say that you've looked at all the alternative
12 plausible or alternative sources that are out there that might hold a
13 different point of view that you would?
14 A. No.
15 Q. Okay. Do you think, do you think, and help me out here, but do
16 you think it would be important for the honourable members of our Trial
17 Chamber to have that information so at least you could say, well, here's
18 what I looked at. Here's what I agree with. Here's what I don't agree
19 with. Here's how I came up with my conclusion, and here is why. Do you
20 think that might be important?
21 A. I think that would be up to the Honourable Judges to decide. My
22 own purpose is, let's say, more restricted than that. It is to provide a
23 narrative account which can in fact be challenged and alternative
24 interpretations presented, but again I do not want to run into 200 pages
25 or multiple volumes for the purpose of a historical background --
Page 1859
1 Q. All right.
2 A. -- expert report.
3 Q. That wasn't my question. Do you think it would be important for
4 the Trial Chamber to have a comprehensive report from an historian such as
5 yourself if indeed that is what you're coming here to testify about, the
6 historical facts and drawing conclusions?
7 A. No.
8 Q. Okay. I think that is a piece of literature which is available in
9 printed version and by many authors, and far beyond the scope of what I
10 set out to do.
11 Q. All right. Okay. Well, we'll talk about that in due course. But
12 let me ask you this. In this case as in the other cases, did the
13 Prosecution provide you with the indictment before they gave you your
14 task?
15 A. Yes, they did.
16 Q. Okay. Rather comprehensive one, isn't it?
17 A. It is.
18 Q. And I take it they gave you the amended version as well? It got
19 even longer.
20 A. Yes, they did.
21 Q. Okay. And I take it you read it?
22 A. Yes, I did.
23 Q. Read it carefully?
24 A. I did.
25 Q. And by the time you got through reading it, you fully understood
Page 1860
1 what exactly the Prosecution's position was? Hard to miss it.
2 A. On the questions addressed, I would say, yes, I had a very good
3 understanding of the Prosecution's position.
4 Q. Okay. And -- and again, in this particular case they didn't come
5 to you and say, Mr. Donia or Dr. Donia, you're the expert. You're the
6 historian. Obviously you would know what documents I need to look at.
7 You would need -- that you need to look at. You would know who to talk
8 to, the primary, the secondary sources. Okay. They didn't say to you,
9 you choose it. You choose the list and we'll provide it.
10 A. No. That was not the charge I received.
11 Q. Okay. And did they say to you by any chance, well, if you need
12 anything you let us know?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Okay. And I take it by saying that they must have given you
15 something first; right? What they believe you needed; right? What they
16 believe you needed to do this report?
17 A. No. I --
18 Q. Okay.
19 A. -- in fact, inquired about the availability of certain documents
20 in the Office of the Prosecutor and asked that they be provided if they
21 had them.
22 Q. And how many documents would you say --
23 A. I asked specifically for the party platforms, the SDS.
24 Q. Uh-huh.
25 A. HDZ, and SDA. All together, perhaps, I don't know, 25 documents
Page 1861
1 that I had not investigated before that have come available on particular
2 topics.
3 Q. All right. Did they provide you with a list of documents to start
4 with?
5 A. No.
6 Q. All right. So they just told you here, what do you need, and
7 that's the list that you asked for?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. All right. Did you by any chance ask for an index so that you
10 would know what documents they might have? Because after all, let me clue
11 you in, the Prosecution has been going around the former Yugoslavia having
12 access to various archives. All right? Did you ask, by any chance, could
13 I look at the list of documents from the various archives, be they from
14 the BiH, be they from Croatia, and so on and so forth? Did you ever ask
15 for that list?
16 A. No. Life is too short to look over that list in one of the
17 archives alone.
18 Q. All right. I agree with you on that one. But I guess if we're
19 going to be looking at crimes of this nature, and we're going to be
20 looking at trying to ascribe responsibility for certain events, and if
21 we're trying to make historical sense, wouldn't you think it would be
22 important to look at all the documents from all the sides so you can put
23 the events into context and try to make sense of them?
