1 Monday, 26 June 2006

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 --- Upon commencing at 2.15 p.m.

5 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Registrar, would you call

6 the case, please.

7 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] Good afternoon, Mr. President.

8 Good afternoon to everyone. Case number IT-04-74-T, the Prosecutor versus

9 Prlic et al.

10 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. Registrar. I'd

11 like to say good afternoon to everybody present; the Prosecution, the

12 Defence counsel, Mr. Karnavas who is back with us, and also the accused

13 who are present here in the courtroom.

14 As you know, today we have a witness and he will take three days.

15 Before that, I'd like to make two oral rulings which were pending. The

16 first relates to expert -- the expert report of William Tolsanovic [as

17 interpreted] and General Major Pringle. On the 10th and 12th of May,

18 2006, the Prosecution sent in to the Chamber and Defence counsel expert --

19 the expert report of Mr. Tomljanovich and that of Mr. Pringle pursuant to

20 Rule 94 bis of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence. The Defence counsel

21 of the accused opposed the expert reports, questioning the witnesses, and

22 they also asked to be able to cross-examine the expert witnesses. The

23 Chamber deliberated the issue, and wishes to underline first of all that

24 the Defence counsel did not provide any specific reasons justifying their

25 opposition to the request made by the Prosecutor on the 10th and 12th of

1 May. On the other hand, the Chamber wishes to observe that General

2 Pringle has already testified as an expert witness in another case before

3 the International Tribunal.

4 Having read the expert reports and the curriculum vitae of the

5 authors, the Chamber considers that William Tomljanovich is very well able

6 to testify because he -- as an expert witness on the subjects that he

7 deals with in his report, the organs and structure of Herceg-Bosna, and

8 that also applies to General Pringle with respect to subjects related to

9 military issues, as a military commander.

10 Pursuant to a request made by the Defence, the Chamber considers

11 that William Tomljanovich and General Pringle should testify in person

12 before the Tribunal in order to be able to answer questions put to them by

13 the counsel during the cross-examination. The Defence counsel will be

14 able at that point to contest the validity and relevance of the

15 conclusions contained in the expert reports. The Trial Chamber also

16 wishes to observe that when these two witnesses testify and when they are

17 cross-examined by the Defence, that on the basis of all that they will be

18 able to decide what probative value and weight to give to their reports

19 and testimony. Therefore, I wanted to tell you that the two expert

20 witnesses will be appearing and the Defence teams will be able to start

21 the cross-examination stage after which the Chamber will rule on the

22 admissibility of the reports and the relevance and probative value of the

23 subject matter and contents of those reports.

24 I'm now going to ask us to go into private session, because

25 there's another ruling that demands private session.

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15 [Open session]

16 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] We're in open session,

17 Mr. President.

18 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. We're in open

19 session. Go ahead, please.

20 MR. KARNAVAS: Thank you, Mr. President. With respect to your --

21 your decision concerning expert Tomljanovich, while I don't take exception

22 with the fact that he has a Ph.D. in history, given the content matter,

23 given who he works for and so on and so forth, we on the Defence side -

24 and I think I can speak for everyone regarding this issue - do not see him

25 as an expert. Accordingly, with leave, we certainly would like to leave

1 that -- we would like -- we would be filing some sort of a pleading

2 expressing our collective position with respect to why Mr. Tomljanovich

3 should not testify as an expert, but he might be competent to testify as

4 something other than an expert. And the reason for that, Mr. President,

5 is because obviously when it comes to giving weight, I believe in many

6 jurisdictions, national jurisdictions, even international jurisdictions,

7 weight is normally given more to an expert as opposed to a layperson. And

8 I would -- I would suggest that at least the Trial Chamber ponder the

9 suggestion that I'm making that, prior to him being designated an expert

10 in the field in which he's going to testify, as opposed to being an expert

11 in history, that the Prosecutor first lay a foundation and then request

12 that he be deemed an expert by the -- by the Trial Chamber. In other

13 words, seek the Trial Chamber's imprimatur before he testifies as an

14 expert. That would be my request, Mr. President.

15 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. Karnavas. We

16 have taken note of what you have just told us. There's a decision that

17 was rendered, on the other hand, last week, which was recorded on Friday

18 concerning an issue -- issuance of an appeal request to a decision having

19 to do with the co-counsel in the Alaburic team, and that decision was

20 taken by a majority vote, and I personally had a separate opinion with

21 respect to that decision.

22 There was another decision taken with respect to the computer,

23 laptops that the accused could use in the courtroom. That decision will

24 be recorded with the Registry over the next few days.

25 The Trial Chamber over the past few days looked into the question

1 of our schedule for September, October, November, and December, and we

2 decided, as we had already indeed decided at the very beginning, at the

3 outset, to sit for just four days a week; Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and

4 Thursday. It is our assessment that the very impressive quantity of

5 documents that are being tendered makes it incumbent upon us to read those

6 documents, and if we don't have enough time to read the documents, we're

7 not going to be able to do our job properly. So for that reason, as has

8 been the case so far, we shall be sitting four days a week with just a

9 light difference. So far we were able to work two days a week morning and

10 afternoon. However, as the Srebrenica trial is going to go ahead, we're

11 going to have to limit our sittings to Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday

12 morning or afternoon, depending on the schedule that the Srebrenica Trial

13 Chamber has.

14 So I should like to invite the Prosecution to take that on board

15 when it decides on its witnesses. Two months later we're going to see

16 whether we're keeping up to schedule on time or whether we're lagging

17 behind. For the moment we're still within the proper time limits, but if

18 there is any lagging behind, then we will see what we can do and reassess

19 the situation. But for the moment, everything is fine. We're all

20 present. Nobody is ill. We're all in the courtroom so that we can all

21 fulfil our duties and obligations and the demands of this trial.

22 Yes, go ahead, madam.

23 MS. NOZICA: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour. For several

24 days now I have been thinking about the tendering of exhibits of Witness

25 Hujdur. We had to get everything in a very short space of time, so would

1 you allow me to tender the exhibits now? I only have three.

2 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes. With respect to the Hujdur

3 exhibits, we haven't made a ruling there yet. No decision has yet been

4 made. Everything depends on a far more general question, and that is the

5 request made by the Prosecutor with respect to the admissibility of a

6 number exhibits relating to the previous witness. Mr. Murphy last week

7 also intervened, so we're going to make a ruling that is going to take

8 into account all the exhibits, and once we render our ruling, we'll come

9 back to Hujdur and the exhibits you wish to tender.

10 So it's a little premature for the time being. We're putting

11 everything on standby as everything will depend on our decision ruling.

12 MS. NOZICA: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour.

13 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] You can, of course, give us the

14 numbers of the exhibits you'd like to have tendered, and then we'll make a

15 definite decision in due course. Please continue.

16 MS. NOZICA: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour, that's just

17 what I wanted to do. The Defence of Mr. Stojic would like to tender the

18 following exhibits into evidence: 2D 00054, 2D 00055, and 2D 00056.

19 Thank you.

20 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you.

21 I'm now going to turn to Mr. Scott. The incoming witness, how

22 much time do you think you'll need? We're going to be sitting for three

23 days this week; six hours tomorrow, six hours the day after, plus the four

24 hours today. So we're going to devote about 16 hours to this witness,

25 taking into consideration examination-in-chief and cross-examination.

1 Now, how long do you think you're going to take with the

2 examination-in-chief, Mr. Scott?

3 MR. SCOTT: Good afternoon, Mr. President, Your Honours. I hope

4 to be able to finish this witness in something around the range of six to

5 seven hours. It is my hope that -- hopefully much better than that, but

6 the witness sometimes has a tendency to give rather long answers, and so

7 I'm allowing for that possibility. However, it is our goal to use the

8 time in such a way that we should be able to finish the witness this week,

9 allowing ample time for cross-examination, Your Honour.

10 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. Thank you. So if

11 you take up six hours, that leaves us with 10 hours for the Defence.

12 Mr. Karnavas.

13 MR. KARNAVAS: Thank you, Mr. President. I no longer need to go

14 to the gymnasium to keep in shape because I'm carrying documents for

15 witnesses such as the one that's coming. These are the documents that we

16 have to go through. They're quite -- quite a number of them. He's a

17 critical witness. I don't want to be pessimistic, but I don't think that

18 there will be enough time, 10 hours, for the cross-examination of this

19 gentleman, given the scope of his -- of his testimony, because it goes to

20 all sorts of things, especially - especially - joint criminal enterprise.

21 I just mention this.

22 We on this side will be extremely diligent in trying to be as

23 efficient as possible, but I just throw that out right now. He's an

24 extremely important witness, and of course I think we may need to bring

25 him back if we're not finished with him. I just mention this, although

1 I'm not saying that we can't. At this point it seems almost impossible,

2 because, as I said, there are a lot of documents and we can't just spend

3 30 seconds, and we're going to try to tell a story, as the Prosecution is

4 going to do under direct.

5 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you. But let's not waste

6 any more time. So without further ado, let's have the witness introduced

7 into the courtroom.

8 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, while we're doing that, to use the time

9 efficiently, I meant to respond and I wanted to do it to use as little

10 time as possible, about Mr. Karnavas's comments concerning the witness

11 Tomljanovich. Your Honour, it is the Prosecution position the Prosecution

12 has already tendered Mr. Tomljanovich as an expert and the Court has

13 already ruled that he is accepted as an expert. So I am not sure what it

14 is Mr. Karnavas seems -- he wants to litigate it a second time, but as far

15 as I'm concerned, he's been tendered as an expert, he's been accepted as

16 an expert, and he will be presented as a live witness.

17 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you.

18 MR. KARNAVAS: In just in one sentence: He is an employee. He is

19 a bought-and-paid-for employee of the Prosecution. He's not an expert.

20 He's not independent. He's an employee. It's like me having my

21 co-counsel testify. That's what I mean. I'm not saying he's not

22 competent, but he's not the same as some independent individual.

23 [The witness entered court]

24 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. The Chamber has all

25 the elements before it now. We have given an oral ruling a moment ago.

1 We have also taken note of what you have said. We are going to discuss

2 the matter amongst ourselves this week.

3 WITNESS: STJEPAN KLJUIC

4 [Witness answered through interpreter]

5 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Sir, would you stand, please.

6 I'm going to ask you first of all whether you understand what I'm saying

7 in a language you understand. If you do, please say "I understand."

8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, I can hear you.

9 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. You have been called

10 to testify as a witness by the Prosecution. Before you take the solemn

11 declaration, could you tell me your first name, last name, and date of

12 birth, please.

13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] My name is Stjepan Kljuic. I was

14 born in Sarajevo on the 19th of December, 1939.

15 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] What is your present profession

16 or your activity?

17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] At present I'm a counsellor for

18 foreign policy, advisor for foreign policy in the Presidency of

19 Bosnia-Herzegovina, as ...

20 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you. Have you already

21 testified before this Tribunal or another Tribunal on the events that took

22 place in your country in 1992, 1993 or 1994?

23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, several times.

24 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. Can you tell me

25 quickly what cases you testified in.

1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I was called as an expert witness to

2 confirm certain documents, authenticate certain documents in the Kordic

3 trial, and I was a legal witness in the Milosevic and Krajisnik trials.

4 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you. Will you now read

5 the solemn declaration.

6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will speak

7 the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

8 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you. Please be seated.

9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I would like to say

10 something before I begin my testimony. [In English] May I?

11 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] What does -- what subject is it

12 on?

13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] My problem.

14 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] What is your problem?

15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] First of all, I refuse to be a

16 Prosecution witness, and I was subpoenaed to be a Court witness. So I

17 have come here not through my own free will, but I was taken into custody

18 and brought here. As a citizen of Bosnia-Herzegovina, I respect the

19 decision of our state which is binding on all the citizens of

20 Bosnia-Herzegovina to place themselves at the disposal of the Tribunal.

21 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] And that is the problem that you

22 wish to raise.

23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Absolutely so.

24 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Now, with respect to that

25 problem, you know that this Tribunal has been functioning for the past 10

1 years and is functioning according to a confrontational procedure, that is

2 to say the Prosecution calls witnesses, and the Defence calls witnesses.

3 That is the general principle. Now, if somebody is quoted, name comes up

4 quoted by either of the parties, that person is obliged to come to the

5 Tribunal. If the party calling the individual encounters a difficulty,

6 then the Trial Chamber issues a subpoena so that that person can come into

7 the Tribunal to testify. That is the principle of this International

8 Tribunal, but it is also the principle applied in all international

9 tribunals. When somebody's name is listed, they have to appear.

10 You said a moment ago that the Trial Chamber can decide itself

11 that it would like to hear such-and-such a witness. That is because their

12 -- the witness comes in when there seems to be a gap. In Blaskic, for

13 example, there were witnesses that came in following a subpoena from the

14 Trial Chamber. In Kubura and Hadzihasanovic, there was also a witness of

15 that kind. But as we haven't got a general view of the overall case at

16 this stage, we didn't want to call you as a Trial Chamber witness. So

17 therefore, you are coming as a Prosecution witness. You could have come

18 as a Defence witness. But once you have taken the solemn declaration, you

19 are a witness of justice. You are not a witness of either party. The

20 fact that you have taken the solemn declaration means that you are a

21 witness of justice, and that is what I wanted to explain to you.

22 You may be seated.

23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you. That is what I wanted.

24 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] I'd like now to give you some

25 additional explanation. As I told you a moment ago, we are in this common

1 law proceedings, which means that the witness first of all answers

2 questions put to him by the Prosecution. Once the Prosecution have

3 completed the examination-in-chief, the witness is then cross-examined by

4 the Defence counsel, and also by the accused if they wish to ask

5 questions.

6 The four Judges sitting in front of you can also ask you questions

7 during the proceedings at any time. Obviously, in a national system of

8 continental law, it would be me who asks the questions to begin with and

9 then the others follow. But as we're in a different system here, it is

10 the Prosecution that starts off by asking you the questions, and then the

11 Judges can ask for clarification when they feel necessary. The Judges can

12 also ask you questions without going through me. The Judges are equal, so

13 no Judge is above another Judge, so the Judges are free to ask their

14 questions themselves and don't have to go through me.

15 If a question seems to you be complicated, then you can ask the

16 person asking you it to reformulate the question. The important thing is

17 to hear what you have to say in response. The Prosecution and the

18 Defence, when they're asking their questions, will also be showing you

19 documents, most likely, different documents in order to see what your

20 opinion of them is and what you know about them. You will be, of course,

21 telling the truth. There is no question of mendacity in the Tribunal.

22 That goes without saying. I know that you have understood this full well,

23 how important the solemn declaration you took is.

24 If you encounter a problem during the proceedings, please let us

25 know. We're going to be working for an hour and a half and then take a

1 20-minute break, after which we shall resume for another hour and a half.

2 So today we're going to take that break at approximately 20 to 4.00. We

3 shall reconvene at 4.00 and have another break at about 5.00, and go on

4 working until 7.00 p.m.

5 As your testimony's important, you're going to be testifying for

6 three days; Monday, Tuesday morning and afternoon, Wednesday morning and

7 Wednesday afternoon. So that is the time envisaged for your testimony as

8 both parties consider it to be important. It will take three days.

9 That, in general terms, is how we're going to conduct these

10 proceedings. As I said a moment ago, don't hesitate to let me know if you

11 have any difficulties whatsoever.

12 Having said that, I turn to Mr. Scott and give him the floor for

13 the examination-in-chief.

14 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Mr. President.

15 Examination by Mr. Scott:

16 Q. Mr. Kljuic, before we start, can you once again state your full

17 name and spell both your first and last name for the record, please.

18 A. Do you want me to stand up or remain sitting?

19 Q. You can just give us your name, please.

20 A. [In English] Okay. [Interpretation] Stjepan Kljuic, and it's

21 spelled S-t-j-e-p-a-n, K-l-j-u-i-c.

22 Q. Thank you, Mr. Kljuic. I was asked to assist -- some of the

23 recordkeepers with that.

24 Sir, I'm going to go through some of your background to give the

25 Judges an overview leading up to your testimony today. So I'll move

1 through this fairly quickly. As you've already indicated, sir, I

2 understand you were born in Sarajevo on the 19th of December, 1939.

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. Your ethnic origin is Croat, and you consider yourself to be a

5 Roman Catholic; is that correct?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. You studied philosophy and literature in both Zagreb and later in

8 Sarajevo; is that correct?

9 A. Yes.

10 Q. You worked for approximately 35 years as a journalist?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. During most of this time, perhaps all of this time you would

13 consider, you were what you consider to be a dissident in the communist

14 system that then existed in the former Yugoslavia; is that correct?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. I understand that you were a journalist at the Sarajevo-based

17 paper Oslobodjenje from 1964 to 1971; is that correct?

18 A. That's how it was.

19 Q. Then you worked for a paper called Vjesnik, which I understand to

20 be a Zagreb-based newspaper, but you were based in Sarajevo from 1971 to

21 1990; is that correct?

22 A. Yes. Before that, I was thrown out of Oslobodjenje. I didn't

23 leave the Oslobodjenje office of my own free will. I was dismissed as

24 unsuitable. The real reason was my struggle for the equality of the

25 Croatian language.

1 Q. From September, 1990, to at least February of 1992, you were the

2 president of the political party known as the HDZ, or Croatian Democratic

3 Union, of Bosnia-Herzegovina; is that correct?

4 A. Yes.

5 Q. I should have preceded that by saying you joined the HDZ political

6 party in 1990.

7 A. Yes. I was a member and one of the organisers of the HDZ of

8 Bosnia-Herzegovina.

9 Q. And you served for a time as the political secretary of the party;

10 is that correct?

11 A. Yes. Political secretary and acting president.

12 Q. And your time as president of the party, did that continue from

13 approximately September, 1990, to at least February, 1992?

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. In addition to your positions in the political party, is it

16 correct, sir, that you were a member of the Presidency of Bosnia and

17 Herzegovina from approximately the 9th of December, 1990, until the 4th of

18 November, 1992, and again from the 24th of October, 1993, until October,

19 1996?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. In June, 1994, you formed a political party called the Republican

22 Party; is that correct?

23 A. Yes.

24 Q. Does that party still exist today?

25 A. It does, but for four years now I have not been active in

1 politics. I have withdrawn from political life.

2 Q. Can you tell us in just a couple of words, a few words, what the

3 political philosophy or platform of that political party is, or at least

4 was at the time that you founded the party and were active in it?

5 A. It was the first attempt to create in Bosnia and Herzegovina a

6 multinational West European party which was to reconcile the conflict

7 between the former communists and the national parties that emerged at the

8 first democratic elections in 1990. In the general chaos in Bosnia, its

9 aim was to try and find a way out of that chaos. Initially the party was

10 very well-received by the citizens, but as time went by, we received no

11 assistance from the West, and the national parties, after the end of the

12 aggression in Bosnia-Herzegovina, grew ever stronger and are still in

13 power in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

14 Q. Now, sir, with that background in mind, I'd like to go back to

15 some of these things in considerably more detail in some respects. In

16 terms of -- you said a moment ago that you were not only a member but a

17 founder of the political party HDZ-BiH. Can you tell us again briefly

18 what you did in terms of assisting in organising or establishing that

19 party?

20 A. The first political parties on the territory of the former

21 Yugoslavia were established in Slovenia and Croatia. This was the route

22 democratisation took, from the west towards the east. There came a time

23 when, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, political parties were founded. Some of

24 them, such as the Party of Democratic Action, which was the first to be

25 founded, did not reveal their ethnic and religious identity in their

1 title, but according to their platform and their membership, it was an

2 exclusively Muslim party. As the Croatian Democratic Union had been

3 founded in Zagreb and won at the elections, it was quite natural for the

4 Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina to establish our own party on that

5 political basis. We had a lot of assistance from the people in Zagreb,

6 because once democratisation took hold in the former Yugoslavia, the

7 Croatian emigres population, the Croatian diaspora, provided enormous

8 funds which all went to Zagreb and helped them to win the election.

9 Zagreb then took on the task of assisting the founding of the HDZ of

10 Bosnia-Herzegovina.

11 However, you should know that the situation was very complicated.

12 After 45 years of totalitarian regime, all of a sudden parties can be

13 founded, and various ideas cropped up. Zagreb had a list of people. Some

14 of them had arrived from abroad, and some citizens from Bosnia-Herzegovina

15 wanted to become involved.

16 I have to say that the first problem that arose was what the

17 status of the party would be, whether it would be a branch of the Croatian

18 HDZ from Zagreb and whether it would be called the HDZ for Bosnia and

19 Herzegovina or whether it would be an autochthonous Bosnian Herzegovinian

20 party of Croat origin called the HDZ of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

21 Of course, I was in favour of it being an independent political

22 party, the HDZ of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and that's where major problem

23 arose, when the party convention was held in Sarajevo on the 18th of

24 August, 1990.

25 During the preparations, I was at the head of a significant group

1 of intellectuals from Sarajevo, but we were not given the appropriate

2 importance, and the president of the coordinating committee was Mr. Davor

3 Perinovic.

4 During the preparations for the party convention, there was some

5 very dramatic situations, because the Croatian Prime Minister - Croatia

6 had already established its own government - arrived in Sarajevo. But on

7 the 17th of August, in the evening, there was an incident in Knin. On

8 that day, the Serbs in Knin set up barricades and started causing

9 incidents all over Croatia. The Croatian police set off in helicopters

10 intending for the police forces of the Republic of Croatia to calm down

11 the situation. However, the JNA, with its aircraft, neutralised the

12 helicopters and forced them to land.

13 That night in Knin, there was an armed rebellion.

14 Q. Sir, I'm going to ask you to come back, please, to the question of

15 the formation of the party. And the convention that you've indicated

16 existed -- the convention that was held on the 18th of August, 1990, did

17 you attend that convention?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. And you've indicated that a number of officials, or at least you

20 mentioned the Prime Minister, that some people from Zagreb, from the

21 Croatian government or party in Zagreb, came to the convention. Can you

22 tell us who those people were, please.

23 A. Well, I tried to explain to you that Mr. Manolic arrived, but when

24 the incident in Knin occurred, as he had come on the plane belonging to

25 the Republic of Croatia, Sarajevo airport was empty, but a truck hit his

1 plane.

2 Q. Apart from Mr. Manolic, who were the other people who came from

3 Croatia?

4 A. There were Dalibor Brozovic.

5 Q. Who he was?

6 A. He is a member of the academy. He was born in Bosnia and

7 Herzegovina. He is a prominent Croatian person, active in culture. Then

8 there was Gojko Susak, minister from the emigres community, and the

9 general secretary of the HDZ, Miljenko Zagar. There were very many people

10 from abroad, very many people from our municipalities, from Neum to Brcko,

11 municipalities in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Croats from Sarajevo among whom

12 were the intellectuals who were candidates for the leadership of the

13 Croatian people in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

14 Q. Can you tell the Judges, please, why it was that the senior

15 officials of either the Croatian government or the Croatian party the HDZ,

16 why they were in attendance at the convention in Sarajevo.

17 A. It's quite simple: They wanted to help us, to help us create a

18 party which would be in political harmony with the HDZ in Zagreb. You

19 should know that at that time the national interests of the Croats in

20 Bosnia-Herzegovina and the national interests of the Croats in Croatia

21 were more or less identical. The idea was to create a democratic

22 Yugoslavia with more autonomy for the republics based on the 1974

23 constitution.

24 Q. At the convention on the 18th of August, 1990, you mentioned a

25 Mr. Perinovic, I believe. Mr. Perinovic was elected as president of the

1 party, Mr. Davor Perinovic; is that correct?

2 A. Yes. Davor Perinovic and his people, because he submitted a list

3 of his people, including -- well, it was a very heterogenous list. Most

4 of these people were not familiar with the real situation in

5 Bosnia-Herzegovina, and they were very hard-line, demanding things that

6 were not appropriate at the time in that political situation. Therefore,

7 I, as the leader of the group of intellectuals from Sarajevo - and none of

8 these people I was the leader of - entered the leadership of the party.

9 Q. Well, to use your terminology, sir, what were some of the "very

10 hard-line demanding things," that you say Mr. Perinovic's group made?

11 A. One can see that from the speeches held before the convention

12 itself. There was a rally held in Prozor, several speeches made to the

13 Sarajevo press, and I have to say that the Croats in Sarajevo found these

14 speeches hair raising, and they refused to become members of the HDZ at

15 that point.

16 Q. They were hair raising in what way?

17 A. Well, for example, Mr. Perinovic said that the Muslims were

18 actually Croats of the Islamic faith, that Croatia should extend as far as

19 the River Drina. Well, you'd have to find this in the documents, but

20 these were terrible statements and made at a time when the regime was

21 still a communist one. And this did not correspond with the real

22 political aspirations of the Croatian people and, moreover, were not

23 realistic at all.

24 Q. Who was it that selected or named Mr. Perinovic to be a candidate

25 for president and then indeed elected president? Who was behind him?

1 A. Well, you see, some 10 days previously they had established a

2 steering committee which included the representatives of some

3 municipalities and Mr. Perinovic, and of course they had the support of

4 the HDZ from Zagreb. The main man at that time was the Secretary-General,

5 Miljenko Zagar, who was in constant communication the night before with

6 our group and with Perinovic's group.

7 Q. All right. Let's go forward, and I think some of these other

8 things will come up again as the chronology unfolds, sir. At the

9 convention on the 18th of August, 1990, is it correct that the party also

10 adopted a written statute or constitution?

11 A. Yes, this was envisioned. The atmosphere was very heated. An

12 agenda was adopted, a statute, rules, the conditions for membership, but

13 all this was done in purely formal terms and there was political

14 discussion among the representatives of various regions, and a document

15 was finally adopted.

16 MR. SCOTT: With the registry's assistance, could I have the

17 witness shown Exhibit 13 -- well, P 00013.

18 Q. Sir, if you're able to look at that document, and it may be that

19 you may want the ushers to assist you if you want to page through the

20 document a bit. When you've had a chance to look at that document, sir,

21 could you tell us -- could you confirm that that is the statute of the

22 Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia-Herzegovina as adopted on the 18th of

23 August, 1990?

24 A. I had such a document in my hands because all those attending the

25 convention were given a copy.

1 Q. And does this appear to you, sir, to be a copy of that same

2 document?

3 A. Could you go back to Articles 3 and 4, please. And could you zoom

4 in a bit, please. It seems to be, yes.

5 Q. All right. Now, sir, you've mentioned some issues concerning

6 Mr. Perinovic. Was he then removed a short time -- a few days later, a

7 short time after the convention, as president of the party?

8 A. Yes.

9 Q. Now, it's at least been commonly reported that the reason -- or

10 one of the reasons that Mr. Perinovic was removed was because he was found

11 in fact to be at least part -- in part a Serb; is that correct?

12 A. There was mention of that, but that was not the chief reason for

13 his dismissal, his Serb origin. A woman who was a member of the HDZ

14 brought his baptismal certificate from Bileca, showing that he was a Serb

15 actually.

16 Q. Could you tell us, then, how you became named acting president in

17 this situation?

18 A. Before the founding, I had been a candidate, first for political

19 secretary and later on, when some people gave up, I assumed the duty of

20 political secretary and acting president. When on the 17th of August, in

21 the evening, our demands were not adopted, I broke off negotiations and

22 left. As I was leaving, Milenko Zagar, the general secretary, asked me

23 whether this was my final word. I said yes. And I said, "Sooner or

24 later, you'll come knocking on my door."

25 Q. All right. Well, let's jump, sir, to about the 5th or 6th of

1 September, 1990. Did you have occasion to be travelling through Zagreb

2 about that time?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. And tell us what happened at that time.

5 A. I was approached by some people who said, "Come with us." When I

6 got into a Buick, on the back right-hand seat, I said, "Gentlemen, it's

7 quite clear we're not going to the Petrinjska police station." After a

8 while, they brought me to President Tudjman.

9 MR. KARNAVAS: Excuse me, sir, excuse me. I wonder whether all

10 this information came out during the proofing session, because I don't

11 believe we received any proofing notes, and this seems to be rather new

12 material. So if we could have some -- a clarification on this point.

13 MR. SCOTT: My understanding, it's in previous statements of this

14 witness, including his testimony in other cases.

15 MR. KARNAVAS: I should note, Your Honour, that we only have one

16 statement, one prior statement. Which reminds me, as I understand, during

17 the Kordic case when the gentleman testified, he indicated that he had

18 given a statement which had not been provided to the Defence. Also, I

19 should note, in the Kordic case again, Mr. Nice was reading from some sort

20 of a summary, again as I understand, it's not part of the EDS and we don't

21 have it. So I don't want to disrupt the flow of the direct examination,

22 but perhaps at the break the Prosecution could be so kind as to provide us

23 that material. Thank you.

24 MR. SCOTT: As far as I know, Your Honour, there is no additional

25 material to be provided.

1 MR. KARNAVAS: Is the Prosecutor then conceding the point that

2 there was no statement given by this gentleman prior to his testimony in

3 Kordic? Because that's what the gentleman testified to under oath, and I

4 can provide the page number to the Trial Chamber if necessary. We don't

5 have that statement. We have one statement that the gentleman gave in the

6 year 2000. I'm simply asking the Trial Chamber to instruct the Prosecutor

7 to perhaps look and see whether there was an oversight.

8 MR. SCOTT: I'll make further inquiries, Your Honour, of course.

9 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Scott, what do you have to

10 say to that? I have the impression that you are -- that you are examining

11 on the basis of a statement provided by the witness in the Kordic trial,

12 and this is a statement not provided to the Defence, if I understand

13 correctly.

14 MR. SCOTT: Well, first of all, Your Honour, to clarify, I am

15 examining from my own private outline, which has nothing to do with the

16 witness. It's something I prepared for purposes of my examination.

17 As to the other -- whether there is other statements by this

18 witness, I'll certainly make further inquiry. Indeed he's testified in

19 three other cases, as he's indicated to this Chamber a few minutes ago, in

20 the Kordic case, in the Krajisnik case, and in the Milosevic case, and he

21 has given extensive evidence and information in these cases. But the

22 short answer is, Your Honour, I'll make further inquiry. If there is

23 indeed anything that should be disclosed, then it will be.

24 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Continue, please.

25 MR. SCOTT:

1 Q. So when you went to see -- when you were taken to see President

2 Tudjman, what happened at that time?

3 A. Quite simply, he asked me whether I would work for our cause. I

4 said, "General, I have been doing that for 30 years." He then talked to

5 me about how I might agree to lead the Croatian Community of

6 Bosnia-Herzegovina [as interpreted]. As I was a professional journalist,

7 at the time working for a German radio station broadcasting in our

8 language and I had signed an agreement with the German government, I was

9 duty-bound to spend 10 days in Germany presenting the leaders of the

10 parties in Bosnia and Herzegovina to our citizens living and working in

11 Germany. In the meantime, a meeting was held in Zagreb of all the

12 municipal representatives of the organisations of the HDZ and the

13 leadership of the Zagreb HDZ, and they decided that I should take over the

14 role of president. I learned about this while I was in Frankfurt.

15 After that, we arrived in Sarajevo, and on the 16th of September,

16 the Main Board of the HDZ of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which had this authority

17 under the statute, appointed me acting president.

18 Q. Sir, I want to go back to page 27 of the transcript, line 4. I

19 don't know if it was a translation or transcription error perhaps or

20 perhaps you misspoke. It says in reference to President Tudjman, it says,

21 "He then talked to me about how I might agree to lead the Croatian

22 Community of Bosnia and Herzegovina." Did you mean to say the Croatian

23 Democratic Union or HDZ of Bosnia-Herzegovina?

24 A. I said the Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

25 That's a political party.

1 Q. Yes. So you returned to Sarajevo. On the 16th of September there

2 was a meeting of the Main Board; is that correct?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. And you were named acting president at that time?

5 A. Yes.

6 MR. SCOTT: If I could have -- ask that the witness please be

7 shown Exhibit P 09617. For Your Honours, that will be in the second --

8 that particular document will be in the second bundle. Most of them will

9 be pretty much in the order of the bundle, but that one is not.

10 Q. I missed the first part of that document, sir, but have you seen

11 enough of that document? Can you tell us, please, is that a record of the

12 meeting on the 16th of September, 1990, indicating the fact that you were

13 named acting party -- excuse me, acting president of the party at that

14 time?

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. Did the party also elect vice-presidents and a secretary at that

17 time?

18 A. Yes.

19 Q. If you recall, can you tell us, who were the three persons elected

20 as vice-presidents on the 16th of September, 1990?