24 A. Well, as I indicated, that was not my charge.
25 Q. I didn't ask whether that was your charge. I'm asking you if you
Page 1862
1 think it was important.
2 A. I believe it's important for this Court to do that, yes.
3 Q. Okay. And did you ask for -- to see the list of material that
4 they have? Yes? No?
5 A. No.
6 Q. Okay. Did you know that they had a list that you could have
7 looked at?
8 A. No. I -- I can't say I knew or know that there is a single list
9 of available documentation.
10 Q. Okay. Did they share with you by any chance the list of documents
11 that they thought might be important for this Trial Chamber to review?
12 A. No.
13 Q. Okay. Now, help me out here. Maybe I'm just -- maybe I'm -- I'm
14 making it too complex, but you're here because you're supposed to be an
15 expert; correct?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. And you have a particular expertise and that would be history;
18 correct?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Never mind that your dissertation was for a different period,
21 different events. Nonetheless, we've established that you have the
22 methodological tools to conduct the research. Would it be fair to say
23 that they should be coming to you and asking you what information you
24 need, what documentation you need, which witnesses you might wish to
25 interview in order for you to -- to prepare a comprehensive report?
Page 1863
1 A. Yes. As I've indicated, they did not ask me to prepare a
2 comprehensive report.
3 Q. Okay.
4 A. They asked me to prepare a report which dealt with a specific
5 period which ended in approximately the fall of 1992.
6 Q. Okay.
7 A. And did not go directly to the key issues of responsibility that
8 are before the Court.
9 Q. Now, I've noticed in -- by the way, it may sound like I'm being
10 critical. I'm not, but I think it would be fair to say that if I came to
11 you as the expert, you would be telling me what you need. I mean, if I
12 tell you this is what I'm looking for, you would be the one to tell me,
13 Oh, I need this document, I need to do this and that and the other,
14 because you're the expert, I'm not. Would that be fair?
15 A. Generally speaking. Sometimes I know what to ask for and
16 sometimes I don't know what to ask for in terms of the corpus of
17 documentation that -- that's available.
18 Q. Okay. Now, you indicated in your report -- let me see over here.
19 I'm cutting parts of my cross so we can move along. But this is sort of
20 like -- you say encylopaedia-like entries. That kind of caught my
21 attention. What does that mean? Encylopaedia-like entries. Are they
22 stand-alone chapters that one could look at and that encylopaedia-like
23 entry would be comprehensive in and of itself? Might that be what you're
24 suggesting here?
25 A. I think I'm suggesting that they are stand-alone entries that deal
Page 1864
1 with the kind of essential irrelevant reducible facts and -- and the
2 positioning of the institutions and events that I've examined.
3 Q. Okay.
4 A. I would again say my purpose here is not to be comprehensive. It
5 is, in fact, to be synthetic, to be as much a provider of a digested,
6 abbreviated account of each of these topics.
7 Q. Okay. Sort of like the Reader's Digest version of the events.
8 A. USA Today.
9 Q. USA Today versus New York Times or Le Monde?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Right, okay. But the stand alone chapters they're not
12 comprehensive in the sense that you would have looked at all necessary
13 documents for this little stand-alone chapter or section to be balanced
14 and objective?
15 A. Well, I have not -- not only have I not looked at all documents, I
16 have not looked at the total corpus of scholarly production on these
17 individual sections. They're all topics which are much broader and more
18 extensive and on which there is a large corpus of scholarly work.
19 Q. Okay.
20 A. More so than I would be able to develop a command of for each of
21 these sections.
22 Q. And wouldn't it be fair to say that in this condensed, synthesised
23 mode these stand-alone chapters, while they may be informative, may not
24 necessarily be quite as accurate as we may want them to be, at least for
25 this particular setting?
Page 1865
1 A. Well, I would say my goal was to make them as accurate as
2 possible, and I think I've achieved that in important ways, also confident
3 that there will be statements in there that are, first of all, subject to
4 being contested, and second, there may be an error. I mean, there -- it's
5 possible. But this is my best effort to prevent -- to present that
6 compact synthesised version of the institutions, events, and leading
7 actors concerned.