21 A. One of them was Ante Bakovic, the other Nikola Krizanac, and I

22 can't recall who the third was.

23 Q. The third person Abid Hodzic?

24 A. Yes, yes. He was -- he had been vice-president with Perinovic as

25 well.

1 Q. And was he a person of Muslim ethnicity?

2 A. He was a Muslim, but he represented himself as a Croat.

3 Q. Mr. Ignac Kostroman was elected as secretary; is that correct?

4 A. I was the general secretary. He was the business secretary.

5 Q. All right.

6 MR. KARNAVAS: Your Honour, if I could just make one

7 clarification. The Prosecutor indicated that on this particular day the

8 Main Board met. From the document it's rather clear that it was not the

9 Main Board but the Executive Board. Perhaps the gentleman could verify

10 that for the record, and then perhaps he could give us a distinction if

11 there is one.

12 MR. SCOTT:

13 Q. Mr. Kljuic, if you could look at the top of the document and

14 correctly identify the party -- excuse me, the part of the party, the

15 board, or function or apparatus of the party that met on that day that

16 puts you in this position.

17 A. Yes, it's quite clear that this is the Executive Board. The Main

18 Board was in Zagreb. The Main Board is a broader body. The Executive

19 Board is a more narrow body of leadership.

20 MR. KOVACIC: Your Honour.

21 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes, Counsel.

22 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I don't like

23 interrupting, but when you read this sentence in line 15, it would appear

24 -- when he says the Main Board was in Zagreb, he said in the context of

25 the Croatian language that the meeting was in Zagreb, not the Main Board,

1 whereas this can be interpreted as saying that the Main Board was in

2 Zagreb. He meant the meeting of the Main Board was in Zagreb, the

3 session. So if we could clear that up.

4 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes. Thank you for explaining

5 that to us, Counsel Kovacic.

6 MR. SCOTT:

7 Q. Mr. Kljuic, I want to make sure that it's your testimony. If

8 there's anything about what's been said in the last few minutes that you

9 want to clarify, please do so; otherwise, we will go forward.

10 A. We can go forward, yes.

11 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I do apologise, but

12 while I was speaking and when the -- you intervened, he said yes, the

13 session was in Zagreb. I can't see that in the record. It must be there.

14 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes. Sir, could you confirm

15 that the session took place in Zagreb so that we have that on the

16 transcript.

17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. The meeting of the Main Board

18 of the HDZ of Bosnia-Herzegovina was held in Zagreb.

19 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. That has been

20 recorded.

21 MR. SCOTT: Can you -- can the registry please next show the

22 witness Exhibit 15, or P 00015.

23 Q. Can you tell us, sir, is this a -- the records of a meeting of a

24 session of the Presidency, the Executive Board, and members of the

25 Municipal Board of the HDZ of Bosnia-Herzegovina meeting on the 8th of

1 October, 1990?

2 A. In Sarajevo, yes.

3 Q. And did you have a delegation attending this meeting from Zagreb,

4 including Mr. Susak?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. And what was the general business conducted at this meeting, if

7 you can just briefly describe it to us?

8 A. Well, I have to say that it was just before the elections, and we

9 were supposed to organise a massive participation in the voting of our

10 workers abroad. And since Mr. Susak was the minister for persons abroad

11 of the government of Croatia, we didn't want to make a parallel project.

12 What we wanted to do was, via this ministry, we wanted to inform and

13 involve as many of our nationals to vote in the Bosnia-Herzegovina

14 elections that were held on the 18th of November and 4th of December,

15 1990.

16 The communist press gave large-scale publicity to Verinovic [as

17 interpreted], and there was no reason to do that except as a political

18 diversion. When I was appointed on the 16th of September, the very next

19 day I asked that the Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia-Herzegovina be

20 registered as a party under my presidency, and the court accepted that

21 registration, thereby rejecting any complaints by Perinovic. But in the

22 press several days after that, there were many of his statements in which

23 he disclosed some of his conflicts he had had with Zagreb and with certain

24 individuals from Zagreb. And at that meeting, and we had the Municipal

25 Board of Sarajevo represented, we expected that we would have large-scale

1 support. However, there were these local leaders who had to prepare for

2 the elections, and you must know that the atmosphere that prevailed at the

3 time was highly tense throughout Yugoslavia. People quite simply after

4 having 45 years of a one-party system were not ready and did not believe

5 that the time had indeed come for part -- several parties to appear, and

6 they didn't know who to vote for, who to choose, because very few people

7 believed at the time that the communists would lose the elections in

8 Bosnia-Herzegovina, for instance.

9 Q. Can I ask you to look at the last page of Exhibit P 00015, and can

10 you just look at the list of names associated with various positions on

11 that document and just tell us if that appears to you to be an accurate

12 listing of the officers and members of the Presidency of the party at that

13 time.

14 A. Yes, except for the fact that from Tomislavgrad the base hadn't

15 delegated anybody for the Presidency. I was from Sarajevo, Nikola

16 Krizanovic was from Bugojno, Ante Bakovic was from Gorazde, and so on.

17 Q. That's all, thank you.

18 A. There should have been regional representation, and that's why we

19 had one seat reserved for Tomislavgrad, for instance.

20 Q. All right. Then, sir, directing your attention to elections in

21 November and December, 1990, is it correct that there were two rounds of

22 voting? There was a first round on the 18th of November and a second

23 round on the 4th of December, 1990 -- 1990; is that correct?

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. Is it correct, sir, that of the Croat candidates who were running

1 for office at that time you received the most votes, with approximately 33

2 per cent of the vote?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. If you remember, can you tell the Judges, in that election, how

5 many seats in parliament did the HDZ BiH win or obtain?

6 A. We obtained 44 seats in parliament, in the parliament of

7 Bosnia-Herzegovina, and it had a total of 240 seats, and we won two seats

8 in the Presidency representing the Croatian people. That's as many as we

9 could have had. And we also won a large number of the municipal seats,

10 municipal presidents, amongst whom in 10 towns in which the Croats were

11 not the majority population. In fact, in nine of those towns they were

12 second. In Kotor Varos, they were the third ethnic group.

13 Q. Of the two seats that the party won on the Presidency, who took

14 those two seats?

15 A. I came first, and Franjo Boras came second.

16 Q. To what, sir, did you -- do you attribute the success of the HDZ

17 party in the 1990 elections?

18 A. Well, first and foremost, we compiled a national programme, and I

19 made that public. Perhaps there was some Croats who had done that before

20 me, but because of the political depression during communism, they were

21 not able to publish it in the country. So that political programme of

22 mine can be summarised in very simple terms: It was for a sovereign

23 Bosnia-Herzegovina, equality for the Croatian people within it, and five

24 points which were designed to enable the Croats to be successful in life

25 and co-existence in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Those five points were as

1 follows: That we had the most numerous diaspora of all the

2 Bosnian-Herzegovinian peoples; that we had alongside us the Republic of

3 Croatia that we could cooperate with on an economic level and so on; that

4 we had great economic support -- great support by the Pope, who strove to

5 have a just delineation in Yugoslavia; and that we had the largest number

6 of literate people, which is not negligible in Bosnia-Herzegovina; and the

7 main point was that the Croatian citizens had in their hands one -- in

8 1990, 70 per cent of the foreign currency capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

9 And you have to know that the dinar was not convertible currency and that

10 foreign exchange was bought and that the overall financial potential of

11 the citizens, 70 per cent of it was in the hands of the Croats, which is

12 an enormous economic advantage. So on the basis of that and on our firm

13 resolve to have the status of Bosnia-Herzegovina be identical to Slovenia,

14 Croatia, Serbia and other republics and equality, we won the elections.

15 MR. SCOTT: Could I ask that the witness next be shown Exhibit

16 P 00022.

17 Q. When you have a chance to look at that document, sir, can you tell

18 the Judges whether that is a party programme that you assisted in

19 preparing this particular document dated the 9th of January, 1991.

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. Very well. Now, did you go about then to organise a party

22 convention? Not a meeting simply of the Executive Board or the Presidency

23 but a convention of the party that was held in Mostar on the 23rd and 24th

24 of March, 1991?

25 A. After the victory at the elections and the party's success and my

1 own personal success, I was still the acting person because an HDZ

2 convention hadn't taken place yet. So as a legalist, I wanted us to hold

3 the regular convention as soon as possible, the party convention, in which

4 would elect the party bodies and functionaries in view of the fact that

5 certain people had become very prominent during the pre-electoral campaign

6 and scored good results. And of that provisional party that was formed

7 and which acted under those conditions, we had to turn it into a real

8 political organisation over a four-year period to create and set up the

9 bodies and organs which would allow the functionaries to perform their

10 duties as best as possible. That means an economic council had to be set

11 up, cultural cooperation council, a council to look into social welfare

12 and health, and so on and so forth.

13 Q. All right. To give the Judges some idea of the mix of the party,

14 the geographic mix of the party, is it correct, sir, that approximately --

15 there were approximately 288 party representatives at the convention? Of

16 that 288, approximately 53 came from Herzegovina? Sir?

17 A. Yes, that's how many delegates there were, and that's how many

18 were from Herzegovina. And in creating our party, we inherited the

19 communist recipe, according to which the leadership had regional

20 representation. That is to say, from all the regions there were

21 representatives. And the ratio was 83 per cent of the representatives

22 were from Bosnia, and 17 per cent from Herzegovina. But we didn't insist

23 upon that drastic difference, because at that time we did not want to

24 divide Croats into whether they were from Bosnia or whether they were from

25 Herzegovina.

1 Q. Can you tell us once again, as in the previous meeting, were --

2 was there a delegation of senior officials from Zagreb at this meeting or

3 convention?

4 A. Yes.

5 Q. And do you recall the names of any of the individuals who attended

6 on this occasion?

7 A. Yes. Among others, there was Mr. Gojko Susak, but at that

8 convention there were representatives of many other parties. It was the

9 power and authority, the HDZ was the ruling party, and we had a large

10 number of delegates who came to address our convention.

11 MR. SCOTT: Mr. President, I look at the time, and I'm going to

12 start another question or two that will go into a different area. This

13 might be a time for the break.

14 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes. It's 20 to 4. We're going

15 to break and resume at 4.00.

16 --- Recess taken at 3.38 p.m.

17 --- On resuming at 4.00 p.m.

18 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] The hearing is resumed.

19 Mr. Scott, please continue.

20 MR. SCOTT:

21 Q. Mr. Kljuic, I'd like to ask you a few questions about a man named

22 Mate Boban, whose name I don't think has come up yet in your testimony.

23 You made reference to the convention -- the opening of the founding

24 Assembly, if you will, excuse me, the founding Assembly of the HDZ BiH

25 party in August of 1990, and you've also mentioned the 1990 elections that

1 were held, which resulted in your election to parliament and to the

2 Presidency. At either the founding Assembly or during the 1990 elections,

3 was Mate Boban a participant in either of those events, as far as you

4 remember?

5 A. As for the creation of the HDZ in -- of Bosnia-Herzegovina in

6 Sarajevo on the 18th of August, he was not. But he was at the elections

7 as one of the candidates for the parliament of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and he

8 was elected among 44 representatives of the HDZ in the parliament of

9 Bosnia-Herzegovina.

10 Q. Did he represent any particular geographic area or constituency?

11 A. Well, yes, he was elected for the Mostar constituency, where the

12 HDZ won 12 seats, 12 representatives.

13 Q. When you went to the party convention in March of 1991 that we

14 were talking about before the break, you ran for president of the party

15 and a number of other persons also ran; correct?

16 A. Yes.

17 Q. Mr. Boban was one of the other persons who ran for president at

18 that time?

19 A. Yes.

20 Q. And can you tell us the result in -- if you recall, the number of

21 votes that Mr. Boban received in contrast to the number of votes that you

22 received?

23 A. Boban received 32, Miljenko Brkic 1, Miro Lasic 1, and I secured

24 all the rest; I think about 230, 240 votes.

25 Q. You out-paced Mr. Boban quite considerably; is that correct?

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. Despite that, was Mr. Boban elected to any office or position in

3 the party at that time?

4 A. Yes, he was. He was the second vice-president, mine, and the

5 first was Vitomir Lukic, the writer.

6 Q. If I can have the assistance of the usher to show you Exhibit 31,

7 P 00031.

8 As soon as you have that, sir, can you look at that enough to

9 sufficiently tell the Chamber, if you can, whether that is the political

10 platform of the HDZ BiH party as adopted on the 23rd of March, 1991.

11 A. Could you zoom down -- yes. Yes.

12 Q. Did you in particular think that there was a need for having a

13 written political platform or party platform at this time, or was it just

14 primarily a matter of routine party business?

15 A. Well, in the turbulent times, it's difficult to unite the

16 political party from the leadership down to the last member, from top to

17 bottom. But stylised in this way, a political programme stylised in this

18 way was the succous of what was most important and what was united at that

19 convention as a party programme.

20 Q. Moving forward from the convention, sir, something that will come

21 up, I believe, in the course of your evidence, can you tell the Judges

22 about something called the Helsinki Agreement of 1975 and how that entered

23 into your philosophy and thinking as to the condition or constitution of

24 Bosnia and Herzegovina.

25 A. Precisely because of the sudden political changes on the territory

1 of the former Yugoslavia that were taking place in all the political

2 parties, a large number of people appeared without any political

3 education. The Helsinki Conference, which was held in 1974 in Helsinki,

4 was the key document for the future of Europe. At the time, as you

5 already know, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the

6 OSCE, was formed, and one of the most important principles that the

7 Helsinki Conference brought was that there can be no forcible change of

8 borders in Europe, which guaranteed the stability of political life on the

9 old continent. And this was to be a very important point when we came to

10 explain our politics and policies and also to our rivals and parties,

11 other political parties in Bosnia-Herzegovina, because even before the

12 elections, rumours went round according to which the future of

13 Bosnia-Herzegovina was not a certain one. What happened was that many

14 Serb politicians in Bosnia-Herzegovina, first and foremost Biljana

15 Plavsic, said that Bosnia-Herzegovina was a Yugoslavia in small, and all

16 the demands made from Slovenia, Croatia, and later Bosnia-Herzegovina, who

17 wanted to gain their independence, especially as interpreted by the

18 Badinter Commission, according to which the Yugoslav constitution, the

19 1974 Yugoslavia constitution, was recognised as the valid constitution,

20 and it claimed that the republics, through their will, united to form

21 Yugoslavia, many people ignored the Helsinki Conference. I insisted upon

22 that point, and as it turned out ultimately, the decisions of the Badinter

23 Commission were accepted and all the republics of the former Yugoslavia

24 gained their independence, but the decision of the Badinter Commission was

25 taken in 1991, whereas Montenegro gave up that independence but it, too,

1 is independent today. So that was a political prerequisite, saying that

2 no destruction of Bosnia-Herzegovina could be discussed; all that could be

3 discussed was the internal set-up and system for the country. And in

4 addition to that, Bosnia-Herzegovina is an old state which has had

5 unchanged borders since 1669 and the Karlovac Peace Treaty. And when it

6 lost its independence in 1463, it came under Turkish occupation and was a

7 separate administrative entity under the Turks too.

8 Q. Sir, we're going to go forward at that point.

9 JUDGE TRECHSEL: I'm sorry --

10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] May I just be allowed to finish,

11 please.

12 JUDGE TRECHSEL: I am sorry to interrupt, but there's something

13 which is strange. You said -- that's what the record says on line 5 of

14 page 40, that Bosnia-Herzegovina had the same borders since 1669. And

15 then you said "... when it lost its independence in 1463 ..." One expects

16 a later date. But is that what you wanted to say, that the borders are

17 the same since 16 -- since the 17th century?

18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] '99. That was the Karlovac Peace

19 Treaty, '99. And I also wanted to say that when it was under Turkey, it

20 was a separate administrative unit. When it was under Austro-Hungarian

21 occupation, it was also a separate unit entitled "corpus separatum" until

22 the dictatorship of King Aleksandar in 1929 it was also a separate

23 administrative unit. The only time it was not that was from 1929 to 1941.

24 In communist Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Herzegovina was a republic on an equal

25 footing with all the other republics.

1 MR. SCOTT:

2 Q. The 1975 Helsinki Agreement, was that signed by --

3 JUDGE TRECHSEL: I'm sorry there's still an unclarity. The

4 witness on the first and second lines of his previous statement, lines 19,

5 20, speaks of '99. Which -- which century?