8 Q. Okay. Now -- and before I go on to that, the issue was whether it
9 would be accurate. You're trying -- in your report, in these entries
10 encyclopaedia-like which are supposed to be stand alone because you tell
11 us that, we can jump around from subject to subject if we wish, you, in
12 fact, did not look at relevant information from all sides; correct?
13 A. I think it depends on the topic.
14 Q. Okay. So some topics are more comprehensively treated than
15 others?
16 A. Not necessarily comprehensively treated but there are certain
17 topics about which I have a priori knowledge of some of the documentary
18 base.
19 Q. Uh-huh?
20 A. Some topics on which I've written before.
21 Q. Okay.
22 A. So the challenge is to condense and become succinct.
23 Q. Okay.
24 A. And other topics on which it would be utterly impossible to cover
25 the full spectrum of source information.
Page 1866
1 Q. All right. Well, I have a burning question that you might be able
2 to answer. If you haven't looked at certain documents, if you haven't
3 looked at certain archives that maybe out there that may contain -- in
4 fact, I would I submit do in fact contain valuable information, how on
5 earth would you know what to discriminate, what is good what is bad, if
6 you haven't taken the time to look at it or hasn't been provided to you by
7 the Prosecution?
8 A. Well, as a general question, I think the answer is you have
9 defined the bane of the historian's existence.
10 Q. Okay.
11 A. One can expend lifetime and more on a very narrow topic and never
12 truly have examined everything that is there or that is coming out, and so
13 the report is in its individual sections an effort to capture the -- the
14 essence of these issues and institutions.
15 Q. Okay. By the way, I know that they gave you a cut-off period.
16 Did -- did they select the topics or was this something that you selected
17 and ran it by them, and after, you know, the Prosecutor acting like the
18 editor, for instance, for a publication, they would okay go with these or
19 add some more? How did they --
20 A. No. I was -- I was charged to keep it brief, to keep it
21 encyclopaedic, if you will, and to work on specific topics. I then ran
22 those topics past the Prosecution and was asked to address a couple others
23 and added those then to the report. So I would say it was kind of a
24 mutual process of identifying the topics to be addressed.
25 Q. All right. And it would be fair to say that by looking at these
Page 1867
1 topics you could not get a -- a comprehensive or a complete picture of the
2 events?
3 A. Well, to take one example, the peoples of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
4 That is an absolutely enormous, huge task. Thousands of books have been
5 produced on this, and I wouldn't in any sense pretend that that section is
6 comprehensive or takes into account all the existing scholarly literature
7 or documentation. So the answer in that -- in that case is certainly this
8 is not a comprehensive or complete picture of events, because it's got to
9 be short.
10 Q. All right. But on at that particular topic, for example, since
11 you mentioned it, is it not fair that there are many scholars in your
12 field that disagree with you?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. In the sense -- yeah. And they hold different opinions?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. So what you provided us here today is just one, you know,
17 plausible historical explanation and there may be other plausible
18 historical explanations; right?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Okay. And that would go also along the line of some of the other
21 topics that you talked about today, no?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Okay. Now, in preparing this particular report, did you have any
24 tete-a-tete interviews, in other words, with primary sources?
25 A. I routinely talked to a lot of people about their opinions and
Page 1868
1 understanding of things and occasionally do a formal interview.
2 Q. Okay?
3 A. But I did not do any formal interviews specifically in preparation
4 for this report. I certainly benefited from the general discussions that
5 I've had over the years with various people and expect that that may be
6 reflected in some of the things that I said without being specifically
7 based on an individual interview.
8 Q. All right. Now, we've indicated that this is your eighth time
9 testifying. I believe Blaskic was in 1997. Your first book was in 1994.
10 From the -- from that period, 1997, say, until 2000 -- what are we in 6,
11 2006, did you interview any of the major actors in this story? And I'll
12 name a few, by the way.
13 A. I have interviewed some of the -- a few of the --
14 Q. Okay.
15 A. -- actors.
16 Q. Did you interview the late President Tudjman when he was alive to
17 find out what exactly he meant when he wrote X, Y, and Z in his particular
18 texts?