6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] 1699, the Karlovac Peace Treaty.

7 MR. SCOTT:

8 Q. And the 1975 Helsinki Agreement was signed by President Tito at

9 the time when Yugoslavia was still a combined state?

10 A. The American president Ford, the Soviet president Brezhnev, Josip

11 Broz Tito, and 29 other statesmen from Europe.

12 Q. Now, sir, we're up to March of 1991, having discussed the party

13 convention. Did you hear around this time or become aware of meetings

14 between Franjo Tudjman and Slobodan Milosevic at a place called

15 Karadjordjevo on or about the 27th of March?

16 A. No, no.

17 Q. When was the first time that you recall learning about that?

18 A. The first time I heard about that for certain is in a book written

19 by Mr. Sarinic, who for a while was the Prime Minister of the Republic of

20 Croatia. This book was published some seven or eight years ago in Zagreb.

21 Q. Do you recall previously discussing the topic with Stipe Mesic?

22 A. There were rumours going around both on the Serb side and the

23 Croatian side, as well as the Bosnian side in Sarajevo, to the effect that

24 there was some kind of secret agreement, but nobody said anything specific

25 about it. Even in the most intimate conversations President Tudjman never

1 mentioned Karadjordjevo to me or said anything about it.

2 Q. Did you and your political colleagues observe any difference, any

3 apparent difference in President Tudjman's views towards

4 Bosnia-Herzegovina before and after -- after this rumoured meeting in

5 Karadjordjevo?

6 A. It was evident that there was to be a certain change in Croatian

7 policy requiring more agreement with the Serbs. But for us this was

8 unacceptable for several reasons. One reason was that the Serbs were

9 already shelling Vukovar and Dubrovnik in Croatia, that in

10 Bosnia-Herzegovina they were separating off territories, and not just

11 those where the Serb population was in the majority. With the help of the

12 JNA, they were embarking on a project called Ram. I was the first person

13 to publish the information about the Ram project, listening to secret

14 conversations between Milosevic and Karadzic.

15 Q. Before you get too far ahead, can I just go back to earlier in

16 your answer. You said it was evident there was to be a certain change in

17 Croatian policy, requiring more agreement with the Serbs. On lines 9 and

18 10, and you said, "But for us this was unacceptable." Who is the "us"

19 that you referred to at that time?

20 A. I'm referring primarily to the leadership of the HDZ of Bosnia and

21 Herzegovina but also to the Croatian people in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

22 Q. All right. Continue on then.

23 MR. KARNAVAS: Your Honour, if I may interject here. If you look

24 at the question and look at the answer that was just referenced to

25 earlier, the gentleman hasn't quite answered the question whether before

1 and after the alleged meeting in Karadjordjevo. And I guess what I don't

2 want is an unclear record. So is his answer in regard to that specific

3 question or is he talking about because of the events as they were

4 unfolding, ultimately the Croats were going to have to recalibrate their

5 policy?

6 MR. SCOTT: Well, Your Honour, before it leaves the page, I think

7 the question and answer are exactly as they say on the page, and the

8 witness was giving a specific answer to my question, did you observe a

9 difference in policies before and after Karadjordjevo, and the witness

10 gave a responsive answer, we submit: Yes, it did.

11 Q. Sir, you then talked about --

12 MR. SCOTT: Sorry, Your Honour.

13 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Sir, do you confirm that after

14 Karadjordjevo you observed a difference?

15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It wasn't clear right away, but as

16 events developed, relations between certain Croatian politicians and

17 certain Serb politicians grew closer and closer at more than one level.

18 Later on, we got evidence that this was correct.

19 MR. SCOTT:

20 Q. Sir, you were talking -- you began to talk about something called

21 Ram - Ram or Ram, I'm sorry - R-a-m. Can you continue on that, please,

22 but again, please be reasonably concise.

23 A. As in the then Yugoslavia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina, everybody

24 was listening to everybody else. The Serbs had the institutions of the

25 army and the police, and I obtained certain information in various ways,

1 and very often, in exchange for payments of money, I was able to listen in

2 to conversations between Milosevic and Karadzic. In one such

3 conversation, they joked about this and said, "A man like Ramo." "Ramo"

4 is a Muslim name in Bosnia, but when you listen to the tape more than

5 once, you understand that they're talking about Ram, R-a-m, which was to

6 encompass the old idea of a Greater Serbia as far as Karlobag, Karlovac,

7 and Virovitica. I made this public, and there are documents showing this.

8 Q. All right. Let's go forward in terms of the HDZ BiH in Bosnia and

9 Herzegovina during this time.

10 Mr. Kljuic, as an overview of matters that we'll talk about in

11 more detail in the next few hours, can you tell the Judges, over the

12 course of 1991, from the convention forward, was there an increasing

13 political division between at least two factions in the party that is the

14 HDZ BiH?

15 A. First, you have to understand the context in which all this was

16 happening. In the spring of 1991, there was an armed conflict in Croatia.

17 By that time, the Serbs had blocked one-third of Croatian territory, but

18 from Easter 1991 onwards, from the incident at the Plitvice Lakes and

19 several days after that when 12 regular Croatian policemen were killed in

20 Borovo Selo, there was an escalation of hostilities. All this had

21 repercussions in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the initial successes of the

22 Serbs in Croatia encouraged Karadzic and his satellites in

23 Bosnia-Herzegovina to raise tensions.

24 At that time, many volunteers from Bosnia and Herzegovina went to

25 the war theatre in Croatia, and reservists from Serbia and Montenegro

1 arrived in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The last hopes that the Yugoslav leaders

2 would agree on the reconstruction of Yugoslavia fell through.

3 The situation was also confused because the American Secretary of

4 State, Baker, in late March, 1991, said that it was in America's strategic

5 interest to preserve Yugoslavia. After that, Milosevic stepped up the

6 pressure on the republics. In the meantime, he had united Serbia by

7 force, because he replaced the representatives of Vojvodina and Kosovo,

8 the two provinces, in the Presidency of Yugoslavia, Mr. Sapundzija and

9 Krunic, and installed his own men. In that way --

10 Q. Mr. Kljuic, I'm going to stop you there and go back to my original

11 question, please. Can you tell the Judges, over the course of 1991, was

12 there a split in the HDZ BiH political party with you representing --

13 primarily representing one faction and Mr. Boban representing the other

14 faction?

15 A. Not yet. Not in the first half of 1991. There was no evident

16 split at that time, but --

17 Q. Tell the Judges, then, please, when you first saw this split

18 developing, the first manifestation of a division in the party involving

19 you and Mr. Boban.

20 A. Boban, as a person, was not a natural leader. He was a

21 second-rate leader. He never opposed me in public. However, when links

22 were severed with Zagreb, and communications, and it was not possible to

23 communicate, only from the western parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which were

24 not within the Serb SAO Krajinas, could one easily reach Zagreb. In this

25 respect, this was not official Croatian policy. It was individuals in

1 Zagreb representing certain functionaries who originated from

2 Bosnia-Herzegovina and who showed a lot of will to make the decisions

3 about what was to be done instead of the established leadership of the HDZ

4 of Bosnia-Herzegovina in Sarajevo and the political office-holders in

5 Sarajevo. I insisted with President Tudjman that he should not receive

6 those people, that they should come to Sarajevo and then we would see what

7 the problem was. But the development of the military situation in

8 Croatia, the atrocities that followed, as well as the fact that

9 communications were blocked in Bosnia and Herzegovina and that those

10 people in Zagreb continued making suggestions and issuing directives,

11 certain people in the field took less and less notice of the decisions we

12 were making in Sarajevo.

13 Q. Sir, I'd like you, in just a few sentences, to tell the Judges --

14 to describe the political, the official political position of the HDZ

15 party at this time under your leadership and your political views. I want

16 you to describe those, and then I'll ask you to describe the views of this

17 other faction. Please tell the Judges your political and the party's

18 political views at that time.

19 A. First of all, I succeeded in my political programme, for which I

20 gained the undivided support of the citizens and the HDZ members at the

21 convention in Mostar. And to be quite clear, I stated all this in public.

22 It was the task of the Croats to fight for an independent

23 Bosnia-Herzegovina and for the equal status of the Croats within

24 Bosnia-Herzegovina in relation to the Serbs, Bosniaks, and others. This

25 was the political platform founded, inter alia, on the Helsinki

1 Conference.

2 I did not believe or want to believe that Bosnia-Herzegovina could

3 be destroyed. However, events on the ground took a different course.

4 There were even some agreements, because when the Serbs were unable to

5 come to any kind of agreement with me, and Mr. Karadzic had offered me 5

6 million to leave Izetbegovic, to abandoned him, I said to him I don't

7 belong to Izetbegovic, I am for Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the fact that

8 Izetbegovic is saying he's in favour of Bosnia-Herzegovina, well, why

9 don't you say the same thing and there will be no problems. However, many

10 people who are on the ground who are politically illiterate failed to

11 understand the situation.

12 You see, the Muslims, the Bosniaks, were as much threatened by

13 Milosevic as we were. I felt that they were our political friends in

14 defence, and I did something very important when I did not allow the

15 Muslims to go over to Milosevic's side. Had this happened, the Yugoslav

16 army, which had weapons and officers, would have mobilised hundreds of

17 thousands of Muslims who would have overrun at least a part of Croatia.

18 Our joint resistance caused the greatest problems for Milosevic and

19 Karadzic. However, rumours began to go around that I was inferior to

20 Izetbegovic.

21 Q. Sir --

22 JUDGE TRECHSEL: Excuse me. There is something that has struck me

23 in what you have said. You have said, "I did not allow the Muslims to go

24 over to Milosevic's side." How is it that the Muslims would ask for your

25 permission to do something like that? Perhaps you could explain, please.

1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. Nobody was asking for

2 permission, but at the top of the Muslim party I explained to many people

3 what it would mean if they were to support Milosevic. And there were

4 several such offers. I couldn't do this all by myself without the Muslim

5 leadership, but it was very significant at a time when Croatia was

6 attacked, was under attack, that the Muslims should be at least neutral.

7 And this was a very difficult and complex task. I cannot tell you all the

8 details now. And it was perhaps with God's help that we had the Muslims

9 as political friends and allies. How things would develop, that's

10 something else. But when Croatia was burning, it was very important for

11 the Muslims to be made neutral. However, for those people who were from

12 the provinces and who were opposed to me, it was very easy to say that I

13 was inferior to Izetbegovic.

14 MR. SCOTT:

15 Q. I'm going to stop you and go back to --

16 MR. SCOTT: I'm sorry, Your Honour, if that question's --

17 JUDGE TRECHSEL: No.

18 MR. SCOTT:

19 Q. You said a few moments ago, when I asked you to describe your

20 position, you said you were for -- and we've lost it on the page, but I

21 believe an independent Bosnia-Herzegovina. What was your view and the

22 view of the political leadership of the HDZ about the sovereignty and

23 indivisibility of Bosnia-Herzegovina?

24 A. Absolutely the same. It's in all our documents. It's even in the

25 documents published in October and November, 1991.

1 Q. All right. Now, I want to change gears now, sir. And again we're

2 going to go through a number of particular events, but as an overview,

3 what was the views of Mr. Boban and those around him in contrast to the

4 views you've just described to the Judges in the last few minutes?

5 MR. KARNAVAS: Your Honour, if I could ask for some precision with

6 the question itself. The previous question asked about the leadership.

7 The gentleman indicated that Boban was the vice-president. So obviously

8 from that answer I can only understand that Boban was in agreement with

9 the gentleman with respect to his earlier answer. So if we could have

10 time and place, if there was a split, at what period, perhaps it might be

11 easier.

12 MR. SCOTT:

13 Q. Sir, what was the political views of Mr. Boban and those around

14 him if they were in contrast to yours? Then once you've told us that,

15 tell us when this emerged or became more known to you.

16 A. First of all, we were acting as the Presidency, and every

17 communique was approved by every member of the Presidency before it was

18 made public. There was no opposition there.

19 Secondly, Boban did have the support of certain municipal leaders

20 but not all of them. On the contrary. The most prominent persons in

21 Herzegovina at that time toed the HDZ party line, including the late

22 Damjan Vlasic [Realtime transcript read in error "Demirovic"] who was the

23 president of the Mostar HDZ, Milivoj Gagro, the mayor of Mostar, and many

24 others. The influence of Mate Boban was to grow only later on, when there

25 was a complete break in communication. He was liked in Zagreb, but

1 officially, until the Plenary Session in February, 1992, I had no problems

2 with Boban.

3 Q. Let me stop you for a moment, sir, and I'll let you continue in

4 and moment, but before we get too far ahead --

5 JUDGE PRANDLER: May I interrupt you?

6 MR. SCOTT: Of course, Your Honour.

7 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please, for His Honour.

8 JUDGE PRANDLER: I will start again. I would like to ask the

9 witness when he actually referred to the persons, most prominent persons,

10 as he put it, that at the same time they toed the HDZ party line,

11 including the late, I believe, Demirovic, who was the president of the

12 HDZ, Milivoj Gagro, the mayor of Mostar, and others. Does he mean that

13 that party line was the one which was explained previously by you and the

14 party line was the one which you professed that it was your own party

15 line? Or do you mean the HDZ, I mean not only within Bosnia-Herzegovina?

16 So I would like you to clarify this issue.

17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] At the time, this was officially the

18 standpoint of the HDZ of Croatia, but above all it was the political

19 orientation of the HDZ of Bosnia-Herzegovina and my personal political

20 orientation.

21 JUDGE PRANDLER: Thank you very much. Thank you.

22 MR. SCOTT:

23 Q. And my question, the one that I interrupted you to ask, was very

24 similar to Judge Prandler's question, and again so the record is clear, so

25 when you make references to persons like Zijad Demirovic and Mr. Gagro, do

1 we understand correctly then that those persons were persons which

2 followed this policy of a multi-ethnic, independent, sovereign

3 Bosnia-Herzegovina?

4 A. First of all, there's an error in the transcript. There's no

5 Demirovic. I never mentioned any Demirovic. He keeps turning up here. I

6 spoke about Damjan Vlasic and Milivoj Gagro. There were others. There

7 was Nikola Mandic, the oldest deputy, and many others. We were not taking

8 sides then, but later on, as time passed, everyone went his own way.

9 Q. All right. Now, let me come back to -- we tried to start this

10 several times. Can you then describe the views that Mr. Boban began to

11 espouse and how they compared to the -- to your views and the people such

12 as Mr. Gagro's.

13 A. I have to say that Mate Boban never expressed his political

14 standpoints in public, but it was evident that with individuals from the

15 Muslim and Serb parties, the SD [as interpreted] and the SDS, he had very

16 close relations with them.

17 At that time, Karadzic was looking for anyone with whom he could

18 topple the policy of the HDZ of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Serb propaganda,

19 both in Belgrade and Zagreb, constantly published news items saying that I

20 was Izetbegovic's man. And this had an effect on people who were ignorant

21 of the real situation. However, for the overall political situation, it

22 was very important for the SDA not to join Milosevic, and later on when

23 Milosevic tried the same with another Muslim leader and achieve a

24 historical agreement --

25 Q. Sir, let me interrupt you, please. Did the division between you

1 and Mr. Boban become worse as 1991 went forward, and did there come a time

2 when you were forced out of the party?

3 MR. MURPHY: Your Honour, I understand Mr. Scott's difficulty, but

4 I would appreciate that he would not ask leading questions of the witness

5 on issues that are as important as the question that he just asked.

6 MR. KARNAVAS: Also, I would supplement a couple of matters. One,

7 on line 18 of the previous page, 51, the gentleman indicated SDA and the

8 SDS, where Mate Boban had close relations. That's what I heard. It's not

9 reflected on the record.

10 Also, I believe we deserve an answer, a full answer to the last

11 question. He was about to name, I hope, the Muslim leader that supposedly

12 was in contact with the SDS or Milosevic to cut a deal. So I think that

13 would help us.

14 MR. SCOTT:

15 Q. Mr. Kljuic, if you'd like to finish your last answer, the one that

16 counsel's referred to, please do so. Then I would like to move forward,

17 specifically forward in the chronology of 1991.