19 A. No.
20 Q. Did you -- did you make an attempt to interview him?
21 A. No.
22 Q. Did the Office of the Prosecution forbid you from trying to
23 interview President Tudjman, you know, because otherwise you're trying to
24 delve into his mind, trying to figure out what on earth man was thinking
25 at a particular time in history in the context of the events; right?
Page 1869
1 A. I'm sorry, would you repeat that question.
2 Q. All right. At some point in time you're trying to assess what
3 were the motives of the late President Tudjman at a particular historical
4 event; right? That's one of the things you're trying to achieve?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. All right. And it might have been good, might it not, to have
7 perhaps sought an interview with the late President Tudjman? As I
8 understand, he was a pretty open guy, welcomed reporters, welcomed
9 historians, he was an historian himself. Did you ever try to interview
10 him?
11 A. I did not.
12 Q. Did the Prosecution tell you stay away from Tudjman, don't
13 interview him?
14 A. No.
15 Q. Okay. Did they ever forbid you from interviewing anybody you
16 wanted to interview?
17 A. No.
18 Q. Okay. So you could have interviewed, for instance, Mate Boban?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Okay.
21 A. Price to his death.
22 Q. Prior to his deaths. Of course, he's no longer with us. Susak?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. If we're going to talk about some of the reports that you prepared
25 for earlier cases and some of the issues that you opined on, might we not
Page 1870
1 say that there were actors out there available for you to interview and
2 you chose not to?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. I did notice somewhere, I believe it was in the Kordic case, I
5 think it was the Kordic case but it might be the Blaskic, where you did
6 take rather some pride in saying that you interviewed Kljuic.
7 A. I stated that I did.
8 Q. Okay.
9 A. I don't know that I was bragging about it.
10 Q. Well, you weren't bragging. I'm sort of making light of the
11 matter, but you were asked if you met -- if you had conducted any
12 interviews or looked at any primary sources and you said, well, yes,
13 Kljuic. But then you stopped right there. It was full stop. Kljuic.
14 Stop. Nothing more. It didn't go on. So I take it with the exception of
15 Kljuic, you haven't interviewed anyone?
16 A. No. That's not the case.
17 Q. Okay. Well, when the late President Izetbegovic was alive, did
18 you ever interview him at least being an historian to try to find out what
19 was going through his mind during this period, especially when we see
20 sometimes he would say one thing in the morning or agree to something in
21 the morning and maybe change his mind in the afternoon? Did you ever try
22 to meet with the late President Izetbegovic?
23 A. No.
24 Q. Okay. And as I understand it, he was pretty open as well. Would
25 you agree with me?
Page 1871
1 A. Relatively.
2 Q. Okay. And you've made several trips to Sarajevo?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Okay. And as I understand it, the late President Izetbegovic
5 lived in Sarajevo.
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Okay. As does Silajdzic, who probably -- you know, he's an actor
8 that we'll hear about. He's around, right?
9 A. He is, yes.
10 Q. Ganic? He's around?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. Okay. So you never availed yourself to any of the key primary
13 sources in order at least to -- to factor in their opinions and their
14 views and their thoughts and their memories along with all the other data
15 in order for you to come up with a historical conclusion for which you
16 want this Trial Chamber to rest upon?
17 A. For better or worse, most every word ever spoken by
18 Mr. Izetbegovic and President Tudjman have been published in interviews
19 and in a host of books which are their collected works, and one of the
20 problems, I think, is asking historical actors about things that happened
21 a long time ago becomes a very difficult proposition because of faded
22 memories. People tend to recall what they have published about what they
23 said rather than what they actually did or said.
24 Q. So, for instance, if you were to have someone like Kljuic comes
25 in -- come in and testify, or Mr. Manolic come in and testify, or
Page 1872
1 Mr. Mesic to come and testify, since these are political actors and these
2 are long events that have since passed, we could not necessarily rely on
3 their independent memories? Is that what you're telling us?
4 A. I think that --
5 Q. We should be suspicious maybe?
6 A. One has to make a decision one witness at a time, and in some
7 cases the recollections are crystal clear. In other cases, they are
8 somewhat more hazy.
9 Q. Okay. But you don't know until you meet them, right, and talk to
10 them?
11 A. I don't think you know until you listen to them and pose some
12 questions to see what their recollection of events is, and you can then
13 weigh that against external documentation about the time in question.
14 Q. Exactly. And then you would know whether -- to some degree you
15 could see whether they're being honest and truthful with you.
16 A. It may be less a matter of being honest and truthful than having a
17 crisp recollection --
18 Q. Okay.
19 A. -- Of events.
20 Q. All right. Which is why maybe we shouldn't pay too much stock on
21 some of these politicians who will come here in court today or tomorrow
22 and testify on behalf of the Prosecution. We shouldn't necessarily jump
23 to embrace everything that they say?
24 MR. SCOTT: This is an argument, Your Honour.
25 MR. KARNAVAS: I will withdraw the question, Your Honour. I think
Page 1873
1 I've made the point.
2 MR. SCOTT: There was no point that was made at all, except
3 Mr. Karnavas's talking.
4 MR. KARNAVAS:
5 Q. Now, by the way you were asked earlier by Mr. Scott some of the
6 founding fathers of the HDZ. I believe I gave you a couple of names,
7 jogged your memory a little bit?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Okay. Manolic and Mesic?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. And --
12 A. Susak.
13 Q. All right. But let's say with those two since they're still
14 alive, do you know how long they were with the HDZ? I mean, I'm skipping
15 ahead, you know, so we --
16 A. No.
17 Q. Okay.
18 A. I can't recall -- I mean, Mesic is no longer with the HDZ.
19 Q. Right.
20 A. But I can't recall when he left the party.
21 Q. Okay. Was it before or after the Washington Agreement?
22 A. I don't recall, I'm sorry.
23 Q. Okay. Do you recall the date of the Washington Agreement, the
24 year, please?
25 A. Yes, it was negotiated in February and essentially has an
Page 1874
1 effective date of March of 1994.
2 Q. All right. And you don't recall whether he was with the party at
3 that time?
4 A. No.
5 Q. Okay. What about 1993 or 1992? Was he with the party then?
6 A. He certainly was with the party in 1992, was at the session in I
7 believe it was Siroki Brijeg that we spoke of earlier.
8 Q. Right.
9 A. And after that, when he left, I just don't recall precisely.
10 Q. Okay. And was Manolic in during that period as well?
11 A. I don't recall whether he left --
12 Q. Okay.
13 A. -- whether he was in the party at that time.
14 Q. All right. Now, before we leave the one topic on this historical
15 sources, because I think we have a little bit of time to finish this
16 chapter, as it were, and -- you indicated that a lot of historians
17 disagree on what happened, and generally they disagree on certain events.
18 A. They tend to disagree more about the significance or the context
19 of an event than they do about events themselves.
20 Q. All right.
21 A. Nevertheless, there are some historians who will deny that event X
22 took place, and others who will assert, yes, event Y took place without,
23 you know, the concurrence of other historians.
24 Q. Right. But for this particular conflict and for the former
25 Yugoslavia and the events that ensued and the break-up and why it broke up
Page 1875
1 and all of that stuff, there is a host of different groups of historians;
2 correct?
3 A. I'm not sure that to call them different groups is correct. I
4 would say there are many historians with many different views on the, for
5 example, issue, the causes of the break-up of Yugoslavia.
6 Q. Okay.
7 A. Some of them you can call schools or groups.
8 Q. Okay.
9 A. Others, I think, are unique in their understanding or approach.
10 Q. All right. Some are maybe pro-Serb?
11 A. Yes, they are.
12 Q. Or pro-Croat?
13 A. They are.
14 Q. Say may be anti-something, like anti-Serb or anti-Croat; right?
15 A. Some are, yes.
16 Q. Some may -- because I have the list over here. I took the time
17 actually. I was going to walk you through all of this, but for the sake
18 of saving the time, some look at the international -- the role that the
19 internationals played and some are favourable to the internationals and
20 some are disfavourable to them; right?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. And some tend to minimise events while others tend to place a
23 great deal of emphasis on certain events?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. And so within this host of various historical schools, you're just
Page 1876
1 one of them. In some issues you -- you may be right and on some issues
2 you may be -- may be off?