18 A. The Muslim leader's name was Alija Izetbegovic, for the record.

19 Q. Did there come a time, sir, when you were forced out of the party?

20 MR. MURPHY: Perhaps -- sorry, but perhaps Mr. Scott did not hear

21 my previous objection. This is a very important issue. It is not proper

22 to ask leading questions in examination-in-chief on substantive issues of

23 this kind. To the extent that that's done, it destroys the probative

24 value of the evidence because effectively Mr. Scott is testifying instead

25 of the witness.

1 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Scott, yes, try not to ask

2 leading questions. It's the witness who ought to clarify what happened

3 and tell us what happened without you leading him to the answers.

4 What is interesting for the Judges - I speak for myself but I'm

5 sure my colleagues share my opinion - is to know why, between him and Mate

6 Boban, there is going to be apparently a divergence of views, difference

7 of views. So that's the interesting point as far as we're concerned.

8 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, I couldn't agree with you more, and I've

9 been asking Mr. Kljuic for about the past 15 minutes to give us that

10 answer, and maybe with the Court's encouragement Mr. Kljuic could answer

11 that question. What was the nature of the division or the split between

12 he and Mr. Boban.

13 Q. If you could answer that question specifically.

14 A. The parting of ways cannot be seen with the naked eye, nor was it

15 apparent immediately. A belief in an integral Bosnia-Herzegovina became

16 very difficult for many people in view of the situation on the ground.

17 However, what was essential both for Boban and myself was that the party

18 documents and programme were such as I interpreted them to be. He never

19 opposed me, either in our private lives or at meetings. The respect

20 people had for him in Zagreb, people in power positions, not necessarily

21 political figures, but that grew. On the other hand, I was preoccupied

22 with state affairs as a member of the Presidency, negotiations with the

23 international community, and the problems that we were facing in the

24 institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina. And you must realise that it was

25 only six months after the government had changed. We were doing our best

1 to replace communist cadres occupying leadership positions. The HDZ

2 didn't have a computer, for instance, where the lists -- where the names

3 of candidates would be listed and in order of value. Everybody wanted

4 their own representatives from Zenica, Livno, and so on and so forth.

5 Everyone wanted to get a place in the state administration. And while I

6 was doing that kind of work, other people were sitting down and

7 deliberating, thinking, that it wouldn't be a bad idea if the Serbs take

8 their portion, we Croats could take -- seize our portion. But that was to

9 culminate on the 2nd of February, 1992. And a moment ago mention was made

10 of the fact that I was thrown out of the HDZ. Nobody expelled me from the

11 HDZ. On the 2nd of February, 1992, I tendered my resignation and,

12 according to the statute, I should have stayed on up until the new

13 convention. The new convention was never held. They appointed a new man,

14 and that was that. That was their affair.

15 However, there -- a stream appeared amongst the Croatian

16 leadership which was expressly opposed to the Muslims, and one of them,

17 one of those protagonists, told me on the 2nd of February, 1992, when we

18 parted ways -- he delivered a speech and then we parted ways. He said

19 that the Croats would not, just because of Stjepan Kljuic, remain under

20 the Turks for another 500 years.

21 Perhaps it's unimportant, but rumour had it that his wife was the

22 daughter of a Serbian intelligence agent.

23 Q. Who made the -- sorry, sir. Who made the statement to you --

24 A. I'm a gentleman. Don't make me name names. I'm not accusing him.

25 Perhaps he is not politically well-versed, but I told you about the

1 incident and it's a true one.

2 Q. Just so the record is clear --

3 MR. KARNAVAS: Then I'd ask that it be stricken from the record.

4 If he's not going to be mentioning names, then how can we give it any

5 validity at some point? It's more prejudicial than probative. So either

6 there is a retraction or there's a naming of people. I think it's very,

7 very important for the gentleman to give us as many details and names as

8 possible so we can verify and bring those individuals here if necessary.

9 MR. SCOTT: Mr. President, I will indeed ask follow-up questions

10 to this, but I think Mr. Karnavas's position is over-extreme. I do not

11 think it's a basis to strike the witness's evidence if he doesn't give it.

12 I would like him to, and I will ask him further if he will do so.

13 Q. Sir, if I understand correctly, on page 54, at line 22, you said,

14 "... one of those protagonists, told me on the 2nd of February, 1992 --

15 when we parted ways. He delivered a speech and then we parted ways. He

16 said the Croats would not, just because of Stjepan Kljuic, remain under

17 the Turks for another 500 years." I'm asking you please, if you would,

18 tell us and the Judges who that person was.

19 A. Don't make me do that, please. Defence -- well, I have my own

20 code of conduct. I have come here to explain the situation to you, not to

21 be exposed to things like that. The person occupies a position today, and

22 it's not up to me to see who -- where somebody's wife comes from. I just

23 said -- tried to explain the environment that they had come from.

24 JUDGE PRANDLER: I'm only waiting for the translation, French

25 translation. Now I would like to say that in my considered view it is

1 indeed we cannot oblige the witness to say -- to actually tell us that

2 name if he doesn't want to. I believe that anyway the reference to that

3 statement of that colleague of his doesn't have, so far at least, a

4 probative value. On the other hand, the -- that characterisation of the

5 500 years under Turkish occupation, et cetera, is a very important one,

6 and I would like to keep it in the transcript.

7 So really I believe that we should be aware of the rights of the

8 witnesses in this case. Thank you.

9 MR. SCOTT:

10 Q. All right, sir, just to move forward then, and again we'll come

11 back to this, then you resigned from the party on approximately the 2nd of

12 February, 1992. We can understand that, correct?

13 A. Yes, that's exactly right. On the 2nd of February precisely.

14 Q. Now, sir, with the usher's assistance can I direct your attention

15 to Exhibit P 00032. And when you have had a chance to look at that, sir,

16 can you just confirm, is this a written extract of the meeting of the

17 Presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina HDZ on the 4th of April, 1991?

18 A. Could you move the text down? Scroll down, please. Yes, it is.

19 Q. And looking at -- under -- if you'll find item 5 of the agenda

20 simply as a reference point. And down below that there are references to

21 the members of the Presidency, and there's a list of names, and can you

22 just confirm that that's an accurate list of the officers of the party or

23 -- excuse me, of the Presidency of the party at that time? It may be

24 necessary to --

25 A. I can't see any list here.

1 Q. Yes, all right. It will be necessary to go to the next page of

2 the B/C/S version. If you can go to page 2 -- I think we may have skipped

3 a page, unfortunately. Page 2 of the B/C/S document.

4 All right. There, you can see, sir, if you look at the names --

5 A. Yes. That's right. This is an exact list of the Presidency

6 members after the convention in Mostar.

7 Q. Can I next refer you to Exhibit -- with the registry's assistance,

8 Exhibit P 00034.

9 Can you confirm to us, please, that this is the excerpt of the

10 minutes of the second session of the Presidency of HDZ BiH on the 16th of

11 April, 1991?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. Now, a couple of questions. On item 3 -- find item 3 in the

14 document. The items are numbered, and it should be several pages into the

15 B/C/S version. Page 4 of the B/C/S version, item 3.

16 In the -- in the third paragraph of item 3, it says: "We condemn

17 any attempts to change the borders of Bosnia and Herzegovina." Did that

18 continue to be the official policy of the HDZ BiH at this time?

19 A. Yes. And this refers to the situation on the ground.

20 Q. And then if you go to the last item in -- last paragraph in item

21 3, or, to state it differently, the item immediately above item 4, does it

22 say: "Full support is given to the BH government in its attempts to

23 preserve the integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina"? And can you confirm to

24 us, please, did that continue to be the official position of the HDZ BiH

25 as of April of 1991?

1 A. Yes.

2 Q. Directing your attention to Exhibit 36. When you've had a chance

3 to look at that, sir, can you confirm that these are minutes of the 3rd

4 regular session of the Presidency of the HDZ BiH on the 29th of May, 1991?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. And this particular meeting, in the first item under the

7 introduction, it says that this session was chaired by Mr. Boban.

8 The registry may need to scroll down a bit, please.

9 A. Yes. Could you scroll down, please, for me, too, so I can see?

10 Q. Yes, sir. Apparently we're having some technical difficulties.

11 When you have a chance, sir, could you just confirm that those are

12 the minutes of the meeting on the 29th of May, 1991.

13 A. Yes, yes. That's right.

14 Q. And on this particular occasion Mr. Boban chaired this meeting in

15 your absence. If you can look at the document and tell us whether that is

16 indicated.

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. What type of contacts were you continuing -- or were you having

19 with the HDZ party officials in Zagreb during this time?

20 A. Correct and proper.

21 Q. And how often were you meeting? Was there a -- was there any sort

22 of system of regular meetings by which either a delegation would go from

23 Bosnia on a regular basis or, conversely, a delegation from Zagreb would

24 come to meet with you?

25 A. The contacts were regular, at least once a week. Most often our

1 people went to Zagreb and conveyed our positions and held consultations

2 and then returned with suggestions.

3 Q. And do you recall, sir, on the times -- in the exchange between

4 the party in Bosnia and the party in Zagreb, who were the people from the

5 Zagreb party who were most regularly involved in these meetings?

6 A. There were a number of such people. When we were in Zagreb, we

7 were compulsorily received by President Tudjman, usually also the Prime

8 Minister Greguric, but when they came to Bosnia, there were more people.

9 Sometimes there were high-ranking officials, other times lower down

10 officials, which more or less conveyed what they were told in Zagreb.

11 They didn't have their own suggestions except they might have said

12 something on a private level, but officially speaking, they weren't of

13 that capacity that they could give us suggestions. They just conveyed the

14 suggestions made by others.

15 Q. I want to direct your attention to the 13th of June of 1991. Can

16 you tell the Judges, if you recall, did you and other representatives of

17 the Bosnian party meet in Zagreb on that day?

18 A. From the 13th to the 20th of June, two Bosnian-Herzegovinian

19 Croatian delegations were received in Zagreb. I was on the one that was

20 there on the 13th of June.

21 Q. And do you recall who was involved in this meeting, again on the

22 side of Zagreb, if you will, on the 13th?

23 A. Many municipal presidents, deputies, government members. There

24 were very many people, and there are written records or minutes from that

25 meeting.

1 Q. All right. Who of the senior either party or government officials

2 from Zagreb attended the meeting on the 13th of June, 1991?

3 A. There was President Tudjman, Mr. Manolic, Mr. Mesic. I'm not

4 quite sure about Milan Ramljak or Brozovic, but there were some people

5 from the top echelons of the HDZ.

6 Q. And do you recall the particular agenda or purpose of that

7 particular meeting, sir, what was discussed?

8 A. Well, I don't remember the details. It's been a long time since

9 then. But the topical situation was discussed, the current affairs.

10 Croatia had already been well attacked. A large amount of territory had

11 been blocked. There was the Serb -- Knin Serb uprising. And at the level

12 of Yugoslavia [Realtime transcript read in error "Herzegovina"] amongst

13 the presidents of the Republic [Realtime transcript read in error

14 "public"], they were not on the road to a good agreement. And in June,

15 the United States of America changed their position on Yugoslavia.

16 Q. And in the midst of these events, sir, can you tell us what was

17 specifically discussed, as best you can recall, at this meeting between

18 the political officials in Zagreb and those of you coming from Bosnia?

19 A. Well, I suppose we analysed the political situation.

20 JUDGE PRANDLER: Just a moment.

21 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, Your Honour, please.

22 JUDGE PRANDLER: In the lines, I believe, 18, 19, and 20, there is

23 a sentence that when the witness said, "And amongst --" and I quote: "And

24 amongst the level of Herzegovina amongst the Republic, they --" excuse me,

25 "... amongst the public, they were not on the road to a good agreement."

1 End of citation. Now it may be a question of translation. I do not

2 understand that sentence, and at least in the interpretation I heard about

3 - I may be wrong - that the witness spoke about the Republic of

4 Herzegovina or probably he said Republic of Herzegovina. So I wonder if

5 that sentence could be clarified by the witness about Herzegovina. Thank

6 you.

7 MR. SCOTT:

8 Q. Mr. Kljuic, can you assist Judge Prandler on that?

9 A. Well, if you start my sentence off, I didn't mention the Republic

10 of Herzegovina anywhere. Could you start the sentence off for me and I'll

11 be able to finish it.

12 Q. Well, you said a large amount of -- I'm looking at lines 17 and 18

13 on page 60: "A large amount of territory had been blocked. There was the

14 Serb -- the Knin Serb uprising, and at the level of Herzegovina amongst

15 the public --" I'm simply reading the transcript -- "they were not on the

16 road to a good agreement." So perhaps you can clarify that.

17 A. Well, I can't tell you, because after the Serbs uprising in Knin,

18 the rest of the context is not logical.

19 THE INTERPRETER: The interpreters note that they said the

20 presidents of the republics.

21 MS. ALABURIC: [Interpretation] To the best of my recollection, the

22 witness said that Yugoslav leaders were not on the road to reach an

23 agreement.

24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. That's the right meaning

25 because the Serbs launched the uprising in Croatia. In the meantime,

1 meetings were held of the Yugoslav republican leaders who were not able to

2 find a solution, and the situation grew more complex because the

3 Presidency of Yugoslavia wasn't functioning properly at the time.

4 MR. SCOTT:

5 Q. At this meeting, sir, was the position or policy of the HDZ, both

6 in Croatia and in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the position or policy toward Bosnia

7 and Herzegovina itself, was that discussed, what that position or policy

8 should be?

9 A. Yes, but there were no changes from our standpoints. We're

10 talking about the 13th of June, 1991.

11 Q. All right. Without talking about changes, can you tell us what

12 the discussion was at that time?

13 A. The situation was very difficult. Yugoslavia's destiny wasn't

14 known. Mr. Mesic was supposed to become president of the Yugoslav state

15 Presidency. Milosevic didn't allow that to happen. There was an

16 interregnum in the Presidency. On the other hand, we on the ground

17 encountered great problems concerning mobilisation. The Yugoslav People's

18 Army asked that young men be mobilised into the army and go to the

19 battlefront in Croatia. People wouldn't let their children go. And this

20 gave rise to a problem. People hid their children. They sent them

21 abroad, and soldiers were already coming back in coffins from the theatre

22 in Slovenia and Croatia. We had rallies organised by mothers, women, and

23 also the Bosnian Serbs insisted that young men go and join up. So the

24 situation was a highly confusing one. We already had refugees. So that

25 working meeting was to see how we could help Croatia in any given

1 situation and how Croatia could help us, but there was no discussion about

2 a general political line. That was still very stable.

3 Q. Was there a discussion at that time of three possibilities

4 concerning Bosnia and Herzegovina?

5 MR. KARNAVAS: Your Honour, I'm going to object. I understand

6 we're trying to save time. He can ask an open-ended question. We're

7 leading too much. This is very critical.

8 MR. SCOTT:

9 Q. Well, sir, we'll move on. If you don't recall any further

10 discussion about Bosnia-Herzegovina and you can't remember, we'll simply

11 move on.

12 A. Well, I have to tell you that Bosnia-Herzegovina was always an

13 integral republic and on a footing of equality with the rest of the

14 Croatian people, but at that time it was said what we are going to do if

15 Bosnia-Herzegovina didn't exist? And it was Yugoslavia's existence that

16 was questioned, because at the time calls for a confederation burgeoned

17 instead of having a centralised Yugoslavia. So these were all major

18 issues. And now you can't conceive of a situation where political

19 representatives of nations in the two republics don't discuss all the

20 variants and options. But this was not binding. There's the platform.

21 The platform existed and the Executive Board of the HDZ held a meeting and

22 they always referred to an integral Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croats being on

23 a footing of equality.

24 Q. All right. Sir. You said on line 24 and 25 the discussion of all

25 the variants and options. And that's my question to you: What variants

1 and options were discussed? Whether they were binding or not, what

2 variants and options were discussed at this meeting?

3 A. It was a political analysis of the situation and prognosis. We

4 had the situation in which the Serbs were rebelling in Croatia and were

5 blocking a third of Croatia. We had the situation in which in

6 Bosnia-Herzegovina certain areas were preparing to secede as Serbian

7 Krajinas. There was a linkage of Knin and Drvar, the blocking of road

8 communications, the failure of negotiations at the Yugoslav level, and

9 demands to see what we would do in a specific situation, because there

10 were fears that the fighting would spread from Croatia to Bosnia and

11 Herzegovina. You must never forget that some of the operations in Croatia

12 were launched from the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Not by the

13 legal forces of Bosnia-Herzegovina devoted to the Presidency of

14 Bosnia-Herzegovina, because we didn't have an army of our own. This was

15 done by Milosevic and Kadijevic's forces which were using the territory of

16 Bosnia and Herzegovina where the Serbs were in the majority, where they

17 had armed them, to shell Croatia. All this was a topic of talks. And you

18 know how it is when someone in your family's killed. People say, "I can

19 never go together with them again." So we constantly had to calm things

20 down, prevent the extremists from coming to the fore. One had to be

21 patient. One had to take welfare -- the welfare situation into account,

22 because food was running out, medicines were running out. So we had to

23 engage the Red Cross and the Caritas to assist.

24 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Sir, may I step in here. The

25 Prosecution asked you a question. It was a very precise one. It is at

1 line 6 of page 64, and the question was what the variants and options were

2 during the discussion.

3 You're a man of politics. If there are options, that means that

4 there are some people who would like to see one set of formulas and other

5 people others. So what the Judges would be interested in would be

6 learning what the variants and options were that you envisaged, whereas

7 you're answering the question very extensively highlighting all the

8 problems that existed at the time. That's another thing. But what we're

9 interested in now is what the variants and options were to deal with the

10 problems. And what was your particular option. That's what we're

11 interested in. We're interested in learning why at a given point in time

12 you separated from Mate Boban.

13 So in political terms, what were the variants and options on the

14 table which envisaged such-and-such a solution or another solution? So

15 what we're interested in -- in is in your solution, if you had one, or

16 didn't you have one? Could you answer that, please, very specifically and

17 precisely.

18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Thank you. First of all, I wish to

19 correct you. I was not separated from Mate Boban. I was a legitimately

20 elected representative of the Croatian people. I had won the elections

21 and the convention of the HDZ in Mostar in March, 1991.

22 Secondly, it's correct that there were different talks in Zagreb,

23 but this has to be put into the context of the situation we were in. The

24 fundamental issue was still whether Yugoslavia was to become a federation

25 or a centralist state. At that time, nobody believed it would break up.

1 On the other hand, the same applied to Bosnia and Herzegovina. The

2 political programme was that it should be sovereign and independent, but

3 there were also people asking what would happen if Bosnia-Herzegovina

4 disintegrated. This was all normal in any analysis of the political

5 situation. I always firmly took the standpoint that Bosnia and

6 Herzegovina, like all the other republics, should remain and have the same

7 status as the others, especially after the decisions issued by the

8 Badinter Commission.

9 MR. SCOTT:

10 Q. Well, sir, was that the only option or variant discussed at the

11 meeting, the one you just said, that Bosnia-Herzegovina should remain a

12 sovereign and independent state? Was that the only option or variant

13 discussed at this meeting?

14 A. Well, I've just told you that there was more than one option, more

15 than one variant.

16 Q. [Previous translation continues] ...

17 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Describe them to us, then,

18 please, and who supported which.

19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] One of the variants which would

20 become topical later on was for the Croats and Muslims to join up with the

21 Republic of Croatia. Another was that the Serbs should take what is

22 theirs, the Muslims what is theirs, and the Croats what is theirs. These,

23 however, were not serious programmes or analyses, they were just

24 hypotheses put forward in the situation which prevailed at the time when

25 there were tensions in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the situation in Yugoslavia

1 was what it was.

2 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes. But that particular

3 option, you said there were Croats and Muslims who wanted to join up with

4 Croatia. Who was at the head of that concept?

5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] This all took place in private

6 conversations. No party ever officially announced any official suggestion

7 proposing any other option except for Karadzic saying we remain within

8 Yugoslavia whatever it was like. However, people were coming to realise

9 that after all the horrors of war, a compromise should be reached and a

10 new formula devised. All the talk about the break-up of Yugoslavia and

11 Bosnia-Herzegovina, that was something that occurred daily, but it had no

12 political weight, and it was not the official opinion of any political

13 representatives.

14 MR. SCOTT: With the registry's assistance, if we could show the

15 witness Exhibit P 00041.

16 Q. If you can look at that document, sir, long enough to familiarise

17 yourself with it. Can you tell us whether these are the minutes of a

18 meeting of the Presidency of the party, the HDZ BiH, on the 10th of July,

19 1991?

20 A. Yes, these are minutes.

21 Q. And directing your attention to -- in item number 1, about halfway

22 through item number 1 there is paragraph that begins with the words,

23 "The Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia-Herzegovina ..."

24 A. Yes.

25 Q. And it goes on to say, "It will not allow BH to remain in Rump

1 Yugoslavia."

2 A. Correct.

3 Q. And we -- I think, for the record, we can agree, is BH

4 Bosnia-Herzegovina?

5 A. Yes, yes.

6 Q. All right. Can you tell us a bit more about what was being

7 discussed around this time, by July of 1991, about allowing BH to remain

8 in Rump Yugoslavia.

9 A. As you know, at that time Croatia and Slovenia had already changed

10 their standpoints and were no longer seeking a confederation of Yugoslavia

11 but were instead seeking international recognition and secession. In that

12 respect, it was important for Milosevic to take Bosnia-Herzegovina,

13 because those were their ambitions, and to create a Greater Serbia.

14 I must say that the Croatian people did not want at any cost to

15 remain within a Rump Yugoslavia in which the Serbs and Serb policies would

16 dominate. Absolutely. The SDA party crucially also rejected

17 Bosnia-Herzegovina remaining within a Rump Yugoslavia, and the SDS

18 insisted with Karadzic, Krajisnik, and Plavsic that they should remain in

19 Yugoslavia if they wanted but we should leave. Western Herzegovina was

20 monolithically inhabited by Croats, but in my talks with Milosevic in

21 Belgrade, I had a problem explaining to him what Western Herzegovina

22 encompassed. At that point in time, we were active politically in the

23 following direction: If Slovenia and Croatia left Yugoslavia, we would

24 leave too. Later on, the European Union tasked us with holding a

25 referendum, and these were correct political standpoints, as it later

1 transpired.

2 Q. All right. Well, in your answer just now, you made reference to

3 talking with Mr. Milosevic about Western Herzegovina. Can you tell us the

4 context and approximate time period in which you discussed this with

5 Mr. Milosevic?

6 A. It was probably on the day when I was not chairing the HDZ

7 Executive Board, when I was away on a trip. This was during the regular

8 meetings of the political leaderships of Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in

9 Belgrade.

10 After a vehement discussion with Milosevic, Trifunovic, and

11 Unkovic, we told them that Bosnia and Herzegovina had to have the same

12 status as the other republics. During lunch, Milosevic made me sit at his

13 right-hand side, and after a few whiskeys he asked me to step to one side.

14 He said, "Stjepan, we have a great deal of understanding for the wishes of

15 the Croatian people in Western Herzegovina." He said -- well, I said to

16 him, "President, we don't understand each other as to what Western

17 Herzegovina is." Then he put his arm around me and said, "Stjepan, tell

18 me. Half of Mostar, 70 per cent of Capljina, Neum Ljubuski, Posusje,

19 Grude, 70 per cent of Tomislavgrad, 70 per cent of Livno, Siroki Brijeg,

20 Citluk, and all of Prozor." I laughed at that because Prozor was a cult

21 place in Bosnia-Herzegovina where our first kingdom was established, and

22 there had never been a Serb there except for one policeman who couldn't

23 find a wife, and he left and went home. So I said to Mr. Milosevic, What

24 about Stolac? What about Mostar? What about Capljina, and so on? And he

25 said, "That's Serbia." And I said to him, "And you want Western

1 Herzegovina to join up with Croatia?" And he said yes. And then I showed

2 him a Bosnian coat of arms, and that is something we do in the Balkans

3 which I don't want to explain to Their Honours as I didn't want to explain

4 it in the Milosevic case either, because I told the Judge there, please

5 don't go into that, Your Honour, what matters is that Mr. Milosevic and I

6 understand one another.

7 They were all trying to find political partners for splitting up

8 Yugoslavia according to a Serb formula. Only those people who believed in

9 the Helsinki Conference, and I can say all these years later that they

10 were right because Serbia has been left on its own and all this could have

11 been done in 1991 without a war.

12 Q. If I can just ask one clarifying question, Your Honour.

13 Sir, you just said a moment ago, you said in line 24 of page 69,

14 you started -- or line 25: 70 per cent of Mostar, half Ljubuski, Posusje,

15 Grude, 70 per cent of Tomislavgrad, 70 per cent of Livno, et cetera.

16 A. No, no, please, please. I want to repeat this. I've been living

17 with this all these years and I know it off by heart. Half of Mostar, 70

18 per cent of Capljina, Neum, Ljubuski, Posusje, Grude, 70 per cent of

19 Tomislavgrad, 70 per cent of Livno, Citluk, Siroki Brijeg, and all of

20 Prozor.

21 Q. My question to you in regard to that grouping of territories was,

22 was the proposal that someone would get that particular set of territory?

23 A. Milosevic wanted this, and he kept offering it to us Croats. For

24 us it was a Trojan horse.

25 MR. SCOTT: I'll leave it there, Mr. President.

1 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes. It's 5.30. We're going to

2 take a 20-minute break and reconvene at 10 to 6.00.

3 --- Recess taken at 5.28 p.m.

4 --- On resuming at 5.49 p.m.

5 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Scott, I give you the floor.

6 MR. SCOTT:

7 Q. Sir, I would like to move forward, but I suppose your last answer

8 begs some clarification. You said before the break, "Milosevic wanted

9 this and he kept offering it to us Croats. For us it was a Trojan horse."

10 When you say "offering it to us Croats," do you say offering the

11 territories you described on page 70 at lines 20 continuing on to page 71,

12 line 2?

13 A. I'll be glad to do that. As you know, Milosevic knew about the

14 Helsinki Conference, and if Western Herzegovina were to join Croatia by

15 agreement and everything else remain in Yugoslavia, that change of borders

16 would be possible. However, at that time, and I believe still today,

17 nobody among the Bosnian-Herzegovinian Croats could have accepted such a

18 solution. On the other hand, as Karadzic was unable to reach any

19 agreement with me, Milosevic, who was a charming man, thought that he

20 could do it perhaps. And thirdly, after that meeting rumours continued to

21 spread about me as a Muslim quisling, which is not true, of course, nor

22 did they ask me to obey them, nor did -- was I the kind of person who

23 would be obedient. But it was an attempt to drag Bosnia-Herzegovina into

24 a Rump Yugoslavia. Of course, no one at the time was able to accept such

25 a thing, especially I as someone advocating the integrity of

1 Bosnia-Herzegovina.

2 Q. Can I ask the registry to please show you Exhibit P 00042. And

3 can you tell us, sir, is this the records of a meeting of the Travnik

4 region on the 21st of July, 1991?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. And can you tell us what this meant on the document when it says

7 "Travnik region." Can you explain that to the Judges.

8 A. The HDZ was constituted in such a way that it has a president,

9 vice-presidents, a general secretary, a Main Board as the most important

10 party body, an Executive Board consisting of a smaller number of people

11 implementing the policies, and municipal boards. Every municipality,

12 depending on the size of the membership and the number of Croats, had its

13 own board.

14 As the situation became evermore difficult and communications

15 impossible and some political ideas were now expressed more openly,

16 regions were established. Five or six regions were established, some of

17 which never actually came to life legally.

18 For us in the leadership, that was a good thing on the one hand,

19 because general directives, information about the situation and about

20 global political issues would no longer have to be conveyed to 50 or 60

21 municipal boards but to several regions. And then, within the region,

22 every leadership would forward these messages and opinions to the

23 municipal boards. But you should know that we had HDZ boards in places

24 where the Croats were not in power nor were they in the majority. At a

25 later stage, the composition of these regions will probably be presented

1 and you will see that people put places in there where there were perhaps

2 5 per cent Croats. But the Travnik region was a central region in Bosnia

3 where the Croats have a long-standing tradition and a significant

4 proportion of the population. And we had had good election results there.

5 They first elected their leadership and later held regular meetings at

6 which it very soon transpired that they were deviating from the general

7 political line, that they were presenting very extremist demands, and I

8 have to say that this was quite normal if you take into consideration the

9 people who were there, their political experience, their education, their

10 ambitions, because this was a turbulent time when anonymous people from

11 the former regime suddenly became political leaders.

12 The atmosphere in all of Yugoslavia, and especially

13 Bosnia-Herzegovina, was very difficult, and many people thought that the

14 stronger the rhetoric the more important and significant they would be.

15 Q. Can you confirm, please, was Dario Kordic the head of this

16 regional grouping?

17 A. Yes. Was elected by the representatives of those seven or eight

18 municipalities.

19 Q. And directing your attention to paragraph number 4, under

20 "Conclusions," this body on the 21st of July, 1991, ordered you to call a

21 session of the HDZ BiH Main Board. Did you do that?

22 A. I think that a session was planned earlier and they knew about it.

23 And secondly, Dario Kordic could not issue an order to me for several

24 reasons, both personal and official ones. I was his president, not he

25 mine.

1 Q. Did you understand that there was some conflict between what was

2 perceived to be your position and the position of Mr. Kordic and perhaps

3 some of these others as of July, 1991?

4 A. Of course, but they were minor representatives. He was a man from

5 Busovaca. Please don't misunderstand me.

6 Q. My question --

7 A. But that's --

8 Q. My question was about did you understand there was some conflict

9 between your position and the position of Mr. Kordic at this time?

10 A. Yes, but that was not primary at the time. I had so many problems

11 and conflicts elsewhere that the fact that someone from Busovaca, which

12 was a backwater, was opposing writing a letter, that was just a minor

13 problem like, you know, if you're going to work and it's raining and you

14 forgot your umbrella.

15 Q. If I can direct your attention to paragraph 17.

16 JUDGE TRECHSEL: I'm sorry. The question was asked whether the

17 witness did in fact call that hearing, and that question was not answered.

18 Could I have an answer to that.

19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I don't know exactly, but I think

20 that meeting had been scheduled before this gentleman from the Travnik

21 region asked for it. But if you look at the agenda of the session, you'll

22 see that what he was asking to be put on the agenda wasn't on the agenda.

23 MR. SCOTT:

24 Q. Well, what did he want to put on -- I tried to ask you what the

25 conflict was. What did Mr. Kordic want to put on the agenda that was not

1 on the agenda of the subsequent meeting?

2 A. Well, then we would have to go back to point 4 where he says that

3 I should be told to convene a meeting of the Main Board and to invite the

4 leaders of the HZ of Zagreb to attend.

5 Q. Well, did Mr. Kordic ever tell you why he thought it was necessary

6 to invite the people from Zagreb?

7 A. No, he didn't. In point 6 you have an explanation of what he was

8 asking for.

9 Q. Let me go back to my question, directing you to paragraph 17.

10 There's a reference there to something called a Croatian Regional Union.

11 Can you tell the Judges whether that -- is that still some other body

12 besides the Travnik region?

13 MR. IBRISIMOVIC: [Interpretation] Mr. President, I didn't want to

14 intervene before, but on several occasions in response to Mr. Scott's

15 question Mr. Kljuic isn't being allowed to give a full answer. If the

16 Prosecution deems them to be important questions, then the witness must be

17 allowed to answer. And Mr. Kljuic was going to expound on point 6 when he

18 was interrupted. I think they should allow the witness to complete his

19 answers.

20 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, I'm just simply trying to live within the

21 time commitments that we made to the Chamber, and if we can't do that,

22 then I don't know whether we'll finish within six or seven hours or not.

23 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. Could you answer

24 with respect to paragraph 6.

25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Well, you can see clearly the

1 position of Yugoslavia at that time. There was an aggression against

2 Slovenia and Croatia, and all the troops that were withdrawn from Slovenia

3 were brought to Bosnia, and Serb and Montenegrin reservists were also

4 brought into Bosnia, and with a difficult situation of that kind Kordic

5 puts conditions and says if the SDA wishes to remain in Rump Yugoslavia,

6 we Croats do not. And I have to tell you that we're talking about very

7 small provincial ambitions here that have no stronghold anywhere, either

8 politically or with respect to status, and especially not that this be

9 solved on an ad hoc basis from one day to the next, especially as the

10 president of the Presidency, Alija Izetbegovic at that time, went as an

11 observer to attend a session of the Islamic Conference of the Afro-Asian

12 countries. And today Bosnia-Herzegovina is an observer in that body, and

13 we saw no danger coming from there. If somebody was able to help us

14 retain Bosnia-Herzegovina's independence, that would be a good thing

15 regardless of the fact that that assistance later on took the wrong turn

16 -- took a wrong turn. So in a situation of this kind, a man appears who

17 is asking us to clear all this up. Of course it was easy for him. He

18 didn't know the situation very well nor did he have any political

19 responsibility as an HDZ man and as a member of the Yugoslav state

20 Presidency.

21 MR. SCOTT:

22 Q. Perhaps with that further answer we can go back again to paragraph

23 17. Was there something that existed at this time in Bosnia-Herzegovina

24 called the Croatian Regional Union of Bosnia-Herzegovina?