3 A. Well, on some issues I find widespread agreement with my position.
4 On a few issues I find much less agreement.
5 Q. Okay. Would you say that in looking at your report, if one were
6 to -- if one was well-versed with the literature in this -- in this area,
7 would you say that you have copiously looked at and -- and cited Croatian
8 sources?
9 A. I -- I have cited some Croatian sources.
10 Q. Okay.
11 A. Again, I haven't probably copiously looked at much of anything,
12 because that was not my intent starting out the project.
13 Q. Right. But I noticed that if you go back at the end of your --
14 when you look at the end notes you seem to rely quite a bit on -- on
15 newspaper articles, particularly Oslobodjenje. Would you agree with me on
16 that?
17 A. I rely some on the contemporary press.
18 Q. Well --
19 A. And in most cases I've tried to -- I mean, the ideal situation is
20 to balance a press report with an original document of some sort or
21 another source for a document or memoir.
22 Q. That's not the case, though, in your report, is it? If we look at
23 some of the footnotes, the end notes, we only see Oslobodjenje as the
24 source; correct?
25 A. In some cases you do, yes.
Page 1877
1 Q. Yes. Now, that particular newspaper --
2 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] A little slower, please, again,
3 Mr. Karnavas. Less fast, because the interpreters are having difficulty
4 in following.
5 MR. KARNAVAS: My apologies again. I'm looking at the clock and
6 I'm looking at all this material. It's not easy but I apologise to the
7 translators again.
8 Q. But Oslobodjenje, I think you left off there. Could you -- could
9 you inform us about this particular newspaper? It was a newspaper; right?
10 A. It was a daily newspaper. It was founded in 1943 and functioned
11 as the primary daily newspaper in Bosnia-Herzegovina right up until, I
12 would say, a few years ago when it -- when competitors emerged to
13 challenge it.
14 Q. Okay. Now, some might say, some might say that it was -- that
15 during the war or during the period -- I want to say pre-conflict, it
16 became sort of the mouthpiece of the SDA?
17 A. That would be wrong.
18 Q. Okay. They would be wrong.
19 A. The Oslobodjenje never became the mouthpiece of the SDA or its
20 rival would not have been founded in 1997 by financing sources close to
21 the SDA, namely Dnevni Avaz, and the record of Oslobodjenje throughout the
22 war has been pretty carefully studied in a book called Sarajevo Daily by
23 Tom Gjelten in which he clearly establishes the orientation of that
24 editorial board during the war.
25 Q. Okay. Well, again I guess it would -- all depends on who you
Page 1878
1 consult. I'm looking at David Rieff, I don't know how you pronounce it,
2 Rieff, Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the West. I'm sure
3 you're familiar with the work?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Okay. Now, he claims that -- and, of course, you cited one, I'm
6 citing another. He claims that Oslobodjenje was sympathetic to the
7 Bosnian government.
8 A. I think in -- in the late spring of 1992 that that's a correct
9 statement.
10 Q. All right.
11 A. Prior to that it is considerably more iffy. I think that
12 Oslobodjenje went through a couple of transformations in its primary
13 editorial formation, never really changed in its commitment to try to be
14 what we've called earlier the newspaper of record, to document important
15 statements and speeches and so on and to cover the Bosnian Assembly.
16 During the war, it certainly became a supporter of -- not a supporter, but
17 it -- it, for example, at times withheld key intelligence data that might
18 have been harmful had the information been released, that is might have
19 been harmful to the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
20 Q. Okay. Now, he goes on to say that it -- that it suffered
21 intellectual corruption because its editors supported Alija Izetbegovic
22 and his government uncritically, depicting the Muslims as the good guys
23 and the Serbs as fascist aggressors. Is he wrong when he states that
24 about the -- this particular newspaper?
25 A. I think, again one has to identify the period in time when that
Page 1879
1 took place. There was, after, let's say, April of 1992 a distinct change
2 in the portrayal of the Serb as Chetniks in -- somewhere around that time,
3 about the time that the conflict broke out. I don't know that it ceased
4 being critical of many of the Muslim players, and indeed, as I said, in
5 Oslobodjenje you can find incredibly even in these wartime periods
6 articles from Tanjug in Belgrade, because that was the best source of
7 information available at the time, and in fact, Tanjug functioned as a
8 primary gatherer of information that was cited in many newspapers at the
9 time.
10 Q. Okay. Now, as a general -- I'm not picking on this particular
11 newspaper, but Mark Thompson, in his book Forging War: The Media and
12 Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, are you familiar with that
13 particular author?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. He says that the media controlled by the -- by the SDA and the
16 Bosnian government was biased. Would you agree with me on that?
17 A. Again it depends on exactly what time frame one is speaking about.
18 Q. All right. Now -- but as a general proposition I've read
19 someplace and I can get the citation of an historian that says -- but by
20 and large historians are not the best of historians. It's a source but
21 it's not necessarily. You can't take it at face value, you need to test
22 whatever they're reporting. Would you agree with me on that?
23 A. Well, there's three different statements there.
24 Q. Okay.
25 A. Are they historians? No, they're not. Are they an essential
Page 1880
1 source for the historian's work? I would argue this that in period we're
2 talking about, absolutely. Do their statements need to be critically
3 examined before they're used? Absolutely. I would agree with that.
4 Q. Okay. Just -- since we're on newspapers, I just wanted to touch
5 upon -- I need the Court -- the usher's assistance. I just want to show
6 you one document very quickly. It was mentioned -- it was the Prosecution
7 document P 9539. I just want to bring did to your attention very briefly.
8 We're going to put it on the ELMO. This was already introduced. I just
9 wanted to point out something?
10 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Karnavas, we've almost
11 finished our sitting for today, just a few more minutes. It's almost
12 5.00. Bear that in mind, please.
13 MR. KARNAVAS: 30 seconds.
14 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes, because it would be time to
15 get to the bottom of the problems.
16 MR. KARNAVAS: What problems?
17 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] The issues.
18 MR. KARNAVAS: Oh, okay. I'm told it's on the screen. Hopefully
19 it will work.
20 Q. You saw this document earlier today; right?
21 A. Yes, I did.
22 Q. Now, you have to forgive me, but I don't -- I can't read this
23 language. If you go down to the -- right there. Thank you -- if you go
24 down, could you -- does it not say that it's the -- somebody recognises
25 Bosnia-Herzegovina under the subtitle? Do you see it?
Page 1881
1 A. The headline is "Four key facts." And the subhead or kicker
2 reads "The founding Assembly was participated in by representatives of
3 Croatia -- the Croatian and Slovenian parties."
4 Q. Yes. Go ahead. Continue.
5 A. I'm losing -- the right-hand side is cut off. [B/C/S spoken].
6 THE INTERPRETER: You're not going to allow the division and re --
7 MR. KARNAVAS:
8 Q. The last part of the sentence?
9 A. And it says HDZ recognises Bosnia and Herzegovina.
10 Q. I just wanted to end on that note since you brought this in. And
11 the date on this I see from the top it's 27 May, 1990. Okay.
12 MR. KARNAVAS: With that, thank you, Mr. President. For allowing
13 me for a few moments. I'm just trying to steal a few moments that were
14 taken away from me and I apologise to everyone for keeping them past 5.00.
15 Q. And thank you, sir. I'll see you tomorrow morning hopefully.
16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Well, it's five past five.
17 We're going to adjourn the meeting and reconvene tomorrow at 9.00, and
18 we're going to work until 1.45 tomorrow. I would like to thank you all.
19 See you again tomorrow morning. Thank you.
20 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 5.06 p.m.,
21 to be reconvened on Thursday, the 11th day
22 of May, 2006, at 9.00 a.m.
23
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