25 A. Not yet, but there will be with the establishment of the Travnik

1 region, the Herzegovina region, the Sarajevo, Posavska, Bihacka, and so on

2 regions. However those regions were to act differently. The Bihac region

3 never actually took on a life of its own. In Sarajevo there would never

4 be any important decisions taken, and ultimately, it was just the three

5 regions; Posavska, Travnicka and Zapadno Herzegovacko, or Western

6 Herzegovinian region that were to become influential.

7 Q. Well, among those three regions, did any of those regions ever

8 combine into something called the Croatian Regional Union?

9 A. That was later on, yes, that's right.

10 Q. And when was that?

11 A. Well, I can't tell you exactly. I can't give you an exact date.

12 But at any rate, it was either in August or September, 1991.

13 Q. In paragraph 13 of the document, sir, did you agree that HDZ

14 deputies in the reference there, the sentence above references parliament

15 and members of parliament have become puppets of the SDA policies? Did

16 you agree with that?

17 A. What I can tell you is this: With 44 deputies, representatives,

18 we were not able to vote on anything, carry a vote. We had to wage a

19 policy of support to the side with better results. Now, if somebody were

20 to consider that I, with 44 deputies, could go out and say we're going to

21 vote on this today when there are 196 other deputies who needn't share our

22 opinions, and most of them never shared our opinions, so that wasn't

23 possible. And saying that our deputies were puppets is the fruit of

24 immature politics and lack of respect for facts, and thirdly, a complete

25 lack of understanding about how parliament worked.

1 Q. Can I ask the witness to look at Exhibit P 00044.

2 Can you confirm, sir, in looking at that document whether that is

3 a -- the minutes -- excuse me, those are the minutes of a meeting of the

4 Presidency of the HDZ BiH on the 31st of July, 1991?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. On the -- items -- or some of the items aren't numbered, so it's a

7 bit difficult to refer you, but on page 2, if you can find a paragraph in

8 which Mr. Udovicic, Markesic, and Cosic are mentioned. Perhaps you can

9 see those names. If you can look at that paragraph for a moment. Do you

10 see that?

11 A. Yes, yes, I can. I've found it.

12 Q. Can you tell us what that was about and does that relate to this

13 proposal about regional -- some further regional organisations, and was

14 that concept being pursued by the HDZ BiH Presidency at this time?

15 A. I have to say that the first vice-president, Vitomir Lukic, died

16 during that period of time, and I was attending -- I was on a state trip.

17 I don't remember whether I was in Vienna or Bonn, but I was absent. So

18 the meeting was chaired by Mate Boban.

19 Q. And looking at the paragraph I just directed your attention to and

20 also the paragraph second one down from that, "At its meeting the main

21 board must analyse the possibility of the regional integration of other

22 predominant Croatian municipalities." Is a result of these minutes that

23 the Presidency was pursuing the further regional organisation of the

24 Croatian HDZ communities?

25 A. I wasn't at the meeting, but they were proposing that a commission

1 composed of Udovicic, Markesic, and Cosic look into the proposals of the

2 Travnik region, so there's still not the force for that to be adopted.

3 This commission didn't make any major recommendations to the project.

4 These were very serious people. However, afterwards, the Herzegovina

5 region linked up with the Travnik region as well as others, and it was

6 their proposal that even in places where the Croats were in a minority,

7 boards should be established to link up with those regions. To my mind,

8 that was the introduction of a parastate administration. However, that

9 process was not to evolve very quickly. Several months were to elapse

10 until legally within the frameworks of those regions they created the

11 necessary prerequisites for creating a united region.

12 Q. If I can ask you to go to the next page of the document, you'll

13 find the reference to the person you mentioned a moment ago; that's

14 Mr. Lukic.

15 A. Yes.

16 Q. Under item 4 you'll see now.

17 A. Five. Ah, yes, 4 and 5.

18 Q. You indicated a moment ago that Mr. Lukic died around this time

19 and you see then at this point Mr. Boban was elevated to the level of

20 first vice-president. And did that in fact happen?

21 A. Well, since Mr. Boban was the second vice-president and the first

22 vice-president died, he moved up into first place and then the

23 representative of the Bihac region, Mr. Vlado Santic, was appointed

24 instead of Boban as the second vice-president, whereas Mr. Lukic in the

25 government, he was the minister for religious affairs, he was replaced by

1 Dr. Milenko Brkic.

2 Q. Several paragraphs below that in item number 5, it talks about the

3 procedure to appoint Bruno Stojic to the post of general manager of post

4 and telephone service or organisation. Do you see that?

5 A. Yes.

6 Q. Why would the political party have to approve Mr. Stojic going

7 into that position? Was that a political party function?

8 A. Well, this is how it was: In dividing up the ruling parties, SDS,

9 HDZ, and SDA, in addition to the electoral results which dominated in the

10 Assembly bodies and the Presidency, we also composed a government in which

11 each party had a certain representative with the various departments.

12 However, since at that time we still had the communist system in the

13 economy, large state companies of importance financially, politically and

14 so on, and important for employment, were equally distributed between

15 three ruling parties so that the Croats, among other things, were given

16 the pension fund, pension and invalid fund, and the PTT, the post office.

17 These were two major projects employing many people.

18 Q. [Previous translation continues] ...

19 MS. NOZICA: [Interpretation] I do apologise, but I have to

20 intervene at this point. I don't think that the answer to this question

21 will mean anything to us unless the witness is allowed to answer how

22 people were elected generally and what the politics were. I should like

23 the witness to be allowed to answer that and then he can go ahead and

24 answer the Prosecutor's next question.

25 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. Thank you. Sir, can

1 you give us additional information about the nomination of those general

2 managers or directors?

3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. We had a cadres commission

4 where we had Ivan Markesic, Jerko Doko, and Mariofil Ljubic. They were

5 members of that commission. And it was charged to gather data about all

6 the candidates from the field, because many people from the municipalities

7 wanted to be a part of the executive power, and that commission nominated

8 Mr. Bruno Stojic as director of the PTT, which is the largest company --

9 one of the largest companies which fell to the HDZ. But that was just a

10 proposal, whereas the government had the right to choose one out of a

11 number of candidates, to select down, but to see that there is -- was

12 ethnic parity. So for the railways we had somebody -- people for the

13 railways, and then Bruno Stojic was proposed too. But this was never

14 implemented because many people decided that he occupied an important

15 financial position in the police force. I can't go into explanations now

16 why that was so, but it dragged on. The whole thing dragged on. He was

17 proposed by the cadres commission, but he was never appointed.

18 Q. If you can go on, please, to Exhibit P 00047. Can you tell us,

19 sir, if these are the minutes of a meeting of the Main Board of the HDZ

20 BiH on the 6th of August, 1991, in Prozor?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. Did you chair this meeting?

23 A. I did.

24 Q. On the bottom -- much of the first page is dedicated to who was

25 present or not present at this meeting, and in several lines down the page

1 it says, "The absence of the following invited members is excused." One

2 of those persons again is Mr. Bruno Stojic. Do you recall why he had been

3 invited to this particular meeting, or can you tell us what his position

4 in the party was at that time?

5 A. Very simple. He was not specially invited, but this was a session

6 of the Main Board and high-ranking officials from the state administration

7 had to attend, which were appointed by the HDZ or represented the HDZ, all

8 the government ministers were invited, both members of the Presidency,

9 assistant ministers, deputy ministers, and pursuant to his post as

10 assistant minister I think for financial affairs or something like that,

11 or material resources or whatever it was called, Mr. Stojic was invited to

12 attend.

13 So it was a routine matter, not up to me or anybody else.

14 Q. If I can direct your attention to item 11 of the document. Just

15 for the record, is that a further confirmation that around this time

16 Mr. Boban was appointed its first vice-president?

17 A. Well, yes. This is a routine matter. Boban went up from two to

18 one. Vlado Santic was mentioned as the second vice-president, and then

19 there was a seat free. And we put Mr. Barac there, a prominent physician

20 from Zenica, to fill in from that region. That was purely routine.

21 Q. If you look next at paragraph 21, item 21. Can you tell the

22 Judges how this notion of the regional organisations was continuing to

23 develop at this time. It appears to indicate that in a meeting that you

24 chaired, the proposal was passed.

25 A. Yes. Well, you see, this need for better linkage, better

1 communication, meaning information, organisation of defence, and so on,

2 required greater subordination among the Croatian leadership. Of course

3 the first important point was to link up the regions, and then within the

4 regions each particular place, which accelerated and simplified procedure

5 from the top of the party echelons -- or link up the top party echelons

6 with the field, people on the ground. And as you can see in the text, we

7 asked that a report be compiled about the justifications and ways in which

8 these would be linked up, which once again meant that practical

9 requirements were needed, should have been met, rather than political

10 ideals. So the practical side was justified and on that level we had

11 permanent contacts with Croatia, for example, because part of Croatia was

12 already functioning and helping us, and part of the territory of

13 Bosnia-Herzegovina occupied with the SAO Krajinas from which the Croatian

14 populace had to free whether they wanted to or not.

15 Q. If you can next go to Exhibit P 00048. Can you tell us, please,

16 whether this is a meeting of the Travnik regional community on the 13th of

17 August, 1991.

18 A. Yes, it is.

19 Q. This document indicates that Mr. Boban attended this particular

20 meeting. Can you give us any assistance as to how it was that Mr. Boban

21 came to attend this regional meeting chaired by Mr. Kordic?

22 A. Had the situation been normal, that would have been quite simple

23 and justified, that one of the vice-presidents should attend a meeting of

24 some regional organisation. However, later on it would transpire that

25 that was not by chance, as well as the fact that the regional organisation

1 of Travnik, for instance, was not satisfied with the formulation made by

2 the president of the Main Board or Presidency of the Main Board of Prozor.

3 Whereas we said that a report should be compiled to justify the relevance

4 and linkage and communication, here it says that the Travnik regional

5 community will stand by the conclusions it has already made. That means

6 they'd already made their conclusions and we, as the higher up level, had

7 to listen to them, especially I myself. And this would lead to a series

8 of problems, and the president of that Travnik region asked me to expound

9 on my behaviour, to explain my behaviour.

10 Q. Before you get to that, sir, would you look, so the courtroom can

11 see -- can I direct your attention to paragraph 3 under "Decisions." Were

12 you called to task about some position or action you'd taken around this

13 time, sir?

14 A. Well, let me say first of all that we tried to be as cultivated as

15 possible and to see whether that Travnik initiative should be assessed,

16 evaluated, steered, or whatever. Then he says that they weren't satisfied

17 with that and that he thought my conduct was unacceptable. Okay. That's

18 on a personal level, and you have to understand that. Those were

19 turbulent times. Everybody thought himself to be a leader. Although they

20 didn't win any elections, that's how they behaved.

21 Q. Now, let me correct you, sir. This isn't Mr. Kordic's personal

22 letter. Aren't these the records of a meeting of the Travnik regional

23 community, where it says, "We call on President Stjepan Kljuic to explain

24 his behaviour"? This meeting that Mr. Boban also attended.

25 A. Excellent, fine. That's what they wanted, but I didn't have the

1 obligation to comply. Everybody was well aware of political hierarchy. I

2 was a member of the state Presidency and a member of the HDZ with full

3 legitimacy. The fact that somebody didn't like me, well, I told them

4 later on, How can Stjepan Kljuic be replaced? You have to act by the

5 statute and you have to have one more vote on your side, and then if they

6 replace me they'd have to find somebody to replace me with. And that some

7 ambitious young man tried to do this -- I tried to talk to him, but he was

8 behaving in this aggressive manner -- well, that's the result of something

9 that was later seen in its true light, its true colours. He didn't -- I

10 don't believe he had Boban's support at that time, but perhaps he did, but

11 that's their problem. I didn't find it necessary either to change my

12 positions for Travnik or him or to apologise in any way for my behaviour.

13 At Prozor, at the political rally there, I said that this proposal for the

14 regional association should not be rejected but that it should be analysed

15 and looked into, and I gained support from the Main Board. Now, the fact

16 that he says this, that the Travnik community did not agree that its firm

17 conclusions be respected, that's his problem.

18 Q. If you'll look next at paragraph, (h). There are some paragraphs

19 that have letters. If you can find item (h), which the document says, "We

20 demand that the Presidency begin to exploit the fact that BiH is already a

21 partly partitioned country and take a clear stand as to what needs to be

22 done in the new situation." Did you have an understanding as what was

23 being said that BiH by August of 1991 was already "a partly partitioned

24 country"?

25 A. Well, of course the situation was very difficult, but the

1 sovereignty of Bosnia-Herzegovina had still not been destroyed. It was

2 exposed to different crises, the aggressive behaviour of the JNA being

3 foremost among them, and the Serbian democratic community which armed the

4 Serbs first on the territory of the whole state and then tried to

5 establish its own administration and to put a stop to life in the Republic

6 of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

7 Q. Did you understand, sir, how Mr. Boban and Mr. Kordic, and perhaps

8 others, were demanding that this situation be exploited? How should it be

9 exploited and to what end?

10 MS. NOZICA: [Interpretation] I do apologise, Your Honours, but we

11 have an improper question here. If we see that before that Mr. Kljuic

12 gave the answer and said that he wasn't sure that Boban was with him but

13 perhaps he was, so this present question asked by the Prosecutor somehow

14 distorts Mr. Kljuic's answer and puts words into his mouth, that he said

15 that it was Mr. Boban who stood behind these conclusions.

16 MR. SCOTT: Well, perhaps the witness would like to look at the

17 last page of the document and see who the chairpersons at this meeting

18 were once again.

19 Q. I believe the chairpersons of this meeting were Mate Boban,

20 Udovicic and Kordic. Do you see that, sir?

21 A. Yes.

22 Q. Tell me how -- what demands were being made that this situation

23 that the country was already partly partitioned should be exploited? What

24 did you know or understand by that? This is directed at you.

25 A. Well, I must tell you that this was not a serious request, and

1 I'll tell you why. It's easy to sit in a small town and speak big words.

2 At that time, we were fighting for the Territorial Defence. You know or

3 should know that in the meantime, a year before this, weapons had been

4 confiscated from the Bosnia-Herzegovina Territorial Defence rendering it

5 completely incapable of defending itself from the Serbian aggression. A

6 similar thing happened in Croatia and Croatia paid dearly for it. Only

7 the Slovenian communists did not give up the weapons of their Territorial

8 Defence which is why the war to liberate Slovenia from the JNA lasted a

9 very short [Realtime transcript read in error "long"] time.

10 We were doing a lot to prevent a public conflict, an open

11 conflict, because the JNA and the Serb officers of the KOS were causing

12 incidents. They were transporting weapons. How? They would have a

13 truckload of weapons covered with a layer of bananas. Our policemen often

14 lacked the strength to check this and stop such a convoy or send it back.

15 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please, Your Honour.

16 JUDGE PRANDLER: So it is only a matter of translation that I

17 believe it is lines 16 and 17, I believe your statement was not translated

18 properly, because it says that the Slovenian communists did not give up

19 the weapons of the Territorial Defence, which is why the war to liberate

20 Slovenia from the JNA lasted a long time. I believe, of course, the

21 proper interpretation should be that it did not last a long time, if I'm

22 not mistaken. So it's only a question of mine, and I believe it could be

23 easily verified. And taking the floor now, I would like to apologise to

24 the interpreters for when last time I did not actually follow the

25 interpretations properly. Thank you.

1 THE WITNESS: Absolutely. Yes.

2 MR. SCOTT:

3 Q. Did you respond to any of the demands being made by the Travnik

4 regional community at this time?

5 A. [Interpretation] No. I was satisfied by the way it was treated at

6 the sessions of the Main Board and the Executive Board.

7 Q. Would you look next, please, at Exhibit P 00050. And can you tell

8 us, this is an action -- the minutes of a meeting of the Presidency on the

9 23rd of August, 1991. Is that correct, sir, of the party?

10 A. Yes, yes.

11 Q. And do you recall whether you were present at this time?

12 A. Of course. I was, yes.

13 Q. And was this the action proposed in this document, the creation of

14 these additional regional organisations, was that pursued or implemented

15 following this document?

16 A. These were instructions. That's what should have been done, but

17 it wasn't done for objective and sometimes subjective reasons. By your

18 leave, I'll explain the meaning of these regions to you.

19 In Sarajevo, we were cut off from many of the municipalities

20 inhabited by Croats, or where the Croats were in power. There was no

21 chance for us to regularly send our party materials, especially as there

22 were incidents, for example, where a JNA officer walked into one of our

23 offices in the municipality and took away our fax machine.

24 On the other hand, this creation of regions did not imply any

25 territorial pretensions, because there are municipalities listed here

1 where there are not even 5 per cent of the Croats. But for those 5 per

2 cent who were there, it was important for them to have links with places

3 where there were more Croats. For our people, it was important for them

4 to be grouped together. There were some municipalities where the Croats

5 were not in the majority. They didn't even amount to 40 per cent. But on

6 the right hand and left hand edges of the municipality there would be a

7 compact Croatian milieu. Whether because of administrative divisions in

8 the old Yugoslavia or the new Yugoslavia, that's immaterial. But these

9 people were forced to cooperate, and it was easier for us because we would

10 send things on to the community and then it would distribute the materials

11 further. So this was a normal situation even had there not been a threat

12 of war. Even under peacetime conditions, such regionalisation in terms of

13 the party organisation would have been logical.

14 Q. In the second paragraph of the introductory portion, it says -- it

15 makes reference that this is a "Prerequisite for the creation of the

16 political and territorial linking of the Croatian people for which purpose

17 special programmes will have to be drawn up." In what way was this a

18 prerequisite for further political and territorial linking up?

19 A. Well, first of all, it's quite normal, in a situation where

20 everything is divided on an ethnic basis, that the Croats should -- should

21 solve their problems together. This division was a party division. It

22 was important to list all the people, where they lived, where they worked.

23 Many people stopped working at this time. If someone had been working in

24 a Serb-controlled company, they would be out of a job now. Or if as a

25 citizen they were living in surroundings where they were inferior, anybody

1 could open their door, walk into their house, take away their cow and so

2 on. So this was normal for people to join together, but there could be no

3 territorial pretensions here.

4 In the Sarajevo region, for example, in 12 municipalities nowhere

5 except in Ilidza were there more than 20 per cent Croats. In some

6 municipalities there were 2 per cent, 3 per cent, 10, 8 per cent in the

7 centre. So how could you, if that's what you're asking me -- let me tell

8 you right away: How could you have any territorial pretensions if out of

9 12 municipalities perhaps 5 per cent of the overall population were

10 Croats?

11 Q. If you'll next look at Exhibit P 00052. These appear to be

12 minutes of the meeting of the Presidency of the HDZ BiH on the 26th of

13 August, 1991.

14 A. Yes.

15 Q. In item number 6, not -- under "Conclusions," item number 6, it

16 says, "The proposal for the regionalisation of the BiH HDZ municipal

17 boards was adopted and makes an integral part of these conclusions."

18 So can you tell us, sir, at this particular meeting of the

19 Presidency of the party, the proposal to go forward with regional -- with

20 regional organisations was approved; is that correct?

21 A. This document approves the establishing of regional organisations

22 of the party.

23 Q. Under item 7, it says that, "President Stjepan Kljuic should

24 attend the next meeting of the Travnik BH HDZ regional organisation in

25 order to solve all misunderstandings that have arisen to date." Did you

1 attend the next meeting?

2 A. Yes, I did, but the misunderstandings with the president of that

3 region were not removed.

4 Q. What misunderstandings were those?

5 A. Well, from our personal relationship to their demands that the

6 Presidency should not manipulate the situation, that the government should

7 do its job. If you sit there and say the government should govern, how

8 can you do that if the Serb ministers in the government were sabotaging

9 the government and their members on the ground were not recognising it?

10 A. It's easy to put ultimatums like this, but politics is what is

11 possible in a given situation. And you cannot respond in a Draconian

12 manner to every situation. This was impossible. We were on the

13 defensive. There was a war raging in Croatia. Our people were running

14 away to Croatia and helping the struggle of the Croatian people. It was

15 our political task, let me tell you, because the counter-intelligence

16 service of Yugoslavia broadcast a film about Martin Spegelj, the Croatian

17 minister of defence at the time, and they broadcast it 17 times in

18 Belgrade and 12 times in Sarajevo in the space of 24 hours, and we all had

19 to flee our homes because they saw us all as Ustasha. And I spoke out on

20 television and I said it was natural and nobody should be upset by the

21 fact that Croats from Bosnia and Herzegovina would help their brethren in

22 Croatia. Of course some citizen lost their respect for me because I said

23 this because they were unaware of the situation in Croatia. You have to

24 know that in Sarajevo the television station was in the hands of Serb

25 nationalists, and as a member of the Presidency and the president of a

1 political party, I did not get even a second of air time. Croats were

2 constantly represented as Ustasha, secessionists, separatists, and so on.

3 Even my civic image and my Bosnian-Herzegovinian patriotism was not enough

4 to counter this. On the other hand --

5 Q. [Previous translation continues] ... look at Exhibit 00056. Can

6 you look at this organisational chart, sir, for the Croatian Democratic

7 Union of Bosnia-Herzegovina and on the first page, which indicates for the

8 period 1991, 1992, as far as you're familiar with it, does that indicate

9 -- is that an accurate representation of the structure of the party at

10 that time?

11 A. Yes.

12 Q. On the bottom of the page, there is a reference to the HDZ

13 Security Council, and it says "Crisis Staff as of 18 September, 1991."

14 Can you tell us when this body was formed? Not the Crisis Staff as of 18

15 September, but when was the HDZ Security Council formed?

16 A. As you were able to see in previous minutes, various commissions

17 were established within the HDZ. One was for health. Another was for

18 culture. A third was for the economy. A fourth was for security. In the

19 security commission, all those officials of the state administration who

20 were working in the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of the Interior

21 took part. Then the party leadership and some people from the various

22 regions. For example, Filip Evic from Bosanski Samac, Dario Kordic from

23 Travnik, Ivo Lozancic, from Zepce, Bozo Rajic from Kupres, Zeljko Raguz

24 from Stolac.

25 Q. If you know, how was it that Mr. Stojic became a member of the

1 Security Council or Crisis Staff?

2 A. Very simply. Branko Kvesic and Bruno Stojic were our officials

3 within the Ministry of Police, just as Jerko Doko was in the Ministry of

4 Defence, or Bozidar Skravan in the Ministry of Communications.

5 Q. Can you tell the Judges what position Mr. Stojic held in the

6 police organisation at that time?

7 A. I'm not sure, but I think the minister had six assistants of

8 various orientations. We had two assistants. One was for state security

9 - that was Branko Kvesic - and another for finance, I think, and that was

10 Bruno Stojic.

11 Q. If you can go now to Exhibit P 00058.

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. This document is titled "Conclusions of the BH HDZ Security

14 Council meeting held on 18 September, 1991." And I suppose I should ask

15 you, sir, before we leave all these documents, if you look at the last

16 page of the Croatian language version, does that bear your signature?

17 A. Yes.

18 Q. In paragraph 1 of this document, it indicates that the body that

19 had been called up to that point the Security Council shall from now on be

20 called the Crisis Staff of the BH HDZ.

21 Do you recall any particular reason for changing the name to

22 Crisis Staff at this time in mid-September, 1991?

23 A. It was simply the fashion in Yugoslavia. Bosnia and Herzegovina

24 had its Crisis Staff in the Presidency and the government. The SDA had

25 the same. The SDS did. So why shouldn't we Croats have our own Crisis

1 Staff as well?

2 Q. In the third paragraph of section 1, it says: "The Crisis Staff

3 shall start working immediately and shall be in charge of the entire

4 system of the defence of the Croatian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina and

5 ensure the acquisition of weapons."

6 Can you tell the Judges what actions were taken during this time

7 to acquire weapons on behalf of the HDZ BiH?

8 A. First of all, it was justified to try and arm the people. All the

9 more so as the Serbs were already heavily armed, and they didn't buy the

10 weapons, they were given them for free. And also a part of the Muslims

11 were armed, especially in Eastern Bosnia. So it would have been

12 politically irresponsible and humanly very wrong if, as the president of

13 the Croatian Democratic Union at the time, I had kept silent and simply

14 watched our people being killed in many places.

15 Q. Sir, I'm not asking you to justify the position, but my question

16 is can you describe to the Judges what actions were taken to actually put

17 this into effect? What did you or people working at your direction do to

18 acquire weapons?

19 A. Excellent. At that time a large number of Croats from the

20 diaspora wanted to come home and defend Bosnia and Herzegovina and the

21 Croatian people. As the state was blocked, the Territorial Defence was

22 still under the administration of the Yugoslav People's Army, and the

23 retired generals were there. The army had by then cleansed all the

24 Croatian cadres. They had purged them so that only Serbs and Montenegrins

25 were left for the most part, and on the 24th of December, 1991, this was

1 confirmed when Generals Kadijevic and Adzic came to negotiate, and they

2 had 12 Montenegrin generals and one Slovenian admiral. We were duty bound

3 to try and arm the people, and for us it was easier. Because we didn't

4 have any personal contacts, we did this through Zagreb because Zagreb

5 already had open lines through Europe for obtaining weapons because

6 Croatia was bleeding at the time. As the political president and a

7 politician coming from a civil background, I couldn't get involved in this

8 because I didn't know anything about it, but I tasked two of my members,

9 in cooperation with Zagreb, to try and obtain weapons. These were Mate

10 Boban and Iko Stanic. Of course they had other assistance, and that's how

11 it went. So that a part of the Croatian people, the homogenous part, when

12 the war broke out were already armed to a certain extent.

13 Q. What do you mean the homogenous part was already armed? Which

14 homogenous part of what?

15 A. Those were areas in Posavina, Central Bosnia, and Western

16 Herzegovina. When we say they were armed, it was all very little in

17 comparison with the JNA and the Chetniks, but for us citizens of Sarajevo

18 who had nothing, it seemed to be an imposing quantity.

19 Q. But these areas of the Posavina, Central Bosnia, and Western

20 Herzegovina, these were homogenous in what way? According to you.

21 A. In Western Herzegovina, they were nationally homogenous, and these

22 were other two -- the other two areas in Bosnia-Herzegovina where the

23 Croats were most grouped together. I told you that the Croatian people in

24 Bosnia and Herzegovina are spread from Neum to Brcko, but in some places,

25 such as in the Bihac region, there are very few of us. There are quite a

1 lot of us in Central Bosnia, and in the Posavina area we used to be the

2 most numerous people in five or six municipalities and it was quite normal

3 for people there to defend their own homes, all the more so as especially

4 in Posavina they were it exposed to the fiercest Chetnik aggression

5 because they were in the way of the corridor towards Banja Luka.

6 Q. Before we finish for this evening if I could direct your

7 attention, please, to paragraph 11 of the conclusions. By this paragraph

8 apparently something called the Commission for Cantonisation was

9 established. Can you tell us, what was the Commission for Cantonisation

10 and what its mandate was?

11 A. It was advisory. There were several university professors in this

12 commission from various academic disciplines and of various educational

13 backgrounds. The Serbs at that time were not proposing the break-up of

14 Bosnia-Herzegovina but its cantonisation, referring to examples in

15 Switzerland and so on, but they were still not producing maps because you

16 have to know that the position of the Serbs at this time was such that

17 they practically controlled 70 per cent of Bosnia-Herzegovina, whereas

18 only 31 per cent of Bosnia-Herzegovina belonged to them. That's the

19 number of municipalities where they were in the majority. Also, this was

20 a backwood area with few towns. The Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina are

21 not so much an urban population. They are more of a rural population.

22 However, their ambitions far outstripped what would belong to them

23 according to some kind of principle of division of the population. That's

24 why they aspired to take certain regions and part of, conditionally

25 speaking, Croatian, in quotation mark, areas.

1 Q. At the end of the paragraph -- and I'm sorry to interrupt you, but

2 when the translation stops, Mr. Kljuic seems to take that as a signal to

3 keep talking. I apologise to the interpreters.

4 At the end of that paragraph, sir, after listing the members of

5 this commission, it says, "The commission shall deliver a proposal for

6 cantonisation to the Presidency by 22 September, 1991." Can you tell us,

7 were any maps or proposals -- a moment ago you mentioned maps. Were any

8 proposals presented to the Presidency by the cantonisation commission as

9 of 22 September, 1991?

10 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Counsel Kovacic, quickly,

11 please.

12 MR. KOVACIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I really hate to

13 interrupt. My colleague has already raised a similar objection. We have

14 now come for the first time to a relatively relevant topic, and the

15 Prosecutor is simply interrupting the witness. This is the first time

16 I've heard something that is directly relevant to this case, and now the

17 Prosecutor is not allowing the witness to finish his response. I don't

18 know why then the purpose of all this.

19 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Continue.

20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I am speaking in very specific

21 terms, trying to help you see the situation as it really was.

22 The Commission for Cantonisation, the Serbs had such a commission

23 in the SDS, and the Muslims in the SDA. These were commissions composed

24 of eminent experts, including demographers and historians. They were

25 supposed to sit down and then the commissions were supposed to harmonise

1 their positions and see what belonged to whom. Of course if there's a

2 bridge on a river somewhere, you will add a part where there is a road and

3 not a part where there isn't a road. This cantonisation was not supposed

4 to divide Bosnia-Herzegovina but to create a new administrative

5 organisation. Nobody was saying at that time that Bosnia and Herzegovina

6 would no longer exist, but the administrative organisation was supposed to

7 be changed and these experts were supposed to make proposals about these

8 cantons because all the previous administrative units, whatever they were

9 called before, municipalities, counties or whatever, were now to become

10 cantons. However, this work never finished and it was later to be

11 transformed into its very opposite.

12 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Just a precision, please. You

13 said that the Serbs also had the same type of commission but those

14 Commissions for Cantonisation, they were put in place but pursuant to an

15 order, a directive, a written text, or on the basis of initiatives that

16 were purely local and political, on the part of political parties?

17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No. This was from the top of the

18 political parties as a result of the talks of the presidents, the

19 delegations, and the public opinion of the time.

20 For example, to put it very simply, in an article it said why

21 should we argue? Why should we fight? Let's make a cantonisation of the

22 kind that exists in Switzerland and there will be peace in

23 Bosnia-Herzegovina. There was nobody who did not want to support that at

24 that time.

25 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] We're going to stop there for

1 this evening. It's a little past 7.00. Sir, you're going to come back

2 for the proceedings tomorrow morning at 9.00. Between now and then you

3 are not to contact either members of the Prosecution or any of the Defence

4 counsel.

5 Before rising, the Judges would like to turn to Ms. -- to Counsel

6 Jonjic. Mr. Jonjic, we've been informed by the Registry that in the

7 course of the afternoon the appointment of a new counsel to take your

8 place will be -- will go ahead, and he will take up his offices as of his

9 tomorrow, duties as of tomorrow. I would like to inform you of that. On

10 behalf of myself and my other three colleagues, I would like to extend our

11 gratitude to you for the work you've done date for Mr. Coric. We hope to

12 see you back, perhaps in other circumstances, and I would like to thank

13 you once again for the work you have done so far.

14 Having said that, it is now four minutes past 7.00. Unless

15 Mr. Jonjic wishes to take the floor -- now you don't. We can adjourn.

16 MS. PINTER: [Interpretation] Your Honour, may I be allowed to say

17 something? Although I haven't been given the go-ahead from the rest of

18 the Defence counsel, from our joint discussions I know that I can speak on

19 their name to thank him for our two years of cooperation and the highly

20 professional work that Tomislav Jonjic has done, and to say that we're

21 very sorry to see him go.

22 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] As I was saying, it is now five

23 minutes past 7.00. The meeting is adjourned until tomorrow morning at

24 9.00. Thank you.

25 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 7.03 p.m.,

1 to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 27th day

2 of June, 2006, at 9.00 a.m.

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